Framing Public Participation An Overview of Michoacán State Government
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11
Framing Public Participation
An Overview of Michoacán
State Government
Osiris S González-Galván*
René Marín-Leyva**
Odette Virginia Delfín Ortega***
Abstract
achieve the objective, press releases from the
Since 2015, local governments of 30 Mexi- Michoacán State Government’s page were col-
can states have joined the National Open lected and subsequently examined through a
Government Partnership to enhance open- framing analysis. Findings indicate that this
ness through mechanisms of transparency, subnational government has framed public
accountability and citizen participation. The participation in two ways: as a democratic
objective of this paper is to analyze the frame- advance and as a transfer of responsibilities to
works promoted by the State Government of citizens. At the same time, there is a recogni-
Michoacán on public participation since the tion of new public and private actors sharing
adoption of an open government policy. To public decisions with the government. Despite
*
Doctora en Políticas Públicas, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. Becaria del Consejo Nacional de
Ciencia y Tecnología (cvu-338019), bajo la dirección de François Demers, profesor del Departamento de Informa-
ción y Comunicación de la Universidad Laval, y Odette Delfín Ortega, profesora de la Universidad Michoacana de
San Nicolás de Hidalgo. Investigadora posdoctoral en Comunicación Pública, Universidad Laval, Quebec (Canadá).
[osirisglezgalvan@gmail.com]; [https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6190-333X].
**
Doctor en Políticas Públicas, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Empresariales (ininee), Universidad Mi-
choacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo (umsnh). Profesor Investigador del Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y
Empresariales de la Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia (México). [rene.marin@umich.mx];
[https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4782-3798].
***
Doctora en Negocios Internacionales, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas Empresariales de la Universidad
Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. Profesora Investigadora del Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Em-
presariales de la Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia (México). [odette.delfin@umich.mx];
[https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0990-6768].
Recibido: 1 de septiembre de 2020 / Modificado: 25 de enero de 2021 / Aceptado: 19 de marzo de 2021
Para citar este artículo:
González-Galván, O. S., Marín-Leyva, R. y Delfín Ortega, O. V. (2021). Framing Public Participation. An Overview
of Michoacan State Government. opera, 29, 11-30
doi: https://doi.org/10.18601/16578651.n29.02
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Osiris S González-Galván, René Marín-Leyva y Odette Virginia Delfín Ortega
12
the progress found in this subnational context, Palabras clave: Gobierno Abierto; partici-
the authors warn of serious risks due to the pación pública; análisis de encuadre; métodos
absence of clear rules for the implementation digitales; Michoacán; México.
of mechanisms for public participation.
Key words: Open Government; public par- INTRODUCTION
ticipation; framing analysis; digital methods;
Michoacán; México. A decade ago, governments around the globe
launched the Open Government Partnership
(ogp) to answer the citizens’ call for greater
ENCUADRES SOBRE LA PARTICIPACIÓN transparency and accountability. This initia-
PÚBLICA. UNA MIRADA AL GOBIERNO tive was intended to “foster a global culture of
DEL ESTADO DE MICHOACÁN open government that empowers and delivers
for citizens and advances the ideals of open
Resumen and participatory 21st century government”
(ogp, 2011). While interest in government
Desde 2015, los gobiernos de 30 entidades fe- transformation began in the 1980s, the Obama
derativas en México se adhirieron a la iniciativa administration set the precedent for Open
nacional de Gobierno Abierto para impulsar Government based on three key components:
la apertura del Estado mediante mecanismos the use of new communication technologies,
de transparencia, rendición de cuentas y par- citizen participation and collaboration among
ticipación pública. El objetivo de este artículo public actors (Wirtz & Birkmeyer, 2015). At
es analizar los marcos promovidos por el present, 78 national governments have joined
Gobierno del estado de Michoacán sobre la the Open Government Partnership (ogp),
participación pública a partir de la adopción along with an increasing number of subna-
de una política de Gobierno Abierto. Para tional authorities (ogp, 2020).
lograr el objetivo, se recopilaron los comuni- In the Latin American context, the ogp
cados de prensa emitidos por este gobierno y, have placed special emphasis on the introduc-
posteriormente, se examinaron mediante un tion of technological systems that contribute
análisis de encuadre. Los resultados indican to managing transparency, fighting against
que el gobierno de Michoacán enmarcó la corruption and promoting spaces for public
participación pública en dos sentidos: como un participation. Additionally, Open Govern-
avance democrático y como una transferencia ment initiatives have developed strategies to
de responsabilidades hacia los ciudadanos. A su raise awareness among citizens and officials
vez, se reconocieron nuevos actores públicos. about the benefits of openness, by detect-
A pesar de los avances encontrados, los autores ing useful information and reducing gaps
advierten la presencia de riesgos derivados de la for citizens (Oszlak & Kaufman, 2014). The
ausencia de reglas para la participación pública. launch of Open Government Initiatives at the
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Framing Public Par ticipation An O ver view of M ichoacán State Government
13
subnational level has also generated interest work (Clarke & Francoli, 2014). In this re-
among academics and government officials. gard, Ruvalcaba-Gómez and Rentería (2019)
Previous studies have shown that local initia- argued that there can be marked differences
tives focused on developing mechanisms for in perceptions of citizen participation, espe-
public access to information, accountability cially at the local level. Nevertheless, there is
and transparency (Chatwin et al., 2019). little evidence available about the frames pro-
Since 2015, 30 Mexican subnational moted by subnational governments in Mexico
authorities have joined this lead (Chaidez on public participation after the adoption of
& Moro, 2019). The commitment came as Open Government policies.
