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Community Power in an Age of Division

July 22, 2024   By Steph Draper, Misbah Malik, Samuel Augustine, Eve Holt

Sometimes even the most well-meaning idea can be turned into a source of polarisation and anger. How can deliberative and consensus-building approaches be used to take the heat out of public discourse? Five changemakers share their insights.

  • Samuel Augustine, Programmes Development and Communications Officer, Shared Future
  • Stephanie Draper, Director of Innovation and Practice, Involve
  • Cllr Eve Holt, Strategic Director, GM Moving and Councillor, Manchester City Council
  • Misbah Malik, Senior Policy and Engagement Officer, Hope not Hate
  • Catriona Maclay, Principle Practice Lead, New Local

On the one side, guard dogs, trespassing signs and a lone house isolated from its neighbours. On the other, a shared street scene decorated with hearts and declaring “love wins” and “safety for all”.

Even the most even-handed of us might think we were being presented with a right and wrong answer to pick from. But that’s the trap of the Age of the Division which it sometimes feels like we’re living through today. But if we see complex, emotive issues like “safety” through the lens of zero-sum decisions we’re never going to build strong communities which give everyone a sense of agency and power.

Tackling polarisation and finding common ground is one of my heart-topics, so it was such a treat to chair a conversation on this at Stronger Things, hearing from four brilliant practitioners who are championing a better way of thinking and doing: Steph Draper of Involve, Misbah Malik from Hope not Hate, Samuel Augustine of Shared Future CIC and Eve Holt of GM Moving.

Age of Division panel at Stronger Things 2024.

As described by New Local and many others, deliberative forums offer a hope that there’s a more nuanced, consensual way of navigating our most contentious policy issues. Local Authorities are increasingly using these approaches to tackle complex issues like policing, climate change, transport policy, health and social care. At the heart of deliberative approaches is one of the core tenets of community power – that you need to give people a say in decisions that affect them. And our panel shared their experience that this isn’t just a nice principle – it leads to better outcomes. As Steph described “if you get a range of people from different walks of life, you bring them together on a human level, you give them information and a balanced set of content, and a good process, and you trust them to be able to legitimately inform and support a decision, and you get a really different conversation.”

The images described above are two perspectives that came out of Samuel’s work with Liverpool’s Citizens’ Panel on Policing and Community Safety run by Revolving Doors in partnership with Shared Future CIC. The panel explored attitudes to policing, and invited a diverse group of citizens to deliberate on what made them feel safe, and what that meant for how policing policies and practices might evolve to serve everyone well. The images show two participants’ contrasting perspectives. A classic policy response might involve making a choice about which image to aspire to or deciding whose interests to serve. What the citizens’ panel created was a space where both perspectives could be explored and understood, and the image-drawers could work together on developing policies that could incorporate both of these closely-held perceptions of safety.

Deliberative processes assume that we need to include diverse perspectives as a building block of a healthy society. And happily, given the right support, humans are very good at that.

Finding the why

What deliberative processes allow is a chance to find out why people care. Negotiation experts talk about moving from “positions” to “interests”, and this is the same thing – rather than focusing just on different ideas for policy, you explore the human needs that lie beneath. Deliberative processes assume that we need to include diverse perspectives as a building block of a healthy society. And happily, given the right support, humans are very good at that. As Eve said, “We are phenomenal at caring for each other and cooperating with each other”. By humanising problems across difference, it becomes easier to build solutions together. For example in processes around community safety and policing, it can seem that there’s an intergenerational tension between young people feeling threatened by police, and older people wanting protection from what they see as risks from young people. But the underlying issue is that both feel pushed out of spaces, and want a sense of safety and belonging. Establishing that, and hearing that need from someone else, is a powerful first step to finding a policy solution that works for everyone.

From public opinion to public judgement

Involve talk about how this helps people to move from public opinion to public judgement. The first is a binary view on an issue. The second is more considered and often gets beyond the polarised views you see reported in the media. In seeing things purely in terms of public opinion, we also miss that people don’t have equal strength of opinion on everything – they might hold a position lightly. In a deliberative process, exploring how much something matters helps find solutions that take into account what people most care about.

Residents hear evidence in the Waltham Forest Citizen’s Assembly on stopping hate crime and making the borough equally welcoming and safe. Credit: Involve.

Building consensus or disagreeing well?

