Colm O'Doherty: Michael D. Higgins article in the Irish Times on Saturday sought to engage with the real issue facing Irish people – “what sort of society we wish to create”. He takes issue with the essentialism of the economic model position, and argues that its dominant ideas have infiltrated our thoughts as common sense when they make no sense at all.
If we search behind current political statements and policy debates, we are confronted with a culture of compliance and a misleading active citizenship discourse. Our broken economy has generated a financial crisis which is being played out in the media, but the continuing malfunctioning of our political system is not being discussed to the same degree. What is lacking are clear policy alternatives to the imposition of a market logic onto political processes.
There is no debate and discussion taking place in any forum on what alternative forms of social relations might be substituted for economic ones. A friend of mine, commenting on the political culture of compliance in this society, wondered if Ireland had in any way profited from the Enlightenment, as most people still believed in the divine right of a certain political party to reign. Within our culture of compliance, the government is pre-occupied with altering the behaviour of citizens rather than vice versa. The main development during the life of successive governments has been to instrumentalise citizens, reducing politics to the achievement of goals established not by people themselves, but by a small governing elite – speculators, builders, bankers – who believe they know best. Civil society has been mobilised in support of this political agenda. Successive governments have, under the guise of supporting its independent role, been intent on influencing and controlling it, and using community and voluntary organizations as deliverers of services. Over the past decade, the state has not only become more active in controlling its citizens, but it has also been asking more of them. To do this it has recourse to new governance strategies in which self-regulation of conduct becomes a cornerstone of social order. The best basis for social order is then realised through self-responsible individual citizens, who are competent free market actors, who compete, work, save and consume in pursuit of their own interests.
The services provided by community and voluntary groups are regarded as goods and are consumed by customers. Those who seek to uphold the rights of an entitled citizenship through purposeful collectivism are labelled unpatriotic. It is of the gravest concern that the illusory nature of economic growth, based on credit,house price inflation and commercial service expansion, is not disrupting the longstanding managerial politics based on a culture of compliance. The divide-and-rule policy stratagems of this and previous governments are underwritten by the iron law of the economic model, which is that markets and trade only function through the promotion of a spurious meritocracy. A cult of success which dresses up selfishness as socially desirable esteems those with “entrepreneurial skills”, and the “unproductive” are deemed to be without merit unless they adapt their behaviours to service the economic good and become self-actualizing citizens. What one can do in economic terms, and what one can offer, become more important than relational skills which contribute to the interpersonal economy and increase wellbeing.
Real active citizenship is urgently needed to challenge this culture of compliance supporting the political status quo. An active citizenship not just about learning the rules of the game and how to participate within existing models and structures, but encompassing active learning for political literacy and empowerment.
Showing posts with label active citizenship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label active citizenship. Show all posts
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Placing citizenship centre-stage: Michael D's take on the debate and what's missing
Michael D. Higgins' opinion piece in today's Irish Times is well worth a read, especially in view of recent debates here on social welfare, rent supplements and the minimum wage. He writes:
Missing from the debate so far is any concept of citizenship. Indeed, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern reduced the debate on citizenship to a debate on volunteering, important but not the same thing. This is quite extraordinary in a republic. It is regarded as radical and unacceptable by the conservatives who cheered on the property rackets to speak of social security, of a floor below which citizens would not be allowed to fall. After all, the most extensive interview given on our public service broadcaster by the leading banker/gambler who did the most damage to Ireland’s financial reputation called for cuts in social welfare. Yet citizenship is what we should now be discussing. The more socially-concerned elements of the public surely do not want a return of more of the same.
Read the full piece here.
Missing from the debate so far is any concept of citizenship. Indeed, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern reduced the debate on citizenship to a debate on volunteering, important but not the same thing. This is quite extraordinary in a republic. It is regarded as radical and unacceptable by the conservatives who cheered on the property rackets to speak of social security, of a floor below which citizens would not be allowed to fall. After all, the most extensive interview given on our public service broadcaster by the leading banker/gambler who did the most damage to Ireland’s financial reputation called for cuts in social welfare. Yet citizenship is what we should now be discussing. The more socially-concerned elements of the public surely do not want a return of more of the same.