a progressive evolution from the adoption Therefore, the objective of this paper is
of e-government platforms (Cruz Meléndez to explain the main frames promoted by the
& Zamudio Vázquez, 2017). Recently, the State Government of Michoacan on public
Open Government Index (ogi) revealed a participation after the adoption of the ogp.
positive change in the provision of informa- The hypothesis of this paper is that embracing
tion about government actions; nonetheless, a new policy of openness promotes negotia-
it also showed the weakness of government tion, within and outside of the government,
mechanisms for involving citizens in public which might be observed in slight changes
decisions1 (Cejudo et al., 2019). In the 2019 in the subsequent frames promoted by the
Metric, local authorities in Mexico obtained state. However, the introduction of an Open
average ratings of .57 and .21 respectively, on Government policy by itself is not enough to
a scale of 0 to 1. transform the prevailing ideas resulting from
Public participation has been defined in discourses on public participation. The re-
several ways. As a process of control and de- search hypothesis stems from the fact that gov-
mocratization of public administration (Cunill ernments establish a government myth involv-
Grau, 2004); as a mechanism for including ing a system of beliefs that leads organizational
citizens in different public policy processes actions and decisions from the beginning of
(Villarreal Martínez, 2010); or as a citizen their term (Riorda, 2008). Such myths occur
intervention to make public administration in frames that emerge in government discourse,
more efficient (Aguilar Villanueva, 2015). and which are mobilized through public rela-
From an Open Government perspective, pub- tions activities to promote the interests of the
lic participation is defined as a mechanism for organization (Knight, 1999); namely, through
enabling the public, individual citizens and press releases. These texts are often used by
organizations, to contribute to government journalists to construct news stories due to
the dominant role of the government in the
local public space (Anderson & Lowrey, 2007).
1 The Open Government Index (ogi) was published To examine what is proposed in this pa-
for the first time in 2017 sponsored by the National per, frame device analysis was used to find the
Institute of Access to Information (inai) and the Center
main frames promoted by the State Govern-
for Economic Research and Teaching (cide).
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Osiris S González-Galván, René Marín-Leyva y Odette Virginia Delfín Ortega
14
ment of Michoacan regarding public participa- state. Therefore, open government could be
tion. First, this research compiled all the press understood as an institutional technological
releases published by the Government’s Press platform which converts government data
Bureau on its official website, from October into open data to enable its use, including
2015 to June 2020. A web scraping technique accountability and collaboration for public
was used to extract information from press decision-making processes, and improvement
releases as a structured database. 3,906 press of public services (Sandoval-Almazán, 2013).
releases were compiled and subsequently fil- Therefore, open government is based on three
tered with the string [citizen participation] to concepts: transparency, accountability and
obtain a sample of 137 press releases, eliminat- digital technology. Furthermore, Criado and
ing duplicates. Then, following the work of Ruvalcaba (2016) point out that at the local
Gamson and Lasch (1983), Clarke and Fran- level, open government is a policy strongly
coli (2014) and Chatwin et al. (2019), the texts related to transparency, access to informa-
were coded to find the main frames involving tion and accountability, not to mention other
public participation. Results suggest that the actions such as co-production or open data.
subnational government of Michoacan framed Recently, Naser et al. (2020) defined open
public participation as a democratic advance government as a paradigm that encompasses
while pointing to it as a mechanism for trans- mechanisms designed to strengthen gover-
ferring responsibility to citizens. The authors nance based on transparency, citizen par-
also found evidence of a lack of rules for public ticipation, accountability, collaboration and
participation mechanisms. innovation. In this paper, open government
The next section presents the leading ini- is understood as a cross-cutting policy2 sup-
tiatives that have been undertaken in Mexico ported by technology and based on transpar-
related to public participation in an open gov- ency, accountability and public participation
ernment context. Then, the reader is provided to enhance mechanisms and results of public
with an overview of the State of Michoacan. In action.
the following section, the methods and results Mexican authorities have embraced the
of the research are explained. Finally, findings foundations of open government in the
and conclusions about the future of Public Par- course of a two-track democratization pro-
ticipation in this regional area are presented. cess. As a first step, and after a long process
of negotiation with public actors, the state
provided spaces for citizens’ information and
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN THE OPEN opinions. Thusly, civil society strengthened
GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP IN MEXICO
2 The opening of Government is a highly complex un-
The definition of open government involves dertaking. We propose that its implementation requires
the integration of several concepts, percep- an instrument operated from and within the organization
and involves the participation of all of its members, also
tions and expectations about contemporary
known as transversality (Serra, 2005).
