Communitarian empowerment is about enabling diverse communities to cultivate mutual respect and cooperate at all levels to advance their wellbeing. Some people feel that it is an idealistic aspiration that can have little impact in practice. I would suggest that practical impact is precisely what can be achieved – on a substantial scale.
Let’s take a look at the civil renewal strategy implemented by the UK Labour Government in the 2000s, and the wide-ranging benefits it brought about. The strategy had three core components. First, it promoted wider deployment of good practices in improving state-citizens relationship. This involved setting up the network of Civic Pioneers, investing in the Community Development Foundation, and convening the Councillors Commission, to ensure practical advice and key research findings are widely available, which helped to increase the use of the most effective techniques for community participation, and give citizens more informed control over the decisions that affected them.
Secondly, the strategy channelled support to targeted groups to develop collaborative arrangements on the ground. Actions covered providing help for local authorities and community groups to learn more about using techniques such as participatory budgeting to enable citizens to deliberate together in setting priorities for the use of public funds; setting up Guide Neighbourhoods whereby residents from different parts of the country could learn from neighbourhood groups with a good track record in shaping and improving the public services in their respective localities; creating the Asset Transfer Unit to help communities take over public buildings when they could add greater value in meeting local needs; and advancing Take Part projects which led to diverse citizens and groups bringing their influence to bear on civic matters.
Finally, the strategy ensured there was sustained momentum to learn about and apply empowerment approaches in the development of government policies across the board. Young people were proactively sought to become involved in shaping integrated children services, employment training, and social inclusion initiatives. Older people and people with disabilities were invited to serve as advisors on government policy development groups, so that they could highlight problems that might otherwise be overlooked, and share ideas on workable solutions. The Communities for Health programme was launched to enable local people to set health promotion priorities. Local authorities were given incentives to engage people more widely and effectively in neighbourhood and parish plans, spatial planning framework, and Home Zones (for residential street design). Support was given to engaging local people in ‘myth busting’ campaigns to tackle racism and misinformation. Furthermore, neighbourhood policing was rolled out with a strong focus on seeking community views; while Community Justice Centres were set up with locally based judges who regularly met with the people in the area to discuss their concerns and what might be done differently.
The net impact of the strategy transformed numerous communities, many in the most deprived areas, and raised trust in public services and satisfaction with the local quality of life. After a decade, greater participation went hand in hand with increased confidence in communities’ ability to work with government partners to improve people’s lives. More would have been achieved, but a change of government in 2010 put an end to the civil renewal activities, and sadly, disappointment and alienation began to surface again. Yet we know that if and when the political will is there again, communities can be empowered to thrive once more.
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NB. This essay is based on my experience as the Head of Civil Renewal in the UK Government during the 2000s.
Thursday, 16 April 2020
Wednesday, 1 April 2020
3 Steps to Democratic Consensus
If collective action is to reflect the concerns and informed judgement of all those who will be affected by that action, then it has to be grounded on a high degree of democratic consensus. But how feasible is it to obtain democratic consensus when people’s views seem to be becoming more polarised in society?
What needs to be recognised is that polarisation is not inevitable. And agreement cannot be guaranteed either. Any group seeking to reach a common understanding on what they should do, require a systematic approach, which is encapsulated by the following T.O.P. tips:
Togetherness
Objectivity
Power Balance
TOGETHERNESS
Democracy cannot function with one voice dictating to everyone else or each insisting on doing what one wants regardless of the impact on others. The only way for people to feel that they ought to take each other’s concerns and perspectives on board is by cultivating a meaningful sense of togetherness, whereby interdependence is recognised as a fact and appreciated as an asset. In practice, this calls for:
• Promoting a shared mission, so people can see and remember what are the essential objectives they have in common, and why they need each other in meeting them.
• Declaring a commitment to mutual respect, so that rules and procedures are visibly in place to root out discrimination, and no one’s needs will be brushed aside.
• Formulating the terms of coherent membership, so everyone knows the basis of how people become members, what responsibilities and rights are to be expected, and when membership might be refused or suspended in light of specified criteria.
OBJECTIVITY
Lies and innuendos from social media deception as well as mass propaganda have made it extremely difficult to conduct informed discussions about what any group, from a neighbourhood to a country, should do. But remedial actions can be carried out to ensure that distortion is substantially curtailed, and people’s capability to assess the veracity of claims is greatly enhanced. These actions should cover:
• Extending opportunities to learn through cooperative enquiry, so that people are familiarised and skilled in reasoned discourse that progresses by means of exchange of objective evidence and cogent analysis.
