Are Legislators Finally Getting it About Working With CItizens?

A friend of who lives in a mid-sized town in Massachusetts was concerned that the sidewalks in her neighborhood were becoming so full of potholes that her kids couldn’t ride their bikes on them anymore. With a group of equally concerned neighbors, she marched down to City Hall to meet with her City Council member. “We want to help you do something about this situation,” she said to the member. The member kindly thanked her for her offer and said: “But that’s our job. Why are you here?”

A true story that’s hardly unique. It underscores that even when there are citizens willing to step up and “get engaged,” they may meet with downright hostility when they try to access legislators who seem to have forgotten that they’re supposed to be listening to and working with a public they’ve sworn to serve.

So says Matt Leighninger in his new book, The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule is Giving Way to Shared Governance…and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same. According to Leighninger, legislators may finally be getting it that they aren’t going to have much success if they continue to ignore citizens’ desire to help solve problems that are increasingly difficult to solve without some new and fresh ideas. And who better than to provide these ideas than the real people who face these issues everyday? In short, legislators, especially at the local level, are realizing that to be successful, they not only need public buy-in, they need public weigh -in.

That realization is the result of a convergence of two trends. The first is citizens’ frustration with their legislatures. The second is legislators’ frustration with the constant bashing many of them get from citizens, as well as a lack of public trust overall in what they do or say. The auspicious outcome is that some legislators are now going beyond seeing citizens as mere constituents or asking them for “input” about legislative decisions. Instead, they’re working in partnership with citizens to craft and pass legislation and policies that respond to what people say they need. And both citizens and legislators are doing it through public deliberation—civic spaces that convene cross-sections of communities to talk, hear different ideas, explore options, make decisions, and take action on issues that will benefit the common good.

This isn’t some Kum-bay-yah picnic party. It’s real democracy at work and Leighninger provides a surfeit of examples of it in the book. Take Eugene, Oregon, where City Council members confronted with an $8 million budget shortfall sent “budget worksheets” to every household in the city to get peoples’ input as to how they should allocate funds. Residents brought the worksheets to community workshops and told the city what they would do and why. The city took that information and developed three options that they presented to residents for another set of deliberations. The result was a brand new citizen-crafted new budget that emerged from a process that was so successful, it’s being considered for replication in the state capital.

Do you have others? Post them here.

Can Philanthropy Be Citizen Centered? Part 2

A just-released story by the Chronicle of Philanthropy attempts to shed light on what appears to be a trend among foundations (and a few nonprofits such as NetSquared) to invite the public to vote online as to which groups should get their grant dollars. Several institutions are highlighted, among them, The Case, Knight, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations.

Overall, the piece is fairly balanced and thorough. But it got me thinking that here was another missed opportunity to address a larger issue, specifically: What responsibility do foundations have to a public from whom they derive significant tax benefit? Do they owe the public a voice in the decisions these institutions make? Instead, the piece focused primarily on one of the many tactics some foundations are using to invite more public involvement in their decisions--in this case online voting-- which should be viewed as a means to a greater end, not an end unto itself.

There are legitimate critiques of online voting, of course, not the least of which is that it can become a “free-for-all” or that the most sexy projects will be selected, rather than those that may be the most effective. That's why it will always be important to have intermediaries and, yes, experts involved in these kinds of processes. And, to be sure, there's a strong argument to be made that private foundations have every right to decide what to do with their money, especially in the case of living donors.

But given the increasing and palpable animosity between grantseekers and grantmakers—and a parallel increase in the amount of suspicion bubbling up in the public domain about what foundations do and how—perhaps it’s time for foundations to be a bit less defensive and start considering, at the very least, that the nonprofits and individuals they support might actually have something more to offer than proposals and reports.

Essentially, foundations need to start exploring new ways to develop stronger partnerships between the professionals that staff foundations and “real people” on the ground living in real communities. And that means going beyond simply hiring consultants to interview those people for “input” that usually gets fed back to the foundation experts who ultimately decide what they’re going to do. It means working with people to figure out how foundations can best to address the issues they say are important to them and their communities.