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Framing Public Par ticipation An O ver view of M ichoacán State Government
15
its mechanisms of organization and public before adhering to the ogp. For instance, in
expressions (González-Galván & Demers, the states of Jalisco, Michoacán and Nuevo
2019). Open government was first established León, mechanisms were developed to allow
in the 2000s, when the Mexican Congress public participation, but remained limited to
approved the Federal Law on Access to Infor- specific projects (Villarreal Martínez, 2010).
mation (Congreso de la Unión, 2002). As of Under this backdrop, Open Government
2013, an open data policy was promoted to became a collection of desires, imaginaries
strengthen productivity and civic innovation and practices. As of 2015, 30 local govern-
(oecd, 2018). ments agreed to join the ogp. The integration
At the federal level, important advances of Open Government at the national level
have been made over the last twenty years in followed six activities for the development
public participation; nevertheless, it is im- of action plans. Action plans at local level
portant to note the existence of bad practices are based on the same sequence of activities,
aimed at civil society organizations by the shown in Table 1. However, according to the
authorities. For example, in 2017, the case civil society core group for Open Govern-
#GobiernoEspía was made public, regard- ment in Mexico (nosc), only 13 subnational
ing digital surveillance carried out by the authorities were actively working on their
Mexican Government since January 2015. Action Plans of Open Government (Chaidez
Individuals and organizations which had ac- & Moro, 2019).
tively participated in the Open Government While the aim of the local action plan was
initiatives were among those targeted by clearly established by federal authorities, state
Pegasus malware attacks, along with journal- governments have taken shortcuts that have
ists, opposition figures, and other politically yielded different results. At the end of 2019,
active Mexican citizens (Red en Defensa de Open Government exercises in six states were
los Derechos Digitales y Social tic, 2017, at an impasse due to reduced citizen partici-
art. 19). The unveiling of these acts triggered pation and local government resistance; and
a rupture between civil institutions and the moreover, an additional five were inactive
authorities, causing the Mexican civil soci- because they did not report any follow-up ac-
ety core group to end its participation in the tivities, as well as two others that created their
Third ogp Action Plan, since at least two of own agenda and chose not to follow the na-
its members were spied on by the Federal tional proposition (Chaidez & Moro, 2019).
Government. Additionally, civil society also This situation demonstrated that local govern-
alleged inaction on the part of federal au- ment predisposition to citizen participation
thorities to guarantee the rights of civil society was unfavorable. Therefore, it is important
(nosc, 2017). to know, first of all, how local governments in
At the subnational level, some authori- Mexico frame the participation of citizens
ties across the country had already promoted in the public space, including collaboration
laws and mechanisms for citizen participation with government.
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Osiris S González-Galván, René Marín-Leyva y Odette Virginia Delfín Ortega
16
TABLE 1. OPEN GOVERNMENT IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
Activity Description
Start Citizens, government and autonomous authorities sign a joint declaration to commit to
carry out and follow up on the agreed activities at the local level.
Awareness and socialization Participating authorities invite other public actors to join the local Open Government
initiative. Workshops or training should be carried out to promote citizen interest in
the initiative.
Integration of the Local Tech- The steering committee calls for the integration of the STL, which is a space dedicated to
nical Secretariat (STL) the integration of the Local Action Plan. The STL should be comprised of a comptroller
authority, civil society and the local government.
Integration of Participant Working groups should be convened to promote the participation of public actors with
Groups the objective of selecting local problems, establishing commitments, goals and indicators
to solve them. The selected problems could be related to the national agenda of Open
Government and the Follow the Money Project (a special project proposed at national
level to learn how public money is spent).
Launching and implementa- Input collected from the working groups should be published in the LAP with a one-
tion of the Local Action Plan year due date. The final LAP must be integrated with measurable output as defined by
(LAP) the steering committee.
Monitoring and Evaluation of Monitored activities should be published on the comptroller agency website. The eva-
the LAP luation must be carried out qualitatively and quantitatively within the first six months
and at the end of the first year.
Source: Authors, adapted from the six steps of the local exercises of Open Government (INAI, 2016).
EMBRACING PUBLIC PARTICIPATION: The economy of the state is fragile with 85%
THE CASE OF THE MICHOACAN STATE of the population living in poverty (coneval,
GOVERNMENT 2020) and a high crime rate (inegi, 2018).
Additionally, the most recent National Survey
Michoacan is a state located in the west of on governmental quality indicated that citi-
the Mexican Republic, bordering the states of zens of this state perceive corruption as a very
Jalisco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Mexico and frequent practice in the local government, so
Guerrero; its land area is equivalent to 3% of only 27.5% of the interviewees expressed trust
the national territory. It has a population of in their institutions (inegi, 2020).
