An interesting debate emerged over dinner last night which could roughly be summarised as:
can one trust dogs more than cats?
My argument is that you can, dogs are far more loyal and obedient than cats generally, and speaking as someone with extensive experience of both canine and feline friends in a domestic setting I thought I speak with some authority about the matter.
I was not prepared however to be faced with a table-full of dog phobics who obviously favour cats because they are smaller and not as scary. I never felt comfortable with this 'are you a dog or a cat person' juxtapositioning, but I found myself fighting the dogs' corner last night, tooth and nail.
The funniest remark made last night against dogs (and their owners, in particular) is that when a dog attacks a human being the "classic" line from the owner is always "but s/he is such a sweet dog" thus approaching the unfortunate incident with complete incredulity.
I think that the above is not half as common though as a similar trend among parents towards their children's mischief. Speaking as a non-parent and having had to confront parents over their children's behaviour I can only say that one faces some kind of a brick wall where trust indeed becomes a huge issue. What parents generally don't seem to understand is that children are incredibly mischevious and have no trouble lying to their parents in order to save their skins.
And yet, faced with a naughty child with every incentive to be dishonest, a parent will automatically take the side of their offspring against a reasonable and polite grown up presenting an incriminating case against the offending minor.
So, back to the question, are dogs trustworthy? I think there is every reason to believe that dogs are more trustworthy than children, and that parents generally are more deluded than dog owners.
Oh, and what about cats then? I think much in tune with many fellow gardeners in urban areas I find myself increasingly frustrated with their pesky habit of using my flower beds as a public lavatory. But as far as their trustworthiness goes... well, if you see a cat guiding a blind person, please get in touch.
Tuesday 29 July 2008
Wednesday 23 July 2008
Who decides what is in the public interest?
Having read the conclusions of a doctoral thesis completed by Pia Backlund in Helsinki entitled "Tietamisen politiikka" - meaning something like "the Politics of Knowing", I have gathered valuable further ammunition to build the case for why participation is good in the context of local government.
I need all the evidence I can find, frankly, because most of the stuff that's happening out there carrying the label of "citizen/public participation/consultation"/ whatever/ is pretty depressing, from everyone's perspective. The residents who turn up are the "usual suspects" who hold their (stubborn) views and are thus oblivious to any messages deviating from their core beliefs, and then you get the ones who just turn up for the free biscuits. Generally, the general public are ill-informed, they have a narrow viewpoint often fuelled by "NIMBY" [not-in-my-backyard]. I raised this at the summer school last week, because everyone seemed to be raving about public engagement, perhaps erring on the side of (naive) enthusiasm. My challenge was that maybe everyone should just leave it to the professionals, there must be several studies carried out into the engagement of the public in decision-making which have concluded that most people take a short-term, self-centered view on things, where perhaps greater foresight and the "public good" should take precedence.
I'd like to illustrate this with the example of the proposed congestion charging in Manchester, the public debate (in the press) around which is strongly influenced by one heavy-weight interest group obviously positioned against the scheme.
The answer I got from the floor to my questioning of the value of public consultation was that a lot of resources have to dedicated to public education/information dissemination and all that, to make an informed public debate. Ah, but my problem with that is rooted in normative ethics: so the authorities should decide what is right/correct/unbiased, so as to make sure people know how to respond to the forthcoming consultation, to make the right decision?
I can't resist drawing on another practical example which was the Irish referenda (2001 "no"; 2002 "yes") on ratifying the Treaty of Nice. From the Government's viewpoint the public didn't quite get their facts right the first time, then more public education was required, and another referendum held until the majority at least got their facts right and voted in favour of the Treaty.
If Michel Foucault had been in the room at the summer school when the "public information campaign" was suggested as a solution to the public engagement dilemma, he might have had a thing or two to say about power/knowledge and all that.
Anyway, I said I had some positive evidence in favour of public engagement. Indeed, that engagement does not however take the form of "yes/no" type referenda or consultation even on issues predetermined by the administration, it's more to do with building bottom-up knowledge and the administration tapping into that information base, "the wisdom of many". The public servants' job is surely to understand what life is like in their jurisdiction and try to make the most of what resources they have to make life better, right?
This brings me to my final point: to describe it I'm going to use a term coined by Richard (the "PPGIS guru") in our supervision yesterday: "geographically referenced community information base" (that could be built, yes you've guessed it, with the help of Public Participation Geographical Information System, a mouthful and a half).
Maybe there is hope for us active citizens.