We explored what the ultimate point of a deliberative process is – is it about getting everyone to agree, or just disagreeing well? As Misbah outlined from her experience at Hope not Hate, the two often work together. Hope Not Hate works to understand and counteract the far right by engaging deeply with communities to both find the “grain of truth” which is being exploited to sow division, and to build alternative messages of hope that include everyone. She shared the story of working with community activists in Llanelli, Wales who were countering far-right infiltration after a community venue was repurposed to house asylum seekers. What started as opposition to the loss of a much-loved community venue became a flashpoint for racist hatred. In contexts like this, “disagreeing well” can be very tough – some of the community members hold views that others find abhorrent.

Community power means being strong enough to reject division.

But Hope Not Hate work to help people disagree productively rather than splintering into opposing camps. By keeping the conversation open without shutting anyone down, the community could move from disagreement about the use of the hotel to consensus about the need for community spaces. This created a stronger basis for a solution which wasn’t based on the exclusion of one group for the benefit of another. At an underlying level, this type of process helps people feel more powerful, which builds resilience against the influence of external actors who are trying to sow division. In this case, community power means being strong enough to reject division.

Hope Not Hate and community organisers building positive messages and tackling mistrust following a contentious change in the community. Credit: Llanelli, Hope Not Hate.

Making policy – Multiple invitations and beauty in the fringes

The panel also explored how we get from creating the right spaces to making policy. We mustn’t see deliberative processes as single-issue silver bullets. While Citizens’ Assemblies might be the best-known process, they can’t do the work of shifting our policy model alone. If we are going to address systemic inequality which keeps many systems locked out of power, you need a multitude of interventions. While this should involve set pieces like Citizen’s Assemblies, there’s a much wider range of interventions which are needed – councils and others should invite citizens in, but must also go to them. Eve spoke about the magic that happens when citizens experience multiple invitations to participate – there is no single formula. So policy-makers need to be ready to open up decision-making throughout the process, from regularly listening to communities all the way through to sharing formal power.

Steph also shared that while policies can help uncover where the strongest common group exists, they can also help surface the “beauty in the fringes” – the surprising or creative idea that hasn’t yet been identified. Policy-makers need to hear both.

Not everything involves post-its

What do local authorities need to know about what it takes for deliberative process to really work? Eve spoke of the importance of working with our head, heart and hands: “We can’t bring people together and just stick in our heads”. For example, the Right to the Streets project tackling violence against women on streets in Manchester could have zoned in on classic approaches like CCTV, increased police presence or women excluding themselves from public spaces. Instead, the project took a deliberative approach which encouraged the whole community to be creative. Through participatory street walks, legislative theatre, photography and murals, citizens were able to ask the right questions. The process itself can be an act of community power, with the handy corollary of policy solutions attached.

Illustrations about making the streets safer for women and girls created as part of the Right to the Streets public engagement movement. Credit: GM Moving.

Getting serious about power

Samuel spoke about the importance of asking a real question. Deliberative processes can only have impact if they cover decisions which are meaningful and have the potential for genuine impact. Our panel advised that budget- and power-holders have to be ready to implement what citizens recommend. Designing those processes – against the trade-offs and responsibilities that public officials need to manage – requires careful design and significant skill. It takes a willingness to genuinely rebalance power. In Waltham Forest’s Citizens’ Assembly, for example, the police stepped out of the room at times to allow residents to speak freely. Authorities have to be attuned to the power imbalance and show humility if they are going to get the best results.

Deliberative approaches can help us see power differently – less about dividing pies and more about baking bread.

From dividing pie to baking bread

The panel finished by discussing the connection between deliberative approaches and power. At the heart of it was Eve’s image that deliberative approaches can help us see power differently – less about dividing pies and more about baking bread. If deeply embedded into our political and policy-making processes, these deliberative approaches offer a way to meaningfully shift power in our democratic systems. The people who are most affected by any issue are the right people to be tackling it, and they need to be in the room.

Family friendly, welcoming bike rides on Manchester’s roads – a different act of community power. Credit: Kidical Mass Manchester.

Top tips

I’ll leave you with the panel’s top tips for tackling a polarised issue:

  • Misbah: “It’s important to remember that people bring a lot of emotion to polarised issues – responding with logic isn’t necessarily going to work. You need to give alternative messages that meets the emotion.”
  • Samuel: “Ask why? Why? Why? You need to go deeper if you’re going to address both myths and facts – that will help you unlock where you need to start from to create the solution. You might have to ask a lot of whys.”
  • Eve: “Trust people: they’re brilliant and do amazing things. If you are going to truly listen you need to constantly check yourself for your own stories, biases, and preconceptions. And use your head, heart and hands.”
  • Steph: “Start! Alongside the question of lowering the visibility line to what matters. There’s also a joyful space which is what you want, about what motivates people. Get into the inspirational space.”

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