4.5 million people (inegi, 2014; Secretaría The contemporary political history of Mi-
de Economía, 2019) and a large migrant com- choacán is marked by a process of institutional
munity, namely in the United States, which erosion that comes from increased electoral
makes it one of the states with the highest in- competition, resulting in weak governments
ternational mobility in Mexico (coespo, n.d.). unable to effectively deal with powerful busi-
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Framing Public Par ticipation An O ver view of M ichoacán State Government
17
ness elites and criminal organizations (Pureco against corruption (Congreso de Michoacán,
Ornelas, 2019). In recent years, the strength of 2017).
the state has been diminished by the increased In turn, civil society in Michoacan has ad-
activity of criminal groups, a situation that vanced in its levels of organization to intervene
led to the appearance of “vigilante” armed in public affairs, in such a way that it has even
groups that sought to regain territorial control been positively related to the improvement of
in 2013. Political and administrative control living conditions in some of its state munici-
of local government virtually disappeared in palities (Hernández Barriga et al., 2013). Since
2014 when state control passed to the federal the beginning of the century, civil societies
government, which took over social, economic have demanded participation in government
and security programs (Ornelas & Ramírez decisions (Núñez Hurtado, 2005). Some of
Gutiérrez, 2017). these demands were addressed in 2012, when
Michoacan’s subnational government is the Local Congress approved a law on citizen
based on three branches: Executive, Legisla- participation that included citizen rights to
tive and Judicial. The Executive Branch is intervene in the entire process of public deci-
represented by the governor, elected every six sion making (Congreso de Michoacán, 2012).
years. The operation of the State relies on the In 2015, this legal instrument was substituted
local public administration, which is divided by another law that aimed at regulating public
into 15 Ministries (Congreso de Michoacán, participation mechanisms to make them more
2019). Despite its political autonomy, the effective (Congreso de Michoacán, 2015).
government of Michoacán is highly dependent Previous research has shown that Micho-
on federal resources, since at least 80% of the acan’s Open Government practices have fo-
annual income is obtained from the national cused on compliance with transparency regula-
government and only 2% comes from local tax tions, redesigning its web portals to make them
revenue; in addition, the government has his- more user-friendly. Nonetheless, the State
torically presented a high level of public debt Government has neglected to design practices
(Aguilera Villanueva et al., 2017). to strengthen open data availability and public
In 2016, the Michoacan State Govern- participation. In this regard, it should be noted
ment joined the ogp. The exercise would be that the mechanisms used to promote citizen
implemented at the local level based on three participation in Michoacan are not very clear
pillars: transparency, citizen participation and that the quality of government-citizen
and collaboration with other public actors interaction to obtain information has declined
(secoem, n.d.). One year later, the creation of (Sandoval-Almazán, 2020; Cejudo et al.,
the State Anticorruption System was approved. 2019). This paper intends to contribute to the
This new mechanism included the develop- understanding of public participation in this
ment of a Citizen Participation Committee local context after the adoption of an Open
in charge of linking civil society organizations Government policy; particularly, by examin-
with government decisions regarding the fight ing what frames Michoacan State Government
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Osiris S González-Galván, René Marín-Leyva y Odette Virginia Delfín Ortega
18
has promoted about public participation after symbolic and contextual characteristics of the
joining the ogp. event described. Frame devices are transmitted
to the public space through public relations ac-
tivities carried out by the government. One of
METHODS the most important activities is the issuance of
press releases. These texts serve to organize the
Framing analysis is an approach that has been significance of the events; usually, they tend to
used to explain how social life events are repro- characterize facts positively and to defend the
duced and represented in the media. Entman interests of the issuing organization. As a result,
(1993) defines framing as: press releases are a primary source of informa-
tion written in the third person for journalists
“To select some aspects of a perceived reality and make (Pander Maat, 2007) and their content can be
them salient in a communicating text, in such a way
as to promote a particular problem definition, causal
easily placed in the news cycle due to the large
interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment re- resources of government (Anderson and Low-
commendation for the item described” (p. 52). rey, 2007). Nowadays, press releases are also
available on digital spaces, such as government
In this regard, frames are dominant principles websites and social media profiles. Therefore,
that refer to situations, attributes, choices and this article aims to know what frames were
actions taken by authorities, in this case, or presented on public participation in the press
any specific actor (Reese, 2001). A baseline releases of the Michoacán State Government,
summary elaborated by Lim and Jones (2010) since they were a primary source of informa-
found that framing analysis was used in pub- tion for journalists and the general public.
lic relations research primarily in two foci: 1) In this paper, the method used is a com-
to identify how public relations professionals bination of fundamentals of frame device
constructed a message and, 2) to compare analysis and digital methods. On June 24,
the message delivered with the media cover- 2020, press releases published on Michoacan
age. Hallahan (1999) reported seven framing State Government official website3 were col-
models in public relations, depending on lected. The web page was launched in late
what is framed: situations, attributes, choices, 1998 and it has served as the main platform
actions, issues, responsibility and news. In for information diffusion of the Michoacan
contrast, Pan and Kosicki (1993) argued that government. The data was extracted by using
news frames are based on four structural di- a scraping web technique which consisted of
mensions: syntactical, script, thematic, and customizing scripts to extract large amounts of
rhetorical. information from a specific website (Perriam
Gamson and Lasch (1983) argued that et al., 2020). For this process the script Paser-
organizations are capable of creating argu-
mentative packages about events. These are
3 The official government website for press releases is
built from frame devices that encompass the
www.michoacan.gob.mx/noticias.
