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Critique Of The Book ' General Essay

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Critiques to the book In general, while the book mainly articulated the issue of power that cripples participation, none of the book chapters was able to fully unveil the dynamics of power relations that for me resulted into blindness in discussing the alternatives to participation. It is a given fact that in today’s globalized world, only a few takes charge of economic and political powers who maintains the capacity for covert control. This situation cripples the approaches on how to effectively carry out participatory mechanisms in the social development realm. I am missing a chapter that somehow clarifies the spaces for negotiation of power relations in a way that it can entertain opportunities to expand participation and create an avenue of support from the majority of the people. These types of spaces for negotiation is memorably referred to by Habermas as the public sphere. While these spaces can be venues to somehow make the partnerships “less politicized”, these opportunities are still limited by the conditions of the times, depending on access and roles of various stakeholders. For instance, the local actors are technically allowed to participate in dialogues and meetings but they can be disadvantaged when it comes to exercising reason. This example begets a realization that there is still a need to gauge and be critical on who chooses what needs to be discussed, or who or what steers and stirs discussion. It could also be the question of who or what interest is

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