Estratégias colectivas de governação local no campo social: alcances e limites

Abstract

[ES]Esta investigación doctoral se organizó como un estudio comparativo entre España y Portugal. El método comparativo, mientras sea un instrumento fundamental a la explicación sociológica, sobre las estrategias legales de la gobernación local en el ámbito social, permitiría, en el sentido weberiano, comprender el conjunto de las posibles causas, los patrones fijos y las trayectorias específicas entre los casos observados. Por lo tanto, el razonamiento comparativo se apoyó en una estrategia de metodología de investigación cualitativa, de análisis del discurso oficial y de naturaleza etnográfica

[EN]Today, a new paradigm of governance is on the agenda that is more local, more collective, more negotiated, and more integrated. In addition to issues related to the adoption of more horizontal institutional architectures, this paradigm incorporates the idea that key actors in public affairs should participate in ways that allow various dimensions of contemporary social problems to be addressed efficiently, in a manner that takes account of the local context and in an integrated fashion. Given the interrelationship between social protection and local development, this new paradigm inevitably implies a new paradigm of socio-political intervention which foregrounds, both theoretically and empirically, the importance of intersectoral intervention, foreknowledge of the context, the recontextualisation of official discourse, and the promotion ð€‚± both in words and deeds ð€‚± of reflexive processes able to both generate learning experiences and create room for manoeuvre for local actors in line with local conditions and needs. The theoretical contributions of Beck (2000), Giddens (1997, 2001), Fukuyama (2006) and Castells (2007), among others, have provided the foundational elements of this new paradigm, and have suggested that new mechanisms of collective action ð€‚± such as networks, partnerships and other forms of associative practices ð€‚± will constitute the most promising ways forward. In this thesis, in order to examine local collective governance practices in the social field, the work and perceptions of the teams operationally responsible ð€‚± within the corresponding organisational structures ð€‚± for the application of social protection policies, were comparatively analysed in two administrative territories: the Comarca de Sayago (in the Northwest Interior of Spain) and the Concelho of Macedo de Cavaleiros (in the Northeast Interior of Portugal). In each, local collective governance strategies are structured by forms of State and models of decentralisation that are quite distinct. The mainly qualitative approach adopted in the analysis embodied a concern with the need to gain a better understanding of the philosophy and the procedural characteristics and processes that underpin the production of official discourse, along with the mechanisms by which local governance process are recontextualised and reproduced in the social field. The fulcral point of the comparison could be readily observed in the socio-institutional contexts observed in the field research: local governance models in the field of social protection are determined by the State's form of institutional organisation and by the way in which it organises and distributes responsibilities for policy implementation which, in turn, promote and/or constrain the relationships that are established and operationalised between key actors in relation to local collective initiatives. In the two territories analysed, the factors that served to strengthen or weaken such practices were identified and on this basis, a model (or possibly, several alterative models) of governance in the social field were sketched out, in which collective action and democratic participation can combine to integratively support local development and the combating of poverty. Clearly, if the identification of weaknesses in the structures and forms of intervention is to assist in the attainment of participatory, developmental and anti-poverty objectives at the local level, it will be crucial to take into account the diversity of government practices and socio-institutional contexts when applying this model more widely to other territorie