Modernizing Democracy: Innovations in Citizen Participation : Innovations in Citizen Participation 9781317464518, 9780765617620

Citation preview

Modernizing Democracy

ii

AUTHOR

About the Academy

The National Academy of Public Administration, like the National Academy of Sciences, is an independent, nonprofit organization chartered by Congress to identify emerging issues of governance and to help federal, state, and local governments improve their performance. The Academy’s mission is to provide “trusted advice”—advice that is objective, timely, and actionable—on all issues of public service and management. The unique source of the Academy’s expertise is its membership, including more than 650 current and former Cabinet officers, members of Congress, governors, mayors, legislators, jurists, business executives, public managers, and scholars who are elected as Fellows because of their distinguished contribution to the field of public administration through scholarship, civic activism, or government service. Participation in the Academy’s work is a requisite of membership, and the Fellows offer their experience and knowledge voluntarily. The Academy is proud to join with M.E. Sharpe, Inc., to bring readers this and other volumes in a series of edited works addressing major public management and public policy issues of the day. The opinions expressed in these writings are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Academy as an institution.

Modernizing Democracy Innovations in Citizen Participation Terry F. Buss F. Stevens Redburn Kristina Guo Edited by

Foreword by Xavier de Souza Briggs

T RANSFORMATIONAL T RENDS IN G OVERNANCE AND D EMOCRACY

First published 2006 by M.E. Sharpe Published 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2006 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Modernizing democracy : innovations in citizen participation / edited by Terry F. Buss, F. Stevens Redburn, and Kristina Guo. p. cm. — (Transformational trends in governance & democracy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 13: 978-0-7656-1762-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 13: 978-0-7656-1763-7 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 10: 0-7656-1762-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 10: 0-7656-1763-3 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Political participation—United States. 2. Electronic government information—United States. 3. Internet in public administration—United States. I. Buss, Terry F. II. Redburn, F. Stevens. III. Guo, Kristina, 1970– IV. Series. JK1764.M63 2006 323'.0420973—dc22

2006005560

TRANSFORMATIONAL TRENDS IN GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY Terry F. Buss, F. Stevens Redburn, and Kristina Guo, eds. Modernizing Democracy: Innovations in Citizen Participation ISBN 13: 978-0-7656-1762-0 (cloth); 978–0–7656–1763–7 (pbk.) Thomas M. Stanton Meeting the Challenge of 9/11: Blueprints for More Effective Government ISBN 13: 978-0-7656-1758-3 (cloth); 978–0–7656–1759–0 (pbk.) ISBN 13: 9780765617637 (pbk) ISBN 13: 9780765617620 (hbk)

Terry dedicates this book to Arnie. Steve dedicates this book to Mary Ann. Kristina dedicates this book to Lily Lu

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Foreword Xavier de Souza Briggs

ix

1. Modernizing Democracy: An Overview of the Issues Terry F. Buss, F. Stevens Redburn, and Kristina Guo

3

2. Expanding and Deepening Citizen Participation: A Policy Agenda F. Stevens Redburn and Terry F. Buss

29

3. Community Learning: The Process and Structure of Collaborative Engagement Ricardo S. Morse

49

4. Community Learning in Practice: Insights from an Action Research Project in Southwest Virginia Ricardo S. Morse

78

5. National Accountability Strategies for Developing Countries: Observations on Theory and Experience F. Stevens Redburn and Terry F. Buss

104

6. Broadening Citizen Participation Processes in Federal Programs: HUD’s CDBG Programs Terry F. Buss and Marcela Tribble

138

7. Using Focus Groups to Develop Family Policy: The Case of Georgia Terry F. Buss

152

viii

viii

8. Information Technology and Governance Terry F. Buss and F. Stevens Redburn

170

9. Lenses for Understanding the Changing Environment for Technology-Supported Citizen Involvement John O’Looney

203

10. Simulation and Decision Support Technologies for Enhancing Citizen Understanding and Engagement John O’Looney

235

11. The Internet, Politics, and Democracy Terry F. Buss and Nathaniel J. Buss

263

About the Editors and Contributors Index

332 335

Foreword Xavier de Souza Briggs

How do you put the “public” in public management? It’s an old question but one that must be revisited again and again in any democracy, particularly in a large one undergoing constant change. The traditional ethos of professionalism and technical expertise, along with newer concerns about security, must always be reconciled with norms of representation, deliberation, and transparency. Among the most important sources of change are new technologies that transform communication between citizens and their government—in some ways enhancing the exchange and in other ways complicating it—plus the sudden emergence of nearly free access to vast volumes of information and opinion about nearly everything. Clearly, such developments can change the rules of the game and the public-ness of public management. But how? Public managers are forced to rethink these issues with precious few roadmaps. As such, the essays in this volume convey a timely and vital exploration of how the old problems may be addressed on new terrain. They present more questions and possibilities than firm, let alone formulaic, answers. But the essays represent a step forward for those who imagine a more productive and legitimate relationship between those who make and implement public policy and those affected by it. For those of us who believe that a more active, savvy, and deliberative engagement between citizens and their government is essential to democratic accountability and good results, this volume is essential, and it should be an important reference point for years to come. Will information and communications technology in fact lead to richer dialogue between citizens and government, resulting in more responsive, accountable, effective policies? Certainly not automatically, as the editors of this volume recognize. Much will depend on whether leaders and public managers are strategic about what participation is to accomplish and whether promising new modes of participation are creatively integrated or merely ix

x

FOREWORD

grafted on to existing approaches. Technology could be to democracy what it was for too many businesses in the first two decades of widespread computing—a mechanism for speeding up bad business processes rather than rethinking and fundamentally improving them. Nor is it clear that information technology, despite its potential to expand access, automatically tilts toward democracy and rational dialogue. Again, much depends on leadership and organization within and across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Public managers and others interested in seizing opportunities to enhance participation, including new modes supported by new technologies, would do well to start with the reflection and advice found here.

Modernizing Democracy

This page intentionally left blank

1 Modernizing Democracy An Overview of the Issues Terry F. Buss, F. Stevens Redburn, and Kristina Guo

Thomas Jefferson once pointed out that if the people appeared not enlightened enough to exercise their control of government, the solution was not to take away the control but to “inform their discretion by education.” The cooperative processes that are springing up around the country are doing just that, giving to large numbers of citizens a new comprehension of the complexity involved in government decisions, out of which has got to come a heightened appreciation of, and tolerance for, the necessary work of government. If these processes work, if they spread, if they become an indispensable part of government at all levels, we may take it as a sign that we, as a people, have moved up a grade in democracy’s school. It holds out the hope that, eventually, the United States will be ready for self-government. —William Ruckelshaus, “Restoring Public Trust in Government,” National Academy of Public Administration, Nov 15, 1996.

This volume is written for public administration professionals, scholars, and students interested in citizen participation. It attempts to collect under one cover new analysis of innovative practices. It is intended to inform the various roles that public administrators and leaders can play in fostering constructive, meaningful citizen involvement in shaping public decisions at all stages of the policy process—from initiation and planning to feedback on public agency performance. Innovations in citizen participation are facilitated by ongoing dramatic changes in information and communication technology that exponentially reduce the cost of access to information relevant to policy and government performance; technology has the potential to fundamentally alter the relationship between government and the governed. The 3

4

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

same technological changes also present new challenges and potential risks. The general thesis of this volume is that the movement of technology will help those interested in strengthening the bonds between citizens and their governments to open doors to improved, deepened, more democratic forms of participation. As previous efforts to survey these issues demonstrate (e.g., Frederickson and Chandler 1984), public administration professionals have had a recurring commitment and obligation to explore possibilities for increased popular participation and to manage them so that they contribute to a more robust democracy and a more accountable, more effective public service. *** Our nation’s sometimes feckless efforts to transplant institutions of popular government to the Middle East and elsewhere should remind us how much more we need to know about our own system and what supports it. In that same spirit of humility, we can acknowledge the distance still to travel in our country toward the democratic ideals that we espouse and try to practice. Ironically, it is a sense of the limits of one’s own understanding and need for correction and improvement that inspires not only democratic government but also two other great institutional inventions of Western culture—free scientific inquiry and market economics. Extraordinarily, all three depend on a spirit of skepticism and a willingness to permit, even invite, complete overthrow of the established order—a spirit the greatest U.S. philosopher, C.S. Peirce, captured in his injunction, “Do not block the way of inquiry.” In capitalism, this spirit takes the form of rules that permit what Joseph Schumpeter termed “creative destruction” (1975); in science it is evident in a set of norms and institutions that periodically overthrow what seem to be the fundamental tenets of our material world, called by Thomas Kuhn “paradigm shift” (1962); and, in politics, following what T.L. Thorson (1962) called the “logic of democracy,” it leads to the protection of minority rights of expression and organization, ensuring that the policy agenda is kept open and that from time to time the ultimate power of the state will pass peacefully and by procedural consensus from one set of leaders to another, whose ideas and plans those ceding power have vigorously resisted and may even abhor. Of the three great Western establishments, the least well established, the most subject to continuing intellectual and political challenge, and the least well understood is democracy. The norms of science are everywhere strong and well, if not universally, accepted. The triumph of the market is if not universal then at least all-pervading and seemingly unstoppable. But democracy is not only less than universal in its geographic reach but also insecure at its intellectual roots and underdeveloped in practice everywhere.

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

5

If the spirit of democracy is to leave the way open to inquiry, then those who seek its improvement and fuller realization are obliged to constantly explore and test better ways to engage citizens in democratic decision making. In that spirit we have produced this volume. The past decade witnessed a renewed interest among U.S. policymakers, scholars, and advocates in expanding and deepening citizen participation processes at the federal, state, and local government levels. The Bush administration, upon taking office in 2001, announced its pursuit of a more “citizen-centric” government. The Clinton administration before it, under the leadership of Vice President Gore, worked on numerous citizen participation initiatives as part of its “reinventing government” agenda. Scholars such as Benjamin Barber (1984) and Jane Mansbridge (1980) pointed the way toward a more robust, meaningful definition and practice of democratic participation. Others, most notably Robert Putnam (2001, 2003), called attention to an apparent decline in U.S. civil society and proposed ways to promote civic engagement. Part of this revival of interest in strengthening democracy has been an exploration of new communications and information technologies that may have great potential to support democratic dialogue and participation. Redburn and Buss, in an earlier version of chapter 2 (Redburn and Buss 2004), called attention to the power of new information technology and the Internet to support engagement of citizens in public life in more sophisticated ways, and outlined a program to accomplish this goal.1 Practitioners, like the Orton Family Foundation and the Environmental Simulation Center in New York, have used software—e.g., CommunityViz—to support more effective citizen participation in city and rural planning.2 Representatives from neighborhood groups, the planning profession, foundations, think tanks, and universities met in Tampa in January 2002 to form a national association to raise visibility of and expand opportunities for citizen participation in building communities.3 Hundreds of serious Web sites on citizen participation now dot the Internet landscape.4 These may not add up to a movement, but they constitute evidence of continued broad commitment to improving democratic participation. This overview chapter explores reasons why some policymakers, scholars, and advocates seek to deepen and expand citizen participation in public programs and policy making. Next, it looks at emerging theory and practice. It then examines how new technology is changing the possible modes of citizen participation, while attempting to understand both the opportunities and the dangers that may arise with dramatic reduction in the costs of information, ease of access to information about government performance and policy alternatives, and interactions between government and citizens and

6

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

among citizens, political parties, and interest groups. The chapter concludes with a brief outline of some major issues in the design and administration of citizen participation processes. Emerging Theory and Practice As Ricardo Morse reminds us in chapter 3, public administration literature of the last decade demonstrates an explosion of interest in citizen participation, with increased emphasis on fostering collaboration among citizens, stakeholders, and government officials. The forms that participation can take are many (Redburn and Cho 1984). Some public managers, at least, now see their success as dependent in part on collaborative engagement with the public and their role as one of fostering community learning (Bramson and Buss 2002). Morse traces the theoretical roots of this position, from the pioneering writings of Mary Parker Follett (e.g., Follett 1924) to the recent essays of Robert Putnam and many others. Morse conceives of effective participation as a “community process” in which citizens jointly create new knowledge and collective understanding through collaborative learning. The practical problem of those interested in fostering participation is how to structure a process that facilitates meaningful dialogue and deliberation. In chapter 4, Morse describes how action research has been used in one community to test the process by which such a community learning process can be built. His research, similar to that of Fung (2004), illustrates the potential of such work to create short-term benefits for the community and suggests the possibility of long-term fundamental changes in the way community decisions are reached. Democratic Motives and Influences Interest in strengthening citizen participation derives not from a single coherent movement or motivation but from a diversity of theoretical and political perspectives. Political and economic theorists—from Tocqueville in 1835 ([1836] 1997) to Robert Dahl (1956), Charles Lindblom (1965), Mancur Olson (1971), William Riker (1973), and Anthony Downs (1957), to name a few— have been interested in active citizen participation in public affairs as a requisite for a sound democracy. Political movements—Vietnam War protesters typified by Saul Alinsky (1969); the civil rights movement as exemplified by Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 1960s and his predecessors in the Women’s Suffrage5 and Temperance6 movements at the turn of the century; and recently the anti-globalization movement7—all in their way contributed to the shaping of new forms of citizen engagement. However, despite their efforts to expand the frame of citizen involvement, they have had less interest in

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

7

finding new modes of engagement that might enrich the participatory experience. Decades of efforts to bring new groups into the democratic process have not yielded significant changes in forms of participation. In the past decade, new attention has been paid to the problem of building democratic institutions, both in areas of the world where democratic institutions and values were previously suppressed and in countries where they are often taken for granted. At the same time, scholars have made new attempts to explain variations in the performance of democratic institutions (Putnam 1993). We see at least five distinct—although interrelated—efforts contributing to the fresh impetus for democratic reforms: • Renewed national movements for democracy arising in many former Soviet Bloc countries as part of their transition from oppressive communist and post-communist regimes; • Attempted international promotion of democratic systems in war-torn regions in the Middle East (particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq); in developing countries in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia; and in post-Soviet countries; • Concerted efforts, now nearly worldwide, to “devolve” or decentralize government decisions to a level as close to the people as possible, exemplified in the United States by the “reinventing government” movement, almost single-handedly launched by David Osborne (1990, 1993); • Anticorruption and civil society movements promoted by multilateral and bilateral aid organizations focused on the Third World;8 and • Interest in collaborative, group, or shared decision-making models of government inspired separately in the business management and public administration leadership literatures (e.g., Seifter, Economy, and Hackman 1997; Chrislip and Larson 1994). Former Soviet Bloc Transitional Societies American and Western experts, as part of a broader effort to help reconstruct civil society in Russia, its former republics, and Eastern European satellites, have supported indigenous national movements for democratic rule. These experts and their counterparts in national movements not only engage in serious thinking about how to implant democracy and reconstruct economic systems in these countries; they sometimes call into question how Western democratic countries function. How could Western countries assist former communist ones when they themselves boast numerous barriers to citizen engagement? This issue reemerged when the British turned over Hong Kong, a former colony, to the People’s Republic of China—transitioning it away

8

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

from an open society to a totalitarian one. The Open Society Institute, based in Budapest, Hungary, and funded by the Soros Foundation, is a think tank devoted to issues of democracy, particularly citizen involvement in redirecting local economies in Eastern Europe and Russia.9 War-Torn and Developing Countries The Iraq War, and its predecessor Afghan War, are raising questions about the possibility of installing or growing democratic regimes across the Arab Middle East to replace highly repressive dictatorships. In part to reduce state-sponsored terrorism—democratic states rarely if ever attack other democracies—and to stabilize oil supplies, most nations have a long-term interest in stabilizing the Middle East. The U.S.-led push toward more democratic regimes in the Arab world is at the core of its international policy toward the region. Support for developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, includes support for better governance, defined to include more democratic institutions. Undemocratic governments that exploit an already impoverished populace are widely seen not only as less responsive but also as less likely to support successful development, as more brittle, and as more likely to fail or deteriorate into anarchy. The international donor community, after pouring billions of dollars into dysfunctional governments to little effect, is beginning to press democracy on countries with greater urgency, forcing countries to risk loss of external assistance if they do not comply. Beginning in 2004, foreign assistance from the United States under the new Millennium Challenge Account program does not flow to countries that are undemocratic and corrupt.10 Decentralization and Reinventing Government Movements The World Bank, the United Nations, and other multilateral organizations have extensive programs to decentralize government, devolving power to local people and local authority. Indeed, the World Bank Institute hosts a multipronged training, education, and technical assistance program to further the decentralization of authority. Decentralization is likewise one goal of the Millennium Development Goal initiative—a global strategy promulgated by the World Bank and the United Nations to substantially reduce poverty in this century.11 In the United States, the reinventing government movement, a descendant of past “good government” and reform movements (Filler 1939) was precipitated by David Osborne’s work on Reinventing Government (1993), and has since expanded across Western Europe. The National Academy of Public Administration’s (NAPA) Alliance for Redesigning Government12 was an institutional initiative to distribute reinventing government best practices nationally.

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

9

The Clinton administration picked up on the approach and pursued it aggressively under the National Performance Review initiative headed by Vice President Al Gore. This is not a partisan movement, however; deference to state autonomy and emphasis on delegation of choices to communities and private associations are long-standing elements of Republican Party doctrine. Anticorruption, Accountability, and Transparency Anticorruption reform has become a major thrust of the World Bank, regional development banks, many UN organizations, and most foreign assistance donor organizations, particularly the U.S. Agency for International Development. The World Bank Institute offers a technical assistance and training program—specializing in fiscal decentralization and economic development—to empower local decision making on public expenditures.13 In chapter 5, “National Accountability Strategies for Developing Countries,” Redburn and Buss review best practices in developing and developed countries to address these issues. Goals for Citizen Participation Numerous and not entirely consistent rationales have been offered in support of expanding and deepening citizen participation processes. Some significant ones include: • • • • • •

Making democracy more democratic, Redefining power structures, Enhancing credibility and legitimacy, Managing conflict and building consensus, Eliciting feedback and consultation, and Promoting accountability and transparency.

Making Democracy More Democratic In democratic theory, popular sovereignty refers to the capacity of a people for independence and self-government. Modern U.S. democracy—perhaps the most democratic in the world—boasts, according to Schattschneider, only a “semi-sovereign” people, dependent on an expansive, paternalistic political elite intent on reducing deliberative forms of participation (Schattschneider 1997; Bachrach 2002). Expanding and deepening citizen participation is a way to make democracy more democratic—that is, direct, deliberative, and participatory, as opposed to simply representative.14 As Thomas Jefferson so

10

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

aptly stated, “[there is] no safer depository of the ultimate power of society but the people themselves.” Redefining Power Structures For some, increasing citizen participation among selected underrepresented groups is a way to redistribute power (Cortner 1993). The Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 required federal agencies to submit their proposed regulations to public review for the first time, a practice that has been expanded over the years. Access to the text of proposed rules and opportunity for broader public comment have multiplied with the advent of the Internet, at least potentially redistributing power over rule making to broader, less well organized, less wealthy strata. The Housing Act of 1954 expanded participation for the general public by requiring agencies to appoint citizen advisory committees as a prelude to undertaking community development activities. In the 1960s, civil rights legislation enfranchised many African American voters and struck down legal barriers to participation. At the same time, the Johnson administration’s “War on Poverty” programs, under the Equal Opportunity Act of 1964, briefly challenged many existing power structures, supporting emergent local organizations with federal funds in an effort to create “maximum feasible participation.” Community action agencies, still functioning today, gave many poor people a “voice” in local community development efforts. The decades following saw the empowerment of groups concerned about local issues: environmental, planning, zoning, and land use. Citizen participation occurred first through litigation, then through legislation and executive order, requiring nearly all federal agencies to facilitate citizens’ input. Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,” of February 11, 1994, for example, mandates meaningful participation and access for minorities to resolve issues such as toxic waste dump location decisions. However, the extent to which such mandated processes have redistributed power is at best unclear. Enhancing Credibility and Legitimacy Many believe that those governments that reach out successfully to engage citizens in the political process will gain credibility and legitimacy from a demonstration of greater openness, transparency, and responsiveness. When government is credible, citizens are more likely to support the regime and its programs, projects, or initiatives. Today, however, much social science research finds a U.S. public increasingly alienated and disconnected from government at all levels. In most national elections over the last forty years,

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

11

fewer than one-half of registered voters bothered to show up at the polls; an expansion of participation and voting in the 2004 presidential election suggests a possible reversal of that trend and could be related to innovative exploitation by the campaigns of technology to target messages and outreach to narrow groups of voters, as discussed in chapter 11. According to monthly “tracking polls” conducted by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, in the months preceding the 2000 campaign, fewer than one-half of voters said they had thought about or discussed the campaign. Reengaging alienated citizens was a major focus of the 2004 presidential campaigns and continues to challenge those who seek to shore up government’s representativeness and thereby the credibility of the voting system and perhaps ultimately the legitimacy of our national government. Less well-established democratic governments have an even stronger interest in strengthening their credibility and legitimacy through increased popular participation. The government of Colombia, for example, is pursuing an initiative to promote openness, transparency, and responsiveness by facilitating oversight by citizens and civil society groups (National Planning Department 2005). Redburn and Buss discuss best practices derived from the Colombian and other developed/developing country experience in chapter 5. Managing Conflict and Building Consensus If everyone readily agreed on the resolution of most public issues, political institutions might not be needed. Because people don’t agree and may disagree violently, properly designed and carefully executed citizen participation processes are essential tools of public administration, both for building consensus and for resolving conflict (Madigan et al. 1990; Susskind and Field 1996; Susskind and Cruikshank 1987; Susskind et al. 1999). The 1980s brought an increased focus on “stakeholders,” and precipitated efforts to get those most affected by public policy to at least be consulted and to at most have a say on outcomes. Analysts soon discovered that involving stakeholders in public decisions was perhaps a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one, for developing consensus. Involving stakeholders who disagreed with one another often caused more problems for public officials rather than fewer. For example, in the Northwest United States in the 1990s, farmers wanting to divert water for irrigation, Native Americans desiring to fish depleted waters, environmentalists seeking to protect primeval habitats, and developers promoting development all came into conflict over the future of a river region. Where disagreements tended to be intense, as, for example, with environmental issues, officials tried new methods for resolving disputes and mediating disagreement. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

12

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

recognized the need to create the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Center, offering services in consensus building, conflict prevention, and alternative dispute resolution (www.epa.gov/adr/). Eliciting Feedback and Consultation The most commonly sought product of citizen participation and perhaps the least controversial is the opportunity it provides citizens to give valuable input on how programs or policies should be crafted, how well they work, and how they might be improved. Citizens, as consumers or customers, often are best positioned to answer these questions. A major development of recent decades that enhances this kind of citizen participation is the citizen satisfaction survey, in which government asks a representative group of citizens formally for feedback on services, in the same way that businesses often do. Governments in India and the Philippines have innovated the use of citizen satisfaction instruments to obtain feedback on government performance. These employ report cards, wherein citizens rate the services they receive and public officials are held accountable. The government of Colombia is considering a similar system, in part to make its own bureaucracies more responsive to the public and to hold them accountable for results. Promoting Accountability and Transparency Holding public officials accountable for decisions made and services provided is often a major goal of citizen participation processes. If citizens have a say in government, they can influence decisions more frequently and more specifically than by simply voting in elections. Public officials who know that citizens are engaged will likely make better decisions. In the United States, governments at all levels are busily engaged in developing benchmarks, concrete goals, and quantified multiyear objectives against which they and their programs’ performance can be judged (Office of Management and Budget 2005). In addition, community-based foundations, think tanks, professional associations, and citizen groups are developing their own performance measures to hold public officials more accountable for results (National Academy of Public Administration 2005). Whatever the motivation for practical work on improving opportunities for effective citizen participation, it would be helpful if the developers of new techniques were clearer and more explicit in laying out the goals of their efforts. More insight on distinct, and sometimes conflicting, rationales is provided by the work of Xavier de Souza Briggs, found at www.communityproblem-solving.net/PlanningTogether.

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

13

Mandated Citizen Participation Processes Few mandates—federal, state, or local—compel local public officials to engage extensively in promoting and using citizen participation processes. Those mandates that do have the force of law are limited, discretionary, and flexible. Transportation planning in Oregon and economic and community development planning at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are illustrative. Oregon has a long history of citizen participation mandates (Federal Highway Administration 1997). In the 1970s, Oregon created the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) specifically to afford the “opportunity for citizens to be involved in all phases of the [transportation] planning process” (Federal Highway Administration 1997). In 1990, LCDC and the Oregon Department of Transportation developed the Transportation Planning Rule, which put even more responsibility on agencies to elicit citizen input. Over time, citizens in Oregon have developed high expectations of government at all levels. Many professionals believe that Oregon leads the nation in citizen participation applications. The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, a $4.4-billion flexible funding source for community and economic development projects in fifty states and more than one thousand local “entitlement communities,” is administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) (National Academy of Public Administration 2005). Buss and Tribble examine this aspect of the CDBG program in chapter 6 as a case study of how a federal program might more fully engage its constituents. HUD’s program regulations [24 CFR 91.105] require a strategic plan—“the Consolidated Plan”—that includes a citizen participation component, allowing citizens to help in developing, amending, and evaluating CDBG projects. People with low or moderate incomes, particularly those living in slums or blighted areas, are a special focus of these requirements. Local entitlement communities must take “whatever actions are appropriate to encourage the participation of all their citizens, including minorities and non-English speaking persons, as well as persons with disabilities” (24 CFR 91.105). Entitlement communities must hold at least two public hearings annually; one hearing must be scheduled to allow citizens to participate in plan development. Entitlement communities meet publication requirements by publishing a plan summary in a general-circulation newspaper and by making copies of the plan available at libraries, government agencies, and public places. Entitlement communities must follow their citizen participation plans, but amendments are permitted so long as public comment is invited. Citizen participation

14

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

requirements cannot restrict the responsibility or authority of an entitlement community for the development and execution of its plan. However, the success of these requirements in mobilizing participation or permitting citizens to shape local use of federal funds is an open question. At the local level, some communities mandate specific citizen participation processes—hearings on budgets, land use plans, or major development projects. However, the strongest mandates for citizen participation are in either federal or state law or regulation. It does not follow, necessarily, that lower levels of government will be more open and democratic in their procedures than higher levels are. Modes of Citizen Participation A panoply of options exists to satisfy citizen participation requirements under law or because they are considered desirable in themselves (see, for example, Office of Intergovernmental and Public Accountability, n.d.). These include: referendum, initiative, and recall; public hearings; advocacy and public interest groups; surveys and focus groups; workshops, retreats, and conferences; citizen advisory boards and partnerships; group facilitation; and a growing set of innovative and complex procedures for voting and registering views, increasingly using decision support software and the Internet. Referendum, Initiative, and Recall Although elections are at the heart of democracy, they do not allow citizens to participate except by giving thumbs up or down to candidates for office. However, special categories of electoral procedures provide citizens a more direct voice in the policy-making process. At the state and local level, the oldest and perhaps most basic form of citizen participation is a vote in a general or special election. Citizens typically vote on the performance or expected performance of candidates for public office. In rarer cases, citizens may be asked to pass or defeat referenda or initiatives on policy questions— citizens may organize to put their own issues on ballots. According to the Initiative and Referendum Institute, only twenty-one states have both a referendum and an initiative option; two have initiatives only; three referendums only; and twenty-four neither option (Walters 2003).15 Some states provide that citizens may vote elected officials out of office— recall them—before their terms are up. In November 2003, the most famous successful recall effort unseated two-term California governor Gray Davis in favor of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In January 2004, a failed petition drive was launched against Anthony Williams, Mayor of Washington, D.C.

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

15

Some argue that the referendum process has been largely co-opted by monied interests able to influence electoral outcomes through sheer spending (Gerber 1999). Others, though, suggest a decided grassroots flavor. Public Hearings Although elections, including referenda, may be at the heart of the democratic process, they are far from exhausting the institutional procedures permitting citizens to express their views on public questions. Public hearings are a complement to elections and may be the most widely available form of non-electoral citizen participation, at least locally. Virtually every unit of local government must hold hearings when plans are developed, projects are approved or amended, or budgets are proposed or revised. In many cases, federal, state, and local units of government mandate hearings. HUD requires hearings on its Consolidated Plan, states require hearings on matching funds tied to federal funding, and local governments may require hearings on federal and state funding allocated to the local budget, for example, as discussed by Buss and Tribble in chapter 6. Although the most frequently used form, hearings may well be the least effective vehicle for citizen input. Typically, hearings are poorly attended and citizen comment is likely not representative, even when millions of dollars of proposed expenditure on highways or economic and community development are at stake. Hearings also are risky for public officials because they are sometimes difficult to control—anyone can say just about anything, all before the mass media. Most officials can recount horror stories about how an angry citizen unexpectedly derailed a “safe” project in a hearing. The setting encourages posturing and discourages dialogue and new thinking. Prior to most hearings on development projects, public officials have carefully negotiated with developers and local elites, so that any alteration in project plans—much less rejection of the negotiated plan at what is often the final stage before dirt begins to fly—carries a high cost for officials. Perhaps this is why they often treat hearings as a pro forma requirement to get out of the way with minimum opportunity for meaningful public input. Advocacy and Public Interest Groups Since the 1960s, political scientists, such as David Truman (1971), have pointed out that organized interest groups dominate citizen participation processes, usually around a narrow set of issues or programs that directly concern their members. For instance, directors of state-level and local community development agencies, representatives of public housing agencies and

16

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

directors, owners of subsidized housing, coalitions of professionals working in local government and nonprofit organizations on low-income housing, and other narrowly focused associations of professionals regularly lobby HUD on community and economic development issues, concerning everything from lead abatement in housing projects to management information systems used to report grant uses and expenditures. Although advocacy group input is important—these groups often have expertise and information necessary to make good policy decisions—they may dominate citizen participation processes so much that the process becomes unrepresentative of the broader public affected by the programs and their local use. At one federal agency, for example, only two groups are mandated to be included through outreach in citizen participation processes: labor unions and the disabled community. Surveys and Focus Groups Increasingly, communities turn to surveys and focus groups as a preferred mode of citizen input (e.g., The Leadership Initiative 2001). Surveys—by telephone, mail, e-mail, group distribution, or in person—afford policymakers the opportunity to elicit large amounts of information from representative groups of people at relatively low cost. Their disadvantage is that they are highly structured and not especially rich in the information they produce. Focus groups—small groups of people whose interaction yields richer but less structured information—often supplement survey information as a mode of citizen input. Buss, in chapter 7, provides and analyzes one case of the effective use of focus groups to inform policy formation. As he notes, it may be possible for public officials to become over-reliant on, or to over-interpret, results of surveys and focus groups. In other words, decision makers may reach decisions based on trends in polls and focus group data that tap fickle or uninformed opinions that could change in a short period of time, either in response to better information or when public officials or others provide focus and leadership. This seems to have been the case for Boston’s $15 billion “Big Dig” transportation/economic development project over the past decade16 (Altshuler 2003). Public opinion support ebbed and flowed as bridges, highways, and tunnels appeared and at the same time neighborhoods were disrupted, billions of dollars in cost overruns were reported, and dust, noise, and water pollution became commonplace. Workshops, Retreats, and Conferences Workshops, planning charettes, retreats, and similar forums are increasingly popular ways to involve citizens in government decision making. These modes

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

17

are most often used to less than their full potential, that is, merely to gather information from citizens or provide them with it rather than to engage them in a sophisticated, deep dialogue about problems and policy choices. This greatly limits the utility of such opportunities for citizens and public officials to sit down together. Even so, these methods are especially useful in planning, where maps, models, and other visual aids are necessary. At a national level, one of the more sophisticated of these approaches is the Canadian Crossing Boundaries initiative. Since 1997, Crossing Boundaries has fostered a national dialogue involving elected officials and public servants from across Canada and around the world on the impact of information technology on government, democracy, and citizens.17 In the United States, the Council on Excellence in Government has partnered with the Public Broadcasting Service to hold a series of electronic town meetings with citizens around the country. Key public figures meet to take audience questions and respond to Internet queries on issues related to homeland security. Meetings are moderated by Frank Sesno—a well-known media personality—and broadcast widely around the country.18 On a smaller scale, workshops, stakeholder conferences, and intensive problem-solving sessions such as planners’ charettes provide innumerable, if largely unnoticed, opportunities for citizen engagement—again most often used to less than their full potential because of the way they are conducted. Citizen Advisory Boards and Partnerships Some communities formalize citizen input into programs or policy areas by creating special standing advisory boards to offer input into planning processes. Such boards do not have decision-making authority (these should not be confused with zoning or planning boards, which do have the authority to make decisions). Boards typically strive to be representative of communities or neighborhoods by including one or more “stakeholders” from each group likely to be affected. The problem with boards is that they cannot really be representative of the affected community except in some general demographic way. Board members, depending on how selected, tend to have different values than either the elected officials who select them or the elements of the public they may be chosen to represent (Redburn et al. 1980). As part of the recent international support for citizen engagement as a means of increasing government’s accountability, advisory boards of a specialized nature have been established. In India, for example, citizen juries have been used to evaluate the effectiveness of services and programs. Also in India, some cities employ citizen guards, who actually work with civil servants, monitoring how well they do their jobs. Citizen associations—groups

18

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

of citizens formed spontaneously or at the behest of government—such as the Communidades in Brazil, track, monitor, and evaluate public services. In Colombia, representatives from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations, churches, unions, and other groups formed associations to monitor government performance. The United Kingdom pioneered citizen charters, which constitute a contractual partnership between government service providers and citizens: When government fails to live up to its commitments, citizens receive compensation in various ways at government expense. (These and other approaches and their implications are explored more fully by Redburn and Buss in chapter 5.) Group Facilitation Group facilitation modes have been around for decades, but seem to have enjoyed a renaissance in the last two decades (Bramson and Buss 2002; see also Morse’s chapter 4 in the present volume). Most of these processes allow a chosen group of citizens to participate in a sustained face-to-face process over time, in which they seek consensus on problems and solutions. Public officials may participate in the groups as members. The latest innovations in group methods have to do with increasing dramatically the number of participants—referred to as “whole systems change” because they try to include representation from a wide swath of the community—to give their deliberations more credibility and to increase the diversity of represented opinions. For the most part, such group methodologies have never undergone widespread scientific evaluation: What works and why? Is one or another group method superior to other methods? In the absence of careful evaluation, it is unclear whether the numerous techniques available are really different from one another in their effectiveness or are more effective than other, more standard citizen participation processes. One recent use of such methods of group involvement is in participatory budgeting and planning. Perhaps the best-known participatory budget model is the Porto Alegre, Brazil, initiative. Citizens in each of the city’s fifteen regions meet in two rounds of plenary sessions annually on a variety of budget issues. These meetings are used to gather citizen input on issues and to mobilize communities to elect delegates to forums where budgeting issues will be deliberated. At forum meetings, community budget requests are scored, ranked, and deliberated. Representatives from the forums are elected in turn to serve on the Council of Participatory Budgeting, a decision-making body. By 2004, some eighty additional cities in Brazil had implemented the Porto Alegre model. The model promotes accountability, equity, and redistribution, along with legitimacy. As is the

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

19

case with many representative systems, as the initiative matures individual citizen participants are giving way to participation by organized groups. Some observers fear radicalization of the process. Although the municipal legislature can reject the budget proposed by the council and submitted by the mayor, it finds it difficult to do so. As such, some budget allocations may not be in the best interest of the community. Innovations in Participation: The Potential Uses of Information Technology Technology that dramatically reduces the cost and eases the effort of accessing information and exchanging views at long distance may soon have a dramatic effect on how citizens participate in politics and government. Chapters 8 through 11 assess this potential. “E-government” is changing the way U.S. citizens interact with their government at all levels: federal, state, and local. Up to the present, e-government has focused largely on the development of Web sites and communications to disseminate information to the public and e-mail links to elicit citizen feedback (Buss and Redburn 2002; Council on Excellence in Government 2004). Fourteen counties in northwestern Georgia, for example, are linked together by the Growth Management Initiative Web site to provide a forum on growth/ anti-growth issues in a project funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission.19 Although common, these methodologies do not yet take full advantage of new technology. High-speed computers, sophisticated decision-making software, and Internet access could revolutionize citizen participation processes. Citizens working at terminals, for instance, could participate in inexpensive, sophisticated simulations and decision-making games and activities (Redburn and Buss 2004). But even this method of citizen participation can be problematic. No matter how simple or user friendly it is, some individuals may be excluded as participants. E-government, even in its most sophisticated and technologically advanced aspects, can be a powerful tool to engage categories of people who have been hard to reach by other means. This is just one of many reasons why it appears to have great potential to facilitate and enhance citizen input. According to columnist Neal Pierce, e-government should not be considered a mere convenience, but rather a way to personalize government and make it more responsive, even for people of little wealth or influence (Pierce 2000). Viewed in this way, it could be seen as essential to a properly functioning government. But it will take considerable effort to move from convenience to responsiveness. Buss and Redburn discuss various aspects of e-government in chapter 8, “Information Technology and Governance.” Some

20

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

observers are skeptical about the extent to which e-government increases or can increase citizen input and promote democratization. In chapter 9, O’Looney characterizes the challenge for policymakers as one of ensuring that information technology is shaped and used to support democratic practice rather than to undermine it. In chapter 10, O’Looney presents a comprehensive look at the still-limited body of experience with modeling, simulation, and other decision-support software as means of increasing and enhancing democratic forms of participation. He is encouraged that at a time when citizens are demanding more of a voice in decisions, public officials are reaching for and legitimizing an enhanced role for citizens in numerous areas of public affairs. At the same time, he realistically identifies multiple reasons for the common gap between stated desires for public participation and the deployment of technology that would enhance it. O’Looney outlines a strategy to further and accelerate the use of decisionsupport technology by building the necessary institutions and integrating modeling and simulation with existing practice. Buss and Buss, in chapter 11, explore the emerging effects of the Internet on interactions between citizens and public organizations and find these to be a double-edged sword. Chapter 11 looks at the impact of the Internet—especially Web sites and blogging—and the mainstream and alternative media on citizen participation. Although burgeoning volumes of information are available on the Internet and growing numbers are accessing it, the authors believe that increased participation will eventually stabilize. The authors’ pessimistic assessment is that the enormous positive potential of the Internet to improve our democracy will not be realized. Issues in the Design and Administration of Citizen Participation Processes Citizen participation is not straightforward in any sense. The issues below will always be of concern. • • • • • • • • •

How should stakeholders be defined? How much decision-making authority should citizens have? How should public officials handle bad advice from citizens? Are multiple opportunities and venues for participation important? Is e-government the answer to the participation dilemma? Should planning and participation be considered equivalent? Are some issue areas inappropriate for citizen input? How can citizen participation be made a national policy issue? Why should citizen participation processes undergo continuous evaluation?

