Politicisation at the local political level within representative and participative institutions: the example of a poor Montreal borough

ABSTRACT

The majority of studies on local politics and politicisation have focused on the study of electoral participation, political parties or civil society. The qualitative dimension of politicisation within local institutions has thus been overlooked. This research addresses this dimension by comparing how citizens politically discuss the world in a representative and a participative institution (The borough council and the participatory budget respectively) of local democracy in one of the poorest areas of the city of Montreal in Canada. In order to grasp the politicisation within political institutions, we link the notion to a rise in generality echoing a conflictualisation of stakes or/and a reference to (in)justice. Our analysis reveals that both institutional designs examined acts in complementary ways. By giving utterance to conflict, the borough council permits the expression of all neighbourhood issues while the participatory budget allows for citizens to dream the future by bringing out the consensus of the moment.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen engagement, civil society, interest groups and participation
• institutions and governance
• mayors and councillors
• participative democracy
• participatory budget

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the reviewers, Gabrielle Turp, Catherine Viens, Gabriel Lévesque and Nicolas Klingelschmitt for their help in improving this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The median household income is 42,979$ after taxes in Mercier – Hochelaga-Maisonneuve versus 46,559$ in Montreal. http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/MTL_STATS_FR/MEDIA/DOCUMENTS/PROFIL_SOCIOD%C9MO_ERCIER%20HOCHELAGA%20MAISONNEUVE%202016.PDF Page seen 13^th April 2022.

2. Excepted the first Nations lands, which are subject to specific legislation.

3. http://mhm.maestrovision.com/maestrov/app/client/AssetManager/AssetManager.php?lang=fr&configSuffix=mhm&USERNAME=citoyen&PASSWORD=citoyen.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [371196].