Read the full piece here.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Voluntary activity and active citizenship: latest CSO figures
Colm O'Doherty: The 'message' that Irish Times Social Affairs Correspondent Carl O’Brien has taken from the recent CSO Report on Community Involvement and Social Networks 2006 – “community spirit is alive and well” (Saturday 1st August, 2009) – is overly simplistic. While the CSO Report does provide us with some useful statistics, we should be careful not to read too much into them. Indeed, it can be argued that the CSO Report reveals that in Ireland, as in the UK and Australia (Home Office, 2001; Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006), voluntary activity is largely the preserve of well-educated, middle aged, middle class men and women. What we can therefore take from this Report is that some form of 'community spirit' appears to exist within specific demographic sections of Irish society.
Three major limitations of the Report are that it does not contextualize its data:
• It does not provide us with a social policy context or compass within which we can situate these statistics.
• There is no “quality context” within which the quality of people’s social networks or their social value is analysed.
• The “motivation context” is absent.
It is misleading. without an appropriate social policy analysis setting out the unique trajectory of Irish voluntary activity. to draw any conclusions from these statistics. Voluntary activity is an important social asset in Ireland , the UK and Australia. In all three countries, it is increasingly viewed as a mechanism for social inclusion, civic engagement and the promotion of social cohesion. In the UK and Australi,a voluntary and mutual aid societies developed in the context of social need triggered by urbanization and industrialization and the associated breakdown of traditional local forms of welfare provision. Voluntary structures and endeavours were unevenly distributed, and services were often restricted to certain identified populations.
While nation states such as Australia and the UK were prepared to guarantee citizen welfare through the development of state welfare services, the Irish state – a weak state – continued to rely on the voluntary sector to provide such services. The weakness of the Irish state – a consequence of the Catholic theory of subsidiarity and civil war politics – led to the growth of voluntary action based on charity. Within Ireland’s uneven welfare pluralist society, the voluntary and community sector has, in many instances, been the sole provider of care.
Under this policy arrangement, volunteers are more focused on fundraising for basic equipment for primary schools and hospitals, and are less engaged in initiating and supporting activities which generate positive social change. Despite the rhetoric of “active citizenship” contained in the Taskforce on Active Citizenship Report (2007) and a succession of policy documents committing the state to supporting a vibrant community and voluntary sector, a great deal of voluntary effort has been expended on a “finger in the dyke” effort to plug the gaps in the state’s social protection frameworks.
The quality of voluntary effort is glossed over in the CSO Report and the Irish Times article.
Respondents to the QNHS (Quarterly National Household Survey) were asked if they had been actively involved in voluntary or community groups in the previous twelve months. Active involvement was defined as attending meetings, being a committee member, or taking responsibility for some activity, but it specifically excluded attendance at mass or church services.
Overall active involvement in voluntary and community groups was reported by 28% of persons aged 15 years and over. Sports groups were most frequently reported (11%), while the least frequently reported form of group involvement was involvement in a political group (1%). (CSO Report, 2009:8)
We should be perturbed about the very low level of active citizenship which this headline statistic reveals, and we should also recognise that there are qualitative differences between voluntary effort focused on hard-to-reach groups ( marginalized young people, immigrants, socially excluded communities, the disabled) and voluntary work with large scale mainstream semi-commercialised bodies (sporting bodies, artistic and cultural organizations). Participation in mainstream cultural/recreational voluntary activities is attractive because it boosts credentialed human capital levels (thereby enhancing career prospects) through social and leisure networks. This type of volunteering, as O’Brien points out, is growing as unemployment levels increase and is associated with the “project of the self”. This trend in volunteering is reflected in, and perhaps related to, an increase in individualism in countries with some shared cultural characteristics such as Australia, the UK and Ireland. An individualism framed around personal values, lifestyles and a self-interested engagement with volunteering – a “polishing of your CV” opportunity. In this regard volunteering becomes less of a social contract creating social capital, and more of a consumer choice underpinning the formation of human capital.
The CSO Report tells us that certain sections of society (older people on their own, insecure tenants, rural dwellers, the unemployed, non-Irish nationals, the less educated, people with disabilities, individuals with a poor health status) have low levels of participation in civic activities, and consequently low levels of social capital. The Government is responsible for developing policy and practice frameworks which ensure that volunteering is not primarily a project of the self, with little benefit for others, and that it is a real force for social inclusion and social cohesion. In the face of the McCarthy Report’s recommendations that we scrap the Family Support Agency, the Community Development Programme and the Active Citizenship Office, the future development of volunteers, as collective citizens who are contributing to the development of social capital through contact and trust-making in their different neighbourhood and community structures, looks bleak.
