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Politics from the Politicians' Perspective, continued

David Mathews

Index

The Way Things Were Supposed to Be
We, the People; They, the Government
When Officials Need the Public
Notes and Bibliography

Contents

When Officials Need the Public
Notes and Bibliography

Chapter 5: When Officials Need the Public

Despite uncertainty about what the public has to offer in most situations, despite their sense that they must be in charge, despite all their reservations about the public's motivations and competence, officeholders recognize that they need the public in certain circumstances. In some situations, their professional skills, expertise, and ability to judge what is in the public interest are not enough. When the public's attention is needed to keep an issue on the political front burner, when it is clear that a dispute turns on human values rather than technicalities, when public support is not forthcoming even after citizens have been "educated," or when the governing machinery is hopelessly deadlocked by a political stalemate—then officials have a different view about the role of the public. These are situations where officials admit they need a public, a public that is more than voters or interest groups.

Still, enlisting the public, getting the active support of citizens (not just their consent) confronts officials with a real dilemma. The modern theory of politics (politics as usual) doesn't tell officials what to do when they need to work with the public. Officials struggle with an inherent tension when they need the public. Their job description tells them that they have to be in charge, to make the decisions. Yet sometimes there isn't any decision they can make to solve the problem. As one mayor acknowledged, "One of the biggest challenges is how to give people ownership of the process without losing the ability to lead."

Easy Ways of Relating to the Public

This way of relating to the public creates no dilemma over roles. Officials are still in charge; citizens are consumers. Officeholders are accustomed to helping citizens, to listening to their individual concerns. Citizens know how to respond in this type of relationship. They join in by trying to "sell" officials on their needs. "The first thing we do when we elect someone to office," said a citizen from North Carolina, "is to try to sell him something." [1]

Unfortunately, what officeholders learn about consumers doesn't tell them all they need to know about citizens. With all the available polling data and with all that they hear from constituents, officials know a great deal about what people think. They know far less, however, about why the public thinks as it does. Officials do not usually hear citizens talking to citizens, only citizens talking to officials. They don't get to find out what is truly valuable to people. This deeper insight is not readily available even though officials are surrounded by the public. As one mayor said, "I think of the public as being the kind of sea that we swim in." The challenge is that seas have shifting currents; like swimmers, officeholders cannot always tell in what direction or how swiftly those currents are moving.

Officials of government are also comfortable with the public when they can direct the way citizens react to issues. There are well-honed strategies for gaining public support for their solutions, strategies developed in the 1960s, when there was a premium on citizen participation. The idea was that if more people were consulted, they would feel better and be more supportive, although policy decisions might be unaffected by what was said. In order for disgruntled citizens to vent their concerns, officeholders first hold meetings in areas directly affected by a decision. Then they schedule meetings in other areas as a means to build support for the decision they think is best. As one city manager revealed, "A lot of times we seek community input because we're looking for folks who are quite satisfied with a decision on an issue."

Officials say this sort of meeting is important in building credibility. One mayor reported that it "gives legitimacy to the effort." These gatherings show citizens that the government is open, that it provides concerned people with the opportunity to express their views. Officeholders recognize that these occasions often attract extreme views. "But I promise you," warned a county commissioner, "that if you did not have . . . [meetings] on some of these things, you on the commissioners' court would really catch it."

Credibility is like cash in the bank; it can be drawn on in the future. As one city manager put it, "I think we also seek [public input] because it gives us credibility on other issues. So when the next issue comes [people] . . . may be more primed to support the government because they felt as though they were treated fairly in the first instance."

Where the Going Gets Rough

When Values Are at Issue and Conflict Erupts

Relating to the public under these conditions isn't at all easy. Standard tactics that officials use—such as "educating" or managing the public—don't work so well. There aren't any solutions that will sell. Information is seen as partisan, not objective. "Whose facts are these?" people will ask on issues like sex education in schools or abortion.

Even discussing such issues is difficult. Partisans come to officials with already hardened positions. A state legislator explained, "Trying to get people beyond their positions to actual interests and allow them to get some stakeholding [is tough]. . . . I think when the positions get hardened and the groups are out there with a stake in inning their position, it is a lot more difficult to get the actual interest [in moving beyond those positions]." Under these circumstances, the attitudes or opinions of the public, as a whole, are of critical importance.

When Trade-offs Have to Be Made

Officeholders are quite aware that issues can become particularly divisive when the public is forced to face limitations. One city manager talked about community issues as being relatively easy to discuss when the topic is whether a community needs more roads or better waste treatment. Yet, he reported, "When you get to the point of where you are going to locate whatever you're talking about, then . . . it is an entirely different issue." At that point, he observed, the issue becomes a neighborhood issue where "you lose nineteen" neighborhoods because they are no longer affected by the issue, "and you pick up the one that becomes enraged because it has been selected—against its will—as the site for a new incinerator or some other public facility such as a new road."

