To discuss the purpose and language of public participation
To examine public participation and state power
To discuss international trends and debates in public participation
A story of decline or a story of progres
...
To discuss the purpose and language of public participation
To examine public participation and state power
To discuss international trends and debates in public participation
A story of decline or a story of progress?
Why public participation? Addressing complex problems drawing on untapped knowledge, experience and perspectives
Making better policies and ensuring effective implementation
Improving public service design and delivery
Building legitimacy and trust in public institutions
Developing citizens’ skills, confidence and ambition
Enabling more active citizens and communities
The language of participation community engagement
civic participation
public involvement
community representation
community dialogue
deliberative democracy
collaborative decision making
citizen participation
community empowerment
citizen power
A polysemous concept “The polysemy of participation is no doubt what makes it so beguiling – it enables people with quite different worldviews to coalesce around a common project” (Dean 2016: 2)
Typologies of participation take 2 approaches:
Categorise along a continuum of
most - > least legitimate
Categorise the institutional design features
Arnstein’s ladder Arnstein - A civil rights activist and academic working in 1960s North America
Argued that not all forms of participation were equally valid.
Social justice agenda. Disadvantaged groups – public participation is about changing the balance of power between the ‘haves and the have nots’ – Insurgency against government power
What is participation? Arnstein’s ladder Rung 1 – otherwise known as ‘democracy washing’
Rung 2 - a means by which citizens internalise ‘behaviours appropriate for effective governance’
What is participation? An example from Scotland Community-based housing associations
emerged in 1970s to contest comprehensive redevelopment
governed by a Management Committee of local residents
Committee and staff plan developments and manage the area
formerly fully funded by govt, now mixt of grants and commercial loans
Citizen control
Delegated power
Partnership
Placation
Consultation
Informing
Therapy
Manipulation
Community-based housing associations and Arnstein’s ladder
Typologies of participation – two approaches :
Continuum models
Institutional design models
“Participation – like justice, freedom or fairness …can be constructed in multiple ways, and each construction should be understood with reference to the normative constructions of societal organisation it encompasses”
Participation is proscribed or negotiated – how much scope is there to determine the conditions of participation?
Is participation agnostic and conflictual, or based on solidarity and cooperation?
Arbitration and oversight
Hobbes – “men make war upon each other over their particular interests”
The rise of public participation in the UK Public participation and localism One of the first priorities of the Coalition govt. Announced in the 1st Queens speech in May 2010. Aims to 'empower communities to do things their way'
The Community Empowerment Act 2015 strengthens the role the purpose of community planning in terms of shared leadership and community participation. International trends in participation Debunking the myth of apathy Growing participation and growing inequalities Arnstein, Sherry R. "A Ladder of Citizen Participation," JAIP, Vol. 35, No. 4, July 1969, pp. 216-224.
Bragg, S. (2007). "“Student Voice” and Governmentality: The production of enterprising subjects?" Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 28(3): 343-358.
Dean, M (2010) Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society 2nd edition London: Sage p.18
Dean, J.R. (2016) Beyond radicalism and resignation: the competing logics for public participation in policy decisions, Policy & Politics
Ryfe, D. M., & Stalsburg, B. (2012). The participation and recruitment challenge. Democracy in motion: Evaluating the practice and impact of deliberative civic engagement, 43-58.
Walker, E. T., McQuarrie, M., & Lee, C. W. (2015). Rising participation and declining democracy. Democratizing Inequalities: Dilemmas of the New Public Participation, 1.
SELECTED FURTHER READING
Chanan, G. and C. Miller (2011). The Big Society and Public Services: complementarity or erosion?, Paces Publications.
Castells, M. (2012) Networks of outrage and hope: Social movements in the internet age, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Davies, J. S. (2012). Active citizenship: navigating the Conservative heartlands of the New Labour project." Policy & Politics 40, 1, 3-19.
Davies, J. S. and M. Pill (2012). Empowerment or abandonment? Prospects for neighbourhood revitalization under the big society. Public Money & Management 32, 3, 193-200.
Dalton, R. (2004) Democratic Choices, Democratic Challenges : The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kisby, B. (2010). The Big Society: Power to the People? Political Quarterly 81(4): 484-491
Lowndes, V. and L. Pratchett (2012). Local Governance under the Coalition Government: Austerity, Localism and the "Big Society". Local Government Studies 38(1): 21-40.
Norris, P. (2002) Democratic phoenix: Reinventing political activism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, R. D. (2000) Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community, New
York ; London: Simon & Schuster.
Imrie, R. a. R., Mike, Ed. (2003). Urban Renaissance? New Labour, community and urban policy. Bristol, The Policy Press.
Sullivan, H. (2012). DEBATE: A Big Society needs an active state. Policy & Politics 40, 1, 141-144
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