A Ladder of Citizen Participation
The following article is quite old,but never-the-less of great value to anyone interested in issues of citizen participation.The concepts discusd in this article about1960's America are still mostly unknown by people around the world.Many planners,architects,politicians,boss,project leaders and power-holder still dress all variety of manipulations up as participation in the process,citizen consultation' and other shades of technobable.
This article was reprinted in "The City Reader" (cond edition) edited by Richard T.Gates and Frederic Stout,1996,Routledge Press.Their editors' introduction is well worth reading.Plea copy and re-distribute this article.Let's work to help people understand the difference between 'citizen control' and' manipulation'.If you're reading this then I assume you are interested in empowering people to take charge of their lives and their surrounding.I salute you for this work.
Citizen participation is citizen power
Becau the question has been a bone of political contention, most of the answers have been purpoly buried in innocuous euphemisms like "lf-help" or "citizen involvement." Still others have been embellished with misleading rhetoric like "absolute control" which is something no one - including
the President of the United States - has or can have. Between understated euphemisms and exacerbated rhetoric, even scholars have found it difficult to follow the controversy. To the headline reading public,it is simply bewildering.
情人节翻译My answer to the critical what question is simply that citizen participation is a categorical term for citizen power.It is the redistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens, prently excluded from the political and economic process, to be deliberately included in the future. It is the strategy by which the have-nots join in determining how information is shared, goals and policies are t,tax resources are allocated,programs are operated, and benefits like contracts and patronage are parceled out. In short, it is the means by which they can induce significant social reform which enables them to share in the benefits of the affluent society.
Empty Refusal V ersus Benefit
There is a critical difference between going through the empty ritual of
21天掌握当众讲话诀窍participation and having the real power needed to affect the outcome of the process. This difference is brilliantly capsulized in a poster painted last spring [1968] by the French students to explain the student-worker rebellion. (See Figure1.)The poster highlights the fundamental point that participation
without redistribution of power is an empty and frustrating process for the powerless. It allows the powerholders to claim that all sides were considered, but makes it possible for only some of tho sides to benefit. It maintains the status quo.Esntially, it is what has been happening in most of the 1,000 Comm-unity Action Programs, and what promis to be repea-ted in the vast majority of the 150 Model Cities programs.
Types of participation and "nonparticipation"
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mediaringA typology of eight levels of participation may help in analysis of this confud issue.For illustrative pur-pos the eight types are arranged in a ladder pattern with each rung corres-ponding to the extent of citizens' power in deter-mining the end product. (See Figure 2.)
The bottom rungs of the ladder are (1)Manipulation and (2) Therapy. The two rungs describe levels of "non-participation" that have been contrived by some to substitute for genuine participation. Their real objective is not to enable people to participate in planning or conducting programs,but to enable power holders to"educate"or"cure"the participants. Rungs 3 and 4 progress to levels of "tokenism" that allow the have not to hear and to have a voice:(3)Informing and(4)Consultation.When they are proffered by power holders as the total extent of participation, citi
zens may indeed hear and be heard. But under the conditions they lack the power to insure that their views will be heeded by the powerful. When participation is restricted to the levels, there is no follow-through, no "muscle," hence no assurance of changing the statusquo.Rung (5) Placation is simply a higher level tokenism becau the ground rules allow have-nots to advi, but retain for the power holders the continued right to decide.
Further up the ladder are levels of citizen power with increasing degrees of decision-making clout.Citizens can enter into a(6) Partnership that enables them to negotiate and engage in trade-offs with traditional power holders. At the topmost rungs,(7)Delegated Power and(8)Citizen Control, have-not citizens obtain the汤姆索亚历险记
2019专四答案majority of decision-making ats, or full managerial power.
Obviously, the eight-rung ladder is a simplification, but it helps to illustrate the point that so many have misd-that there are significant gradations of citizen participation. Knowing the gradations makes it possible to cut through the hyperbole to understand the increasingly strident demands for participation from the have-nots as well as the gamut of confusing respons from the powerholders.
Though the typology us examples from federal programs such as urban renewal, anti-poverty, and
Model Cities, it could just as easily be illustrated in the church, currently facing demands for power from priests and laymen who ek to change its mission; colleges and universities which in some cas have become literal battlegrounds over the issue of student power; or public schools, city halls,and police departments(or big business which is likely to be next on the expanding list of targets).The underlying issues are esntially the same - "nobodies" in veral arenas are trying to become"somebodies" with enough power to make the target institutions responsive to their views, aspirations,and needs.
