Citizen Participation & Empowerment

Chapter 12

Fall 20101

Fall 20102

Why have you gotten involved in the past?

3 Citizen Participation Themes

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1. Participation in community decision-making

2. Citizen Empowerment

3. Participation & empowerment are related to Sense of Community

Citizen Participation

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“A process in which individuals take part in decision-making in the institutions, programs, & environments that affect them” (text, p. 402)

Participation/Efficiency Balance

Participation: The Means-Ends Distinction

Fall 20105

Means: way of improving community conditions

Commitment to a decision/outcome is greater if you have participated in it

Ends: essential quality of democracy

Its own reward

Empowerment

Fall 20106

“An intentional, ongoing process centered in the local community, involving mutual respect, caring, & group participation, through which people lacking an equal share of resources gain greater access to & control over those resources.”

Accomplished with others, not alone

Qualities of Empowerment

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1. Multilevel Ecological Construct Individuals: personal sense of efficacy Organizations

Empowered Orgs: know how to create changes in community Empowering Orgs: know how to empower people in org

Communities: competent community

2. Levels are Independent feeling empowered ≠ being empowered

3. Bottom Up Approach

Contrasting Empowerment & Prevention

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Rappaport’s (1981) Distinction:

Needs Perspective (prevention)

vs. Rights Perspective (empowerment)

Different Origins Needs perspective from helping professionals Rights perspective from activists, perspective

from activists, community organizers

Characteristics of Needs Perspective

Fall 20109

1. Professional as expert

2. Clients lack competence which they need

3. Risk factors are in the individual

4. Programs developed in one context can be transported across contexts

5. Organizations & communities are sites where intervention occurs, not objects of intervention

Characteristics of Rights Perspective

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Focus on what rights people have to control their lives

Collaborating with people rather than being expert

Assuming people have competencies but lack environmental opportunities to develop them

Risk factors are in environment

Programs need to be developed locally to be responsive to local situation

Organizations & communities are object of intervention

Power: Brief Review

Fall 201011

Involves ability to affect external events/ forces/ decisions

Best understood as aspect of relationships or interrelationships (can be resisted as well as acquiesced to)

Contextual: may have power in some situations/ roles & not others

Power’s Multiple Forms

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1. Types of Power Power Over - capacity to dominate others Power To - ability for self-direction to pursue

goals Power From - ability to resist power exerted by

others

2. Integrative Power: capacity to build groups, bind people together, & inspire loyalty (“people power”) (e.g., Ghandi)

Power

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Reward Power —controlling valued rewards that can be used to shape others’ behavior

Coercive Power —capacity to punish

Legitimate Power —based on role/position of one over another

Expert Power —based on knowledge/skill

Referent Power —based on interpersonal connection or a shared social identity

Participation in Neighborhood Orgs & Sense of Community

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Neighborhood organizations as mediators between citizens & higher-ups Mediators are go-betweens/ liaisons

Citizen participation ranges from attending meetings to holding leadership positions

How Community Orgs Empower Members

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Empowering (member influence)

vs.

Empowered Orgs (community influence)

Qualities of Empowering Orgs

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1. Solidarity Group-based, strengths-based belief system Social Support Shared, Inspiring Leadership

2. Member Participation Participatory Niches, Opportunity Role Structures Task Focus Participatory rewards for volunteers who make the

org possible Promoting diversity Fostering intergroup collaboration

Dilemmas in Creating Empowering Orgs

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Challenge of success Growth/Resources affect initial sense of

mission/solidarity

Paradox of empowerment Can one group empower another? Can old social regularities be overcome? HSC experience

Fall 201018