Local Capitalism and Civic Engagement: The Potential of Locally Facing Firms

The twin forces of globalization and devolution have created administrative circumstances that strain the problem‐solving capacity of local governments and increase the importance of nongovernmental processes and institutions. The literature suggests that locally owned firms are more likely to engender higher levels of civic engagement critical to buttressing that problem‐solving capacity. This research adds an additional dimension, investigating to whom those firms sell and through which supply channels. Using survey results from hundreds of local firms across five study sites, this research demonstrates that locally facing firms—that is, firms that intentionally interface with community members and other local businesses—are associated with greater levels of civic and political engagement compared with locally owned firms that sell their products to customers elsewhere. Findings suggest that local governments should look beyond the local/nonlocal ownership binary to consider how private firms can be partners in serving and supporting their communities.     

Thinking Globally,Integrating Locally: Gender,Entrepreneurship and Urban Citizenship in Germany

Germany's refusal to pursue active integration policies for three decades has unleashed surprising do-it-yourself-integration processes among migrant communities, as demonstrated by dramatic changes in the Turkish ethnic economy since 1990. This study embeds these developments in an analytical framework linking economic enclaves and urban citizenship. Initially motivated by structural unemployment and social exclusion, guestworkers and their offspring are turning to self-employment, not only adding new jobs to an otherwise moribund national economy but also promoting urban revitalization in cities like Berlin, Frankfurt and Cologne. The study outlines generational differences within the Turkish-German community, ascertaining that third-generation ethnics are more likely to start businesses outside the food sector and more willing to embrace FRG citizenship. It describes the size and scope of ethnic enterprises across Germany, followed by a treatment of women entrepreneurs in Berlin. Ethnic associations indirectly foster “participatory” consciousness among males, but women tend to identify directly with the society that offers opportunities not available to them in the purported Turkish homeland. Instead of producing “parallel societies” (as German politicians often insist), ethnic businesses and local community involvement are crucial in bridging majority and minority cultures, on the one hand, and in granting Turkish entrepreneurs top-level access to state policy-makers—even without the formal rights of citizenship.     

Partnering the 800 Pound Gorilla: Centrelink Working Locally to Create Opportunities for Participation

This article explores the potential for government agencies to move into new kinds of relationships or ‘social partnerships’ with the community sector and business to address social problems. Through an analysis of documented examples of partnerships at the local level it examines how Centrelink, the Common wealth Service Delivery Agency, is using its considerable resources, human and physical, to work with others to improve accessibility of services, address service gaps and to actively create opportunities for participation. It proposes a tentative framework for understanding partnerships in terms of their value for ‘customers’ and the potential that such partnerships have to create opportunities that would not exist in a silo driven service delivery model. This article has relevance across all in human services who are interested in how the rhetoric of social partnerships translates into day to day service delivery.