“They [the Alliance] emphasize the importance of community members mobilizing and taking direct control of their own neighborhoods (e.g., through food cooperatives or community gardens), but they also work for more inclusion in the state apparatus, through policy initiatives (e.g., participatory budgeting) and voter registration efforts.” (144).

Mark Purcell explains how some groups, like the Alliance, push for more community participation in every aspect of their environment. Anything that effects the community as a group of people or the environment itself should be determined by the people who live there. Some key terms in the passage are community and initiatives because the article argues that communities need to be more involved and take the initiative to be more independent from the government.