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Framing Public Par ticipation An O ver view of M ichoacán State Government
19
Hub was used. A total number of 3,906 texts FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
released from October 2015 to June 2020 were
collected. The information collected from each Based on framing device analysis, this section
release was 1) date, 2) link, 3) title, 4) bullet presents the main frames found on public par-
and 5) full text. ticipation promoted by the Michoacan State
To organize the press release texts, Or- Government after adhering to ogp. The frames
ange—a machine learning and data mining were discovered in press releases published
suite—was used (Demsar et al., 2013). First, in the Michoacan State Government official
the widget [Corpus] was used to place the website where several state agency commu-
data on the canvas4; then, the widget [Pre- nications are periodically released under the
process Text] was selected to standardize all supervision of the Government Press Bureau.
data. Next, by operating the widget [Create The texts revealed that “transparency and ac-
class] a class called [Open Government] was countability were defined as the hallmark of
generated; after that, the string [participación Michoacan State Government administration”
ciudadana] was used to obtain all press releases [PR28]; indeed, it seems to be clear that gov-
containing this phrase. This combination of ernment openness to citizen contribution was
words was selected by the authors because still limited. In 2016, the State Governor made
that was the name given to public participa- an announcement referring to the central role
tion in the two laws in force for the state of that citizens would play during the 2015–2021
Michoacan. administration [PR52].
In total, 137 press releases containing this The events described in the press releases
query were extracted, eliminating duplicates. analyzed were mostly located in the state capi-
The texts were then coded by the first author tal, Morelia. The narrative mainly focused on
of this paper with the open software Taguette the activities carried out by the State Gover-
(Rampin et al., 2019). This classification was nor and his speeches were frequently cited to
later validated by the other two researchers support the information released. Two main
and after that, by an external researcher. The frames were promoted by the Michoacan State
coding was supported by a codebook adapted Government on public participation. In the
from Gamson and Lasch’s (1983) framework first one, public participation is seen as a result
analysis, shown in Table 25. of the state democratization, and in the second,
public participation is defined as a transfer of
responsibilities to society. In this research, only
one public participation activity supported by
technology was found: the citizen proposal
4 Orange suit allows users to visually work with data. collected on the official web page for the Lo-
Thus, the data is placed on a blank canvas and then pro- cal Development Plan (ldp). In a way, this fact
cessed with the available widgets.
indicated that the local government preferred
5 As the press releases reviewed were written in Span-
offline interactions with citizens compared to
ish, the authors’ translations are presented hereafter.
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Osiris S González-Galván, René Marín-Leyva y Odette Virginia Delfín Ortega
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TABLE 2. CLASSIFICATION CODEBOOK OF PRESS RELEASE CONTENT
Device Definition Press Release Instance Example
Appeals to principles Moral principles related to public participation. Citizen participation is one of the main compo-
nents to generate conditions of well-being and
security [PR75] a/
Catchphrases Sticky phrases used to draw attention to public Let Michoacan be heard! [PR120]
participation.
Consequences They explain the different consequences of Contribution to the reconstruction of the social
public participation. fabric, the strengthening of institutions and the
development of Michoacán [PR119]
Context Date, place and description of the event recou- May 21, 2016, Cenobio Moreno, Apatzingán,
nted in the press release. during the fifth meeting of the Citizens’ Com-
mittee [PR45]
Depictions Constructed expressions used to explain public Citizen support [PR1]
participation.
Exemplars Real examples, present or past, used to explain Regional Forums of Consultation and Citizen
the mechanisms of public participation. Participation have been held [PR38]
Metaphors One or more imaginary entities used to explain Contribution to Michoacan from the trenches of
the subject associated with public participation. determined citizen participation [PR14]
Promises Benefits that will be obtained or the actions The Local Development Plan will respond to the
that will be implemented to achieve public aspirations of Michoacan citizens [PR5]
participation.
a/ For reading purposes, the code [PR] was used, followed by a number referring to the press release number where the phrase was first found.