My final point is that we need to fund and engage in ongoing medium-term, fine-grained, qualitative research into social network and community activities, and their contribution to social capital formation, if we are to increase our understanding of voluntary activity in a meaningful fashion.
Three major limitations of the Report are that it does not contextualize its data:
• It does not provide us with a social policy context or compass within which we can situate these statistics.
• There is no “quality context” within which the quality of people’s social networks or their social value is analysed.
• The “motivation context” is absent.
It is misleading. without an appropriate social policy analysis setting out the unique trajectory of Irish voluntary activity. to draw any conclusions from these statistics. Voluntary activity is an important social asset in Ireland , the UK and Australia. In all three countries, it is increasingly viewed as a mechanism for social inclusion, civic engagement and the promotion of social cohesion. In the UK and Australi,a voluntary and mutual aid societies developed in the context of social need triggered by urbanization and industrialization and the associated breakdown of traditional local forms of welfare provision. Voluntary structures and endeavours were unevenly distributed, and services were often restricted to certain identified populations.
While nation states such as Australia and the UK were prepared to guarantee citizen welfare through the development of state welfare services, the Irish state – a weak state – continued to rely on the voluntary sector to provide such services. The weakness of the Irish state – a consequence of the Catholic theory of subsidiarity and civil war politics – led to the growth of voluntary action based on charity. Within Ireland’s uneven welfare pluralist society, the voluntary and community sector has, in many instances, been the sole provider of care.
Under this policy arrangement, volunteers are more focused on fundraising for basic equipment for primary schools and hospitals, and are less engaged in initiating and supporting activities which generate positive social change. Despite the rhetoric of “active citizenship” contained in the Taskforce on Active Citizenship Report (2007) and a succession of policy documents committing the state to supporting a vibrant community and voluntary sector, a great deal of voluntary effort has been expended on a “finger in the dyke” effort to plug the gaps in the state’s social protection frameworks.
The quality of voluntary effort is glossed over in the CSO Report and the Irish Times article.
Respondents to the QNHS (Quarterly National Household Survey) were asked if they had been actively involved in voluntary or community groups in the previous twelve months. Active involvement was defined as attending meetings, being a committee member, or taking responsibility for some activity, but it specifically excluded attendance at mass or church services.
Overall active involvement in voluntary and community groups was reported by 28% of persons aged 15 years and over. Sports groups were most frequently reported (11%), while the least frequently reported form of group involvement was involvement in a political group (1%). (CSO Report, 2009:8)
We should be perturbed about the very low level of active citizenship which this headline statistic reveals, and we should also recognise that there are qualitative differences between voluntary effort focused on hard-to-reach groups ( marginalized young people, immigrants, socially excluded communities, the disabled) and voluntary work with large scale mainstream semi-commercialised bodies (sporting bodies, artistic and cultural organizations). Participation in mainstream cultural/recreational voluntary activities is attractive because it boosts credentialed human capital levels (thereby enhancing career prospects) through social and leisure networks. This type of volunteering, as O’Brien points out, is growing as unemployment levels increase and is associated with the “project of the self”. This trend in volunteering is reflected in, and perhaps related to, an increase in individualism in countries with some shared cultural characteristics such as Australia, the UK and Ireland. An individualism framed around personal values, lifestyles and a self-interested engagement with volunteering – a “polishing of your CV” opportunity. In this regard volunteering becomes less of a social contract creating social capital, and more of a consumer choice underpinning the formation of human capital.
The CSO Report tells us that certain sections of society (older people on their own, insecure tenants, rural dwellers, the unemployed, non-Irish nationals, the less educated, people with disabilities, individuals with a poor health status) have low levels of participation in civic activities, and consequently low levels of social capital. The Government is responsible for developing policy and practice frameworks which ensure that volunteering is not primarily a project of the self, with little benefit for others, and that it is a real force for social inclusion and social cohesion. In the face of the McCarthy Report’s recommendations that we scrap the Family Support Agency, the Community Development Programme and the Active Citizenship Office, the future development of volunteers, as collective citizens who are contributing to the development of social capital through contact and trust-making in their different neighbourhood and community structures, looks bleak.
