Engaging society for spatial transformations.
Week 1: Active citizenship & The need for transformation.
Citizen’s Initiatives: How local governments fill their facilitative role –
Bakker, J., Denter, B., Oude Vrienlink, M., Klok, P.J.
Abstract: Many Dutch municipalities consider citizens’ initiatives (Cis) as an attractive alternative for
municipal policies aimed at improving the liveability and safety in neighbourhoods, simultaneously
building responsible citizenship.
Citizens who are active in such initiatives participate in shaping their neighbourhood, working for the
common good. CIs are hybrids in which citizen take the lead but collaborate with public authorities.
They are expected to provide cheap alternatives to costly government plans and to empower and
educate citizens and reduce their reliance on state bureaucracies.
CIs are dependent on the support of public authorities. The research question of this paper is; ‘What
actions do local authorities take to facilitate citizens’ initiatives.
The definition of CIs as used in this paper: Collective activities by citizens aimed at providing local
‘public goods or services’ (e.g. regarding the liveability and safety) in their street, neighbourhood or
town, in which citizens decide themselves
both about the aims and means of their
project and in which local authorities have a
supporting or facilitating role.
Ostrom developed the Institutional Analysis
and Development (IAD) framework which
identifies factors that positively or negatively
affect attempts at self-governance. This
framework will be used as a foundation for
our findings.
In the figure two types of actors are central:
citizens involved in the initiative and
facilitators trying (a) to mobilise citizens to
initiative such collective action and (b)
enhancing the changes of effective collective
action.
We distinguish two main categories of facilitation: facilitation by network structuration and
facilitation by process management.
Facilitation by network structuration: Rules are an important condition for structuring the
playing field of the CIs. For the facilitators, many of these rules are given. Facilitators still
have room to formulate domain-specific formal and informal rules that structure the arena
for CIs. Setting such domain-specific rules is an important instrument for network
management.
Facilitation by process management: Process management refers to activities aimed at
steering the interactions, within a certain action arena, in such a way as to solve joint
problems to achieve particular collective goals.
,How can facilitators effectively influence citizen’s choices? Lowndes et al. have formulated their
CLEAR model. The CLEAR Model connects three factors of the Civic Voluntarism Model of Verba et al
(CAN DO, LIKE TO, ASKED TO), and adds two factors ENABLED TO and RESPONDED.
Facilitators might use the model to think about interventions that will mobilise potential participants.
They also might use the model to increase the changes of successful CIs. In this they might use
network structuration or process management instruments.
In reality
Five CI’s are analysed by doing interviews. Established relevant exogenous factors are: the social and
physical neighbourhood conditions & physical attributes. Starting conditions may also have an impact
on the nature of the CIs.
Facilitation by network structuration
The facilitation by network structuration can be found in reality. In all cases there was some kind of
neighbourhood governance present. The CIs are especially supported in the mobilisation phase. They
often get a budget from the state. Giving subsidies helps mobilise the initiatives, however it also
bring limitations. A major issue for example is who will administer and control the spending.
Getting subsidies requires certain rules these rules may have the (unintended) effect of preventing
the initiation of CIs and discouraging potential participants. Of course it is difficult to find hard
evidence for such non-events. Rules are likely to affect the resources of groups and participants. The
use of rules may stand in the way of responding adequately to citizen demands and may reduce
rather than enhance the public’s trust in government. Rules may also have indirectly have an impact
on the citizen’s motivations.
Facilitation by process management
The CLEAR framework’s CAN, LIKE, ENABLE and RESPOND factors will be used to describe how
facilitators may invite and stimulate participation in CIs, or achieve the opposite.
CAN DO: Citizens need time to engage in CIs. Facilitators can help find possible participants
who do have the time to join and can adjust the agenda to suit the time schedule of
participants.
Civic skills are also important. To start up you need some basic skills. This is often not the
case in low-income communities. Facilitators could help by giving advice or training. In reality
there is not often made an effort to improve citizen’s skills.
LIKE TO: There is a wide variety of motivations that inspire citizens to engage in CIs. A desire
to contribute, because it is fun, or the fact that there is a problem in the neighbourhood.
The state can demotivate citizens.
Facilitators can stimulate participation by offering financial compensation or providing
information.
RESPONDED TO: Formal and informal rules in local government may stand in the way of
responsiveness and flexibility in the interactions of the CIs initiators. Agenda control over
public affairs is usually in the hands of the administrator. One of the main challenges for
facilitators is finding a good balance between interference and paternalism on the one hand
and negligence and lack of empathy on the other hand.
ENABLED TO: Facilitators may help initiators find right social capital within the
neighbourhood.
Conclusions and discussions.
,Currently local strategies heavily emphasise the provision of financial resources and the conditions
for providing support for CIs. Much less attention is paid to the potential use of rules to provide
guarantees for responsiveness and flexibility or the provisions of other forms of support. Other
potential bottlenecks – like the availability of resources and access to relevant local networks and
responsiveness of local governments – get far less attention.
