Community participation - Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Community participation
Forces of inclusion and exclusion
These stories paint a different picture of community participation to the one that is
typically presented by policy makers. They suggest that, beneath the rhetoric of
community empowerment, many community participation arrangements are
characterised by countervailing forces of inclusion and exclusion. Some people find
themselves drawn into an ever greater range of participation structures. Others, even
though they may want to participate, find themselves at arm’s length. The result is a
sharp divide between a small group of insiders involved in a disproportionate number
of governance activities, and a much larger group of outsiders, involved in
community life but not necessarily able to translate their social capital into political
leverage over decision making.
People like Greg, Mike Blaney and Graham are very active citizens. Much of their life
is spent trying to create social capital. But, for them, participation in governance has
not proved a helpful way to do it. This suggests that we need to be very cautious
about equating community participation policies with social capital. Understanding
who benefits from it, and how, depends on identifying the informal, half-hidden
processes that shape how membership of the small group of insiders is composed
and reproduced. This is the question to which we turn in the next chapter.
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