Sonia Bussu
Biographic Data
| ID | 341331 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sonia Bussu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sonia |
| FAMILY NAME | Bussu |
| SIGNATURE | BUSSU S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0360-7070 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 145 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Democratic Assemblage: Power, Normativity, and Responsibility in More-than-Human Participation
Over the past two decades, the scholarly community interested in participatory and deliberative democracy has focused their attention on democratic innovations. Designs such as participatory budgets and citizens assemblies have been conceptualised as the actualisation of democratic ideals in a micro setting, in relative isolation from each other and the wider society (Bussu et al. 2022). In recent years the attention of democracy scholarship turn…
Make (digital) space for and with the young: Arts-inspired co-design of civic tech for youth mental health policies
Public engagement, digital or in-person, is mostly adult-centric and ableist, often universalising the experience of participation of a narrow demographic (white, older and middle class). In Mindset Revolution we combined arts-based and creative methods with civic tech to co-design participatory spaces with a diverse group of young people, where to discuss and influence mental health policy and practice. The paper examines the digital element of …
Participation as assemblage: Looking at developments in democratic innovations through an assemblage perspective
This article introduces assemblage theory as a theoretical frame and analytical lens to study democratic innovations and capture the dynamism and complexity of democratic innovations. Assemblage theory places emphasis on non-linearity, contingency, situatedness and relationality. We argue that an assemblage perspective can further understanding of how different participatory spaces and practices coexist, interact, and change, as assemblages of va…
Participatory democracy and participatory research
While normative theories of participatory democracy and practical experiences of participatory research share a common democratic commitment, the two fields have emerged and to date exist in isolation from each other. This article bridges this divide and asks what participatory democracy and participatory research can learn from one another. It argues that participatory democracy can learn how to realize its own democratic ideals within its resea…
It’s a Mindset Revolution! Co-creating inclusive spaces of participation on youth mental health
The Mindset Revolution project aimed to strengthen youth voice on mental health policy and practice. We worked with a diverse group of young people to co-create digital and in-person spaces of participatory democracy and action research. We combined play, art and creativity to challenge power dynamics and name structural racism, sexism, ageism, classism, and ableism as forces in institutional practice in the mental health system. Our approach ref…
Towards Democratisation of Public Administration: Public-Commons Partnerships in Barcelona
This paper looks at the relational dimension of public-commons partnerships, examining its role in shaping novel practices in public administration (PA). Focusing on the role of civic actors and public officials who support the emergence and development of public-commons partnerships, we aim to contribute to Bollier and Helfrich’s conceptualisation of public-commons partnerships as long-term agreements based on cooperation between state actors an…
Reclaiming Participatory Governance: Social Movements and the Reinvention of Democratic Innovation
Democratic innovations seeking to enable lay participation in politics tend to be designed by experts and policymakers. This chapter aims to show that this task can also be undertaken by a social movement and that this can yield results that are better suited to the unfolding of the democratic innovation. Contributing to the literature on social movements, democratic innovations and communalism, this chapter explores the process of grassroots ins…
Introduction: Embedding participatory governance
This symposium examines the challenges and opportunities of recent efforts at embedding participatory governance. It draws together original research that engages theoretically and empirically with some fundamental questions:•What are the challenges of embedding participatory governance in policy-making?•What happens when social movements have opportunities to shape the institutionalization of PG processes? Can they reanimate the radical potentia…
The Marginalized Democracies of the World
This introductory article to Democratic Theory' s special issue on the marginalized democracies of the world begins by presenting the lexical method for understanding democracy. It is argued that the lexical method is better than the normative and analytical methods at finding democracies in the world. The argument then turns to demonstrating, mainly through computational research conducted within the Google Books catalog, that an empirically dem…
Between governance‐driven democratisation and democracy‐driven governance: Explaining changes in participatory governance in the case of Barcelona
Scholars of participatory democracy have long noted dynamic interactions and transformations within and between political spaces that can foster (de)democratisation. At the heart of this dynamism lie (a) the processes through which top‐down “closed” spaces can create opportunities for rupture and democratic challenges and (b) vice‐versa, the mechanisms through which bottom‐up, open spaces can be co‐opted through institutionalisation. This paper s…
Engaging with care: Ethical issues in Participatory Research
This paper contributes to the literature on ethics in Participatory Research by looking at the Researcher-in-Residence model and its application within health services research in three East London boroughs. The Researcher-in-Residence is embedded in the organisation to enable knowledge mobilisation and knowledge coproduction. Whereas negotiation of different types of expertise to coproduce evidence might raise issues of power differentials, the …
(Dis)Integrated Care? Lessons from East London
