Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to suggest that once empowered, a people will refuse to participate. The historical
evidence of New England towns, community school boards, neighbourhood
associations and other local bodies is that participation fosters more participation.
(1984: 272)
Government and political decision-making needs to be closer to people's lives, and
decentralization has been seen as necessary for improvements in democracy,
environmental management and economic development (Bardhan, 2002). Arjun
Appadurai (2001) writes of the activities of three civil society organizations in
Mumbai: the NGO SPARC (Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres),
the National Slum Dwellers' Federation and a co-operative group representing
women's savings groups, Mahila Milan. Working together they use their own local
knowledge to develop capacity to negotiate with local government and to effect
changes that drastically improve the conditions of poor people. They promote micro-
finance, better sanitation, organize community housing surveys and exhibitions, and
the learning of key civic skills to leverage the support and recognition of other NGOs
and government officials. Alliances, networks and exchanges have been organized
with urban poor federations in other countries, making for 'a globalization from
below' and 'a politics without parties' that has deepened democratic processes. The
spread of this model elsewhere, if successful, could produce more poor communities
able to enter into partnerships with powerful agencies that concern themselves with
poverty and citizenship. Similarly, Pal (2006), studying grass-roots planning processes
in Kolkata, India, recognizes the need for political decision-makers to design new
institutional mechanisms if more people-centred politics and governance is to emerge.
Goodin and Dryzek (2006) show that deliberative innovations, 'mini publics' such
as citizen juries, deliberative polls, planning cells and consensus conferences, do have
a real and tangible effect on the wider political scene, public debate, and policy
formation and implementation. Media coverage of these mini publics may influence
policy makers and other members of the public who, through listening and discussing
issues, may change their own ideas and policy preferences. The authors offer an
example of a mini-public conference in 1999 informing the wider public debates in
Australia on genetically modified foods. Debates in the Australian legislature referred
to these debates, and Monsanto was forced to alter its communication strategy,
recognizing that corporate engagement with local people needed to go far beyond
sophisticated public relations. Mini publics can be used as a form of 'market testing',
of 'listening to the city', which may ultimately result in citizens rejecting development
proposals, as the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation discovered when its
plans to rebuild the area devastated in the September 11 attacks were fully and
openly discussed. The UK Government also explored the market of public opinion
regarding the extension of commercial GM and, despite its own stubborn refusal to
heed much of the public debate, was nonetheless forced to pursue its pro-GM policies
without the public enthusiasm or endorsement it had hoped for:
Thus, despite the government's insistence that all was well, the 'GM Nation?'
debate - and especially its more genuinely deliberative 'Narrow but Deep'
component, by which government explicitly set most store - succeeded in
extracting some 'further action' from government. Those specific measures came
in the areas of 'providing choice for consumers and farmers', 'mandatory labelling
for consumers', and steps to ensure the 'coexistence' of GM and non-GM crops.
