The case for collaboration: A road-map based on the carmelite project in Israel and some lessons for revitalizing democracies

The paper elaborates on the importance of collaboration in public administration and on its meaningful theoretical and practical advantages for modern societies. Our goal is to present a program on how collaboration can be implemented in local governance and integrated with the idea of urban democracy. It is argued that collaboration can and should be fostered as the new managerial and social paradigm in the years to come which may prove useful to the problematic Middle-East region. The paper focuses on the local government level and provides a useful map for increasing citizenship involvement in public projects. Based on a unique experience of citizenry involvement in one ambitious Israeli project we attempts to develop a broader theoretical framework on the idea of urban democracy and collaboration with public administration. We argue that such collaboration is possible and essential, and that it may revitalize urban democracy and trust among parties of modern society. Moreover, in the context of the Middle-East and following the end of the war in Iraq we further suggest that collaboration may have an even greater potential for rebuilding citizens' trust in governance and initiating mutual cooperation that crosses feasible and cultural borders. Finally, the paper summarizes lessons and implications of the specific project in the context of the more general framework and tries to provide a look into the future of collaboration and at the vision of better managing local-level and national-level partnerships in modern as well as developing democracies.