Civic Dialogues and Citizen Democracy

Author: Barry Quirk

Some attempts at community engagement are little more than public information exercises: “Did you know that the council spends 70% of its money on children's and adult social care?” But others have shown how councils could stimulate a deeper and wider civic dialogue among their communities about local public challenges and how to address them.

A recent global study by Pew Research of 31,000 people in 24 countries, including the UK, found that while representative democracy remains a popular ideal, people around the world are critical of how it works in practice. 

A median of 59% of people across all countries are dissatisfied with the way their democracy works. A total of 74% believe that “elected officials don't care what people like me think”. And 42% say that no political party in their country represents their views.

At the heart of the problem is that the idealism of democracy is often constrained by the practical considerations of politics. Representing a plurality of interests in a party-based system is not easy in theory, let alone in practice.

And if citizens are little more than passive spectators at a play performed by elected representatives, this can swiftly become a source of discontent with democracy itself. This is why participatory forms of democracy can play such an important and complementary role at the local level. For every day there is a need for some kind of civic dialogue about what is happening locally, regionally, nationally and sometimes even globally. At the local level, these dialogues focus on practical issues - on “what can we do and what should we do?”

Consider this: is it in the ‘common good’ for a much-loved but dilapidated local landmark to be demolished and replaced by affordable housing for ten families, or should it be restored at public expense as a community asset? Who knows? It all depends on the specifics of the situation, the context of community values and aspirations, the appetite of the local development market, and the availability of public funds. 

This is why so many arguments for public initiatives to promote the ‘common good’ and ‘public betterment’ are best decided locally. 

Because it's at the local level that pragmatism is best grounded - where people talk to each other about what's just and what's fair. Not in theory, but in the real world, where those who might gain meet those who might lose.

It is in these everyday debates that communities relearn, through dialogue and compromise, what Michael Ignatieff calls the ordinary virtues of tolerance, forgiveness, trust and resilience (The Ordinary Virtues, Harvard University Press, 2017). 

In the maelstrom of the 21st century, our sources of solidarity may have fragmented, but that does not mean that collective action is any less likely - only that it needs to be rebuilt. Ignatieff emphasises the centrality of these ordinary virtues in helping communities of strangers to live together in harmony and to agree among themselves what to do next - whatever their differences of faith, tradition and outlook. 

At the local level, social innovation comes from people with different perspectives working creatively together to make a difference in their community. Not out of deference to some global principle - but because it has the best chance of bringing about positive change where they live.

Barry Quirk has worked in London’s local government for 45 years - almost 30 years as a chief executive.  First in the London Borough of Lewisham (1993-2017). And then in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where he went after the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy, to lead the council’s response to the bereaved and survivors of the fire and the residents of that local area. He stepped down in October 2022 and is currently advising the LGA and Solace on the professional development of council chief executives.  

Read more about our Citizen Democracy series here.

The publisher is Citizen Network Research. Civic Dialogues and Citizen Democracy © Barry Quirk 2024.