Framing Citizen Participation

Participatory Budgeting in France, Germany and the United Kingdom

A. Röcke

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137326669
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Europäische Politik

Originally developed in Brazil, participatory budgeting is widely recognised as democratic innovation yet its concrete results vary greatly. Collating evidence from empirical and theoretical analysis, this book aims to provide an explanation for these varied results by analysing participatory budgeting in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Part I

Analytic Framework: Frames, Diffusion and Democratic Innovations

1

Frames and Diffusion

Frames

‘Not ideas, but material and ideal interests, directly govern [human] conduct. Yet very frequently the “world images” that have been created by “ideas” have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest’ (Weber, 1946: 280). Many scholars in cultural and political sociology refer to this famous quote by Max Weber when arguing for the need to investigate the role of ideas and their relationship to the interests of agents (Swidler, 1986; Lepsius, 2009). This study too is interested in these sorts of ‘world images’ created by ‘ideas’, and their relation to interests. Concretely, the focus lies on specific idea combinations called ‘frames’ that deal with the topic of citizen participation in general, and participatory budgeting in particular. These ideas cannot be understood apart from their intrinsic link to actors’ interests. Actors might support a participatory process because they are committed to the values of participation and democracy, but also because they expect political gains from it (Font, 2003b: 15; Polletta and Kai Ho, 2006: 195).

For the last 10 to 20 years, investigating the role of ideas has become a quite prominent research programme in a number of different social science domains, for example institutionalism (Hall, 1993; Schmidt, 2008), comparative political economy (Goldstein and Keohane, 1993; Sikkink, 1991), rational choice (Busch, 1999), public policy (Braun and Busch, 1999; Muller, 1995), public administration (Jann, 2002) and social movement studies (Gamson, 1992; Benford and Snow, 2000).¹ Scholars have provided different classifications of ideas (Campbell, 2002; Rueschemeyer, 2006), which can take the form of ‘paradigms, discourses, norms, models of interpretation, conceptions of the world, culture(s), orientations (of interaction), (implicit) theories, schemes, narratives, beliefs, frames, story lines, public philosophies, symbolic technologies, référentiels, etc.’ (Maier, 2003: 26). Thus, one has to define what sort of ideas one actually intends to investigate and how. The frame definition developed here owes much to the social movements literature (Snow and Benford, 2000), while the analysis of the specific functions of frames is based on Blyth’s (2002) work in the field of comparative political economy.

Definition and operationalisation

The notion of frame has been widely dealt with in different disciplines (for an overview, see Entman, 1993; Fischer, 1997; Strydom, 2006).² For this research, the frame definition and operationalisation was elaborated throughout the whole research project, in a constant dialogue between empirical investigation and theoretical reflection. This type of research belongs to the ‘sensitizing tradition’, where the ‘researcher sets out with a concept that is loosely defined and then refines its meaning during the course of the research’ (Blaikie, 2000: 138). Concretely, frames are defined here as specific ‘idea combinations’ that might be summarised by a catchword or label, for instance participatory democracy, but can also remain more implicit in the text or discourse of agents or organisations. The focus lies, however, above all on explicit frames. Frames represent relatively coherent idea combinations, meaning that a frame cannot contain contradictory elements (e.g., ‘mere consultation’ and ‘transfer of decision power’). As a specific combination of ideas that, like a picture frame, includes certain elements, but leaves others out, frames are by necessity a selective representation of reality (Entman, 1993: 54). They focus on some issues, but act to prevent consideration of others. It is for this reason that they represent ‘a reduction of social complexity’ (Della Porta and Diani, 2006: 70–71). Compared to discourses and ideologies, two related concepts, frames are characterised by a greater inner coherence:

Whereas a frame can be seen as a delimited ideational package, discourse is the sum total of talk produced by an organization, institutions, or society at a given point in time […]. So we can talk about the […] ‘medical discourse’ or ‘1950s gender discourse’. Discourses have a greater diversity of idea elements, more conflict, and more inconsistencies than frames […]. Ideologies, on the other hand, are usually conceptualized as complex systems of belief. They are more encompassing and elaborated than frames and are explicitly normative […] Frames are derived from ideologies, but they are also oriented to the strategic demands of making claims effectively. (Polletta and Kai Ho, 2006: 191–192)

