Research report: Conceptual differences between public consultations and constituency relations

Research report: Conceptual differences between public consultations and constituency relations

April 5, 2012

Since 2008, the UNDP Project “Strengthening Capacities of Representative Bodies in Vietnam” has supported People’s Councils from various provinces and cities to pilot public consultations (PCs). Support for enhancing constituency relations (CRs) was then started in 2009. Some provinces and cities were supported to implement both these two practices. During the implementation, there were certain confusions regarding purposes, objectives and target groups of these two practices. This paper explores the conceptual differences between constituency relations and public consultations and their applicability in the Vietnamese context. Both play a key role in channeling the aspirations of individual citizens into the governmental process, and so are key components of the system of representation and thereby of legitimising representative institutions. This paper also examines how the application of certain tools (often the same) can contribute to both in different ways in order to clarify the nature of CR and PC tools.

Regions and Countries