Abstract
Bringing Citizen Voices to the Table incorporates the substantial literature on civic engagement and collaborative governance with important recent cases. Collaborative governance offers the public manager, dealing with today’s political, economic, and social environment, a viable way to frame and present issues not only to organize stakeholders with common missions, but also to craft collaborative public solutions to social problems. Louise Geddes (2012) defines collaborative governance as “a process of facilitating and operating in multi-organizational arrangements to solve complex problems and achieve common goals” (p. 948). She emphazises the collaboration as John Thomas (2012) acknowledges the importance of the different ways citizens interact with government in Citizen, Customer, Partner.
Chapter 1 of Lukensmeyer’s book provides a background on civic engagement in the United States. Chapter 2 details AmericaSpeaks and a 21st Century Town Meeting. Chapter 3 discusses the importance of civic engagement in public policy and management with Chapter 4 focusing on civic engagement and the role of public managers. The following chapters detail the strategies for public managers in engaging citizens: knowing the context (Chapter 5), linking to decision makers (Chapter 6), achieving diverse participation (Chapter 7), creating a safe public place (Chapter 8), informing participants (Chapter 9), sharing priorities (Chapter 10), and sustaining citizen engagement (Chapter 11). Chapter 12 discusses the use of information and communication technology in citizen engagement. Chapter 13 concludes with recommendations for infrastructure for an effective civic engagement.
The 21st Century Town Meeting takes collaborative governance to a large scale by bringing thousands of citizens together to deliberate over public issues. The 21st Century Town Meeting is inspired by Beyond Adversary Democracy, Jane Mansbridge’s 1983 publication, which proposes civil public deliberation of policy options and trade-offs to arrive at mutually agreed-upon decisions. This specific collaborative model uses small group dialogue, networked computers, trained facilitators, large video screens, and linkages through electronic keypads to get demographic and opinion data from participants. Agreed-upon values become topics for discussion among participants.
The starting point for deliberation is restoring Americans’ trust in government due to “the massive gulf between what Americans have come to believe about their government and what the government actually does for all of us” (p. xxv). This disconnect can be bridged by citizen engagement, which will produce a better informed and engaged public. In addition, “deliberative democracy” gives citizens the opportunity to shape public policy by providing sound information from those most affected by it. This can reduce the power that special interests currently have on determining public policy and will produce policy with greater public support, encourage the public’s interest in shaping policy, and increase public trust in government. According to Lukensmeyer, “linking public will to political will is essential to solving the major issues facing our nation” (p. 3). Finally, if citizens are aware of the problems and understand there will be trade-offs in any solution they are more likely to accept policy changes which may curtail or modify services.
For example, AmericaSpeaks used the 21st Century Town Meeting to establish partnerships with stakeholder groups, including neighborhood associations, and hired members of these organizations to do outreach among those people who remained in New Orleans, as well as those who left in the “diaspora” post Katrina to other cities including Houston, Dallas, Baton Rouge, and Atlanta, to help craft post-Katrina policy. In two Community Congress meetings, 500 volunteers recruited and facilitated the meeting process for a total of 4,000 demographically representative citizens and asked attendees to “think about their city as a whole” (p. 47). The Unified Plan they crafted was agreed upon, or strongly agreed upon, by 91% of the participants. When pushback occurred to the Unified Plan, the citizens showed sustained engagement and, in June 2007, the Louisiana Recovery Authority approved the plan from the Community Congresses organized by AmericaSpeaks.
Lukensmeyer details the process and steps managers can take to solicit and build citizen engagement. The seven steps include “know the context, link to decision makers, achieve diverse participation, create a safe public space, inform participants, discover shared priorities and sustain citizen engagement” (p. 83). Each aspect must be considered to craft an inclusive system. Citizen engagement allows government officials to know what the community values and provides a method to prioritize the community’s needs and desires.