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

21

Defining Stakeholders Most modes of citizen participation depend on targeting “categories” of stakeholders who will participate. But how should “stakeholders” be defined? An obvious way is to determine who is most affected by development activity, then bring them to the table. Who is most affected is both relative and multidimensional. Should all who are affected be included, or only those for whom the impact is severe relative to their means? Are those who are slightly affected but holding very intense views to be considered while others who are more affected but indifferent excluded? Are taxpayers who will be asked to pay the bill to be included among the stakeholders? The list of qualifications is endless. Once defined, how should stakeholders who are determined eligible to participate be identified and invited? Should efforts to include representative stakeholders base representation on certain demographic characteristics—age, race, language, ethnicity, or income—or on residence in specified geographic areas, or both? Such choices obviously lead to more or less inclusion or exclusion of particular classes of citizens and to different outcomes. For example, HUD encourages communities to establish neighborhood strategy areas to address the needs of the poor. But there are few areas with relatively homogeneous populations. Rather, neighborhoods are usually a mix of low- to moderate-income people, and occasionally people with much higher incomes, all with a “stake” in development choices. Decision-Making Authority Many advocates would like to see citizen participation processes have more “teeth” when it comes to implementation (ACIR 1979). But this is a twosided coin. Many, perhaps most, will choose not to participate, in part because their experience tells them that participation will not be meaningful. Why should citizens participate if their deliberations are not taken seriously? The other side of the coin is that elected and appointed officials are in office to make decisions. If they do badly, then citizens might vote them out. Laws and customs requiring citizen participation processes greatly favor this form of recourse over delegation of policy control by officials to citizens. An untenable situation may arise when citizens expecting to control decisions devote inordinate amounts of time to providing input only to find it rejected. Public officials typically and understandably seek to avoid this, but there are limited exceptions. In Seattle, Mayor Paul Schell inaugurated his “city of choices” initiative, in which citizens provide early input on economic and community development issues, which are then implemented

22

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

by the city. Public officials recently gave citizens in Eugene, Oregon, control over small grants for community/economic development as a step in the direction of citizen empowerment. Bad Advice Public officials often eschew citizen participation processes because they want to avoid bad advice, especially when publicly given. Although this seems reasonable on its face, it denies citizens their right to be heard—often and vociferously. It is also paternalistic, assuming as it does that elites are much more likely to be “right.” Some argue that public officials are unreasonably afraid of the public, mostly because they have not received the training necessary to manage citizen participation processes effectively or to their advantage. Bramson advocates training public officials in the art and science of engaging citizens in a dialogue, under the assumption that public officials have unfounded fears about engagement that might be overcome through learning and training (Bramson 2000). Necessity to Triangulate Methods Although there are numerous ways to engage citizens in the workings of government, each has strengths and weaknesses. It is reasonable to assume that employing only one or a handful of methods, therefore, will not suffice to fulfill the democratic obligation to involve a representative set of citizens meaningfully in public choices. Different methods reach different people; but equally important, different methods when applied to the same people may yield differing results. For example, a survey or focus-group methodology applied to residents of a low-income or immigrant-dominated neighborhood can easily produce different, perhaps less reliable, results than the same methods applied to an affluent neighborhood. The dilemma for public officials is what methods to choose and how to interpret results. If cost and time were no objects, then the best approach might be to engage in as many methods as possible, then reconcile disparate results where appropriate by bringing in additional information, consulting experts, or gathering additional input. But citizen participation can be expensive and time consuming, not to mention complicated for public officials to manage. More systematic assessment of the appropriate uses of varied techniques in different settings and different stages of policy development would be a great aid to public officials seeking to balance their need for citizen input with other demands on government’s limited resources.

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

23

Planning Versus Participation Some argue that citizen participation and planning processes are in continual tension, so much so that the former is the Achilles’ heel of the latter (Benveniste 1989). Citizen participation improves democratic processes, while planning involves both negotiation and the application of technical expertise. Citizen participation relies on formal processes, while planning may be much more informal. Citizen participation is inclusive and routinized, while planning is selective, changing, and flexible. Citizen participation is, by definition, transparent, while planning may occur, for legitimate reasons, behind closed doors. The implication: Effective citizen participation may lead to ineffective planning. Inappropriate Citizen Input Some argue that a few policy issues defy any rational use of citizen participation processes. These issues tend to be those that are complex, time sensitive, secret, or proprietary. The Environmental Protection Agency exempts many of its policy issues from citizen input because administrators do not believe that people are sophisticated enough to understand the science and believe that people in any case would not have sufficient time to review and absorb documents necessary to acquire the scientific knowledge. The Department of Defense, State Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and numerous other agencies may exclude citizen involvement because of the sensitive nature of the policies— or because effective participation would require access to secure or classified information. All agencies may face time pressures that preclude deliberation of or public comment on some policy choices—emergency response to natural disasters, for example. However, it is also possible that public officials exaggerate such problems when deciding whether citizens will be consulted or not. Promoting the Idea of Citizen Participation Assuming that expanding and deepening citizen participation opportunities is desirable, who should take the lead in making it reality? Foundations and government agencies can fund demonstration projects to draw attention to the issue.20 Universities, foundations, advocacy and professional groups, and government can publish best-practice information for wide dissemination.21 Federal agencies can provide grantees—say under CDBG—with incentives to undertake citizen participation activities. Federal agencies or Congress

24

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

could expand regulations to require greater participation opportunities. Perhaps what is also needed is a national, federally funded organization charged with promoting citizen participation and peaceful resolution of conflicts over major national issues. Some may consider it ironic that no such agency now exists, considering that the United States is a beacon for democratic practices and funds efforts to promote democratic practice globally—including bilateral efforts to support the United Nations Democracy Fund and institutions such as the United States Institute of Peace for peaceful resolution of international conflicts—but does not specifically fund comparable institutions for the promotion of democratic practice or peaceful management of major public policy differences within the United States.22 Evaluation of Citizen Participation Processes In spite of mandates for and the prevalence of citizen participation activities across the country, few have ever been formally evaluated (e.g., Office of Policy 2001). Some public officials do not see the need to evaluate citizen participation processes, believing that investing in evaluation reduces funding available for programs, and too many do not want to know what works and what does not. These arguments against evaluation are weak. Evaluations that definitively illuminate what works and what doesn’t greatly help in ensuring that funding from all sources is better spent. If performance-based management, grounded in goals, objectives, and outcomes, is essential to effective program implementation, then evaluation of citizen participation processes is likewise critical at various stages of the policy process—design, implementation, evaluation, and feedback—because it is an essential component of performance-driven program implementation (Council for Urban Economic Development 1998; Department of Public Instruction n.d.). Most federal funding and a great deal of state funding allow for and encourage expenditures for administrative costs—including evaluation generally and citizen participation specifically. Communities spend a lot on administration, of which a larger proportion could be usefully directed to evaluation of processes by which citizens shape program choices. Conclusion Effective citizen participation in public affairs is essential to the healthy functioning of any democracy. It is something that must and can be nurtured by those interested in maintaining and strengthening democratic government. Renewed interest in citizen input and changes in information technology combine to make this a propitious time to experiment with methods to expand and

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

25

deepen opportunities for citizens to interact with their government on a broad range of issues. With computers, software, and the Internet, the options sometimes seem limitless but remain ill defined. Although these technologies offer opportunity, by dramatically increasing citizens’ access to current information about policy choices and lowering the costs to them of communicating with each other and with public officials, they may also pose dangers if misused. It will take acts of personal imagination, leadership by the public sector, and a systematic approach to the testing of new modes of participation to deepen and strengthen democratic institutions. This volume will have served its purpose if it stimulates its readers to approach the task with a clearer sense of the challenges, the opportunities, and what is at stake. Notes This chapter draws in part on materials presented elsewhere (Buss, Redburn, and Tribble 2003). 1. See www.PlaceMatters.com. Accessed February 13, 2006 2. See www.communityviz.com. Accessed February 13, 2006. 3. See www.PlaceMatters.com. Accessed February 13, 2006. 4. See www.democracyinnovations.org. Accessed February 13, 2006. 5. Women’s suffrage was a national movement to extend voting rights to women in the United States from the 1840s to 1920, culminating in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony spearheaded the movement. 6. The temperance movement was a national effort, lead by Carry Nation of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, to ban drinking in the United States beginning in the 1870s and lasting until ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919. The Eighteenth Amendment was eventually repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933. 7. The movement is a loose collection of groups ostensibly opposed to trade. Their methods are to disrupt meetings of the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the G-8—a group that comprises the eight largest industrial countries— often using violence. They are interesting in that those who identify with the movement are assembled to protest by calls to action through the Internet. 8. The World Bank funds about six hundred anticorruption initiatives in developing countries, stressing participation by civil society organizations as watchdogs of public corruption. Transparency International, an advocacy organization, annually publishes the Global Corruption Report (www.transparency.org) tracking how well countries are doing in fighting corruption. 9. See www.soros.org. 10. See www.mcc.gov. Accessed February 13, 2006. 11. See www.developmentgoals.org. Accessed February 13, 2006. 12. The Alliance for Redesigning Government became a program at Harvard University in 2001. 13. See www.worldbank.org. Accessed February 13, 2006. 14. For an overview of the debate around this issue see chapter 3. 15. See www.iandrinstitute.org. Accessed February 13, 2006. 16. See www.masspike.com/bigdig/index.html. Accessed February 13, 2006. 17. See www.crossingboundaries.ca. Accessed February 13, 2006.

26

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO 18. See www.excelgov.org. Accessed February 13, 2006. 19. See www.arc.gov. Accessed February 13, 2006. 20. For example, www.pew-partnership.org. Accessed February 13, 2006. 21. See www.usip.org. Accessed February 13, 2006. 22. See www.pew-partnership.org. Accessed February 13, 2006.

References Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR). 1979. Citizen Participation. Washington, DC: ACIR. Alinsky, Saul. 1969. Reveille for Radicals. New York: Vintage Books. Altshuler, Alan A. 2003. Mega-Projects. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Bachrach, Peter. 2002. The Theory of Democratic Elitism. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. Barber, Benjamin. 1984. Strong Democracy, Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. Benveniste, Guy. 1989. Mastering the Politics of Planning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bramson, Ruth Ann. 2000. Public Dialogue. Cincinnati: Union Institute. Bramson, Ruth Ann, and Terry F. Buss, eds. 2002. “Group Methods for Whole Systems Change.” Public Organization Review 2(3): 211–303. Buss, Terry F., and F. Stevens Redburn. 2002. “Information Technology and Governance.” In Sound Governance, ed. Ali Farazmand. New York: Marcel Dekker. Buss, Terry F., F. Stevens Redburn, and Marcela Tribble. 2003. “Citizen Participation and Economic Development.” In Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy, ed. Jack Rabin, pp. 354–61. New York: Marcel Dekker. Council for Urban Economic Development. 1998. Performance Monitoring: Achieving Performance Excellence in Economic Development. Washington, DC: Council for Urban Economic Development. Council on Excellence in Government. 2004. E-Government: The Next American Revolution. Washington, DC: Council on Excellence in Government. ———. 2005. A Matter of Trust. Washington, DC: Council on Excellence in Government. Cortner, Hanna. 1993. Public Involvement. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Water Resources, U.S. Corps of Army Engineers. Chrislip, David, and Carl Larson. 1994. Collaborative Leadership. San Francisco: JosseyBass. Dahl, Robert. 1956. A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. De Tocqueville, Alexis. [1836] 1997. Democracy in America. New York: Penguin-Putnam. Department of Public Instruction. n.d. Community Education Tool Kit. Madison: Department of Public Instruction, State of Wisconsin. Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: HarperCollins. Federal Highway Administration. 1997. Public Involvement at Oregon Department of Transportation. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation. Filler, L. 1939. Crusaders for American Liberalism. New York: Harper. Follett, Mary Parker. 1924. Creative Experience. New York: Longmans, Green. Frederickson, H. George, and Ralph Clark Chandler, eds. 1984. “Citizenship and Public Administration.” Special issue of Public Administration Review (March): 99–209. Fung, Archon. 2004. Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

MODERNIZING DEMOCRACY

27

Gerber, Elizabeth. 1999. The Populist Paradox. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. The Leadership Initiative. 2001. Strategic Planning for Community Development. Bismarck: Department of Economic Development and Finance, State of North Dakota. Lindblom, Charles. 1965. The Intelligence of Democracy. New York: Free Press. Madigan, Denise, Gerald McMahon, Lawrence Susskind, and Stephanie Rolley. 1990. New Approaches to Resolving Public Disputes. Washington, DC: National Institute for Dispute Resolution. Mansbridge, Jane J. 1980. Beyond Adversarial Democracy. New York: Basic Books. National Academy of Public Administration. 2005. Developing Performance Measures for the CDBG Program. Washington, DC: National Academy of Public Administration. National Planning Department. 2005. National Accountability Strategy for Colombia. Bogotá: National Planning Department, Republic of Colombia. Office of Intergovernmental and Public Accountability. n.d. How to Design a Public Participation Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy. Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 2005. Program Assessment Rating Tool. Washington, DC: OMB. Available at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/part/index.html. Accessed February 9, 2006. Office of Policy. 2000. Engaging the American People: A Review of EPA’s Public Participation Policy. Washington, DC: Environmental Protection Agency. ———. 2001. Stakeholder Involvement and Public Participation at the U.S. EPA. Washington, DC: Environmental Protection Agency. Olson, Mancur. 1971. Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Osborne, David. 1990. Laboratories of Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press. ———. 1993. Reinventing Government. New York: Plume. Peirce, Neal. 2000. “E-Government: Not Just Convenience.” Washington, DC: Alliance for Redesigning Government, National Academy of Public Administration. Putnam, Robert. 1993. Making Democracy Work, Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ———. 2001. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster. ———. 2003. Restoring the American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster. Redburn, F. Stevens, and Terry F. Buss. 2004. “Modernizing Democracy.” In Sound Governance: Policy Innovation and Public Administration, ed. Ali Farazmand, pp. 155– 68. New York: Greenwood Publishing. Redburn, F. Stevens, Terry F. Buss, Steven Foster, and William Binning. 1980. “How Representative Are Mandated Citizen Participation Processes?” Urban Affairs Quarterly 15(3): 345–52. Redburn, F. Stevens, and Yong Hyo Cho. 1984. “Government’s Responsibility for Citizenship and the Quality of Community Life.” Special issue of Public Administration Review (March): 158–61. Riker, William. 1973. Positive Political Theory. Englewood, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Schattschneider, John. 1997. Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Thompson Publishing. Schumpeter, Joseph. 1975. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper. Originally published 1942. Seifter, Harvey, Peter Economy, and Richard Hackman. 1997. Leadership Ensemble. New York: Henry Holt. Snow, Doug, Gary Woller, and Terry F. Buss. 2001. Microfinance and Economic Development Policy. New York: Nova.

28

TERRY F. BUSS, F. STEVENS REDBURN, AND KRISTINA GUO

Susskind, Lawrence, and Jeffrey Cruikshank. 1987. Breaking the Impasse. New York: Basic Books. Susskind, Lawrence, and Patrick Field. 1996. Dealing with an Angry Public. New York: Free Press. Susskind, Lawrence, Sarah McKearnen, and Jennifer Thomas-Lamar. 1999. Consensus Building Handbook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Thorson, Thomas Landon. 1962. The Logic of Democracy. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Truman, David B. 1971. The Governmental Process. Berkeley: University of California Press. Walters, Dane. 2003. The Initiative and Referendum Almanac. Raleigh, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

2 Expanding and Deepening Citizen Participation A Policy Agenda F. Stevens Redburn and Terry F. Buss

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy. —Alfred E. Smith

Modernizing Democracy Views of U.S. democracy seem to fall broadly into three categories. Some people believe that a form of government that allows for extensive popular participation is one of the nation’s greatest strengths and a shining light to the rest of the world. Other people worry that too much participation could be dangerous and may even wish to limit popular participation. A third group thinks more democracy is a good idea and would like to give it a better try starting here and now. Although sharing both the pride of the first group in what the United States has accomplished and some of the anxieties of the second group, we tend toward the third view. The challenge it poses for us is both intellectual and practical. In the following pages, we first outline premises and goals of a program to strengthen U.S. democracy, and then offer what we see as elements of a practical program to do so. What Strengthening Democracy Means The need for a program to strengthen democracy is based on two premises: 1. Democracy in the United States, which is a model for other nations, is still imperfectly realized; and 29

30

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

2. Changes in society and emerging information technologies (IT) now offer new possibilities for meaningful citizen participation in public choices. These premises are controversial, and this is not the space where they can be fully debated. But it is helpful to start by briefly examining each one in turn. U.S. Democracy Is Imperfect The most frequently cited evidence for this proposition includes low participation in elections and survey results showing that many citizens are alienated from or indifferent to political debates and/or ignorant of public affairs. In the 2000 presidential election, for example, only 51 percent of registered voters turned up at the polls, a percentage seldom and barely exceeded in the past forty years. Off-year elections, 2002 for example at 39 percent, are even lower (http://elections.gmu.edu/VAP_VEP.htm). According to monthly “tracking polls” conducted by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, less than half of voters, when asked in the months preceding the 2000 campaign, could recall any news story about the campaign, paid close attention to the campaign, or thought about or discussed the campaign. Many alienated or indifferent voters are concerned about the distorting effects of political contributions and control of media on public debate and outcomes of the electoral and legislative processes. Some are complacent about these flaws or concerned that reforms designed to expand and deepen popular involvement risk damaging a system that has set a worldwide standard for political freedom and stable government responsive to popular will. Some believe that those who do not participate either forego public affairs as a matter of rational choice or are irrational and would participate in ways that would be harmful to their own interests or would violate the rights of others. It is legitimate to argue that ignorance, alienation, and the antidemocratic views of nonparticipants are reason enough not to explore new opportunities for participation. After all, much evidence points to a public that is poorly prepared to engage in sophisticated analysis and debate, and either so content with results of political processes or so alienated from them as to be difficult to engage. On the other hand, a dumbed-down, disengaged public opinion may be the natural product of the present structure of U.S. politics. Without systematic investigation, it is not possible to fairly assess potential effects of particular institutional innovations or to test democracy’s limits.1 Certainly there are risks to expanding democracy. Recent titles of two books on statewide ballot initiatives—Dangerous Democracy? and Democratic Delusions—make the point. However, to accept that democracy is

EXPANDING AND DEEPENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

31

imperfectly realized today in the United States it is not necessary to believe without reservation that the “cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy”—only, with Robert Dahl, that “on the whole ordinary people are more competent than anyone else to decide when and how much they shall intervene on decisions they feel are important to them” (Dahl 1990). If ordinary people are competent to decide when and how to participate, then institutions that defeat or discourage participation should be reformed. The issue then becomes how to pursue reform. Social and Technological Changes Are Expanding Opportunities for Meaningful Participation Lack of education, a disinclination toward or limited facility in abstract or quantitative analysis, physical distance, other demands on limited time and energy, and lack of social skills are among the many personal factors that apparently limit how many people can be involved in public debate, in what depth, and for how long. Apart from these personal factors, some would argue that the technical/scientific component of many decisions necessarily strengthens the role of experts, elites, and advocates, who have access to the best science and expert advice, by comparison with ordinary citizens. However, we live in a period when a large proportion of the population is literate and numerate, has access to news and analysis, and has leisure and means to follow or engage in politics. To deal with complex issues requires expert judgment, but emergence of a new computer-software toolbox may hold potential to engage people in making choices in ways not previously conceivable. An emerging array of citizen-friendly decision-support and simulation software products already is being used in communities (and in university classrooms as demonstration projects) across the country to help groups of ordinary citizens make complex choices together in a data-rich working environment (see O’Looney 2003 for a comprehensive review; also see chapters 9 and 10). These tools—which integrate mapping, visualization, decision support, and simulation components—allow people of varying education and technical proficiency to analyze complex issues in much greater depth than ever before and to pose and test novel policy alternatives. The more sophisticated products support decision processes in which citizens can register their preferences in much greater detail and can use expert-informed models both individually and working with others to register views in much more direct and less distorted ways than one could imagine a generation ago. Once fully developed, these tools have the characteristics of other information and communications technology, allowing them to be accessed at a very low marginal cost by many people; so in addition to lowering barriers

32

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

to participation, use of information technology to support new forms of participation may even permit us to bypass some of the distorting influence of money on public decisions. Maybe it is time to begin developing and testing in earnest some new techniques that could strengthen popular government. This would allow us to establish whether changes in information and communications technology are making new forms of participation practical at a time when many citizens have lost interest in traditional forms of participation. If this premise is right, then it is a good time to experiment with alternatives to established forms, to see just how far we can take the democratic ideal and with what consequences. Leadership is needed. If democracy were approached like health care, there would be a national debate about how to broaden and deepen the democratic process. There would be programs, proposals, and studies about how best to do this. The federal government, certainly, and perhaps state governments, would sponsor research on and conduct large-scale experiments with the reform of political institutions: using new information and communications technologies to inform and aggregate individual and group preferences; creating new venues where people of diverse views can exchange ideas, learn from each other, and seek out and express areas of agreement; and devising new protocols and strategies that allow people to make rational, informed choices among leaders and policy alternatives. Informed by experimental results, citizens might demand, and presidents and governors might then make, bold proposals to strengthen democratic institutions. Programs and organizations might be created with continued improvement of our democracy as their focus. Instead, today’s public discussion focuses almost entirely on important but marginal proposals aimed at perfecting the existing electoral and legislative mechanics of a system not fundamentally different from a century ago. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 compels states to prepare voting reform plans and replace punch card and lever voting machines, offers mandatory and volunteer guidance and standards, requires computerized state voter registration lists, and requires provisional voting (www.fec.gov/hava/hava.htm). Many states are in nearly full compliance with the law. E-voting, although technologically sophisticated, is merely an electronic way to cast a ballot faster and more cheaply. Campaign finance reform—the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2003—can help equalize the influence of the less wealthy and less organized, but it does not create entirely new leadership recruitment channels, means of engagement, or electoral methods. More fundamental changes, even those falling within the democratic mainstream, are seldom seriously entertained and may even be met with hostility. In 1993, Lani Guinier’s academic writings about how cumulative voting might

EXPANDING AND DEEPENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

33

be used to increase representation of previously excluded minorities were caricatured and attacked following her nomination to head the Justice Department’s civil rights enforcement office. After scanning her writings, President Clinton publicly characterized them as “anti-democratic.” Ironically, Guinier’s endorsement of this form of proportionate voting resulted from her personal search for ways of “encouraging voters to mobilize and organize at the grassroots level and for more inclusive and participatory electoral systems” (Guinier 1998). Another leadership response to declining participation has been to encourage building social capital in the form of voluntary associations dedicated to public ends. These ideas are found in Robert Putnam’s work (1993, 2001, 2003) and that of others concerned about reengaging citizens within the public realm. Putnam’s empirical work shows a relationship between the presence of numerous, vigorous voluntary associations and various indicators of democratic political culture and participation. Community service— valuable for its own sake—can introduce people to the need for collective problem solving through the political process, thereby leading to greater political engagement. However, otherwise meritorious policies to promote or subsidize volunteerism also may deflect people from political action to apolitical forms of community service. Service may lead to, but is not the same as, effective popular participation in the choice of leaders and policies. Absent a commitment by national leaders to a systematic, broad-gauged program of research and testing of alternative forms, participatory institutions tend to evolve in a largely unplanned manner. As observed by researchers at the University of Southern California’s Initiative and Referendum Institute, the last major structural innovation intended to deepen citizen engagement in policy setting may have been the states’ adoption of the referendum. The basic public opinion survey techniques that have emerged as a major, unplanned and unlegislated, supplement to legally constituted means of political expression and are now pervasive were devised over fifty years ago. Ironically, the world’s prime example of a government founded on rational scientific principles and consciously shaped to achieve greater democracy does not systematically pursue improvement of its participatory and representative processes. Polling may even dampen reform: Why pursue alternatives when it is cheap and easy to contact 1,500 respondents nationwide to obtain a snapshot of “what people think”? Who Should Lead? Who, if anyone, should lead and organize the effort to develop new, more democratic forms of participation in public decision making? The federal

34

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

government is in a position to lead this effort. Indeed, some would argue that nurturing and bolstering U.S. democracy is the federal government’s most fundamental constitutional responsibility. Leadership also could come from state governments or from the major political parties. But there are few signs so far of such leadership, or even concern about the issue. It is instructive to compare the vigorous role played by political leaders in organizing public discussion about other major policy questions with their more limited engagement about how to strengthen popular participation in government. Concerns about failing or mediocre schools have stimulated a vigorous debate, strong reform proposals from governors and presidents, and active experimentation with major structural changes such as vouchers, charter schools, and new systems of standards and testing for teachers and students. The Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is the latest and most comprehensive such approach (www.ed.gov/nclb/). But evidence that many are disenchanted with political institutions and in some cases deeply alienated from and distrustful of the process has not caused political leaders to step forward with innovative proposals for reform or stimulated notable experimentation with alternative institutions. Concerns about a need to expand and finance improved access to good health care has led candidates and presidents to advance bold, even radical, proposals to change the institutional structure for delivering and financing health care. Legislative activity is continuous and high, with committees and staff devoted solely to this large issue. An academic and public policy industry has grown up around the debate. The government funds research and development (R&D), including experiments to test controversial new approaches such as medical savings accounts. Cabinet departments at the national and state levels have health care access and financing as their major mission. In contrast to these other policy problems, there are no comparable actions by leaders to promote increased and more meaningful political participation, no comparable set of institutions devoted to its study, and no government agency with a mission to deepen and broaden our democracy. The absence of leadership by elected officials on a matter that is its most fundamental obligation—rooted in the Declaration of Independence and transcending even the arrangements established in the Constitution—is a historical irony and paradox. Interestingly, the Canadian government has launched an initiative that might serve as a model. The Crossing Boundaries National Council promotes the transformation of government and governance in the twenty-first century (www.crossingboundaries.ca). The council holds national forums, funds demonstration projects, and tests new technologies in an effort to improve the functioning of democracy.

EXPANDING AND DEEPENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

35

Establishing Goals for Democratic Reform A program of systematic democratic reforms might begin with articulation of ambitious and concrete national objectives. A president might, for example, commit an administration to a substantial broadening and deepening of participation, with particular emphasis on effective inclusion of those who feel and are most underrepresented. Target rates could be set for increasing conventional forms of participation and for full consideration of minority views. But if the limitations of conventional participation are themselves an obstacle to effective engagement of those who now exclude themselves or are excluded, the effort’s goals will need to be defined more broadly—as gains in the quality and effectiveness of participation measured by the results of that process, as these are evaluated by participants. In other words, the goal should be to give more people effective means to influence decisions and shape public policy. This should be measurable as increased satisfaction with political involvement, partly because successful engagements are likely to be repeated as rising levels of interest and participation. Goals also must be set for quality of participation. Much has been written in recent years about democratic theory, and so eloquently (e.g., Barber 1984; Mansbridge 1980; Dahl 1989). Without attempting to summarize such a rich theoretical literature, we simply begin with the assertion that a democratic society is one that makes decisions by informed compromise. The essential spirit of democracy is that of open-ended inquiry and learning. Organizing a more democratic society, then, requires expanding the public agenda to include novel and diverse views and keeping it open. Measuring the success of a particular set of institutions in representing and synthesizing a broad set of interests to produce policy choices that are successful and accepted as such is one of the short-term analytical challenges. Institutional innovations must be tested to determine their value as means to increase political productivity—defined as the rapid consensual adoption of policies that either: (1) sustain popular acceptance because they produce expected results or (2) on occasions when policies fail to produce expected results or as circumstances change, are rapidly modified or replaced by new policies backed by a new consensus. Democracy is a practical matter and must be judged by its practical results. As the Guinier episode shows, merely articulating ambitious goals for enlarging and enriching popular participation through institutional change will be controversial. The resulting reinvigorated public debate about the meaning and consequences of a stronger democracy will be a strong stimulus to innovation. Organizing and supporting this impulse through a formal large-scale research and development effort would be a logical next step.

36

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

Establishing a Democracy Research and Development Program Next, we raise the possibility of a systematic program of research and development into the technology of democratic decision making and explore its uses and implications. The remainder of the paper answers two questions: • What would be some of the particular objectives of a program of research and development aimed at this broad goal? • What would the first products of an innovative democratic technology look like? What would be some of the applications? Maintaining an open, learning policy system in a society of enormous diversity, grappling with an array of complex challenges, requires techniques that are engaging, efficient in their use of citizens’ limited time and varied expertise, and able to handle complex, multilayered problems. Simple voting systems may suffice for the election of representatives, although Kenneth Arrow, William Riker, Mancur Olson, Anthony Downs, and others have reached pessimistic conclusions about our ability to devise participatory processes that are fair and will reliably produce rational outcomes, except in the most restrictively defined choice situations.2 On theoretical and logical grounds, they argue that prospects for improving democratic procedures are, therefore, severely limited, and perhaps even that the case for democracy must rest on something other than its instrumental value as a collective means of rational choice (Hauptmann 1996). Others, however, have challenged this theoretical argument. Hauptmann, for example, questions the appropriateness of borrowing for political analysis concepts of choice and preference developed for and used in analyzing economic behavior. Consumer choices are often seen as revealed preexisting preferences, whereas political choices may emerge through exchanges with others as people come to understand and weigh the effects not only on themselves but on others and on a broader community. Although ordinary voting processes and survey techniques reduce policy choices to simple unweighted sums, these represent only part of a larger political realm in which policies may emerge through a synthesis of previously dissonant views. In that larger realm, preferences are not fixed and people do not act alone; instead, they work with others to solve common problems. If participation is limited to the election of representatives, then simpler voting systems—despite their inherent mathematical paradoxes—may suffice. But if we hope to engage people more directly in policy making—as a way to strengthen democracy—they will not suffice. Because many of those who do not now participate perceive current political arrangements as irrelevant or inimical to their personal interests, a

EXPANDING AND DEEPENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

37

main focus of a program to deepen and expand democratic participation would be construction and testing of new procedures and institutions designed to reach the disengaged, giving them meaningful and effective opportunities for participation. Goals of this institutional research and development project would include discovery of techniques that not only reach those presently disengaged but at the same time make it easier for everyone to judge, when facing a potential policy choice, where their interests lie. More than this, the R&D effort would aim at developing new opportunities for diverse groups to discover common interests or synthesize and compromise with others as a prelude to effective action. Such ambitious objectives may imply a major government-led effort to demonstrate alternatives to present institutional arrangements, and to measure their effects. The period of research and demonstration would serve as a prelude to the consideration of particular innovations for broader adoption. Toward a New Technology of Participation As Benjamin Barber puts it in Strong Democracy, in communities where participation is properly organized, “public ends are neither extrapolated from absolutes nor ‘discovered’ in a preexisting ‘hidden consensus.’ They are literally forged through the act of public participation, created through common deliberation and common action and the effect that deliberation and action have on interests” (Barber 1984). Is it possible to create decision structures that are both commensurate with the complexity of most policy problems and accessed and used effectively by representative groups of citizens? If these techniques were widely used by citizens, would the role of elite decision makers then change to accommodate this more informed, engaged, rational citizenry? Would this make our democracy stronger? Imagine policy-making processes that are rich in information and in opportunities for exchanging views and learning and are otherwise structured so that policies chosen have a chance of success. Imagine a new technology of public opinion measurement and communication that captures the complexity of public policy problems facing citizens and their governments. Imagine new opportunities for citizen participation that are more engaging and challenging. Today, citizens and policymakers largely use decision tools and institutional forms that were fashioned generations ago and seemingly discourage participation, narrow the range of options getting full airing and evaluation, and may lead to policy failure. It isn’t hard to think of ways to improve marginally on such processes. On the other hand, it would be a very challenging and complicated undertaking to systematically develop and test an

38

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

entirely new participatory technology and then gradually build this into our democracy’s institutional framework. The challenge is to develop new techniques for engaging people and thereby allowing them to discover and express new viewpoints, to interact in ways allowing them to form agreements to act in concert to address commonly recognized problems, and to open pathways to devising new, promising options. To become part of our political system’s institutional repertoire, such processes can, and must, be inherently interesting and enjoyable. Participatory processes can fail simply because they are deadly boring or empty of meaning. Participatory processes can succeed if they address problems people consider important, if they foster discovery and persuasion, if they allow people to move toward an acceptable decision efficiently with a reasonable investment of effort and personal time, and if they connect somehow to actual policy outcomes. Quite a challenge; but experimentation with new forms is under way in many communities (again, see O’Looney 2003; O’Looney in chapters 9 and 10; and Morse in chapters 3 and 4). Planners and mayors have organized community forums bringing together a cross section of citizens to work together toward consensus on an action plan to address problems or set budget priorities. Handheld electronic voting devices help record choices made and inform everyone how their views compare with those of others in the room or elsewhere. In other cases, new computer software is being used in a more sophisticated way to help groups of citizens to construct alternative visions of their community’s future and to trace out probable long-range consequences of their tentative choices. Thus, the technology supports both individual searches for policies or strategies that will achieve a desired future and interaction of individuals with each other as they seek to fashion consensus around an action plan. Major Research and Development Tasks Creating and testing the use of such technology to support effective, democratic citizen engagement will require a major investment over a period of years. Progress will depend on systematic design and evaluation. As noted, complementary developments in information and telecommunications technology have enormously expanded possibilities for structuring intelligent group processes. These developments also dramatically reduce the costs of designing and testing alternatives, thereby accelerating the potential rate at which institutional innovation can occur. Constraints on the rate of political innovation are now more likely to be social rather than technological. Organizing the R&D process will require identifying appropriate groups or organizations to:

EXPANDING AND DEEPENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

39

Design and Develop IT for Decision Support This task requires advanced expertise in software design accompanied by sensitivity to the human/machine interactions that must be managed. Its goal is development of citizen-friendly software ordinary people can use both individually and in a group setting. The best products will allow citizens to clarify their objectives, explore solutions and accurately project their likely or possible consequences, understand the perspectives and interests of others, widen the array of alternatives considered, make rational informed choices, and work toward consensus. For problems with a geographic component, such as those involving development of a neighborhood, city, or region, development of a national geo-spatial data infrastructure and sophisticated, flexible mapping and visioning software are important design components. Techniques for visual spatial display of large amounts of complex information can help people readily grasp the implications of a given choice or sequence of choices and quickly try out a series of alternative scenarios. Another major information technology component that supports complex analysis is sophisticated simulation modeling, based on observed and tested statistical relationships. And a third component will support “complex voting,” that is, the ability of participants to choose among an expandable array of decision options, which they can redefine if they wish, and to move through an iterative process of choosing, examining projected results and their implications, interacting with others, and choosing again. Software also must support choice aggregation and help participants identify common ground, allowing them to efficiently fashion a consensus. The best products will integrate these and other components seamlessly so that technology remains in the background and people can comfortably interact both with the problem and with each other. The University of Kentucky Transportation Center’s project to “deepen and enhance” community-based participatory planning on a light rail transit initiative is illustrative. The project employs 3-D virtual reality (VR) simulations of alternative rail transit solutions and scenarios to incorporate citizen input. The project employs electronic scoring systems to gather citizen preference data, then analyzes and interprets them using fuzzy set theory (http: //cvoz.uky.edu/psa/TransitDEA). Experiment and Test A second major task is the systematic testing of prototype citizen participation processes applied to a broad range of problems in a wide variety of settings and at different scales (including both face-to-face and remote

40

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

interactions). This is distinct from testing IT itself, because prototypes involve a combination of IT with prespecified protocols for a participatory process that technology will support (an illustrative protocol is outlined in the following section of the paper). Because the possible combinations of technological and participatory elements yield an enormous number of potential designs, one responsibility of those managing this aspect of the R&D process will be to winnow the wheat from the chaff, assigning higher priority to combinations that appear to offer the greatest promise of achieving the program’s democratic goals. Rigorous research controls and standard regimens of professional science will be necessary to generate verifiable evidence of the efficacy of each prototype. This is essential to an efficient R&D program; trial of new participatory modes without formal evaluation will not yield systematic knowledge about outcomes necessary to encourage wide adoption of a particular prototype. Disseminate and Support A network of individuals engaged in a common enterprise to deepen U.S. democracy will need organized support. Best practices can be identified and accessed through the network. Technical assistance can be offered or located. And a community of interest can be maintained over time. A newly formed group of planners, tool builders, and others interested in this agenda, known as Place Matters (www.PlaceMatters.com), was formed in January 2002 to help communities learn to make better choices and to move planning from an episodic to an ongoing process by innovating application of IT to broad-based public participation. Develop Standards An independent group, not invested in any particular approach and not necessarily comprising users, would be needed to establish formal standards and perhaps to assess and rate particular participatory models. The group’s independence and expertise would help to certify and to legitimize successful models, perhaps setting the stage for their formal institutionalization or adoption as preferred or mandated methods of engaging citizens for a particular purpose. Standards to be applied have already been suggested: Is it engaging for and friendly to ordinary people? Does it allow them to handle complex information and make complicated choices efficiently? Are the workings of the process transparent and fair? Does it promote consideration of a broad range of alternatives? Does it promote consensus? Do decisions made lead to better policy outcomes as judged by the participants over time?