Source: Authors; adapted from Gamson and Lasch (1983).
the use of technologies for online collabora- actors; however, the quality of such interaction
tion, despite the growing number of people remains in question.
using the internet in the territory6 and, con-
trary to the global trend of promoting digital Public Participation as a Democratic Advance
tools for participation at the local level (i.e.,
Ruvalcaba-Gomez et al., 2020). In fact, this The Michoacan State Government promoted
position partly contradicts the principles of a frame of dialogical nature of exchange be-
Open Government, which rely heavily on the tween government and citizens, as a natural
creation of digital platforms to bring citizens result of a democratic progress. This frame
and the government together. The findings emerged early in the current administration
also showed progress in the symbiosis between press releases and persisted with the adoption
the government of Michoacán and new public of Open Government as a policy. Michoacan
State Government used depictions to illus-
trate plurality and openness to other political
6 According to the most recent National Survey on
positions; for instance, it used phrases such
Availability and Use of Information Technologies in
Households, 58% of Michoacán’s inhabitants are active as without political distinction [PR84] and a
Internet users (inegi, 2019). close dialogue between government and citi-
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zens [PR119, PR120]. Here, public participa- [PR19, PR20, PR30, PR31, PR32, PR40].
tion was conceived as a mechanism that would The Michoacan State Government remarked
serve the following purposes: on two outputs resulting from the democratic
1. To enhance democracy [PR82, PR88, process of public participation: The Local De-
PR92, PR103, PR106]. velopment Plan and the State Human Rights
2. To collaborate with citizens on public Program [PR5, PR93]. Moreover, the govern-
policy design [PR34, PR49]. ment proximity to citizens was supported by
3. To improve living conditions for Micho- the decentralization of public services in some
acan migrants [PR40]. of the state municipalities [PR128, PR131].
4. To achieve good governance [PR79].
At the beginning of the 2015–2021 ad- Public Participation as a Discharge
ministration, consultation forums were the Public Service Obligation
main formula used to gather citizen opinions
for the creation of an ldp, described as a Michoacan State Government framed struc-
democratic exercise prepared to consolidate a tures of public participation that clearly in-
government accentuated by popular interests tended to share public power with citizens.
[PR4]. A total of 12 events were held in several Thus, the following depictions were found
venues [PR49], as far as Chicago and Los An- citizen support [PR1, PR3, PR44]; determined
geles in the United States [PR20]. The forums citizen participation [PR14, PR78, PR80];
were organized in nine or 10 thematic round- active citizen participation [PR42] and social
tables that addressed a wide variety of issues, participation [PR45, PR67, PR81]. It was of-
such as economic development, employment, ten found a narrative related to principles such
poverty, attention to vulnerable groups, crime as coordinated work between government and
prevention, innovation, productivity and society [PR1], common good [PR75], citizen
competitiveness, environmental sustainability, engagement [PR13, PR35] and promotion of
urban prosperity, social cohesion, gender, jus- family values [PR41].
tice and peace, human development, quality From this frame, public participation was
education, health access, accountability and described as a useful mechanism to:
transparency [PR5, PR7]. Furthermore, 1,266 1. Preserve social order and peace [PR1,
proposals were collected through an online PR3, PR90].
consultation [PR49]. According to press re- 2. Generate well-being and security [PR75].
leases analyzed, municipal authorities [PR7] 3. Prevent crime [PR83, PR100].
and a large number of citizens participated 4. Promote citizen reporting [PR96, PR100,
in the events [PR5, PR22]. In this frame, the PR101].
recognition of civil society, such as the migrant 5. Recover public spaces from crime [PR98].
community, was also highlighted; the govern- 6. Build proposals on public security
ment agenda even made several references [PR126].
to the presence of a binational community 7. Strengthen public security [PR133].
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Osiris S González-Galván, René Marín-Leyva y Odette Virginia Delfín Ortega
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8. Deliver efficient results [PR51, PR133] and citizens. According to their purpose, they
9. Transform municipalities [PR67, PR72]. were divided into two kinds: supervision of
10. Carry out public work and government public works and public security. Public Works
actions [PR68]. Supervision Committees were based on the
11. Rebuild social cohesion [PR69, PR100]. “Model Communities Program”, launched
12. Monitor the actions of authorities in the following towns of the Tierra Caliente
[PR100]. region: Uspero (Paracuaro), Cenobio Moreno
As of 2016, with a diffuse legal and con- (Apatzingan)—highlighted as a model of
ceptual definition, three key structures re- citizen participation by the current governor
lated to public participation emerged in the [PR45]—and Pinzandaro (Buenavista Tomat-
press release narrative: Security and Justice lan) [PR59]. Later, the program was replicated
Roundtables, Citizen Committees and Citi- in Felipe Carrillo Puerto (Buenavista), Tepal-
zen Councils. catepec and Coahuayana [PR65, PR66]. The
The first structure, Security and Justice Committees included regional leaders who
Roundtables, was described as one of the allowed the incorporation of members of the
main achievements in public participation self-defense groups [PR58]. Yet, performed
in the Michoacan State Government public work included watching over public works
security area [PR120, PR126, PR132]. These for 20 million pesos in Pinzandaro [PR59],
structures were installed throughout the ter- 7 million pesos in Felipe Carrillo Puerto
ritory and aimed at integrating citizens in [PR65] and 70 public works in Tepalcatepec
order to strengthen public security and to [PR66, PR63]. Furthermore, the “Zero Cor-
generate trust between citizens and authori- ruption” campaign was launched to promote
ties [PR14, PR132]. A total of nine round- the integration of social control committees
tables were installed in the same number of among the beneficiaries of public programs in
cities [PR120] and 1,400 security meetings order to monitor public resources use [PR10].
