Contenu du sommaire : Les territoires de la participation

The political practices of urban environmental protection associations have contributed actively to the development of a model in which "emotions are balanced". The tacit code of good behaviour between local councillors and residents illustrates a situation where participation, linked (from the 1970s) to a specific spatial context, is seen in terms of development (social, local or urban, economic or sustainable) and is undertaken to assist in decision-making or in making acceptable certain projects or public policies. At a time when this model is tending to change and take on a territorial dimension, as democratic logic is dominated by economic necessity, the cycle which it has created can be questioned, both as an indicator and an outcome of the renewal process.

In Montréal, neighbourhoods and boroughs are the territories adopted by the municipality and community organizations in order to encourage participation by individual and collective actors. In this article, the authors study the municipal institutions used to inform and consult people, and local mobilization organizations, which count on concertation or partnership. The authors examine the way they work, their link to the territory and their contribution to participative democracy.

Democratic participation is organised notably around neighbourhood councils. However in the three cities of Paris, Lyon and Marseille (which have a specific legal statute) the situation is different and will remain so following new legislation on local democracy. At Lyon, the creation of these councils, after 1995, in one of the three districts captured by the Left (the 8th "arrondissement" has had both political and geographical consequences. First, it represented a new form of local management for Lyon's population. Second, it aimed to establish a political presence, competing with locally based associations. The new municipal government will change neither the form of such action nor the related

Public spatial intervention of a participative nature has a growing importance in areas such as water resources, where its aim is to compensate shortcomings in traditional forms of political control and to introduce forms of management based on the principle of cooperation. The Water Resources Development and Management Plans (SAGE - Schéma d'aménagement et de gestion des eaux) created by the Water Resources Law of 1992, represent a highy developed institutional form of this type of public policy. They offer both a durable participative framework involving several actors at the scale of a water basin and a specific form of intervention (participative planning). The present aim is to examine under what conditions this procedure can contribute to the creation of a new form of water reources management. First, this form of spatial participative intervention is described as well as the main issues. Then, the introduction of such an approach is analysed, notably through the study of the relevant official texts and an empirical study of 12 different situations. In particular, the article shows the importance of managerial and political dimensions in the creation of Local Water Resources Commissions and of Water Resources Development and Management Plans.

Opposition to major infrastructur projects has become increasingly widespread. This new form of political expression, which is highly localised, has now been widely studied, leading to a broadening of the definition of public participation. This not only includes voting and partisan activities, but also various forms of public protest. From this point of view, the Balbigny-Lyon motorway is an interesting case study. It illustrates these new forms of protest, having both a territorial dimension (the protection of residential area) and a political dimension (citizens expressing themselves politicaly). Both aim to change the basis of public policy.

Very often it appears obvious for different social actors and researchers that participative procedures are aimed at "relevant populations". However, defining a "relevant population" poses certain problems. Using the example of the debates and conflicts relating to the development of the Camargue, this article aims to analyse the process of designating a "relevant population". First, the term raises questions of scale. Then, whether K be at the level of a village or the planet, what is the status of the "relevant" individuals ? Are they residents, consumers or citizens ? Finally, it is suggested that definitions and delimitations of "relevant populations" should result more widely from territorial divisions contributing to a restructuring of sociopolitical links.

This article aims to assess the spatial logics of participative animal conservation policies in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Faced with the failure of former authoritarian methods based on the principle of spatial segregation, over the last twenty years conservationalists have moved towards participative policies. The aim consists of integrating within a single area animal conservation policies with other forms of land use, notably agriculture. These are the basic premises of sectoriel political action in Zambia and Zimbabwe which are examined in this article.

For mor than twenty years, participative approaches have become a feature of local development. However, it seems that the widening of their use and the interactive transfer of agricultural technologies in support of decentralised territorial management have not been accompanied by adequate methodological and ethical safeguards. A basic review of the methods and founding principles of participative action would seem necessary to ensure a true transfer of power and skills to local actors. At the time when instantaneous products and technologies dominate, the impact of technical knowledge needs to be put into perspective compared with decisions of a territorial nature ; it is also necessary to develop a new concept of endogenic development and to reintroduce training schemes.

This article looks critically at experiences of concerted applied research using a system of zoning based on the accounts of different actors and graph modelling. The method which is presented is based on an initial analysis carried out in Brazil. By using the knowledge expressed by actors who live and work in the territory studied, a zoning was established enabling the characterisation of the different situations and the organisation of the information in order to initiate a process of mediation to identify the plans and projects. Graph analysis based on the zoning process highlights the key factors and the spatial dynamics and structures. With the aim of initiating a process of concerted applied research, the results are used to facilitate négociation and action. More than the final product (maps, models), it is the whole process leading to this result which is of interest in termes of joint working and training, both for the different actors and the researchers. The mutual process of training leads to proble formulation and solving and to dialogue and the adoption of new strategic positions.

The integrated system of computer assisted decision- making applied to the spatial management of the Outaouais region (SIADO) illustrates the integrated and negociated management of a territory- From this point of view, this article relates to the participative and environmental dimensions of the introduction of a sustainable form of development. The SIADO consists of software (GéoDécision) integrating an analytical decision-making dimension and a spatially referenced data base (BDRS) organised arround a territorial information system based on an ecological reference framework. GéoDécision is made up of four componends : GéoML for the management of metadata ; GIS for spatial analysis ; DecisionLab for murticriteria analysis : and Internet, ft is designed to be used with a management system incorporating the various parties involved. Amongst the different applications of this method, the setting up of surveillance priorities for the municipal water supply sources of the Outaouais region is presented as an illustration of the system's potential.

The question of participation refers to that of the direct power invested in individual and collective actors. In this sense, it is inseperable from the debate on democracy which from a normative standpoint implies the participation of the population and from a descriptive viewpoint involves almost systematically a representative system which relegates citizens to a basic role of control and possible sanction of their elected representatives. Analysis of the main geography textbooks and dictionnaries shows that the question of participation, just as that of democracy, is never or only rarely evoked. This neglect contrasts with the importance given to this question in other disciplines close to geography (political science, sociology, history) and the related abundant literature on the subject. Having demonstrated the lack of geographical research on questions of democracy, six factors explaining this situation are set out as well as five arguments for a rapprochement between the two. This article, therefore, concerns essentially the links between democracy, geography and politics. It deals only indirectly with questions of planning and development. However, it is considered that the transition from the planned development of a territory to development determined by local participation, a trend demanded or applied throughout the world (as expressed in the conclusion) is the reflexion of a more general evolution of political decision-making methods, of which the links with geography are considered here.

This article presents the three major senses associated with the term participation (political, social and managerial) as well as their associated features. A rapid study of participation ideology shows the durability of the concept, whilst a number of global factors (generalisation of the concept, new fields of application, new measures and diffusion of new information and communication technologies) suggest that the general framework conditioning participation will evolve. The specific characteristics of territorial participation are then hyghlighted, as well as the key issues linked to the management of information.