Le rôle politique de l'éducation dans les démocraties libérales : le pari républicain

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Productions of space : civic participation of young people at university

Civic participation of young people around the world is routinely described in deficit terms, as they are labelled apathetic, devoid of political knowledge, disengaged from the community and self-absorbed (Andolina, 2002; Weller, 2006). This paper argues that the connectivity of time, space and social values (Lefebvre, 1991; Soja, 1996) are integral to understanding the performances of young people as civic subjects. Today’s youth negotiate unstable social, economic and environmental conditions, new technologies and new forms of community. Loyalty, citizenship and notions of belonging take on new meanings in these changing global conditions. Using the socio-spatial theories of Lefebvre and Foucault, and the tools of critical discourse analysis, this paper argues that the chronotope, or time/space relationship of universities, produces student citizens who, in resistance to a complex global society, create a cocooned space which focuses on moral and spiritual values that can be enacted on a personal level.

Civic engagement and associationalism : the impact of group membership scope versus intensity of participation

The relationship between participation in civic and political activities and membership of voluntary associations is now well established. What is less clear is the relative impacts of how much time people spend on group activities (associational intensity), and the number and type of groups that individuals are involved with (associational scope). Does it matter in terms of civic engagement, for example, whether one is a member of a quilting-circle or trade union? Does it matter whether association ‘membership’ is simply an annual payment or a major commitment of time and energy? In this article, we use a large survey to explore these questions empirically by focusing on the membership patterns and civic engagement practices of 4,001 citizens drawn from eight suburbs across Greater Melbourne, Australia. Our findings indicate that, while associational intensity is positively related to civic engagement, associational scope (the number of group memberships per person), is a more influential determinant of the level of civic and political participation. The results also suggest that while all forms of associationalism are important in terms of fostering greater levels of civic activity, not all forms have the same impact.

International journalism and democracy : civic engagement models from around the world

"International Journalism and Democracy" explores a new form of journalism that has been dubbed ‘deliberative journalism’. As the name suggests, these forms of journalism support deliberation — the processes in which citizens recognize and discuss the issues that affect their communities, appraise the potential responses to those issues, and make decisions about whether and how to take action. Authors from across the globe identify the types of journalism that assist deliberative politics in different cultural and political contexts. Case studies from 15 nations spotlight different approaches to deliberative journalism, including strategies that have been sometimes been labeled as public or civic journalism, peace journalism, development journalism, citizen journalism, the street press, community journalism, social entrepreneurism, or other names. Countries that are studied in-depth include the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, Colombia and Puerto Rico. Each of the approaches that are described offers a distinctive potential to support deliberative democracy. However, the book does not present any of these models or case studies as examples of categorical success. Instead, it explores different elements of the nature, strengths, limitations and challenges of each approach, as well as issues affecting their longer-term sustainability and effectiveness. The book also describes the underlying principles of deliberation, the media’s potential role in deliberation from a theoretical and practical perspective, and ongoing issues for deliberative media practitioners.

Digital soapboxes : towards an interaction design agenda for situated civic innovation

We argue that there are at least two significant issues for interaction designers to consider when creating the next generation of human interfaces for civic and urban engagement: (1) The disconnect between citizens participating in either digital or physical realms has resulted in a neglect of the hybrid role that public place and situated technology can play in contributing to civic innovation. (2) Under the veneer of many social media tools, hardly any meaningful strategies or approaches are found that go beyond awareness raising and allow citizens to do more than clicking a ‘Like’ button. We call for an agenda to design the next generation of ‘digital soapboxes’ that contributes towards a new form of polity helping citizens not only to have a voice but also to appropriate their city in order to take action for change.

The civic virtue of developmentalism : on the mining industry’s social licence to develop Western Australia

This paper examines the social licence to operate (SLO) of Western Australia's (WA's) mining industry in the context of the state's ‘developmentalist’ agenda. We draw on the findings of a multi-disciplinary body of new research on the risks and challenges posed byWA's mining industry for environmental, social and economic sustainability. We synthesise the findings of this work against the backdrop of the broader debates on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and resource governance. In light of the data presented, this paper takes issue with the mining sector's SLO and its assessment of social and environmental impacts in WA for three inter-related reasons. A state government ideologically wedded to resource-led growth is seen to offer the resource sector a political licence to operate and to give insufficient attention to its potential social and environmental impacts. As a result, the resource sector can adopt a self-serving CSR agenda built on a limited win–win logic and operate with a ‘quasi social licence’ that is restricted to mere economic legitimacy. Overall, this paper problematises the political-cum-commercial construction and neoliberalisation of the SLO and raises questions about the impact of mining in WA.