EXPANDING AND DEEPENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

41

Because reforms can go astray or have unintended effects, one important role of the standards keepers is to identify and thereby possibly prevent abuses. Efforts by anyone to control or manipulate the process to achieve a predetermined outcome are inevitable. However, setting of standards and evaluation of the process against those standards provide a defense against such abuses. Some Illustrative Tools and Applications A new technology of participation would provide structures through which individuals could interact with information and with each other to construct solutions to common problems. Complexity of the tools would be commensurate with the complexity of the problems being addressed; with the ability of people to absorb, synthesize, and use information to guide their choices; and with a diversity of individual backgrounds, interests, and insights. We have previously characterized such procedures as “complex voting with learning” (Redburn and Buss 1983). To support rational outcomes, techniques for structuring individual and group choices must be commensurate with the importance and complexity of the problems and issues that are being examined. Because important, complex problems require a lot of information and analysis to understand properly, because alternatives are many, because preferences and values of participants vary, because their modes of processing information and ordering alternatives vary, and for other reasons, structuring decision process to yield rationality is a major process-engineering challenge. But this is not the whole of it. Other design challenges include: (1) ensuring that participation is representative and not too heavily biased by social factors such as those that favor higher-status people; (2) minimizing opportunities for unfair manipulation of the results either by outsiders who design or facilitate the process or by a small group within the process; (3) making the process sufficiently engaging and enjoyable so as to sustain interest and active involvement; (4) maximizing the efficiency with which the range of alternatives is first expanded and then narrowed to a final round of decisions; and (5) capturing information about individual and aggregated preferences, other than the simple majority preference, that might inform subsequent rounds of decision making. An important distinction is between participatory modes that work best at small scales, usually involving at least some face-to-face contact, and those that can work at much larger scales and over long distances. Antecedents for structured decision processes involving a small group can be found in the highly original work of Harold Lasswell several decades ago (Lasswell and Lerner 1951; Lasswell 1971). Other models for democratic small-group processes such as “study circles” (Oliver 1987) and “whole systems change”

42

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

(Bramson and Buss 2003) models are now accumulating an extensive base of experience on what works. However, the insights and practical designs proposed remain undeveloped. The policy forum outlined below is an illustrative protocol for democratic small group decision making that is possibly useful at a community or metropolitan level. The Policy Forum The following protocol is presented as a sequence that could be repeated any number of times, with any number of players/participants, for any set of policy choices: 1. An interesting problem or set of problems is posed. 2. Resource constraints are specified. 3. A group is assembled (whether in person or in an electronic forum) who represent the relevant range of diverse interests and perspectives. Their first task is to reach a common understanding and definition of the problem they are prepared to address. 4. Relevant information is provided, at different levels of detail under the control of the participants, including known or hypothesized patterns of causality and estimated benefits and costs. 5. An open-ended list of alternatives is generated, at least in part by the participants. 6. Exchanges occur among the participants about the alternatives and relevant information and analysis. 7. Information is added to the process at intervals or as sought by the participants. 8. Opportunities are provided to “test” alternatives, for example, by simulation or by submitting them to expert panels. 9. Preferences are recorded periodically throughout the process and displayed to the participants in ways that help them understand not only the preferences of others but their reasoning as well. Preference reports cover not only the alternatives but the evaluative criteria used to rank-order alternatives as well. (This step is discussed more fully below.) 10. Final decisions are reached by a winnowing of the alternatives based to the extent possible on agreed-on evaluative criteria. Working Environment Computer technology and software have developed to the point where they can be used to create a gamelike environment in which participants work

EXPANDING AND DEEPENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

43

through a problem, are able to simulate the effects of their initial choices (e.g., the rate at which fixed budgetary resources are consumed, benefits, and other effects), and are then able to adjust their choices. Computer graphics support “visioning” that can highlight and dramatize the alternative futures that may emerge as a result of the options selected. Interactions can be structured among participants. Information can be supplied about the choices made by others. In contrast to the more sophisticated computer games of today (such as SimCity), participants should be able, with justification, to adjust key parameter values (especially where, as is often the case, the scientific basis for a value is weak) and test the effects on outcomes. The environment should also allow participants to construct and test new policy alternatives, which could then be evaluated and manipulated by others. And finally, the environment should move participants toward closure through a set of rules that cause unattractive and weakly supported alternatives to be discarded and that support synthesis of attractive and popular features of surviving alternatives. Recording Preferences Capturing individual preferences is a key element of the decision process. As treated by conventional survey techniques, and to an even more striking degree in elections, preferences are generally recorded as “yes-no” or multiple-choice responses to a limited set of propositions. The standard techniques make it difficult for respondents to express more complicated positions or to indicate the logical construction of their opinions. Underlying these methods or implicit in their design is a model of cognition and reasoning that is simplified and unrealistic. In the face of presentations by the media and political leaders that simplify choices, people often think about policy questions in quite complicated and nuanced ways. Moreover, people are diverse not only in their views on particular questions but also in their approaches to problems: kinds of information they bring to bear, values they consider relevant, logical and ideological constructs they employ to organize ideas, and emotional reactions they experience. Unless people are able to express their positions fully without distortion, they become frustrated. That is one reason so many are frustrated with or turned off by the standard methods of asking and categorizing their opinions. Therefore, developing new, more sophisticated, and less stereotyping methods of capturing individual policy preferences must be a major objective of the research program for a new participatory technology. Techniques allowing rank-ordering of multiple preference statements, encouraging respondents to express the reasoning underlying their policy choices, and expanding analysis of sets of information to identify clusters of

44

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

people using similar reasoning to support similar preference orderings can quickly portray the array of widely held positions within a group, highlighting the extent of consensus or diversity of views. Feeding back this kind of sophisticated information to participants can help them work through differences by helping them understand the basis of others’ views. Among many questions to be examined in the R&D process is whether the use of remote computer-based interactions creates a more comfortable participation venue for people reluctant to express or listen to different viewpoints face to face. If so, then the online virtual policy forum may be a way to broaden as well as deepen public participation. The effect on decision outcomes of particular variations in the protocol could be systematically measured. Outcomes could be compared, by means of controlled experiments, with those yielded by established, simpler techniques for recording public opinion on the same issues. Comparisons could include not only individual choices but also the breadth of consensus around a preferred policy and the extent to which the consensus policies accommodate minority interests. An illustrative application may make the idea of the policy forum less abstract and suggest its transformational potential: Supporting Rational Regional Planning Grassroots political leaders in a metropolitan area believe that they can forge a progressive coalition that unites traditionally divided central-city and inner-ring suburban interests to change the pattern of public investment that typically favors affluent and growing outer suburbs and fuels wasteful sprawl. To do so, however, they must raise and sustain awareness of common interests among their diverse constituents. By creating an accessible policy forum and challenging participants to develop consensus proposals, they are able to build and sustain such a coalition in support of a regional development plan that achieves better outcomes both for environmentalists and developers than they could have achieved otherwise. By efficiently supplying relevant information and supporting continuous interaction to produce real decisions, a computer-based policy forum can lower the barriers of time and distance and thereby accelerate the formation of such coalitions. The forum can also be activated easily on short notice to deal with new issues or crises challenging the coalition. Contiones On a larger scale, different models are needed. A second, subsequent set of institutional innovations could adapt the principles underlying new modes to a scale where they could be used by thousands or millions of citizens. On

EXPANDING AND DEEPENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

45

this scale, there is greater potential to build a stronger and less distorted linkage between decisions by groups of citizens and decisions made by political elites. At a later stage, the aim would be to provide new political institutions—complementary to ordinary candidate voting. A historical reference point and convenient label for the second stage of institutional reform may be found in the contio, an innovation of the early Roman republic. A popular assembly called by the populist tribunes, it served as a means of public education about important issues that citizens might be asked to decide later in the comitia (Cowell 1967). The atmosphere apparently was informal, and citizens could react immediately and vociferously to the information provided. It was employed in a period of Roman history when, as Cowell observes, “the political contests engaged the activity of the majority of the people of Rome” (204). The name, then, is a convenient label for any mechanism that presents the public with a pending issue, provides for opportunities to raise and answer questions about it, and records popular preferences. It is a precursor to collective action and a way to connect (or reconnect) an entire people to public affairs: a formal consultation of the public by elected leaders at a crucial stage in the formation of consensus for a major policy change. By combining key elements of the policy forum with a broader participatory process, the contio gives a much larger cross-section of citizenry an occasional opportunity to participate in a contest of policy alternatives. This presents another set of design challenges. Elements of the contio can be found in the modern public debate staged before a live audience. Although lacking an opportunity for direct engagement by the public, the widely watched 1994 NAFTA debate between Vice President Gore and Ross Perot suggests the potential for such events to raise the saliency of an important but complicated issue and to significantly increase levels of public information about it. Such examples also illustrate the limitations of public debates and the mass media as now used to communicate with the public. The technological platform needed for the emergence and development of such an institution may arrive with the merger of computers, cable, television, and the Internet. Illustrative large-scale applications suggest the potential of new participatory modes to make our politics more democratic and its outputs more effective and satisfying to citizens: Simulating Public Response to New Policy Ideas: Some Hypothetical Examples Policymakers have developed a bold plan to transform health care financing. Remembering the fate of similarly ambitious reform proposals and anxious

46

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

to determine whether any of several approaches is most likely to emerge from public debate with majority support, they decide to simulate the outcome of that debate in advance. To do so, they invite a stratified random sample of voters to participate in a structured decision process. Traditional public opinion survey techniques measure public opinion as it is. On a new or emerging issue, most judgments are tentative and based on little or no information, and standard survey techniques offer respondents a set of shorthand choices with little or no context and give equal weight to better- and less-informed views. A carefully structured policy forum, on the other hand, could be used to simulate how public opinion may evolve in response to public debate. Moreover, rather than limiting choices to a reduced and simplified set, it can allow participants to develop or synthesize alternatives as their understanding of the issues deepens through interactions with information and exchanges with each other. Focus groups, which are sometimes used in similar situations, provide limited opportunities for participants to listen to and learn from each other, but are subject to severe distortions resulting from such factors as interpersonal differences in social status and verbal skills. However, using a computer forum, automated database inquiry capabilities, and other techniques to maximize learning and minimize distortions, the decision structure may yield better predictions and related insights into forces that will shape the coming wider debate. Developing National Consensus on a Change of Direction The president has set aside three or four weeks for an intense national debate on ways to increase homeland security that are consistent with the U.S. traditions of free movement and cultural tolerance. At the outset, he outlines the problem, presents his analysis of its causes and risks, and lays out a range of possible government and private collective responses. Over the next weeks or months, an active, structured dialogue between leaders and representative groups of citizens is monitored and reported by the media. As new ideas emerge and attract support, emerging areas of agreement and dissent are observed by a broader public. After several months, a consensus develops around several policy changes that require legislative action. A modern version of the contio might be initiated by our modern tribune, the president, on an issue of pressing concern about which the public is divided. In the process, it might forge a new consensus that would prove binding on the president and Congress, who would then legislate accordingly or face electoral consequences.

EXPANDING AND DEEPENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

47

Conclusion Although some may be complacent about our democratic institutions or even fearful about the effects of enhanced opportunities for participation, others see democracy as a work in progress and believe that a more complete realization of that ideal could have great benefits both for individuals and for U.S. society. Possible payoffs from investment in new techniques of democratic participation include more sophisticated measurement of public opinion, more sophisticated judgments by citizens, the development of unanticipated policy options, and a faster pace of policy innovation. Perhaps the most important payoff would be inclusion of and increased participation by a large and possibly growing proportion of the population who find the present options for involvement unappealing or meaningless. If new, more engaging means of participation emerge, then participation and popular support for democracy may increase. If these changes cause government to perform better, then instrumental ratings of public institutions and politicians are likely to rise. If more democracy leads to higher political productivity, then a virtuous cycle could begin of more effective participation, leading to better policy choices supported by a broader consensus, leading to better results and thus growing reengagement with the political process. U.S. democracy has been a world-class performance, imitated by others. But can we take it to a higher level? To find out, we need to recognize that, as in other areas of public policy, progress in devising new, more effective institutions is likely to be accelerated by a conscious program of design, demonstration, and evaluation. Investment levels in research and development will affect the rate of progress in identifying more meaningful and effective participatory structures. New technologies make this a propitious time to consider such an investment. Declining engagement with conventional politics and deepening alienation of many may soon make it more urgent. The longterm return to society from a systematic program to develop new participatory institutions could be a reversal of the pattern of declining and narrowing involvement, rising alienation, and cynicism that threatens to weaken our democracy even as the world celebrates its successes. Notes 1. Arguments for and against expanded popular participation are complex and cannot be fully developed here. 2. Consider the voter’s paradox, for example. It is possible in an election with three candidates that voters could be rational—that is, able to rank-order candidates from most to least preferred, known as transitivity—and yet that the electoral outcome could be

48

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

irrational—that is, the ordering is intransitive. For example, an electorate might prefer Bush over Kerry, Kerry over Dean, but Dean over Bush.

References Arrow, Kenneth J. 1963. Social Choice and Individual Values. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Barber, Benjamin. 1984. Strong Democracy, Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bramson, Ruth Ann, and Terry F. Buss. 2003. “Methods of Whole Systems Change in Public Organizations.” Public Organization Review 2(3): 211–303. Coleman, Jules, and John Ferejohn. 1986. “Democracy and Social Choice.” Ethics (97)1 (October): 6–25. Cowell, F.R. 1967. Cicero and the Roman Republic. Baltimore, MD: Pelican Books. Dahl, Robert A. 1989. Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ———. 1990. After the Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. De Leon, Peter. 1997. Democracy and the Policy Sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press. Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row. Guinier, Lani. 1998. Lift Every Voice, Turning A Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice. New York: Simon and Schuster. Hauptmann, Emily. 1996. Putting Choice before Democracy. Albany: State University of New York Press. Healthcare Forum. 1996. The Community Builder, Strategies for Improving Quality of Life. San Francisco: The Healthcare Forum. Laswell, Harold. 1971. A Preview of Policy Sciences. New York: Elsevier. Laswell, Harold, and D. Lerner. 1951. The Policy Sciences: Recent Developments in Science and Method. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Mansbridge, Jane J. 1980. Beyond Adversarial Democracy. New York: Basic Books. Oliver, Leonard P. 1987. Study Circles: Coming Together for Personal Growth and Social Change. Washington, DC: Seven Locks Press. O’Looney, John. 2003. Using Technology to Increase Citizen Participation in Government: The Use of Models and Simulation. Available at www.businessofgovernment.org/ pdfs/OLooneyReport.pdf. Accessed January 2006. Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work, Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ———. 2001. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster. ———. 2003. Better Together. New York: Simon and Schuster. Redburn, F. Stevens, and Terry Buss. 1983. “Deepening Citizen Participation.” American Review of Public Administration 17: 13–20. Riker, William H. 1982. Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation Between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.

3 Community Learning The Process and Structure of Collaborative Engagement Ricardo S. Morse

The last decade of public administration scholarship has been marked by an explosion of interest in citizen participation, with a growing emphasis on developing collaborative relationships (see Cooper 1991; Wamsley and Wolf 1996; Healey 1997; McSwite 1997). Robert and Janet Denhardt argue persuasively that this growing collaborative sensibility can be thought of as part of a broader framework they call the “New Public Service.” The New Public Service serves as a forceful critique of, and alternative to, the New Public Management emphasizing decentralized management, performance, and competition. The wide variety of scholars who fit under the New Public Service umbrella constitute a countermovement, “grounded in the public interest, in the ideals of democratic governance, and in a renewed civic engagement” (Denhardt and Denhardt 2003, 4). The New Public Service framework represents a growing stream of discourse in public administration theory and practice. Public managers increasingly understand their role as broadening to include “facilitating community and enabling democracy” (Nalbandian 1999). Yet although citizens are increasingly demanding, and administrators are increasingly recognizing a need for, what some have called “authentic participation,” both parties remain frustrated (King, Feltey, and Susel 1998). The frustrations lie in how participation is framed: either from a citizens/rights perspective or from a managerial perspective. Meanwhile, “community” is clearly a central theme of the New Public Service (Denhardt and Denhardt 2003, 32–35). However, the way citizen engagement and collaboration are framed is not community based. Rather, 49

50

RICARDO S. MORSE

citizen (individual) or management (organizational) perspectives tend to dominate.1 Despite the popularity of communitarian ideals in public administration discourse, we have yet to develop community-based models of administrative practice. This chapter offers a community-based approach to thinking about collaborative engagement and the public service’s role in community renewal. The concept of community learning provides a lens for interpreting participatory practice. Community learning also informs the design of participatory processes, giving emphasis to approaches that have been described elsewhere as “methods for whole system change” (Bramson and Buss 2002). As new technologies for participation are experimented with (see Redburn and Buss, chapter 2 of the present volume), there is a corresponding need for new perspectives that transcend the narrow prerogatives of citizen rights or managerialism. The concept of community learning fills an important gap in the literature, offering a truly community-based approach. Although the field is beginning to explore the community learning approach peripherally, a theory of community learning, to date, has not been developed. This paper traces the conceptual building blocks of community learning: place-based community and the concept of collaborative learning. Next, several literature threads from various disciplines are reviewed that, taken together, help bring community learning into focus. The final section conceptualizes community learning in six postulates. Community and Learning Community learning suggests that communities as social collectivities can learn. In the same way that we now commonly refer to groups, organizations, and networks of organizations learning, we can think about how a community might be said to learn. Diverging from its use in education, community learning here refers to communities of place—neighborhoods, cities, or regions. Suzanne Keller points out that “with few exceptions, community always denotes a there” (Keller 2003, 6).2 For the public sector, place-based communities are the locus of concern and action. Although political scientists may use terms such as “policy communities,” the more appropriate term would be policy networks or subsystems (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993). To the local government practitioner, community means “the” community; the meaning is straightforward. In large urban settings, of course, community may be thought of in terms of neighborhoods, and in rural settings community may well go beyond the borders of the politically delineated territory. Nevertheless, the context of community governance is the place-based community. Even the practice of policy governance at higher levels of government

COMMUNITY LEARNING

51

ultimately is enacted in community contexts. Practitioners interact with citizens in community settings. Although practitioners certainly do interact with non-place-based groups or associations, the most relevant context is usually a community or communities (of place) (see Keller 2003). Learning in this case refers to a collaborative construction of knowledge as opposed to the transmission and reception of prior knowledge. Group or collaborative learning occurs where the “primary aim of . . . interaction is the construction of new knowledge.” Peters and Armstrong explain that “collaboration means that people labor together in order to construct something that did not exist before the collaboration, something that does not and cannot fully exist in the lives of individual collaborators” (1998, 78–9). Thus community learning can be tentatively defined as a process of collaborative learning occurring at the community level. It has important implications for democratic governance, yet it is not part of public administration discourse. And in community development, where it is used with some frequency, it remains an underdeveloped concept.3 Building Blocks of a Concept Figure 3.1 maps the conceptual terrain of community learning, demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of the concept (Morse 2004). The different threads share an ethos of collaborative pragmatism, captured in Mary Follett’s notion of “integration,” wherein the individual differences discovered by the democratic group process interweave and unite to create a genuine collective will (1998, 48). This leads to a conception of democracy very different than that of the “ballot box.” Democracy is not a product, but a process. It is a method of self-government based on “a genuine union of true individuals,” an ongoing process of creative citizenship (1998, 5–8). Follett’s pragmatic ethos pervades modern participatory democratic theory (Barber 1984) and the related communitarian movement (Etzioni 1996), and manifestations of this thought in the literatures of public management (Denhardt and Denhardt 2003), planning (Healey 1997), and policy analysis (deLeon 1997). This ethos of collaborative pragmatism is likewise manifest in the literatures of organization theory, adult education, and community development. Taken together, these various literatures point to a concept of community learning without fully arriving there. Community, Social Capital, and Networks What is it about local community that makes possible community learning? The basis of this study’s approach to community in descriptive terms is Kenneth Wilkinson’s interactional approach, having three elements of community:

Adult education, group learning, “learning communities”

Interorganizational networks

Organizational learning

Community development (“learning communities”)

Community learning Community studies

Social capital theory

Social network studies

Democratic theory (strong democracy, civic republican tradition)

Citizen participation in public administration Collaborative planning Participatory policy analysis

Communitarianism

Figure 3.1 Conceptual Threads of Community Learning

52

COMMUNITY LEARNING

53

a locality, a local society, and a process of locality-oriented collective actions, or the “community field” (1999). A locality is defined as “a territory where people live and meet their daily needs together.” Local society refers to “a comprehensive network of associations for meeting common needs and expressing common interests.” A community field is “a process of interrelated actions through which residents express their common interests in the local society.” Wilkinson explains that while other units of social organization may embody one or two of these elements, a community as described here embodies all three (1999, 2–3). Social interaction becomes the ingredient to differentiate community from just any place. “Social interaction delineates the territory as the community locale; it provides the associations that comprise the local society; it gives structure and direction to processes of collective action; and it is the source of community identity” (Wilkinson 1999, 11). The local community is thought of in terms of a social field rather than a system. Wilkinson, following Follett (1924, 1998), explains community as a process of interactions that shape and are shaped by the local territory (Wilkinson 1999, 22). Wilkinson’s descriptive account of community has important normative implications: Collective actions, expressing “the entire range of common locality-oriented interests,” are interconnected by various actors, associations, and activities, “and to the extent this occurs it promotes and enriches the collective life of a population” (1999, 74). Following Durkheim’s explanation—solidarity in the modern world requires moral density, and that moral density is low when material or physical density is low—it follows that rural areas with their low physical density have trouble supporting community, contrary to conventional wisdom (Wilkinson 1999, 7). It is in social interaction that answers are found to the question of how to build community. Wilkinson’s explanation demonstrates the relationship between the descriptive and normative definitions of community. “As it is true in any social field, the process of interaction that drives and constitutes the community field is in a continuous process of change and development. Thus, the structure of the community field is never fixed; it exists in the ebb and flow of the process of generalization, which in turn arises and is constantly modified by locality oriented actions and special-interest fields. Development of this process is the central activity in community development” (1999, 91). The answer to how to develop community is to look back to the conception of the community field itself. Community develops as the community field develops, which is “a process of interrelated actions through which residents express their common interest in the local society” (Wilkinson 1999, 2). This refers to linking, coordinating activities that occur through the acts of individuals, informal networks, and more formal coordinating associations (1999, 90).

54

RICARDO S. MORSE

More recent thinking and research on community and social capital underscores Wilkinson’s community field approach. Specifically, Jeff Sharp has found that “community networks and the qualitative aspects of these interaction structures and its elements are associated with capacity for local action” (2001). In the field of community development, capacity is important and focusing on the community field or social structure seems a fruitful place to begin. Bridger and Luloff (1999) explain that the community field “brings into focus common interests in local aspects of life” through linkages that cut across different sectors of the community. Purposive actions to develop the community field “focus on developing relationships and lines of communication across interest lines” (384). Jeff Sharp’s work (2001) employs community network analysis as a tool, looking at interorganizational structures and finding that some appear to facilitate the community field while others hinder such development. Much of the community development literature is drawn from rural sociology. The connections with other important treatments of community are many and center on networks of social interaction. Perhaps the most important is the literature on social capital or social infrastructure. Robert Putnam explains that social capital “refers to connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” (2000, 19). Social capital takes many forms and does not always necessarily build community. Putnam makes a distinction between bridging (or inclusive) and bonding (or exclusive) forms of social capital. The exclusive or bonding forms of social capital are more inward looking—country clubs or ethnicity-based organizations. Bridging social capital, on the other hand, involves networks that are outward looking and cut across diverse groups. Putnam observes that “bridging social capital can generate broader identities and reciprocity, whereas bonding social capital bolsters our narrower selves” (2000, 22–23). Putnam’s notion of bridging social capital is similar to Wilkinson’s community field: Both use “weak ties” as developed by Granovetter (1973) to explain social networking. Essentially weak ties are those linkages to more “distant acquaintances who move in different circles” (Putnam 2000, 23). Weak ties bind strong ties such as close circles of friends and family to the larger community structure. Thus weak ties or the relationships that constitute bridging social capital are a key component in understanding community fields. Deepa Narayan explains the importance of these bridging, integrating, cross-cutting ties: “voluntary cross-cutting networks, associations and related norms based in everyday social interactions lead to the collective good of citizens, whereas networks and associations consisting of primary social groups without cross-cutting ties lead to the betterment of only those groups” (1999, 13).

COMMUNITY LEARNING

55

Discussions of social capital also contain both descriptive and normative elements. At the descriptive level, Putnam and others offer ways to measure social capital and provide convincing evidence that the social bonds of social capital are eroding, while pointing to positive effects social capital can have on individual and community well-being. This of course leads to the normative question of how to develop social capital, a question at the forefront of community development practice (Green and Haines 2002). In Putnam’s landmark book, Bowling Alone (2000), social capital is linked to, among other things, economic prosperity, health and happiness, and “making democracy work.” Another important contribution comes from communication research. Lewis Friedland’s theory of the “communicatively integrated community” (2001) complements interactional approaches drawn from sociology. Drawing on Habermas’s theory of communicative action and associated concepts of lifeworld and system, Friedland suggests that communication is the medium of integration, binding “levels” of community together. Exploration of the link between community structure and communication began with the pragmatist tradition, specifically Dewey, Mead, and Cooley. This perspective stresses that “communities are integrated through structure, ecology, networks, civic solidarity, and symbolic communication.” But it is communication that binds the multiple levels together, integrating interpersonal networks with community-level networks (Friedland 2001). Philip Selznick’s notion of community likewise reflects the ethos of collaborative pragmatism. He emphasizes overlapping, cross-cutting, or “multi-plex” relationships, recognizing that community is a common life where differences meet (1992, 370). Communities retain a balanced mix of seven interrelated features: (1) historicity, (2) identity, (3) mutuality, (4) plurality, (5) autonomy, (6) participation, and (7) integration (1992, 357–65). Selznick’s contribution is a focus on institutions. Whereas previous treatments focus on interpersonal contacts, Selznick explains that his seven principles are brought into balance as communities are “institution-centered.” The community’s “cohesion and moral competence derive from the strength and integrity of families, schools, parties, government agencies, voluntary associations, and law” (1992, 370). Selznick argues that focusing on institutions allows us to turn “attention away from the psychic cohesion so often associated with the idea of community” and instead look at community as “a network of distinct but interdependent institutions.” Despite all of the variables that seem to threaten the viability of community as a relevant concept—mobility, fragmentation, and technology, for example—institutions persist (1992, 370–1). Selznick’s contribution is crucial, reminding us that a core feature of community is that it “encompasses a broad range of activities and interests,”

56

RICARDO S. MORSE

representing a commonality that includes the whole person, more than “segmental interests or activities.” This conception is similar to the community field concept put forth by Wilkinson. Communities are a “framework of shared beliefs, interests, and commitments” that unite a “set of varied groups and activities” so that a segmented group, like a local church for example, can be said to have community-like features but is not comprehensive enough to be the community (Selznick 1992, 358). The communicative action that Friedland speaks of, and the social interaction that Wilkinson focuses on, take place within institutional contexts, an observation critically important to our understanding of community learning. The literature on community is vast and this review has only touched upon a few selected sources. Some network theorists maintain that place is less important now than personal networks (Wellman 1999). However, I maintain, along with Wilkinson (1999) and Keller (2003), that in the context of community governance, place is essential. The overarching themes in the community literature are social interaction and place. This social interaction takes place within interpersonal networks as well as associative and other linking mechanisms. Communicative action appears to be the primary medium of integration within communities. If community learning is to be an important feature of effective community self-governance, then an understanding of what makes a community a community is the logical starting point. Communicative action and the structure of relationships where communication takes place is where we must first look. Group and Organizational Learning Like the literature on community, the literature on learning is vast. Collaborative learning, as developed in adult education, is important for its recognition of learning as a collective accomplishment. Where these collaborative learning theories have influenced the literature on organizations, however, is particularly relevant to this discussion of community learning. At the heart of organizational (or network) learning is the idea of collective learning, that groups of people, even organizations, can “learn.” In an organizational (or interorganizational) context, learning can occur that is more than the sum of individual learning. There is a lot of theorizing and a lot of prescriptive work on creating “learning organizations,” but by and large theory building is fragmented. One problem is “that little convergence or consensus on what is meant by the term, or its basic nature, has emerged” (Crossan, Lane, and White 1999). This is due in part to differences in levels and units of analysis (individual, group, and organization).

COMMUNITY LEARNING

57

Crossan, Lane, and White’s recent articulation of a “4I” model of learning in organizations is instructive (1999). The 4I model considers learning processes at three levels and demonstrates in particular how group dialogue stimulates individual and collective learning, processes they label “interpreting” and “integrating.” Integrating bridges the group and organizational levels in a feed-forward process. Shared understandings at the group level can then be institutionalized at the organizational level in terms of “systems, structures, procedures, and strategy” (1999, 525). The 4I model is also dynamic, highlighting feedback and feed-forward processes. As learning is institutionalized at the organizational level, it affects how people think, act, and intuit. It also affects the interpreting and integrating that occurs in groups, which feeds forward in terms of institutionalization. Thus learning is a “dynamic flow” and attention has to be paid to the tensions inherent in a process where feeding back and feeding forward can conflict with one another. One component of organizational learning is group learning, an area receiving attention from psychologists and educators. Modern research on group learning is strikingly similar to Follett’s discussions of group process. Kasl and Marsick (1997), for example, define group learning as being present when “all members perceive themselves as having contributed to a group outcome, and all members of the group can individually describe what the group as a system knows.” They view groups as “knowing systems” where members experience “collaborative thinking and experimentation.” This learning is “generative” where groups in fact begin to “think deeply together.” Johnson and Johnson’s (2000) extended treatment of group theory highlights the creativity of what they call “cooperative learning” in groups, clearly derivative of Follett and the ethos of collaborative pragmatism. Johnson and Johnson echo Follett’s description of integration: “the purpose of controversy is to create a synthesis of the best reasoning and conclusions from all the various alternatives” (2000, 363). A contribution from group theory is the link between individual cognition and the group’s “shared cognition” (Levine, Resnick, and Higgins 1993). Johnson and Johnson describe the process as “members adapt[ing] their cognitive perspective and reasoning through understanding and accommodating the perspective and reasoning of others and deriv[ing] a new, reconceptualized, and reorganized conclusion” that is novel and “qualitatively better” than individual perspectives taken separately (2000, 362–3). Group learning connects with the aforementioned large literature in education about “learning communities” and “collaborative learning.” Learning communities are commonplace in educational settings (Retallick, Cocklin, and Coombe 1999). The underlying phenomenon of interest is community or collaborative learning, concerned about “jointly constructed knowledge”

58

RICARDO S. MORSE

that is “other than the sum of individual members’ knowledge” (Peters and Armstrong 1998). For purposes here, it is sufficient to note that “people laboring together to construct knowledge”—a notion indebted to Dewey and Follett in the pragmatic tradition—is prevalent in the educational literature and thus is relevant to the discussion of community learning here. Another area in organizational learning is knowledge management. This literature tends to focus on information technology (IT) network structures and their role in disseminating knowledge in communities of practice. Knowledge management “harness[es] the intellectual and social capital of individuals in order to improve organizational learning capabilities” and thus enhance innovation. Swan et al (1999) make a persuasive argument that it is face-to-face interaction in communities that is most important. They prefer a “community networking model: knowledge as also embedded in, and constructed from and through social relationships and interactions” (1999, 272). “Knowledge (unlike information) cannot simply be processed; rather it must be continuously re-created and re-constituted through dynamic, interactive and social networking activity.” The community network model described by Swan et al. “highlights the importance of relationships, shared understandings and attitudes” to the process of knowledge formation and innovation in interorganizational contexts. Therefore, “cross-functional and inter-organizational, inter-disciplinary and inter-organizational teams” become the key to “effective use of knowledge for innovation” (1999, 273). Organizational learning contributes to an understanding of community learning. Like the other literature above, organizational learning points to community learning without ever addressing it directly. In fact, a literature on network, or interorganizational, learning is emerging, which provides an even more direct analogue to community learning (Knight 2002). Networks are, after all, communities of practice not unlike local communities. Rather than using the network metaphor to describe an organizational form, however, we understand that the community field is, in practice, a network of networks with more generalized interests than an interorganizational network. There are important differences between organizations and communities. For one, communities are unbounded whereas organizations and even networks of organizations have clearer boundaries. Furthermore, although communities ideally have a common will they certainly do not have the strategic properties of formal organizations. Nevertheless, both organizations and communities represent social collectives with many similar properties, such as the existence of groups, interpersonal networks, and other patterns and structures of social interaction. Thus organizational learning provides an analogue for our understanding of community learning.

COMMUNITY LEARNING

59

Toward Community Learning This chapter has assembled conceptual threads of community learning that in one way or another share an ethos of collaborative pragmatism. They hearken back to the social process described by Follett (1924, 1998). They all focus on the importance of social interaction and the social construction of knowledge. They all are richly democratic and generally eschew a technocratic worldview, placing primary emphasis on experience and intersubjectivity created through communication. They all consider the importance of the creative experience of citizen dialogue and deliberation and how this communicative action contributes to community renewal. The concept of community learning considers both the process and structure of community. Follett’s writings tend to emphasize process. When Follett spoke of the creative (or group, or integrative, or democratic) process, she was referring to what is described above as collaborative learning. With this in mind, Follett argued that “community is a process,” meaning the collaborative, integrative process that occurs in human relationships (1919). Thus, another way to describe collaborative learning is to call it the community process, or process of community. Community has also been discussed here in terms of structure. Structure refers to “the interrelation or arrangement of parts in a complex entity.”4 In this case, “community structure” is the social structure of a local society. In Wilkinson’s interactional theory of community, we find that one of the defining characteristics of community is the structure of social relations. This is the social architecture of the community, the ties between people, groups, associations, organizations, and institutions. This structure has been referred to as the “web of community” (Lane and Dorfman 1997). The structure and process of community are naturally interrelated, as the structure provides “space” for the process and the process is what builds the structure. The process and structure of community are therefore two sides of the same coin, inextricably linked and always influencing each other. Community learning, then, is about more than a collaborative learning process, and more than just “social capital.” This section discusses the process and structure elements of community learning in detail, as this is the foundation of community learning. Six postulates emerge from this synthesis, fundamental elements of an ideal-type conceptualization of community learning. The Community Process The community process is one whereby citizens create new knowledge and transform collective understandings through communicative action—the process of collaborative learning. This includes a range from groups of two people

60

RICARDO S. MORSE

interacting up to larger groups that engage in dialogue. The integrative process of community unites differences, synthesizing them into something new in such a way that individual integrity is maintained, while enlarged through joining in something greater than one’s self. The first three postulates deal with this integrative community process. The first argues that new knowledge in the form of shared meanings and ideas is created in the community process. The second postulate states that structured processes of dialogue and deliberation facilitate this community process. The third postulate states that the community process helps build or develop the relationships of community structure. Describing the Community Process In the organizational learning literature, dialogue is considered to be the medium of collective learning. Crossan, Lane, and White (1999) explain that ongoing dialogue and shared practice “among members of the community” develop “shared understanding or collective mind” (528). The evolution of language is key in that this is how established meaning is conveyed and how new meaning evolves. “Through dialogue the group can evolve new and deeper shared understandings” or meanings (529). William Isaacs argues that “the discipline of dialogue is central to organizational learning because it holds promise as a means for promoting collective thinking and communication.” Collective thinking is critical to organizations (and communities) today, which “face a degree of complexity that requires intelligence beyond that of any individual” (1999b, 236–7). The theory of dialogue builds on the notion of social fields, that shared tacit thought among a group comprises a field of “meaning” and that such fields are the underlying constituent of human experience. As these fields are altered in a variety of subtle ways, their influence on people’s behavior changes too. In many cases, the social fields in which people live are unstable and incoherent. That is, there are many different “tacit programs” in motion, in conflict, leading people to hold images of the world that they experience as literally true and obvious. The images that one person holds might be very different from the images held by his or her neighbors (1999b, 241).