The model outlined by Lukensmeyer can be, and often is, utilized by citizens to engage government on issues of concern or on budget restrictions affecting their segment of society. The first strategy, knowing the context, could be deemed an automatic concept; however, it involves much from stakeholders. Lukensmeyer explains that any leadership or management team must have an understanding of the context in which one is operating to develop a viable plan or desired leverage. Furthermore, the assessment must take into account the demographics, geography, leadership and intuitional landscape. Furthermore, Lukensmeyer indicates true dedication toward citizens requires decision makers’ commitment to the process—and its results—as having some demonstrable impact on how the issue moves forward. This strategy requires decision makers to be engage in framing the issue and the development of the materials and agenda.
The third strategy, achieving diverse participation, is “the cornerstone of effective and successful engagement” (pp. 132-133) by utilizing a diverse group of individuals’ perspectives to create decisions which show validity and creditability over the long run. Another aspect of diverse participation is having a wide array of perspectives which allows for a fair and balanced conclusion on the important public policy issues. The fourth strategy, creating a safe public space, involves the idea of establishing a place where the community can provide their views on the issues. Lukensmeyer promotes a safe deliberative space as a prerequisite for achieving freedom for the public to express their individual perspectives. By providing the public the space to express their individual viewpoints, it highlights the willingness to open up to new ways of thinking about long-held beliefs and real relationships. Strategy five, informing participants, means providing high-quality and easy to understand information. It is important, when informing participants, that the format includes a history of the issue, the current facts, and a starting list of potential options for action. Furthermore, when providing the information to participants, Lukensmeyer notes the importance of ensuring integrity. Therefore, the information must be accurate, neutral, and accessible. The sixth strategy, discovering shared priorities, allows for citizens to have an impact on governance through creating compromise and building relationships in diverse communities. The final strategy is the summation of all of the strategies: sustaining citizen engagement. Yet it is important not to revert back to old habits. It is not enough to create the collaborative governance by involving the community if it is not a continuous process. Lukensmeyer explains that sustained engagement means regular and ongoing opportunities are available for citizens to have an impact on the issues as they develop.
Lukensmeyer presents an interesting argument concerning the lack of legal mandates for participation. She believes the government does not have any budgets, legislative influence, or new mandates in practice that lauds civic engagement. Although the 1964 Administrative Act is in place, it despises the scope of public participation and outreach. She also questions whether this is the reason behind lack of public participation. Fung (2006) supports Lukensmeyer’s point by indicating legitimacy is a challenge faced in democratic governance. Concerning the development of these mandates, agencies should consider partnering with all sectors in an effort to get more citizens involved. She argues if the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) succeeded without having to report to anyone, then so can participatory organizations. Aside from passing legislative mandates for participatory organizations, robust education is another infrastructure suggested. As citizens are not devoting time or energy to understand such policies (Durant & Susannah, 2013), public managers must ensure newly developed infrastructures provide citizens the information they need to “thrive civically” (p. 295). Lukensmeyer highlights there should be more emphasis placed on the “less engaged” communities. In fact, studies indicate the majority of citizens who participate are wealthy and better educated. The challenge is for public managers to foster deliberative practices by mediating organizations in an effort to restore citizens’ trust (Fung, 2006). Lukensmeyer concludes that deliberative governance can improve the public’s trust in government and deliberative techniques and can improve democracy because it “replaces decision makers whose actions have been unjust with direct public participation or put pressure that compel officials to act justly” (Fung, 2006, p. 71). Fung argues selective recruitment addresses populations who are less likely to participate. For example, when public hearing events are freely “open to the public,” it only attracts the ones who usually participate. However, using the “selective participant” approach allows public managers to target a specific population. For instance, low-income communities will most likely be interested in attending public hearings focused on reducing crime, while an elder population may be interested in meetings to discuss social security or Medicaid issues. A good model of a current practice is James Fishkin’s Deliberative Polls, which is a random selective method ensuring citizens receive the resources needed to become more informed and able to express their views on current issues.
In addition to significant scholarship and cases, the book provides practical recommendations for public managers to understand when and how the citizens should be integrated into the practice of public policy and administration.