Asking people to vote on grant award dollars is a step in this direction--but it's only one step. Another might be asking people in communities to work in partnership with foundations to develop decision-making criteria and grant application/program guidelines that spell out how these institutions will make their funding decisions and using what criteria. Unlike some foundations that define transparency as publishing an annual report, grantseekers have long known that real transparency is when funders are straight about the decisionmaking criteria they’re using and why. Foundations can also ask the public to engage in their priorty-setting when they do their periodic assessments, hold occasional meetings for the public, and bring in practitioners and outsiders to brief foundation staff on a regular basis.

These kinds of things, admittedly, won't be easy for institutions that have historically and traditionally been shrouded in secrecy. Particularly difficult will be giving control to a large group of people with little or no experience in professional philanthropy which is, to be sure, a risk.

But is it worth it? You bet. Even it fails, it’s at least an attempt to help nudge the philanthropic community toward a mindset that considers ways in which they might be more responsive, real, and respectful to the public it purports to serve.

That's a real stretch from the way in which many grantseekers now view philanthropic insitutions, whose practices often raise hackles among nonprofits. And one comment in the COP piece tends to underscore that perhaps those sentiments have some merit, specifically, the notion that somehow letting the public in the doors of the hallowed walls of philanthropic institutions will "endanger" or "take the edge off philanthropy." One foundation executive emailed me after reading this, saying that it made him/her "laugh out loud" since "the entire realm of foundation philanthropy could be summarized as ‘a soft, safe center.’ “ That sentiment, we can safely say, is shared by thousands of others working in the nonprofit sector, even though few are wiling to say it publicly.


It's also important to question the notion that somehow this attempt to engage the public is will digress into a popularity contest. Let's face it, though. Hasn't philanthropy, generally speaking, always been a “popularity contest”? As a former fundraiser, the first rule we all learned was “getting money is less about the work and more about whom you know.” Yes, there are certainly many cases in which funds have been provided to groups doing exceptional work and have been assessed on the basis of that work. But those tend to be in the minority, if the laments among scores of nonprofit colleagues I’ve heard during the past 25 years are any indication.

Pablo Eisenberg and others have rightly pointed out, the foundation world is hardly a bastion of ardent risk-takers, as evidenced by their general reluctance to support anything that smacks of advocacy or controversy.In any case, let's hope that this piece stirs things up a bit and incites more discussion—not only about “online voting” or the tactics of participatory philanthropy—but how we can be more effective in increasing and engaging the public in the processes so many of their tax dollars suport.


COMMENTS:




