Ruimte voor een democratische rechtsstaat - RePub - Erasmus ...

Action in which democracy is expressed is, first, the acting of people towards each other and,
second, action against a historical and philosophical background. Action is, third, the acting for
the sake of an object: space. The object of action is taken into account with an actor’s choice of an
approach. The significance of spatial quality is therefore highlighted in this study, alongside
forms of spatial planning.
The development of the research question results in four subquestions:
1 What do the ideal type models of representative democracy and participatory democracy
look like?
2 How are representative democracy and participatory democracy engaged in spatial planning
and how are these models interrelated in spatial planning?
3 Which meanings of the spatial context of policy-making are relevant in the light of
democracy?
4 Which forms of governance can combine representative democracy and participatory
democracy in such ways that with spatial investments the models are mutually compatible
and supportive?
Methodology
The study is guided by social constructivism, and that for three reasons. First, public
administration and its environment have a dynamic and ambiguous character. Policy-making
touches nearby investment projects, it touches policy-making of a higher level of geographical
scale, government and abstraction, and/or practices at a lower level. Social interactions and
meanings therein are of crucial importance not just for the capacity to act, but also for the ability
to understand. The changing relations between political institutions, citizens, business and
idealistic organisations are far from unequivocal. Discussion about the legitimacy of policymaking
expresses that ambiguity. Second, space is a relative concept. There is an interplay
between people and space. Tracing the meanings attached to space helps to understand human
action. An important meaning given to space is its public nature. Third, the research question
requires an interpretation of interactions within a frame of democracy theory.
Phenomena can be understood only when we understand how actors themselves
interpret their world. Research therefore comprises interaction with actors, observation of the
actors’ activities and participation therein, interviews and the attempt to reconstruct the actors’
realities. Not only the constructivist task to understand actors is a reason to join policy-making, so
is the prescriptive component of the study. A researcher who also as a participant calibrated his
action to the actions of fellow actors has more credible insight than does an onlooker or a
researcher who veils his participation.
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