The Hansard Society published its latest Audit of Political Engagement on April 1st. Makes for a fascinating read considering how much energy has gone into meeting NI4.
(NI4: National Indicator4 is a benchmark by which local authorities are judged on how empowered people feel at a local level.)
I have highlighted some of the most interesting parts from a public engagement perspective here below in green.
Perceived influence over decision-making at the local and national levels
An overwhelming majority of the public feel they have ‘not very much influence’ or ‘no influence at all’ over decision-making in both their local area (73%) and the country as a whole (85%). However, more people feel they have an influence in their local area than in the country as a whole (25% versus 14%).
So it seems as if there is a swing towards local influence rather than national, yet still the positive results are very low overall showing that the public at large still feel disengaged from the policy decisions that affect their lives.
Reasons for not feeling influential in decision-making
The most commonly cited reasons for not feeling influential in decision-making point to a belief that politicians and the political system overlook the public’s views. The top two answers, ‘nobody listens to what I have to say’ (29%) and ‘decisions are made without talking to the people’ (20%) convey a strong feeling among the public that they are ignored by decision-makers. Other popularly cited reasons include ‘the system doesn’t allow for me to have an influence’ (19%) and ‘politicians are just out for themselves’ (17%).
So, we have more opportunities than ever before to be listened to through a variety of initiatives at local and national levels – yet still people feel as if their input is not taken into account, that decisions will be made without them.
Desire to be involved in decision-making
Half the public do not actually want to be involved in decision-making in their local area. Even more – 55% – do not wish to be involved in decision-making in the country as a whole.
This is really the most interesting one for me – about half of us just don’t want to be involved… why is this – I have a number of ideas:
1) Because we feel like we’re not being listened to by those in power as mentioned above.
2) We’re too busy and tired to get involved anyway, we have better things to do with our time (see below.)
3) The formats for engagement that exist require a lot of time and effort for people to participate in them effectively-in other words, traditional methods are still letting us down.
4) The effects of ‘consultation fatigue’ or cynicism increase owing to many meaningless consultation tickbox exercises. These create a vicious circle, bringing down the standards and reputation of public involvement across the board, and reaffirming people’s feelings of not being listened to.
Barriers to participation among potential participants
People who do not currently feel that they have an influence in decision-making – but who say they would like to be involved – were asked what factors, if any, prevent them from doing so. Nearly half (40%) cite lack of time as the main reason.
Let’s have a quick dose of realism to finish off – it seems like we basically have better things to do with our time! The experience of public involvement at national or local level should be a pleasure, not a pain – it is just one of many activities and commitments that competes for attention in people’s lives. Too often, still, it is an uninspiring experience for those who do actually turn up at the town hall.
The Duty to Involve (which requires local government to involve citizens in decision making as a matter of course) has just come into play as of April 1st. I just hope that it leads to higher quality, more considered consultation and involvement – not just MORE consultation and involvement. If this is the case, then we should expect to see even worse results in these areas in next year’s audit.
So – if we want people to engage with services, with local decision making and with policy formulation then we are going to have to try a damn sight harder to make those processess better; making them more
1) Genuine
2) Open and Inviting
3) Enjoyable
4) Responsive (ie. tell people what happened afterwards).
I am sure there are a few more to add to this… any ideas?
A blog about representative democracy, social media and a conversational politics. How will peer-to-peer communications change local democracy? How is representation changing? 
I haven’t read the report but did it mention collective efficacy?
Did it ask whether people believe that their fellow citizens are competent to make decisions, whether politicians are and whether both the former believe in their competence?
These perceptions are comparable to what I see here in the States; mainly, due to local governments providing more opportunities for residents to join municipal boards and commissions, there is less political apathy. Granted, residents may vote less but they are engaged.
That ability to join boards, etc is sparser and/or harder to accomplish on the state and federal levels.
I’m not sure about this Ari – the way I see it is that there are more opporunities being offered to engage with government at national and local levels – **on their terms** yet we see in the hansard report that an:
“overwhelming majority of the public feel they have ‘not very much influence’ or ‘no influence at all’ over decision-making in both their local area (73%) and the country as a whole (85%)”
So the number of opportunities are increasing here in the UK but people’s feelings of connection are actually decreasing.
An interesting aside is that online we see people connecting with each other more readily through the social web, but society as a whole still reports trends towards social isolation.
Would be interested to know more about your thoughts on collective efficacy Jo – did you have a look over the report on this? Its primary focus was around participation.
Yes, fascinating. I was just passing and thought I would leave a comment. I’m not saying for a minute that democratic engagement is not desireable, because I believe it is to an extent. But relative dissatisfaction with democracy is not just or mainly the result of politics or politicians changinging. It is the result of citizens changing. There is very significant evidence for this in the political science literature and it has important implications for those seeking to reengage people (including me). Rising affluence and the huge increase in mass education, the decline in partisanship and rise in ‘postmaterialist politics’, means that citizens demands are more complicated than ever, often incoherent and single issue in nature, and as a result very very difficult to address. Traditionally political parties have played the function of bundling issues together into packages that work (to a degree). But with demands so fragmented, never before have the words of S.E. Finer been more poignant: “politics is about competing for scarce resources”
A book I read some years ago, which I suspect gets to the heart of the most interesting finding of the latest audit of engagement, that most people dont want to get involved at all says:
“Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about most policies and therefore are content to turn over decision-making authority to someone else. People s wish for the political system is that decision makers be empathetic and, especially, non-self-interested, not that they be responsive and accountable to the people s largely nonexistent policy preferences or, even worse, that the people be obligated to participate directly in decision making.”
The book, Stealth Democracy, 2002, is on google books for those interested. It’s hypothesis is totally against conventional wisdom, which is what is so interesting. It is written by reknowned, rigorous US scientists.
This, in my opinion, is why much of the literature on political participation gets confused. One side says; people are apathetic now, just look at voter turnout etc, whist the other says, but no, they are all interested in ‘issues’, just not ‘formal politics’. This is because people are no longer socialised and anchored into the enviroment of formal politics via partisanship – identifying with parties through their economic environment. People are very engaged in ‘issues’, but most fail to understand how they relate to each other, and that politicians have to deal with a multiplicity of issues all competiting for resources the tax payer does not want to pay for.
Rephrase that perhaps – what model are they using to guide the investigation? Without one . . .?
That’s an interesting point Edward. In some ways it seems to be similar to the conclusions of the 2006 report of the Power Inquiry (http://www.powerinquiry.org/) which linked the shift from party to pressure group politics with the decline of the two class structure associated with 20th Century industrial capitalism.
Power suggested (amongst many other things) that making formal political processes more receptive to the views of citizens on specific issues would help re-engage.
However, when spaces for citizen input have been introduced at the local level, they tend to be regarded with suspicion or apathy. My suspicion (hope?) is that this is more because these spaces aren’t embodied with genuine power, rather than because people don’t care. Local government in the UK has only a tiny fraction of the power of that in the US and the opportunities for citizen participation within them tend to be rather minor. Hopefully, more substantive opportunities – Citizen Asset ownership for example – can provide a greater sense of efficacy.