Anonymous said...
Read a review of the Case Foundation's MIYO program at:http://www2.democracyinaction.org/node/558
July 24, 2007 8:00 AM
Jon said...
Three thoughts came to mind while reading this post - and the last few posts (long-time reader, first-time poster?)...1. As hard as it might be to believe, government, including Congress, could provide some lessons for engaging citizens in decision-making. Briefings, hearings, one-on-one informational meetings (including lobbying) are all ways that citizens - and, yes, K St. represented corporations all too often - have their voice represented in political debates. I'm not so naive to think that the word of the people magically translates into public policies that get at the root cause of social and economic problems. However, instead of throwing out the citizen baby with the bastardized bath water, foundations could be more proactive in conversing with a diversity of people throughout the country. Imagine an organization being funded to do the kind of work that Appleseed DC has done for the DC government?2. I will leave the legal standing of private foundations to do what they want when they want, but there is a more important reason why foundations should engage citizens in the communities in which they fund: it will inevitably result in better outcomes. Generation X, long thought of as a slacker generation, is now considered the first generation to focus on results. These 30-somethings (ugh, am I really half-way through a decade that was the name of a horrible t.v. show?!) are a generation of social entrepreneurs and, as such, know that pursuing a social good is inadequate - achieving a social good is what's important. Many foundations have begun to realize this, taking a more venture philanthropy approach, but too many still skimp on rigorous evaluations of their work and, importantly from a citizen-centered perspective, are not forthcoming about their failures (or not great successes). Has anyone out there seen the Gates Foundation screaming from the rooftops about the mediocre-at-best results that came out of the evaluation of their small schools program?3. Engaging citizens in the workings of foundations will inevitably be a long-term process - at least it will be to engage citizens other than the Tracy Flicks of the world. Just as in politics, Americans are most likely skeptical that their voices will be heard within the hallowed halls of foundations and will decide not to waste their time and participate. Foundations have to be aware that opening up an opportunity might not lead to a more citizen-centered outcome. An intentional strategy to reach-out to citizens is needed. School reform folks have had a difficult time cracking the nut of parent and community engagement (few evaluated parent engagement strategies actually work, for instance), but they recognize they need to keep trying.
July 24, 2007 8:56 AM
Peter Levine said...
As Cindy says, the Chronicle's story was "fairly balanced and thorough," but it put most of the focus on the voting part of this grant competition. A vote can be "gamed" or manipulated in various ways. It doesn't necessarily reflect a group's judgment, nor does it necessarily increase accountability to the public (since the whole public won't vote).I like the Case Foundation's experiment with voting because it's part of a broader experiment in public participation. There will not just be a vote, but also a structured discussion. Crucially, the proposals will be evaluated for how much they enhance public voice. As in the formal political system, granting people a vote is a gesture of respect; it says that power will not be monopolized at the center. But the vote is completely insufficient to achieve public judgment. If anything, the voting portion of the Case Foundation's new program is valuable as a symbol of a deeper commitment. Case is experimenting with a new relationship between the foundation (whose funds are tax-exempt by law) and the public.(Cross-posted from Peter Levine's blog)
July 24, 2007 9:08 AM
Joanne Heyman said...
I have a simple idea that might move us in the direction of involving the so-called "real people" in the decision making - and asset allocation -- of grant-makers: What if foundations were required to have a percentage of their staff (over 50% ideally) come from a background of working in the non-profit sector? If former Executive Directors, Directors of Development, Programs Directors and others moved from time to time into the foundation world as staff and leadership, I wager that there might be a bit more "reality" injected into deliberations regarding funding decisions.
July 24, 2007 10:52 AM
Ami said...
I agree with everything here. ANYTHING that helps open up and demistify the funding process would help. I also agree that this (voting, etc.) is just one method, and there could be many others. For example, most nonprofit folks I talk to agree that if they were funders they could find out within hours (or days) who is doing the most interesting and innovative work in any given field. All you need is Google, a phone, and the desire to call people and listen to them. So fundres could gather more community input in structured ways such as those described here, but they could also go out more often and literally ask people in any given field who they think are the most deserving projects around them. Whatever works... thanks Cindy!Ami
July 25, 2007 1:09 PM
heather cronk said...
Great conversation, everyone. Like Jon, I'm a "long-time" reader and first-time poster...though my dog-eared copy of Citizens at the Center would beg to differ... :)One of the things that is tangential to this conversation is also government openness. I know, it may seem as though that's either an oxymoron or a bit of a stretch, but hear me out. I work with an organization in the U.K., mySociety, that's been teaching some really interesting lessons on government openness (with the cooperation of 10 Downing Street), which has served as an example for the nonprofit sector in the U.K. We've seen some really interesting things happen, for instance, with a petitions site that mySociety runs for/with 10 Downing Street -- once folks understand that someone in "power" is listening to them, they're more likely to ask more of that person/structure. And citizens emboldened by confidence in their government are then emboldened to ask more of their neighbors, their workplace, and the nonprofits they support.If government structures aren't expected to be open, then the political structures that often govern foundations and nonprofits will never change. As much as all of us reading this blog believe in citizen-centered change and voluntary openness, most institutions aren't going to volunteer information unless there's a powerful structure asking them to do so.As much as I think we, the nonprofit sector, have a unique opportunity to push the "openness" envelope and teach government/business a thing or two, it's difficult to work in isolation. Maybe if groups in the U.S. like the Sunlight Foundation can get some traction, we can encourage government -- and, subsequently, nonprofit organizations and foundations -- to shed some light on what happens behind closed doors.Maybe?
July 25, 2007 6:41 PM
Paul said...
Great work, Cindy!Drives me crazy when journalists fail to provide the context and simplify things esp. In a trade publication read by people who in fact share a base of knowledge and jargon...My only addition would be that the popularity contest also favors executive directors who share the same backgrounds and alma maters as those from whom they seek money...Most efforts I've seen to involve youth or other non-professionals in grant processes have been pretty successful - people take it very seriously.
July 25, 2007 11:51 PM

Can Philanthropy Be Citizen Centered?