Limitations of the Typology
The ladder juxtapos powerless citizens with the powerful in order to highlight the fundamental divisions between them. In actuality, neither the have-nots nor the powerholders are homogeneous blocs. Each group encompass a host of divergent points of view, significant cleavages, competing vested interests, and splintered subgroups. The justification for using such simplistic abstractions is that in most cas the have-nots really do perceive the powerful as a monolithic "system," and powerholders actually do view the have-nots as a a of "tho people," with little comprehension of the class and caste differences among them.
穿普拉达的女魔头end of the line
It should be noted that the typology does not include an analysis of the most significant roadblocks to achieving genuine levels of participation. The roadblocks lie on both sides of the simplistic fence. On the powerholders' side, they include racism, paternalism, and resistance to power redistribution. On the have-nots' side, they include inadequacies of the poor community's political socioeconomic infrastructure and knowledge-ba, plus difficulties of organizing a reprentative and accountable citizens' group in the face of futility, alienation, and distrust.
Another caution about the eight parate rungs on the ladder: In the real world of people and programs,there might be 150 rungs with less sharp and "pure" distinctions among them. Furthermore some of the characteristics ud to illustrate each of the eight types might be applicable to other rungs. For example,employment of the have-nots in a program or on a planning staff could occur at any of the eight rungs and could reprent either a legitimate or illegitimate characteristic of citizen participation. Depending on their motives, powerholders can hire poor people to co-opt them, to placate them, or to utilize the have-nots' special skills and insights. Some mayors, in private, actually boast of their strategy in hiring militant black leaders to muzzle them while destroying their credibility in the black community.
Characteristics and illustrations
It is in this context of power and powerlessness that the characteristics of the eight rungs are illustrated by examples from current federal social programs.
Manipulation
In the name of citizen participation, people are placed on rubberstamp advisory committees or advisory boards for the express purpo of "educating" them or engineering their support. Instead of genuine citizen participation, the bottom rung of the ladder signifies the distortion of participation into a public relations vehicle by powerholders.
birthday cakeThis illusory form of "participation" initially came into vogue with urban renewal when the socially elite were invited by city housing officials to rve on Citizen Advisory Committees (CACs). Another target of manipulation were the CAC subcommittees on minority groups, which in theory were to protect the rights of Negroes in the renewal program. In practice, the sub-committees, like their parent CACs, functioned mostly as letterheads, trotted forward at appropriate times to promote urban renewal plans (in recent years known as Negro removal plans).
At meetings of the Citizen Advisory Committees, it was the officials who educated, persuaded, and advid the citizens, not the rever. Federal guidelines for the renewal programs legitimized the ma
日翻中nipulative agenda by emphasizing the terms "information-gathering," public relations," and"support" as the explicit functions of the committees.
Therapy
In some respects group therapy, masked as citizen participation, should be on the lowest rung of the ladder becau it is both dishonest and arrogant. Its administrators - mental health experts from social workers to psychiatrists - assume that powerlessness is synonymous with mental illness. On this assumption, under a masquerade of involving citizens in planning, the experts subject the citizens to clinical group therapy. What makes this form of "participation" so invidious is that citizens are engaged in extensive activity, but the focus of it is on curing them of their "pathology" rather than changing the racism and victimization that create their "pathologies."
Informing
Informing citizens of their rights, responsibilities, and options can be the most important first step toward legitimate citizen participation. However, too frequently the emphasis is placed on a one-way flow of information - from officials to citizens - with no channel provided for feedback and no power for negotiation. Under the conditions, particularly when information is provided at a late stage in pl
anning, people have little opportunity to influence the program designed "for their benefit." The most frequent tools ud for such one-way communication are the news media, pamphlets, posters, and respons to inquiries.
Meetings can also be turned into vehicles for one-way communication by the simple device of providing superficial information, discouraging questions, or giving irrelevant answers.
Consultation
Inviting citizens' opinions, like informing them, can be a legitimate step toward their full participation.But if consulting them is not combined with other modes of participation, this rung of the ladder is still a sham since it offers no assurance that citizen concerns and ideas will be taken into account. The most frequent methods ud for consulting people are attitude surveys, neighborhood meetings, and public hearings.
When powerholders restrict the input of citizens' ideas solely to this level, participation remains just a window-dressing ritual. People are primarily perceived as statistical abstractions, and participation is measured by how many come to meetings,
