I posted some thoughts on ward committees to Waseem...How does government tap into the subjective realities of a hyper-diverse urban population? The question is hardly being asked. How does any one person or even group within these populations become able to enter into conversation or negotiation with government? Equally problematic. If ward committees are not doing their job in giving opportunities for citizens to participate in government, can anyone come up with a better idea? In the private sector – in this increasingly privatised nation – the market has been very successful in enabling participation and negotiation in the process of consumption. Market research, micro-marketing to the level of the individual, consumer surveys and the process of purchasing are models of participation in the making and development of a consuming economy. These models of participation do not work for government, for the public domain. The tiny turnouts at ward committee meetings are not a sign of the failure of ward committees but of the participative democracy that began with the drive to give the vote to more people in the 19th and early 20th century. People fought for the vote and knew how to do that fighting. Some went to prison; some died for it. I do not see people fighting to participate in government now. Those ‘fights’ are reserved for the Christmas sales. Consumers are regularly educated through the process of consuming. Manufacturers and retailers are kept on their toes and called to account via the processes of buying and selling. Each ‘side’ educates the other. No such educating reciprocity is now sustained in the domain of democracy. It shows in the turn out for elections as well as attendance at public meetings. The clever engagement of minority activists and the shrewd lobbying of government by powerful corporate interests shows that such reciprocity can exist and work, but its hardly demotic; hardly a ‘conversation’ that engages men and women in the streets of Handsworth, Winson Green, Lozells or Sparkbrook. As someone involved for over 40 years in trusting local democracy I was brought up to believe that with perseverance and intelligence one could always engage in some kind of conversation with power. I also learned that few goals are fully achieved and that all of them – with the exception of filling potholes perhaps – are seldom arrived at in under a decade (Handsworth Park, Victoria Jubilee Allotments, Black Patch Park, and my prolonged interest with others in making roads better for walking and cycling). For most people with busy lives and family responsibilities, getting engaged with government seems futile, remote, impossible. While business knows how much it must invest in marketing and research, austerity has lacerated local government’s ability to fund local engagement. Add to this an agenda among some powerful interests that is committed to diminishing the public domain, demolishing the very idea of public goods and promoting the privatisation of everything, I can see no way of improving ward committees, but do not use that pessimism to get rid of these small exercises in local democracy. Let us keep the little of what we’ve got by way of public involvement.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 10:18:29 +0000
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