Street-Level Democracy

Pattern number within this pattern set: 
292
Douglas Schuler
Public Sphere Project (CPSR)
Problem: 

Groups of people who are affected by local, as well as global, forces are often unable to fashion and furnish collective responses to the people and organizations who are in a position to address their concerns. This problem is even harder to resolve when the people who need to be organized are unable to do so. No single strategy or approach is available to address these needs because the circumstances, skills, resources, and social systems vary enormously from place to place.

Context: 

People in marginalized situations due to poverty, illiteracy, distance from communications.

Discussion: 

This pattern is a DRAFT. I borrowed the title from Jonathan's Barker excellent book of the same name. This is a DRAFT and a placeholder until I can get more verbiage together.

Here is some input from Jonathan: Groups of people who are affected by local, as well as global, forces are often find it difficult to fashion and furnish collective responses to the people and organizations who are in a position to address their concerns. A good starting point is to make an inventory or a map of the venues or settings in a locality where groups of people discuss question of public importance. Much useful information can be gathered about these settings: what issues are readily addressed and what ones are discouraged? what kinds of people take part and what kinds are barred or made unwelcome? is power over the setting found at the local or national or transnational level? how adequate is the information available to participants? what kind of power does the setting hold for making and enforcing decisions? An inventory along these lines reveals much about the resources for collective action available in the locality and about the biases built into them. Effective local action often requires initiating new political settings with new rules of access and a new issue focus. It is often facilitated by links to wider, more central, sources of information and power that are supportive and that are locally trusted. No single strategy or approach is available to address local needs because the circumstances, skills, resources, and social systems vary enormously from place to place. But mapping the space of existing public action is a very good starting place for those who want to act effectively. Mapping itself can make those involved much more aware of the collective resources which can help or hinder their efforts.

For the time being, I'm including some description from the book. This is temporary!

 

Synopsis

Using colourful and detailed case material, Street-Level Democracy introduces a new method of researching everyday politics. It is a wide-ranging book that traces the conflicts between global power and local action. People in farming communities, town mosques, city markets, and fishing communities suffer the effects of wrenching change, but live far from the centres of power. From Britain and small-town USA to Nigeria, India, and Nicaragua, citizens everywhere grapple with the politics of everyday life.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Integral Lives in a Fragmenting World, Jonathan Baker

Part I - Public Action in Local Contexts: The Concept and Theory of Political Settings

  • Power Shift: Global Change and Local Action, Jonathan Baker
  • Political Settings: An Approach to the Study of Popular Action, Jonathan Baker

Part II - Political Settings in Local Communities

  • Empowerment from Above? Development Projects and Public Space in Northern Nigeria, Kole Shettima
  • Sea Changes: Organizing around the Fishery in a South Indian Community, Aparna Sundar
  • Participation and Insecurity: Small Towers in England and the United States

Part III - Political Settings and Special Constituencies

  • Eating and Meeting in Owino: Market Vendors, City Government, and the World Bank in Kampala, Uganda, Christie Gombay
  • Claiming Space for Women: Nicaragua during and after Revolution, 1977-94, Katherine Isbester
  • The Mosque as a Political Space in Pakistan, Anne-Marie Cwikowski

Part IV - Lessons and Conclusions

  • Local Action and Global Power: Shifting the Balance, Jonathan Baker
  • Appendix - Mapping Local Politics: Methods, Measures, and Morals, Jonathan Baker
Solution: 

Street-Level Democracy!

Pattern status: 
Released