The operationalisation of frames used here includes the following dimensions: author(s), ideological foundation, diagnosis, prognosis, goals and key features of the participatory process. It is important to specify the author(s) for knowing who created and/or uses the frame in a particular way. The second dimension is the ideological foundation of a frame, for instance post-authoritarian Socialism in the Porto Alegre participatory democracy frame.³ The third and fourth criteria are taken from the social movement literature where scholars usually analyse frames in terms of a diagnosis of a problematic situation (What is the problem?) and a prognosis about what actors can do about it (Snow and Benford, 1988).⁴ Moreover, frames contain the definition of the goals of a situation or process. Finally, the operationalisation includes the key features of the process at stake, in the present case citizen participation (e.g., scale and reach of participatory process). Even though not every empirical document (like a transcribed interview or policy text) that is investigated with these criteria might contain all of these aspects, they constitute a useful grid of analysis.

Actors’, policy and master frames

Frames are located at different levels: micro, meso and macro.⁵ As interpretative frameworks, they relate to actors and their personal perspectives (micro). I mainly used interviews and personal publications for investigating these frames. Policy frames are defined as concepts officially used by policy-makers for presenting and justifying the adopted policies to the public and within the political class (Campbell, 2002: 27). Empirical basis for the investigation of policy frames has been policy documents and secondary literature if available. There is not necessarily congruence between the actor and policy level, meaning that the agents that operate within, for instance, a municipal administration, do not necessarily share the official frame. Thus, to understand the way in which ideas as policy frames influence the adaptation of a participatory budgeting process, it is important to consider both the official programme and the framings of the actors directly involved with it. Third, master frames are frames that have a larger geographic scope. For instance, they are used in different local authorities or by a broader and geographically dispersed group of people.⁶ The greater extension poses the question of the internal coherence of such master frames because the broad diffusion or ‘success’ of ideas or concepts goes often hand in hand with a loosening of their meaning and inner coherence. As will be shown in Part II of the book, it is important here to distinguish between the diffusion of a frame label, like for instance participatory democracy in the French public discourse, and the question if the use of a new concept actually changes the practices of citizen participation or is best described as a new discourse without any tangible influence on the empirical reality.

The fact that ‘simply’ the frame label is diffused, however, doesn’t mean that it would not be important to consider the power of such a concept. As Entman (1993:55), with reference to Gamson’s work ‘Talking politics’, put it:

Gamson (1992) for instance observes that a frame can exert great social power when encoded in a term like affirmative action. Once a term is widely accepted, to use another is to risk that target audiences will perceive the communicator as lacking credibility – or will even fail to understand what the communicator is talking about. Thus the power of a frame can be as great as that of language itself.

Rohe (1990: 337–338) has expressed a similar point when arguing that specific concepts like class struggle, socialism or anarchy (but one could also put here citizen participation and democracy) provoke certain affects and can facilitate or by contrast hinder the communication of a particular political meaning. Depending on whether the speaker evokes a populist or class struggle vocabulary, for instance, this can strongly affect the success or failure of the speech. For reasons of scope, it is not possible to develop this aspect on the power of discourses much further here. What the empirical analysis in Part II will show, however, is that a changing discourse, or the emergence of a new frame of citizen participation, often indicates an overall transformation of the political context. Yet, two reservations need to be added. This is first the fact that this is not a clear-cut one-dimensional movement, but has ups and downs and can also be reversed or have different repercussions across geographic and policy areas. Second, the reality on the ground leaves much space for a mere strategic use of normatively valued concepts (like participatory democracy), which is why it is crucial to consider the practices associated with new ideas or frames.

