Citizen Participation in Civic Life, Essay Example

Community involvement in civic life is a crucial element to in developing a greater participatory and holistic democracy. There are a number of organization forms and activities with the latency to bridge the gaping gap between populaces and their government. The move towards increased community governance and participatory democracy necessitates an all-inclusive strategy that; (1) engages individuals through civic life, (2) builds the capacity for communities to be integrated in the decision making processes, and (3) transforms government culture to adopt partnerships with community-based organizations and community members (Thomson, 2001).

Participation Breadth and Depth

Participation breadth is the magnitude to which community members are offered the opportunity to take part in every stage of the policy development and execution process. Participation depth is the extent to which the participating citizens can influence the final outcome through the process of participation.

Social Capital

Local democracy can be achieved by building social capital through integrating interpersonal connections with civic commitment these interpersonal connections are vital in community needs can be amalgamated to create social capital within specific groups and creating a bridge between different interest groups within the community. Putnam and Feldstein postulate that getting citizens involved in civic issues is dependent on two crucial elements (1) taking advantage of bonding social by supporting people to organize activities within their own communities or social identities, and (2) developing bridging social capital by helping individual communities and neighbourhood groups to network to develop intricate connections between each (Putnam & Feldstein, 2003).

Organization Support

One of the key elements to strengthening the social fabric within communities is community based organizations. Such institutions are naturally predisposed to creating a network within the community. As such, they are most suited vessels for community involvement in civic education. These organizations have already developed structures that help disseminate information throughout the community, while collecting feedback from individual members.

Neighbourhood-level processes and mechanisms are essential in developing inter-organizational relationships in a manner that encourages civic participation (Thomson, 2001). Local authority has the capacity to create a platform for the creation of inter-organizational relationships. Each unique organization represents a number of community organization models that are effective within specific context. As such, creating such a network would enhance diversity in community involvement in civic life.

Recommendations

Creating a Neighbourhood Small Grants Program much similar to the one existing in Portland, Oregon would effectively devolves resources into the community to give communities a stake in civic participation. Through the participation in this program, partnerships between community organizations can be forged to ensure government accountability and a stake in the local government decision making process.

Developing a city-wide system of community organizing vehicles will potentially advance participatory democracy in a significant manner. This can be achieves through creating crisis-specific vehicles that members of the community can employ to meet specific communal needs. This is also integral in developing a network structure of community organizations to ensure optimal community involvement in civic life.

A central agency is vital in organizing and supporting the multi-tiered structure of community organizations. Creating a neighbourhood coalition program can be integral in helping neighbourhoods bridge social capital and assist in issues that surpass their boundaries. Most of this groups would employ ad hoc groups to create awareness on citywide issues. These groups would tend to be organized on a citywide level, creating a platform for adequate population representation.

References

Putnam, R. D., & Feldstein, L. M. (2003). Better Together: Restoring teh Amrican Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Thomson, K. (2001). From Neighborhood to Nation: The Democratic Foundations of Civil Society. Hanover: University Press of New England.