Four ways to help promote citizen engagement and participation

"Great!" I thought as the board agreed to broaden its membership to include people from other states, "That should enable participation from outside the area and diversify decision-making".

That experiment was short-lived. The organisation returned to its geographically-centralised form of management. My hopes for decentralisation were replaced by the expediency of proximity in decision-making and the choice of executive decision in place of member-participation.

Reflecting on this, I realise that the drift to executive decision-making is typical of the rise of "managerialism" in modern society. A means used by people in social institutions to make decisions for others, managerialism can be seen as the process by which the unelected make decisions for the unrepresented. Expedient it might be, it has contributed to the decline of participatory democracy in civil society.

Managerialism persists because our educational institutions, themselves hierarchical organisations, provide little by way of introduction to more democratic structures. After leaving school, people are continually exposed to top-down decision making in university, the workplace and in government. It is no wonder that people reflect in their decision-making what they have been taught all their lives.

Apathy will replace civic participation

Citizen participation is the theoretical lifeblood of democracy. Unless it is encouraged the public may revert to apathy.

A level of public disengagement is already evident in society. This is due to disenchantment with the major political parties. People feel helpless in the face of contemporary trends and events and feel unable to address them effectively. Combined with uncertainty over the future, that's why the government can maintain political support even though there is evidence that it lies and misleads the public, as in the children overboard and Iraq intelligence cases. The public attitude defaults from civic participation to the managerialism of government.

To paraphrase a well-known political theorist: intellectuals and bureaucrats have only interpreted the world of civic participation; the point, however, is to change it and make it real. It is doing that that is the challenge.

Confusing consultaton and participation

There is confusion over terminology when it comes to involving citizens in the decision-making process.

For some, simply asking the interested public what they prefer is seen as active public participation. It is not. That is consultation and it is a top-down, professional or bureaucrat-led process. This is not to say that it has no place, it does, but not all of the time. At best, consultation produces choices from which the consulted can choose. At worse, community preferences are ignored because they do not fit some pre-conceived model of "what the public needs" that exists in the minds of bureaucrats, politicians and professionals.

Participation is more difficult. It is time consuming. It requires that those leading the process have commitment to public participation and possess the techniques to enact it. Participation involves setting up structures within which professionals or bureaucrats become facilitators of a broad-based deliberative process. Skills in working with groups and in preventing vociferous individuals and the representatives of lobby groups dominating and unduly influencing proceedings are requisites. Such processes do exist; the Institute for Cultural Affairs, through its Technology of Participation, provides just one example.

When the public is told that it is "participating", when all that is being done is that project leaders are consulting, it is being duped. For many so-called "professionals" and bureaucrats it is an innocent dupe because they know no better. They do not possess the tools of participation and their education has failed them in not providing the training.

A brief flowering withers

It was an artefact of the times when, in the 1970s, there was interest in extending the concept of "democracy" beyond the four-year vote. Why, it was asked by those leading the thinking, should not the concept of democracy and participation be extended into the workplace and other institutions in society?

The idea gained credence in Australia but its home was the UK where it was popularised by a section of the Left that promoted the notion of "workplace democracy". Why, when society claims to be democratic, should the workplace remain feudal and authoritarian in structure?

Lucas Aerospace appears to be the place where this notion had greatest influence but by the end of the decade the idea appears to have lost its momentum. Little has been heard of this attempt to widen participation in everyday life since.

The media should encourage participation, not passivity

The media has a critical role to play in boosting civic participation. Through the media flows the information that integrates society and provides a sense of community and commonality. But to achieve this, journalists, editors and media proprietors will have to bypass some existing media attitudes and try new approaches.

One of these attitudes is the role of the news media as provider of a "record of events" in society. This view has less credibility today, however it retains some influence and suggests that the media is a passive mirror reflecting society back to itself. It ignores the reality that the process of news selection and concepts such as "newsworthiness" constitute agenda-setting.

A media supportive of civic participation would acknowledge this fact. It would admit that the news media, in giving prominence to the priorities of government and other dominant influences on public thinking, largely sets the public discourse. Having admitted this, the media could then set up its own processes to garner public opinion and to help the public take a more active and influential civic role.

For journalists and editors, it would be a challenge to report the point of view of the ordinary citizen and not fall prey to the unrepresentative, the crackpots and spokespeople for lobby groups.

This would be difficult because the voice of the professional, politician and "expert" is dominant in public discourse on account of their training or position within organisations. Likewise, the opinions of lobby groups and think-tanks get probably more media exposure than warranted because lobbies represent a sizeable body of community opinion or because they have gained public influence as the purveyors of some presently-popular theory. Editors see them as credible and it is on this that their prominence rides. The Institute for Public Affairs and Centre for Independent Studies, for example, have achieved a sometimes disproportionate influence in public affairs and dominate the media debate. Ordinary people do not get a look in.

A better journalism

There is a solution that would be worth trying by those media organisations wanting a fresh approach to newsworthiness and news gathering. It is called "civic journalism" and, like other elements of democracy, is messy to implement.

Put simply, civic journalism brings citizens together around a particular issue by setting up structures within which they can deliberate without domination by lobby groups, vociferous individuals, bureaucrats or institutions. It is a learning experience for all but it relies on media organizations being willing to meet the costs of establishing the process and making available space of time to fully report the deliberations.

For media organisations, there is nothing to lose but their preconceived notions of newsworthiness. At best, the outcome would be increased circulation or audience. At least, the press and electronic media would be seen as more credible by its critics.

Regional and local media are particularly well placed to conduct civic journalism because of their closeness to their readership or audience.

Four proposals for a participatory sociaety

1. Create niches for participation: business, government and community-based organizations can identify high-yield niches in which stakeholders could find a valid role and participate in the life of the institution. In local government, participation in civic decision-making that supplements the role of elected representatives would have to provide input for those put off by the loud voices found in local government precinct committees and the like.
2. Professionals and bureaucrats might assume the role of "advisors" in participatory processes: if they really want citizens to have a say in the governance or their neighbourhoods, then time and resources must be set aside to facilitate this.
3. Make an informed choice between consultation and participation and do not mistake one for the other; both have a valid role in civil society and in government; the wisdom comes in deciding which is appropriate.
4. A proactive and socially-positive role for media: civic journalism is an approach in needing of trailing in Australia; it offers a sense of influence and belonging to participants and an innovative and new role for media organizations; for journalists and editors, civic journalism offers the development of new skills.

Civil democracy is needed more than anywhere in decision-making that affects quality of life and the liveability of the places where citizens reside. Used poorly, it is likely to become dominated by the socially adept and manipulative. Used creatively and supported by civic journalism, civic democracy can be restored.