Young People and Everyday Democracy

This chapter poses the question of how young people can be engaged politically both during and between elections. It begins with a discussion of the role of contact and interactions between citizens and policymakers in contemporary democracies, which spring from civic republican conceptions of good and active citizens. It asserts that the civic republican models of citizen-to-state relations are unlikely to work without the intensification of policy engagement at a local level. While small-scale, everyday democracy is a promising pathway to political engagement, contact with politicians and public officials has been overwhelmingly the preserve of those who are predominantly middle-aged, college-educated and financially well-off. To raise the involvement of young people, any localized approach to youth engagement must be scaffolded by political and social institutions: primarily, local government, schools and universities. The chapter goes on to consider the performance of a number of local and national initiatives to engage younger citizens in the policy process and reflect upon the lessons from these experiences.

The Potential of Community Development

Community development offers a distinct approach to respond to the problem of diminishing free spaces where citizens can exchange views and learn about democracy and citizenship. It involves citizens as co-creators of the common world rather than as consumers. It has been supported by governments in different countries as a way of defusing tensions within communities, addressing the crisis of political legitimacy, encouraging citizen responsibility, as well as co-producing services with the state. This chapter tracks the ways in which community development has played these different roles over time and the implications for the relationship between state and citizen. It reviews its changing relationship with the state, and the critiques generated by different approaches and programmes. It concludes with an assessment of the challenges it faces in seeking to deepen democracy and foster creative citizenship, in the face of recurring attempts to shrink the state and leave the market as the principal mediating factor in society.

Government With The People

This chapter provides a critical introduction to the problem of disengagement between governments and citizens. It looks at different arguments for reforming the scope and approach adopted by the state and explains why the way forward has to be through more effective state-citizen cooperation. It also gives a general outline of the three parts of the book. The first part examines the theoretical background and recent development of state-citizen cooperation to find out why more attention should be given to advance it; how its impact should be judged; and what makes it distinctive and complementary to other proposals on improving democratic governance. The second part reviews policies and strategies that have been tried out in different parts of the world to enable citizens and state institutions to work together in an informed and collaborative manner in defining and pursuing the public good. The final part considers how various underlying barriers to effective state-citizen cooperation can be overcome, with reference to specific case examples.

The Renewal of State‒Citizen Cooperation

The concluding chapter draws from the analyses and findings from the rest of the book and puts forward a set of key recommendations for politicians, officials, advisors, and civic activists to help them steer clear of common pitfalls and adopt reliable practices to reconnect state and citizens. These cover how to focus on making citizen engagement a lever for change, so that citizens are confident that their involvement will make a difference; how to identify and publicise the value of democratic cooperation, especially in quantifying the social, political and economic gains more consistently and explicitly; how to select appropriate and feasible involvement approaches in the light of different circumstances; how to cultivate inclusive community relations on a sustained basis; and invest in the development of civic leadership so that the necessary skills and understanding are in place. The chapter closes by pointing to how policies for strengthening state-citizen cooperation have succeeded and can be replicated on a large scale in different countries.

The Importance of Collective Control

Attempts at improving state-citizen cooperation will fail unless the protagonists ensure that citizens share control over the process with their counterparts in the state on a genuinely equal footing. This chapter focuses on collective control and the pivotal importance of confidence – the perception that it is possible to influence decisions and make things happen, or prevent things happening – for the benefit of the community. Drawing on published findings as well as the New Economics Foundation’s own field research, it considers how systems in state institutions can be geared to build the confidence and capacity of citizens to collaborate constructively with public sector policy makers. The second part of the chapter examines collective control and state-citizen co-operation in relation to ‘the commons’: resources that are essential for human survival and flourishing. It shows how the ‘commoning’ movement will help to test the limits of both citizen and state control, as well as the potential of state-citizen cooperation.

Improving Citizenship Education

The chapter begins with a review of the existing research and data on the impact of citizenship education globally in order to reveal the existence of particular correlations with socio-political outcomes. It points out that the positive potential of citizenship education for democracy relies heavily on the interaction of distinct macro, meso, and micro level factors. It takes the UK, with the Bernard Crick-led introduction of citizenship education into the curriculum, as a specific case study. It identifies a gap between the original vision and the delivered reality; a shift from the radical potential of citizenship education to its evisceration by a government that has different political priorities; and a series of practical problems from a lack of teacher training to the prerogatives of competing policies such as Prevent, which have limited school interest in the subject as well as their capacity to teach it effectively. The chapter concludes with observations on the broader implications and insights of this focus on citizenship education and suggests a number of ways in which the barriers and blockages identified might be circumvented.

Rethinking Civic Roles

This chapter examines not only what politicians can do to narrow the distance between them and their constituents, but how they should carry out their civic roles with suggested principles and practical examples. In addition to the interactions to be developed, attention is also given to the challenge to open civic roles to wider participation. Politicians are generally perceived to be a breed apart, a separate political class far removed from the lives of ordinary people. With the risks and difficulties associated with political exit further dissuading some from standing in the first place, and heightening the reluctance of those in office to leave, it is argued that with more ‘fluidity’ into and out of political office – experimenting with term limits or with some citizens serving a political term by lottery - a wider range of people could have the opportunity to gain experience of the complex demands and pressures of political office.

Lessons From Democratic Innovations

Democratic innovations, variously described as ‘empowered participation’ or ‘civic innovation’, are designed to increase and deepen citizen participation in the decisions that affect them directly. This chapter reviews current understanding of participatory processes such as citizens’ assemblies, citizens’ juries, deliberative polling, participatory budgeting, study circles, town meetings, and online dialogues; and considers their impact along with an analysis of the implications of different participatory designs on democratic qualities and policy outcomes. One of the limitations of the burgeoning literature on democratic innovations is the tendency to focus on exemplary cases, which often underplays the variety of conditions that need to be in place for the success of these forms of public engagement. Close attention is given to the different approaches taken with participatory budgeting and randomly selected mini-publics in diverse contexts, to illustrate both the substantial potential of democratic innovations to improve democratic politics and their vulnerabilities to misapplication.

Old Age and Caring Democracy

Old age is an identity that many resists. It contributes to a sense of invisibility and, for some, it leaves them out of both time and place in the world. This chapter reviews examples of older people’s participation from England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Australia and Ireland. As well as ‘ageing activism’ within seniors’ forums and interest organisations, it explores participation in contexts not often regarded as ‘political’, such as within residential homes and in research projects. Such contexts can reflect the most immediate points of contact between older people and state services and policies that impact their lives. They can be a focus for transforming practices and ways in which public officials and service providers think about old age and old people. It is argued that ‘deliberating with care’ with older people not only offers transformative potential in relation to specific services and policies than can benefit us all as we grow older, but it can also counteract damaging inter-generational conflict, and enhance wellbeing and social justice.

The Road to Empowerment

This chapter examines two distinct approaches which have been applied to the development of community empowerment and regeneration. It argues that the top-down ‘statist’ approach does not give citizens the confidence or control they need. By contrast, the second approach aims to build on the assets and strengths of existing communities, work with people to develop their own solutions, and use the powers and resources of local and national government and public authorities to develop and support local leaders. Its goal is not to be reduced to individuals being satisfied with what the public sector does for them, but a real partnership between citizens and the state with mutual respect and understanding, which reinforces active citizenship and engagement. The co-authors draw on their experience as policy advocates and Secretaries of State in the UK government during the 2000s in reviewing examples of major public policy development relating to civil renewal and community development, and explaining why some have succeeded while others failed.