It may seem a contradiction in terms, given the very thick veil of secrecy that has long surrounded philanthropic institutions—and the lack of incentive to lift that veil—but let’s explore it anyway. As some have argued vociferously, philanthropy has become a cadre of elites whose decisions are rarely, if ever, made with the involvement of real people in real communities—other than using consultants to interview people for input as part of expert-driven and written reports that recommend what funders should do.

An anecdote illustrates how entrenched this view is. At a meeting of several foundation officials a few years ago, the issue of “accountability” emerged (one of many buzzwords—along with “evaluation,” “logic models,” “theory of change” and “strategic planning”—that are the focus of much pontificating but are rarely demonstrated through actual practice and results). Much back-slapping ensued, with participants their commitment to transparency, demonstrated through their willingness to produce annual reports and host web sites. But I had a question. Is that really transparency when the information that grantseekers and the public really want is how the funder makes decisions. What criteria do they use? Whose opinion matters most? I was met with stony silence. Then an uproar ensued. “We don’t have to tell people that,” one foundation president said. “We’re private!” Another averred that “we don’t have to be accountable; we do good work.” Still another said that “opening this up to the public would prohibit us from being efficient.”

Is it true that foundations have no responsibility to be more transparent than they are to the public? What’s the incentive to do so? What responsibility do they have, actually, to the public?

Determined to find answers to these questions, the Case Foundation has launched a new pilot grantmaking program that tests whether it’s possible for a private foundation to involve real citizens in all phases of this program—from developing guidelines to it to vetting applications to making grant decisions. Read the recent New York Times story about it and stay tuned for ongoing progress reports.In the meantime, let us know if you’ve heard about other funders who have tried to involve “real people” on their boards, in their grantmaking decision-making or in activities that go beyond attending meetings or responding to interviews. We’re interested.

New Study Says Diversity May Hurt Civic Life

August 8, 2007


A recent Boston Globe story announced a rather shocking assertion: That diversity may actually hurt, rather than help, to increase civic engagement. Perhaps even more startling is that the data comes from none other than the "guru of civic engagement,” Robert Putnam.

The results of this new study emanate from a survey Putnam conducted among residents in 41 U.S. communities. Residents were asked how much they trusted their neighbors and those of four categories used by the U.S. Census (black, white, Asian, Hispanic). They were also asked about their civic attitudes and practices. “What emerged,” writes the Globe, is a “bleak picture of civic desolation, affecting everything from political engagement to the state of social ties.” Specifically, the study found that the greater the diversity in a community, the less people vote, volunteer, give to charity, and work on community projects. They also tend to trust each other less than those living in more homogenous settings.

In short? Higher diversity equals lower social capital.Putnam suggests that people who live in diverse settings may be more likely to “hunker down, i.e., pull in like a turtle.” As the BG piece points out, this is bound to make those who champion diversity as a necessary and healthy part of democracy, education, and civic life rather uncomfortable. Yet, others argue that the study results are important to “put out there” because they highlight the challenges of an increasingly diverse culture. Social identity, Putnam argues, can and will change over time, with “social divisions” giving way to more encompassing identities” that “create a new, more capacious sense of ‘we,’” he writes.

And while more diversity may hinder strong social ties and capital, other research indicates that it may be an asset for driving productivity and innovation. Scott Page, a University of Michigan political scientist and author of Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies, has found that in high-skill workplaces, different ways of thinking among people from different cultures can push new ways of doing things. “Diverse teams tend to be more productive,” he asserts.

As the Globe puts it, “those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone, but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the workplace may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the economy and of creative culture.”Page calls it the “diversity paradox.” According to the Globe, he thinks that the contrasting positive and negative effects of diversity can coexist in communities, but “there’s got to be a limit.” If civic engagement falls off too far, he says, it’s easy to imagine the positive effects of diversity beginning to wane as well. “That’s what’s unsettling about [Putnam’s] findings,” Page says.