were held [PR133]. Meetings were led by Likewise, it was announced that Social Comp-
members of the civil society, but also included trollers would be designated for all the 113
authorities from all three levels of government municipalities in Michoacan, which would
[PR14, PR16]. Press releases reported benefits allow the public in general to take part in the
in the reduction of crimes such as homicide, supervision of public resources [PR21]. On
extortion, kidnapping and robbery from the the other hand, Citizen Committees focused
appearance of these structures [PR132]. For on public security throughout all the state
example, in the Tierra Caliente region a 32.4% under the brand “Community Surveillance
reduction was reported in high-impact crimes Committees” (Comvive). This program was
[PR134]. announced as an innovative intervention to
Regarding Citizen Committees, they involve the population in crime prevention
were conceived as a space to convene com- activities and to generate a culture of citizen co-
munity priorities between the government responsibility [PR21, PR48]. To begin with,
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400 committees were formed in the western 60 to 78 citizens from academia, the busi-
region of the state. Each committee received ness community and the civil society [PR71,
a citizen emergency button, connected to all PR75]. These organizational structures were
the state Public Security Systems, to report responsible for validating the infrastructure
any crime that might occur in any neighbor- projects that the government would carry out.
hood and to get a response from the police in For instance, in Nahuatzen, a predominantly
less than three minutes [PR13, PR16]. These indigenous locality, they validated a 35-million
committees reported some participation in pesos investment in public works [PR64]. The
the rehabilitation of public spaces [PR129]. main difference between Citizen Councils and
State authorities also promised that this strat- Citizen Committees was that a liaison officer
egy would move forward with the creation of was designated by the Michoacan State Gov-
Municipal Committees for Public Security ernment to be a member of the former in order
and Crime Prevention [PR27]. Later in July to monitor activities [PR70, PR71, PR80],
2016, it was announced that the model would whereas the latter was a more autonomous
be replicated in other communities [PR48]. structure with more power to decide about
Thirdly, Citizen Councils were defined public works that the government would ex-
as a work form for the three levels of govern- ecute in the communities.
ment in which citizens were directly involved In addition to these three structures, press
[PR28]. During the analyzed period, two types releases also mentioned other spaces for public
of Citizen Councils stood out: Education participation. Namely, Citizen Committee for
Councils and Social Development Councils. the Michoacan Plan Follow-up [PR47]; State
Education Councils were created in 94 out of System of Artistic Education Inter-Institu-
the 113 municipalities and aimed at supervis- tional Committee [PR53]; Michoacan State
ing elementary school education [PR117]. Council for Territorial Planning and Urban
These structures were devoted to reviewing the Development [PR99]; Public Security State
education that children receive. A total num- Council [PR105]; Electoral Process Follow-
ber 1,613 councils were created throughout up Board [PR103]; Advisory Council on Cli-
the state [PR117]. Parents and teachers par- mate Change [PR124], and Municipal Youth
ticipated in Education Councils to exchange Councils [PR15]. In addition, the program
views and to propose improvements on edu- “Your Community is in You” was also reported
cational issues [PR123]. Meanwhile, Social on press releases. In it, a group of 300 under-
Development Councils were installed in the graduate students would be sent to 500 com-
municipalities of Nahuatzen, Aquila, Urua- munities to diagnose community problems
pan, Chinicuila, Lazaro Cardenas, Zitacuaro related to poverty and social exclusion and
and Puruandiro [PR64, PR67, PR68, PR71, then, to propose solutions to the Michoacan
PR75, PR76, PR80]. Despite not being very State Government [PR9].
clear how such Committees were formed, press The two frames promoted by the Mi-
releases described that they were made up by choacan State Government were an extension
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Osiris S González-Galván, René Marín-Leyva y Odette Virginia Delfín Ortega
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of previous government frames with subtle works to doing crime prevention work; in such
changes, despite the adoption of a new Open a way that it is not possible to know whether
Government policy. This fact proved the ini- these structures increased the effectiveness of
tial hypothesis of this paper: embracing an government actions. These shortcomings cause
Open Government policy promotes nego- some serious concern since this territory has
tiation, inside and outside a public organiza- historically shown that a legal gap allows the
tion, but by itself cannot change the frames incursion of regional caudillos, as happened
established by government, as was noted in between 2013 and 2014.