My final point is that we need to fund and engage in ongoing medium-term, fine-grained, qualitative research into social network and community activities, and their contribution to social capital formation, if we are to increase our understanding of voluntary activity in a meaningful fashion.
Thursday, 23 July 2009
An Bord Snip Nua and the Active Citizenship Office
Colm O'Doherty: While I have previously argued that the active citizenship agenda of the Cowen and Ahern governments has lacked policymaking substance and commitment to positive social change, I take issue with the recommendation in the McCarthy Report that the Active Citizenship Office be wound up and its work halted. The paltry savings to be gained from this cutback – the 2009 allocation for this programme is just €56,000 – suggests that the sub text here is the removal of the symbolic threat which the Active Citizenship agenda poses to the pivotal role of money in our society.
As Ingham (Ingham, I. (2008) Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press) makes clear “It is the money-capital of capitalism that drives the endless pursuit of profit and gives the system its dynamism and flexibility; in short, the creation and control of money-capital is the locus of power in capitalism. It is here that the decisions about when and where the material provisioning for human wants are taken” (p. 206).
Despite its limitations, the State’s Active Citizenship project has affirmed social value as a counterbalance to individual utility maximisation. As Bauman (Bauman, Z. (2008) The Art of Life, Cambridge ; Polity Press) suggests, “pretending that the volume of and depth of human happiness can be taken care of and properly served by fixing attention on just one index –GNP – is grossly misleading. When it is made into a principle of governance, such a pretence may become harmful as well , bringing consequences opposite to those intended and allegedly pursued”(p. 8). The Active Citizenship Agenda recognises that social capital theory does point towards the need for a different approach to governance when markets and the apparatus of the state fail to renew civic involvement and produce those “collective goods which enable beneficial cooperation and restrain self-defeating hedonism and opportunism in social exchanges” (Jordan, B. (2008) Welfare and Well-being –Social Value in Public Policy, Bristol, Policy Press, p.89).
Active citizenship is synonymous with community governance. Community governance is manifested as – voluntary effort, community participation, community development, educational /training initiatives. These collective goods which underpin the interpersonal economy are needed more than ever to reduce the damage to our society brought about by the subordination of social to economic value under the flawed governance structures of the financial and speculative property markets. The retention of the Active Citizenship Office and the continuation of its work will provide a “space” for articulating and dispensing coherent collective systems of meaning , purpose and integrity, capable of creating cultures of social, rather than purely individualistic monetary, value.
Dr. Colm O’Doherty lectures in Applied Social Studies at the Institute of Technology, Tralee
As Ingham (Ingham, I. (2008) Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press) makes clear “It is the money-capital of capitalism that drives the endless pursuit of profit and gives the system its dynamism and flexibility; in short, the creation and control of money-capital is the locus of power in capitalism. It is here that the decisions about when and where the material provisioning for human wants are taken” (p. 206).
Despite its limitations, the State’s Active Citizenship project has affirmed social value as a counterbalance to individual utility maximisation. As Bauman (Bauman, Z. (2008) The Art of Life, Cambridge ; Polity Press) suggests, “pretending that the volume of and depth of human happiness can be taken care of and properly served by fixing attention on just one index –GNP – is grossly misleading. When it is made into a principle of governance, such a pretence may become harmful as well , bringing consequences opposite to those intended and allegedly pursued”(p. 8). The Active Citizenship Agenda recognises that social capital theory does point towards the need for a different approach to governance when markets and the apparatus of the state fail to renew civic involvement and produce those “collective goods which enable beneficial cooperation and restrain self-defeating hedonism and opportunism in social exchanges” (Jordan, B. (2008) Welfare and Well-being –Social Value in Public Policy, Bristol, Policy Press, p.89).
Active citizenship is synonymous with community governance. Community governance is manifested as – voluntary effort, community participation, community development, educational /training initiatives. These collective goods which underpin the interpersonal economy are needed more than ever to reduce the damage to our society brought about by the subordination of social to economic value under the flawed governance structures of the financial and speculative property markets. The retention of the Active Citizenship Office and the continuation of its work will provide a “space” for articulating and dispensing coherent collective systems of meaning , purpose and integrity, capable of creating cultures of social, rather than purely individualistic monetary, value.
Dr. Colm O’Doherty lectures in Applied Social Studies at the Institute of Technology, Tralee
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