Creating Civic Bureaucrats

ABSTRACT

Kirlin (1996a; 1996b) argued that big questions of public management should be placed within a democratic framework emphasizing government's role in creating “civic infrastructure.” For this study, those who build civic infrastructure are called “civic bureaucrats,” and new measures (Civic Bureaucrat Scale and subscales:civic skills, faith in the public, deliberative democracy value, civic motivation, and political system value) are used to examine which factors are associated with encouraging public servants, such as U.S. city planners, to pursue democratic processes. These measures are different from those that examine public service or public participation, and are more focused on finding public servants guided by democratic values. Variables that might influence civic bureaucrats are individual, job, work, and community characteristics. Regression results found Civic Bureaucrat levels associated with gender (being a woman), dedication to civic duty, citizens bashing government, cities’ civic capital levels, and non-competitive elections. Notably, Civic Bureaucrat levels go up when elections are less competitive, suggesting civic bureaucrats picking up the slack when democratic institutions falter. Understanding such factors sheds light on what boosts and saps the civic energies of public servants.     

Civic and Political Participation of Women and Youth in Turkey: An Examination of Perspectives of Public Authorities and NGOs

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present a review of the discourses of public authorities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on civic and political participation of youth and women in Turkey. Drawing on policy documents and elite interviews, this article explores the role of civil society organizations in promoting civic and political organizations in traditionally marginal groups. The article is primarily concerned with unpacking dominant discourses, as produced by public documents and official statements by both civil society organizations and policy-makers. The analysis will produce an overview of their general discursive orientations and the related legal changes and policy implementations. The article then looks at the impact of these discursive formulations to the issue of participation. What is important to note is that action plans and strategies are not always implemented in a manner that is in keeping with the original intentions of policy-makers. The review of public and civil society documents highlights serious differences in focus and coverage between the groups. It also highlights limited engagement with the actual issues of civic and political participation. While youth participation is paid limited attention, women participation is mostly associated with political representation in national and local political bodies.     

Civic Education,Political Discussion,and the Social Transmission of Democratic Knowledge and Values in a New Democracy: Kenya 2002

How does civic education affect the development of democratic political culture in new democracies? Using a unique three‐wave panel data set from Kenya spanning the transitional democratic election of 2002, we posit a two‐step process of the social transmission of democratic knowledge, norms, and values. Civic education first affected the knowledge, values, and participatory inclinations of individuals directly exposed to the Kenyan National Civic Education Programme (NCEP). These individuals became opinion leaders, communicating these new orientations to others within their social networks. Individuals who discussed others’ civic education experiences then showed significant growth in democratic knowledge and values, in many instances more than individuals with direct exposure to the program. We find further evidence of a “compensation effect,” such that the impact of civic education and post‐civic education discussion was greater among Kenyans with less education and with lower levels of social integration.     

In Pursuit of Civic Participation: The Early Experiences of the Northern Ireland Civic Forum, 2000–2002

Northern Ireland's Civic Forum is a key civic participation mechanism agreed as part of the Belfast Agreement and established under the Northern Ireland Act 1998. It brings together representatives from various sectors to act as a 'consultative forum' on 'social, economic, and cultural issues'. This article argues that 'civic society' has to be understood as a 'transactional reality' in the Foucauldian sense, such that the task of the Civic Forum – to allow the participation of 'civic society'– entails the continual construction of its own boundaries and remit. These are contested, not only outside the forum where political considerations have made it somewhat controversial, but also within. It is argued here that this is necessarily so, given the need for the forum to carve out a position between its constitutive outsides. Of particular concern has been the meaning of 'consultative', as competing understandings of this key term position the forum differently with respect both to the legislative Northern Ireland Assembly and to Northern Irish society as a whole. Additionally, the ethical imperative to give voice to wider society is examined, as it influences the way members of the forum articulate their role. Finally, I discuss the forum's sense of its unique identity – as given by its opportunity to enact an inclusive and diverse political space. The argument draws throughout on a qualitative sociological study that employed observation of the forum's plenary sessions over an eighteen-month period (2000–2002) and semi-structured interviews with selected members.     

