ABSTRACT
There is a well-established discussion on the movement from service provision on the part of governments to collaborative work with the private sector and citizen movements in developing countries (Pierre and Peters 2000; Kooiman 2003; World Bank 2003; Baud 2004). These governance processes provide potential arenas for nongovernment actors to work together with different levels of government. Local city governments see this trend as an opportunity to move policy implementation outwards by involving NGOs, the private sector and community-based organizations (CBOs). This movement includes not only public-private arrangements and public-community arrangements (PPPS/PCPS) but also interorganizational networks—urban platforms of various types that are said to provide better opportunities for citizen groups to promote their claims (Harris 2003). These new arenas, in which local governments request citizens to work with them in determining local needs and in providing basic services, have been termed “invited spaces” (Cornwall 2004). In the 1990s, the debate on governance showed a fairly neoliberal slant; the idea was that the private sector could provide basic urban services more efficiently and effectively than government (World Bank 2003). This view has been partially revised. It is now recognized that under certain circumstances, governments themselves can best provide services (natural monopolies, lack of market demand), and that arrangements should reflect different institutional contexts (World Bank 2003). However, interaction between government and citizens also requires wider issues to be raised—namely, who participates, what processes occur within the interface and what kinds of outcomes are produced.