COMMENTS:

heather cronk said...
I think the central problem here is that none of those folks interviewed (or larger swaths of American society) are going to trust one another if they perceive that their actions are isolated -- that they're "acting alone" ("bowling alone" is SO overrated).I've been wrestling lately with not just how to generate more social capital throughout the country (that's old hat, I think), but with how to tie together the social capital that's already being generated. Over the past few weeks, I've been talking to a few prominent bloggers about the value of connecting their blogs (and their blog readers) to offline action. I've suggested to them that blogging about important issues and conversations of the day is great, but not connecting their readers to complementary offline action is a wasted opportunity.I think the same holds true for non-blogging community activists. Maybe the magic variable that Putnam overlooked is that one's level of civic engagement depends not only on the racial diversity of one's neighborhood/workplace, but also the diversity of entry points to civic action...What would happen if the folks surveyed by Putnam began to see that there was a coherent, citizen-centered, citizen-directed movement in their neighborhoods, cities, and states to create social change? What would happen if all the great "Web 2.0" tools that we now have at our disposal (largely for free) were utilized effectively by anyone with a computer to rally support for their ideas to effect change? And what would happen if all of those connected dots were reflected in every venue from the blogosphere to the grocery store?One of the things we're trying to do at PledgeBank.com is provide a space where everyone is an expert and everyone is an organizer -- all they need is a good idea. We provide them with the tool to rally support for that idea, and we provide a space for folks to get a snapshot of the great things happening across the country. There are other sites doing pieces of this work, both with social missions (Idealist) and corporate (Facebook). But none of these sites alone is the ultimate answer...we need to start tying them together.I'd encourage more of an inspection of what we're doing as a national community to paint a portrait of the great things happening across the U.S. (and beyond) that is coherent and cohesive. Let's get beyond nonprofit databases and anonymous volunteerism. Let's give visibility to the babysitting co-ops and the neighborhood watches and the church bazaars that are happening in our communities every day...and that are vibrant and valid entry points to real social change.
August 8, 2007 5:27 PM
Paul said...
I am actually not surprised by Putnam's finding. I believe it merely demonstrates that Americans still don't know how to handle diversity and that there is great distrust, suspicion and plain fear even in diverse communities.Last night at dinner, my sister was telling me that one of the reasons she lives in her community is that it is more diverse. Then she shared about how angry she was that some African Americans in the community are claiming discrimination because basketball hoops at a local playground were clubbed because there had been violence on the courts. And some African American kids had chased her son and his friends in a park. What struck me in her stories was that she was beginning to show the turtle effect, and that she had limited experience with diverse cultures.I shared with her the time when I was 12 or so and some white kids chased a friend and me from a park near our home. They said they had knives, so we got another bigger riend who actually did have a knife and came back to the park looking for these guys. If these kids had been African American, it would have reinforced my youthful racism and fears of black people.I think the bottom line of Putnam's study is that building trust and "bridging social capital" (to use his term) requires intentional work in many cases. There is a lot of distrust and misunderstanding and it can be blown out of proportion on both sides easily.And when that trust and understanding is there, it makes it so that harder conversations are possible. I look at this as another reason why Public Allies is necessary because our Allies are masters at bridging.
August 13, 2007 8:57 AM
Jon said...