Participatory action research for civic engagement

The future of civic engagement is characterised by both technological innovation as well as new technological user practices that are fuelled by trends towards mobile, personal devices; broadband connectivity; open data; urban interfaces; and, cloud computing. These technology trends are progressing at a rapid pace, and have led global technology vendors to package and sell the ‘Smart City’ as a centralized service delivery platform predicted to optimize and enhance cities’ key performance indicators – and generate a profitable market. The top-down deployment of these large and proprietary technology platforms have helped sectors such as energy, transport, and healthcare to increase efficiencies. However, an increasing number of scholars and commentators warn of another ‘IT bubble’ emerging. Along with some city leaders, they argue that the top-down approach does not fit the governance dynamics and values of a liberal democracy when applied across sectors. A thorough understanding is required, of the socio-cultural nuances of how people work, live, play across different environments, and how they employ social media and mobile devices to interact with, engage in, and constitute public realms. Although the term ‘slacktivism’ is sometimes used to denote a watered down version of civic engagement and activism that is reduced to clicking a ‘Like’ button and signing online petitions, we believe that we are far from witnessing another Biedermeier period that saw people focus on the domestic and the non-political. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary, such as post-election violence in Kenya in 2008, the Occupy movements in New York, Hong Kong and elsewhere, the Arab Spring, Stuttgart 21, Fukushima, the Taksim Gezi Park in Istanbul, and the Vinegar Movement in Brazil in 2013. These examples of civic action shape the dynamics of governments, and in turn, call for new processes to be incorporated into governance structures. Participatory research into these new processes across the triad of people, place and technology is a significant and timely investment to foster productive, sustainable, and livable human habitats. With this chapter, we want to reframe the current debates in academia and priorities in industry and government to allow citizens and civic actors to take their rightful centerpiece place in civic movements. This calls for new participatory approaches for co-inquiry and co-design. It is an evolving process with an explicit agenda to facilitate change, and we propose participatory action research (PAR) as an indispensable component in the journey to develop new governance infrastructures and practices for civic engagement. This chapter proposes participatory action research as a useful and fitting research paradigm to guide methodological considerations surrounding the study, design, development, and evaluation of civic technologies. We do not limit our definition of civic technologies to tools specifically designed to simply enhance government and governance, such as renewing your car registration online or casting your vote electronically on election day. Rather, we are interested in civic media and technologies that foster citizen engagement in the widest sense, and particularly the participatory design of such civic technologies that strive to involve citizens in political debate and action as well as question conventional approaches to political issues (DiSalvo, 2012; Dourish, 2010; Foth et al., 2013). Following an outline of some underlying principles and assumptions behind participatory action research, especially as it applies to cities, we will critically review case studies to illustrate the application of this approach with a view to engender robust, inclusive, and dynamic societies built on the principles of engaged liberal democracy. The rationale for this approach is an alternative to smart cities in a ‘perpetual tomorrow,’ (cf. e.g. Dourish & Bell, 2011), based on many weak and strong signals of civic actions revolving around technology seen today. It seeks to emphasize and direct attention to active citizenry over passive consumerism, human actors over human factors, culture over infrastructure, and prosperity over efficiency. First, we will have a look at some fundamental issues arising from applying simplistic smart city visions to the kind of a problem a city is (cf. Jacobs, 1961). We focus on the touch points between “the city” and its civic body, the citizens. In order to provide for meaningful civic engagement, the city must provide appropriate interfaces.