Communicating Global Citizenship: Multiple Discourses Beyond the Academy

This article demonstrates that notions of “global citizenship”, as communicated beyond academic debates in political theory and sociology, can be situated within two overarching discourses: a civic republican discourse that emphasizes concepts such as awareness, responsibility, participation and cross-cultural empathy, and a libertarian discourse that emphasizes international mobility and competitiveness. Within each of these discourses, multiple understandings of citizen voice can be identified. Exploring how myriad ways of thinking related to “global citizenship” are springing forth in public debate serves to illustrate new ways in which a wide variety of political, social and economic actors are reflecting upon the meaning of voice and citizenship in the context of increasing public recognition of global interdependence. Not only has “global citizenship” emerged as a variant within the concept of citizenship, but the concept of “global citizenship” contains many variants and sources of internal division. How the concept of “global citizenship” continues to evolve in public discourse, especially in response to watershed events, promises to remain a fruitful line of inquiry for years to come.     

Political and Civic Engagement and Participation: Towards an Integrative Perspective

Abstract

This article presents an overview of current understandings in the study of political and civic engagement and participation, drawing in particular on innovations which have emerged from the Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP) project. For the purposes of the article, ‘engagement’ is defined as having an interest in, paying attention to, or having knowledge, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, or feelings about either political or civic matters, whereas ‘participation’ is defined in terms of political and civic participatory behaviours. The different forms that political and civic engagement and participation can take are outlined, and the factors that are related to different patterns of engagement and participation are reviewed. These factors operate at different levels, and include distal macro contextual factors, demographic factors, proximal social factors, and endogenous psychological factors. An integrative model covering all four levels of factors is outlined. Some findings from the secondary analysis of existing data-sets (including the European Social Survey and the International Social Survey Programme) in the PIDOP project are also reported. These findings show that engagement and participation vary as a function of complex interactions between macro, demographic, and psychological factors. It is argued that multi-level integrative theories, such as the one proposed in the current article, are required to understand the drivers of political and civic engagement and participation, and that policies and interventions aimed at enhancing citizens' levels of engagement and participation need to take this multi-level complexity into account.     

It is not just who you know: Dominant knowledge and civic participation

Abstract

Civic participation and its role in increasing social capital is touted as a key element in the regeneration of urban communities. This approaches assumes that urban communities are homogenized collective interests and misses the diversity of interests that capitalize on the growth of institutionally supplied social capital brought about through redevelopment projects. This article examines the participatory processes in a Southern California urban community using social and cultural capital frameworks to show that resident participation is a classed and racialized project that privileges those with dominant knowledge, cultural awareness and language skills. The field of contestation, or the political space developed by institutional players for urban regeneration also plays a key role in determining who participates and how decisions are made. While civic participation is presented as a process that is democratic and open to all, this article argues that participation exists within a cultural context that much like the ‘hidden curriculum’ in education, privileges the knowledge of dominant groups.     

Immigrant Engagement in Participatory Budgeting in New York City

Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a welcome experiment in participatory democracy in New York City (NYC), one that could produce greater civic engagement of traditionally marginalized groups and more equitable resource distribution. By engaging immigrants, PB aims to affirm and elevate their voices, help develop their civic capacities, and promote their political participation and community empowerment. During the past four years, participation by immigrants (foreign-born residents) in New York City’s PB process (PBNYC) has steadily increased, growing from nineteen to twenty-eight percent of all PB voters. Yet, immigrant participation lags compared to their numbers, with great variation among PB districts. Using a mixed methods approach that incorporates surveys of and interviews with immigrant community members, staff at immigrant serving community-based organizations, and City Council staff, this article aims to parse out the logistical and affective barriers to participation immigrants face in PB districts and how PBNYC’s design attempts to circumvent said barriers and facilitate participation. Ultimately, our study reveals a complex mix of promising practices and structural constraints involved in working toward PB’s “inclusive” and “equitable” aims.     

