Venezuelan Communal Councils - Comparisons To Other Examples of Community Governance

Comparisons To Other Examples of Community Governance

Communal councils are probably most similar to the practice of a tribal or community meeting within very small rural communities. In such meetings the assembly may be the highest decision making body with a potentially large scope of decision-making activities as needed within their jurisdiction. But this model is exclusive to tiny communities that are too remote and unique to be effectively governed by distant municipal governments. Communal councils on the other hand exist along the full spectrum of population density from apartment complexes in the large city of Caracas to tiny remote indigenous communities.

The Town meeting model is similar in that it invites the members of the community to discuss and potentially vote on important budgets, polices or plans for the community. A key difference is that Town meetings are normally only held on a yearly basis and serve as rare and limited citizen input into what is otherwise a representative government system. Comparatively communal councils may hold citizens' assemblies as frequently as needed and are relatively independent of the municipal representative system.

Other examples of locally elected councils such as community councils, civil parish, civil township, town council, and city councils are models where the decision-making power is formally delegated to the elected officials and thus not comparable to the participatory nature of the communal councils which have citizens' assemblies as the highest formal decision-making authority.