Call For Papers Ebook 2nd International Congress of Co-Governance 2021

CALL FOR PAPERS

on the occasion of the II INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS

“Cogovernança como processo de construção de fraternidade na política, a partir das cidades” – “Co-governance, a process of building fraternity in politics from the cities” –

online, 9/12 October 2021 – by Mariapolis Ginetta, Vargem Grande Paulista/SP, Brazil

promoted by: Politics for Unity Movement, New Humanity, Sophia University Institute and Sophia ALC/Latin America and Caribbean

IN THE CURRENT CONTEXT

Growing urbanisation, in an irreversibly global context shaken by regressive reactions, is increasing the importance of studies on cities and their future.

Cities are the original locus of politics and even today, even under the pressure of dramatic events such as the pandemic, they are proving capable of opening up solutions to problems that national and international political levels address with unsatisfactory results. But all this requires skills, cooperative capacity, resilience and vision. 

The challenge is to understand how cities should be governed today: what role is required of administrators, in a context of pressing interdependence? And the participation of citizens and collective actors, what space does it occupy in the design of urban government, to answer the question of a more mature democratic quality?

THE CHALLENGE OF CO-GOVERNANCE

In this context some innovative concepts are emerging; one of these is the idea of co-governance that today, on the basis of shared research at international level, identifies a process, an experience of participatory government, which aims at a high level of intersubjective and multisectoral collaboration in the complex contexts of contemporary cities. With the spread, in fact, of new organizational models based on intense connections between people, groups and institutions, the conviction that the “best government” is not that of the enlightened leader who organizes power in a virtuous way, as the capacity of the city-system to collectively conceive of a common vision and to act in co-responsibility. What we see is the emergence of an unscheduled “collaborative era”, with different intensity but with similar characteristics, which in urban government recognizes and values those who act in institutions (politicians, officials, experts) as those who work in places of daily life (active citizens, neighbourhood communities, associations, media, cultural and educational realities, economic, social…).

THE PATH AND THE CALL FOR PAPERS

The first International Congress on these issues – “Co-governance. Mutual Responsibility in Cities Today” – was held in January 2019 in Castel Gandolfo, Rome, with 400 mayors, administrators, citizens of more than 30 countries around the world. The path started includes other international appointments in different continents, to continue in research and experimentation. 

The II International Congress, which will be held online from Brazil from 9 to 12 October 2021, is on this path and sees a network of Latin American organizations at the forefront.

The use of the territory, the valorization of the suburbs, the rehabilitation where violence tears relations together with the houses, the care of the environmental patrimony, the technology and the digital revolution, the processes of inclusion and social integration, the response to inequality and corruption, cooperation between cities… with what instruments of government to address these crucial areas for the future? In what relation are they “widespread knowledge” and “expert knowledge”, for an effective regeneration of democratic thought and practice? For this reason, the Promoting Committee of the Congress has also launched a Call for papers to deepen and verify research topics and dimensions related to these issues, contributions that will be collected in format and book by the Brazilian publisher ASCES and made public on the website of the University Center ASCES-UNITA of Caruaru/PE (as well as on www.co-governance.org).

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