Different perspectives lead to friction and defensive routines when the differences are confronted. Dialogue seeks to overcome the friction and instability and incoherence of [in this case] the community field by focusing “people’s attention on collective thought and shared assumptions, and the

COMMUNITY LEARNING

61

living social processes that sustain them” (1999b, 242). Isaacs explains that although dialogue is an old idea, “it is not practiced all that frequently.” People tend to not talk in depth and fail to truly seek “new possibilities, new options.” Our collective “miscommunication … condemns us to look elsewhere for the creative intensity that lies dormant within and between us.” It is through this communicative intensity, the process of dialogue, that we find the best hope for revitalizing, or renewing, “our institutions, our relationships, and ourselves” (1999a, 14). The literature on dialogue helps us better understand what the somewhat mystical “community process” entails. The heart of dialogue is radically simple: It is talk. Dialogue is a conversation with two or more people. But it is a particular kind of talk, “a way of thinking and reflecting together . . . a living experience of inquiry within and between people” (1999a, 9). As Deborah Tannen deftly explains in The Argument Culture, “criticism, attack, or opposition are the predominant if not the only ways of responding to people or ideas” in our society (1998, 7). On the other hand, dialogue, Isaacs explains, is “a very different way of talking.” It is a “conversation with a center, not sides,” which takes “the energy of our differences and channel[s] it toward something that has never been created before.” Isaacs continues, “[dialogue] lifts us out of polarization into a greater common sense, and is thereby a means for accessing the intelligence and coordinated power of groups and people” (Isaacs 1999a, 19). Thus, the theoretical literature on dialogue, as well as theories of group learning, capture the community process. As people engage, knowledge is created, taking the form of new or changed shared understanding, or integrative ideas (Postulate I). Postulate I: The community process creates new, collective knowledge in the form of shared meanings or collective ideas. Structured Processes of Communicative Interaction What modern scholars and practitioners have offered in terms of the “community process” is a more thorough explanation of the process itself, thus demystifying it a bit. How we actually achieve it is rather fuzzy to most people. However, the revival of interest in dialogue and deliberation is rapidly advancing our collective knowledge in this area. A number of guides for how to structure and facilitate dialogue are in circulation by such organizations as the Public Conversations Project, the Dialogue to Action Initiative, and the Study Circles Resources Center. Additionally, there are important theoretical works on dialogue, such as Bohm’s On Dialogue (1999) and Isaacs’s Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together (1999a).

62

RICARDO S. MORSE

There seems to be some consensus that dialogue is a collective search for understanding rather than for “agreements” or “solutions.” A “good dialogue” affords participants the opportunity to “listen and be listened to . . . ; speak and be spoken to in a respectful manner; develop or deepen mutual understanding; and learn about the perspectives of others and reflect on one’s own views” (Public Conversations Project 2003, 3). Participants in dialogue agree to rules of communication that emphasize civility and suspending judgment, at least temporarily, so that people can talk with, rather than at, each other. The finer points of dialogue are often best articulated in a comparison with a form of talk that most everyone is familiar with—debate. Debate is about winning and losing and being entrenched in one’s position. Dialogue is about seeking common understanding and looking for the strength of “opposing” positions. Debate most often remains within existing patterns of discourse and rarely, if ever, produces new knowledge. Dialogue, on the other hand, emphasizes the creative aspects of conversation and seeks new knowledge and understandings. Dialogue is a certain kind of public talk that is civil, open, based on experience, and seeks integration, though not necessarily agreement. Another form of structured interaction related to dialogue is deliberation. In fact, sometimes the terms are used interchangeably—“deliberative democracy” and “democratic dialogue.” Deliberation means to work through, to weigh publicly, an issue. The end of deliberation is some kind of democratic choice that is importantly distinguished from majority-rule, zero-sum decisions. It is a choice based on a common ground that everyone can live with. Mathews and McAfee describe this process as finding “common ground for action” (2000). Deliberation is a method of collective reasoning where citizens “work through” conflict in order to arrive at a “public judgment,” which represents a synthesis of different perspectives and thus, as Follett would term it, an integration. Thus, like dialogue, deliberation is about creating knowledge, public knowledge, “things we can know only when we engage one another” (Mathews and McAfee 2000, 15). Ultimately, then, the different “models” of dialogue and deliberation can be viewed as complementary tools for community learning. Both represent public talk that stimulates collaborative learning. Deliberation tends to be issue centered and seeks new knowledge in terms of naming problems and prescribing solutions. Dialogue is less issue centered and more about seeking understanding in general. Dialogue is more long-term and relationship based. Isaacs (1999a) argues that deliberation is actually a step in the dialogue process where, as an individual participant, you weigh or judge other opinions. Dialogue asks that at that point we make a decision to suspend that judgment and remain open, which opens the door to “reflective dialogue,”

COMMUNITY LEARNING

63

which gets at deeper questions, such as differences in assumptions. As the process is maintained, the dialogue becomes a “generative” dialogue, enabling “a collective flow” or process of collective learning (1999a, 37–41). Perhaps it is less important to make hard distinctions between “generative dialogue” and “public deliberation” and refer to the community process described here as “deliberative dialogue,” which combines the openness and civility of dialogue with collective reasoning in deliberation (McCoy and Scully 2002). Where distinctions can and should be made is in methodology—the Kettering Foundation’s program of issue framing and deliberative forums, the Study Circles model, or the Community Dialogue of Cleveland’s Ward 18.5 Dialogue emphasizes new knowledge in terms of mutual understanding whereas deliberation is more about what to do next; it is choice work. Dialogue seeks understanding whereas deliberation seeks consensus. Deliberative dialogue includes elements of both. What unites the different “tools” of community learning, however, is the emphasis on the integrative community process, a process of collaborative learning. Dialogue, deliberation, and deliberative dialogue all create settings for collectively creating new knowledge (Postulate II). Postulate II: Structured processes of dialogue and deliberation facilitate the community process. Community process is about public talk, or communication. Although we tend to emphasize formal interventions, this communicative action does not have to take the form of a study circle or dialogue retreat. In fact, the basic requirements may be found at the coffee house or kitchen table. Furthermore, Friedland points out the importance of local media as a medium of communicative action (2001). Although not conforming to the prescriptions of face-to-face dialogue, communicative action via local media can be a powerful integrating force in community. Thus newspapers, television, radio, and the Internet at least potentially can provide a medium of exchange that fosters collaborative learning. But is the community process exclusively the realm of communicative action? As an ideal-type conceptualization, the community process highlights and draws special attention to the role of dialogue and deliberation, and by extension communicative action as the source of integration, of collaborative learning. Community-oriented collective action should also be considered as an integrating process. The community field, as explicated by Wilkinson, is “a process of interrelated actions through which residents express their common interest in the local society” (1999, 2). Intuitively it seems reasonable to

64

RICARDO S. MORSE

expect some collective learning to occur in processes of collective action. It seems evident, however, that the learning qualities of shared practice fall back on the social interaction and communicative aspects of it. There may be exceptional cases of something such as the integrative process occurring as collective action without much or any face-to-face dialogue (e.g., a collective response to a community crisis, such as a flood or power outage). The assumption here, however, is that the most important feature of concern is the communicative action, specifically deliberative dialogue. The community process produces new collective knowledge and it is mostly through the medium of communication that this knowledge is created and distributed. Products of the Community Process The community process is about collaborative learning, generating new knowledge in the form of shared meanings and ideas. Follett argued that this process can be thought of as the “community process” (1919). In making this argument, Follett pointed to another important “product” of the collaborative (or integrative) process, that of the relationships that constitute community. Here community means a sense of community, gemeinschaft, a common identity or bond. Following modern social capital theory, it might be said that a product of this kind of process is social capital, the “connections among individuals . . . and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” (Putnam 2000, 19). Communicative engagement produces more than just new ideas and “common cognitions.” It produces intersubjective understandings that [re]create the “generalized other” of community. As people create common understanding, they come to see others in a new light in a way that builds and nurtures the bonds of community. This connection demonstrates an important, inherent link between community process and structure (Lane and Dorfman 1997) (Postulate III). Postulate III: The community process creates, maintains, or strengthens the relationships that constitute the social structure of community. Community Structure Having discussed process, we now turn to structure. Planning theorist John Friedmann, in a discussion of the social learning tradition, explains that “actor and learner are assumed to be one and the same. It is the action group that learns from its own practice. Whether organization, community, or movement also learns will depend on the nature of inter-group relations and the

COMMUNITY LEARNING

65

formal structure of authority” (1987, 185). Collaborative learning can be easily observed in small groups, work teams, study circles, etc. But whether or not the learning entity is a larger collectivity—an organization, network, or community—depends upon structure. Social structure is a critical piece of the community learning puzzle. Focusing solely on the creative process of dialogue fails to explain how a community might learn. The literature on local social structure, social capital, and community networks sheds some light. Social Capital and Civic Structure Two streams of social capital theory and research provide foundations for thinking about the social organization of local communities. The first is individual-based, viewing social capital as social networks that expand personal resources. The second “frames the connections and relationship among people as a community-level attribute” (Morton 2003, 102). Morton refers to “a civic structure of place that is created by multiple networks and institutions that support community problem solving” (102). Civic structure is defined by the multiple, dynamic relations among many networks and characterized by norms of cooperation and community benefit. It is widely shared community norms of cooperation and mutual benefit (i.e., high civic structure) that give places the capacity to meet the collective needs of small-town citizens. (Morton 2003, 103) Civic structure begins with the notion of “public” social capital as contrasted with “private” social capital. Private social capital refers to relationships among individuals that accrue primarily individualized benefits. These are close ties or networks that have elsewhere been called “bonding” social capital (Putnam 2000) or “strong ties” (Granovetter 1973). Public social capital is about those relationships “whose benefits accrue to the community,” at least potentially (Morton 2003, 104). These networks refer to the “weak ties” explained by Granovetter (1973) or what Putnam refers to as “bridging” social capital (2000). Morton (2003) explains further that public social capital is the transition point from micro to macro scale, from personal networks to community-wide networks. When these connections occur in a “public” group setting but benefits are restricted to members of the group, social capital retains its micro personal resource meaning. However, when benefits accrue beyond individuals and their personal groups to the larger community, a macro scale of relationships evolves. It is the action/inaction of multiple citizens and groups that create community norms of trust and a macro structure characterized by some degree of high to low expectations of community benefit (104).

66

RICARDO S. MORSE

Morton uses the term “civic structure” to denote “the webs of relationships and norms of mutual benefit at community and regional levels [that] are a structural concept distinct from individual circles of relations” (104). The term is used to distinguish itself from social capital, which most often denotes the simple existence of civic associations or other community networks. Here the structural concepts of interest are the webs of relationships that accrue benefits at the community level. Civic structure, then, describes the extent to which the “complex social relations within and across different institutions have overarching norms of community benefit.” As networks evolve in communities, different “multiple structured groups” emerge, which each have their own actions and goals, which may or may not “include public-level effects” (Morton 2003, 104–5). Thus, “a community with high civic structure has multiple groups that negotiate and compromise with each other to construct social, economic, and political institutions that meet their collective needs” (Morton 2003, 105). Morton’s explanation of the connection between community structure and community well-being hints at community learning without developing it. She explains that “high levels of interaction and communication across community groups and sectors expand the resources of the community by integrating different population perspectives and skills in the search for solutions to community problems” (105). Community Field Theory The notion of civic structure, as it refers to the structure of social relations within a community that produce community-level benefit, is very similar to Wilkinson’s “community field” construct. Communities can be thought of as comprising a variety of social fields. A field is an “unbounded whole with a constantly changing structure” (Wilkinson 1999, 32). A social field is “a process of interaction directed toward a specific outcome” (Sharp 2001, 404). It comprises individuals, associations, and organizations (Bridger and Luloff 1999, 384). Examples could include health care or education within a community. A community field, on the other hand, is “a special kind of field directed at more general purposes” (Sharp 2001, 404). Unlike the specialized interests of a social field, interests of the community field are “generalized and intrinsic” (Wilkinson 1999, 33). Wilkinson explains that The community field cuts across organized groups and across other interaction fields in a local population. It abstracts and combines the locality-relevant aspects of the special interest fields, and integrates the other fields into a generalized whole. It does this by creating and maintaining

COMMUNITY LEARNING

67

linkages among fields that otherwise are directed toward more limited interests. As this community field arises out of the various special interest fields in a locality, it in turn influences those special interest fields and asserts the community interest in the various spheres of local social activity (1999, 33).

Bridger and Luloff (1999) explain that the community field provides the “communicative linkages” necessary for linking together various social fields around “common interests in local aspects of local life” (384). And “as the linkages that comprise the community field proliferate, they lead to a more inclusive decision-making process” (384). From the interactional perspective outlined by Wilkinson (1999), community development is the process of building the community field, “developing relationships and lines of communications across interest lines” (Bridger and Luloff 1999, 384). Networks, Active Relations, and Community Structure Lane and Dorfman (1997) use a metaphor of a spiderweb to describe community structure. Community, as “a network of connections and interrelationships among individuals, institutions, and groups of individuals and institutions” is like a spider’s web, “a structured, functional, maze of connections and interrelated fibers . . . based on a model; however, no two webs are identical. The model does not determine the form, it simply preserves function. The success of the spider’s web, and ultimately the spider, is contingent on its ability to constantly adapt to changes in the environment” (2). Lane and Dorfman explicitly link community structure and community renewal, pointing to “the strength of the linkages in the social network” as the “defining aspect of a strong community” (3). Lane and Dorfman’s sense of the strength of linkages is not so much about making “weak” ties “strong” but about increasing the density of the weak community ties. Within social networks, across the linkages, “community members interrelate and create a sense of community” (Lane and Dorfman 1997, 3). This sense of community correlates with Morton’s civic structure concept, where civic structure represents “the extent to which these complex social relations within and across different institutions have overarching norms of community benefit” (Morton 2003, 105). Lane and Dorfman (1997) explain that this “social infrastructure” of connections, interrelationships, and networks needs to facilitate relationships that “cross role boundaries” in order for community-level benefits to be realized. Typically in a community, individuals in different institutional roles rarely come together as a community, for the community. Relationships that exist across institutions tend to be “passive.”

68

RICARDO S. MORSE

A passive connection between a school and a local employer exists when “interaction between participants is limited by the roles they play.” Thus a teacher interacts with a parent as a worker, but not with the parent’s workplace as a community institution. The authors explain that “passive relationships do not allow a community to adapt in response to external and internal changes” (4). What needs to occur, according to the authors, is a shift toward “active” relations, where, for example, we would see significant interaction between the “school institution and the business institution” (5). The active relationships, as described by Lane and Dorfman (1997), build the community structure (or civic structure or community field). In other words, the density of linkages, or quality of community structure, is related to the amount and quality of active relationships. For the purposes of describing community learning, the term “community structure” is used, following Sharp (2001), to describe this structure of social relations—the quality of weak, bridging ties within a community that accrue community-level benefit or, in other words, build a sense of community and foster community action. Following the metaphor of the spiderweb, it is across this web of community relations that learning occurs and is distributed. Observers of this “public” social capital (or community structure) note that it is these community linkages (the weak, bridging ties) that facilitate information exchange and, further, “embeddedness of state in society or organizations in community” (Warner 1999, 378). It is the structure of the community that makes a process of “community learning” possible, while at the same time it is the community process (occurring in dialogue and other forms of communicative action) that helps builds community structure (Postulate IV). Postulate IV: A model of community as the structure of interinstitutional relations focuses the attention of researchers and community participants on the linkages across community institutions and social fields. Clarifying the Relation between Process and Structure In drawing together process and structure, we see that for collaborative learning to become community learning, the knowledge created in the learning process must reach the level of community structure. Community learning is learning at the level of the community structure. If the dialogue remains within the narrower interests of a social field and fails to make impacts across community structure, it has fallen short of “community learning.” It is when the knowledge is institutionalized across the community’s structure that community learning has occurred.

COMMUNITY LEARNING

69

Participants in a dialogue need not necessarily be the whole community, or even key representatives from each social field, so long as the action is locality oriented, or concerned with the community as a whole. Yet makeup of participants is relevant as well, so we must also consider who is taking part in the community process. Does the process include people from different fields? Is the process a setting for “active” relationships? If the integrative community process—the process of creating new knowledge and new understandings—fails to occur at the level of the community field, then it is short of community-level learning. One cannot assume that the existence of the “community process” automatically translates into community-level learning. There must be some way of embedding the new knowledge, the integrations, at the level of community either through the makeup of participants or the nature of the discourse (community field-oriented versus more parochial). Community learning is about a feed-forward process from the group level to the community level. A community has learned when this collective knowledge is institutionalized across the community structure, or rather embedded across the web of community institutions (Postulate V). Postulate V: Community learning occurs as knowledge created through the community process is fed forward to the level of the community structure or field. A community has learned when this collective knowledge is institutionalized across the community structure, or rather is embedded across the web of community institutions. On the other hand, when considering community structure, one cannot simply assume community learning is taking place at that level. Different actors from different social fields may well be linked and engage in interaction that constitutes a community field, yet that does not guarantee that they are engaged in an integrative process of collaborative (community) learning. If the structural elements are there, what is being done to benefit from the “collective intelligence” (Selznick 2002)? A community with high levels of community or civic structure likely has created such space to some degree, since it is the community process that helps build the structure. Yet there may be high levels of interaction with relatively low levels of integrative dialogue. Here institutionalization is considered in a second way. Where the first question looks at how new knowledge becomes institutionalized in the community, that is, embedded in its institutional framework or structure, the second looks to opportunities to institutionalize the community process itself. Is the process of dialogue becoming a community institution? Is this how people identify and solve problems? This could mean that a formal institution (or

70

RICARDO S. MORSE

Figure 3.2 Conceptualization of Community Learning Community process knowledge created Learning community

institutionalization of practice

knowledge fed forward to community level

Community learning

Community structure knowledge embedded

place for dialogue) is created—a citizen’s council, dialogue roundtable, etc.— or perhaps the practice becomes a norm for community institutions, or both. When the space is made for collaborative interaction and dialogue, then one can say that the community is taking advantage of collective intelligence. Figure 3.2 summarizes the reciprocal relationship between process and structure. Institutionalization of Learning Up to this point, community learning has been outlined in terms of the process that creates collective knowledge and the structure of community that enables and diffuses knowledge at the level of community. Implicit in this definition of community is an understanding that communities are “network[s] of distinct but interdependent institutions” (Selznick 1992, 370). The term “institution” has been employed in a variety of ways and in a variety of disciplines.6 As used here, institutionalization refers to “the emergence of orderly, stable, socially integrating patterns out of unstable, loosely organized, or narrowly technical activities” (Selznick 1992, 232; emphasis in original). Thus institutions can be groups or social practices such as the Catholic Church or the ritual of communion (232). Selznick explains that “a social form becomes institutionalized as, through growth and adaptation, it takes on a distinctive character or function, becomes a receptacle of vested interests, or is charged with meaning as a vehicle of personal satisfaction or aspiration” (1992, 233). Organizations can become institutions, and in local communities the distinction between the two is necessarily blurred. Communities are made up of a complex web of institutions, from schools, churches, and governments to traditions and other local rituals. Although not all associations and organizations in the community are institutions, many are. In highlighting civic structure and the linkages within a community that it comprises, it makes sense to pay particular attention to governing

COMMUNITY LEARNING

71

institutions. In rural communities one often looks to schools, local governments, the chamber of commerce, the farm bureau, and so on as core governing institutions. In urban settings it may be a neighborhood organization, a community development corporation, schools, or churches. If one were to map the knowledge created in the process of community learning, it would follow a similar path as we understand organizational learning to take. Crossan, Lane, and White’s multilevel framework for organizational learning explains how learning occurs first individually as we process experience, then in groups as ideas and perspectives meet and are integrated, and finally at the organizational level, where learning becomes embedded in “the systems, structures, strategy, routines, prescribed practices of the organization, and in investments in information systems and infrastructure” (1999, 529). In other words, collective learning becomes institutionalized, setting organizational learning apart from group or individual learning. But communities are not organizations. Whereas an organization has logical repositories, both formal and informal, for institutionalized learning (strategy, routines, and procedures), it is not so clear with community. Here we consider community as a field of social interaction, without fixed boundaries and certainly without the authority structure of organization. Although it makes perfect sense to talk about the strategic management of organizations, we cannot carry that over to community. However, communities do have “institutional features” that can be impacted. If community is a web of institutions, then impacts that span that web constitute community-level learning. In the organizational context, institutionalization “is the process of embedding learning that has occurred by individuals and groups into the organization, and it includes systems, structures, procedures, and strategy” (Crossan, Lane, and White 1999, 525). Likewise, institutionalization of learning means that the integrative learning that occurs through communicative action becomes embedded in the community structure. This may include shared understandings across that structure; new community norms, practices, or rituals (e.g., new community institutions); formal community-level policy; or new associations or organizations. The new knowledge created in the community process becomes embedded at the level of the community field, or rather within the community structure. Prior to that we can speak of group learning, perhaps even organizational or network learning, but not community learning. Finally, I mentioned previously that institutionalization is used in two ways. The first corresponds to the question of whether or not the integrative process impacts or occurs at the level of the community field. The second question to consider, then, is at the level of the community field: Will space be made for the integrative process? Are there “forums for interaction” that are sufficiently participatory to “enable the communication essential for public

72

RICARDO S. MORSE

democratic discourse” (Warner 1999, 379)? The question here is whether the process itself is (or will be) institutionalized at the community level. Is the integrative (community) process a community institution itself, either as a distinct practice embodied in an organization of some sort or as a practice that is embedded within all the important governing institutions of the community? It is hard to conceive of community learning, at least ongoing community learning, occurring without such institutionalized practice. This institutionalized practice, true “public space” for the community process, would be the core distinguishing characteristic of a so-called “learning community” (that is, a community that learns). Communities that may have relatively high levels of civic structure may still fail to become “learning communities” if they fail to take advantage of the collective intelligence that emerges from the integrative process. Thus, ongoing learning requires some form of institutionalization of practice, as well as a repository for knowledge created. The questions that link process to structure and vice versa raise an important issue regarding whether or not community structure can be built. Social capital theorists have argued that proximity is required so that overlap of spheres (school, work, and so forth) can occur. Horizontal, bridging, “weak” ties are facilitated as people interact and meet their needs together. However, many (most) communities face disintegration as forums for interaction are no longer natural and regular. But these forums can be “intentionally created and designed” to enhance the development of the community field, of civic structure (Warner 1999, 379). Thus, at the community level, particularly when we look at what would be considered governance, there is a real choice regarding whether public space will be made, whether forums of interaction where the integrative community process may occur will be developed and nurtured or not. From this perspective, yes, public social capital or civic (community) structure can be built, and public and “intermediary” institutions are in a particularly good position to build such institutions (Postulate VI). Postulate VI: A “learning community” has a well-developed community structure that has institutionalized the practice of community learning, thus facilitating a sustained community process. Such communities are said to be taking advantage of the “collective intelligence.” They have created ongoing “forums for interaction,” or space for the community process at the level of the community structure or field. To summarize to this point, a representation of the community learning concept is sketched in Figure 3.2 above. We see the process of the community creating new, collective knowledge. As that process includes so-called “ac-

COMMUNITY LEARNING

73

tive relationships” (meaning actors from different social fields in the community meeting in the community process) and as the content of that process is “located” in the community field, the new knowledge can then be embedded at the community level and thus community learning can be said to occur. A “learning community” has a well-developed community structure that has institutionalized the practice of community learning, thus facilitating a sustained community process. Such communities are said to be taking advantage of the “collective intelligence.” They have created ongoing “forums for interaction,” or space for the community process at the level of the community structure or field. Conclusion This chapter has outlined a concept of community learning that focuses attention dually upon the importance of the integrative process of dialogue and the supportive social structure of community. It also draws attention to the fact that processes of dialogue don’t automatically produce community-level learning and that the presence of civic structure likewise does not guarantee that collaborative learning will occur among local actors. Choices must be made to create space for the integrative process as well as to see that the integrative process extends the level of the community field. These decision points indicate that community learning includes two kinds of institutionalization: first, the institutionalization of new knowledge at the structural level of community, and second, the institutionalization of the integrative process in the community. The concept of community learning extends the arguments regarding the relationship between social capital and public participation. It suggests that although social capital is necessary, it is not sufficient in and of itself to lead to effective participation. A learning component is necessary as the collective intelligence of the community, combined with the mobilizing potential of civic structure, enables renewal and change. A focus on learning also draws attention to the mostly neglected component of process. Social capital theorists emphasize structure mostly to the neglect of process. Likewise, “process” theorists tend to ignore structure. Thus, community learning offers a conceptual bridge, linking the otherwise parallel discussions of social structure and democratic process. The concept of community learning also points directly to practice. It suggests to public administrators and community activists alike that the work of building community is more than just bringing people together. It is thinking beyond the level of association or network to thinking about the community as a network of networks. It points to the linkages between

74

RICARDO S. MORSE

networks and suggests that efforts to build and strengthen linkages directly impact the community’s ability to learn. Most rural communities lack tight, integrative structures at the community level. Wilkinson (1999) points out that this is partially due to distance, as rural communities are spread out. Yet similar problems are likely to persist in urban communities as well. Notable exceptions would be neighborhoods that have well-functioning, trusting partnerships with cities. Such neighborhoods create governing bodies that in a sense constitute a formal network that links all the subnetworks in the community. Such neighborhoods are powerful examples of learning and development7 and may well be the most fruitful area to study community learning. As the New Public Service movement continues to develop in theory and practice, there is an increasing need for frameworks that place at the center the community, as opposed to public management, individual citizens, or particular issues. Community learning provides such a framework and suggests that public administrators play a crucial role in facilitating learning as both process leaders and institution builders. Notes 1. Examples of citizenship-focused treatments include Stivers (1990), Cooper (1991), and Box (1998). Managerial-oriented treatments include Thomas (1995) and Creighton (2005). 2. Although, admittedly, the term is beginning to be used in much broader ways, even to the point of using the term “virtual community” in relation to cyberspace. This is inappropriate though, if community is to mean anything. Virtual communities or other socalled communities are more “substitutes and approximations” of community, but not the real thing (Keller 2003, 291–8). 3. One exception in public administration is an online network, originally hosted by the American Society for Public Administration, called the Community Learning and Governance Network. The emphasis of these discussions, however, was on the use of community indicators and not on developing a theory of community learning. The literature on “learning communities” represents the intersection of adult education and community development and does, in some cases, touch upon community-level phenomena. A review of this literature is found in Morse (2004). In short, many descriptions of community learning are actually of community groups learning, thus not community-wide phenomena (see Moore and Brooks 1996 and 2000). Other research, coming mainly from Australia, focuses on community-level processes and outcomes and is thus more relevant (see, for example, Kilpatrick, Barrett, and Jones 2003). Though incomplete, the research on “learning communities” is important to the discussion here and is an important source of insight. 4. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000). 5. See www.nifi.org, www.studycircles.org, and www.geocities.com/ward18dialogue, respectively. 6. See Scott’s Institutions and Organizations (2001) for an excellent overview on the subject. 7. See Berry, Portney, and Thomson (1993) and Thomson (2001) for examples.

COMMUNITY LEARNING

75

References Barber, Benjamin. 1984. Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. Berry, Jeffrey M., Kent E. Portney, and Ken Thomson. 1993. The Rebirth of Urban Democracy. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Bohm, David. 1999. On Dialogue. London: Routledge. Box, Richard C. 1998. Citizen Governance: Leading American Communities into the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bramson, Ruth Ann, and Terry F. Buss. 2002. “Methods for Whole Systems Change in Public Organizations and Communities.” A special symposium issue. Public Organization Review 2(3): 210–303. Bridger, Jeffrey C., and A.E. Luloff. 1999. “Toward an Interactional Approach to Sustainable Community Development.” Journal of Rural Studies 15: 377–87. Cooper, Terry L. 1991. An Ethic of Citizenship for Public Administration. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Creighton, James L. 2005. The Public Participation Handbook: Making Better Decisions through Citizen Involvement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Crossan, Mary M., Henry W. Lane, and Roderick E. White. 1999. “An Organizational Learning Framework: From Intuition to Institution.” Academy of Management Review 24(3): 522–37. deLeon, Peter. 1997. Democracy and the Policy Sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press. Denhardt, Janet V., and Robert B. Denhardt. 2003. The New Public Service: Serving, Not Steering. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Easterby-Smith, Mark, Mary Crossan, and Davide Nicolini. 2000. “Organizational Learning: Debates Past, Present, and Future.” Journal of Management Studies 37(6): 783–96. Etzioni, Amitai. 1996. The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic Society. New York: Basic Books. Follett, Mary Parker. 1919. “Community is a Process.” The Philosophical Review 28(6): 576–88. ———. 1924. Creative Experience. New York: Longmans, Green. ———. 1998. The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government. New York: Longmans, Green. Originally published 1918, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press (page numbering same in both editions). Friedland, Lewis A. 2001. “Communication, Community, and Democracy: Toward a Theory of the Communicatively Integrated Community.” Communication Research 28(4): 358–91. Friedmann, John. 1987. Planning in the Public Domain: From Knowledge to Action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Granovetter, Mark. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78(6): 1360–80. Green, Gary Paul, and Anna Haines. 2002. Asset Building and Community Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Healey, Patsy. 1997. Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Isaacs, William N. 1999a. Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together. New York: Currency. ———. 1999b. “Taking Flight: Dialogue, Collective Thinking, and Organizational Learning.” In Strategic Learning in a Knowledge Economy: Individual, Collective, and Organizational Learning Process, eds. Robert Cross and Sam B. Israelit, 231–51. Woburn, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.

76

RICARDO S. MORSE

Johnson, David W., and Frank P. Johnson. 2000. Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills. 7th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Kasl, Elizabeth, and Victoria Marsick. 1997. “Epistemology of Groups as Learning Systems: A Research-Based Analysis.” In 27th Annual SCUTREA Conference Proceedings. Available at www.scutrea.ac.uk Keller, Suzanne. 2003. Community: Pursuing the Dream, Living the Reality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kilpatrick, Sue, Margaret Barrett, and Tammy Jones. 2003. Defining Learning Communities. Discussion paper D1/2003. Launceston, Tasmania: Center for Research and Learning in Regional Australia. King, Cheryl Simrell, Kathryn M. Feltey, and Bridget O’Neill Susel. 1998. “The Question of Participation: Toward Authentic Public Participation in Public Administration.” Public Administration Review 58(4): 317–26. Knight, Louise. 2002. “Network Learning: Exploring Learning by Interorganizational Networks.” Human Relations 55(4): 427–54. Lane, Brett, and Diane Dorfman. 1997. Strengthening Community Networks: The Basis for Sustainable Community Renewal. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Levine, John M., Lauren B. Resnick, and E. Tory Higgins. 1993. “Social Foundations of Cognition.” Annual Review of Psychology 44: 585–612. Mathews, David, and Noëlle McAfee. 2000. Making Choices Together: The Power of Public Deliberation. Dayton, OH: Kettering Foundation. McCoy, Martha L., and Patrick L. Scully. 2002. “Deliberative Dialogue to Expand Civic Engagement: What Kind of Talk Does Democracy Need?” National Civic Review 91(2): 117–35. McSwite, O.C. 1997. Legitimacy in Public Administration: A Discourse Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Moore, Allen B., and Rusty Brooks. 1996. Transforming Your Community: Empowering for Change. Malabar, FL: Krieger. ———. 2000. “Learning Communities and Community Development: Describing the Process.” Learning Communities: International Journal of Adult and Vocational Learning 1 (November): 1–15. Morse, Ricardo S. 2004. “Community Learning: Process, Structure, and Renewal.” PhD diss., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Morton, Lois Wright. 2003. “Small Town Services and Facilities: The Influence of Social Networks and Civic Structure on Perceptions of Quality.” City & Community 2 (June): 101–20. Nalbandian, John. 1999. “Facilitating Community, Enabling Democracy: New Roles for Local Government Managers.” Public Administration Review 59(3): 187–96. Narayan, Deepa. 1999. Bonds and Bridges: Social Capital and Poverty. Washington, DC: World Bank. Peters, John M., and Joseph L. Armstrong. 1998. “Collaborative Learning: People Laboring Together to Construct Knowledge.” New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 79 (Fall): 75–85. Public Conversations Project. 2003. Constructive Conversations about Challenging Times: A Guide to Community Dialogue. Watertown, MA: Public Conversations Project. Available at www.publicconversations.org/pcp/uploadDocs/CommunityGuide3.0.pdf. Accessed January 2006. Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster; New York: Routledge.

COMMUNITY LEARNING

77

Retallick, John, Barry Cocklin, and Kennece Coombe, eds. 1999. Learning Communities in Education: Issues, Strategies and Contexts. London: Routledge. Sabatier, Paul A., and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith, eds. 1993. Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Scott, W. Richard. 2001. Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing. Selznick, Philip. 1992. The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 2002. The Communitarian Persuasion. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Sharp, Jeff S. 2001. “Locating the Community Field: A Study of Interorganizational Network Structure and Capacity for Community Action.” Rural Sociology 66(3): 403–24. Stivers, Camilla. 1990. “The Public Agency as Policy: Active Citizenship in the Administrative State.” Administration & Society 22(1): 86–105. Swan, Jacky, Sue Newell, Harry Scarbrough, and Donald Hislop. 1999. “Knowledge Management and Innovation: Networks and Networking.” Journal of Knowledge Management (3)4: 262–75. Tannen, Deborah. 1998. The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue. New York: Random House. Thomas, John Clayton. 1995. Public Participation in Public Decisions: New Skills and Strategies for Public Managers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Thomson, Ken. 2001. From Neighborhood to Nation: The Democratic Foundations of Civil Society. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Wamsley, Gary L., and James F. Wolf, eds. 1996. Refounding Democratic Public Administration: Modern Paradoxes, Postmodern Challenges. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Warner, Mildred. 1999. “Social Capital Construction and the Role of the Local State.” Rural Sociology 64 (3) 373–93. Wellman, Barry. 1999. “The Network Community: An Introduction.” In Networks in the Global Village, ed. Barry Wellman, pp. 1–47. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Wilkinson, Kenneth P. 1999. The Community in Rural America. New York: Greenwood. Originally published 1991, Middleton, WI: Social Ecology Press (page references are to reprint edition).

4 Community Learning in Practice Insights from an Action Research Project in Southwest Virginia Ricardo S. Morse

The concept of community learning described in chapter 3 offers a holistic framework for thinking about community participation and development. It is holistic in that it highlights the structural and process features of community, and the interrelation between the two, whereas most treatments of community and participation focus on one or the other. The concept is an analytical tool, not perfectly manifest in any single case, yet empirically based. Thus community learning occurs to some degree in most localities, but never “perfectly.” This chapter employs a field study of community learning in an action research project. Action research supports an interpretive methodology that “pursues action and research outcomes at the same time” (Allen 2001, 12). Ernest Stringer explains that community-based action research “is designed to encourage an approach to research that potentially has both practical and theoretical outcomes but that does so in ways that provide conditions for continuing action—the formation of a sense of community” (1999, xviii). Action research is naturally suited for public affairs research that concerns practice. Although generalizability is not sought in its traditional sense with action research, I look for transferability so that others may “identify similarities of the research setting” and findings with their own particular circumstances (Stringer 1999, 176). Action research produces rich and varied data sources, providing an opportunity to explore the utility of a community learning perspective. Community-based action research seems an appropriate setting in which to look for community learning, as the approach of action research is the kind of collaborative pragmatism undergirding community learning. Action research 78

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

79

is a process of collective inquiry, an effort to create a consensus that inspires people to work together for the common good (Stringer 1999). After a short introduction to the “Wytheville Project,” the six postulates of community learning are used to analyze work there. Deliberative Visioning in Wytheville The Wytheville Project was a multifaceted, three-year collaborative outreach effort of Virginia Tech’s Institute for Policy Outreach (IPO) to the Town of Wytheville aimed at improving public participation both in a community and in the context of a major transportation planning project of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). VDOT wanted to experiment with alternative means of community engagement, and turned over the community advisory process to IPO. The town recognized the highway study’s importance and determined that community engagement needed to be widespread and proactive and to address bigger questions raised in the process. The team at IPO possessed expertise in transportation planning as well as citizen engagement and public deliberation. A collaborative arrangement enabled the research team to engage the community in a “deliberative visioning” effort connected to, yet broader than, the transportation issue. As an action research project, the citizens in the greater Wytheville area worked together with IPO researchers to create policy-relevant knowledge (Morse 2004). The mayor publicly stated at a community meeting that the fate of the highways was the biggest issue faced by the community in the last 50 years. Two major interstates (77 and 81) merge and share an eight-mile corridor through Wytheville and eastern Wythe County. Naturally much of the community’s economic, social, and physical identity is shaped by the interstates. Due to heavy traffic, particularly truck volume, VDOT determined that the options for the corridor were to: (1) split the interstates (build a new corridor north or south of the existing one); (2) expand the existing corridor; or (3) make modifications to signage and exits to help traffic flow (an option that was later deemed unfeasible). No matter the study outcome, impacts would be significant. Wytheville community leadership recognized that the issue was bigger than the road—it was about the future of the community in general. The project began with fifty interviews of community stakeholders identified using the “snowball” technique—asking respondents to provide contact information for potential interviewers. Additionally, a community profile was developed, complementing the qualitative portrait of community perceptions from the interviews. Approximately thirty-five individuals were invited to join a group to serve jointly as advisory committee to the VDOT location

80

RICARDO S. MORSE

study and as steering committee for an extensive “deliberative visioning” process (Morse 2002). The committee was also advertised as open to any interested citizen. After a few meetings a core group of twenty-five citizens constituted the citizens’ committee, which included government officials from the town and county and civic leaders from the chamber of commerce, community college, school district, ministerial association, and so on. In the summer of 2001, over the course of four meetings, the group engaged in an “issue framing” process based on the Kettering Foundation’s model (Kettering Foundation 2001). Through the fall of 2001, the group met several more times to receive updates from the VDOT team and refine their issue-framing work into a booklet titled Shaping Our Community’s Future: Which Way Do We Go? The booklet offered four approaches to the community’s future around the themes of industrial growth, rural preservation, information technology, and social infrastructure. The booklet was published by a local printer and committee member in the spring of 2002. Producing the booklet and getting the word out about the next stage of the project deepened the collaborative process. Four thousand dollars in funds were contributed by the county government and several local businesses (in addition to the operational funds already provided by the Town of Wytheville). The local media heavily promoted the effort, and several local groups volunteered to sponsor community forums. From May 2002 to February 2003, two dozen community deliberative dialogue forums were held across the community in a variety of locales, involving over 400 citizens, including church groups, high school government classes, and even factory workers on-site. Committee members helped organize, participated in, and in some cases facilitated the community forums. In the spring of 2003, the committee reconvened to consider what had been learned in the community forums and to deliberatively construct a community vision statement. After four sessions, a four-page document articulated a vision that provided a community voice to the transportation planning and, more importantly, offered a framework for future community-wide action. The document was seen as an important articulation of vision not only for the local governments, but for the Industrial Development Authority, chamber of commerce, community college, and so on. Eventually the town worked with some of the committee members to revise the Comprehensive Plan to coincide with the vision. Other efforts were made to incorporate the vision into county planning efforts as well. The VDOT study ended up being suspended midway through the project due to state funding issues and proposals to privatize I-81 expansion, yet the citizens had already determined that the value of the visioning went well beyond the road issue (and ultimately the issue did not go away but was only delayed).