Building off of the previous posts, I am struck by the conclusions that Putnam and colleagues draw from the results. Although they addressed many of the factors that could help explain the findings/provide alternative findings, they do not mention a few important caveats.First, this study estimated the correlation between diversity and trust (and other indicators of social capital); they did not estimate the impact of creating diversity in a community or in a school. That is, they did not design a model program, implement the diversity program, create diversity in a community (actually numerous communities) and then evaluate how the diversity program impacted the social capital in a community. As they mention in their research paper, they surveyed samples within disparate communities across the country, ranging from urban centers to rural enclaves. However, how the communities became diverse or not diverse was always through the most socially productive ways. To then generalize that diversity overall results in lower levels of social capital. To Paul's point, policymakers and practitioners need to be intentional about cultivating a positive diverse community - this is especially true when the diversity within a community is not originally developed through the most healthy of ways (as one example, look at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. It has gone from a predominantly low-income, African American community to a community that now contains a large number of high-income white families. As Paul points out, this introduction of diversity, without any mediation, will most likely end with lack of trust and communal activities.Second, the study looks at broad communities; for example 'Los Angeles.' As folks in any urban city know, a community will vary greatly from one neighborhood to another - and in some cases, from one street to another. What might look like high levels of diversity is actually a very racially and economically fragmented community. It would be interesting to analyze the data using that lens if at all possible.Third, after controlling for various other factors that could affect social capital in a community, diversity plays a relatively small role; for instance, other factors, such as % of community that rents their home, explained 3-to-4 times as much of the variance as diversity. Diversity remains significant, which is important, but it's also important to recognize the relative of importance of diversity.
August 13, 2007 3:46 PM
Sara said...
Using racial categories misrepresents the diversity because there are other equally significant ethnic identities, such as religion. For example the current rift between Muslims and Christians in the U.S. since 9-11 is huge, but by identifying people by race this is ignored because Saudi and Iraqi Muslims are labeled white just like Christians such as Jerry Falwell and George Bush.Plus the American Anthropological Association is calling for an overhaul of US Census Racial Classifications because they don't reflect scientifically acurate categories. They have two flaws. First, they fail to corelate with current genetic and biological classification schemes. And, second, they do not acurately reflect how people self-identify.
August 15, 2007 1:06 PM
Grassroots Grantmakers said...
As I read Putnam's article and have perused comments, I can't help but wonder many find this study threatening. I see some practical realities and great promise in Putnam's recent article. The "hunkering down" that Putnam describes is now new news. Stories of community change are rich with hunkering down stories - stories of newcomers and old-timers going to their respective corners and either finding ways to peacefully co-exist or duke it out it until the salve of relationships can break down stereotypes and open the door for a redefining what community means in this particular place and time.While I could site many examples of "hunkering down", consider the story from my German grandmother of the deep divide that once existed between Germans and Czechs in my small Texas town when she was a girl - tensions that flared when her brother (German) introduced his new Czech bride to the family and was forced off the family land and even barred from the family cemetery. Not a proud moment in my family history, to be sure, but a reminder that these times of "new" and our communities response ("hunkering down") are not so "new".The promise of Putnam's article is in the reminder that we have done this before - not perfectly and certainly not elegantly - but that we have the capacity to do it again. Isn't our experience that the uncomfortable negative of new diversity is just what Putnam says - short-term? And that Putnam is right-on when he says that we will find our way - as we have done before - to a long-term benefit?Rather than hand-wringing about the short-term negatives, I would rather see more energy invested in adding to the suggestions that Putnam makes for navigating this bend in the river so we can get to a place where we can more fully tap into the richness of community diversity. He suggests re-investing in public spaces, being more purposeful in reaching out to newcomers, creating more opportunities for new immigrants to learn English. What else? We have deep experience in this area - surely we can expand this list and shape it an agenda that inspires action.
September 2, 2007 11:57 PM

