Reflexivity and participation in communities

Social and civil rights movements and their demands:

Social movements (feminism, black empowerment, civil rights, disability rights, gay rights …) criticise
their exclusion from exercising power and claim full participation in public decision-making processes as a right.

In response, international and national legislation opened up new or stronger participation and self- representation rights

Examples:

“Convention on the Rights of the Child” (UNICEF, https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention) or the UN “Convention on the Rights of Disabled
Persons” (https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments- mechanisms/instruments/declaration-rights- disabled-persons.

Democracy as an instrument for both inclusion and exclusion? “Grounds for optimism” are the
expansion of participation rights in many areas

Looking back in history,
where did you benefit from the participation claims by social movements?

In what areas are you or would you like to become active to campaign for better participation rights?

Where would you draw the line and limit public participation rights to
certain groups of people?

Participation as an
obligation

The neoliberal critique of prioritising citizen rights over citizen obligations.

Activation as pre-condition for participation

Examples:
“Workfare not welfare” (Reagan, Thatcher)
“The activated citizen”; “Welfare as trampoline not a hammock” (Schröder).

“In variance to the previous government (in Finland), the government in power from 2011–2015 that continued implementing policies for active citizenship and participation, changed the ideological focal point of Finnish citizenship from social rights and benefits to an obligation to work. This impacted the distribution of citizenship rights and duties in a way that increased inequality”(Matthies, Närhi, & Kokkonen, 2018, 10).

Watson (2015) found “that the conditionality of
workfare-based benefits has a depressive effect on any forms of participation, and in particular on forms of democratic political participation”.(ibid., 14)

How do you perceive your social rights as a citizen of your country – do they
make you feel secure that in crises you will be supported, or do they put you under pressure to “protect yourself”?

Discuss indications of the following phenomena in current political
statements: self-
responsibility, community orientation, civil society
resources, and the spirit of voluntarism … how can
the empowering core of such phrases be made effective against the
manipulative misuse of
such terms?

Privatisation of former public services is being advertised by governments as “giving service users as customers and consumers a wider range of options to choose from”.

Trends in the “outsourcing” of social and care services, creation of a “market of services” instead of the “monopoly” of state services create new forms and conditions of participation.

“Participation under ideology-determined social policy conditions of neoliberalism becomes “Janus faced… We argue that this type of two-fold participation paradigm deepens the disparity within society, as people dependent on welfare services and in a precarious labour market situation do not benefit from the greater freedoms, and instead have to behave according to the increased expectations
enforced by these freedoms” (Matthies, Närhi, & Kokkonen, 2018, 13).

Can public goods and services be treated like commercial goods and services?

What are the likely effects of the emphasis on personal choice for
equality in society?

Risks for a “mechanical” application
of
participation

The inflationary, prescribed use of participation can lead to the concept becoming
- “tokenism” (Beresford, 2010) due to “service users functioning as pawns rather than pioneers” (Roets et al., 2012),
- “confidence trick”, seducing service users into disclosing information over whose use they have no control and which aids primarily the “experts”,
- a mere “buzzword” that satisfies only superficial criteria without touching issues of power inequalities (Cornwall & Brock, 2005),
- a means of “reproducing subordination, inferiority, and powerlessness” because the issue of power in helping relationships is being obscured through the pretence of equality (Boone et al., 2019),

In what context does the invitation / condition to practice participation arise?

What is the declared and what is the hidden agenda of a programme that
makes a participatory approach to practice a condition?