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

81

After the intervention formally ended in the spring of 2004, one of the most important outcomes was taking shape: Several community leaders— from local government, from the industrial authority, from the chamber of commerce, and other concerned citizens—decided that no vision would be realized without continued collaboration. The vision would not just be “handed off” to the town government to be accomplished. At their first meeting, they began working on expanding their group to include other stakeholders. So to what extent did the Wytheville Project represent community learning? I now look at some specifics from the field study in terms of the six postulates of community learning (see chapter 3). The Community Process The first postulate of community learning explains that the community process creates new, collective knowledge in the form of shared meanings or collective ideas. The emphasis throughout the “deliberative visioning” project was to engage citizens with each other so that they could learn collectively. The community process is one of creativity, of integration, where people create new knowledge through an interactive, communicative process. New knowledge may take the form of new ideas, shared understandings, or collective “framings” of issues. The knowledge created in the community process is collective group knowledge. The community process was evident throughout the different stages of the Wytheville Project. During the initial issue framing sessions and subsequent meetings leading up to the publication of the issue booklet, participants were asked to take individual perceptions of community and transform them, collectively, into a group account. The group was charged with developing a “collaborative descriptive account” of the ways in which people in the community approached or could approach its future development (Stringer 1999, 75). The group was asked to learn collectively, to create new knowledge. In this case, participants went from identifying over one hundred concerns and issues relevant to a community vision to transforming those into four perspectives. Based on themes emerging from stakeholder interviews, some of the wouldbe approaches were expected. Others, however, were not and seemed to be clear signs of collaborative learning. The stakeholder interviews took place in the spring of 2001, before the committee was formed and the issue framing process began. Participants were asked a range of questions regarding perceptions of their community. When they were asked to describe their community’s future and also to provide their “preferred vision,” a clear theme of balancing industrial growth with rural preservation was evident. A significant majority saw the community growing in the future and the need for

82

RICARDO S. MORSE

planning to preserve the community’s quality of life. A representative comment states “I see Wytheville growing a lot in the next twenty years. The pattern is set for growth . . . it will happen. . . . [However] we need to have more controlled growth in the County and that the County [needs to] be more progressive in their thinking.” Naturally, the high-growth, industrial development approach, as well as a rural preservation approach, was presented in the forum booklet. But the other two approaches—technology and particularly “social infrastructure”— were not clear, consistent themes in the interviews. The community had not framed the issues in this way. The approaches of industrial development and preserving green space were already part of the shared meaning of the community, as interviews made clear. But a collective recognition of the need to develop the “community” or a vision of transforming the community around high tech was not evident in the same way. Although some elements of a high-tech transformation surfaced in interviews, people talked about growth in terms of factory jobs and Wal-Marts. Similarly, a few of the interviewees suggested the kind of collaborative, civic engagement orientation of the booklet’s “approach four,” but this was an exception. Results of the issue framing sessions, however, were different. These sessions illustrate how the group created new shared meanings not evident across interviews. In the first issue framing session, small groups discussed and recorded their reactions to the following questions: “Thinking of the future of the community, what are your concerns? What are the concerns of your friends and neighbors?” This activity generated over a hundred written comments. Within some of the groups, discussions turned to what is commonly referred to as NIMBYism (meaning “not in my backyard”). The sentiment was that participation in community affairs was slight to nonexistent unless people were against something. Comments included: “not sure citizens know what they want” and “negative focus seems to be loudest heard.” These, along with other comments, some using the term “NIMBY,” were grouped under the heading “community awareness” by committee members in a subsequent session. A group sense of a problem or issue was beginning to emerge. The structured process of having the group categorize issues helped facilitate the learning process in this case. It raised group awareness and stimulated further dialogue on the issue. After initial listing and categorization, groups discussed core beliefs and assumptions and identified approaches based on different motivations and values. Once again, the “community awareness” approach emerged, this time in a more articulated form. Two of three small groups in the session included an approach around this idea. One group articulated it in terms of improving

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

83

the “relationship of the individual to the community” in terms of the government-citizen relationship, the community nurturing children, and people being “positively engaged” in their community. The other group approached it in terms of “planning with citizens, including a focus on youth and getting citizens to be involved.” After the three groups presented their approaches, one participant offered an integrative set of three approaches, one of which discussed the “culture of the community.” What began as a few scattered comments relating to community participation had developed into a well-articulated community “issue.” Although it is apparent from the interviews that a few of the committee members had thought about “social connections” before, it certainly was not a collectively shared meaning. Through the issue framing process, it became such a shared meaning, just as the third approach about technology was an example of the community process. Different experiences and perspectives joined together in a group process and created something new. Certainly the twenty participants did not share that knowledge before it was collectively articulated. Some had thought about the problem of NIMBYism, and perhaps had even talked to others about it. But over the course of four meetings a collective, group idea emerged that became new knowledge. The preceding is one clear example of new knowledge as it was created by the citizens’ committee during the issue framing sessions. The other three approaches the group articulated (industrial growth, rural preservation, and the “technology wave”) also represent new knowledge in the sense that the group collectively framed (or reframed) the issues through the course of their group work. Although industrial growth had certainly been a concept that everyone understood at some level coming into the sessions, the group now had a collective understanding or a new shared meaning around that issue that was not there prior to their interaction. The community process was also evident throughout the next stage of the Wytheville Project, where the booklet was used as a dialogue guide in a variety of forums. One such occurrence was during a spirited discussion with a group of clergy and social service workers that met periodically to discuss poverty issues. When the group addressed “approach four” (about community involvement) a local pastor noted that he saw very little action across groups in the community, such as churches working together. Other comments noted the need to be more “inclusive” and for an “expanded sense of community.” Another noted that perhaps “a sense of community that embraces community” is the appropriate starting point for the community vision. Another expressed how there just were not many “community” meetings. She asked, “when do we really have an opportunity to exchange ideas with each other?”

84

RICARDO S. MORSE

For this group, the issue of community involvement had not been discussed in this way before and as the group shared their perspectives and experiences with it, a collective “framing” of the issue occurred. This was evident in the observations of the meeting and the flow of the discussion. When asked whether the group had come up with any “fresh thinking,” more than half of the participants mentioned something about the community involvement issue, with comments such as “the need for greater participation from all segments of the community,” “participating fully in community,” and “I liked the direction of inclusivity (total community).” The answers to this question, asking about what “the group” produced, indicate that the community involvement idea, as the group framed it, was a group product. It was an integration of the information presented in the booklet and the different experiences and perspectives of the individuals in the group. In the end, it was clear that the majority of forums experienced a group “aha” around the ideas contained in approach four. The introduction of the subject matter caused participants to reflect on their own experiences with community involvement, and as those experiences and ideas were shared, the groups naturally coalesced around this idea. Virtually every forum concluded with group recognition that any vision for the community would need “approach four” to be actualized. This is rather remarkable given the differences across groups: some with business managers; others with retirees, with government officials, or with “blue-collar” workers; and yet others with high school students. No matter the composition of the group, one collective product of the dialogues remained the same: the mutually supported notion that greater community involvement is necessary for the community to move forward in any direction. Similar collective “aha” moments were evident around the issue of community leadership, from a more or less official notion that emphasized “us versus them” to a more organic, collaborative one consistent with the social infrastructure approach of the booklet. When the committee reconvened after the series of community forums concluded, they had a shared sense of how approach four reinforced the others, how technology could help support preservation and also improve the economy, and so on. There was consensus around some sort of synthesis between the approaches deeper than simply saying “we want it all.” The group(s) wrestled with the contradictions and sought an integration that represented a realistic vision for their future development. Dialogue throughout the forums created this integration, which would become the community vision statement. Again, the important distinction between this knowledge—integrated knowledge as a product of the community process—and knowledge that an individual could gain about the issue just from reading the booklet, is that the group, as a collective, develops a mutual understanding of it based on their

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

85

discussion and the interweaving of experiences and perspectives that takes place therein. Although many people certainly could have read through the booklet and come to that conclusion themselves, not all would have. The dialogue—the interplay of ideas, perspectives, and experiences—changes individual and collective understanding and produces something new. This is how the group or collective idea can simultaneously belong to the collective and the individual (Follett 1998). This is the community process (Follett 1919). Structured Processes and Learning The second postulate of community learning makes the case for structured processes of dialogue and deliberation facilitating the community process. In other words, although shared knowledge is created through a variety of mechanisms, community learning emphasizes the role of structured or deliberate processes that foster mutual learning. One finding is that there is a learning curve for participants in the process. Learning in the issue framing sessions consisted of more than the new shared understandings created in framing the issues. The group had to learn the process itself. This proved to be a challenge: No one had participated in an “issue forum” before, let alone an “issue framing.” Though the research team talked about dialogue, deliberation, visioning, and so forth many times, and provided participants a “map” of where the process was headed, it became apparent during the second meeting that many participants were lost. The fact that the group was framing issues so that the community at large could have deliberations over those issues was repeatedly explained, but it took time for this to be fully understood. Occasionally someone would ask, “now what does this have to do with whether or not we keep the road?” Or at other times certain members would want to “sell” their solutions to the group. The group worked through this, however, with the help of the facilitators. Apparently, one way to help the group learn “the process” would be to have them participate in a forum first, then back up and say “this is where we are heading.” This was a lesson learned in facilitating the process. Participants persisted and eventually “got it.” The fourth and final issue framing session was where the approaches were clarified to the point that the booklet could be made. The energy and creativity during that session were palpable. The group collectively seemed to have “learned” the process and was excited about what they had produced. Comments after that meeting were positive and reflective of the learning that had occurred. “This is a very different way of approaching [issues],” commented one self-described “cynic.” He continued, “this is the first time things have been approached in another way . . . I hope this bears fruit.”

86

RICARDO S. MORSE

One important observation is that the community process must be learned. Although social interaction creates shared meaning continuously, I find that specific forms of interaction—namely, dialogue and deliberation—are well suited to facilitating learning, an observation well established in the literature (Johnson and Johnson 2000; Isaacs 1999). Yet not enough attention is given to the fact that dialogue and deliberation represent different ways of communicating, taking time for individuals and groups to learn process. The experience from Wytheville indicates that learning the process is as valuable as learning the content. As the group collectively seemed to “get it,” the level of enthusiasm and commitment increased. The preceding accounts illustrate how the community process was manifest in the committee work as well as within the isolated forums that took place as part of the community outreach phase of the project. It was apparent that creative integration (learning) occurs not only in extended forums of interaction, but also in more short-term instances. This was the case for groups that normally meet together, like a neighborhood or church group, as well as for groups that came together simply for a forum. There did not seem to be a qualitative difference between organized groups and the ephemeral groups that came together for community-wide forums. The creative community process occurs rather naturally when people are given “safe” space to speak and can agree on some bounds to the conversation (what are normally called ground rules or agreements). The structure of the booklet helped focus the process along the lines of the issue at hand, and stimulated creative thinking. Beyond having a proper setting and a stimulus, such as the discussion book, it appears that the facilitator plays a crucial role. The facilitator not only helps ensure the “ground rules” (e.g., respect each other’s views, don’t talk over people, etc.), but can also move the discussion along to seek creative integrations. Observations of the many forums revealed that the process gained momentum and really became a learning process as the facilitator moved toward identifying what the group viewed as the primary tradeoffs and what “common ground” they could agree on at that point. Although citizens may have the ability to create the “community process” themselves, it is evident that a facilitator can be very helpful in teaching the “skills” of deliberative dialogue, maintaining a “safe atmosphere” with ground rules and agreements, and keeping the conversation focused. Examples from the issue framing and community forums illustrate the community process as it was experienced in the Wytheville Project. Several observations can be made relative to the second postulate of community learning, about the role of structured processes of dialogue and deliberation facilitating the learning process of community. First, the experience of Wytheville suggests that a formula for stimulating the community process in

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

87

one-time meetings such as the community forums is to have a discussion guide (the forum booklet) and a “safe” space for authentic dialogue, created and maintained by a skilled facilitator, and the result is often the kind of “aha” moments described above where the group learns together and creates new shared meanings. It is also useful to structure processes in a way that forces participants to address the full range of issues that emerge. There is a tendency to gravitate toward dominant themes or issues and discard or forget about more seemingly “minor” observations or comments. If this were the case in the issue framing process then the booklet probably would have been about industrial growth versus rural preservation, period. Technology and community building approaches emerged because the comments or concerns that led to them were “left on the table” and people were asked to consider them throughout the issue framing. This led to further reflection and integration and the eventual articulation of the approaches as they now exist in the booklet. Facilitators of learning processes should consider ways to keep even the most marginal of concerns “on the table.” Another observation from the process concerns focusing on underlying assumptions, a common element of dialogue (Isaacs 1999) as well as part of the issue framing process (Kettering Foundation 2001). It was apparent that during the sessions, when participants were able to get to the point of exploring together the underlying assumptions of different approaches, creative ideas and shifts in understanding were more likely to occur. This, of course, is impossible to “measure,” but nevertheless it was evident in experiencing the evolution of the group. The experience of framing sessions and forums identifies two different manifestations of group learning, which might be termed evolutionary and revolutionary. The first demonstrates how learning occurs over time, through repeated sessions of dialogue where new shared meanings gradually emerge and coalesce (evolutionary). For the most part this is how learning occurred during the issue framing sessions. Another manifestation of learning is the “aha” moment, when there is a sudden shift in conversation where the group collectively “creates” a shared meaning or alters an existing shared meaning. This is revolutionary, at least for the group, and it occurred frequently in the community forums, where a combination of the structured dialogue and the flow of the conversation produced new shared meaning or understanding in a short period of time. Developing Relationships The third postulate of community learning suggests that the community process creates, maintains, or strengthens the relationships that constitute the

88

RICARDO S. MORSE

social structure of community. The Wytheville Project provides significant anecdotal evidence of this assumption. Many new friendships were made throughout the process, particularly among those working together on the citizens’ committee. Many of these individuals were acquainted with one another, but being involved in a rich discussion outside of formal roles added a new dimension. It is clear that elected officials from the town and county have discussed matters of community importance together on numerous occasions. The link between the town and county is a crucial one in the overall community structure. Yet the stakeholder interviews highlighted dramatically a sense of disconnect between the town and county governments. Over the course of the project, however, elected and appointed officials sat down together, with other community members, in a nonofficial setting to openly discuss issues that were community wide as opposed to jurisdictionally based. Although it is hard to account for how those relationships changed over the course of the project, participating in the dialogue only served to better the relations and strengthen the bonds that already existed. A town council member, during a March 2004 focus group, noted that joint governing bodies’ meetings (held quarterly) had traditionally been very superficial and a “waste of time.” More recently, however, the meetings have had a lot more “depth” and a lot more of thinking in terms of “what is good for the whole . . . looking at the standpoint of working together” as opposed to thinking only in terms of jurisdictional interests. Many other relationships that were formed through the process perhaps at least began to be new links in the community network. One of the important connections was between the local newspaper, the Wytheville Enterprise, and the citizens’ committee. Although the paper is very civic oriented, direct involvement and sponsorship of the visioning process helped link the newspaper to other institutions in ways that have not been done before. More study would need to be done in order to clarify some of the new “linkages,” but the experience of the committee and the research team suggests that participation in the process served to make connections or strengthen existing ones. Some very active, key “players” who may not hold any formal position on a board or commission seemed to be energized by the process and build new linkages. A case in point is one of the visioning project leaders, Bill Gilmer, who is extremely well connected and is widely recognized in the community. Beyond owning a thriving printing business downtown, he is involved in the chamber of commerce, the Rotary Club, and a host of other charitable activities. He was a facilitative leader throughout the project, such as the time he “sold” the project to the newspaper editor and secured her enthusiastic support for it.

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

89

Another instance of how this individual made new—or perhaps activated dormant—connections in the community is when he helped arrange a community forum sponsored by the hospital. Due to his connections with the hospital administrator, the chamber of commerce, the radio station, and the newspaper, the event became a collaborative venture rather than something put on by the research team. His business designed an advertisement, given a quarter-page in the newspaper for free. The hospital contributed space and refreshments. The radio station publicized the event. The presence of this kind of bridge-building, “generalized leader” is one important indication of how the process helped develop the structure. Focusing Attention on Community Structure The fourth postulate of community learning is that a model of community as the structure of interinstitutional relations focuses the attention of researchers and community participants on the linkages across community institutions and social fields. The initial stakeholder interviews highlighted some important features of community structure in Wytheville. One very interesting finding from the interviews with regard to perceived weaknesses or problems with the community had to do with intergovernmental relations. Another interesting cluster of comments from the interviews in terms of social structure described as a community weakness a culture of NIMBYism when it comes to difficult community issues. One lifelong resident expressed it as “people only get involved if they are against something.” The sense seems to be that although there is community pride and many individuals and groups do a lot to benefit the community, this somehow does not translate into strong community involvement. A few key stories from the recent past were told or held up as manifestations of this culture. One involved a decision of whether or not to site a private prison in the county. Other examples were decisions by the town to develop a piece of farmland into a shopping center featuring a Wal-Mart and the county’s decision to approve a livestock market. Both issues generated a great deal of NIMBY involvement. What the examples illustrate is that the community had a weak history of inclusive dialogue on public issues. Decisions were made and certain citizens rose up in opposition. What the interviews revealed was that, although some formal relationships between organizations are obviously present, the reality of the community structure is that it is fragmented, that community culture is not historically perceived to be as collaborative as it could be. This finding is consistent with sociological research indicating that community cohesion is difficult to maintain in rural areas because of population dispersion (Wilkinson 1999).

90

RICARDO S. MORSE

At the organizational level, however, there are myriad ways in which organizations in a community may collaborate beyond having overlapping leadership. “Active” relationships across organizations and institutions need not be formal. Perhaps a teacher becomes acquainted with an administrator at the hospital and the two develop a program for high school seniors to volunteer at the hospital as part of their curriculum. Clearly this is the kind of linkage we are looking for when speaking of community structure, but it would not show up in a network analysis. This is where the notion of “active” versus “passive” relationships (Lane and Dorfman 1997) comes in, and it involves a number of interactions far more complex than could ever be analyzed using network analysis. This is not to imply that community structure is too complex to analyze; it underscores that at present, methods for “measuring” and understanding it are in the very early stages, an area ripe for further methodological innovation. Stakeholder interviews indicated that a rather dense network, with overlapping leadership, exists in Wytheville, not surprising given its relatively small size (9,000 in town and 25,000 county-wide). Numerous people, on numerous occasions, expressed a perception that about 200 people run (or govern) the community. One key informant expressed it this way: “I have long thought that about two-hundred people run the county. They overlap . . . [and] run the town, the county, Rotary, Chautauqua . . . there are certain movers and shakers in the community . . . by and large they are more articulate.” In fact, even with an incomplete knowledge of all the organizations and their leadership, a core clique includes the town and county governments, planning commissions, the industrial development authority, the chamber of commerce, the community hospital, the community college, and the Rotary Club. A community learning perspective focuses on community structure, though the important question seems to be not so much about overlapping leadership as about to what extent there are “active relationships” across community organizations (Lane and Dorfman 1997). A simplified network analysis of Wytheville, for example, which did reveal numerous linkages, failed to identify links among leaders in organizations that were known (from the interviews) to have significant interaction with one another. One such case is the relationship between the community college and the town government, supporting the point that formal linkages are an inadequate assessment. Community structure is about relationships. There is clearly a dense web of relationships across the institutions that govern the community. However, there are weak links, the most important of which was iden-

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

91

tified by almost every person interviewed in 2001: the relationship between the town and the county. The dozens of interviews conducted in the early stages of the Wytheville Project were remarkable for the congruity on the town-county relationship issue. Although some of the elected officials from the town and county mentioned that “they are working together on some things” and “things are better now than they have ever been,” the majority of comments reflected widespread recognition of disconnect. A representative comment from another key informant was “I don’t see dialogue between the town and county. The town manager and county administrator aren’t brainstorming on projects, or cooperating on projects.” Many informants recognized that the relationship between the two governments had improved over the years, but that apparently “there are different mindsets.” Or, as one official candidly noted, “right now we are kind of marching to the beat of different drummers.” A focus group with project leaders at the project’s end revealed that the concept of community structure seemed intuitive to the group generally. In a discussion of how the community vision would be implemented, everyone agreed that it would take a collaborative effort between different community institutions, particularly the town and county governments. One member of the group noted that the two governing bodies “are very far apart ideologically” and that somehow the two would have to come closer together. Another commented that the two bodies actually have a lot of interaction in the field of economic development. One of the elected officials in the group followed by saying that “there are a lot of off-the-radar avenues for interaction between the two” and cited several examples of joint ventures. However, it was pointed out by another that the interaction seems limited to specific areas of cooperation rather than a generalized culture of collaboration. The focus group also identified other links that need to be made in terms of the community vision, beyond the need to strengthen, or make “active,” the link between the two governments. Although there was participation by the president of the community college and by the hospital, it was noted that they need to be more involved and connected with the other institutions that played a more prominent role (such as the town, the chamber of commerce, and the industrial authority). Also, the involvement of youth and schools generally was noted and identified as an area that needed more work. The fourth postulate of community learning highlights the idea that the “community” of community learning is represented by a structure of relations and that for learning to happen at the community level it must impact that structure. The key informants in the follow-up focus group agreed that the community has a strong web of relations that facilitate communication and coordinated action across community institutions. One member of the

92

RICARDO S. MORSE

group pointed out that the interinstitutional coordination “goes on all the time” informally, “just cut up and sliced.” He noted Rotary Club meetings and other situations where institutional leaders interact. Whether the relationships are “active” or “passive” is hard to tell. Everyone in the focus group agreed that the community structure could be strengthened. Perhaps the most important “lesson” regarding community structure from the Wytheville experience is that although it is difficult to approach analytically due to the complexity of relationships, it nevertheless “makes sense” intuitively and serves as a powerful way to understand community. Community Learning in Wytheville Postulate five of community learning links process and structure. The Wytheville Project displayed ample evidence of the community process, the creative integration of different perspectives into shared meanings. The greater issue, however, is whether the learning that occurred during the visioning process ever became “community” learning. Certainly the citizens’ committee learned and participants in community forums learned individually and collectively, but can we say in any meaningful way that “the community” learned? Community learning occurs as knowledge created through the community process is fed forward to the level of the community structure or field. A community has learned when this collective knowledge is institutionalized across the community structure, or rather is embedded across the web of community institutions. This embedding or institutionalizing of knowledge may take the form of shared understandings across that structure; new community norms, practices, rituals (e.g., new community institutions), or formal community-level policy; or new associations or organizations. One way to identify community learning is through “artifacts” of the learning process. Changes in community-wide norms, language, and ritual would be difficult to discern this early into the intervention. Such changes are expected to be gradual or evolutionary; therefore they would be almost impossible to trace at this point. On the other hand, there may be some social artifacts that at least suggest that the learning did reach the level of community and that the new knowledge became embedded, at least to some extent, in the community’s social structure. Two such artifacts are the forum booklet and the community vision statement. The way in which the two were developed and distributed indicates that the knowledge contained in them represents more than simply the learning of a handful of local residents. The knowledge represented in those documents appears to have been distributed across the structure of the community, the web of community institutions. Learning that occurs in the process can

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

93

become community learning when the knowledge produced is fed forward to the level of community. When community is understood as the structure of social relations in a locality, specifically in terms of the community-oriented institutional linkages, community learning is understood to be learning across that web or network of networks. New knowledge is embedded across the web of community. In the Wytheville Project, the feed-forward process occurred in one of three ways: (1) the learning can take place within the community field; (2) the local media can integrate knowledge at the level of community; or (3) “new” knowledge at the group level can be communicated and integrated, formally or informally, to the level of community structure. Publication of the booklet (by a local printer, at cost) corresponded with a local media campaign, which included a series of articles in the newspaper discussing the four approaches of the booklet and an editorial lauding the visioning effort. The local radio station publicized the booklet through advertisements and guest spots on the morning program by representatives, all leading up to an hour-long broadcast featuring committee members discussing the contents of the booklet. A booth was set up at a large homemaking convention. Pamphlets were mailed to churches and civic organizations. In short, the word got out and a great many people in the community became aware of the question of the community’s vision and the issues as they had been framed in the booklet. Perhaps more important than the sheer number of people exposed to the “four approaches” was the fact that key representatives of the institutions constituting the community structure took part in developing, publishing, and promoting the booklet. The booklet became a collaborative creation of individuals from the town and county governments, the community college, the hospital, the chamber of commerce, the industrial authority, and so on. The important point here is that the new knowledge in terms of the way the issues were framed and articulated in the booklet became embedded at the level of community structure, at least to some extent, due to the individuals involved in its creation and distribution. In other words, the community is defined in terms of a structure of interinstitutional relationships that became “active” when the different institutional leaders worked together to make the booklet. The active form of community structure is precisely what Wilkinson (1999) explains is a community field. A community field arises when different social fields in a community are linked together actively in some form of collective action for the community rather than for some narrow interest. Therefore, one way for community learning to occur is for the learning process (the community process) to occur within the community field. The community field is an active manifestation of community structure and if learning is occurring across that field, then it is clearly community learning.

94

RICARDO S. MORSE

This occurred in Wytheville as the issue framing and subsequent publication of the product of that issue framing both took place in the community field as opposed to within a more limited social field. Throughout the process, knowledge was being embedded in the community structure. The local media’s role was perhaps underappreciated by the study team as a feed-forward mechanism of community learning. This is particularly the case with the forum booklet and, later, the newsletter that was published. The local newspaper ran numerous stories and editorials about the project, including the featured series on the four approaches. The lead editorial in the July 4, 2002, Wytheville Enterprise appealed to citizens’ patriotism and encouraged community participation in the visioning project. For more than a year, Virginia Tech’s Institute for Policy Outreach has been working with a group of area citizens representing a vast cross-section of interests, business types, government and civic organizations. This group has been discussing how the community could develop a practical vision for its future—one that could serve as a guiding philosophy when various issues come before it. Their work has produced a booklet designed to help citizens deliberate— not debate, not politick, but listen and talk—about the community’s future. This booklet presents four different perspectives on the future, which were developed to spark deliberation. Hopefully, this deliberation will help community members find common ground to establish a shared direction (Porter-Nichols 2002).

The newspaper editor continued by giving an overview of the four approaches and explaining that over the next four weeks, guest columnists would be writing about each approach. She encouraged citizens to get involved “in this vital citizen-oriented project that has the potential to improve our future and that of our children and their children” (2002). Many other newspaper articles were written in the Wytheville Enterprise as well as in the larger, regional newspaper, the Roanoke Times. Later, toward the end of the forums, some of the knowledge “captured” was related to the community at large in the form of a newsletter, produced by project staff and distributed as a newspaper insert so that the approximately 6,000 subscribers all received one. Additionally, the local radio station ran two hour-long programs about the project, the first to introduce the booklet and the second featuring high school students giving their perspectives after having participated in forums. These local media collaborators were crucial in getting the word out and, in a sense, feeding forward the more “localized” knowledge to the community level. Friedland (2001) underscores

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

95

the importance of local media as an integrating medium of communication at the community level, an observation that corresponds to the Wytheville experience and the community learning concept. In addition to thinking about the composition of groups engaging in deliberative community processes (like dialogues, study circles, wisdom councils, etc.), we need to think carefully about the ways in which knowledge is fed forward and integrated at the level of community structure. True integration that spans the whole of the community network is likely to occur over long periods of time rather than in discrete time frames like this intervention. Repeated communication via local media could be an important alternative way for learning that occurs at the level of a social field to become embedded across the community structure. Yet communication media is likely not as powerful as face-to-face contact with regard to embedding knowledge at the community level. Having participants of past forums join the visioning group and participate in the formation of the community vision certainly had more impact than a report of the forums available to the committee members. Development of the community vision statement illustrates another way the “feed-forward” process occurs. The forums and other public events produced large amounts of group learning data or “input” for the committee to consider in drafting the statement. Since all of the committee members could not attend each meeting, a reporting system was put in place so that the committee could learn from the forums. At the conclusion of the forums, all notes, field notes, and post-forum questionnaires were synthesized into a report on the learning from the forums. There were dominant themes that cut across forums, such as the emphasis on synthesizing approaches and the importance of approach four. Additionally, there were several “new” ideas that emerged in forums that needed to be presented. The statement is an artifact of community learning, similar to the booklet, because it is the product of deliberative dialogue at the level of community structure. In the case of the vision statement, this dialogue included not only the experience of those drafting the document, but also the additional knowledge of many forums that wrestled with the same issues. In other words, the knowledge from the forums was formally fed forward to the level of community structure by the reporting system and thus the community forums can be said to be part of an overall community learning process. The knowledge from the forums was also fed forward informally in two ways. First, several of the core committee members attended, and in some cases helped facilitate, many of the forums. They experienced firsthand how people were talking about the issues and what common ground was being created for the vision statement. In this way many of the committee members

96

RICARDO S. MORSE

already went into the visioning sessions with a sense of what the forum “input” was. Bill Gilmer was one of the project leaders, having facilitated several forums and attended others beyond that. Leading into the visioning sessions, Bill captured this informal feed-forward process perfectly in an article he wrote in the project newsletter that went to 6,000 households in January 2003. Summarizing his experience in the forums, he stated: Indeed, almost everyone who’s been involved in the vision process so far has expressed the same core values: an appreciation for our quality of life and a desire to preserve it; an awareness of the need for jobs, for economic growth; a desire to keep our young people involved in the community, to prevent the “brain drain” where so many of our best and brightest leave after graduation; a love for our natural environment, our open farmlands, our mountain ridges, our clean air and water; the need for continuous improvement in our educational systems; an awareness of how important tourism is to our prosperity.

This articulation of what he was hearing corresponds remarkably well to the formal report given in the first visioning session. Another way the feed-forward process can happen informally was evidenced where citizens participated in a forum and then participated with the committee in drafting the vision statement. At the end of each forum, participants were reminded that the committee was “open” and that if anyone wanted to help draft the vision statement they were welcome and encouraged to do so. Several of the high school students as well as a few others did just that, so the committee that met during the visioning sessions was expanded to include these new members, who could now take the knowledge gained in the forums and introduce it to the mix during the drafting of the vision statement. This was particularly meaningful in the case of the high school students, who in their dialogues regarding opportunities for youth in the area came up with several new ideas and perspectives that had not surfaced in other meetings. Toward a Learning Community The sixth postulate of the community learning concept points to what constitutes a “learning community.” A learning community has a well-developed community structure that has institutionalized the practice of community learning, thus facilitating a sustained community process. Such communities are said to be taking advantage of the “collective intelligence.” They have created ongoing “forums for interaction,” or space for the community pro-

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

97

cess at the level of the community structure or field. Over the years from 2001 to 2005 in Wytheville, the citizens’ committee, as a cross section of social fields in the community, provided a vehicle for what is called here community learning. The argument is made that community learning is a source of renewal and change for communities, much as organizational learning is for organizations. New ideas can lead to innovations in a community. New shared understandings, different ways of naming and framing problems, and new ways of thinking about solutions likewise can be a source of growth, adaptation, and change. But in the end, real, lasting change and renewal occur when community learning leads to the transformation of a community into a learning community. A learning community, as the name implies, is continually learning and thus has the greatest capacity for renewal, adaptation and change, and sustainability. Community learning occurs at the intersection of process and structure and so in learning communities we find the process itself becoming a norm at the structural level. The learning community is where community learning meets organizational learning or so-called learning organizations. Local organizations, as nodes in the community web, form the institutional infrastructure of the community. It is across these organizations that learning is or can be embedded, and it is within these organizations that a culture of learning must be cultivated. The institutionalization of practice (the practice of community learning) requires local organizations to be learning organizations. The community cannot be learning, renewing, and changing if its organizations are not transforming themselves as well. The community process must be embedded within the community’s organizations as well as across the network of organizations that constitute the community. Institutionalization of this sort is expected to be evolutionary. In a discussion on organizational roles in community development, Alice Schumaker observes that of organizations most often participating in community visioning programs, local government has the greatest “capacity to initiate change.” Yet it is local government that is often “the most difficult to change” (1997, 107). The public sector is most resistant to change or least likely to embrace an organizational learning framework. This is an interesting observation that deserves more attention elsewhere. Suffice it to say here, though, that this observation held true in Wytheville, despite the fact that it was the town government that initiated and funded the visioning project. So if there are even the slightest indications of institutionalization of practice within the town government, we might say that this is one piece of evidence that suggests that Wytheville may be on its way to becoming a learning community. Initially, town administrative officials were content to be “hands-off” and let the project progress along without any substantive participation.

98

RICARDO S. MORSE

The assistant town manager participated off and on with the committee, but it was the mayor and another councilman who really participated enthusiastically. Through informal conversations with town officials (and, for that matter, with the county officials who participated) it seemed that most of the citizens’ committee were “getting it,” while the administrative officials were more skeptical. This skepticism changed over time, however, to the point where the assistant town manager, who also serves as the town planner, brought together a citizens’ group to revise the comprehensive plan significantly based on the visioning effort. He sees a different potential for the comprehensive plan, a potential that is possible because of the community learning that has occurred due to the visioning project. This recognition of the value of the visioning process, of the participation of the citizens, is an encouraging sign that the town government as an organization may be opening up more, seeking ways to “make space” for the community process. Inasmuch as the town seeks more horizontal connections and collaboration—which is apparent in their comprehensive planning process, not to mention their support of the visioning project—this key organization in the community network may be leading in the process of the community becoming a learning community. Additionally, from 2001 to 2005, the town-county relationship has been improving. Collaboration during the visioning project has only helped in this sense. Town and county officials worked side by side on the committee. Recognition of the importance of collaboration between the two organizations was one of the dominant themes of the visioning process and duly recognized by those organizational leaders. The positive trajectory of this crucial link in the community structure is another positive manifestation of the community’s transforming itself into a learning community. How a community becomes a “learning” community speaks to one of the most important questions that anyone who engages in “community work” must address. The Wytheville Project, like other community participation efforts, is an intervention, by its very nature temporary. When a local government holds a series of public meetings to update a comprehensive plan, the participation stops when the task is complete. What happens after the intervention (the structured participation)? More often than not the answer is nothing. The learning in Wytheville was due in large part to the fact that a funded team of researchers facilitated the process. Although the citizens took ownership of the process to some extent and a lot of growth and development occurred, one must ask what happens once the formal intervention is over. Will the work fade away into distant memory? Or will the community move forward and continue to learn, becoming a learning community as opposed to merely a community that has learned?

