Governance and participation : a communicational approach of participatory devices in local context : the case of citizens' councils, the associative neighborhood press and indicators of well-being "co-elaborated" with the inhabitants ; Gouvernance et participation : une approche communicationnelle des dispositifs participatifs en contexte local : le cas des conseils citoyens, de la presse associative de quartier et des indicateurs de bien-être "co-élaborés" avec les habitants

Abstract

This work attempts to put into perspective citizen participation by studying discourses produced into several participatory devices: the citizen councils, the neighborhood associative press and well-being indicators "co-developed" with the inhabitants. In this, we try to understand how those devices, whether institutionalized or not, shape actors' discourses but also how actors can get hold of them and use them according to the social configurations in which they fit. Then, considering their institutional and territorial background, it is important to figure out how participatory devices can be considered as instruments of public policies in which communicative issues have an increasing role. The relational dimension of communication brought by those participatory devices reflects a profound change of the public action. Public action is nowadays shaped by the neoliberal governance which is itself being influenced by growing injunctions in favor of both deliberation and sustainability. After having presented the epistemological and methodological framework of the statistical analysis of textual data (textometry) used in this study, we define the perimeter in which participatory devices and well-being indicators have been promoted to the rank of new political topics. Indeed, when we take into account their anchoring in the changing institutional context of implementation and evaluation of public policies, participatory devices can be perceived as instruments of public action. In doing so, we study both mutations of the state and public action caused by globalization, the domination of neoliberalism and managerial logics that drives regional integration processes. We will then successively present participation, as it is now theorized and as it takes shape through the citizen councils, that is to say as an institutionally standardized " communicative action". Then, thanks to the neighborhood associative press, we focus on the identity components of the territory, shaped by discourses and counter-discourses, as well ...