Unit 3: Local Politics Post-1960

Citizen Participation Importance and who it affects

• Why this matters:

  • Basis of democracy.

  • Engage in local politics, things pertinent to you

• Mainly benefits middle class homeowners

  • Education, wealth, time

  • Homeowners tend to be more involved in community because they have an investment in it

Federal Government began to promote citizen participation in the 1960s

• Maximum Feasible Participation (MFP) requirement

  • People coming to meetings, deciding what might be most helpful.

  • Getting poor involved in government to decide on decisions

  • Get engaged, solve your own problems

  • No clear direction of how communities should carry this out, people didn’t know how to get involved either

• War on Poverty

• Community Development Block Grant

  • Communities apply for grants; write proposals. Federal Government gives funding.

  • Idea is that the local gov. decides what they need

  • Republicans have consistently supported CDBGs but not MFP

Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation

Citizen Power

• 8. Citizen Control

  • Citizens have control over certain projects, policies and budgets

  • Not conducive to strong city management

  • Council who has to manage entire city is taking risk. Snowstorm example

• 7. Delegated Power

  • Citizens are handed power, a board is created for example.

  • “handing the people a bone”; small decisions

• 6. Partnership

  • Mutual, shared power. You agree to a partnership when you stand to benefit from community support.

  • Reelection: people remember those who’ve helped them

Tokenism

• 5. Placation

  • When you see non-elected local citizens involved in the decision-making process.

  • However, there’s rarely an opportunity for meaningful citizen control

• 4. Consultation

  • Sends out reminders for opportunities for input: surveys, public forum, online.

  • Very specific: what surface for playground

  • But, government actually wants feedback for success

Non-participation (“insulting”)

• 3. Informing

  • Govt. informs people what they’re going to do. A presentation with limited time for questions

• 2. Therapy

  • If people are having problems, We the govt. fix people, not look at the system

• 1. Manipulation

  • “cooptation”, Government already decided. They don’t actually care what you think, just need to check the box

This is not necessarily worst to best. Just a scale of citizen control. Top 1 can be inefficient, for example.

Consumers vs. Citizens

• Consumers

  • Use municipal services

  • Anything government buys is with our money

  • Your available choices are from the government

    • recycling for example

• Citizens (of a community)

  • Possess rights

  • safety, security, free speech, assembly, property, privacy

• Contrast between the two:

  • Consumers can be upset about things, citizens can make change

• Being a resident does not mean participation

  • You have right to vote or not

• Local elections are often not participated in

  • Could reflect a lack of information provided by Govt./media

  • People don’t feel like something affects them

  • Lack of voter efficacy/civic education

Granting Authority to Citizen Groups

• Citizen Task Force

  • Something specific: make a recommendation/report, find information.

  • Task force doesn’t change the Policy

• Planning Charlettes

  • Start with meetings with ALL of the stakeholders.

  • Cities recognize a problem, have money to fix, get all the affected groups to decide

• Citizen Juries

  • Involve policy. Citizens rewrite an upcoming measure.

  • “What does this mean to you?” “Would you be more likely to vote for this or this?”

  • Then government decides.

• Deliberative Polling

  • Give people all the information, objective and unbiased, so then they can make an informed decision

Community Organizing Growth and Decline

• This is Obama’s background

• Saul Alinsky and IAF

  • changed the way people thought about citizen participation and making it applicable — community power

• Changes in 1970s and 1980s

  • Role between the government and Citizens becomes less antagonistic

    • Who is in power changes

    • Representation

    • Women engage in leadership positions after being involved in community issues

      • Different priorities, perspectives, and style

Community Development Corporations

• Serve as “gap-fillers”

• Building and providing affordable housing

• Neighborhood economic development

• Health clinics and day-care centers

• Job training programs

• Youth Activites

Saul Alinsky Methodology

Saul Alinsky and the IAF reinvented how people thought about community organizing: move from individualism

• 4 Steps:

• Determine the Grievance

  • must be clear and shared

• Rub the Wounds raw to spur action

  • if someone has grown complacent, make them see nature of problem. Unfair! Make ‘em angry!

• Freeze the target of protest action

  • Make it so they can’t ignore. No excuses, force their hand. Keep pressure on

• Quick Victory

  • Might be at odds with the most salient problem.

  • Need a “win =” for momentum.

  • Sometimes its better to start with a small, win-able problem

Rudy Giuliana: Shows up. Gets frozen. Makes promises

Alinsky does this all over the nation

Models of Community Power

Elitist Model

• Top power structure in the city controls everything: One set of people

• One group has all the power.

• In this model, most of the people with power are not in government, and not citizens, but instead are often business leaders

Pluralist Model

• Not one elite group with power across all areas

• Instead, there’s this coalition of groups with a plurality of issues. Each group has power in different areas.

• Power is not cumulative. When one group in the coalition gains power, another doesn’t.

Limitation of these conflicting theories: Each study only studied one city each: Atlanta & New Haven

Non-elected persons who run cities and their views of Power

Budget Director, Parks Director, Interstate Highway Planners, etc.

• “Islands of Power”

  • Things cluster around each other. Power centered but like pluralist model

• “Functional Feudalities”

  • Periodical views of where their power ends

• “New Machines”

  • The way that cities knew how to function when they were machines influences how they do today, but now with less corruption

• Functional Fiefdoms

  • Focused on decision-making bureaucracy. Unelected people making decisions, but they often are disconnected from community.

  • Not electedly accountable.

  • Their decisions have big impacts on communities

    • Such as interstate highways being built. Highway people aren’t elected.