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

99

These questions were addressed during a focus group held in March 2004 with key project leaders. The group was asked, essentially, “What’s next?” Not surprisingly, this was exactly what the group was thinking about and they were eager to discuss it. A participant noted that people often ask him, knowing that he has been very active in the visioning process, “After this is all over, what am I going to see?” He noted that although the process is about the long term, people want to see results in the short term. Everyone then agreed that the movement on the town’s comprehensive plan was one important, recognizable “product,” particularly if it results in identifying specific priorities for the town as anticipated. Work on the county’s comprehensive plan was also identified as critical. The observation about the town and county “running on separate tracks” came up several times again in the focus group and underscored an important realization by the group collectively that their finding, one of the core attributes of the vision statement, was that the entire community, meaning all the different institutions, including the town and county, must share the vision for it to be a reality. Thus, an attribute of a learning community would be that the different institutions that constitute the community structure do share a vision. When the group was asked how that is going to happen in Wytheville, one group member suggested that perhaps it will happen informally, as different community leaders interact naturally, like at the Rotary Club. At this point another group member spoke up and sparked a group “aha” moment that bodes well for the prospects of developing a learning community. He said, “I’m concerned that if the group meeting here today doesn’t meet again nothing we have talked about will ever go forward.” He went on to explain that the uniqueness of the visioning project was the fact that community leaders from different sectors were at the same table discussing the community’s future. What he was referring to is precisely what the literature calls a “community field,” or “active” form of community structure. He recognized the importance of the communicative linkages and as he spoke up others in the group concurred and reinforced this idea. The key to becoming a learning community, according to the focus group, is “communication.” One of the participants, a public official, explained that good communication will see vision to fruition, while poor communication will render it to the shelf to be forgotten. As the group discussed this point and offered ideas of how this might be done, and who should be included in that group, the question about what happens post-intervention arose again. “Who has the time to take on the leadership role that Rick has been doing?” One answer came from one of the town officials. He reminded everyone that the project was possible because of the high-level commitment of the town. “The governments must provide leadership,” he explained, and additionally,

100

RICARDO S. MORSE

there must be “participation by the public to make sure it doesn’t die.” Everyone seemed to agree that “one person simply can’t do it.” Most of the group felt, in the end, that there was value simply in coming together as a group of community leaders to discuss the community. At the end of the meeting the group identified the Chamber of Commerce as an ideal “boundary-spanning” organization that might be able to informally organize a quarterly lunch where the visioning committee could move the vision forward. One of the members accepted the responsibility to follow up with this proposal and the group has in fact met since then. They conducted their own stakeholder mapping (although that term was not used) and sought to increase their numbers in the coming months and years. Focus groups’ findings corroborate postulate six. A learning community institutionalizes the process of community learning. The proposal of the group to meet together as a group of leaders of community institutions seems to be a semiformal manifestation of learning within a community field. In fact, the group itself, inasmuch as its work constitutes a community field, represents the community in terms of being a learning community. In other words, if this group evolves into a “learning group,” it will represent a sort of microcosm of the broader community. It represents the leadership of the different social fields in the community that collectively make up the community structure. So quite literally, the evolution and broadening of this group represent the evolution and development of the community at large. Also, it is reasonable to assume that if the group is successful, other avenues of institutionalizing community learning may grow out of that. The community does seem to be heading in the direction of becoming a learning community, but the question of developing into a learning community is a long-term one. Learning communities do more than sporadically learn; they have a culture of learning and continually expand participation and engagement. Learning communities are continually building bridges and embracing dialogue as a positive way to use difference as a source of creativity and innovation. It will take Wytheville a lot more time to fully realize the benefits of community learning, but initial indications are that the deliberative visioning process has helped awaken many key community members to the possibilities. Conclusion In this chapter a field study has been examined through the lens of community learning. Facilitated committee meetings and community visioning forums provided a context for the community process to occur. The community forums consistently displayed elements of collaborative learning or

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

101

the community process insofar as new, mutually created and shared understandings of issues emerged from the dialogue. The issue framing with the citizens’ committee, in particular, produced collective conceptualizations and ideas that clearly were group products. The stakeholder interviews that were an initial part of the Wytheville Project shed light on Wytheville’s unique community structure. Community structure refers to the horizontal linkages among the various social fields of the community. Considering the peculiarities of Wytheville in terms of community structure highlighted an important finding that much more theoretical and methodological development is needed in understanding community structure. Top-down methods seem inappropriate and common network analysis methods likewise seem to miss much, or most, of the reality in terms of relationships between social fields. The Wytheville Project also produced artifacts of community-level learning. The “product” of the issue framing sessions—the forum booklet and its subsequent publication—became a collaborative effort that enriched the project and helped embed the learning at the level of community structure. The composition of the committee that framed the issues reflected to a large extent the community structure in its “active” form, a community field, and additional support that was gathered along the way to publication helped further the institutionalization of this new knowledge. The role of the local media was also identified as a critical integrating mechanism. The vision statement likewise represents community learning, again based upon the process’s being located in the community field and also in the incorporation at this “community” level of new knowledge developed in forums throughout the community. Group learning that occurred in social fields such as a neighborhood group, church group, or workplace was integrated upward to the level of community structure as that knowledge was reported and utilized by the committee and as members of those groups joined the committee. Finally, steps taken by the town administration and key project leaders offer evidence that perhaps the community process is itself becoming institutionalized, at least in small, evolutionary ways, in community organizations. The Wytheville Project demonstrates a crucial theme of the community learning concept; that is, the duality of structure and process. Engaging citizens in deliberative dialogue clearly helped build the relationships that constitute community structure. After most meetings, participants mingled and continued the dialogue. The process of engaging in a constructive, creative, convivial conversation is a relationship-building process. It builds community by highlighting the common ground people share. Despite the many differences of opinion on zoning or taxes, for many people it was eye opening to realize how much they did, in fact, share in common. On the other

102

RICARDO S. MORSE

hand, the existing (and constantly evolving) community structure was always an important constraining factor on the community process. The Wytheville Project demonstrates the utility of a community learning perspective for understanding participatory practice and, further, for guiding the development of future practice. Both process and structural elements must be considered when designing citizen participation. Public institutions play an essential role in facilitating community learning, yet practitioners must understand that their organizations are but pieces in a broader community network. Participatory practice should consider not only the instrumental, present needs but also to what extent they utilize and develop the structure of relationships that constitute community. As the practice of collaborative engagement evolves, more holistic, long-term views are needed (Bramson and Buss 2002). Community learning offers such a perspective and the evidence from the Wytheville Project suggests that the key is in activating relationships. References Allen, Will J. 2001. “Working Together for Environmental Management: The Role of Information Sharing and Collaborative Learning.” PhD diss., Development Studies, Massey University. Bramson, Ruth Ann, and Terry F. Buss. 2002. “Methods for Whole Systems Change in Public Organizations and Communities.” A special symposium issue. Public Organization Review 2(3): 210–303. Follett, Mary Parker. 1919. “Community is a Process.” The Philosophical Review 28(6): 576–88. ———. 1924. Creative Experience. New York: Longmans, Green. ———. 1998. The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government. New York: Longmans, Green. (Originally published 1918, University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.) Friedland, Lewis A. 2001. “Communication, Community, and Democracy: Toward a Theory of the Communicatively Integrated Community.” Communication Research 28(4): 358–91. Isaacs, William N. 1999. Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together. New York: Currency. Johnson, David W., and Frank P. Johnson. 2000. Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills. 7th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Kettering Foundation. 2001. Framing Issues for Public Deliberation: A Curriculum Guide for Workshops. Dayton, OH: Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Lane, Brett, and Diane Dorfman. 1997. Strengthening Community Networks: The Basis for Sustainable Community Renewal. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Morse, Ricardo S. 2002. “Deliberative Visioning.” Paper presented at the American Society for Public Administration’s 63rd Annual Conference, Phoenix, Arizona, March 24. ———. 2004. “Community Learning: Process, Structure, and Renewal.” PhD diss., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Porter-Nichols, Stephanie. 2002. “Our Opinion: Help Community Set Course for Future.” Wytheville Enterprise (July 4): A4.

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN PRACTICE

103

Schumaker, Alice. 1997. “The Role of Organizations in Community-Based Development.” In Community Strategic Visioning Programs, ed. Norman Walzer, 93–110. Westport, CT: Praeger. Stringer, Ernest T. 1999. Action Research. 2d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wilkinson, Kenneth P. 1999. The Community in Rural America. Westport, CT: Greenwood. (Originally published 1991, Middleton, WI: Social Ecology Press).

5 National Accountability Strategies for Developing Countries Observations on Theory and Experience F. Stevens Redburn and Terry F. Buss

Citizen participation processes “ . . . encourage stakeholders, especially the poor, to influence and share control over priority setting, policy making, resource allocations and access to public goods and services.” —World Bank Participation and Civic Engagement Group1

Governments around the world are considering or implementing initiatives to become more accountable to citizens for performance. This paper offers a conceptual framework for such a process, gathering and assessing relevant international experience. The United States and numerous other nations have established new systems to measure and report to the public on their progress in achieving major national goals. The U.S. public participation processes also provide citizens with the ability to influence governmental decisions through advisory boards, voting initiatives, and nonprofit activist initiatives. Although these may not all be appropriate to every country, understanding that citizen input will only be as useful to the central government as it is viewed by citizens as a useful enterprise to spend their time on, is. The independent validation and wide dissemination of information on social outcomes that government seeks to influence would be one step toward increased accountability for performance. New participatory processes, giving citizens a chance to discuss and provide meaningful and useful feedback to government on these reports, would form a complementary second step toward increased performance accountability. Enhanced government accountability for performance strengthens the democratic process. A process for doing so will complement other institutions of 104

NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 105

democratic governance by better informing citizen participants and elected leaders about the informed preferences of a cross section of citizens. Accountability initiatives are part of a recent wave of innovative activity intended to enhance democratic processes by providing new ways for citizens to interact with their governments and with each other. This activity is apparent worldwide. It is occurring in countries with long-established democratic traditions, and in many others where democracy’s roots are shallower.2 In some instances, national government is the leader and organizer, while in others the process is less centralized, driven by local and regional governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations (CSOs), or even the private sector. In the last several years, advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have begun to support and spur such institutional innovation by lowering the cost of acquiring information relevant to citizens and by creating new means of communication among citizens and between citizens and government. The effort to develop new participatory processes appears driven in part by concern that the gap between citizens and governing elites is too wide. Established institutions do not engage the participation of many because they do not feel that their voices will be heard and because they lack necessary knowledge of or interest in the political process. If carefully designed and properly implemented, a new participatory process may enable citizens to obtain information about public policies and their results more easily, use this information to inform their views and choices, and communicate those views and choices to public officials individually and collectively in a way that is productive, specific, and positive. There appears to be a natural progression in the development and implementation of a national process of social accountability. The first stage of implementation would ordinarily be development and promulgation of an array of indicators by national government, providing standardized indicators of progress in achieving important national goals and measures of the contribution of specific public policies and programs to that progress. This is a natural first step because it provides the public with better information about the government’s performance. It sets the stage for an informed and enriched exchange of views between the public and citizens about public policies and their effects. Organization of such an exchange would typically be the second stage in the implementation of a social accountability process. At this stage, citizens are offered new opportunities to express their views on public policies that affect them. Building on this experience, governments may want to consider further institutional innovations that provide citizens with new forums in which they can develop and exchange views with each other and with public officials. Such opportunities

106

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

for constructive engagement may enhance the performance of other democratic institutions, as discussed below. Better information about public preferences may enable governments to make better decisions in the public interest. If so, it will increase effectiveness of those governments, and, by doing so, increase their legitimacy in the eyes of citizens. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first section outlines a conceptual framework for the development of an accountability initiative, including standards against which to test the potential benefits and likely successes. The second section highlights and briefly assesses some of the more relevant recent international experiences in this area. Section I. Conceptual Framework and Standards for Success Our purpose here is to design and implement an effective means of holding a national government more directly accountable to its citizens for results. A successful initiative would expand the political space for the constructive popular social engagement critical for “deepening democracy and building democratic government.”3 Success depends in part on a country’s ability to adapt a general model for goal-based performance accountability to the nation’s unique situation and institutions. The general model offered here will assist the government in evaluating the practicality and likely success of alternative components of an accountability process most suited to current circumstances. Desired Outcomes To the extent that the strategy succeeds, it will increase national government’s accountability for results and assist in improving its performance, as measured by future results and as perceived by its citizens. This improvement will increase government’s legitimacy in the eyes of the public. These three outcomes—increased accountability, better performance, and greater legitimacy—will be mutually reinforcing. Democratic processes, broadly speaking, are likeliest to support these mutually reinforcing outcomes. Democracy is a relative term. It can be broadened to include more people in the processes of government and representation. It can be deepened by giving people more frequent and meaningful opportunities to express their views and to develop a consensus on how to address problems of mutual interest.4 Deeper, broader democracy enhances competence of citizens so that they are more effective in holding government accountable.

NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 107

Instrumental or intermediate outcomes include credibility of the process in the eyes of participants and observers and complementarity rather than competition or conflict with other constitutional processes for representing citizens’ views. Credibility depends greatly on whether the process is seen as fair, and as useful in political terms, that is, in shaping the positions of public officials and elected representatives and in other ways indirectly influencing public policies. Complementarity depends greatly on whether the process promotes civility and increased participation through established political institutions and channels of representation, especially by those traditionally underrepresented or excluded for various reasons. The transparency and openness of the participatory process and its success in promoting constructive dialogue and consensus will contribute to both credibility and complementarity. We may abstract from this logic model a few suggested standards by which the success of any proposed accountability strategy should be measured as more or less likely to contribute to the desired outcomes. Requisites for Success The proposed process to increase government accountability for results will be effective to the extent that it is: 1. Representative and inclusive: Representativeness is an ideal state, never perfectly realized. Nevertheless, processes must draw in to the greatest extent possible those who have been generally excluded, disenfranchised, alienated, or not previously engaged for lack of opportunity. 2. Rewarding to participants: To achieve representativeness and to be sustained over time, participatory processes must balance personal costs against personal benefits and must be specific enough informationally to be relevant. Costs of participating (in time, effort, and stress) must be held to a minimum and the rewards (both intrinsic to the process and extrinsic in the form of influence on future policies) must be sufficient so that participation is seen as worthwhile. Those processes that over time are found to be rewarding by a diverse range of participants will remain representative. 3. Constructive in managing differences: The process needs to be structured in such a way that conflict is used positively to achieve consensus. Under some circumstances, inappropriately designed or executed efforts to increase citizen participation will increase conflict and alienation rather than reduce them. Constructive processes

108

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

Figure 5.1 Policy-Making Cycle and Modes of Citizen Engagement

Policy-making cycle

Agenda setting

Modes of citizen engagement

Analysis

Information [one-way]

Development/ formulation

Implementation

Consultation [two-way]

Shared decision making/ partnerships

Monitoring/tracking

have a problem-solving focus. They require prior agreement of all participants on the rules of engagement, such as those promoting dialogue and respect for diverse positions and interests. People must act within the process as autonomous thinkers, not representatives of groups or interests. Norms and habits of democratic behavior must be respected and reinforced. Effectiveness of the process must be demonstrated using widely agreedupon, credible, process-oriented indicators, quantifiable and widely disseminated. These indicators likely must be customized to capture key aspects of the process once operational.5 A flowchart of the participation process is presented in Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.2 The Social Accountability Process

109

110

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

Putting these requisites together, a successful process will establish a repeating, iterative pattern of constructive transactions between citizens and their government: in this case, a continuing, deepening dialogue about performance. Staged Implementation of an Accountability Process The development and implementation of a new process of social accountability may follow a natural progression. Likelihood of success can be increased by first getting key decision makers to agree to desired outcomes and then building a framework of measurement and reporting on government performance, followed by the institution of new opportunities for citizen expression of preferences that makes use of these reports on performance, and finally by the institution of new forums within which representative groups of citizens exchange and develop their views, seek consensus, and engage in a rich continuing dialogue with public officials about ways to achieve important public goals. Stage One: Performance Measurement and Reporting The basis for an effective system of accountability is the development and dissemination of a full set of valid, statistically reliable, and independently validated measures of the outcomes of public programs and spending. Such a performance indicator system would enable leaders, government ministries and agencies, program managers, and any citizen to judge the extent to which progress is being made in achieving important social and policy objectives. It should begin with key agreements on what the process should be by key decision makers. It also should enable them to better assess the contribution that individual government programs or particular social strategies make to their achievement. • Dissemination: A key element of the process is dissemination of valid, relevant, reliable information about the results of public programs. Citizens must be given the opportunity to understand the goals of government spending and activity and its results. A guiding standard here is transparency, the ability of citizens to see what government is accomplishing. A second standard here is universal access to information. Barriers to information are many and are especially likely to deny information to those with less education and access to informational media. Government has an affirmative responsibility, therefore, to ensure that information is not merely published but is widely available and readily interpreted.

NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 111

Typically, performance measurement will begin with a limited number of measures related to certain key national objectives and will be elaborated over time. Ideally, the system of measurement will include not only broader outcome measures but more specific measures, including measures that ministries and program managers can use to demonstrate their programs’ contributions to broader outcomes. A valid and useful performance measurement system will reveal that some public programs are less effective than others and that some are ineffective and a waste of resources. Leadership must be prepared to use this information to guide resource allocation through the annual budget process, to guide reforms to make public programs more effective, and to manage their people and programs. Ultimately, to validate such a system and obtain its full value, leaders and public managers must be held accountable for results. Stage Two: Feedback and Accountability The contribution of a system of performance measurement to strengthened democratic accountability becomes more apparent at a second stage, when citizens are afforded opportunities to use information as a basis for providing feedback to public officials on performance on key activities and outcomes. This stage typically provides for limited dialogue, as in the form of public hearings where citizens can express their individual views and others can speak for the interests and formal positions of larger organized groups. Government has a responsibility to ensure that such forums are open to those holding all views and are conducted in an atmosphere that protects rights of free expression and encourages people of all backgrounds to participate. • Monitoring and feedback: The new element of the process at this stage is citizen participation in the review and assessment of government’s performance. Citizens are afforded the opportunity and incentive to develop and express their views about policies and their results. A guiding standard here is efficacy, that is, participants must believe at the end that their participation matters. Another guiding standard here is representativeness, the extent to which those participating constitute a broad cross section of interests and statuses. At this stage, the opportunities that participation can offer are necessarily still limited. Given the desire to increase citizens’ feelings of efficacy and to get more people engaged in constructive dialogue, there is the risk of promising them more than the process can deliver. One requisite for success of any citizen participation process is setting realistic and clear expectations for

112

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

all participants. It is tempting to promise that participants’ views will make a difference. However, if people enter the process with unrealistic expectations, they can become disillusioned at some point, which can undermine the goals of the effort. One way to avoid unrealistic expectations at this stage is to provide those invited to participate with specific questions they will be asked to answer, and explain clearly what will and will not be done with the responses.6 Another way is to identify short-term, small changes based upon their feedback to occur and be measured for effectiveness. Stage Three: Enhanced Democratic Dialogue At a third stage in the development of a national social accountability process, conditions are created for a rich, continuing dialogue between citizens and public officials centered on ways to increase the rate of progress in achieving important shared social objectives. At this stage, forums are provided in which citizens can interact in more sophisticated ways with any information and expertise they need or want in order to better understand the effects of public policies and to develop alternatives to present programs. Small celebrations of success on feedback that has occurred and successes that have been measured are also possible. Participants are also encouraged to interact with those of different interests and backgrounds to find areas of agreement that will lead to mutually beneficial outcomes. This can be the basis for a creative process of policy innovation that drives the nation or community forward, both by shaping potential alternatives to current policies and by giving citizens more meaningful and rewarding opportunities to participate constructively in the democratic political process. Desired characteristics and expected results of participation at this stage are discussed below in the section entitled “Core Elements of an Accountability Process.” Whatever accountability process is put in place should complement and reinforce other means of democratic political expression. It will do so to the extent that it fosters a richer ongoing conversation among a representative cross section of citizens, and between citizens and public officials, about public policies and their effects. Because political participation has costs and benefits to the individual, sustaining citizens’ engagement will be a continuing challenge: • Costs of participation: Costs of participation in the accountability process will increase with the amount of time committed, such material barriers as physical distance, acquisition of information and understanding, and emotional stress. These costs often are higher for those without political experience and those with diminished resources and limited

NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 113

education. Ensuring continued representativeness of the process requires special attention to increasing access and lowering barriers for those for whom participation is more personally costly. • Benefits of participation: Benefits of participation in the accountability process include intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards include interest, enjoyment, and a sense that engagement is meaningful and important. Extrinsic rewards include feelings of efficacy and making a difference in one’s own life and the lives of others. Both can be enhanced through small, inexpensive celebrations of success for those participating. Design of a process that will continue to reward participants of diverse cultural backgrounds and different educational and social statuses will be a great challenge to those responsible for the accountability process. Because many citizens have not had extensive opportunities for participation —perhaps with the exception of voting—or will have had misgivings about participating in public venues—especially public hearings—it will be necessary for the government to invest in capacity-building programs to help citizens fulfill their potential as partners in an accountability process and to overcome fears that participation might be used against them. Citizens also must be persuaded that their participation will be meaningful. Initially, this may be accomplished by setting realistic tasks for participants, for example, to develop recommendations to the government on small, short-term changes that can be measured for success and then celebrated as well as on additional indicators of social progress to be included in the measurement system or on strategies to improve social performance as currently measured. Typically, following one or more rounds of the participatory process, a summary of discussions (including the comments of individual participants) and recommendations (including minority or dissenting views) will be published or broadcast, so that both participants and others can see that the discussion has been recorded and disseminated. In the longer term, of course, the meaning that citizens take from the process will depend on whether they perceive their efforts to have made a difference in decisions made by the government, and ultimately a difference in their own lives. Core Elements of an Accountability Process Based on working models of processes drawn from different contexts and judged relatively successful, some core elements of a fully developed and successful national social accountability process are:

114

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

1. Democratic rules of engagement: Rules should be clearly stated and accepted. They should promote dialogue and fair consideration of alternative proposals and perspectives. They should not be intimidating to participants with less experience and expertise. They should be designed to move participants toward a recorded consensus but permit recording of dissenting views as well. 2. An information-rich environment: Participants must have ready access to disinterested expertise, relevant data, and applicable models or theory. In a given location, participants should have access to as much relevant data as possible, whether posted in visual or graphic form or retrievable through electronic means or phone conference calls with experts. In such a data-rich working environment, all participants should be encouraged to question, develop, and test (with evidence and against others’ ideas) various policy alternatives, and to change their provisional understanding of problems and solutions as they gain information. Participants of varying levels of education and experience with intellectual problem solving and dialogue should be encouraged to develop and express a realistic understanding of complex problems. In short, the process should function as a policy laboratory for the participants, in which their ideas and opinions develop through interaction with data, expertise, and each other. 3. Identification of resource constraints: Preferences are necessarily constrained by limited resources. Thus the “budgeting” framework within which participants are asked to reach decisions or make recommendations regarding possible problem solutions should require participants to recognize that even good investments are made at the near-term expense of other uses of limited resources. 4. Neutral recording and dissemination of views: Participants should be given opportunities at various stages of the process to record their views, specifically on the government’s performance and ways to improve it. In general, all views should receive equal weight. Means of registering views should promote dialogue and consensus building. Regardless of whether consensus develops, minority and dissenting views should be recorded and publicized at all stages. These elements must be combined in a way that participants of varied backgrounds and status continue to find worthy of their investment of personal time and effort. There is no single best design for such a process. However, a variety of designs, tested and proven in various settings, may be relevant. Information and communications technology (ICT) may be especially helpful in lowering information costs for all participants, providing instantaneous

NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 115

access to data and expertise, supporting a fast-paced and engaging interaction by facilitating recording of views, and enabling participants of lower status, of lesser social skills, or with unpopular views to express themselves more freely through impersonal means than they could through direct conversation.7 Although cost and technical barriers to the use of ICT may limit its use in many locations, these barriers are dropping quickly (see also chapter 4); in a district of central India where most of the population lives in poverty, for example, information kiosks are linked to the Internet and each other by low-cost connections that have been established in twenty rural villages, allowing villagers to conduct many transactions, including retrieving records, viewing information on government performance, and filing complaints. Organization of Responsibilities for the Process Implementation of a performance accountability process will require decisions about how to organize and share responsibility for specific components of the process itself and for results of the process. The relative roles of national government, other levels of government, nongovernmental organizations, communitybased or grassroots organizations, and other associations should play to their respective strengths and reinforce their existing roles in the democratic process. Nongovernmental organizations, for instance, may be delegated responsibility for conducting the participatory process to ensure it is perceived as independent and fair. Established civic organizations and voluntary associations may provide venues and help recruit participants. However, in each locale, participation should be inclusive rather than exclusive and broadly representative of the community. Participants should not be chosen as formal representatives of particular interests, but as unattached individuals encouraged to register their personal views. They must, however, be willing to agree to participate positively toward effective improvements. Delegating to independent nongovernmental organizations responsibility for the operation of the participatory process may enhance its legitimacy and augment the central government’s expertise. Using existing civil society organizations may give the resulting process greater structural strength and stability, thereby reinforcing established democratic processes. An independent, outside evaluation of the process’s results would enhance learning and improvement and help validate the outcomes in the eyes of citizens. Incentives for Public Agencies As noted above, the first stage in the development of an enhanced social accountability process is the development and promulgation of measures of government performance in relation to major national social objectives.

116

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

Effective performance and accountability systems therefore require the cooperation of public agencies and the bureaucracy in a system of national performance measurement and reporting. In the United States, for example, the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 provides a statutory basis for continuous annual reporting by all federal agencies of the results of their programs and spending. These required annual performance reports are developed under the general supervision of the Office of Management and Budget in the Executive Office of the President, which reviews measures and their reporting. Measures are subject to widespread review and external verification of their validity. For example, the Congress’s Government Accountability Office (GAO)—formerly the General Accounting Office—monitors the process and publicly critiques it. Over the last decade, the number of measures has been elaborated and the system of measurement and reporting has been refined. What incentives or penalties are necessary to engage support from the civil service and policymakers in agencies, departments, and programs at all levels of government in the development of a national system of government performance measurement? The chief executive may mandate that agencies develop and promulgate appropriate measures, and may enforce this mandate by various means. It is likely that some ministries will take the lead initially in developing meaningful measures by which they and their managers can be held accountable for results. Their leadership can be rewarded and thereby serve as a beacon for other ministries to follow. Public managers who develop and use performance information to increase their programs’ effectiveness and to hold themselves accountable to leaders and the public for results may be rewarded in the following ways: incentive pay, national recognition awards, or promotion for individuals. A powerful lever for change is the allocation of scarce budgetary resources. Agencies that promote accountability may receive priority for additional funding in the annual budget process when available. Those unable to demonstrate that their programs are effective may either receive reduced funding or face other sanctions, including program elimination. Annual performance reviews and evaluations for individual managers should include citizen participation goals and objectives. In deciding whether to reduce the size and weight of bureaucracy, programs and civil servants who do not meet national mandates for measurement and reporting of performance may be subject to reduction in their ranks. At later stages in the development of the social accountability process, public officials should anticipate that their ratings and tenure will depend increasingly on demonstrating that their programs are effective in advancing democratically established social goals.

NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 117

Section II. Relevant International Experiences Increasing social accountability is part of a worldwide exploration of and movement toward procedural innovations. This is occurring simultaneously in both developed and developing countries. Certain reforms may be relevant models for developing countries to emulate or adapt to their current circumstances. Some of these are not necessarily core elements of a participatory process of a fully developed performance accountability, but may be reinforcing and supportive.8 (See Appendix 5.2.) Initiatives contributing to a system of enhanced social accountability fall into three categories: (1) providing information to assess government performance (transparency); (2) consulting with citizens in the development or design of programs, policies, or budgets (planning and development), and/or tracking progress and monitoring performance, compliance, and corruption (accountability); and (3) partnering or sharing responsibility with citizens. Those in the first category are most relevant to the first stage in the development of a national accountability system, as presented in the first section of this paper. Those in the second and third categories are relevant at the second and third stages. First-Stage Efforts In the first stage, policymakers may want to review models from Malaysia, the Philippines, the United States, and other governments that have invested in systems of performance measurement. Often these are used in a budgetary context. In some cases, the system of measurement is organized using a structure of strategic objectives that are developed in a planning process through which important stakeholders and/or representative groups of citizens have participated. The use of Internet technology to support dissemination of performance information is illustrated by India’s rural Internet kiosks in Gyandoot. Philippine Community-Based Poverty Indicators and Monitoring System The Philippine experience in combining citizen report cards and communitybased strategies has been widely acknowledged as a model citizen participation approach (http://members.surfshop.net.ph/~code-ngo/). Some three thousand NGOs formed an association (CODE-NGO) to monitor progress in reducing poverty in select provinces in the nation. Using a performance indicator database developed and maintained by the National Statistics Office and the National Economic and Development Authority, CODE-NGO compares

118

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

agency goals and objectives against their performance on thirty-three selected indicators. Indicator data are matched against citizen satisfaction surveys and other assessments. CODE-NGO then publishes an assessment of agency performance that is presented to Congress and distributed widely to the public. Before CODE-NGO, local officials refused to make performance-based data available, while in other cases some local officials had no data themselves. Because the data are nationally produced for provinces, local officials now can be held accountable. The shortcomings of the model are that (1) individual citizens are not widely involved in the initiative and must rely upon NGO activists; (2) the capacity to produce and analyze performance data is limited, so the government must create and sustain it; and (3) because the government did not initiate the model, there is still a great deal of resistance among local officials to its use. The ultimate success of the model will depend on the willingness of the people and NGOs to continue to produce the information necessary to hold public officials accountable. The U.S. Performance Accountability Initiative As noted above, in 1993 Congress enacted GPRA, imposing performancebased management upon all federal agencies. They prepare detailed fiveyear strategic plans and follow-on annual performance plans having detailed goals and objectives, accompanied by performance measures against which they are held accountable. Agencies post their plans and accomplishments on Web sites that are easily accessible to the public. The GAO, an agency of Congress, independently monitors and assesses federal agency performance. In 2002, the Bush administration launched the President’s Management Agenda (PMA), which includes an extensive review of individual programs in each agency conducted by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President using a management tool, the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) (www .omb.gov), comprising about thirty questions addressing various aspects of program design, management, and results. Ratings of programs based on PART are used to help inform budget decisions about agency programs. Both the results of this analysis and the detailed answers and evidence used in the rating process are posted on the OMB’s website, along with the instructions for answering each question. This transparency enables any interested person or group to judge for themselves how programs are performing and whether they agree with the ratings or not. A highlight of the U.S. system is that agencies should have clearly defined missions, visions, goals, and objectives for which they are held accountable. If they do not achieve sufficient results, then they may at some

NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 119

point risk loss of funding or other sanctions. Program measurement is widely available to citizens and organizations who might want to monitor agency performance. The system has numerous “checks and balances” so that information produced and reported is accurate, credible, and subject to extensive independent review. A limitation of the system is that it is Web based for the most part. Only those who are computer literate with Internet access can easily obtain performance information and assessments. There are few formal opportunities for individual citizen input at the national level, except through interest and advocacy groups, NGOs, and CSOs who monitor agency and program activity at the national level. At the local level, though, extensive opportunities to participate exist, including hearings, surveys, conferences, working groups, and Internet discussions, but this applies only to programs for that local area. Gyandoot, India, Rural Internet Kiosks Gyandoot, India, a region where 60 percent of the population lives below the official poverty line, is experimenting with information kiosks as a way to promote citizen involvement in public affairs in rural, underserved areas.9 For a small fee, citizens can access some government performance–related information from kiosks operated by young entrepreneurs who the government would like to see become gainfully employed. Kiosks can be used not only to access public records and make transactions with public agencies but also to file complaints and grievances. The system has been successful in demonstrating that poor regions with little Internet access can enjoy the advantages ICT has to offer. But the Gyandoot experience suggests that much needs to be done to “wire” these regions. Kiosks are sometimes unreliable and government officials are sometimes unresponsive. Yet local government has invested its own funds in the project and private-sector companies are beginning to explore partnering opportunities. Second- and Third-Stage Efforts At the second and third stages of national accountability efforts, policymakers may want to consider models of more complete accountability processes, such as those realized in Ireland and Brazil, for participatory budgeting. Brazil’s Participatory Budget Process Perhaps the best-known participatory budget model is the Porto Alegre, Brazil, initiative. Citizens in each of the city’s fifteen regions meet in two rounds

120

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

of plenary sessions annually on a variety of budget issues. These meetings are used to gather citizen input on issues and to mobilize communities to elect delegates to the Fora, where budgeting issues will be deliberated. City government has no involvement in this part of the process. At Fora meetings, community budget requests are scored, ranked, and deliberated. Representatives from the Fora are elected in turn to serve on the Council of Participatory Budgeting, a decision-making body. City finances, procedures, and processes, along with the current fiscal and expected fiscal prospects for the city, are shared with the council. In the end, using a combination of objective measures and subjective preferences, the council makes budget allocations to the regions. Some eighty additional cities in Brazil are implementing the Porto Alegre model. The model promotes accountability, equity, and redistribution, along with legitimacy. As with many representative systems, as the initiative matures, individual citizen participants are giving way to participation by organized groups. Some observers fear the radicalization of the process. Although the municipal legislature can reject the budget proposed by the council and submitted by the mayor, it finds it difficult to do so. As such, some budget allocations may not be in the best interest of the community. Ireland’s Macroeconomic Policy Making and Reform In 1987, Ireland launched a social partnership initiative to guide and reform macroeconomic policy making. By some accounts, this process was instrumental in turning around a moribund Irish economy, the poor man of Europe. This is how they did it.10 The National Economic & Social Council (NESC)—comprising government representatives, unions, businesses, business organizations, farmers, community-based organizations, and volunteer groups, a cross section of Irish society—was convened. The Ministry of Finance presented central economic forecasts, along with background papers, summarizing issues, context, and concerns to the NESC. NESC members—including government policymakers—deliberated, negotiated, compromised, and built consensus. The NESC produced a negotiated review of the ministry’s forecast, including balancing the budget, making capital expenditures, levying taxes, and implementing programs. The review served as a guide for policymakers in executing macroeconomic and fiscal policy at the national level. Although the model is representative of the diversity of the nation, an apparent weakness is that it does not offer individual citizens direct access to decision makers, depending instead on organizational representatives acting in their stead.

NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 121

Evaluations Unfortunately, few of these initiatives have been formally evaluated for their effectiveness in promoting transparency, accountability, and performance. It is unclear what critical factors must be taken into account in designing and implementing initiatives. Most of the case studies of best practices are descriptive and sometimes used for promotional purposes. This should not deter policymakers from continuing to experiment with different citizen participation processes. Indeed, this is the only way to see what works. What should not be lost in looking at a catalog of innovative approaches is that there now appears to be widespread global agreement that new modes of citizen participation are desirable complements to constitutionally based or traditional democratic institutions and ought to be explored and extended. Appendix 5.3 in this chapter outlines the major evaluation issues and questions that should guide both internal assessment and external evaluations of the effects of a system of social accountability. It includes figures illustrating the general relationships between the established democratic political process and specialized citizen participation processes organized around information on performance and progress in achieving social objectives. In Appendix 5.3 to this chapter, we present an overview of international efforts—primarily by the World Bank, the United Nations, and others—to measure and compare nations on indicators of all aspects of citizen participation, as a way not only to draw continued attention to the issues of democracy and governance, but also to hold those in power responsible and accountable. Notes The authors would like to thank Jonathan Breul, Cynthia Springer, Neal Kerwin, Bill Shields, William Reuben, and Ryan Watson for commenting on earlier drafts of this chapter. The chapter was originally prepared for the National Planning Department (NPD), Office of the President, Republic of Colombia. Joaquin Moreno of the NPD was also instrumental in the preparation of this chapter. A paper was presented at the Colloquium on E-Governance cosponsored by the National Academy of Public Administration and the Public Services Commission of Ghana in Accra, Ghana, May 30 to June 5, 2004. 1. See www.worldbank.org/participation. Accessed February 13, 2006. 2. The best sources of information are found at Web sites: the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, www.oecd.org/topic/0,2686,en_2649_37405 _1_1_1_1_37405,00.html; and the World Bank, www.worldbank.org/participation. 3. United Nations Development Programme. 2002. Human Development Report 2002, Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World, p. 82. Available at http://hdr.undp.org/ reports/global/2002/en/pdf/complete.pdf. Accessed February 13, 2006. 4. See Redburn and Buss 2004. 5. The World Bank’s “Governance and Public Sector Reform” division has numerous relevant indicators and accompanying data available on its website. A literature on this

122

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

issue is found in Katherine Pasteur and Jutta Blauert, 2000, Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation in Latin America (University of Sussex, Institute of Development Studies, May). 6. There are few examples of initiatives that obligate public officials to implement courses of action proposed or produced through a citizen participation process. Villa El Salvador, Peru, permits citizens to vote—“up or down”—certain municipal plans proposed for the city (Urban Management Program, UNDP, www.pgualc.org, accessed February 13, 2006). Some U.S. cities provide grant monies to citizen groups to spend as they see fit. 7. The opportunities offered by such technology are just now emerging (only time will tell if they are effective). 8. An excellent review of many of these strategies is found at Action Learning Program on Participatory Processes for Poverty Reduction Strategies, Social Development Department, World Bank, www.worldbank.org/participation/. 9. See www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/egov/gyandootcs.htm. Accessed February 13, 2006. 10. See www.worldbank.org/participation/web/webfiles/ireland.htm. Accessed February 13, 2006.

References Brumm, Harold J. 2003. “Aid, Policies and Growth.” Cato Journal 23: 1–8. Cole, Julio H. 2003. “The Contribution of Economic Freedom to World Economic Growth, 1980–1999.” Cato Journal 23: 189–215. Kaufmann, Danny, and Aart Kraay. 2002. “Governance Indicators, Aid Allocation, and the Millennium Challenge Account.” Washington, DC: World Bank Institute, World Bank. Available at www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/. Accessed February 9, 2006. Kaufmann, Danny, Aart Kraay, and Massimo Mastruzzi. 2004. “Governance Matters III: Governance Indicators for 1996 to 2002.” Washington, DC: World Bank. www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/. Accessed February 13, 2006. ———. 2005. “Governance Matters IV: Governance Indicators for 1996–2004” (May). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, Series No. 3630. Landman, Todd. 2003. International Initiatives on Developing Indicators on Democracy and Good Governance. Essex, UK: University of Essex. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 2003. “Issues for the Evaluation of Online Engagement: Engaging Citizens Online for Better PolicyMaking.” Policy Brief, OECD Observer (March), 6. Available at www.oecd.org/ dataoecd/62/23/2501856.pdf. Accessed March 2006. Osborne, Evan. 2004. “Measuring Bad Governance.” Cato Journal 23: 403–22. Redburn, F. Stevens and Terry F. Buss. 2004. “Modernizing Democracy.” In Sound Governance, ed. Ali Farazmand, 155–68. Westport, CT: Praeger. Rotberg, Robert I. 2005. “Strengthening Governance: Ranking Countries Would Help.” Washington Quarterly 28: 71–81. United Nations Development Program (UNDP). 2002. State of the Art in Governance Indicators. New York: UNDP.

NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 123 Appendix 5.1 Consultative Process Evaluation Framework Evaluation issue

How to address the issue

1. Was the consultation process conducted in line with best practice?

• Ask stakeholders whether they are satisfied with the process. • Assess whether adequate resources are in place to conduct the consultation. • Check whether process followed best practice guidelines. • Assess whether the choice of an online tool was appropriate for the consultation.

2. Were the consultation objectives and what was expected of the citizens made clear?

• Ask stakeholders if they understand what is being asked. • Assess whether the participants’ contributions are appropriate.

3. Did the consultation reach the target audience?

• Assess public awareness of the consultation before and afterward. • Identify who and where potential participants are, in terms of demographics and geographic characteristics.

4. Was the information provided appropriate, relevant, sufficient, and contextual?

• Assess how easily the participants can access the information. • Assess whether the participants’ contributions were informed by it. • Assess whether understanding of the issues increased complexity and sophistication. • Assess whether information was presented in the context of resource constraints, especially budgetary. • Assess whether information was sufficient to inform the process.

