In the context of developing countries, the
situation of the mostly rural, poor, and needy people is particularly acute,
since the policy makers and experts may have excluded the people’s voices in
their decision-making process.
This post is about power structures in
society and how they interact. Specifically it is a guide to seeing who has
power when important decisions are being made.
The concepts discussed in the Arnstein
(1969) article about 1960's America apply to any hierarchical society but are still
mostly unknown, unacknowledged or ignored by many people around the world.
Most distressing is that even people who
have the job of representing citizens views seem largely unaware, or even
dismissive of these principles. Many planners, architects, politicians, bosses,
project leaders and power-holder still dress all variety of manipulations up as
'participation in the process', 'citizen consultation' and other shades of
technobabble.
As humanitarians, we need to work to help
people understand the difference between 'citizen control' and 'manipulation'.
If you are reading this then thank you for your interest in empowering people
to take charge of their lives and their surrounding.
Types of participation and
"non-participation"
A typology of eight levels of participation
may help in analysis of this confused issue. For illustrative purposes the
eight types are arranged in a ladder pattern with each rung corresponding to
the extent of citizens' power in deter-mining the end product. (See Figure 1 below)
Figure 1. Eight rungs on the
ladder of citizen participation (Arnstein, 1969)
The bottom rungs of the ladder are (1)
Manipulation and (2) Therapy. These two rungs describe levels of
"non-participation" that have been contrived by some to substitute
for genuine participation. Their real objective is not to enable people to
participate in planning or conducting programs, but to enable power holders to "educate" or "cure"
the participants.
Rungs 3 and 4 progress to levels of
"tokenism" that allow the have-nots to hear and to have a voice: (3)
Informing and (4) Consultation. When they are proffered by power holders as the
total extent of participation, citizens may indeed hear and be heard. But under
these conditions they lack the power to insure that their views will be heeded
by the powerful. When participation is restricted to these levels, there is no
follow-through, no "muscle," hence no assurance of changing the
status quo.
Rung (5) Placation is simply a higher level
tokenism because the ground rules allow have-nots to advise, but retain for the
powerholders the continued right to decide.
Further up the ladder are levels of citizen
power with increasing degrees of decision-making clout. Citizens can enter into
a (6) Partnership that enables them to negotiate and engage in trade-offs with
traditional power holders.
At the topmost rungs, (7) Delegated Power
and (8) Citizen Control, have-not citizens obtain the majority of
decision-making seats, or full managerial power.
Obviously, the eight-rung ladder is a
simplification, but it helps to illustrate the point that so many have missed -
that there are significant gradations of citizen participation.
Knowing these gradations makes it possible
to cut through the hyperbole to understand the increasingly strident demands
for participation from the have-nots as well as the gamut of confusing
responses from the powerholders.
One solution to this problem would seem to
be based on the progressive involvement of the ‘have-nots’, which implies
effective citizen participation and control to achieve self and
mutual-help. Transferring Arnstein’s
rungs of the ladder of participation to developing countries is however, an
idea that is in theory the cornerstone of democracy in principle, but sadly not
the true case, perhaps it is a distant prospect but nonetheless worth aiming
for.
Note
For more information on the citizen ladder of participation, please read full article here
Arnstein, Sherry R.
"A Ladder of Citizen Participation," JAIP, Vol. 35, No. 4, July 1969,
pp. 216-224. and
here
Please feel free to send in your comments.
