Technique for the Analysis of Social Participation in Councils: Operationalizing Concepts

Objective: this technological article presents a research technique used in the analysis of deliberative decision-making processes reports and their related variables to provide insights for institutional design analysis for an empowered participatory governance. Method: a descriptive analysis was used to articulate a viable heuristic of creation of a research technique for the operationalization of selected variables from a previously concluded case study, identifying aspects of document analysis, coding content analysis, and qualitative-quantitative translation strategies. Results: an adapted binary decomposition technique proved to be useful in the identification of operational variables from the analysis of the decision-making processes reports that can contribute to the production of concise diagnosis on relevant aspects of the institutional design of community councils and its role for the participation of traditional communities in their decisions. Conclusion: this article contributes to the expansion of the analytical dimension of deliberative community councils reports, including those related to traditional communities decision-making processes, and can serve as a relevant instrument for researchers for measuring institutional mechanisms of participation, empowerment, and democratic deliberation. The institutional design of community councils can be therefore improved by an increased understanding of the modes of participation of traditional communities in decision-making processes within such deliberative democratic spaces.