• Building in systems for critical review of claims and arrangements, so that both dogmatic assent and arbitrary doubt are displaced by beliefs linked to rigorous scrutiny and appropriate re-evaluation.
• Enforcing rules for responsible communication, so that the spreading of lies and misleading information is prohibited under clear definition and curtailed by adequate sanctions.
POWER BALANCE
There can be no genuine consensus if some are so powerful that they can force or bribe others into backing their demands, or if many are left weak and vulnerable that they cannot speak up for themselves. Power inequalities must be reduced to a level where people are confident and able to exchange ideas and question one another’s assumptions without fear or hesitation. The key elements to be put in place include:
• Facilitating participatory decision-making, so that as much as possible those affected by a potential course of action get the chance to take part in deliberating what form that action is to take.
• Maximising civic parity, so that by means of reduction of income/wealth gaps and strict limitations on corrupt or intimidatory practices, people can influence collective processes on equal terms.
• Strengthening public accountability, so that where power needs to be vested in certain individuals for efficiency or emergency reasons, they can be held to account effectively by others.
In conclusion, while we must never be complacent about how securing the conditions to facilitate democratic action, we should not slide into the opposite extreme of assuming that it reasoned consensus is an impossible goal to reach. Many groups, from the local to the international level, have found that taking the key steps outlined above can be transformative in enabling people to reach a shared position on what should be done for their common wellbeing.
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For a detailed exposition of how democracy should be developed and safeguarded, see Time to Save Democracy: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/time-to-save-democracy
What needs to be recognised is that polarisation is not inevitable. And agreement cannot be guaranteed either. Any group seeking to reach a common understanding on what they should do, require a systematic approach, which is encapsulated by the following T.O.P. tips:
Togetherness
Objectivity
Power Balance
TOGETHERNESS
Democracy cannot function with one voice dictating to everyone else or each insisting on doing what one wants regardless of the impact on others. The only way for people to feel that they ought to take each other’s concerns and perspectives on board is by cultivating a meaningful sense of togetherness, whereby interdependence is recognised as a fact and appreciated as an asset. In practice, this calls for:
• Promoting a shared mission, so people can see and remember what are the essential objectives they have in common, and why they need each other in meeting them.
• Declaring a commitment to mutual respect, so that rules and procedures are visibly in place to root out discrimination, and no one’s needs will be brushed aside.
• Formulating the terms of coherent membership, so everyone knows the basis of how people become members, what responsibilities and rights are to be expected, and when membership might be refused or suspended in light of specified criteria.
OBJECTIVITY
Lies and innuendos from social media deception as well as mass propaganda have made it extremely difficult to conduct informed discussions about what any group, from a neighbourhood to a country, should do. But remedial actions can be carried out to ensure that distortion is substantially curtailed, and people’s capability to assess the veracity of claims is greatly enhanced. These actions should cover:
• Extending opportunities to learn through cooperative enquiry, so that people are familiarised and skilled in reasoned discourse that progresses by means of exchange of objective evidence and cogent analysis.
• Building in systems for critical review of claims and arrangements, so that both dogmatic assent and arbitrary doubt are displaced by beliefs linked to rigorous scrutiny and appropriate re-evaluation.
• Enforcing rules for responsible communication, so that the spreading of lies and misleading information is prohibited under clear definition and curtailed by adequate sanctions.
POWER BALANCE
There can be no genuine consensus if some are so powerful that they can force or bribe others into backing their demands, or if many are left weak and vulnerable that they cannot speak up for themselves. Power inequalities must be reduced to a level where people are confident and able to exchange ideas and question one another’s assumptions without fear or hesitation. The key elements to be put in place include:
• Facilitating participatory decision-making, so that as much as possible those affected by a potential course of action get the chance to take part in deliberating what form that action is to take.
• Maximising civic parity, so that by means of reduction of income/wealth gaps and strict limitations on corrupt or intimidatory practices, people can influence collective processes on equal terms.
• Strengthening public accountability, so that where power needs to be vested in certain individuals for efficiency or emergency reasons, they can be held to account effectively by others.
In conclusion, while we must never be complacent about how securing the conditions to facilitate democratic action, we should not slide into the opposite extreme of assuming that it reasoned consensus is an impossible goal to reach. Many groups, from the local to the international level, have found that taking the key steps outlined above can be transformative in enabling people to reach a shared position on what should be done for their common wellbeing.
--
For a detailed exposition of how democracy should be developed and safeguarded, see Time to Save Democracy: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/time-to-save-democracy
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