On March 4th, the Local Public Sector Alliance (LPSA) held a meeting of its Working Group on Local Democracy and Inclusive Governance, in which theoretical ideas and experiences about local governance and decentralization were discussed. Esteban Szmulewicz, PhD candidate at the Constitutional and Administrative Law Department, introduced the case of Chile.
His presentation is titled Positive developments and challenges of local democracy and inclusive democracy in Chile. Among the highlights of his findings, he stressed the legal developments regarding citizens participation and access to information. However, these have not been properly implemented and the real effectiveness of these norms is highly unequal in the country, given significant territorial disparities in State capacity, giving rise to a sort of "efficacy gap" between the norms of local democracy and the realities. On the other hand, he also pointed to gender gaps and unfavorable conditions for indigenous communities, while at the same emphasizing that executive predominance at the local level reduces deliberation and makes accountability and checks and balances harder to achieve.