Does Citizen-Centered Work Have to be Nonpartisan?

Of all the critiques of Citizens at the Center, the charge that it is “yet another ideological attempt to promote a liberal (or conservative) agenda.” Yes, both have been levied at the concept, which, in practice, is neither, ironically, proving the adage that people will see what they want to see, despite a cigar sometimes being just a cigar.


One of those discussions took place in Washington, D.C. this past December with a group of citizen-centered practitioners and scholars. Part of the group strongly believed that nonpartisanship is essential to deliberative processes if the goal is to create civic cultures built on mutual respect. That can only happen, one person said, “when a diverse group of people feel that their views – all views – are ‘heard’ and valued.” This does not preclude, he added, people having strong political views or engaging in more targeted efforts based on similar political interests or views, but to ensure that this kind of engagement is sustained and supported, “communities must first start from an equal platform to get everyone’s input and see where there are areas of mutual agreement.” Having pre-determined agendas is “antithetical to the deliberative process.” Others disagreed, saying that what appears to be the approach’s “deep neutrality” may turn off would-be supporters.


There was also concern that some may view the approach as not taking seriously enough the political, ethnic, racial, economic, and other differences that tend to divide people, especially during discussions between traditionally disenfranchised and privileged constituencies. Moreover, if people are expected to “take action together,” this implies a sense of efficacy or power that some groups of people do not have or to which they lack access.


Still others argued that citizen-centered work shouldn’t be synonymous with civility or consensus, stressing that deliberation implies ultimately making decisions. The emphasis is on the process through which communities get to those decisions, especially whether it’s done collectively with all people’s input or whether some are left out or not valued.


As Peter Levine, one of the participants, noted: “People’s discussions and work should be open-ended, but when we ask why citizens have been sidelined and what to do about it, their answers reflect their political view. That’s fine; there are many valid flavors of civic renewal. Nothing could be more useful than a competition or debate among political parties and candidates who vied to put ‘citizens back at the center.’” Will Friedman, another participant, added that “this work should not be viewed as a replacement for partisanship but as a complement to it. It’s about having voices in the mix that may all be partisan but there are more of them and from a broader swath of groups.”

The Experts Vs. the Rest of Us

August 6, 2007



Several years ago, I was interviewed for a job at a rather prominent institution by the president who spent several minutes ticking off the names and credentials of the experts s/he had planned to commission as consultants who would advise program staff on all facets of their activities. When I asked whether "real people" -- you know, the ones who are affected by the programs that this institution implemented--would be involved in advising the organization on similar matters, s/he paused for several seconds. Finally, s/he replied: "Well, we'll invite them to our conferences."


This is the kind of attitude that Alison Kadlec, a senior research associate at Public Agenda, addresses in her new book, Dewey's Critical Pragmatism, an examination of John Dewey's writings on pragmatism and a rallying cry for soundly-constructed public engagement programs that fulfill Dewey's vision of "democracy as a way of life." That way of life, Kadlec argues, is not solely the purview of the experts, pundits, and pontificators who deem "the people" as congenitally unfit for effective deliberation. She also takes on "radical democratic theorists" who criticize deliberative democracy practitioners as being blind or ill-prepared to address existing power relationships that they claim are reinforced in the deliberative process.


These "power oriented critics," she asserts, "do not enough and too much when it comes to assessing the meaning of and conditions for genuine deliberation. On the one hand, they operate with an unnecessarily cramped notion of deliberation and on the other, they rely on a counterproductively totalizing and static view of power."


That's laying down the gauntlet, indeed--and it's time that gauntlet was taken up by those who say they care about community organizing, deliberation, and public work. Is community organizing different from deliberative practice and if so, how? Is deliberative practice and public work a part of community organizing or vice versa? To date, however, I haven't seen much public space dedicated to exploring these issues, which bear considerable attention if we're to move foward. A previous post, "The Power Equation in Citizen-Centered Work," generated nary a comment, but it's time to change that. What could be done to facilitate these kinds of discussions? We sure could use them.


In the meantime, you can find out more information about the book at http://publicagenda.org/aboutpa/aboutpa_articles.cfm.



COMMENTS:





rlubensky said...
Hi Cynthia,I've been involved in organising and observing Citizens Juries recently. The expert witnesses (eg engineers, technologists, developers) see their task as "educating" the participants, which they don't recognise as coercive. In fact, they often see themselves as neutral, not actually having a position. In other words, the positivist view of objective knowledge and progress. Meanwhile, the participants are encouraged through facilitation to step back and critically examine the expertise and what values underlie their position amongst all the stakeholders. When the jury makes recommendations that accede to community values, the experts often feel they failed to adequately transmit their message (where was the dialogue?), or that the participants "didn't get it". But exit questionnaires indicate that they understood very well, even with complex technical issues. So it turns out that it is the experts contributing to deliberative events who often need to be better informed.Thanks for the pointer to the book, I'll go take a look.
August 7, 2007 10:21 PM
gpbury said...
There is so much to learn from John Dewey and those who draw from his writings like Richard Rorty. Thanks for highlighting this on your blog and to Alison Kadlec of Public Agenda for giving us this book.
August 8, 2007 9:00 AM