5. Were the contributions informed and appropriate?

• Assess to what extent the contributions address the consultation issue. • Assess how easily the participants could access and learn from contributions of others. • Classify contributions according to whether they provide information, ask questions, or make suggestions.

6. Was feedback provided both during and after the consultation?

• Assess whether questions are answered by the government during consultation. • Assess the extent to which the government feedback relates to the contributions. • Assess whether proceedings and documents reflect what was actually stated. • Assess whether language in written documents is neutral and unbiased.

124

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

7. Was there an impact on policy content?

• Determine to what extent a change of policy is possible given the stage in the decision making that the consultation occurred. • Assess to what extent contributions are reflected in the revised or newly formulated policy.

8. Were democratic rules of engagement clearly stated and adhered to throughout the process?

• Monitor compliance at initial presentation and implementation.

Source: Adapted from Box 3 in OECD 2003.

125

Appendix 5.3 Terry F. Buss

In this chapter, Redburn and Buss presented a framework for improving the accountability of government for citizens in developing countries. The framework can be used by governments to develop programs, policies, and procedures that foster greater government accountability to citizens for performance, to enable citizens—and their advocates—to pressure government to perform or reform. In recent years, international nongovernmental and research organizations have begun to gather and publish country-level indicators that can be used by citizens and others to assess how well their country is doing relative to others in promoting good governance and democracy—both important issues—or in attaining international goals—Millennium Development Goals of the UN and the World Bank (Rotberg 2005). The most comprehensive reviews and assessments of the indicator approach are found in United Nations Development Program (2002), Landman (2003), and Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi (2004). The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) offers an important example of the use of indicators to guide public investments to where they are likely to be used effectively (www.mcc.gov). In 2004, the Bush administration decided to reengineer U.S. foreign assistance to developing countries. The MCC—a government corporation—was given nearly $1 billion to distribute to countries that met minimum conditions for democratic practice and market economics, and demonstrated respect for human rights, the rule of law, and citizens’ needs. The MCC, using indicators assembled and published by the World Bank (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi 2004), ranked all developing countries against three composite indices: governing justly, investing in people, and promoting economic freedom. Each indicator is itself composed of four to six sub-indicators. Sixteen developing countries scored sufficiently high on the indicators to qualify them to submit proposals to receive as much as $200 million in grants over a five-year period. At this writing, April 2005, the MCC was evaluating the capacity of each eligible country to effectively manage the funding according to international financial and procurement management standards. The not-so-hidden agenda represented by the MCC, the World Bank, the United Nations, and others is that developing countries should be held ac-

126

F. STEVENS REDBURN AND TERRY F. BUSS

countable for performance, not just by external funders but by their own people. The premise is that one way to push countries to reform and manage better is to publicize their performance using “objective” quantitative scores that can be used to compare their performance against that of other countries. This creates incentives for them to reform: not only to increase their chances for funding and financing but also to avoid embarrassment and to demonstrate that they can deliver improvements. The rationale for focusing on good governance, democracy, and related topics is that these tend to promote economic prosperity and development, which in turn tend to support peace and security (Osborne 2004; Brumm 2003; Cole 2003; Kaufmann and Kraay 2002). Countries that persistently fail to make progress either in good governance and democracy ratings or in performance will find it increasingly difficult to obtain foreign assistance—in the form of contributions or loans—and foreign investment by the private sector. Because the indicator approach is relatively new, it has problems that may be overcome or reduced with time (Kaufmann and Kraay 2002; Osborne 2004; Rotberg 2005): • Data unavailability. Not all countries gather and report data that can be used to compare them with others, and outside organizations are sometimes hampered from producing the necessary data on their own. • Data quality. Data are not always accurate, regardless of their source or efforts to make them so, leading some countries to be misclassified or inappropriately ranked. • Data subjectivity. Data sometimes are highly subjective, suggesting that scores on indicators may differ depending on who is doing the scoring. • Data accessibility. Data are largely available at various Web sites (see table below), but they might be difficult for citizens who are not proficient in spreadsheet analysis to use. The advent of the indicators approach as a vehicle for holding governments accountable for performance is a promising development and an important focus for further research.

Coverage

Afro Barometer-Popular Attitudes to Democracy Institute for Social, political, and Democracy in South economic atmosphere in Africa (IDASA), Ghana Africa. Centre for Democratic Development (CDDGhana), Michigan State University (MSU) Department of Political Science

Africa Governance Report United Nations Progress toward good Economic governance in Africa. 83 Commission for Africa; indicators covering three Kempe Ronald Hope categories: political representation, institutional effectiveness and accountability, and economic management and corporate governance.

Database

Perception-based household surveys (sample designed as a representative cross section of all citizens of voting age in a given country).

Opinions of national expert panels, household surveys and data, and information from desk research.

Methods

Round 1: 12— Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Round 2: 15—(Round 1, not including Zimbabwe; adding Cape Verde, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal)

28—Africa

Countries

Major Indicators of Good Governance and Democracy in Developing Countries

Table 5A.1

Round 1: 1999–2000. Round 2: 2002–2003. Irregular intervals

2004 annual

Timeframe

(continued)

Round 3 surveys planned for 2005 in at least 16 countries.

To be published annually covering different themes.

Comments

127

Coverage

Civil Society Index CIVICUS

Assesses the state of civil societies around the world with a view to creating a knowledge base and an impetus for civil society strengthening initiatives. Index based on 74 different indicators, which are grouped into 25 subdimensions and 4 overall dimensions.

Aggregate Governance Indicators (KK) Dataset World Bank; Daniel Perception-based Kaufmann, Aart Kraay, governance indicators Massimo Mastruzzi developed by the World Bank Institute for all countries at an aggregate level and used to create awareness and debate globally and within countries on their performance on six different dimensions of governance: control of corruption; rule of law; voice and accountability; government effectiveness; political stability; and quality of regulation.

Database

Table 5A.1 (continued)

Country reports

Official data and documents/surveys of enterprises, citizens, and experts/published and unpublished information from other international organizations.

Methods

61—Worldwide

199—Worldwide

Countries

2003–2005. Annual

1996–2002. Every two years

Timeframe

(continued)

Final report expected in late 2005.

Comments

128

Coverage

Methods

Data drawn from Freedom House, Polity, Seddon et al etc.

Compendium of Sustainable Development Indicator Indices International Institute Progress toward Data from experts for Sustainable sustainable . (indicator Development (IISD) development practitioners)

Comparative Dataset on Political Institutions SNS—Center for Democratic governance. Business and Policy Uses 38 institutional Studies, Sweden; variables. Torsten Persson, Guido Tabellini

Community Information, Empowerment and Transparency (CIET) Mexican Academic How resources are used Surveys (household Institute, a for social objectives: questionnaires), nongovernmental “Social audits” of reviews of instituorganization accountability in Police, tional data, key Customs, Primary informant interEducation, Health views, focus group Service, and Justice discussion, geoServices. graphic information, systems (GIS), and low-cost environmental measurement.

Database

Table 5A.1 (continued) Timeframe

N/A. Worldwide

60–85— Worldwide

1995–present. Irregular intervals

1960–1999

30+—Baltic 1995–present. States, Bolivia, Irregular Bosnia, Bangladesh, intervals. Mali, Nicaraugua, Pakistan, South Africa (Gauteng), South Africa (Wild Coast), Tanzania, Uganda, Mexico.

Countries

(continued)

An extensive revision of the original compendium was carried out in 2002. Indicator practitioners submit and update their entries as necessary through a convenient Web interface.

Database not yet published.

Comments

129

Coverage Surveys and data from the CIA World Factbook, World Bank Development Indicator database, Internet World stats, etc.

Methods

N/A. Worldwide

30—Worldwide

Countries

Freedom in the World Country Ratings (civil liberties index and political rights index) Freedom House Political and civil rights. Expert assessments 192 plus 18 Countries ranked as either (surveys). territories. “free,” “partly free,” or “not Worldwide free”

Country Assessment in Accountability and Transparency (CONTACT) United Nations Governance. It is a set of Survey data. Development generic and Programme (UNDP) comprehensive guidelines to assist governments in conducting selfassessments of their financial management and anticorruption systems.

Countries at the Crossroads Freedom House Assesses government performance in the areas of civil liberties, rules of law, anticorruption, and accountability and public voice.

Database

Table 5A.1 (continued)

1972–2003. Annual

2001. One time

2002–2003

Timeframe

(continued)

These year-end reviews of freedom began in 1955, when they were called the Balance Sheet of Freedom, and still later, the Annual Survey of the Progress of Freedom.

First Countries at the Crossroads published in 2004.

Comments

130

Coverage

Measure (GEM) Gender inequality in three basic dimensions of empowerment—economic participation and decision making, political participation, and decision making and power over economic resources.

Global Database of Quotas for Women International IDEA, The use of electoral Stockholm University quotas for women.

Gender Empowerment United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Database

Table 5A.1 (continued)

Constitutions and electoral laws, parliamentary Web sites, and political party Web sites.

UNDP data and data from ILO, IPU, etc.

Methods

N/A. Worldwide

173—Worldwide

Countries

2003–2006. Irregular intervals

1995–2003

Timeframe

(continued)

This project on Electoral Quotas for Women will be in effect for a period of three years (2003– 06). During this period, the database will be continuously updated and should be considered a research tool for verifying and expanding the information.

Comments

131

Coverage Surveys conducted by in-country experts (social scientists, researchers, and journalists)

Methods 25—Worldwide

Countries

Handbook of Democracy and Governance Program Indicators (Access PDF) USAID Democratic governance N/A 175—Worldwide (rule of law, elections and political processes, civil society, governance accountability, and transparency).

Global Integrity Report Center for Public Measures the existence, Integrity effectiveness, and accessibility of the institutions that keep governments clean through its public integrity index. Integrity assessment is based on 80 indicators.

Database

Table 5A.1 (continued)

1998. One time

2004

Timeframe

(continued)

Intended as a handbook for programmers and others to assess components of governance. No data collected but provides extensive generic indicators/questions, which can be used to assess governance in a given country.

Comments

132

Coverage Data, ideas, and best practice from experts (a worldwide advisory network of leaders in academia, government, and civil society).

Methods 175—Worldwide

Countries

INTERARTS Indicator Programme INTERARTS Provides information on local and regional governance relating to languages and education availability. Provides comparative indicators to promote policy decisions relating to local and regional cultural systems. N/A

N/A. Europe

Indicators of Local Democratic Governance in Central and Eastern Europe Project Open Society Institute, Quality of local democracy Surveys. 7—Romania, Budapest/Tocqueville in Central and Eastern Hungary, Poland, Research Center Europe. Latvia, Slovakia, Estonia, Bulgaria

Human Development Indicators United Nations Progress of nations on Development key social and economic Programme (UNDP) indicators (quality of life in a nation).

Database

Table 5A.1 (continued)

2000–2004

2001–2003. Annual

1990–present. Annual

Timeframe

(continued)

Comments

133

Political, economic, and social (democracy, politics and institutions, public policies and distribution of wealth, civic culture, social capital and participation, and current affairs.

Coverage

Millennium Challenge Account Millennium Challenge Country commitments in Corporation/U.S. State ruling justly, investing in Department their people, and establishing economic freedom. Uses 16 indicators of just rule, investing in people, and economic freedom.

Latinobarometro Corporacion Latinobarometro

Database

Table 5A.1 (continued)

Data from international organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF, the Heritage Foundation, and Freedom House.

Perception-based survey (mass public opinion).

Methods

All countries. Worldwide

17—Latin American countries

Countries

2002

1995–present. Annual

Timeframe

(continued)

Comments

134

Coverage

The Minorities at Risk Data Generation Minorities at Risk; Ted Monitors and analyzes the Gurr and associate status and conflicts of (1993) politically active communal groups in all countries in the world with a current population of at least 500,000.

Database

Table 5A.1 (continued)

Data from individual country census reports as well as other data from the Statesman’s Yearbook, the CIA World Fact Book, Minority Rights Group reports, etc.

Methods 285—Worldwide

Countries 1945–present. Irregular intervals

Timeframe

(continued)

Developed over four distinct phases. Phase I: 227 communal groups, which met the criteria for classification as a minority at risk for the years 1945– 1990. Phase II: 275 groups from 1990– 1996. Phase III: 275 groups from 1996– 1999 and Phase IV: 285 groups from 1998–2001. Some data has been collected at 5-year intervals, other data annually. Future data updates are planned every other year.

Comments

135

Coverage

Methods

Social indicators proposed for follow-up and monitoring implementation of recent UN conferences on children, population, social development, and women.

Social Watch Indicator Booklet Social Watch Monitors national obligations to economic and social rights.

Social Indicators United Nations Statistics Division

Data from the World Bank, UNESCO, the OECD, the UN, etc.

UN statistics database. Data from national and international sources.

Participatory Development and Good Government Japanese International Issues and present Expert assessments. Cooperation Agency conditions of the developing world in terms of democratization.

Database

Table 5A.1 (continued)

166—Worldwide

206—Worldwide

11—Cambodia, Cuba, China, Philippines, Southn Africa, Peru, Vietnam, Tanzania, Thailand, Jordan, Mongolia

Countries

1950–2004

2000

2002, 2003. Annual

Timeframe

(continued)

2000–2005 data represent estimates and trends

Comments

136

Coverage

1998–2001

10 of the 16 issuesbased report cards have been field tested in 22 cities in the Asia Pacific region.

Perception based/questionnaire.

Methods

Source: Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi, (2005).

World Governance Survey—World Governance Assessment Overseas Determinants of good gov- Survey data and Development Institute, ernance and relationships expert assessments London; Julius Court between governance (cross section of wellprocesses and developinformed persons ment outcomes (how the representing different quality of governance segments of the varies over time in governance realm countries around the world). such as 30 indicators–5 indicators parliamentarians, each within 6 areas of gov- academics, rnance: civil society, politgovernment officials, ical society, government, private sector bureaucracy, economic managers, lawyers, society, and judiciary. and opinion makers).

Asia Pacific Region

The Urban Governance Initiative Report Cards UNDP–The Urban Decentralization and Governance Initiative urban development (TUGI) (performance of political and administrative institutions, impact of local governance, and degree of democratic participation in local governance)

Database

Table 5A.1 (continued)

16 (developing and transitional societies)— Worldwide

22

Countries

1996, 2000

Timeframe

Phase I conducted 2000–2002. Phase II to include 50 countries.

Comments

137

6 Broadening Citizen Participation Processes in Federal Programs HUD’s CDBG Programs Terry F. Buss and Marcela Tribble

Some would regard effective citizen participation processes as critical to ensuring successful implementation of federal programs in local communities. Entitlement communities across the country differ in extent and type of need, and in capacity to craft and implement solutions. Citizens know best what community needs are and how they should be addressed. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, a $4.9 billion (for fiscal year 2004) community/economic development initiative serving more than 1,160 entitlement communities and 50 states, presents an as-of-yet unrealized opportunity to involve citizens much more in developing, planning, implementing, and evaluating local projects. HUD could greatly expand and deepen citizen participation under CDBG by linking rewards such as merit pay for federal officials to improved citizen participation efforts, providing entitlement communities better incentives, funding demonstration projects, and promoting best practices nationwide—in short, moving citizen participation much higher up on the national agenda. Issue President George W. Bush, shortly after taking office in January 2001, expressed a desire to return government to the people in local communities— in the administration’s vocabulary, making government more “citizen-centric.” Likewise Mel Martinez in 2001, upon appointment as secretary, proposed moving the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program authority and responsibility closer to HUD field offices and local elected 138

BROADENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

139

officials, making it more accountable and responsive. To be effective, devolution of decision making closer to communities requires a more empowered citizenry. Such sentiments draw on a recurring theme at the federal level— the people know better how to spend tax dollars than Washington bureaucrats. HUD’s Community Development Block Grants (CDBG),1 administered by the Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD), constitute a source of flexible funding that might be placed more under the influence of local communities. At present, many, if not most, entitlement communities2 significantly limit citizen input in the development, selection, implementation, planning, and assessment of CPD-funded projects. How might citizen participation in the CPD’s programs be expanded and deepened to support this policy perspective? In this chapter, we first look at the CPD planning and citizen participation process required by law to illustrate how meager opportunities for local input are. Then we summarize reasons why citizen participation is important. Next, we propose a set of guidelines that HUD might promote to improve citizen participation opportunities. These guidelines would serve as well for many other federal programs. And finally, we offer specific options for HUD policymakers. Background Consolidated Planning Process In 1995, the CPD, under then-secretary Andrew Cuomo, reengineered its long-standing Comprehensive Housing Assistant Strategy (CHAS) program requirement, replacing it with the Consolidated Planning Process (ConPlan) (CPD 1994). The ConPlan begins with preparation of a consolidated plan to guide entitlement community spending for a three- to five-year period. The ConPlan is a plan and process, as well as an application for block grant funding. After preparing the initial plan, communities submit Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Reports (CAPER) on their activities until a new consolidated plan is prepared and submitted. Entitlement communities prepared consolidated plans in 1995 and again in 2000 and 2005. The CPD employs a management information system—the Grants Management System (GMS)—to manage CDBG and other grant programs (see Figure 6.1). The process includes (CPD 1997): Consultation CPD field staff meet with entitlement community program directors to discuss strategies, priorities, goals and objectives, timetables, resource allocation, and support needs associated with block grant programs.

HUD annual comparative review

HUD consultation with community leaders

HUD reviews ConPlan for completeness and consistency

HUD consolidated annual performance and evaluation

Citizen participation/review

HUD annual community assessment/program year review letter

Community prepares ConPlan

Figure 6.1 HUD Consolidated Planning Process

HUD performancebased program management

HUD assesses ConPlan, including citizen participation component

140

BROADENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

141

Review and Assessment Entitlement communities submit ConPlans to the CPD field office, either electronically through Community 2020 software3 or in hard copy. CPD field offices have forty-five days to review the plan, looking for completeness—does it meet statutory requirements—and consistency—is it consistent with the governing statutes, especially the National Housing Act of 1974 and its subsequent amendments? If field office directors do not review the plan within forty-five days, it is automatically approved. Most plans are, in fact, approved by default. The consolidated plan must also include a citizen participation plan. Performance-Based Program Management Entitlement communities report on their expenditures and accomplishments through the CPD’s Integrated Disbursement and Information System (IDIS) software.4 CPD field staff monitor and report on their assessment of grantees using CPD GMS software. Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) Annually, grantees submit the CAPER to CPD field offices, outlining how they have expended their block grant funding and what they have accomplished. Grantees make CAPERs available to citizens for their review. CAPERs must include a summary of citizen comments on the CAPER and how the entitlement community resolved citizen problems or complaints. In January 2004, the CPD published summary accomplishment data on the HUD Web site so that citizens could see how CDBG funding was being spent on their community.5 Annual Community Assessment CPD field offices conduct an Annual Community Assessment (ACA) to evaluate annual community performance and accomplishments. The ACA produces a Program Year Review (PYR) letter, in which CPD field offices tell grantees what they did well and what they need to do to improve their program or achieve compliance with federal regulations. In many field offices, a form letter is used. Grantees comment on the PYR and work with CPD field offices to resolve differences or issues. The PYR letter is then released to the public for comment. Citizen participation issues typically are not addressed in the PYR, neither do citizens offer public comment on it.

142

TERRY F. BUSS AND MARCELA TRIBBLE

Annual Comparative Review Because CPD field offices lack the resources to monitor every grantee on site—or remotely, for that matter—an Annual Comparative Review (ACR) is prepared, in which the field office tries to identify those entitlement communities posing the highest risk of noncompliance with federal regulations or of failing to meet program goals and objectives. This review determines field office workload plans in the coming year. Although appropriate to consider, citizen participation is rarely addressed in the ACR. After field reviews, the process begins anew in the next grant cycle. Mandated Citizen Participation Requirements The CPD’s chapter in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) requires that entitlement communities adopt a plan that sets forth the jurisdiction’s policies and procedures for citizen participation that are not binding on state and local officials (24 CFR 91.105).6 Citizen participation plans must “provide for and encourage citizens to participate in the development of the consolidated plan, any substantial amendments to the consolidated plan, and the performance report.” Entitlement communities must encourage the participation of people with low and moderate incomes, particularly those living in slums or blighted areas, where block grant funding is to be used. Entitlement communities must take “whatever actions are appropriate to encourage the participation of all their citizens, including minorities and non-English speaking persons, as well as persons with disabilities.” Entitlement communities must publish their citizen participation plans and allow citizen comment on the original plan and any amendments. CPD regulations require entitlement communities to hold at least two public hearings annually to allow citizen input into the consolidated planning process. One hearing must be scheduled to allow citizens to participate in the development of the plan. Entitlement communities meet publication requirements by publishing a summary of the consolidated plan in a general circulation newspaper and by making copies of the plan available at libraries, government agencies, and public places. Entitlement communities are required to “follow their citizen participation plans,” but citizen participation plans also allow for substantial amendment either in how citizens participate or in how funding will be allocated, so long as citizen input has been provided for in some manner. “The requirements for citizen participation do not restrict the responsibility or authority of the jurisdiction for the development and execution of its consolidated plan” (24 CFR 91.105). In other words, public officials can ignore citizen input.

BROADENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

143

Compliance Monitoring The CPD monitors citizen participation process compliance and activities at each stage of the process. At each stage, CPD field offices must check off in the Grants Management System that they have looked at any citizen participation issues in a grantee’s program. As noted above, at a minimum, CPD field offices look for completeness and consistency. Because the CPD never formally defined completeness and consistency—perhaps it is impossible to do so in practice—field offices have wide discretion in what they assess, how they interpret assessment results, and how they hold grantees accountable. Consolidated plans for the year 2000 submission were evaluated “informally” for “quality,” using a checklist that quantified the assessment and rendered it comparable across grantees (CPD 2001). For citizen participation activities, field offices gave consolidated plans a score, ranging from 0 to 5, where “0” meant they had not complied with the law with respect to hearings and outreach and “5” meant they had used innovative ways to encourage citizen participation. Meager Opportunities for Citizen Participation When it created the CPD’s block grant programs, Congress intended for communities to have considerable flexibility in how and on what they could expend funding on housing and community development.7 Likewise, the CPD mostly works in partnership with communities to help them pursue a local agenda, only loosely tied to a national one, and the CPD devolves considerable discretion and flexibility to its field offices. At the same time, legislative and CPD policy guidance to entitlement communities appears to strongly promote citizen participation. But communities are not required to do much and field offices have few sanctions or incentives available to them to encourage citizen participation. Field offices have a great deal of discretion, and some do not place a high priority on citizen participation activities. As required by law, all entitlement communities must have at least two hearings related to the consolidated planning process. Many communities create citizen advisory boards (CABs), composed of either neighborhood residents or community representatives, including advocacy groups, citizen groups, nonprofit agencies, and the like. Many communities conduct surveys or focus groups to elicit citizen input. These can take many forms, ranging from very narrow attempts to identify specific needs to a more global look at community development issues. Judging from HUD’s Best Practice Awards program in the recent past, the latter activities are uncommon enough to enjoy the status of “best practices.”8

144

TERRY F. BUSS AND MARCELA TRIBBLE

Richmond, California, for example, received a citation for best practice in citizen participation, stated as: “The City undertook a number of activities to expand and enhance citizen participation in the Consolidated Planning process. The City formed a Consolidated Plan Advisory Task Force that was made up of citizens, including Public Housing Authority residents and members of neighborhood councils. The Task Force reviewed drafts of the Plan and provided suggestions for improving the document. In addition, the staff of the Task Force brought together an interdepartmental working group and a variety of other agencies.” The situation above is not unique to HUD. In fact some agencies with block grant programs require even less citizen input. Take the Department of Justice’s Local Law Enforcement block grant program, for example. It requires only one public hearing. Entitlement communities must create an advisory board to review the block grant proposal, but this board is composed of community leadership, not the general public, and it has no authority over grantees. Advisory boards typically do not receive any information on the performance of the projects funded. In 2003, under directives from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the CPD selected several demonstration cities to participate in a program to improve citizen participation in the ConPlan processes. In exchange for participating, communities received a variety of waivers. Demonstration projects were completed in 2004.9 Why Expand and Deepen Citizen Participation? Many, including public officials, view citizen participation simply as a minor requirement in law that must be satisfied before the real work of government begins—spending money and delivering services. They should not feel this way. Expanding and deepening citizen participation opportunities not only is the right thing to do in a democratic society founded on popular sovereignty and self-government; its promotion yields benefits far exceeding its costs, real or perceived. Consider the following: Citizens can provide policymakers with information they need to design and deliver effective, efficient, and quality public services. In an era of client, customer, or voter satisfaction, it is just common sense for public officials to find out what people want from public services. In the end, it is the citizen who must be pleased. Citizens participating in efficacious processes are much more likely to be satisfied with programs. The very act of asking people their opinion about public services helps create a more satisfied consumer. Finding ways to improve levels of satisfaction should be high on the agenda of all public officials.

BROADENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

145

Extensive, meaningful involvement of citizens in all phases of service delivery helps validate the entire enterprise. It is difficult to question or criticize the quality of public services when recipients help design, implement, consume, and evaluate these services. Actively involved citizens can marshal support for programs, services and policies. Citizens are much more likely to offer support—vote for increased taxes, raise awareness on issues, create special programs—when their opinions are taken seriously by government. Citizens not only provide input into programs, but, when well informed through participation, they can disseminate information widely to others who are less involved. Citizens find out information about public services mostly from one another, not from the mass media or government. Citizen participation need not be a one-way flow of information. Citizens can spread the word among themselves. From an advocacy perspective, many poor people are systematically excluded from opportunities to participate in programs designed for them. Poor people ought to have a voice in public services targeted at them in the same spirit as those who are wealthy, well connected, or well represented. If they did, perhaps the efficacy of programs among poor people would markedly improve. Some Guiding Principles Neither HUD nor Congress should force communities to comply with stringent regulatory prescriptions governing citizen participation. The strength of communities and HUD programs is in their flexibility and diversity. Nevertheless it seems reasonable to set standards that represent a supportive and facilitative environment for citizen participation. If HUD policymakers want to expand and deepen citizen participation opportunities in its block grant programs, they might consider promoting these guidelines: Afford citizens opportunities to participate at every stage—development, selection, planning, implementation, and assessment of projects—of the block grant process. At present, most communities allow citizens to participate only when projects have already been developed and after projects have been completed. There is little opportunity to hear what people want at early stages in the process: People only vet what has already been proposed, or, in rare cases, force projects to be rejected. Encourage citizen input not only on projects, but also in creating visions, goals and objectives, and strategies for guiding the community or neighborhood. As a corollary to the point above, most communities ask for citizen input on projects, but few want or seek to know citizen views on strategic

146

TERRY F. BUSS AND MARCELA TRIBBLE

Table 6.1 Whole Systems Change Group Processes Future Search

The Future Search Conference explores possible agreements among people with divergent views and interests and engages them in consensus planning. Future Search brings together at one time and in the same room everyone who has an interest in the issue to be discussed. The meetings are future oriented, helping communities to agree on what they want and on their future goals.

Whole Scale change

Whole Scale is the trademarked name for a process involving small- and/or large-group (sometimes as many as 1,000 members) interactions that enable a community to undergo a paradigm shift, using events as catalysts. Groups that represent a microcosm of the entire range of levels, functions, geography, and ideas in the system model the future and become a vehicle for change.

Open space technology

At the surface, open space is a method for holding more productive and enjoyable public meetings. At a deeper level, it sets the stage for functional change by enabling people to experience an organizational system made up of self-managing work teams, shared leadership, diversity, and individual empowerment.

Appreciative inquiry

Appreciative inquiry is a philosophy and an approach that is based on the discovery of the highest achievements, core values, and aspirations embedded in a community. The methodology begins a dialogue between individuals, expands to groups, and builds to embrace and declare community-wide intentions and actions.

Source: Bramson & Buss (2002). © Springer Science and Business Media. Used with permission.

directions for communities and how these will be achieved. Importantly, there are numerous methods available to elicit citizen input on everything from visioning to project evaluation. Some representative methods are shown in Table 6.1 (Bramson and Buss 2002). Provide opportunities to reach group decisions. Citizen input is encouraged mostly for individuals, with the possible exception of participation by advocacy or interest groups. Citizens have few opportunities to work together in formal or informal group processes to develop visions, strategies, or projects that might lead to a wide consensus. Approaches in Table 6.1 illustrate methods allowing for large-group participation. Professional group facilitators help group participants design customized approaches, facilitate group processes, problem solve, and reach consensus. Offer different options, methods, and modes for citizen participation so that the process fosters representation of as many people as possible. Different modes of citizen participation—hearings, community meetings, workshops, surveys, focus groups, etc.—tend to draw different people to the table.

BROADENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

147

Communities that offer only a few venues for participation limit input from large groups of people. Telephone surveys, for example, reach only people with telephones, excluding many poor people. Additionally, some participation options yield richer information than others. Focus groups offer more detail than surveys, but may not be representative of large segments of the community. Citizen participation options not only should be numerous but also should be varied. The efforts of Columbus, Ohio, under CDBG are exemplary up to a point. Officials distributed 10,000 surveys, door hangers, and fliers. They visited dozens of nonprofits, social service agencies, and public places—e.g., shopping malls—to elicit input. They set up community information hotlines. They held numerous community forums, inviting citizens to attend by letter invitation. They sent out direct mailings. And they provided information to the mass media. The rise of the Internet offers communities many more options to expand and deepen citizen participation (Redburn and Buss 2004). Some obvious uses, generally labeled e-government, include setting up Web sites that offer detailed planning information and allow citizen response through e-mail. But the Internet and/or personal computers could be a vehicle for allowing citizens to provide sophisticated information to policymakers. Software that integrates mapping—e.g., geographical information systems (GIS)—visualization, and simulation exists and is becoming widely used in many communities. CommunityViz, software developed and marketed by the Orton Foundation, is illustrative. Orton’s policy simulator utilizes community-based modeling that allows participants to explore possible forecasting futures for land use and economic/community development while incorporating interactions among many individuals with differing social attributes and values. Reach out to low- to moderate-income people at the grassroots level, not just to groups that advocate for or purport to represent them. Poor people tend to be represented in planning processes by interest or advocacy groups, some of which may do an effective job, but others that may have agendas that do not serve their constituents. Poor people do not have sufficient opportunity to participate either as individuals or in groups. Communities must be proactive in reaching out to poor people to garner their input. Methods include neighborhood meetings, door-to-door visitations, working through intermediaries such as ministers or priests, involving schoolchildren, and offering incentives or bounties paid to stimulate participation. Make all citizen participation opportunities open and transparent to build efficacy among citizens. Regardless of the mode of citizen participation used, communities must strive to make the entire system more transparent, more

148

TERRY F. BUSS AND MARCELA TRIBBLE .

open to scrutiny from the outside. At present, interest or advocacy groups provide input from behind closed doors, with only a few insiders aware of how decisions on public funding are made. Conduct independent evaluations of citizen participation initiatives, not just of programs and services delivered. In an era of reinventing government and performance-based management, it makes sense to determine how effective citizen participation plans have been. There are numerous program evaluations undertaken, but virtually none on citizen input. Local funding should be set aside for such evaluations. This is an authorized expenditure under CDBG administrative costs. Policy Options If expanding and deepening citizen participation in CPD programs was to become a HUD policy goal, several options were available to the new secretary and assistant secretaries of Policy Development and Research (PDR)10 and the CPD as they took office in the second Bush administration. Office of the Secretary Make citizen participation a more prominent HUD goal or objective on the Strategic Plan, Annual Performance Plan (APP), Business Operating Plan (BOP),11 and PART.12 The most effective way to move citizen participation policy and practice up on HUD’s agenda is, of course, to make it a priority for HUD offices. Since their inception beginning in 1993, the HUD Strategic Plan, APP, BOP,13 and PART14 make no mention of citizen participation. Link accomplishment of citizen participation-related objectives to merit pay increases for HUD management. HUD has several means for rewarding excellence through merit pay incentives. The secretary could direct that priority for merit pay be given to those managers who articulate and then meet goals that improve citizen participation opportunities in HUD programs. Establish an office of citizen participation. As a way to demonstrate that citizen participation has a high priority in the Bush administration, the secretary had the option to create an office in HUD charged with developing policy and stimulating interest in citizen participation. A similar approach was taken to organize HUD’s initiatives in the smart growth policy arena, turning around troubled public housing authorities, removing lead-based paint from housing, and taking stock of the quality of public housing. Establish a community awards program for exemplary citizen participation activities. Once HUD determines how best to identify exemplary projects, the secretary could create a secretary’s award for excellence in citizen participation.

BROADENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

149

The secretary could move HUD to the forefront in citizen participation across federal agencies by: • Working with the OMB to broaden and consolidate citizen participation activities across related federal programs. The OMB is a lead agency in thinking about citizen participation options as part of the president’s agenda. The secretary could reach out to the OMB to work with its director on these issues. • Convening a working group of federal agencies—Transportation, Economic Development Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency—to create consistent and synergistic citizen participation policies and practices. HUD has for years worked with other federal agencies to identify opportunities to engage in cooperative federal planning in local communities. These ongoing discussions could be given priority and be focused in part on citizen participation. Office of Policy Development and Research In a section below, options for expanding and deepening citizen participation opportunities in the CPD’s ConPlan process are explored. But before these can be fully developed, HUD needs to know more about what works and why, and what the current state of practice is among entitlement communities. Two initiatives are needed: • Support demonstration projects to determine what modes of citizen participation practices work best under various circumstances. Analysis above identified a variety of innovative citizen participation initiatives or possibilities. But little is known about how effective these are and what factors make them successful. PDR could fund a series of demonstration projects to evaluate various models of citizen participation in practice. Many HUD directors have reported that entitlement communities would be very interested in participating in such projects. • Conduct a study of current citizen participation practices in the CPD. Grantees are required to submit their citizen participation plans to HUD field offices. PDR could execute a content analysis of these plans to get an idea of what’s being done. As part of the Annual Plan Update, grantees report citizen input on projects, especially problems, and how the grantee responded. These submissions could be evaluated to see how much input citizens have in the process and what grantees do about it. PDR could expand the study by conducting a survey of field office staff to see how they view citizen participation monitoring activities and how

150

TERRY F. BUSS AND MARCELA TRIBBLE

they view grantee activities in practice in the field. Of course, grantees themselves, and related interest groups, could be surveyed about their practices and concerns. In addition to finding out what works and detailing current practices, PDR could promote citizen participation expansion and deepening as part of the secretary’s policy agenda: Sponsor a symposium on citizen participation and planning issues in either Journal of Housing or Cityscape, or both. PDR has, as part of its mission, the dissemination of policy information to practitioners, researchers, and advocates. HUD’s various journal publications might be used to publish symposia on citizen participation issues.15 Hold a trade conference on citizen participation-related software and methods. There are increasing numbers of software products available to communities to help citizens reach collective decisions or consensus. There are also a variety of non-computer-based process options in use. PDR could sponsor a trade fair for vendors and grantees to allow those interested to see what’s available. PDR might also acquire this software and formally evaluate it as part of its demonstration project above. Hold a “consensus conference” on citizen participation practices. The National Institutes of Health periodically hold consensus conferences to set medical practice policy. For example, when physicians need to establish what constitutes a high cholesterol test result, a panel of experts sets policy in a formal group process. This model might be used to establish what should be done to expand and deepen citizen participation opportunities. Make citizen participation a component of Historic Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and University Partnership programs. PDR offers a variety of research- and community service-oriented programs through universities. PDR could target some (or more) of this funding to citizen participation-based activity. PDR research fellowships could be targeted to students working on participatory or deliberative democracy issues. PDR could fund universities to develop model curriculum involving citizen participation, then disseminate it nationwide. Most public management programs have citizen participation courses, but few really target them in ways that would be useful to grantees and community planning processes. Office of Community Planning and Development Require entitlement communities to develop and implement citizen participation processes that truly or better represent the diversity and needs of citizens who have low to moderate incomes or who live in impoverished areas.

BROADENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

151

It would not be prudent to mandate that communities promote certain forms of citizen participation. Communities need flexibility to devise and customize their own strategies. But HUD can move communities to an expanded and deepened citizen participation process in one or more of four ways, much of this informed by policy research from PDR above: 1. Provide more sophisticated guidance on or models of “good” citizen participation practices, allowing communities to pursue them at their discretion. 2. Offer incentives that encourage communities to select citizen participation processes that meet the administration’s principles. 3. Publish a list of principles that citizen participation processes must meet, but allow communities maximum feasible options to attain them. 4. Offer communities a set of citizen participation options that they may select from to satisfy citizen participation goals for the administration. Each of these is explored in turn. Discretionary Approach Publish a guidebook on citizen participation options. Periodically, the CPD publishes guidance on citizen participation. The latest guides focus on public hearings and on the inclusion of disabled people and labor union representation in the process. The CPD could publish a handbook that details options available to communities to expand and deepen their citizen participation activities generally in the context of this paper. Request that CDBG training/technical assistance funding be targeted at helping communities build better citizen participation processes. CDBG training/ technical assistance (TA) funding has been controversial under past administrations. But it seems feasible for the secretary to request specially targeted TA funding focused on citizen participation. In addition to offering TA on how to implement innovative citizen participation opportunities, TA could also be used to help public officials better understand all aspects of citizen involvement. Incentive Approach Give communities bonus points on HUD competitive grant Notifications of Funding Availability (NOFAs) for exemplary citizen participation activities. Some communities go way beyond the basics of citizen participation. HUD could recognize them by giving bonus points on such competitive grants as

152

TERRY F. BUSS AND MARCELA TRIBBLE

YouthBuild, Section 108, Economic Development Initiative (EDI), Brownfields EDI, homeless, and others. Past experience suggests that this technique does influence grantee behavior in desired policy directions. Publicize exemplary local citizen participation initiatives. HUD is rethinking how it will identify and publicize successful program applications in the field. Even before this policy is finalized, HUD could establish a Web site illustrating exemplary citizen participation practices and market this through CPD field offices and public interest groups. Rank communities on citizen participation effectiveness and publicize results. The CPD evaluates grantee ConPlans against a set of qualitative criteria. As noted above these are not especially rigorous with respect to the citizen participation portions of the assessment. The CPD could expand its evaluation criteria to measure grantee effort. This in itself would have little effect on grantees, but were the CPD to publish a ranking of communities based on citizen participation effectiveness, the evaluation would have more teeth. Clearly, this would be controversial, but it would move grantees toward the policy goal. This approach is not without precedent. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services—formerly the Health Care Finance Administration— ranks hospitals according to their competency in performing certain kinds of high-risk medical procedures. The EPA publishes information on community compliance with environmental regulations. Principles Approach One approach for encouraging expansion and deepening of citizen participation locally is to provide a list of principles or guidelines—such as those enumerated above—that entitlement communities ought to strive to achieve. So long as communities address the principles, they are free to undertake citizen participation activities in whatever way they choose. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) promotes a similar approach in its own strategic planning.16 Rather than pursuing goals and objectives as benchmarks, activities are evaluated against principles. Mandated Options Approach Once PDR determines what works and how, the CPD could make this information available to grantees in the ConPlan process. The CPD would list the effective modes of citizen participation in the grant application process as ways to satisfy HUD’s citizen participation mandates. Entitlement communities would be required to choose activities from the list. Department of Justice block grants now work this way—for project proposals, but not citizen participation per se.

BROADENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

153

In addition to pursuing any of the four options above, it is equally important to suggest what should not be done. Do not require entitlement communities to establish citizen advisory boards. Some analysts propose that the CPD require communities to establish a citizen advisory board (CAB) to review the development and evaluate execution of ConPlans and citizen participation plans. This would be similar to the now-obsolete A-95 regional review by communities.17 Such boards could be established at the neighborhood level, where they would reach more low- to moderate-income groups. Ironically, requiring citizen advisory boards would be problematic if HUD’s policy goal is to expand and deepen citizen participation opportunities (Buss et al. 1980). CABs tend to be dominated by political activists, insiders, and advocates, who do not represent citizens generally and may not represent their own constituencies. These representatives also tend to have access to the political process of block grant fund allocation through other channels. Some have tried to dampen their influence by appointing members of the general public or low- to moderate-income persons to CABs, but inevitably established interests tend to dominate. Do not transfer authority for allocating block grant moneys from public officials to citizens directly. Citizens clearly are not in a position to administer programs or make policy. If they were, government would not be needed. All this paper advocates for is an increased presence of citizen participation in helping direct government. Conclusion The Bush administration, and Clinton’s before it, made increased citizen participation a policy goal. Much more could be accomplished by future administrations. The program outlined above for HUD is not a panacea for the ills of low citizen participation, but it represents a start. Notes 1. The CDBG program is described at the CPD’s Web site: http://www.hud.gov/ offices/cpd/communitydevelopment/programs/index.cfm. Accessed February 13, 2006. 2. Entitlement communities are urban areas—counties and cities—having 50,000 or more people who reach a threshold of need based on a variety of poverty indicators. 3. Community 2020 is inoperative at this time. HUD’s grantee version of Community 2020 is not compatible with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. HUD’s original plans for upgrading Community 2020 to be compatible with Windows 2000 are currently on hold while HUD grantees and other parties interested in simplifying and improving the consolidated planning process are consulted. Once the review is complete, HUD expects to develop a Web-based application to support the implementation of the reformulated

154

TERRY F. BUSS AND MARCELA TRIBBLE

consolidated plan for 2005. In the meantime, grantees who want to continue using C2020 software will need to keep the Windows 95 or Windows 98 operating system activated on the computer(s) to be used for preparing consolidated plan tables and charts. “Community 2020,” www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/about/conplan/toolsandguidance/cpmp/index.cfm. Accessed February 13, 2006. 4. See National Academy of Public Administration 2005b for an overview and evaluation of the system. 5. See www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/communitydevelopment/library/accomplishments/ index.cfm to access examples of HUD accomplishments data. Accessed February 13, 2006. 6. The CPD’s Code of Federal Regulations may be accessed at www.access.gpo.gov/ nara/cfr/waisidx_04/24cfr570_04.html. Accessed February 9, 2006. 7. See National Academy of Public Administration 2005a for an overview of the issues. 8. See HUD Web site, “Blue Ribbon Practices in Community Development,” at www.hud.gov. Accessed February 13, 2006. 9. Write-ups of the demonstration projects can be found at www.hud.gov. Accessed February 9, 2006. 10. PDR is an office in HUD charged with conducting policy research. It has not, to our knowledge, conducted research on citizen participation as advocated here. 11. The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA), (b) Performance Plans and Reports, Section 1115: Performance Plans, requires all federal agencies to prepare a strategic plan every five years, with annual performance reviews in interim years. HUD also publishes an annual Business Operating Plan to guide its operations. 12. In 2002, the Bush administration launched the President’s Management Agenda (PMA), which includes the OMB’s extensive review of individual agency programs using a management tool, the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), composed of about thirty questions addressing various aspects of program design, management, and results. Program ratings based on PART are used to help inform budget decisions on agency programs. Results of this analysis and detailed answers used during the rating process are posted on the OMB’s website, as are instructions for answering each question. This transparency enables interested persons or groups to judge for themselves how programs are performing, regardless of whether they agree with the ratings. See also www.whitehouse .gov/omb/budintegration/pma_index.html. Accessed February 13, 2006. 13. See www.hud.gov/offices/cfo/reports/03strategic.pdf and http://www.hud.gov/offices/cfo/reports/2004/2004app.pdf. Accessed February 13, 2006. 14. See www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/pdf/ap_cd_rom/part.pdf and www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/pma/hud.pdf. Accessed February 13, 2006. 15. PDR might also partner with the Fannie Mae Foundation, publisher of the journal Housing Policy Debate. See www.fanniemaefoundation.org. Accessed February 13, 2006. 16. See Web site at www.gao.gov/sp.html. Accessed February 13, 2006. 17. See Executive Order 12373. http://policy.fws.gov/library/rgeo12372.pdf. Accessed February 13, 2006.

References Bramson, Ruth Ann, and Terry F. Buss, eds. 2002. “Whole Systems Change in Public Organizations and Communities: A Symposium.” Public Organization Review 2(3): 211–303. Buss, Terry F., F. Stevens Redburn, and William Binning. 1980. “How Representative are Mandated Citizen Participation Processes?” Urban Affairs Quarterly (15)2: 345–51.

BROADENING CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

155

Community Planning and Development (CPD). 1994. “Vision and Reality.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, CPD. ———. 1997. “Implementing Community Connections: CPD Grants Management Policy Notebook.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, CPD. ———. 2001. “A Grantee Handbook on CPD’s Grant Management Process.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, CPD. National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). 2005a. Developing Performance Measures for the Community Development Block Grant Program, Volume 1: Performance Measures. Washington, DC: NAPA. ———. 2005b. Developing Performance Measures for the Community Development Block Grant Program, Volume 2: IDIS. Washington, DC: NAPA. Redburn, F. Stevens, and Terry F. Buss. 2004. “Modernizing Democracy.” In Sound Governance, ed. Ali Farazmand, 155–68. Westport, CT: Praeger.

7 Using Focus Groups to Develop Family Policy The Case of Georgia Terry F. Buss

Policymakers are sometimes asked to make family policy without the benefit of well-thought-out policy analyses that look at needs, alternatives, and implications. Often data for policy studies and development are not available. Focus groups are potentially useful to policymakers because they are scientifically respectable; inexpensive, easy, and efficient to conduct; flexible and adaptable in their application; and easy to understand and communicate. Even though focus groups have a lot to recommend them, they are not used as frequently for policy studies and development as they might be. My impression is that many policymakers misunderstand the use of focus groups even when they use them. In this chapter, I look at focus groups as a policy tool. Using data gathered in cooperation with the governor’s office of the State of Georgia, I show how focus groups might be used to study family policy issues. In part I, I first define what a focus group is, review how they might be used to inform public policy, discuss why they are not inferior to other social science methodologies, argue why they might be used, and provide a step-by-step overview of how they are conducted. In each case, I describe how Georgia conducted its focus groups. In part II, I review the major findings gleaned from the Georgia focus groups to show their relevance for decision makers in gathering citizens’ views, improving policy analysis, and reaching better decisions. Part I What Is a Focus Group? “Focus group” is a fancy name for a simple concept: “[A] focus group can be defined as a carefully planned discussion designed to obtain perceptions on 156

USING FOCUS GROUPS TO DEVELOP FAMILY POLICY

157

a defined area of interest in a permissive, non-threatening environment. It is conducted with approximately seven to ten people by a skilled interviewer. The discussion is relaxed, comfortable, and often enjoyable for participants as they share their ideas and perceptions. Group members influence each other by responding to ideas and comments in the discussion” (Krueger 1988, 18). Further, “the hallmark of focus groups is the explicit use of the group interaction to produce data and insights that would be less accessible without the interaction found in the group” (Morgan 1988, 12). How Can Focus Groups Be Used for Policy Development? Focus groups have attracted interest as a way to directly produce information for policy analysis and development. Just in the area of family policy, the possibilities seem endless. But use by policymakers remains sporadic. A focus group may be narrowly focused on programs, services, or projects or on much broader state policy issues; may be undertaken before, during, or after a program or policy is developed; and may be part of an ongoing process or completed at one time only. 1. Before. Before developing a program, a service, a project, or even a policy, focus groups can be used to establish a need for; determine the receptiveness of clients, the general public, or service providers to; and ascertain the desirability of a proposed policy intervention. 2. During. While an intervention is under way, focus groups can be used to measure its interim effectiveness, to keep it on course, and to assess the effects of possible changes in direction. 3. After. After an intervention has been implemented, focus groups can be employed to evaluate its effectiveness. Should the program be expanded, modified, or terminated? Focus groups can also be used to obtain feedback about the intervention—a glorified gripe session. In Georgia, decision makers oriented their focus groups toward general policy issues relating to social, welfare, and family policy. The groups were executed before the implementation of a major state policy initiative on families, Family Connection, a private foundation-funded program to meet the unmet needs of poor people in thirteen sites across the state. Family Connection brings together welfare, education, and health agencies at the state and local levels. Focus group results will be used by communities to design Family Connection programs. Results of the focus groups initiative in Georgia are presented in part II.

158

TERRY F. BUSS

Are Focus Groups Inferior to Other Methodologies? Traditionally, focus groups have been used, when they have been used at all, by social scientists and policy analysts before or after survey research projects. Focus groups undertaken before a survey are useful in helping to design questionnaires or in developing hypotheses for testing. Focus groups undertaken after a survey are useful in helping to explain survey results, which are often presented in the aggregate. Because focus groups have been used in this way in the past, they have taken a backseat to what appear to be more sophisticated methodologies. But this relegation of focus groups to the backwaters of policy analysis is unjustified. Studies have shown that results obtained from focus groups mirror those obtained from survey research methods (see Ward, Bertrand, and Brown 1991). Public hearings might also be held in lieu of focus groups. But public hearings are problematic: Those who are most affected by the policies under consideration may not show up; some speakers may dominate the proceedings, effectively shutting out the opinions of others; and advocates, politicians, or leaders with hidden or personal agendas may dominate. In short, public officials have little control over public hearings. Focus groups, as demonstrated below, can be designed to eliminate these problems while still obtaining public input into the political process. Participant-observation—a methodology in which policy researchers observe groups, meetings, or processes—is another way in which public policy can be informed. For example, a staffer from a governor’s office may be invited to attend a meeting of a welfare client group intended to air out complaints about state human services. Although informative, participant-observation has the same shortcomings as the public hearing, and provides even less control. Focus groups are superior to participant-observation in this respect. Why Conduct Focus Groups? According to Krueger (1988, 44–46), focus groups offer six advantages that make them desirable for policy analysis and development. 1. Focus groups concern real-life situations. Focus groups can be structured so that they concern real-life situations. In Georgia, focus groups met at community locations to discuss community problems among peers who had similar life experiences. The lively nature of these group discussions in the appropriate context or environment makes policy issues under discussion much more real. 2. Unanticipated issues can be effectively probed. Because most social

USING FOCUS GROUPS TO DEVELOP FAMILY POLICY

3.

4.

5.

6.

159

science methodologies are highly structured, they cannot change direction in midstream to exploit unanticipated topics of importance. Focus groups are highly flexible. In Georgia, for example, schoolchildren were discussing questions about access to health care. During the discussion, HIV/AIDS was mentioned. Students made well-informed statements about the causes and consequences of HIV/ AIDS. At the very end of the discussion, we asked about cures for HIV/AIDS. One student opined that if you knew the right doctor, you could be cured of HIV/AIDS. When we asked the class to raise their hands if they agreed, all in the class did so. Public health program officers, listening in on the discussion, learned that the most critical message about HIV/AIDS in this at-risk group had been missed. Focus group results are easily understood. Summarizing the results of focus group discussions (to be illustrated below) does not require statistics of any kind. Comments should not be counted; percentages should not be calculated. Focus group data do not meet the assumptions of scientific sampling theory and research design. Focus group reports are typically written like most policy analysis documents: key findings highlighted, no social science theory, no complex statistical analyses, and no extensive research methodology. Focus groups can be inexpensive. Focus groups are inexpensive to conduct if state government personnel and resources are used. State officials could invest in training a core group of facilitators who would provide training or undertake focus groups for agencies or organizations at the community or state level. If agency staffs coordinate the focus group project for the facilitator, then costs are minimal. On the other hand, if private marketing firms, universities, or consultants are engaged to undertake focus group projects, they can be more expensive than survey research projects. Study results are available quickly. Study results can be available shortly after a focus group is conducted, especially if discussions need not be transcribed. In Georgia, I conducted focus groups over a three-day period, reviewed notes on the discussion, and produced a summary for consideration by policymakers two days later. Data can be more efficiently gathered. Focus groups are efficient: They take between one and two hours to conduct, they require between four and ten participants, they need not require equipment with the exception of tape recorders, only one professional staffer is required to conduct the exercise, they can be done in almost any location during the day or evening, and, as noted above, if they are done in state facilities they cost little.

160

TERRY F. BUSS

In the Georgia project, state agency people were able to set up the focus groups with only one week’s notice. The state provided meeting room facilities at schools and community centers. State staffers provided transportation for the focus group facilitator and participants without rides. School and program administrators selected focus group participants. Focus groups were held when convenient for participants, sometimes during the day and other times at night. Two facilitators conducted ten group sessions in three working days. What Are the Steps in Conducting a Focus Group? Krueger (1988, chapter 3) identified seven steps in preparing for and undertaking focus group processes. 1. Determine the study purpose. Who will use the information? What information is needed? Why is the information needed? How can information needs be translated into questions to be answered by focus group participants? Decision makers in Georgia’s Family Connection project organized their focus groups to elicit responses to these questions from adults and children: • How did poor families in the state get in trouble? • How effective is the human service delivery system in helping poor families solve problems? • Who should be responsible for fixing the human service delivery system from the poor family’s perspective? • What resources do poor families have to cope on their own? What are their strengths? Does the human service delivery system build on their resources? Does it harm their resource base? 2. Define the focus group participants. Who can best provide the information needed? Should focus group participants be similar or different from one another? How many focus groups will be required? Ordinarily focus groups are small, ranging from four to fifteen people, with the ideal number set at eight to ten. Usually participants represent a homogeneous group who do not know one another. The number of focus groups required depends on the research design. Many are “self-contained” in the sense that results of a group discussion are sufficient and require no further comparisons. Ten focus groups representing poor people were conducted in Georgia. The state was divided into four areas of concern to policymakers: rural north, rural south, large inner city (Atlanta), and small city. The rural north (Dawson County) represented poor white families who do not participate in the welfare

USING FOCUS GROUPS TO DEVELOP FAMILY POLICY

161

system. The rural south (Emanuel County) represented poor black and white families who have high participation rates in welfare. Atlanta represented the state’s inner-city urban environment. Decatur represented a smaller city urban area. Focus groups were held as follows: Dawson County: two separate eighth-grade classes (twenty-five students each) and one adult group (thirteen adults, including two couples); Emanuel County: one sixth-grade class (twenty-five students) and one adult group (nine adults); Decatur: one sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade group of four students each; and Atlanta: one student group (seven students) drawn from the Exodus alternative high school program and one group of adults living in public housing (eleven adults). The purpose of the disparate group compositions was in part methodological: What is the quality of information gathered from large versus small groups, and groups with similar and dissimilar backgrounds? The research design was also substantive: How do the comments of the groups differ depending on their makeup? 3. Select focus group participants. How will potential participants be identified? Who (or what organization or authority) can ensure that participants will participate? Should participants be paid to participate? It is difficult to identify and select appropriate participants for a focus group and then ensure that they show up. Sometimes, only an agency who works directly with clients can get them to show up. Other times, it may require the services of a minister, community leader, or some other person who is credible and trusted by participants. There are many cases in which a private firm or university has no standing to get people to participate. This should be taken into account when determining how the focus group project should be run. In Georgia, different local organizations took the lead in locating participants and ensuring that they arrived on time. School principals, board of education representatives, Family Connections administrators, and program directors organized local participants. If resources exist, group participants should be paid, especially if they are poor. In Georgia, adults were given $20 to participate. It was clear in discussions with administrators who selected participants that the stipend made it much easier to get people to participate. Also, because these people were poor, a small stipend meant more to them. 4. Pretest focus group methodology. Does the focus group require a pretest to see if it can be effectively run? Pretests, even though modest, should always be conducted. Every policy issue and group are different, and what works in one context will not necessarily work in another. If researchers are inexperienced in conducting focus groups, then it is imperative that pretesting be done.

162

TERRY F. BUSS

In Georgia, researchers originally designed the focus group exercise around the following questions intended to focus discussion on the policy questions above. • We understand that some of your families don’t make a lot of money. What are some of the things your family does to make sure there’s enough food and clothing, and a place to live? • Many families have a lot going for them. What are the strengths of your family? What are its weaknesses? • Some of your families need a little help to get by. Some receive food stamps or are on welfare. How does the welfare system help your family? How does it hurt? What works best in welfare? What doesn’t work? How would you change the welfare system to make it better? • Some families do not participate in welfare. Why is that? The questions posed seemed to be straightforward to answer and to flow logically from one topic to another. To our surprise, focus group participants in Georgia were well into the process but were having great difficulty relating to the questions. I decided to switch gears and to ask participants to tell us about difficulties in obtaining adequate health care. This question led to an explosion of information about barriers, difficulties, and inequities in the health care delivery system. When asked how these affected families and how the system could be reformed, a further explosion of comments was forthcoming. After this, the welfare system was explored with similar results. Not surprisingly, participants did not think in the same terms as the policy analysts and questions were too abstract to get the group dynamic in motion. In subsequent group sessions, I followed the revised question format with great success. The lesson is clear: Test out your assumptions before committing all of your resources. Secondarily, the pretest experience illustrates the flexibility of the focus group method. No other methodology would have allowed researchers to regroup and try an alternative technique. 5. Undertake the focus group project. Determine where, when, how, and how long. Determine the role of the facilitator. Coordinating the focus group process is like setting up and conducting any meeting where it is critical that the right people are located and compelled to show up at the right place and the right time. In Georgia, the focus groups probably could not have been done without the cooperation of the state and local agencies involved in the project. Focus groups are conducted in either a structured or an unstructured way. Structured focus groups are kept on course by strong intervention from the

USING FOCUS GROUPS TO DEVELOP FAMILY POLICY

163

group facilitator so that the policy questions are expeditiously answered. Unstructured groups are much more permissive, allowing discussion to wander wherever momentum takes it. In Georgia, I chose a structured model of facilitation in order to guarantee that the policy questions posed by Family Connections would be answered. 6. Analyze the results. Should transcripts be produced or should tapes be listened to over and over again? How closely should transcripts be edited? Should transcripts and taping occur at all? How important is the analysis of nonverbal communication? Should statistics be used? Some analysts prefer to use written transcripts of focus group discussions. A typical analysis involves taking common passages, themes, or items from a transcript and “cutting and pasting” them together. This exercise is greatly facilitated with word processors or content analysis software. Once collated, analysts pick those passages that illustrate a point to be made in a policy report. Some analysts prefer to listen to tapes over and over to get a sense of the policy implications. This is tedious and unwieldy, and is no substitute for written transcripts. Some editing of participant comments will be necessary. How much editing depends upon the sense of the editor. Too much editing makes the transcript resemble the editor’s views; too little editing may make the transcript unintelligible. Some focus groups call for videotaping discussions. The intent is to content analyze nonverbal communications, which might mask true feelings: rolling of eyes, shrugging of shoulders, or shaking of the head. Although valuable, content analysis of videotape is extremely time consuming, requires high levels of expertise, is subject to enormous coding error, and is very expensive, all for relatively little gain. In most cases videotaping will be unnecessary. Some analysts believe that taping and transcribing violate rights to privacy, especially if sensitive subjects are being discussed. Participants may not be forthcoming if they know they are being recorded, no matter what the guarantees. Focus group transcripts can be analyzed in two ways—ethnographic and content analysis. Ethnographic analysis relies only on respondent statements to motivate the policy discussion. Content analysis takes individual statements and attempts to quantify them. Because focus groups are not representative of the population, are not randomly constructed, and concern small numbers, most analysts believe that the content analysis approach is invalid. Others feel that content analysis is unnecessary because the analyst is not concerned with the generalizability of individual responses to larger populations.

164

TERRY F. BUSS

In the Georgia study, we decided not to tape, in part because of our concerns about rights to privacy and forthrightness, but also because of the awkwardness of taping at sites not designed to facilitate taping. Even though taping was not done, a great deal of rich information was captured. 7. Present results. How should the results of a focus group study be presented? Focus group reports should be written in the same style as other policy analysis documents: A summary occurs at the beginning, followed by an overview of the problem, along with major findings and recommendations. Methodological annotations are presented in an appendix. The report should use “bullets” throughout to highlight findings and recommendations. Part II Georgia Focus Groups: Selected Findings The comments below reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and opinions of poor people exactly as they were revealed in the focus groups conducted for Georgia’s Family Connections Initiative. I do not endorse these comments. Participant perceptions may or may not be true in fact. I believe these results illustrate the richness of policy-relevant information that can be quickly and efficiently produced. Working poor people live from day to day. Their jobs are often eliminated through no fault of their own—businesses shutting down lay them off, those willing to work for less replace them, health problems disable them, and family crises—a new child, a divorce, loss of a home, or drug or alcohol problems—displace them. Minimum-wage jobs are all they can get, even for many having education and skills. There is no opportunity for advancement or promotion, only work. Nearly everyone in the working poor family works if they can, usually at two or more jobs. For some, work is an alienating experience, because they can never get ahead. For others, work is what separates them from those who have given up. Poverty among the working poor presents many moral challenges. When there is not enough food on the table—a frequent occurrence—who should get the lion’s share, who should go hungry, and who decides? To what extent should the working poor let their families suffer when it is possible to make money selling drugs, making moonshine, or ripping someone else off? How do you decide between hunger and prison? By keeping the family together— by marriage or an alternative living arrangement—people may not get welfare benefits that are available to others: should families split apart to get welfare? When your kindergartner needs medical care, but a parent needs a car to get to work or face certain unemployment, what should you do?

USING FOCUS GROUPS TO DEVELOP FAMILY POLICY

165

It is difficult to be a poor kid. In some poor neighborhoods, children complain of ongoing fighting and gunshots—some random, some calculated. Poor urban children often happen upon dead or wounded people lying in playgrounds, alleys, or doorsteps. Poor single women can make ends meet in a variety of ways. Some, especially those in public housing, are likely to take in a man, often more than one man, who will sell drugs from the premises and share the profits. Participation in drug dealing can be tacit, letting people use the premises for illegal purposes, or abetting, by playing lookout or making deliveries. Poor women sometimes exchange sex for money or drugs. But this is not viewed as prostitution, more as a bartered transaction. Poor women can earn money as “jiggle dancers,” strippers or go-go dancers. People in rural communities perceive the welfare system very differently from their urban counterparts. Rural people, on and off welfare—including Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), disability, and Medicaid —believe that you have to know someone in order to enroll in a welfare program, and, once enrolled, to receive services to which you are entitled. Urban people, by contrast, believe that it is all too easy to get on welfare and stay there. But if people in urban systems raise too many questions or become troublemakers, the system treats them unfairly. Poor people hold a Victorian view of poverty: Some people need public assistance, deserve it, and should receive it, particularly the elderly and disabled; but others are undeserving and should not be eligible. The undeserving poor are those who do not work because they are lazy, preferring to freeload off the state. They do not enter the workforce because they can make just as much as or likely more than the working poor. This isn’t right. They should be thrown off welfare. Countervailing views exist. The world is full of people getting over at the expense of people, programs, or the system. Getting over is prevalent no matter where you turn. If everyone is getting over, then why penalize people who are on welfare and doing no more than anyone else? Alternatively, some feel that those on welfare are trapped. They would like to get off welfare but cannot. Jobs do not pay enough to support them. Why do teenagers become mothers? Five interrelated reasons are likely: Teenagers, starved for attention, see having babies as a way to get noticed, to be somebody; teenagers, dissatisfied with an abusive or non-supportive home life, see having babies as a way to leave home for an independent life in public housing projects or subsidized housing; teenagers believe that having babies will cement relationships with boyfriends who will not marry them, or even stay with them; teenagers may have more than one child in order to increase welfare benefits; and teenagers make unwise choices in spite of

166

TERRY F. BUSS

themselves, and think “it can’t happen to me,” even after participating in sex education classes and observing their friends and often their mothers getting into trouble by having babies. Abuse and neglect of children are common among poor families. Single mothers, especially, become tired of caring for demanding children or place their own needs above those of their children. Single mothers often unload unwanted children in public programs—for example, day care—or with friends or relatives. They do not use their free time to search for work or obtain an education. Instead they hang around or disappear for days enjoying sleazy bars. Some poor men, according to some poor women, do not deserve to live. Because they readily support men even when they refuse to work, women feel exploited by males. Males do not contribute income to families they start; they are highly promiscuous; they are uncaring, offering little in the way of love and affection; they are as exploitative as can be; and they are basically bums. Some view Chinese immigrant families as role models. The Chinese come to a community with nothing, not even the ability to speak English. In a relatively short time, Chinese families succeed. Why? Chinese families have strong leadership and pull together in good and bad times. The Chinese community is supportive of Chinese families. As a example, Chinese families agree to start a restaurant. Family members work without pay to get the business going. Chinese families value education, which is one key to their success. How would poor people—those on welfare and those not on it—reform the welfare system? The prevailing sentiment is to eliminate it. There are just too few deserving poor in need. If the welfare system cannot be eliminated, then people should not be given any cash. Poor people believe that the key to system reform is direct services and vouchers. Problems with the human service delivery system are universally felt. First, it takes too long to process paperwork to receive benefits, especially housing. Bureaucratic inefficiency sometimes plays havoc with people’s lives, and, importantly, gives them a bad perception of the system. Second, welfare programs end too abruptly. A person coming off AFDC has no resources to assume an independent life, even in the first few months of holding a job. Transitional funding is needed. Cheating in the food stamp program is pervasive. People participating in the program sell their stamps for cash in order to buy other things. Mothers take cash to spend on themselves or their boyfriends. How do people eat if they sell their food stamps? Easy: Children eat two good meals—if they are lucky—at school, so that mothers do not have to provide for them. Charitable agencies and organizations offer emergency food through food pantries

USING FOCUS GROUPS TO DEVELOP FAMILY POLICY

167

and soup kitchens. And money from other sources in the underground economy also helps. But some cheating on food stamps is necessary. Essentials like soap, detergent, and toilet paper are not covered by food stamps, so people sell stamps to purchase these items. Cheating occurs widely on AFDC, some of this being encouraged by social workers. Women must be single to participate in AFDC. As a way around this, lovers, husbands, boyfriends, and fathers stay away from the home in the daytime when social workers check on families but return at night. In this way, women can maintain a liaison without losing AFDC moneys. Social workers often encourage this behavior: Women are advised to get rid of their partners in order to qualify for AFDC. Some women comply with the suggestion, but only halfway. The nontraditional family, common among poor people, can be pathological to family life. Fathers who are only part-time at best provide poor role models for children. Children learn either that they are unwanted because fathers choose not to support them or that it is somebody else’s responsibility to care for them. Live-in or visiting boyfriends sometimes do not care for children: Children are resented, neglected, and physically or sexually abused, often with the natural mother being forced to choose between her needs and her children’s. Even married couples with children from previous marriages have trouble. When there is not enough to go around, spouses begin to turn on their stepchildren. Instability of family relations characterizes the poor. Some families try hard to stay together, and are consequently very close, loyal, and supportive. Health care is much more of an issue in rural areas than in urban areas. Rural areas sometimes have access to only one physician in a county. Rural physicians do not refuse Medicaid and Medicare patients, offer terms in paying bills, sometimes treat people at no charge, and give away sample medications to those who cannot pay. But rural physicians typically provide only primary care services, leaving acute care to others outside the county. Rural health care, therefore, is perceived to be inferior or inadequate. Lack of health care insurance is perceived to be the most important problem in rural communities. The working poor cannot afford health insurance and do not receive health insurance benefits. They lead a life of constant fear of losing what little they have because of a catastrophic health event. Although many families view children as a problem—they are unwanted, expensive, demanding, annoying, and inhibiting—others see caring for their children as their mission in life. People who feel this way rarely bemoan what they don’t have, but do complain about their inability to help their children.

168

TERRY F. BUSS

Although people face major challenges surviving day to day, they all express hope in the future. Young people all intend to go to college and make something of themselves. Many expect that it will be difficult to raise money for school, which will reduce their chances of success. Most expect relatives or parents to be able to foot the bill one way or another. When asked if they would stay in the area after high school, not one student in the hundred interviewed expected to remain. Many would like to but see no future there. Rural people feel threatened by the influx of outsiders to their communities. Outsiders keep to themselves, choosing not to befriend the locals. Outsiders do not have community spirit. Outsiders do not like to work with local people in self-help projects. Some see their way of life jeopardized. Quiet towns become hectic with new arrivals and departures. Continual mobility makes it difficult to make or keep friends. Woodlands are replaced by housing projects and commercial strips. Mexican migrant workers fare poorly in rural areas. Mexican workers bring their families to rural areas to work on poultry farms. Like their counterparts in the coal industry or in sharecropping, a foreman keeps accounts of their expenses and they are provided with minimal food and shelter and no benefits. Their expenses mysteriously nearly always equal their wages. Some farms even lock up workers so that they cannot leave. Often these workers are paid at or below minimum wage. Nevertheless some poor people resent these workers (and not so much the employers) for taking away jobs they believe to be rightfully theirs. Poor people not on welfare are likely to view welfare participants as undeserving and cheating. People from welfare backgrounds, and even some people on welfare, openly express hostility for welfare participants. People are more likely to be hostile to people on welfare if those people are not present. When welfare participants are present, people not on welfare often begin their diatribe with the disclaimer, “present company excepted,” and then go on to trash people on welfare. The culture of poverty is not all pervasive. Poor people, whether on welfare or not, believe in their own individual responsibility to make their lives better, sometimes with a little help. Poverty can be deceptive: Poor people do not necessarily dress poorly, although some do. Nearly everyone who showed up at our focus group sessions wore respectable clothing. Participants obviously took pride in their appearance. Clothing is important and several people mentioned that they wore hand-me-downs and made their own clothing. One couple, however, seemed completely down and out. The male wore a dirty white T-shirt covered with holes, dirty pants, and dirty shoes.

USING FOCUS GROUPS TO DEVELOP FAMILY POLICY

169

Conclusion Like any other policy analysis technique, focus groups should not be considered the only, definitive, or preferred methodology. Ideally, analysts should use focus groups in concert with survey data, administrative data files, and case studies. But these alternatives are not always available or suitable. Focus groups can be used to great effect, especially when time is short and resources are scarce yet needs are great. Georgia Family Connections illustrates some “powerful” findings that informed the family policy debate in that state. Acknowledgment Preparation of this paper was funded under a grant from the Ford Foundation to the Council of Governors’ Policy Advisors—an affiliate of the National Governors’ Association. Terry Buss served as project director for the study. References Goldman, Alfred E., and Susan S. McDonald. 1987. The Group Depth Interview: Principles and Practices. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Greenbaum, Thomas L. 1987. The Practical Handbook and Guide to Focus Group Research. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Higginbotham, James B., and Keith K. Cox, eds. 1979. Focus Group Interviews: A Reader. Chicago: American Marketing Association. Krueger, Richard A. 1988. Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Merton, Robert K., Marjorie Fiske, and Patricia L. Kendall. 1956. The Focused Interview. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Morgan, David L. 1988. Focus Groups as Qualitative Research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Templeton, Jane. 1987. Focus Groups: A Guide for Marketing and Advertising Professionals. Chicago: Probus. Ward, Victoria M., Jane T. Bertrand, and Lisanne F. Brown. 1991. “The Comparability of Focus Group and Survey Results: Three Case Studies.” Evaluation Review 15 (April): 266–83.

8 Information Technology and Governance Terry F. Buss and F. Stevens Redburn

What has the greatest potential to revolutionize the performance of government and revitalize our democracy? E-government. Council for Excellence in Government 2003a, 2

Introduction Everyone has a favorite anecdote about how information technology (IT) has dramatically changed society over the last few years, especially since the personal computer’s arrival in the 1980s and development of the Internet in the mid-1990s. Today’s Cadillac El Dorado has more computer capacity on board than was available to the astronauts on all the Apollo moon missions. Computer systems, which used to require, say 25,000, square feet of space to house them, now fit neatly in the palm of the hand. Where once it took hours to process data, researchers can obtain answers almost instantaneously. Cell phones now access the Internet, receive e-mail and faxes, and send and receive pictures. Computers, originally linked to telephone lines, now can be accessed by cable, satellite, and even television. Visionaries inform us that this is only the beginning of what is possible as the information revolution or digital revolution rolls on. Government, and hence governance and citizen engagement too, have been transformed by the information revolution, which, as it happens, coincides with a decade of accelerated government reform—beginning with reinventing government through a “national performance review” and continuing with the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) assessments of all federal programs, beginning in 2002. One trend cannot be understood in the absence of the other. Rapid advances in IT enabled governments to gather, process, report, and apply data efficiently and in innovative ways to create information to improve the quality 170

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND GOVERNANCE

171

and effectiveness of decision making, while at the same time speeding up the entire process. Reinventing government encouraged public managers to look at citizens not as impersonal “cases,” but instead as customers, clients, or consumers, who, like those in the private sector, have a lot to say about the services they receive. IT provides mechanisms for government to reinvent or reengineer itself. The PART process is forcing a much greater emphasis on defining what programs are intended to accomplish and then measuring their results. Redburn and Buss in chapter 5 and Buss and Tribble in chapter 6 discuss performance in the context of PART, showing its importance for citizen engagement. At present, government is caught between old ways of doing things—pre-IT-revolution, pre-performance reforms—and a transformation to something new (Winograd and Buffa 1996). What do the rise of IT and the reinventing government movement mean for governance and citizen engagement in the new millennium? We’ve organized this chapter as follows: First, we summarize federal initiatives that spawned and developed information technology applications at all levels of government. Second, we show how IT has been integrated into public management over time. Third, we illuminate ways in which IT is changing the relationship between government and citizenry. Fourth, we identify major trends in government IT in the last decade that will characterize public management during this evolutionary epoch. Fifth, we look at ways in which IT and reform have likely changed public management over the long term. And finally, we raise issues associated with IT and governance, assessing their implications. The transformation of government and governance is so enormous in scope and complexity, and its results so indeterminate, that an overview piece such as this cannot do it justice. We’ve opted for a sweeping overview, profiling issues and trends, and documenting that will allow readers to explore each topic in depth. E-Government The Center for Technology in Government defines e-government as “the use of information technology to support government operations, engage citizens, and provide government services.” Four broad government functions are reflected in the definition (Cook et al. 2002, 3): • E-services. Electronic delivery of government information, programs, and services, often over the Internet. • E-management. Use of information technology to improve management. • E-democracy. Use of the Internet to facilitate citizen participation.

172

TERRY F. BUSS AND F. STEVENS REDBURN

• E-commerce. Exchange of money for goods and services over the Internet. Information technology (IT) is generally defined under the Information Management and Technology Reform Act of 1996 as follows: (A) The term “IT,” with respect to an executive agency, means any equipment or interconnected system or subsystem of equipment that is used in the automatic acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission, or reception of data or information by the executive agency. For purposes of the preceding sentence, equipment is used by an executive agency if the equipment is used by the executive agency directly or is used by a contractor under a contract with the executive agency which (1) requires the use of such equipment, or (2) requires the use, to a significant extent, of such equipment in the performance of a service or the furnishing of a product. (B) The term “IT” includes computers, ancillary equipment, software, firmware and similar procedures, services (including support services), and related resources.

Increasing IT Expenditures and Accelerated Adoption Government at all levels is spending increasingly larger amounts on acquisition and utilization of IT, especially since the mid-1990s with the advent of the Internet (Karmarck and Nye 1999). In Minnesota, for example, IT is spread over 118 agencies and 963 separate information systems. Minnesota, in 1997, spent $326 million on IT—8.3 percent of its operating budget— broken down as follows: facilities,