I need all the evidence I can find, frankly, because most of the stuff that's happening out there carrying the label of "citizen/public participation/consultation"/ whatever/ is pretty depressing, from everyone's perspective. The residents who turn up are the "usual suspects" who hold their (stubborn) views and are thus oblivious to any messages deviating from their core beliefs, and then you get the ones who just turn up for the free biscuits. Generally, the general public are ill-informed, they have a narrow viewpoint often fuelled by "NIMBY" [not-in-my-backyard]. I raised this at the summer school last week, because everyone seemed to be raving about public engagement, perhaps erring on the side of (naive) enthusiasm. My challenge was that maybe everyone should just leave it to the professionals, there must be several studies carried out into the engagement of the public in decision-making which have concluded that most people take a short-term, self-centered view on things, where perhaps greater foresight and the "public good" should take precedence.
I'd like to illustrate this with the example of the proposed congestion charging in Manchester, the public debate (in the press) around which is strongly influenced by one heavy-weight interest group obviously positioned against the scheme.
The answer I got from the floor to my questioning of the value of public consultation was that a lot of resources have to dedicated to public education/information dissemination and all that, to make an informed public debate. Ah, but my problem with that is rooted in normative ethics: so the authorities should decide what is right/correct/unbiased, so as to make sure people know how to respond to the forthcoming consultation, to make the right decision?
I can't resist drawing on another practical example which was the Irish referenda (2001 "no"; 2002 "yes") on ratifying the Treaty of Nice. From the Government's viewpoint the public didn't quite get their facts right the first time, then more public education was required, and another referendum held until the majority at least got their facts right and voted in favour of the Treaty.
If Michel Foucault had been in the room at the summer school when the "public information campaign" was suggested as a solution to the public engagement dilemma, he might have had a thing or two to say about power/knowledge and all that.
Anyway, I said I had some positive evidence in favour of public engagement. Indeed, that engagement does not however take the form of "yes/no" type referenda or consultation even on issues predetermined by the administration, it's more to do with building bottom-up knowledge and the administration tapping into that information base, "the wisdom of many". The public servants' job is surely to understand what life is like in their jurisdiction and try to make the most of what resources they have to make life better, right?
This brings me to my final point: to describe it I'm going to use a term coined by Richard (the "PPGIS guru") in our supervision yesterday: "geographically referenced community information base" (that could be built, yes you've guessed it, with the help of Public Participation Geographical Information System, a mouthful and a half).
Maybe there is hope for us active citizens.
Tuesday 15 July 2008
Ascetic existence in Salford
It's day 2.5 of the iGov2008 summer institute at the University of Salford, and last night I took the plunge and stayed at the Halls of Residence with the rest of the group. Even though I had brought my own sheets for the less than inviting single bed (elitist, I know, but after having showered this morning I wish I had brought my own towel as well) , it was still a bit of an ascetic experience. I say no more.
The institute consists of 20 students from all over the world, but notably none from the UK (apart from myself, that is, but I'm not originally from the UK either). The institute focuses on Greater Manchester with a strong theme on urban management issues, whilst some of the students seem a little critical about the lack of focus on e-government in a more purist sense, personally I find it refresing (read: I don't think I'd have an entire week of e-government in me).
This morning we had a keynote address from the venerable Stephen Coleman, whom I had the privilege of hearing also at the Politics 2.0 conference back in March, for some reason I found his address this morning more resonant than the previous time. Professor Coleman offered insighful analysis on the state of democracy, politics and citizenship in the digital/information age. Personally what I took away from it was his analysis of the concepts of trust vs. efficacy (in goverment-to-citizen relationships). Professor Coleman put forward the view that trust creates dependency which is inseparable from the flip side of the coin: let-down or disappointment; whereas efficacy would suggest a more proactive approach with people influencing the outcomes which affect them, a more engaging approach than "blind" trust.
I made a mental note of this and in my head hyperlinked this notion to that offered by Nikolas Rose (2000) in his essay on citizenship, New Labour and the Third Way. Rose talks about "a double movement of autonomization and responsibilisation" where the government off-loads responsibility onto the citizen-consumer coupled with increased autonomy in their drive for (double) devolution and "empowering communities". I am greatly enthused about Rose's analysis on "sociological determinism" [remember New Labour mantra "what works is what matters"] and "therapeutic individualism" [I hardly need to refer to user empowerment, "choice" and all the rest...].