When the Nature of the Problem Is Unclear

The challenge in long-range issues is to define rather than act on the public interest. "What is the problem?" is the central question. Solutions usually haven't been developed to the point that all the energy goes into selling them. Of course, there is no issue on which people have no position at all. Long-term issues are simply more open for exploration. What should we do if there is global warming? What kind of community do we want by the year 2010? Those are the kinds of topics that officials feel more comfortable in discussing with the public.

Creating a sense of ownership among citizens and setting a longterm direction for the community require more public involvement. As a mayor pointed out, "If people are not invested early on, if they don't have some sort of ownership . . . it just doesn't work."

When There Is Political Gridlock

Deadlocks occur with increasing frequency on both the local and national level. When polarization sets in and there is no counterbalancing voice speaking the intent of the public as a whole, government officials alone are not enough to define the public interest. When an effective public voice is absent, we are left with only the voices of special interests. On issues like this, officials know they need a public that is more than interest groups and a public dialogue in which people look for a common ground for action rather than just debate their positions.

John Gardner, from his experience as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, speaks vividly about the kind of paralysis that can occur when there is no public to define the public's interests. Politics becomes Hobbes's war of all against all. Gardner finds that our capacity to frustrate one another through noncooperation has increased dramatically: "The part can hold the whole system up for ransom." He illustrates this paralysis of government with the story of a checker player being confronted by a bystander who puts a thumb on one checker and says, "Go ahead and play, just don't touch this one." Then another bystander puts a thumb on another checker with the same warning. Then another bystander and another. Gardner concludes, "The owners of the thumbs—the interest groups—do not want to make the game unwinnable. They just don't want you to touch their particular checker." [2]

Fortunately, in the Social Security case, the government did act at almost the last minute to increase funding. Perhaps representatives heard a public voice that emerged from the partisan gridlock as that gridlock became more and more a threat to all interests. Nonpartisan public forums, at the time, suggested that although young people and senior citizens continued to have differences on the issue, they could find some common ground in the need to protect the elderly ill from the catastrophic costs of care. Young people tended to soften their opposition when they thought of having to take individual responsibility for the care of their parents. [3] Seeing this change, older citizens tended to modify their position.

Although officials usually think of "the public" as either the organized interest groups or just a mass of people, neither of these publics is any help in overcoming the kind of political gridlock the Social Security case typifies. These dilemmas challenge the widely accepted premise that the public is simply the aggregate of interest groups and that the public interest can be defined by reconciling those interests that assert themselves. Deeply rooted conflicts don't yield to arbitration, and interest group gridlock becomes permanent on some issues. [4] In these situations, if there is to be any progress' politics has to become more than a contest, an endlessly adversarial process.

Politicians understand the necessity for common ground in their political dealings with one another. When facing the prospect of gridlock within their ranks, politicians turn from politics as usual to a far less adversarial form of politics. The strongest evidence of this kind of politics comes from studies of Congress. Members of Congress are under pressure both from interest groups and the particular interests of their own states. It would be easy for them to believe that the best they can do is serve these narrow, parochial interests and forget the "big picture," the larger public interest. (That is certainly what many citizens believe—that their representatives are captives of interest groups.) Members of Congress, however, say their primary responsibility is to look after the interest of the nation as a whole. They even put that responsibility ahead of looking after the interests of their own districts. [5]

To carry out their responsibility to the public interest, politicians at both the national and local levels practice a more unitary form of democracy. Unitary democracy is not just a theory, it is an observable reality. Jane Mansbridge, a political scientist who has studied unitary democracy, describes its central characteristic as policy resolution achieved on the basis of perceived common interests rather than through a compromise, which gives equitable protection to different interests. [6] When competition and conflict become overwhelming, when even compromise is impossible, officials themselves have to find their own common interests and create a common ground. In such situations it becomes clear that the interest groups do not, in fact, represent all the interests. The sum of the interest groups' interests is not the same as "the public's interest."

The rationale for unitary democracy is the common responsibility to act in the real public interest. The term public interest has been dismissed by most political analysts, who find it imprecise and unscientific. Yet the idea of a public interest is real and important to many representatives. Studies of Congress, for example, show that the public interest is significant "not because of its inherent meaning, but because of its value to members of Congress." [7] Concepts such as "national interest" and "public interest" appeal to officeholders because these concepts reflect their belief that a governing body must act in the larger interest.

There are times, however, when officials cannot break out of a political gridlock by creating their own common ground. Interest groups won't allow it. When that happens, officeholders need the public to assert its common sense. Officials long to hear a public voice and find in the public enough common ground to give direction and support to government. That is why many legislators return to their districts to consult the public when people are concerned about an issue on which there is no clear sense about what should be done. The issue of what to do about the rising cost of health care, for example, has caused many members of Congress to sponsor public meetings in their states.

