The articles gives insights on structure and power as seen by Habermas and Foucault. What follows is extensively taken from the article. The purpose of this note is to keep historical memory as well as to continue feeding an internal discussion amongst GreeNTD practitioners.
Habermas’s concept of a communicative rationality is often cited as the root for the popular association between participation and consensus. At societal level, it is deliberation’s ability to create consensus that makes social action possible. Recognizing that social and political inequalities often exclude and disempower specific actors, H. argues that properly designed institutions and procedural rules can ensure equal participation and that decisions are based on consensus brought about by rational argument not coercion or violence. At its most profound, deliberation becomes a transformative process both for the individual and for the group.
A significant critique of this approach argues that a focus on perfecting the techniques and institutions of participation encourages instrumentalism, and distances practitioners and participants from the truly transformative potential of participatory processes. Cleaver, lamenting participation’s transformation into a “managerial exercise based on toolboxes of procedures and techniques … ‘domesticated’ away from its radical roots” calls on researchers to be more attentive to issues of power within communities. Power can determine not only who is included in participatory processes, but the way in which they participate and the conclusions that are reached. Even many supposedly pro-participation Development Agencies are incredibly powerful and show a marked reluctance to release control. Participation is a conflictual and, sometimes, violent process whereby the less powerful must struggle for increased control over their lives.
Given this, a useful response would be to shift our energies away from attempts to eliminate conflict, to the creation of participatory structures able to work with conflict in productive ways.
The work of Foucault has been foundational for discussions of resistance to established structures of power, value and control. For F. all exchanges are always permeated by power. Effective political engagement begins with an understanding of and resistance to inequalities of power and the logics that are used to justify and normalize them. For F. freedom is a practice. Resistance and struggle – in contrast to consensus – is for F. the most solid basis for the practice of freedom.
Participation and climate change
Since the IPCC’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (2000), a broader conception of the role of participatory processes has emerged. The report established that lifestyle choice and local and national development paths will have a far greater effect on the climate than any form of environmental policy. This has led to a push to extend debate beyond individual or technological solutions to a more fundamental discussion of alternative courses for our collective futures. Responding to climate change in this context means asking fundamental questions about how we wish to live our lives, what our goals are, and by which means we as a society will pursue them. These are profoundly moral and political issues, which require thoughtful deliberations and collective resolution. And on those issues, the principles of democracy imply that every citizen has equal expertise. The challenge becomes one of creating methods of deliberation and decision making that actively engage the relevant interests and communities in thinking through and deciding upon the kind of future they want to try and create.