A further dimension in the analysis of frames is the question of their origins and diffusion. The evidence collected here shows that new frames are usually created by single or groups of actors, be it social movements, university scholars, politicians or the like, drawing on different ideological sources, which can be national and international. Frames diffuse in the wider political vocabulary of a country primarily through the active use of social actors. The frame gets more visibility if, for instance, important political figures start using it. Yet, this alone cannot explain the broad diffusion of a frame. First, there not only needs to be a minimum degree of internal coherence but a clearly understood message behind. The problem with the ‘Big Society’ frame created by UK Prime Minister David Cameron, for instance, seems to be that it tries to combine rather contradictory elements: reducing spending and maintaining welfare (Smith, 2010: 828).⁷ Second, a favourable political context is important, meaning that the frame ‘fits’ to or ‘resonates’ with the context.⁸ In other words, frames often express a certain ‘Zeitgeist’ or ‘air du temps’. One of the two individuals who introduced the citizens’ town concept in Germany expresses this point as follows:

Suddenly I thought of the citizens’ town; derived from the term citizens’ society (Bürgergesellschaft). Citizens’ society and civil society (Zivilgesellschaft) were widespread terms at the beginning of the 1990s. And suddenly I thought of the citizens’ town […]. In my perception, this term was in the air. […] Suddenly I understood that this notion transports much of those things that a town should be made of.⁹

The fact that some frames express elements of the current political context (Entman, 1993: 53; Polletta and Kai Ho, 2006: 195) also means, vice versa, that there exist social, historic and political conditions facilitating the emergence and diffusion of such a frame. The emergence and success of the proximity democracy frame in France, for instance, has to be seen in relation to the growing critique of the traditional Republican approach that bestows upon elected representatives the unique power to make decisions. A new frame usually integrates some elements of the previous frame and combines them with new ideas – what in the social movement literature is termed a case of ‘frame bridging’ (Benford and Snow, 2000: 624f.).

Functions of frames

Finally, the specific functions of frames need to be specified. On this point, Blyth’s (2002) analysis in comparative political economy on the role of economic ideas in institutional change is interesting.¹⁰ I freely adopted Blyth’s assumptions to the present area of research in replacing ‘ideas’ with ‘frames’ and considering four out of five hypotheses he develops on the role of ideas.¹¹ He considers ideas as:

1. Interpretative frameworks of agents;
2. Condition for coalition building and collective action;
3. Weapons to attack other perspectives in the political field or to present new ideas;
4. Institutional blueprints for the design of new institutions.

Each aspect is presented in the following paragraphs. The first hypothesis Blyth puts forward considers economic ideas as ‘interpretative frameworks’ that ‘provide agents with both a scientific and a normative critique of the existing economy and polity, and a blueprint that specifies how these elements should be constructed’ (italics in original) – which in this study is dealt with under the heading of the diagnosis and prognosis of a situation.¹² Hypothesis two says that ‘Following uncertainty reduction, ideas make collective action and coalition-building possible’ (ibid.: 37): ideas provide alternative explanations for the current situation, thereby allow agents to better understand it and to define solutions. Thus, ideas are ‘crucial resources in the promotion of collective action’ (ibid.: 38). Overall, I agree with this point, but consider it also crucial to take into account the conflicts arising between different ‘idea coalitions’. As can be seen in the three local case studies in Part III, the introduction of new ideas in public administrations is often a very difficult undertaking potentially provoking a wave of protest from civil servants who consider these new ideas as acts of aggression against their way of doing things.

In hypothesis three, ideas constitute ‘weapons’ in the struggle over existing institutions because they provide agents ‘with an essential resource to attack and restructure’ existing institutions and policies, which are the result of past ideas about how these institutions work (ibid.: 39). In the context here, this means that agents use frames in the political game or battle in order to attack other perspectives or to propose new ideas on civic involvement.¹³ More indirectly, this aspect also refers to agents that use new ideas or frames in order to construct or strengthen their political profile and therefore enhance their position in battles over political power – empirical examples include Hazel Blears in England and Ségolène Royal in France.¹⁴ The fourth hypothesis sees ideas as ‘institutional blueprints’ that ‘dictate the form and content of the institutions that agents should construct to resolve a given […] crisis. […] It is therefore only by reference to the ideas that agents use to interpret their situation that understanding the design of new institutions becomes possible’ (ibid.: 40, 41; italics in original). Yet, how do frames exactly function as institutional blueprints? Blyth’s contribution as well as the wider literature on ideas or frames seem omitting the question of how ideas concretely influence the design of new policy instruments. For the most part, the focus lies on the role of ideas in broader political developments (Hall, 1993; Lepsius...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Analytic Framework: Frames, Diffusion and Democratic Innovations
• Part II The Invention of National Models of Participatory Budgeting?
• Part III From Frames to Democratic Innovations? Three Local Case Studies of Participatory Budgeting
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index