BINGHAMTON, NY – Binghamton University will host a presentation titled "Participatory Democracy in Venezuela: Conceptual Origins and Recent Experience" from 4:30-6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 2, in room 220 at the University Downtown Center, 67 Washington St., Binghamton. This presentation is free and open to the public.

Venezuelan scholar Josefina Bruni-Celli, professor and coordinator at the Center for Public Policy and coordinator of the Master of Public Management at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA) in Caracas, Venezuela, will offer a historical look into the origins of the idea of participatory democracy in Venezuela and present the results of a meta-analysis of scholarly empirical work, written since 2005, examining Venezuela's real-life experiment with participatory democracy. A question-and-answer session will follow.

Bruni-Celli is also the founder and director of the program in Leadership and Public Management at IESA, a member of the Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (SEKN) and on the executive board of the Inter-American Network for Public Administration Education (INPAE). She earned a PhD in public administration from the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University in 2001, and has extensive experience as a consultant for public, private and multinational organizations, including the Venezuelan Ministry of Education, the Development Bank of Latin America, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program and the Inter-American Development Bank. Her published book chapters and articles appear in both English and Spanish.

The idea of participatory democracy has deep roots in Venezuelan political thought, but it is only since 1999, during the Chavez administration, that massive attempts have been made at substituting liberal democracy with participatory democracy. Community councils, technical tables and participatory budgeting are some of the main mechanisms through which the Chavez administration has sought to put participatory democracy into practice.

This event is organized and presented by the Binghamton University Department of Public Administration with funds from a Lois B. DeFleur International Innovations grant. It is co-sponsored and supported by the College of Community and Public Affairs Office of Student Services and International Programs, Latin American Caribbean Area Studies (LACAS) Program, Department of Political Science, Office of International Programs and Global Studies Minor.

For more information, contact Nadia Rubaii at nadia.rubaii@binghamton.edu or 607-777-9172.