Power in Action by Steven Friedman

Author:Steven Friedman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wits University Press
Published: 2018-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

INVENTED SPACES: AVOIDING THE STRAITJACKET

Insisting that democracy requires the participation of everyone, particularly the poor and weak, is open to a misunderstanding. It was noted earlier that development writing is filled with support for a citizen role in decisions, but that it tends to assume that this is best achieved by ‘public participation’ techniques and the creation of formal forums, such as the PRSP processes discussed earlier.103 The stress on routine collective action as the key to extending popular sovereignty could be understood as an endorsement of formal participation forums and techniques designed to ensure regular engagement between office holders and the grassroots. But structured participation forums or techniques cannot ensure effective routine collective action which would deepen and broaden popular sovereignty.

Besides the other objections levelled against them here, structured forums tend to assume a false community of interest within society. If everyone shared the same interests, it would be possible to discover the opinions of entire ‘communities’ or societies. In reality, ‘communities’ inevitably include a range of differing identities and interests.104 Gender is an obvious divide, but so is social class or interest divisions as basic as that between transport providers and commuters or differences of language or ethnic origin. It is impossible for ‘communities’ to express themselves in one voice. When ‘communities’ are said to speak, which of the myriad voices is heard? The not surprising answer is that those who have the resources – material, cultural and political – to present themselves as the voice of ‘the community’ speak for all: those who are already dominant reinforce their dominance. By assuming a uniformity and equality when reality is diverse and unequal, structured participation techniques give voice only to those whose dominance enables them to be heard and silences many in order to hear some.

A more sophisticated approach to participation seeks to extend voice to ‘civil society’. Since this provides for more than one voice, it seems to avoid the problem of allowing some to speak for all. But it risks muzzling more voices than it hears. Despite the fact that definitions of civil society are hotly contested, much development literature assumes that the concept is self-explanatory because, for much development writing, it is: it refers to visible organisations which are available to negotiate with governments and aid donors – NGOs and community-based organisations (CBOs).105 This, by definition, grants voice to the organised and leaves voiceless those who lack the means to organise. It assumes that the capacity to organise is evenly spread and that those who wish to organise can do so. In reality, capacity is very uneven, and, if voice is available only to the organised, the right to speak will remain highly exclusionary.

This approach privileges some kinds of collective action over others. Those who organise in a manner which enables them to sit at the negotiating table are heard; those who combine in other ways are not.106 The ‘civil society’ approach privileges the sorts of engagement in public debate which demands cultural resources unavailable at the grassroots.

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