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Citizen Participation & Empowerment

Citizen Participation & Empowerment. Chapter 12. Why have you gotten involved in the past?. 3 Citizen Participation Themes. Participation in community decision-making Citizen Empowerment Participation & empowerment are related to Sense of Community. Citizen Participation .

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Citizen Participation & Empowerment

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  1. Citizen Participation & Empowerment Chapter 12

  2. Why have you gotten involved in the past?

  3. 3 Citizen Participation Themes • Participation in community decision-making • Citizen Empowerment • Participation & empowerment are related to Sense of Community

  4. Citizen Participation • “A process in which individuals take part in decision-making in the institutions, programs, & environments that affect them” (text, p. 402) • Participation/Efficiency Balance

  5. Participation: The Means-Ends Distinction • Means: way of improving community conditions • Commitment to a decision/outcome is greater if you have participated in it • Ends: essential quality of democracy • Its own reward

  6. Empowerment • “An intentional, ongoing process centered in the local community, involving mutual respect, caring, & group participation, through which people lacking an equal share of resources gain greater access to & control over those resources.” • Accomplished with others, not alone

  7. Qualities of Empowerment • Multilevel Ecological Construct • Individuals: personal sense of efficacy • Organizations • Empowered Orgs: know how to create changes in community • Empowering Orgs: know how to empower people in org • Communities: competent community • Levels are Independent • feeling empowered ≠ being empowered • Bottom Up Approach

  8. Contrasting Empowerment & Prevention • Rappaport’s (1981) Distinction: Needs Perspective (prevention) vs. Rights Perspective(empowerment) • Different Origins • Needs perspective from helping professionals • Rights perspective from activists, perspective from activists, community organizers

  9. Characteristics of Needs Perspective • Professional as expert • Clients lack competence which they need • Risk factors are in the individual • Programs developed in one context can be transported across contexts • Organizations & communities are sites where intervention occurs, not objects of intervention

  10. Characteristics of Rights Perspective • Focus on what rights people have to control their lives • Collaborating with people rather than being expert • Assuming people have competencies but lack environmental opportunities to develop them • Risk factors are in environment • Programs need to be developed locally to be responsive to local situation • Organizations & communities are object of intervention

  11. Power: Brief Review • Involves ability to affect external events/ forces/ decisions • Best understood as aspect of relationships or interrelationships (can be resisted as well as acquiesced to) • Contextual: may have power in some situations/ roles & not others

  12. Power’s Multiple Forms • Types of Power • Power Over - capacity to dominate others • Power To - ability for self-direction to pursue goals • Power From - ability to resist power exerted by others • Integrative Power: capacity to build groups, bind people together, & inspire loyalty (“people power”) (e.g., Ghandi)

  13. Power • Reward Power —controlling valued rewards that can be used to shape others’ behavior • Coercive Power —capacity to punish • Legitimate Power —based on role/position of one over another • Expert Power —based on knowledge/skill • Referent Power —based on interpersonal connection or a shared social identity

  14. Participation in Neighborhood Orgs & Sense of Community • Neighborhood organizations as mediators between citizens & higher-ups • Mediators are go-betweens/ liaisons • Citizen participation ranges from attending meetings to holding leadership positions

  15. How Community Orgs Empower Members Empowering (member influence) vs. Empowered Orgs (community influence)

  16. Qualities of Empowering Orgs • Solidarity • Group-based, strengths-based belief system • Social Support • Shared, Inspiring Leadership • Member Participation • Participatory Niches, Opportunity Role Structures • Task Focus • Participatory rewards for volunteers who make the org possible • Promoting diversity • Fostering intergroup collaboration

  17. Dilemmas in Creating Empowering Orgs • Challenge of success • Growth/Resources affect initial sense of mission/solidarity • Paradox of empowerment • Can one group empower another? • Can old social regularities be overcome? • HSC experience

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