There were only limited variations in municipal mobilisation strategies, which leave us to wonder if
they took the exogenous conditions into account.
The dark side of transformation: Latent risks in contemporary
sustainability discourse. – Blythe, J., Silver,J., Evans, L., Armitage, D.,
Bennet, N.J., Moore, M.
The idea of transformation is gaining traction in global environmental change policy debates. In
contrast to resilience or adaptation, transformation is often described as significant reordering, one
that challenges existing structures to produce something fundamentally novel. Transformation
fosters systemic reforms, and creates genuinely alternative futures.
However, there is a lack of a critical, integrated body of research on transformation. The notion of
transformation does not rest on well-developed theory.
The Transformative Turn is Sustainability Science.
How are scientists, policymakers and practitioners framing the term transformations?
Sustainable scientists broadly understand transformation as fundamental restructuring not only in
specific sector-based systems, but also in social, economic and political systems. In order to address
the root cause of inequality and environmental degradation, there is consensus that significant
systemic changes are needed that challenge existing structures. Four general framings of
transformations to sustainability have emerged and have been recognised.
1. Transitions approaches: transition approaches, largely characterise transformation as multi-
scalar, socio-technological transitions towards low-carbon futures.
2. Social-ecological transformations: Social-ecological transformations results in novel,
emergent system properties, changes in critical systems feedbacks, and a re-ordering of
social-ecological relationships. It is recognised that any transformation will also involve
unanticipated consequences that may make some conditions worse than before.
3. Sustainable pathways: Sustainable pathways approach emphasises the need for balance
between human development objectives, justice, and ecological sustainability with a
particular focus on the power and politics of institutional change.
4. Transformative adaptation: Transformative adaptation approaches shift the analytical focus
of transformation research from accommodating change, to contesting the underlying social,
political, and economic structures that produce marginalisation and inequality.
The notion of transformations is also picked up in practice. The term transformations is increasingly
appearing in prominent sustainability policies and platforms. The notion of transformation
increasingly informs a set of applied practices that seek to safeguard natural systems and enhance
societal wellbeing for future generations.
Thus, while sustainability scientists apply transformations as an academic concept to describe social-
ecological interactions, policymakers increasingly use it is a tool to prescribe real world actions and to
make claims about the actions and policies they will implement. This shift, from theory to practice, is
, producing ambiguities and tensions with significant implications for social, political and ecological
change.
Five Latent Risks.
Five latent risks associated with the shift from descriptive to prescriptive engagements with the
concept of transformations to sustainability. These risks are fluid, interactive, and not meant to be
comprehensive or exclusive.
Risk 1: Transformation Discourse Risks Shifting the Burden of Response Onto Vulnerable Parties.
Citizens are increasingly encouraged to become more self-aware proactive and prepared – with an
associated decrease in dependence on and expectations of the state. A growing group of scholars
raise concerns about shifting the responsibility for safeguarding future security from state to citizens.
Transformation discourse rooted in this type of thinking risks shifting the burden of response from
the systemic drivers of global change towards individuals or communities as the most appropriate
drivers of transformational change.
Risk 2: Transformation Discourse May Be Used to Justify Business-As-Usual.
There seems to be ongoing conceptual confusion about the differences between adaptation,
transformation, and business-as-usual. Organisations seem to be using it as a catch all phrase. This
tendency to use transformation as a loose description or as interchangeable with adaptation both (1)
directs effort towards building the resilience of the existing system rather than transforming it, which
is in direct opposition to the intention of engaging in transformation research and practice; and (2) as
a consequence, provides yet another means to justify business-as-usual approaches.
Risk 3: Transformation Discourse Pays Insufficient Attention to Social Differentiation.
Transformation narratives have paid insufficient attention to the differential access that different
people have to decision and policy-making processes, capital and resources, and to how
transformation policies and practices are viewed and experienced by different social groups.
Transformative actions often involve trade-offs that disproportionately affect already marginalised or
vulnerable groups.
Consensus around the need for transformation can mask plural notions about what the problem is
exactly, what constitutes relevant evidence, and what, therefore, are considered appropriate
solutions.
Risk 4: Transformation Discourse Can Exclude The Possibility of Non-Transformation or Resistance.
Conflict and people’s resistance to change initiatives, particularly those devised by others, is a critical
but under-emphasised consideration in emerging transformation discourse and practice.
Transformation discourse can underplay the role of resistance and potentially high levels of conflict
in transformation processes. In particular, the role of resistance and conflict in triggering
transformation at higher levels of the system are under-recognised.
Risk 5: Insufficient Treatment of Power and Politics Threatens the Legitimacy of Transformation
Discourse.
Transformation is seen as inherently good and largely defines what is legitimate and justifiable
knowledge and practice for transformations to sustainability. Our final risk, therefore concerns the
failure to recognise that political processes underpin transformation, which intrinsically involves
shifts in power.
Towards a ‘Brighter’ Side of Transformation.