The authors acknowledge several limitations of this study, including the focus on one geographical area, East London, and the timing of the evaluation, with several new interventions and programmes introduced more or less simultaneously. Some of the intermediate care services under evaluation were still at pilot stage and some teams were undergoing new reconfigurations, reflecting the fast-pace of change of the past decade. This created confusion…
Understanding integrated care at the frontline using organisational learning theory: A participatory evaluation of multi-professional teams in East London
Integrated care has been proposed as an organising principle to address the challenges of the rising demand for care services and limited resources. There is limited understanding of the role of learning in integrated care systems. Organisational Learning (OL) theory in the guise of 'Learning Practice' can offer a lens to study service integration and reflect on some of the challenges faced by multi-professional teams in developing a learning cul…
Facilitating coproduction: The role of leadership in coproduction initiatives in the UK
The concept of coproduction primarily refers to direct user involvement in the production of services. This paper identifies the main dimensions of this broad and at times fuzzy concept and focuses on types and styles of leadership that can emerge from, and sustain, effective coproduction practice. We do so by carrying out a narrative review of cases of coproduction in the UK, with a focus on the role of citizens, bureaucrats and, specifically, l…
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Councillor’s Dilemma between Strong Mayors and Citizens’ Needs
Councillors appear to suffer from a legitimacy crisis vis-à-vis a stronger and more professionalised executive on the one hand and the new challenges presented by participatory democracy on the other. Since the early 1990s several reforms in Europe have fostered strong local executives and introduced directly elected mayors, envisaging for laymen councillors a role of steering and scrutiny. This has often translated into a weakened role whereby c…
Facilitative Leadership and the Challenge of Renewing Local Democracy inItaly
Participatory arrangements have become a popular way of addressing modern challenges of urban governance but in practice face several constraints and can trigger deep tensions. Facilitative leadership can play a crucial role in enabling collaboration among local stakeholders despite plural and often conflictual interests. Surprisingly, this style of leadership has received limited attention within debates linking urban governance and participator…
Between governance‐driven democratisation and democracy‐driven governance: Explaining changes in participatory governance in the case of Barcelona
Scholars of participatory democracy have long noted dynamic interactions and transformations within and between political spaces that can foster (de)democratisation. At the heart of this dynamism lie (a) the processes through which top‐down “closed” spaces can create opportunities for rupture and democratic challenges and (b) vice‐versa, the mechanisms through which bottom‐up, open spaces can be co‐opted through institutionalisation. This paper s…
Introduction: Embedding participatory governance
This symposium examines the challenges and opportunities of recent efforts at embedding participatory governance. It draws together original research that engages theoretically and empirically with some fundamental questions:•What are the challenges of embedding participatory governance in policy-making?•What happens when social movements have opportunities to shape the institutionalization of PG processes? Can they reanimate the radical potentia…
Engaging with care: Ethical issues in Participatory Research
This paper contributes to the literature on ethics in Participatory Research by looking at the Researcher-in-Residence model and its application within health services research in three East London boroughs. The Researcher-in-Residence is embedded in the organisation to enable knowledge mobilisation and knowledge coproduction. Whereas negotiation of different types of expertise to coproduce evidence might raise issues of power differentials, the …
Facilitating coproduction: The role of leadership in coproduction initiatives in the UK
The concept of coproduction primarily refers to direct user involvement in the production of services. This paper identifies the main dimensions of this broad and at times fuzzy concept and focuses on types and styles of leadership that can emerge from, and sustain, effective coproduction practice. We do so by carrying out a narrative review of cases of coproduction in the UK, with a focus on the role of citizens, bureaucrats and, specifically, l…
Understanding integrated care at the frontline using organisational learning theory: A participatory evaluation of multi-professional teams in East London
Integrated care has been proposed as an organising principle to address the challenges of the rising demand for care services and limited resources. There is limited understanding of the role of learning in integrated care systems. Organisational Learning (OL) theory in the guise of 'Learning Practice' can offer a lens to study service integration and reflect on some of the challenges faced by multi-professional teams in developing a learning cul…
Towards Democratisation of Public Administration: Public-Commons Partnerships in Barcelona
This paper looks at the relational dimension of public-commons partnerships, examining its role in shaping novel practices in public administration (PA). Focusing on the role of civic actors and public officials who support the emergence and development of public-commons partnerships, we aim to contribute to Bollier and Helfrich’s conceptualisation of public-commons partnerships as long-term agreements based on cooperation between state actors an…
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Councillor’s Dilemma between Strong Mayors and Citizens’ Needs
Councillors appear to suffer from a legitimacy crisis vis-à-vis a stronger and more professionalised executive on the one hand and the new challenges presented by participatory democracy on the other. Since the early 1990s several reforms in Europe have fostered strong local executives and introduced directly elected mayors, envisaging for laymen councillors a role of steering and scrutiny. This has often translated into a weakened role whereby c…