DoGood : A gamified mobile app to promote civic engagement

The rise of the mobile Internet enables the creation of applications that provide new and easier ways for people to organise themselves, raise issues, take action and interact with their city. However, a lack of motivation or knowledge often prevents many citizens from regularly contributing to the common good. Therefore, this thesis presents DoGood, a smartphone app, that aims at motivating citizens to carry out civic activities. The thesis asks what kinds of activities citizens consider to be civic and to what extent gamification can motivate users in this context. The DoGood app uses gamified elements to encourage citizens to submit and promote their civic activities as well as to join the activities of others. Gamification is sometimes criticized for simply adding a limited number of game elements, such as leaderboards, on top of an existing experience. However, in the case of the DoGood app, the process of game design was an integral part of the development, and the gamified elements target the user’s intrinsic motivations instead of providing them with an external reward. DoGood was implemented as hybrid mobile app and deployed to citizens of Brisbane in a five weeks long user study. The app successfully motivated most of its users to do more civic activities and its gamified elements were well received. Based on the results of the user study, civic activities can be defined as activities that give citizens the opportunity to become involved and improve life in their local community.

Save the Reef! Civic crowdfunding and public interest environmental litigation

This article examines the emerging area of civic crowdfunding, a subset of crowdfunding, as a means of financing public interest environmental litigation. The literature surrounding civic crowdfunding and third party litigation funding is currently underdeveloped. The link between those areas and public interest environmental litigation takes a further step into the unknown. As a case study, the Sea Dumping Case presents exciting opportunities for civil society and access to justice, but further research is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn.

Understanding the civic impact of journalism

The importance of journalism to civil society is constantly proclaimed, but empirical evidence on journalism's impact, and how this operates, is surprisingly thin. Indeed, there is confusion even about what is meant by the term “impact”. Meanwhile, the issue of the role of journalism is becoming increasingly urgent as a consequence of the rapid changes engulfing the news media, brought about by technological change and the flow-on effect to the traditional advertising-supported business model. Assessing the impact of journalism has recently been the topic of debate among practitioners and scholars particularly in the United States, where philanthropists have responded to the perceived crisis in investigative journalism by funding not-for-profit newsrooms, with resulting new pressures being placed on journalists and editors to quantify their impact on society. These recent attempts have so far failed to achieve clarity or a satisfactory conclusion, which is not surprising given the complex web of causation within which journalism operates. In this paper, the authors propose a stratified definition of journalistic impact and function. They propose a methodology for studying impact drawing on realistic evaluation—a theory-based approach developed primarily to assess large social programmes occurring in open systems. The authors argue this could allow a conceptual and methodological advance on the question of media impacts, leading to research capable of usefully informing responses at a time of worrying change.

Citizens breaking out of filter bubbles: Urban screens as civic media

Social media platforms risk polarising public opinions by employing proprietary algorithms that produce filter bubbles and echo chambers. As a result, the ability of citizens and communities to engage in robust debate in the public sphere is diminished. In response, this paper highlights the capacity of urban interfaces, such as pervasive displays, to counteract this trend by exposing citizens to the socio-cultural diversity of the city. Engagement with different ideas, networks and communities is crucial to both innovation and the functioning of democracy. We discuss examples of urban interfaces designed to play a key role in fostering this engagement. Based on an analysis of works empirically-grounded in field observations and design research, we call for a theoretical framework that positions pervasive displays and other urban interfaces as civic media. We argue that when designed for more than wayfinding, advertisement or television broadcasts, urban screens as civic media can rectify some of the pitfalls of social media by allowing the polarised user to break out of their filter bubble and embrace the cultural diversity and richness of the city.

