Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

The paper takes advantage of governance theories in conceptualizing the main argument that is in an episode of what may be categorized as a situation of ‘failure’ on the part of the actors in the ‘governance triangle.’The bureaucracy still stands as the most significant driver to revolutionize solutions to development issues by virtue of its ‘responsibility to its citizenry’ or more formally its nature institutionally, legally and organizationally. It is not the people in the community, the private firms, and non-government organizations nor funding donors who have the inherent role to induce participation despite becoming parallel bodies mirroring this intrinsic responsibility by the government. While most often than not, in today’s era of globalization and modern societies these other actors are acknowledged to have more capacity in all aspects especially financially and technical expertise wise, the point of the matter is that, in the absence of the state’s participation, the whole exercise is deemed futile. It is therefore the state who is the absolute actor in the position to ‘induce participation ’ where there is lack in ‘organic participation ’ among other players. Different forms of partnership may evolve, e.g. as depicted in the ‘expanded governance triangle,’ but it is important to acknowledge that despite the apparent incapacity of the state, it should at the very least still remain as the ‘non-negotiable actor’ of participation process in local development.