Collective Political Action as Civic Voluntarism: Analysing Ethnic Associations as Political Participants by Translating Individual-level Theory to the Organizational Level

This article presents and empirically evaluates an analytical experiment in which we seek to translate individual-level explanations of differences in political participation to an organizational level. Utilizing the Civic Voluntarism Model, we analyse the consequences of voluntary associations’ politically valuable ‘resources’, ‘motivation’, and ‘recruitment networks’. Using data from a survey of ethnic associations in Stockholm, Sweden, results suggest that the overall logic of how associational-level political participation is encouraged resembles corresponding mechanisms on the individual level. We conclude that both our theoretical argument and empirical findings merit further analyses of civil society actors’ political participation with the approach taken in this study.     

On Active Citizenship: Discourses and Language about Youth and Migrants in Italy

Abstract

The civic and political participation of young people and especially young migrants, who have limited rights of citizenship, is still a significant problem in Italy. Young people struggle to find opportunities and feel excluded from politics: the political agenda tends to see them more as a problem than as a resource. In this article, we illustrate the results of research to understand the dynamics of political and civic participation of young people and what the policy does in their favour. A content analysis of a corpus of European and Italian legislation, policy and planning documents has been undertaken. We also conducted six in-depth interviews with politicians and representatives of Italian nongovernmental organizations in order to investigate (a) policy priorities and institutional points of view, (b) consistency between these priorities and European programmes, and (c) European Union support for the policy actions and projects promoted in Italy about youth. The results showed a general difficulty for young people to ‘engage’ and be engaged in civic and political activities. There is also a gap between the political level and an effective investment which will recognize young people as a real resource.     

Stultifying Politics Today: The “Natural Science” Model in American Political Science—How is it Natural,Science, and a Model?

This article “follows the actors” to examine the high regard for “the natural science model” in contemporary American political science. How this model is accepted as a science remains an ongoing struggle for epistemic control. This conflict shapes ideological and institutional struggles over who dictates to whom how the “study of politics” is conducted in evolving mainstream professional networks as well as civil society at large given the organizational dynamics of the contemporary American research university. These approaches to “studying politics today” also appear to be “stultifying politics today” inasmuch as this putative methodological objectivity exerts a dulling effect on civic discourse, political vision, and active citizenship.     

The Politics of Space and the Spatialisation of Politics: New Directions for Examining the Connections between Immigration and Contagion

Politics is thoroughly spatialised and space is thoroughly politicised. Whilst there has been a renewed interest in this contention, marked by the so-called “spatial turn” in political science and related sub-disciplinary fields, much of the literature continues to treat “space” as a mere empirical referent, rather than a product of prior political conflict(s) and competing political discourse(s). This article draws upon an emerging body of literature in political science that treats borders as sites where the inextricable links between space and politics crystallise most clearly, bringing their imbrications sharply into focus. It argues that this body of work underscores the constitutive role of the political in the construction of space and consequential notions of who is “inside” and “outside,” and suggests this is codified in the enactment and administration of immigration law(s). Drawing on examples from migration politics in the Australian context, pertaining to the ways in which HIV and tuberculosis are figured, it illustrates how the proximity of the supposedly “infectious” outsider, their perceived literal and moral “contagiousness” and the supposed “threat” they pose to the “wider community,” is constructed. This always involves the invocation of notions of space through the construction of frontiers delineating who is “inside” and “outside.” The article argues that this approach opens up promising avenues of inquiry that seek to explore the connections between immigration and contagion; two enduring tropes in the public and political imagination.     