I expressed some of these thoughts in the informal discussion over a cup of coffee after the keynote address, and somehow managed to rope in my notions of the global-local complexities in the network society, particularly how nowadays frustrations at the local level are often derived from global flows of information and conflicts (multicultural societies and all that). To my surprise Prof Coleman said he had just written a piece about this which was about to come out (next week in fact) and added that he would like to read some of my stuff, a huge compliment to a nobody such as myself. Incidentally, I am presenting a paper at a conference in Liverpool next month but don't think I'll have the nerve to send it to Stephen Coleman, it's just not quite good enough, I don't think completing that paper just before shooting off to Helsinki was my finest hour.
I am finding this institute nevertheless a welcome distraction to help me ease my way back into academic-analytical thinking after my 7-week long (empirical) rampage in Finland, which I have to write up before the end of August. (yikes)
The institute consists of 20 students from all over the world, but notably none from the UK (apart from myself, that is, but I'm not originally from the UK either). The institute focuses on Greater Manchester with a strong theme on urban management issues, whilst some of the students seem a little critical about the lack of focus on e-government in a more purist sense, personally I find it refresing (read: I don't think I'd have an entire week of e-government in me).
This morning we had a keynote address from the venerable Stephen Coleman, whom I had the privilege of hearing also at the Politics 2.0 conference back in March, for some reason I found his address this morning more resonant than the previous time. Professor Coleman offered insighful analysis on the state of democracy, politics and citizenship in the digital/information age. Personally what I took away from it was his analysis of the concepts of trust vs. efficacy (in goverment-to-citizen relationships). Professor Coleman put forward the view that trust creates dependency which is inseparable from the flip side of the coin: let-down or disappointment; whereas efficacy would suggest a more proactive approach with people influencing the outcomes which affect them, a more engaging approach than "blind" trust.
I made a mental note of this and in my head hyperlinked this notion to that offered by Nikolas Rose (2000) in his essay on citizenship, New Labour and the Third Way. Rose talks about "a double movement of autonomization and responsibilisation" where the government off-loads responsibility onto the citizen-consumer coupled with increased autonomy in their drive for (double) devolution and "empowering communities". I am greatly enthused about Rose's analysis on "sociological determinism" [remember New Labour mantra "what works is what matters"] and "therapeutic individualism" [I hardly need to refer to user empowerment, "choice" and all the rest...].
I expressed some of these thoughts in the informal discussion over a cup of coffee after the keynote address, and somehow managed to rope in my notions of the global-local complexities in the network society, particularly how nowadays frustrations at the local level are often derived from global flows of information and conflicts (multicultural societies and all that). To my surprise Prof Coleman said he had just written a piece about this which was about to come out (next week in fact) and added that he would like to read some of my stuff, a huge compliment to a nobody such as myself. Incidentally, I am presenting a paper at a conference in Liverpool next month but don't think I'll have the nerve to send it to Stephen Coleman, it's just not quite good enough, I don't think completing that paper just before shooting off to Helsinki was my finest hour.
I am finding this institute nevertheless a welcome distraction to help me ease my way back into academic-analytical thinking after my 7-week long (empirical) rampage in Finland, which I have to write up before the end of August. (yikes)
Sunday 6 July 2008
The grass is greener...
When I set off in mid-May to do my overseas benchmarking fieldwork in Helsinki, I was fully expecting the Finns to have sorted out all the e-government stuff to a very advanced degree, based on their reputation. I expected there to be channel management strategies, refined systems of monitoring customer contacts, and above all a single window citizen-centric portal for all council services. The information society experience on the ground certainly is pretty advanced, as confirmed by the undersigned: mobile broadband, wireless hotspots, free cable modems from the library, funky walk-in centres in regeneration areas for anyone to use - no registration required.
In addition, Helsinki's current ICT strategy is a superb document, I could not have written a more comprehensive one myself. So, what's wrong? Erm, well, the vision of an all-singing, all-dancing e-service environment is thought be a reality in 2015. Yep, some 10 years later than I would have expected.
Thus the overall story from Helsinki for me is one of bewilderment mingled with disappointment. I couldn't stop myself in the subsequent interviews from trying to ascertain what on earth went wrong, as if there was some huge failure on the Council's part to have delivered more in the decade after I had left the country for England. That expectation ofcourse was mainly in my head, but most interviewees admitted that Finland had, overall, experienced an alarming period of stagnation in the past decade or so. Favourable economic trends and steady growth don't make a good environment for Finns to flourish, apparently. They need to struggle, hardship is required to bring out the best in Finns! Good news then for my compatriots, the world economy is in turmoil thanks to the much written about credit crunch in America, rocketing fuel prices etc. - there are certainly challenging times ahead for Little Finland too.
