‘A Citizen led future’; can it be done?

For Paul Raskin, surviving the ‘community of fate’, occasioned by the global environmental and ecological crisis, calls for a citizen-led, world-scale, uprising[1].? “[T]he natural change agent for a Great Transition would be a global citizens movement, a vast cultural and political rising, able to redirect policy, tame corporations, and unify civil society”[2].? It can be done, he thinks.? Can I share the hope??

My answer is going to be yes, perhaps, hopefully, but not without

-???a re-awakening of ideas of active citizenship, -???a willingness to keep focused on the positive as against the negative -??and, perhaps most difficult, that on a world scale [3].?

‘Citizen – led innovation for a new economy’[4] is a 2015 edited volume of case studies of citizen-led initiatives in North America [the USA and Canada].? The eleven cases are very different, but the introductory chapter looks for common threads. There are varied entry points for community organisers. Citizen leaders emerged in response to perceived local decline or deprivation. What they felt they were up against became the driving imperative, be it a fading away of government interest in the local economy or an extractive industry sucking resources out of the local economy or, more simply, political neglect, decline and stagnation.

Where did the necessary ideas come from? ?We live in an age in which national governments and political parties are assumed to be the major political actors, citizens mere recipients, beneficiaries and occasional voters. ?Deep political skepticism and alienation is the outcome.? But today’s political leaders of any persuasion, leftist or rightist, are unlikely to be overtly supportive of ‘grass-roots’ activists that disturb local power structures or prevailing economic organisation and interests.?

These case studies show that active citizens justify and legitimate their strategies by appeal to well accepted social principles. ?In some, the need for action was supported by appeal to a rights-based argument. In others, local self-determination became the agenda. ‘Building community’ was itself a motive. ?An environmental sustainability discourse was another trigger.? A shared idea of citizenship responsibilities and obligations is that civic engagement must extend beyond the ballot box.?

But how to get there?? With no blueprint for organisers to follow, a ‘learning by doing’ approach underlies the Mathie and Gaventa case studies.? The sharing of ideas and experience, led to some modestly coherent ideas about processes of social innovation and new forms locally focused economy. ?‘Learning by doing’ entails building common cause. To make a local economy work differently calls for the development of shared ideas about what needs to change and a strategy for getting there. ?‘Doers’ can utilise different organisational forms; associations, membership-based organisations, or formal non-profits, as suits their needs. ?To get the necessary leverage for change may call for the development of partnerships across institutions and sectors.? Sustained leadership is key, even if delivered by different people in different positions or phases. ?An ability to self-organise, adapt and change, while remaining focused, is a constant theme. ?What all this says to me is that the leaders and initiators in such initiatives need to be able to think and act ‘outside the box’, whether the ‘box’ be a given job description, institutional role, or social status.? Outside the box can be lonely, but personal networks can be created that can lead to new patterns of association and organisation. This is the way to change.

Reading this material reminded me of two field visits in the 1990s, with parties of government officials from around the world on ‘rural development’ field projects. Our hosts were the good citizens of Vingelen, a remote village in central Norway, who were actively demonstrating how to self-organise, adapt and manage their changing circumstances[5].

Vingelen, was then a village of some 600 people in a Commune of some 3000 people. It had many clubs and associations, a thriving agricultural co-operative and the branch of the co-operative bank. ?The biggest surprise was that it also had a locally raised venture capital fund, the manager of which had resigned from government service to run the fund, taking as his first responsibility the raising of his own salary and that of his part time secretary, through consultancy work, some for the Commune. The village was expanding its old peoples’ homes, run by the women's club, purchasing building timber from the co-operative sawmill, one of the first investments of the venture capital fund.? Other projects had been developed using resources derived from the hunting of reindeer and elk, local farmers, through hunters’ associations, both benefiting and contributing to funds that went to build and maintain access roads to the surrounding summer grazing pastures.

Some leaders had formal roles on committees or as councillors in the Commune. Others, we were told, were ‘movers and shakers’ behind the scene. There was also outside stimulation. A museum[6], next to the church, was a direct result of their participation in a nationally inspired "cultural landscape" project that had had them sitting in groups through the winter working out what to do about diversifying the economy out of over reliance on heavily subsidised agriculture. Vingelen, we discovered, had a dense net of institutions, with formal or informal rules, issue or interest focused, locally worked out in many cases, nationally supported in some.? We saw no essential conflict with the formal structures of the state through which a part of the local resources came.? But when the Commune indicated that the village Kindergarten might have to close the response was, 'well, what can we do to take it over?’.

My village, Barnt Green, Worcestershire, lies just outside the city of Birmingham UK. It is not entirely a sleepy dormitory village. From time to time, it has participated in the UK government sponsored Neighbourhood Watch crime protection scheme. ?During the pandemic, when social mixing was prohibited by government, neighbourly care was promoted in our street through a cunningly conceived linear street party that enabled people to converse while staying within the government’s social distancing rules.? Pandemic over, there remains a residue of neighbourliness, but most residents have, ‘gone, like snails, back into their own shells’. ?Might they re-emerge to face new challenges?? Along with the rest of UK, we now have an energy crisis on top of a cost-of-living crisis. ?A lot could be done, and probably is being done, on an individual household basis about draft proofing and insulation. The Parish or District Councils could help by conducting heat loss surveys on a neighbourhood basis. ?But how about a community level initiative on energy generation?[7] Real opportunity to make a difference here.

[1] Paul Raskin ??Journey to Earthland. ?https://greattransition.org/publication/journey-to-earthland

[2] My LinkedIn post of 23/10/2022. ‘Where from here? A Community of Fate Awaits’.

[3] I lack immediate ideas, but am encouraged by ‘The Elders’. https://theelders.org/

[4] Alison Mathie and John Gaventa (eds) Citizen-led Innovation for a New Economy (2015) Practical Action Publishing [Fernwood Publishing].

[5] I wrote about those visits at the time for an in-house departmental conference paper, which I now consult.

[6] Now featuring in tourist information. https://www.visitnorway.com/listings/vingelen-church-and-school-museum/190412/

[7] See for instance https://communityenergyengland.org/ and https://www.current-news.co.uk/the-local-electricity-bill-is-passed-into-law-to-help-empower-community-energy/

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