The Valuation of Social Participation and its Relation to Socio-Economic and Residential Strata in the Capital Zone of the State of Zulia, Venezuela

This paper aims to establish a link between participation assessment from the viewpoint of the subject, and the variables of socioeconomic strata and residence in the Zulian capital, as an operationalization of the aspects of "capacities" and "opportunities conditioned by urban development," respectively, aspects developed in the theory of human and endogenous development. As a framework for analysis, a general characterization of the sociopolitical dimension of Venezuela is established, emphasizing cientelism as a constant that produces vertical instigated participation (Meister) instead of self-reliant participation (Max-Neef). The assessment was developed through consultation of 10 Lickert- type items and the respective categorization of the participation assessments into positive (autonomy and self-reliance), negative (dependence on State power) and neutral categories. The main results of the investigation are: 1) participation assessment varies according to socioeconomic strata; 2) participation assessment varies in lower -income strata according to whether people reside in the capital area or not; 3) the intensity of positive and negative participation assessments by these lower -income strata is high; 4) there is a tendency towards positive participation assessment by stratum A; 5) there is a uniformity of neutral positions in the middle class strata, as well as among those who do not reside in the state capital. The study proves that in the State of Zulia, a participation assessment exists based on "dependence on State power" that coexists with another positive (endogenous) assessment of participation oriented towards development.