Participation as assemblage: Looking at developments in democratic innovations through an assemblage perspective
This article introduces assemblage theory as a theoretical frame and analytical lens to study democratic innovations and capture the dynamism and complexity of democratic innovations. Assemblage theory places emphasis on non-linearity, contingency, situatedness and relationality. We argue that an assemblage perspective can further understanding of how different participatory spaces and practices coexist, interact, and change, as assemblages of va…
The Marginalized Democracies of the World
This introductory article to Democratic Theory' s special issue on the marginalized democracies of the world begins by presenting the lexical method for understanding democracy. It is argued that the lexical method is better than the normative and analytical methods at finding democracies in the world. The argument then turns to demonstrating, mainly through computational research conducted within the Google Books catalog, that an empirically dem…
Facilitative Leadership and the Challenge of Renewing Local Democracy inItaly
Participatory arrangements have become a popular way of addressing modern challenges of urban governance but in practice face several constraints and can trigger deep tensions. Facilitative leadership can play a crucial role in enabling collaboration among local stakeholders despite plural and often conflictual interests. Surprisingly, this style of leadership has received limited attention within debates linking urban governance and participator…
It’s a Mindset Revolution! Co-creating inclusive spaces of participation on youth mental health
The Mindset Revolution project aimed to strengthen youth voice on mental health policy and practice. We worked with a diverse group of young people to co-create digital and in-person spaces of participatory democracy and action research. We combined play, art and creativity to challenge power dynamics and name structural racism, sexism, ageism, classism, and ableism as forces in institutional practice in the mental health system. Our approach ref…
Participatory democracy and participatory research
While normative theories of participatory democracy and practical experiences of participatory research share a common democratic commitment, the two fields have emerged and to date exist in isolation from each other. This article bridges this divide and asks what participatory democracy and participatory research can learn from one another. It argues that participatory democracy can learn how to realize its own democratic ideals within its resea…
Democratic Assemblage: Power, Normativity, and Responsibility in More-than-Human Participation
Over the past two decades, the scholarly community interested in participatory and deliberative democracy has focused their attention on democratic innovations. Designs such as participatory budgets and citizens assemblies have been conceptualised as the actualisation of democratic ideals in a micro setting, in relative isolation from each other and the wider society (Bussu et al. 2022). In recent years the attention of democracy scholarship turn…
Make (digital) space for and with the young: Arts-inspired co-design of civic tech for youth mental health policies
Public engagement, digital or in-person, is mostly adult-centric and ableist, often universalising the experience of participation of a narrow demographic (white, older and middle class). In Mindset Revolution we combined arts-based and creative methods with civic tech to co-design participatory spaces with a diverse group of young people, where to discuss and influence mental health policy and practice. The paper examines the digital element of …
Facilitative Leadership and the Challenge of Renewing Local Democracy inItaly
Participatory arrangements have become a popular way of addressing modern challenges of urban governance but in practice face several constraints and can trigger deep tensions. Facilitative leadership can play a crucial role in enabling collaboration among local stakeholders despite plural and often conflictual interests. Surprisingly, this style of leadership has received limited attention within debates linking urban governance and participator…
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Councillor’s Dilemma between Strong Mayors and Citizens’ Needs
Councillors appear to suffer from a legitimacy crisis vis-à-vis a stronger and more professionalised executive on the one hand and the new challenges presented by participatory democracy on the other. Since the early 1990s several reforms in Europe have fostered strong local executives and introduced directly elected mayors, envisaging for laymen councillors a role of steering and scrutiny. This has often translated into a weakened role whereby c…
Facilitating coproduction: The role of leadership in coproduction initiatives in the UK
The concept of coproduction primarily refers to direct user involvement in the production of services. This paper identifies the main dimensions of this broad and at times fuzzy concept and focuses on types and styles of leadership that can emerge from, and sustain, effective coproduction practice. We do so by carrying out a narrative review of cases of coproduction in the UK, with a focus on the role of citizens, bureaucrats and, specifically, l…
(Dis)Integrated Care? Lessons from East London
The authors acknowledge several limitations of this study, including the focus on one geographical area, East London, and the timing of the evaluation, with several new interventions and programmes introduced more or less simultaneously. Some of the intermediate care services under evaluation were still at pilot stage and some teams were undergoing new reconfigurations, reflecting the fast-pace of change of the past decade. This created confusion…
Understanding integrated care at the frontline using organisational learning theory: A participatory evaluation of multi-professional teams in East London