Participation in Urban Interaction Design for Civic Engagement

The future of civic engagement is characterised by both technological innovation as well as new technological user practices that are fuelled by trends towards mobile, personal devices; broadband connectivity; open data; urban interfaces; and cloud computing. These technology trends are progressing at a rapid pace, and have led global technology vendors to package and sell the “Smart City” as a centralised service delivery platform predicted to optimise and enhance cities’ key performance indicators – and generate a profitable market. The top-down deployment of these large and proprietary technology platforms have helped sectors such as energy, transport, and healthcare to increase efficiencies. However, an increasing number of scholars and commentators warn of another “IT bubble” emerging. Along with some city leaders, they argue that the top-down approach does not fit the governance dynamics and values of a liberal democracy when applied across sectors. A thorough understanding is required, of the socio-cultural nuances of how people work, live, play across different environments, and how they employ social media and mobile devices to interact with, engage in, and constitute public realms. Although the term “slacktivism” is sometimes used to denote a watered down version of civic engagement and activism that is reduced to clicking a “Like” button and signing online petitions, we believe that we are far from witnessing another Biedermeier period that saw people focus on the domestic and the non-political. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary, such as post-election violence in Kenya in 2008, the Occupy movements in New York, Hong Kong and elsewhere, the Arab Spring, Stuttgart 21, Fukushima, the Taksim Gezi Park in Istanbul, and the Vinegar Movement in Brazil in 2013. These examples of civic action shape the dynamics of governments, and in turn, call for new processes to be incorporated into governance structures. Participatory research into these new processes across the triad of people, place and technology is a significant and timely investment to foster productive, sustainable, and liveable human habitats. With this article, we want to reframe the current debates in academia and priorities in industry and government to allow citizens and civic actors to take their rightful centrepiece place in civic movements. This calls for new participatory approaches for co-inquiry and co-design. It is an evolving process with an explicit agenda to facilitate change, and we propose participatory action research (PAR) as an indispensable component in the journey to develop new governance infrastructures and practices for civic engagement. We do not limit our definition of civic technologies to tools specifically designed to simply enhance government and governance, such as renewing your car registration online or casting your vote electronically on election day. Rather, we are interested in civic media and technologies that foster citizen engagement in the widest sense, and particularly the participatory design of such civic technologies that strive to involve citizens in political debate and action as well as question conventional approaches to political issues. The rationale for this approach is an alternative to smart cities in a “perpetual tomorrow,” based on many weak and strong signals of civic actions revolving around technology seen today. It seeks to emphasise and direct attention to active citizenry over passive consumerism, human actors over human factors, culture over infrastructure, and prosperity over efficiency. First, we will have a look at some fundamental issues arising from applying simplistic smart city visions to the kind of a problem a city poses. We focus on the touch points between “the city” and its civic body, the citizens. In order to provide for meaningful civic engagement, the city must provide appropriate interfaces.

Growing Flowers in the Frost: Civic Activity, Citizenship and Gender in Russia

This study analyzes civic activity, citizenship and their gendered manifestations in contemporary Russia. It is based on a case study conducted in the city of Tver , located in the vicinity of Moscow, during 2001-2005. The data consists of interviews with civic activists and municipal and regional authorities; observations of civic organizations; and a quantitative survey conducted among local civic groups. The theoretical and methodological framework of the study draws upon a micro perspective on organization, discourse analysis, gender and citizenship theories and Pierre Bourdieu s theory of fields and capital. This study develops theoretical understanding of the characteristics and logic of civic organization in Russia. It shows that social class centrally structures the field of civic activity. Organizations can be seen as a vehicle of the educated class to advocate their interests, help themselves and seek both social and individual-level change. The study also argues that civic organizations founded during the post-Soviet era are often an institutionalized form of informal social networks. Networks, which were a central element of everyday interaction in Soviet society, are a resource and often the only resource available that can be made use of in contemporary organizational activities. The study argues that gender operates as a key structuring principle in the Russian socio-political community. Civic activity is often discursively associated with femininity and institutional politics with masculinity. Women tend to participate more than men in civic organizations, while men dominate the formal political domain. The study shows that civic organizations are important loci of communality. This communality, however, differs from the communality envisioned in the communitarian and social capital debates in the West. It is selective communality , as it is restricted to the members of the organizations and does not create generalized reciprocity and trust. Civic organizations tend to build upon and reproduce the traditional Russian organizational form of circles , kruzhki. Along with the analysis of civic activities, the study also examines the redefinition of the role and functions of the state. The authorities interviewed in this study understand civic organizations as serving those goals and interests determined by the authorities, instead of viewing them as sites of citizens self-organization around interests and problems citizens themselves deem important, or as a counterforce to the state. By contrast, civic activists understand the core of organizational activity to be advocacy of their interests and rights, tackling social problems, the pursuit of wider social change and self-help. Co-operation between authorities and organizations tends to be personified and based upon unequal, hierarchical patron-client arrangements, which inhibits the development of democratic governance. The study will be published in Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series later this year.