The other surprise was that I found such deep-rooted silos in the administration of Helsinki that I think they even surpass those in Manchester. "Maybe good hierarchy is better than a series of teethless partnerships" Nicola suggested on my first day back in Manchester. There's food for thought, the "system" does seem to work remarkably well in Helsinki - services are generally well-run, at least they keep raving about it in the press, the formidable "Nordic welfare model".
But is it really so great as they all think?
They may take away my passport for expressing anti-patriotic sentiments, but I do think the "system" that is the welfare model is heading towards a crisis in Finland anyway. It is perhaps based on an out-dated model of a homogenous society where everyone sings from the same hymn sheet, but that is increasingly not the case in Finland, as it is not the case anywhere else in Europe. Am I going to be the first academic to predict the demise of the Nordic welfare system? What a shock it would be to the entire leftie-liberal world who hail countries like Finland and Sweden as their ultimate progressive safe havens.
One or two interviewees, whose names I shall not mention here, admitted that they have come across some exaggerated ideas about the Finnish public sector during their travels. One even admitted that some policies have been borrowed from elsewhere in Europe - shock & horror! In the same time those who had had some exposure to UK policies and/or familiarised with Manchester's digital development, seemed to have an exceedingly positive image of what it is like over here. I didn't have the heart to tell them that they would be surprised if they scratched the surface, as much as I had been having scratched the surface in Helsinki.
I draw two important lessons from my comparative study:
1) Reputation, it appears, is not always built on hard facts.
2) Apparently, for public sector workers, the grass is always greener on the other side.
Let's not tell that to all those buraucrats in Brussels dishing out money for civil servants across Europe to travel to exotic places to learn how things are done "better" elsewhere.
Viva study visits!
In addition, Helsinki's current ICT strategy is a superb document, I could not have written a more comprehensive one myself. So, what's wrong? Erm, well, the vision of an all-singing, all-dancing e-service environment is thought be a reality in 2015. Yep, some 10 years later than I would have expected.
Thus the overall story from Helsinki for me is one of bewilderment mingled with disappointment. I couldn't stop myself in the subsequent interviews from trying to ascertain what on earth went wrong, as if there was some huge failure on the Council's part to have delivered more in the decade after I had left the country for England. That expectation ofcourse was mainly in my head, but most interviewees admitted that Finland had, overall, experienced an alarming period of stagnation in the past decade or so. Favourable economic trends and steady growth don't make a good environment for Finns to flourish, apparently. They need to struggle, hardship is required to bring out the best in Finns! Good news then for my compatriots, the world economy is in turmoil thanks to the much written about credit crunch in America, rocketing fuel prices etc. - there are certainly challenging times ahead for Little Finland too.
The other surprise was that I found such deep-rooted silos in the administration of Helsinki that I think they even surpass those in Manchester. "Maybe good hierarchy is better than a series of teethless partnerships" Nicola suggested on my first day back in Manchester. There's food for thought, the "system" does seem to work remarkably well in Helsinki - services are generally well-run, at least they keep raving about it in the press, the formidable "Nordic welfare model".
But is it really so great as they all think?
They may take away my passport for expressing anti-patriotic sentiments, but I do think the "system" that is the welfare model is heading towards a crisis in Finland anyway. It is perhaps based on an out-dated model of a homogenous society where everyone sings from the same hymn sheet, but that is increasingly not the case in Finland, as it is not the case anywhere else in Europe. Am I going to be the first academic to predict the demise of the Nordic welfare system? What a shock it would be to the entire leftie-liberal world who hail countries like Finland and Sweden as their ultimate progressive safe havens.
One or two interviewees, whose names I shall not mention here, admitted that they have come across some exaggerated ideas about the Finnish public sector during their travels. One even admitted that some policies have been borrowed from elsewhere in Europe - shock & horror! In the same time those who had had some exposure to UK policies and/or familiarised with Manchester's digital development, seemed to have an exceedingly positive image of what it is like over here. I didn't have the heart to tell them that they would be surprised if they scratched the surface, as much as I had been having scratched the surface in Helsinki.
I draw two important lessons from my comparative study:
1) Reputation, it appears, is not always built on hard facts.
2) Apparently, for public sector workers, the grass is always greener on the other side.
Let's not tell that to all those buraucrats in Brussels dishing out money for civil servants across Europe to travel to exotic places to learn how things are done "better" elsewhere.
Viva study visits!
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