Experienced political leaders like Richard Bolling, the former chair of the powerful House Committee on Rules, testified to the practical importance of the public in helping the government deal with the tension between interest groups and the public's interests. He believed that the government is effective only when the public provides a mandate for action in the larger interest. Bolling's experience was that, without a broad public sense of direction and without citizens who reflect that sense, legislation becomes fragmented, piecemeal, and oriented toward special interests—creating an imbalance in the political order. [8]

The difficulty, however, is that when officials reach out to the public, it is not always there. There is no public, only a mass of people with varying opinions. There is no coherent public voice to hear. Officials in government do not seem to know how to use their own experiences in finding common ground with one another to help the public create common ground.

Frustrations in Trying to Bridge the Public-Government Divide

Meetings That Don't Work

Public forums, typically informal, open-ended discussions, are viewed in a relatively better light than formal, legally mandated hearings. They are in the public's domain. "In our area, it means that the council goes to areas outside of city hall" explained a mayor. One county commissioner summed up his attitude: "I think you accomplish more and [get] more of a variety of feelings at a forum because it is not as adversarial." Perhaps officeholders feel this way because these forums are not part of the formal governing process so the meetings can be more flexible in structure and appearance. All in all, officials say that public forums can allow for a freer exchange.

What officials don't like about some forums is that they have too little structure and degenerate into gripe sessions. Unless the discussions have a purpose and focus, just getting officials and citizens in a room together won't get them past the barriers in perceptions and expectations that separate them.

Never Finding a Genuine Public Voice

Special interest groups quickly learn that times when officials "meet the public" are excellent opportunities to advertise their views and try to sway popular opinion. So meetings become media circuses. Not surprisingly, officeholders do not find these situations productive. The problem is not that people have interests and express their views, but that they have their heels dug in. When talking about public commentary, one legislator lamented, "The problem is so many special interest groups capsulize [an issue], feed it back into the public's mouth and minds, and [the public] spits it right back to you. It's very seldom you get a true public response." Another legislator agreed, saying, "They [the citizens] may or may not know exactly what the issue is and why they are responding that way." And a third legislator concluded, "It is incumbent upon us not to assume that kind of public outcry is real public opinion because it has been orchestrated and words [have been] put in people's mouths." City managers have similar experiences; efforts to get in touch with the public are described as "risky business" because officials never know whether to expect a constructive discussion or a barrage of special interest groups berating the officials and defending their own positions.

Although the organized citizenry—the interest groups—are certainly legitimate, relating to them productively is a difficult matter. In situations where there is no agreement over what is most valuable to a community or when interest group competition deadlocks the political process, interest group intransigence is the problem. Officials don't know how to reach any other part of the citizenry. They tend not to go where people are but to have people come to them. So, primarily, only the organized attend.

Given these experiences with interest group-dominated "discussions," many officials believe there is no other public voice. "I never heard of it," said one city manager when asked whether it was possible to hear a communitywide perspective on policy issues. Although made half in jest, the comment is still revealing. Officeholders seldom hear people exploring the nature of a problem among themselves—citizens struggling with a range of options or trying to find common ground for action. When officeholders walk into the room, that kind of lateral conversation usually stops, so they have difficulty believing there is any public voice other than the voice they hear in official exchanges.

Substituting the Voice of Professional Citizens

Officials are quite aware of such citizens and are pleased to have their support. "There are, at any moment in time, probably 1,200 to 1,300 citizens who are involved in various commissions," one city manager reported. His comment was not unique. In fact, when questions are put to officeholders about different forms of public commentary, they usually talk about the advice they get from citizen representatives on governing bodies. Talking to professional citizens, however, is not the same as engaging the public. Although established civic leaders may think they are the public, they aren't.

The only other method officeholders use is a standard public relations campaign. That, too, misses the mark because the campaigns don't reach a public; they just reach a mass of unconnected individuals. Communicating with the public becomes mass communication. Yet, as citizens' comments have already shown, being bombarded with media messages is not the same thing as communication. It is information passing or solution selling. There is little of the two-way exchange that real communication requires.

Hesitancy in Taking the First Step

The reason for this passivity is evident in what officials have said about the way they see their job. The reason is not that officials are uninterested in what the public thinks; they want to know what is on the public's mind. The problem, at least a large part of it, is a well-established pattern of public-government interaction. In this ritual, officeholders sit back (except at election time) and wait. Sitting back is consistent with their conception of themselves as decision makers or judges, people to whom others bring their troubles. This passivity is reinforced when officials aren't sure whether the public at large really has much to tell them. Their doors are open, and active interest groups, accustomed to taking the initiative in influencing government officials, come in. They are quite happy to interpret the public to officials. Officials oblige, accepting the array of interest groups as the public.

