Participation in Decentralized Local Governance: Two Contrasting Cases from the Philippines

Contrary to the popular assumptions among international donor agencies, preceding studies have questioned the causal relations between decentralization, participation and pro-poor policy outcomes. This article introduces two cases of decentralized city governments in the Philippines: one employs radical forms of civil participation, while the other introduces modest ones, but both of them have been successfully launching pro-poor policies. Through referring these contrasting cases to a "participatory governance" model and a "governance with trusts" model, the paper argues that the approach to local governance is not linear. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007.