Public policies for the preservation and strengthening of community democracy in Ecuador

Abstract

In Latin America, a large part of its population is made up of indigenous peoples and ethnic groups, which is why several countries in the region have called themselves plurinational and pluricultural, this form of government seeks the active participation of its citizens for the election of their representatives, their political and social organization, for which it must guarantee adequate mechanisms of democracy to ensure the inclusion of its participants. Community democracy is presented as the exercise of self-government that expresses the form of political participation of the communities, the same that has the purpose of recognition and valuation of cultural traditions, the struggle for dignity, respect and equality. The objective of the manuscript is to determine if the public policies established by the Ecuadorian State allow the preservation and strengthening of community democracy in Ecuador; to achieve this purpose, a comparative legal analysis of community democracy and the public policies that have been implemented to strengthen it is carried out. The results indicate that public policies implemented in a correct manner would allow preserving and strengthening community democracy in Ecuador, as long as the mechanisms are applied in an organized manner and effectively disseminated to all citizens. Furthermore, this type of democracy can also be implemented in community, neighborhood, local, urban and rural spaces in order to comply with the principle of inclusion and equitable participation.