‘Yes we can’: identity politics and project politics for a late-modern world

Abstract

There is widespread agreement in mainstream participation studies that social capital and civic engagement in Western democracies are in steady and continuous decline. How did it happen, then, that Barack Obama was able to mobilize tens of millions of volunteers and supporters for his spectacularly successful and novelty-creating presidential campaign? Part of the answer is that his campaign was directed to building political capital for solving common policy concerns. This marks a creative shift in political communication from being oriented towards keeping government effective and legitimate to getting people freely and actively to accept and help in executing what has to be done in order to solve common concerns. The paper discusses why this shift has not been detected by mainstream participation studies, following their development in Almond and Verba's civic culture, through Putnam's social capital framework, to Norris's cause-oriented politics. Later, Marsh et al.'s new politics of lived experience is introduced and connected to the project politics model for studying 'everyday makers and expert citizens'. The conclusion is that Obama's rhetoric in particular appeals to everyday makers and expert citizens, and that their reciprocal resonance opens for a fusion of identity politics and project politics in a new, much more communicative and interactive democratic model for doing what neither neoliberalism nor statism apparently can do: getting things done in prudent manner by establishing more balanced and discursive two-way relations of autonomy and dependence between political authorities and lay people.

De duurzaamheid van burgerinitiatieven

“…De hedendaagse burgerinitiatieven kunnen worden gerekend onder de 'nieuwe golf' van de laatste decennia. Ook internationaal onderzoek wijst op veranderingen van burgerparticipatie in de laatste decennia: burgers participeren minder in traditionele instituties van de representatieve democratie, maar andere vormen van participatie lijken te zijn toegenomen (Bang, 2009;Marien e.a., 2010;Stolle & Hooghe, 2005).…”

“…Deze burgerinitiatieven vormen vaak een reactie op een door (een deel van) de gemeenschap gevoelde behoefte (bijv. op het gebied van zorg, energie of leefbaarheid) (Bang, 2009). Ze zijn gericht op samenwerking tussen burgers uit de lokale gemeenschap.…”

“…Ze kennen een hands-on en pragmatisch karakter: ze zijn gericht op directe actie(bereidheid) van betrokkenen om diens sociale en fysieke omgeving te verbeteren door het zelfstandig produceren en beheren van diensten of goederen (Van de Wijdeven, 2012;Van Meerkerk, 2014). In dit opzicht zijn ze ook niet tegen gevestigde machtsstructuren of systemen, tenzij dit nodig is om de betreffende behoeften en kwesties op lokaal niveau zelf op te kunnen pakken (Bang, 2009). Sterker nog: om deze behoeften en kwesties het hoofd te kunnen bieden, hebben ze veelal een bepaalde vorm van medewerking (bijv.…”

Public Participation in New Local Governance Spaces: The Case for Community Development in Local Strategic Partnerships

“…Several writers (e.g. Bang, 2009;Li & Marsh, 2008;Norris, 2007) challenge this perspective, citing the emergence of new forms of public participation -such as single-issue citizen activism and web-based organizing -as contradictory evidence. They emphasise the importance of power relations, citing alienation as a more likely cause of the decline in public participation (Marsh, O'Toole & Jones, 2006).…”

Redefining the political moment

“…While an in-depth analysis is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to note how the election of President Obama was at the beginning of the GFC and presents us with an interesting example of blurring the line between the activist moment and the Political. This was the election of the first African-American president and he managed to utilise many former anti-war, union, student leaders throughout the course of his two-year campaign (Bang 2009). Also, as the election occurred during the start of the GFC, many of these people have since been tied up in the 'let him do his job' mantra (Dreier 2008) rather than critiquing his failure to deliver on some of his key campaign promises including action on climate change (Hillygus and Henderson 2010).…”