Designing Public Participation: Managing Problem Settings and Social Equity

Researchers suggest that inequity and disparities in public participation in the policy‐making process will go hand in hand unless public managers and community leaders are attentive to these concerns when they are designing participation opportunities. Previous research has considered how the design of participatory opportunities can address inequity, but it has provided few insights into what is behind design choices. This article provides a theoretical framework that links public managers' and community leaders' perspectives on their own political efficacy and sources of their efficacy, yielding four types of “designers.” The research hypothesizes that these types have different narratives of social equity in participation that affect their design choices. Data from more than 100 public managers and community leaders provide preliminary support for these relationships. Findings suggest that inequitable public participation will persist unless designers consider what is behind their choices, focusing first on understanding the problem setting, or their narrative of equity in public participation.     

Regulation and voluntarism: A case study of governance in the making

In this article I analyze a multi‐stakeholder process of environmental regulation. By grounding the article in the literature on regulatory capitalism and governance, I follow the career of a specific legislative process: the enactment of Israel's Deposit Law on Beverage Containers, which aims to delegate the responsibility for recycling to industry. I show that one crucial result of this process was the creation of a non‐profit entity licensed to act as a compliance mechanism. This new entity enabled industry to distance itself from the responsibility of recycling, and thereby frustrated the original objective of the legislation, which was to implement the principle of “extended producer responsibility.” Furthermore, this entity, owned by commercial companies and yet acting as an environmentally friendly organization, allowed industry to promote an anti‐regulatory agenda via a “civic voice.” The study moves methodologically from considering governance as an institutional structure to analyzing the process of “governancing,” through which authoritative capacities and legal responsibilities are distributed among state and non‐state actors. Two key findings are that this process and its outcome (i) are premised on an ideology of civic voluntarism, which ultimately delegates environmental responsibilities to citizens; and (ii) facilitate an anti‐regulatory climate that serves commercial interests.     

Invitation Phone Calls Increase Attendance at Civic Meetings: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Public managers, in addition to implementing sound policies, are expected to manage public participation in the policy process. Civic meetings, in which citizens, elected officials, and public managers discuss proposed policies, can be an effective venue for citizen input, but only if participation is sufficiently high. This article shows that municipal government managers can improve attendance at civic meetings through invitation phone calls. Results from a field experiment in which stakeholders were randomly assigned to receive an invitation phone call for a civic meeting indicate that invitation phone calls can significantly increase meeting attendance. The attendance rate among the 108 stakeholders selected to receive the phone call was higher than among the 169 stakeholders in the control group (8.3 percent versus 4.7 percent). The $20 cost of increasing meeting attendance by one stakeholder is about equal to the cost of increasing turnout in an election by one voter.     

Civic Decline? Trends in Political Involvement and Participation in Norway, 1965–2001

Electoral turnout in Norway has been declining over a long period for local elections and, at the four most recent Storting elections, turnout has been at a lower level than in the preceding 25 years. This article investigates whether the fall in turnout generalises to other forms of political participation and political involvement. Data from the Norwegian Election Studies 1965–2001 and the Norwegian Values Studies 1982–1996 are analysed. In contrast to the decline of turnout, the authors find that the broader political activity of citizens has increased. The rise in political involvement and activism is quite widespread, covering dimensions like political interest, political discussion and political action. The increase includes forms of participation where political parties play a strong role and in direct action where parties are supposed to be less important. Education is strongly associated with most forms of civic participation and the rise in educational levels normally leads to an increase in participation rates. Data show that women are now as active as men in most dimensions of participation. In Norway, turnout at elections displays one pattern over time, while other indicators of political participation and involvement show different trajectories. There is no general civic decline. Using political involvement and participation as a criterion for judging the state of democracy, and taking into account the whole set of indicators studied in this article, one may reasonably conclude that Norwegian civic democracy is in better health than if one focused only on the fall in electoral turnout.     

