Self- Produced Territorial Democracy. Experiences in Rome, Italy

This chapter examines how the decline of formal participatory democracy in Italian cities, driven by welfare-state retreat and neoliberal governance, has fostered grassroots self-organization as an alternative political space, focusing on Rome. It shows that collaborative governance tools between institutions and civil society often mask an inability—rather than willingness—of administrations to share real power, producing delegated rather than democratized governance. The chapter introduces "self-produced territorial democracy" through the case of a self-organized network in a peripheral public-housing neighborhood, Quarticciolo, which combines conflict and collaboration: reclaiming abandoned buildings, building educational pacts with schools, and co-creating a regeneration plan with a university lab. Unlike standard co-creation models, this experience achieves genuine inclusiveness precisely through its antagonistic political stance, empowering marginalized residents rather than merely serving them. The neighborhood scale proves crucial, enabling visible short-term results alongside long-term collective vision. The chapter situates territorial democracy within a threefold framework—alongside institutional and party-based democracy—as a fragile but vital path toward re-politicizing urban life.