Towards a Culture of Participation?

Although participation and empowerment constitute prominent ideals in international development cooperation, most development interventions are still patronizing and conducted in a top-down manner. This book argues that one reason for the unsuccessful implementation of participation and empowerment relates to the cultures and internal structures of development organizations. A theoretical model explicates how organizational culture influences an organization's approach to participatory development. This model is applied to an ethnographic case-study of a South African development organization.

M.A. Julia Vorhölter studied Social Anthropology and Political Science at the University of Hamburg. She is currently pursuing her PhD and working as a research associate at the Institute for Social Anthropology at the University of Göttingen.