LOCAL COUNCILS FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS IN GREATER BUENOS AIRES: A THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL PROPOSAL FOR ANALYSIS

Abstract

This article examines the deployment of Local Councils for Children and Adolescents (CLNyA) in Greater Buenos Aires (2019-2020) to characterize their diverse governance models. While the concept of governance adequately defines multi-actor approaches to governing, it still lacks a framework of operational criteria for conducting large-scale studies. In contrast to the predominantly single-case-case academic literature on this topic, this work adopts a qualitative methodological strategy centered on multiple case studies. To this end, a multidimensional typology is developed to classify the councils based on their governance processes and their levels of productivity within the public policy cycle. The empirical findings reveal that the functioning of the CLNyA in Greater Buenos Aires is far from homogeneous; on the contrary, a heterogeneous and asymmetrical regional landscape emerges, where only a limited number of districts achieve highly complex governance, emphasizing its process-oriented nature. The study concludes that this operationalization matrix not only offers a more accurate and less abstract approach to the local governance of childhood and adolescence policies, but also demonstrates its heuristic utility for being transferred to other sectoral cuts of public policy.