Brokers in Participatory Urban Governance: Assembling Formal and Informal Politics

Participatory urban governance, with its focus on citizen representation and the equitable distribution of resources, has been implemented globally to deepen democracy. Some individuals position themselves as voluntary representatives, or brokers, between the state and their fellow citizens. In this article I analyse the increasingly important and largely informal roles of such brokers in participatory urban governance. Informed by my research in Brazil and the Netherlands, this article explores how brokers position themselves in administrative schemes and how they operate both in and out of o... Mehr ...