the case of public participation. For example, The increased number of spaces for public
during Lazaro Cardenas Batel administration participation signals the ongoing process of
(2002–2008) the catchphrase “to govern with civil society development. The public recogni-
and for all inhabitants of Michoacán” was used tion of stakeholders by the Michoacan State
(Núñez Hurtado, 2005, p. 124). In order to Government, such as immigrants and busi-
achieve such a campaign promise, Núñez ness communities, represented progress in the
Hurtado pointed out that an extensive public visibility of some citizen organizations in the
consultation process was conducted in the public space. From Honneth’s (2004) perspec-
state and abroad. Actually, it became the first tive, this would be the first step in limiting the
participatory local plan in the State’s history actions of the State and foster transparency,
involving several public actors across the State accountability and access to Michoacan State
and abroad. Government information. Within the Open
With the adoption of an Open Govern- Government principles, these actors could
ment policy in 2016, the Michoacan State become authority partners, which would open
Government committed to strengthening doors to public-private partnerships to pro-
mechanisms for public participation. At the vide and monitor public services. In a context
same time, it promoted the creation of vari- where citizens perceive local government as
ous structures integrating regional leaders deficient and contaminated by corruption,
and citizens. Nonetheless, a role definition such alliances could be remarkably beneficial
of such structures to enhance governmental to increase public trust. However, findings
efficiency was lacking, which was evident in also showed a limited description of these
instances where a structure was referred to both new public actors; that is, press releases only
as a Council and as a Committee within the pointed to the presence of prominent people
same press release. In addition, the operating from the communities, members of civil so-
performance tended to be diffuse due to the ciety and other state actors, without a greater
absence of a legal framework that supports the description. This could be associated with a
operation of such structures, because the laws low level of relationship between government
in force do not recognize them. Thus, citi- public relations activities and the Open Gov-
zen groups might have tasks that range from ernment policy, as has happened in states such
repairing urban furniture, approving public as Queretaro and Hidalgo (Negrete-Huelga
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Framing Public Par ticipation An O ver view of M ichoacán State Government
25
& Rivera-Magos, 2018). For instance, vis- through clear rules for public participation in
ible public actors were described as public order to achieve real citizen engagement and
program beneficiaries [PR30, PR71, PR80, keep public actors’ political interests aside. In
PR98, PR123], government shareholders summary, the authors could identify the fol-
[PR83, PR94, PR112], business community lowing opportunity areas: a) rules and require-
members [PR43, PR45, PR46, PR101] and ments to issue an open call for citizens to join
organized civil society members [PR1, PR3, the committees; b) a clear methodology to
PR6, PR15]. This situation could lead to pub- select the public work to be evaluated and to
lic decisions finally being made by the elites assess/measure its execution, c) establishment
and government, leaving out the ordinary of citizen responsibilities for each of the activi-
citizen. This concern stems from the fact that ties previously mentioned and, d) incorporate
not all organizations were recognized by the digital tools to diversify participants and ex-
government; such is the case of the Commit- pand the scope of actions.
tee on Citizen Participation of the State Anti-
Corruption System installed in 2017, since it
was not mentioned in any of the press releases CONCLUSIONS
analyzed. Furthermore, there is a risk that lo-
cal governments could use these structures as Over the last twenty years, democratic progress
open washing strategies and not as a cross- in Mexico has led to a higher level of govern-
cutting policy to push government openness. ment openness. Co-operation arrangements
In other words, as Chatwin et al. (2019) have for transparency and accountability have been
pointed out, it is possible that governments established with civil society, academia and
will use shallow measures to improve their the business community. As a result, it was
citizen acceptance, without these strategies increasingly common for governments across
representing fundamental changes in their the country to implement different kinds of
open government policy. Besides, the results policies in order to be more transparent and
of this paper confirm the findings of Sandoval- open to society.
Almazan (2020) who pointed out a low will- The adoption of Open Government poli-
ingness of the Michoacán State Government cies in Mexico has meant a wave of novelty for
to collaborate with citizens through digital government operation, because it renewed the
platforms; for example, by providing tools to aspirations towards the democratization of
evaluate programs, send complaints about the public administration, supported by a strong
services or gather citizen opinion about public partnership with civil society and technological
works. To quote Cunill-Grau’s words (2004), development. At the local level, Open Govern-
the institutionalization of citizens into the ment initiatives were particularly important
Michoacan State Government is going to be a because they represented a new commitment
successful action only if political pluralism and to drive greater efficiency in public services in
decision-making autonomy are guaranteed the midst of a weak state and low citizen trust.
OPERA, ISSN: 1657-8651, E-ISSN: 2346-2159, N° 29, julio – diciembre de 2021, pp. 11-30Osiris S González-Galván, René Marín-Leyva y Odette Virginia Delfín Ortega
26
This paper identified the main frames press releases, but some risks clearly appear. An
promoted by the Michoacan State Govern- important limitation for this study lies in the
ment of public participation from the adop- fact that there are few pre-existing elements in
tion of an Open Government policy. Subtle the literature regarding public participation, to
changes in the scope of public participation enable a comparison with other government
mechanisms were observed, which proved the periods, except for the Lazaro Cardenas Batel
initial hypothesis of this paper. The central administration. Consequently, further research
finding of this research was that the Michoacan is recommended concerning the appropriation
State Government promoted two main frames of these frames by media and public actors, the
about public participation from ogp imple- impact on street-level bureaucrats as well as the
mentation: 1) as a democratic advance and, 2) civil society perception of public participation
as a mechanism for transferring responsibility mechanisms.
to citizens. These frames were supported by the
description of several activities, such as public
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