There is a myth in British politics that people are 'apathetic'. This myth, largely disseminated by the media, is based on voting figures for recent elections. It is not borne out by anyone who has knocked on a door wearing a rosette, leafleted in a shopping centre, or listened to a constituency surgery. The people that politicians and activists meet are rarely 'apathetic'. They are more often opinionated, passionate, angry, alienated, occasionally pleased, but rarely apathetic.
Ask a voter about local parking, burglary, dog fouling, the state of local hospitals, roads or parks, the euro or Britain's asylum policy, and see how apathetic they sound. If newspaper leader writers are doubtful, I would invite them to spend a Saturday morning at Salford Precinct and hear for themselves.
It is true to say that recent election turn-outs for national, European and local elections have fallen dramatically. This should give us serious cause for concern, and new ways of encouraging voter registration turn-out and political engagement must be found. But voting cannot be seen as the sole indicator of political or civic engagement. As Pippa Norris points out in her book Democratic Phoenix there are many countervailing trends and forces in modern democracies which challenge the pessimists' views. She shows that across the world, new forms of protest, engagement and activism are attracting serious levels of support. She writes: 'the pervasive idea that the public has become disengaged from every form of civic life over-simplifies a far more complex and messy reality.' The choice for democrats is to re-invent democratic systems to reflect changes in aspiration and expectation, and in technology.
There are many well-rehearsed arguments about the ways democracy can be enhanced through postal ballots, changes to electoral systems, electronic voting, changing the opening times and locations of polling stations, and these are all worth exploring. Increased turnouts in postal ballots in the 2003 local elections are encouraging. For example, across my city Salford the average turnout in the postal ballot in the 2003 local elections was 40.7 per cent, compared to 25.07 per cent in a traditional poll in 2002. A similar pattern of markedly higher turnouts emerged in the 58 other local authority areas where postal ballots were used.
But reforms to the structure of democracy, whilst necessary and
overdue, are not enough. We need to change the culture of democracy, with the democratisation of huge swathes of public life. This does not mean more elections for more public officials.
The experience of the US shows that you can have layer upon layer of democratically-elected officials, from judges to dogcatchers, but it does not lead to a more democratic society. Democracy in much of America, like belonging to an exclusive country club, has become the pursuit of the established, wealthy and articulate minority. A culture of democracy is not determined by how many votes you have to cast for others, but by what stake and say you have over decisions which affect you. It is about the daily exercise of your own personal citizenship in myriad ways.
In that context, I hope that my argument for community control over many more areas of the public realm can be seen as part of a broader and deeper democratisation of society, which will substantially assist in the revitalisation of politics in its widest sense.
There are already signs of hope. The lessons from the New Deal for Community board elections are that if people feel that their efforts will be rewarded, that their voices will be heard, and that they can make a difference in their own community, then they will come forward for election, and vote.
These community elections have been analysed in detail by Professors Rallings and Thrasher. They reveal several important features:
- A key motive for standing for election was 'to put something back'.
- A key motivator for getting involved is dissatisfaction with local authority provision.
- Voter disengagement results from a distrust of authority and a sense of powerlessness.
- The higher the levels of neighbourhood deprivation, the lower the turnout.
- Electors found alternative voting methods easy to understand.
- In some areas voter turnout was significantly higher than for the council elections, especially where there is active campaigning, media attention, and involvement by local leaders.
- All-postal voting is the most effective way of increasing turnout.
In Sheffield, Bradford, Bristol, Newcastle, Rochdale, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Walsall turnout for the NDC board elections was higher than for the council. In Bristol and Sheffield, turnout reached over 50 per cent – double the turnout for the council elections. These lessons must be well learned by all.
Most working class people do not have the time for endless committees and altruistic endeavour. It is the middle classes who tend to have the time for charity work and noble causes. Working people are too busy working, perhaps in more than one job, to devote their leisure time to activities beyond the home and family. So the rewards must be obvious and the results swift if single mums, piece-rate workers, shift workers, or multiplejobbers are to be involved in community activity. I hope too that my proposal for a Citizens' Participation Agency would reach out to a new cadre of engaged citizens, to form the next generation of activists and leaders.
There are plenty of people on the right of politics who want to denude the public realm of its life and vitality, to debase public services, and to discredit the idea of collective provision. If public services work and are popular, it challenges and undermines their philosophy of the market being the best route to human happiness.
The ideological battle between private and public is still being waged, but its terms have changed. Labour is expanding its armoury of public provision and deepening the scope of the public realm, whilst the Tories are distilling their solutions to raw, uncut privatisation of the public services, beyond even the boundaries of Thatcherism.
What seems clear is that if we do nothing to pass power to local communities, the result will not be apathy; it will be alienation and anger. Our choice is between giving people control over their lives, or failing to deliver the transformation we want. The great lesson from the successes and failures of social democracy in Britain and around the world is that social change cannot come simply by pulling the levers and pressing the buttons in central government departments, or by relying on an enlightened and altruistic political class. Social change must be a common endeavour of all citizens, if change is to be progressive and lasting. We need to breathe new life into our neglected neighbourhoods, we need to spread a message of hope that politics matters, and we need to put communities in control.