Digital citizenship? Narrative exchange and the changing terms of civic culture

This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging through digitally supported processes of narrative exchange. Using Dahlgren's (Dahlgren, P. 2003. “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New Media Milieu.” In Media and the Restyling of Politics, edited by J. Corner, and D. Pels, 151–170. London: Sage; Dahlgren, P. 2009. Media and Political Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) circuit of ‘civic culture’ as a model for exploring the interlinking preconditions for new acts of citizenship, we discuss the contrasting outcomes of research at three fieldwork sites in the North of England – educational (a sixth form college), civil society (a community reporters' network) and social (a local club). Each site provided clear evidence of the elements of Dahlgren's circuit (some depending on the intensive use of digital infrastructure, others predating it), but there were also breaks in the circuit that constrained its effectiveness. A crucial factor in each case for building a lasting circuit of civic culture (and an effective base for new forms of digital citizenship) is the role that digital infrastructure can play in extending the scale of interactions beyond the purely local.     

Eleven theses on markets and civil society1

Abstract

Civic engagement, through voluntary associational membership, is touted as the keystone of community. It is within these groups where people get a chance to come together to form the necessary social network connections needed to accomplish collective endeavors. Civic engagement can have a bridging effect, bringing disparate people and communities together. Civic engagement can also have a bonding effect on members, which builds strong in-group ties, putting the membership at odds with outsiders. This article examines the relationship between voluntary associations and social network diversity. Since civic engagement is considered a resource, vis-à-vis social capital (where more is always better), the relationship between social network diversity and multiple group membership is isolated. The type of group is also taken into consideration, because the nature of some organizations, e.g., religious and neighborhood associations, can prove an impediment to diversity. Using the national sample of the ‘Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, 2000,’ I find that membership in voluntary civic organizations has a positive relationship with social network diversity in the United States. Multiple group membership, as well as participation in neighbourhood associations and arts and book clubs, shared a positive relationship with social network diversity.     

Governing diversity: Dutch political parties' preferences on the role of the state in civic integration policies

This article analyses political debates about civic integration policies in the Netherlands, so as to identify different conceptions of the role of the state in ensuring social cohesion by governing diversity. Drawing on the literature on party systems, it presents an analysis of political party positions on the role of the state in civic integration along two dimensions: economic distribution on the one hand, and sociocultural governance on the other hand. I find that while the large majority of Dutch political parties adopt authoritarian positions on the sociocultural axis in favour of state intervention to protect Dutch culture and identity, their positions diverge significantly on the classic economic Left–Right dimension. The most contentious issue in Dutch civic integration politics is whether the state, the market or individual migrants should be responsible for financing and organising courses. Thus, this article proposes an innovative model for analysing the politics of citizenship, which enables us to comprehend how citizenship policies are shaped not only by views on how identity and culture relate to social cohesion, but also by diverging perspectives on socio-economic justice.     

Learning to Love Democracy: Electoral Accountability and the Success of Democracy

This article explains why dissatisfaction with the performance of individual politicians in new democracies often turns into disillusionment with democracy as a political system. The demands on elections as an instrument of political accountability are much greater in new than established democracies: politicians have yet to form reputations, a condition that facilitates the entry into politics of undesirable candidates who view this period as their “one‐time opportunity to get rich.” After a repeatedly disappointing government performance, voters may rationally conclude that “all politicians are crooks” and stop discriminating among them, to which all politicians rationally respond by “acting like crooks,” even if most may be willing to perform well in office if given appropriate incentives. Such an expectation‐driven failure of accountability, which I call the “trap of pessimistic expectations,” may precipitate the breakdown of democracy. Once politicians establish reputations for good performance, however, these act as barriers to the entry into politics of low‐quality politicians. The resulting improvement in government performance reinforces voters’ belief that democracy can deliver accountability, a process that I associate with democratic consolidation. These arguments provide theoretical microfoundations for several prominent empirical associations between the economic performance of new democracies, public attitudes toward democracy, and democratic stability.