Civic engagement and new forms of democracy in local politics

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Civic engagement and new forms of democracy in
local politics

• Gerry Stoker
• University of Southampton
• ESRC professorial fellow
• www.soton.ac.uk/ccd

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Themes

•  Is our changing approach to politics a threat
  to democracy?
• Why will the democracy of the 21st century be
  different?
• Are new forms of activism a threat or a boon?
• Is it possible to develop new forms of civic
  engagement in government without weakening the
  traditional institutions of representative
  democracy and accountability?
• What is the specific role of local governments in
  reviving political institutions?

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Democracy a popular idea

• Paradox democratic governance the universal
  model
• Basic definition universal suffrage, competitive
  elections, political rights
• Those that are affected by decision have a right
  to a say in that decision
• Last quarter of 20th century saw a great wave for
  democracy now two thirds of all countries meet
  basic criteria
• More than that it is a universal idea
  intrinsic, instrumental, constructive values

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Mass Democracies evidence of a problem?

• Russell Dalton in Democratic Challenges,
  Democratic Choices(2004) argues citizens have
  grown distrustful of politicians, sceptical about
  democratic institutions, and disillusioned about
  how the democratic process functions
• Evidence of disengagement can be found in
  turnout, the collapse of party membership,
  opinion surveys and focus groups
• Citizens engage( and sometimes in new ways) but
  in sporadic and thin ways
• Scale of disgruntlement is undermining not so
  much critical as alienated citizens

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Why these tensions?

• Answer lies deeper in the nature of politics as
  bastion of collective decision-making in highly
  individualized societies, that is why people
  misunderstand it and what it can achieve
• Made worse by changing patterns of social
  capital, professionalization of politics, impact
  of globalization and technological challenges and
  media inanityall of which have added to the
  sense of alienation felt by citizens

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Politics misunderstood in more intensely
individualized culture

• Politics is centralized form of decision-making
  and quite careless of your interests and concerns
  as an individual
• Politics requires sustained dialogue, it is prone
  to failure
• Politics involves muddling through on both policy
  making and implementation
• Doing politics is bound to create some
  frustration

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Changing pattern of social capital

• Decline in trust, norms and networks?
• Complex because it depends a lot of the way it is
  measured
• Decline is not what I think is occurring
• Rather social capital is changing its pattern and
  form of creation

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Citizens left on the sidelines by the
professionalization of politics

• Politics in all its forms has become
  professionalized and specialized
• The rise of party cartels
• The emergence of check-book interest groups
• The professionalization of event and protest
  politics

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Globalization and technological challenges add to
the difficulties facing politics

• Globalization challenges the nation state base of
  democratic politics
• Encouraged internationalization of
  decision-making but in opaque and unaccountable
  forms
• Technological developments in science and the
  complexity of challenges has moved debates on to
  remote and expert terrains removed from ordinary
  citizens

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Media deference has given way to a culture of
inanity and disparagement?

• Dumbing down? Mainstream v Variety
• Fusing of news reporting and comment
• Adversarial style?
• Maybe in some countries evidence of a culture of
  contempt
• Certainly a culture of deference has given way in
  most democracies to a more challenging
  environment for democracies

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Why politics will need to be different in the
21st century

• Overcoming cynicism and populism
• Bringing politics to people and bringing people
  to politics politics for amateurs
• Reviving political processes and institutions a
  new representative politics and new opportunities
  for participation
• Reviving political institutions creating an
  effective politics at many spatial scales

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A politics for amateurs-to challenge
individualization and professionalization

• Why citizens should engage( and the political
  system should be designed to enable them to do
  so)
• But too much emphasis on the good citizen and
  deliberation
• A realistic strategy built on range, quality and
  equity concerns
• A politics for amateurs designed to make it
  easier to engage about the issues you care about
  

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The negatives of new forms of engagement

• A thin and unevenly spread activism can be
  observed. People make an input identifying what
  they want but they do not engage in a wider
  analysis of the issues.
• The growth of boycotting, complaints and other
  forms of activism appear to have a consumer
  feel to them.
• In other cases activism is in danger of becoming
  more a lifestyle statement rather than a serious
  engagement. Campaigns and protests are engaged in
  as part of a portfolio of work and leisure
  activities that express your ethical identity but
  not a grappling with the underlying complex
  issues.
• To put the issue starkly activism too often
  seems to amount to little more than a
  sophisticated form of consumerism for the
  well-resourced that enables them to get better
  access to public resources and decisions and
  gives relatively cost-free expression to their
  identity and favoured causes.

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The positives of new forms of engagement

• The Make Poverty History (MPH) protest in the
  summer of 2005 connected campaigning with formal
  representative politics in a powerful way and did
  so in way that reached out to millions of people
  who were relatively novices in the political
  process over an issue of high moral import.
• Hope sells rather than guilt. MPH convinced
  people that they could do something to make to
  difference to improve the lot the worlds poor.
• Built very deliberately from the bottom-up and
  then tried to link visionary leadership to that
  base but the base was around the local
  school-gate, bus stops, places of work rather
  than the elite institutions of politics.
• Its message was one of rehabilitation and
  renewal as converts to the cause were welcomed
  from all quarters and not derided for making a
  U-turn or because they were latecomers.

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Can engagement be mixed with representation?

• Depends on how you understand representation
• Making representation a dialogue a verb not a
  noun
• Representation is a subtle process that helps us
  to define and redefine our multiple identities
  and interests
• Representation and engagement need to embrace
  each other more effectively

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The specific role of local government

• The key institution for engaging citizens
• The significance of the local in coping with the
  global
• An arena for learning and experimentation
• It should be at the heart of attempts to create a
  better politics for the 21 century

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Reforming representative politics at the local
level

• Socially representative ethically sustained and
  competitive
• Communication and exchange
• Term limitations and turn-over keeping the sense
  of being an amateur
• Linking the local to the wider world
• The importance of facilitative leadership

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The Roberts Commission on local councillors (UK,
2007)

• Key principles are
• Local authorities are key to promoting local
  democratic engagement
• Promoting a sense of efficacy the feeling that
  an individual is able to influence the democratic
  process and the course of events - is key for
  better engagement.
• Councillors are most effective as locally elected
  representatives when they have similar life
  experiences to those of their constituents
• Key to effective local representation is the
  relationship and the connections between
  councillors and their constituents
• It should be less daunting to become a
  councillor, better supported once elected as a
  councillor, and less daunting to stop being a
  councillor.

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What about engagement?

• It is important to audit what is available and
  what is done
• The responsibility of public authorities to
  respond to citizens initiatives but also to be
  aware of gaps and omissions
• Consider issues of equity, variety and impact of
  engagement

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CLEAR an audit framework
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New forms of engagement
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A better civic culture?

• A context of volunteerism and civicness
• Citizen education? Beyond schools
• A civic media
• A role for universities?
• We need to make more citizens believe that the
  ideals of democracy can be achieved in practice

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Will reforms work?

• Deep-set challenges to the culture, assumptions
  and mindsets of our societies
• Could we just do without politics?
• We need a better understanding of politics and a
  more realistic perspective on what it can do
• We need to steer a course between the rampant
  individualism of neo-liberalism and fatalism
  about the prospects for collective action
• Politics in democracies is about constructing
  ways in which we can live together in an
  interconnected world it matters