Grassroots Governance for Sustainable Development: Examining the Barangay As an Exception Case for Participatory Policy Implementation

Background: Sustainability as concept in the development and environment studies literature has perhaps come to be synonymous with community participation. James Meadowcraft, in his widely cited work, notes that “the enhancement of public participation in environment and development decision-making is generally understood as an essential characteristic of governance for sustainable development (SD)” (2004).

However, participation is largely conceptualized and analyzed as engagement — how communities can be engaged and become part of the decision-making and planning process, aspiring to fulfill democratic ideals. Implementation is rarely the focus in studies of participatory governance for SD. That is, community participation in implementation is not examined; the underlying logic here is that the implementing/governance body is external to, separate from, and perhaps above of, the community.

Methods: In this critical policy discourse analysis, we draw from an exception case whereby the community is part of implementation of SD policy. Based on the Philippines, we posit the barangay as a grassroots community unit, while simultaneously political unit institutionalized as a formal part of the governance body. The barangay is a key actor in national level SD policies. Specifically, we examine language and meaning in the Philippines’ 2022 Manila Bay Sustainable Development Plan, a policy document comprising of over 300 pages and co-developed by dozens of government institutions over five years. We conduct discursive analysis, using a deductive approach that applies six elements of a conceptual framework for participatory policy implementation in SD (Meadowcraft 2004; Otoole & Montjoy 1984): 1 deliberative engagement, 2 different forms of knowledge, 3 societal learning, 4 mandate and accountability, 5 resources, 6 interdependence.

Findings: First, deliberative engagement and resources emerge as dominant elements. The policy stipulated varied opportunities for engaging with and for providing technical assistance to barangays. However, these opportunities and provisions were underspecified. Second, mandate, accountability and interdependence also emerge as dominant elements, but so much so that accountability becomes monitoring and compliance, and that mandate and inter-dependence convert to over-dependence. The barangay is stipulated as responsible for a large bulk of implementation tasks, from water sanitation to local tourism. These are big and new roles for local level barangay leaders, who generally do not have the skills, knowledge and technical capacities for these newly assigned tasks. Third, different forms of knowledge and societal learning are less evident in the policy, suggesting that these are not prioritized.

Conclusion and Implications: Findings suggest that the six elements of participatory implementation in SD are evident but nuanced in the policy document, leading to contested theoretical and practical implications. First, the lack of specificity in defining deliberative engagement and resources may lead to discretion at the ground level and shows unclear commitments of public resources. Second, monitoring and compliance and over-dependence, meanwhile, point to neoliberal or economics-focused dimensions to policy: managerialism, privatization and devolution of public responsibilities unto the private sphere. Third, de-emphasizing or neglecting local knowledge and societal learning, meanwhile, points to a retained reliance on scientific expertise and top-down knowledge, countering local epistemologies as a fundamental underpinning for sustainability.