Integrated care has been proposed as an organising principle to address the challenges of the rising demand for care services and limited resources. There is limited understanding of the role of learning in integrated care systems. Organisational Learning (OL) theory in the guise of 'Learning Practice' can offer a lens to study service integration and reflect on some of the challenges faced by multi-professional teams in developing a learning cul…
The Marginalized Democracies of the World
This introductory article to Democratic Theory' s special issue on the marginalized democracies of the world begins by presenting the lexical method for understanding democracy. It is argued that the lexical method is better than the normative and analytical methods at finding democracies in the world. The argument then turns to demonstrating, mainly through computational research conducted within the Google Books catalog, that an empirically dem…
Between governance‐driven democratisation and democracy‐driven governance: Explaining changes in participatory governance in the case of Barcelona
Scholars of participatory democracy have long noted dynamic interactions and transformations within and between political spaces that can foster (de)democratisation. At the heart of this dynamism lie (a) the processes through which top‐down “closed” spaces can create opportunities for rupture and democratic challenges and (b) vice‐versa, the mechanisms through which bottom‐up, open spaces can be co‐opted through institutionalisation. This paper s…
Engaging with care: Ethical issues in Participatory Research
This paper contributes to the literature on ethics in Participatory Research by looking at the Researcher-in-Residence model and its application within health services research in three East London boroughs. The Researcher-in-Residence is embedded in the organisation to enable knowledge mobilisation and knowledge coproduction. Whereas negotiation of different types of expertise to coproduce evidence might raise issues of power differentials, the …
Introduction: Embedding participatory governance
This symposium examines the challenges and opportunities of recent efforts at embedding participatory governance. It draws together original research that engages theoretically and empirically with some fundamental questions:•What are the challenges of embedding participatory governance in policy-making?•What happens when social movements have opportunities to shape the institutionalization of PG processes? Can they reanimate the radical potentia…
Reclaiming Participatory Governance: Social Movements and the Reinvention of Democratic Innovation
Democratic innovations seeking to enable lay participation in politics tend to be designed by experts and policymakers. This chapter aims to show that this task can also be undertaken by a social movement and that this can yield results that are better suited to the unfolding of the democratic innovation. Contributing to the literature on social movements, democratic innovations and communalism, this chapter explores the process of grassroots ins…
Towards Democratisation of Public Administration: Public-Commons Partnerships in Barcelona
This paper looks at the relational dimension of public-commons partnerships, examining its role in shaping novel practices in public administration (PA). Focusing on the role of civic actors and public officials who support the emergence and development of public-commons partnerships, we aim to contribute to Bollier and Helfrich’s conceptualisation of public-commons partnerships as long-term agreements based on cooperation between state actors an…
Democratic Assemblage: Power, Normativity, and Responsibility in More-than-Human Participation
Over the past two decades, the scholarly community interested in participatory and deliberative democracy has focused their attention on democratic innovations. Designs such as participatory budgets and citizens assemblies have been conceptualised as the actualisation of democratic ideals in a micro setting, in relative isolation from each other and the wider society (Bussu et al. 2022). In recent years the attention of democracy scholarship turn…
Make (digital) space for and with the young: Arts-inspired co-design of civic tech for youth mental health policies
Public engagement, digital or in-person, is mostly adult-centric and ableist, often universalising the experience of participation of a narrow demographic (white, older and middle class). In Mindset Revolution we combined arts-based and creative methods with civic tech to co-design participatory spaces with a diverse group of young people, where to discuss and influence mental health policy and practice. The paper examines the digital element of …
Participation as assemblage: Looking at developments in democratic innovations through an assemblage perspective
This article introduces assemblage theory as a theoretical frame and analytical lens to study democratic innovations and capture the dynamism and complexity of democratic innovations. Assemblage theory places emphasis on non-linearity, contingency, situatedness and relationality. We argue that an assemblage perspective can further understanding of how different participatory spaces and practices coexist, interact, and change, as assemblages of va…
Participatory democracy and participatory research
While normative theories of participatory democracy and practical experiences of participatory research share a common democratic commitment, the two fields have emerged and to date exist in isolation from each other. This article bridges this divide and asks what participatory democracy and participatory research can learn from one another. It argues that participatory democracy can learn how to realize its own democratic ideals within its resea…
It’s a Mindset Revolution! Co-creating inclusive spaces of participation on youth mental health
The Mindset Revolution project aimed to strengthen youth voice on mental health policy and practice. We worked with a diverse group of young people to co-create digital and in-person spaces of participatory democracy and action research. We combined play, art and creativity to challenge power dynamics and name structural racism, sexism, ageism, classism, and ableism as forces in institutional practice in the mental health system. Our approach ref…
Political science (16 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Citizen journalism (8 works) · Democracy (8 works) · Public relations (8 works) · Economics (6 works) · Public Administration (6 works)