The Ultimate Barrier: Citizens Unwilling to Believe in Citizens

Officials are quite aware of how little citizens appreciate their own influence. As one mayor reported, "There is a general cynicism about the worth of one ounce of participation in our city . . . a general feeling of 'what good does it do for me to give up something else, to go to city hall, or take some sort of citizen action in my neighborhood, because they are going to do what they want anyway."' Another mayor lamented, "Most members of the public don't appreciate the power of their suggestions." These feelings keep Main Street citizens away from open doors. Knowing of this powerful and pervasive distrust, officials are pushed even farther into their own version of the why-bother syndrome, and a vicious cycle develops.

What Might Help

New types of meetings can be created by adopting new rules for the way citizens and officeholders come together. These rules are really mutual agreements between parties that need a different environment in which to work. Some rules that have been helpful in certain situations are: [10]

• Meetings are jointly convened by the parties (citizens and officials).
• No one can set preconditions on the attendance of another. (No one can say we will only participate if the other party does thus and so.)
• Each person who attends represents only himself or herself. No one comes as a representative of a group or in an official capacity. No one presumes to speak for anyone else.
• All parties have to agree that the purpose of the meetings is not to reach agreements or a consensus but to identify possibilities, options, and new ideas.
• Discussions are open to the press, but comments are not for attribution (otherwise people are not free to be candid or to experiment).

The purpose of calling time-out, for creating a special setting, is to produce a new agreement or covenant between citizens and officeholders on how they will work together on future issues. Here are some ways these relationships might be restructured:

1. Focus on those issues and situations (described earlier) in which officials can't just "manage" the public, issues, for example, in which there is paralyzing gridlock or a lack of public consensus.
   
2. Start at the beginning of the process with framing or reframing issues in terms that reflect what the public considers most valuable, not in expert terms. Waiting until solutions have been agreed upon before engaging the public reinforces the widespread impression that consulting with citizens is just window dressing.
   
3. Insist that the public do its job, that it deliberate seriously and face the hard choices about purpose or direction that every policy requires. Do not let meetings with officeholders or question-and-answer sessions substitute for the public reasoning with itself. Create more opportunities (structured forums) for widespread public talk.
   
4. Use public forums to add what is all too often lacking in the political debate, a public voice. A public forum can provide valuable information not only on what people think but also on why—information that officials can't get from polls or experts or interest groups.

The last recommendation needs more explanation. What is a "public voice"? The phrase, as used here, means more than the voice of the public. A public voice is the voice that emerges from structured forums or serious public dialogue. It is most like the voice of the jury foreman who tells the press, after a trial is over, how the jury reached its verdict. That is, a public voice describes the way citizens see an issue, how they evaluate the pros and cons of the various options (what is most valuable to them) and any common sense of purpose or direction that emerges. Unlike the outcome of a jury, it is more a description of a shared struggle than a declaration of agreements. It is not the voice of a majority but the voice of a synthesis. A public voice captures the complexity of an issue and the nuances in people's responses. For example, a public voice might show what people liked most about the option they favored least and vice versa. A public voice reflects the tone and texture of a public's attitudes.

These suggestions for a different way for citizens and officials to relate assume that people will be able to get out of their accustomed roles, that officeholders will take the risk of going into uncharted waters with citizens. The question, of course, is, Will they? Some already have.

Case studies are now appearing on alternatives to the customary hearing process. In the Twin Cities of Minnesota, the Metropolitan Council Task Force experimented with a number of small public meetings at different sites over a relatively long period. The discussions were described as "gathering perspectives" and seem to have come well in advance of reaching a decision on the issue, selecting the site for a new airport. The exercise could also be described as political mapping in which citizens and officeholders set themselves two common tasks, identifying all the self-interests and determining the norms and power dynamics at play. [11]

In St. Joseph, Missouri, in another case, Mayor Glenda Kelly and the city manager, Patt Lilly, were involved in an experiment to reframe issues in public terms. They decided to work on a healthcare issue and began with a series of public meetings to find out how people experienced the problem and how they talked about it. When St. Joseph's city council had held open meetings previously, it encountered a number of problems: organized interests dominated the proceedings, discussions turned into gripe sessions, or officials and citizens described issues in such different terms that they were unable to communicate effectively. So Mayor Kelly and Patt Lilly restructured the meetings with the help of ten citizen partners. Their first task was to involve health-care professionals— without having experts dominate the framing of the issue. Like all experiments, this one has had its rough moments, but it is clearly a step in a new direction. [12]

It is too early to tell what the long-term effect of such ventures will be, but these experiments are encouraging. Although there may not be a perfect way for citizens and the government to relate, there certainly are better ways.

Notes

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

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Index

The Way Things Were Supposed to Be
We, the People; They, the Government
When Officials Need the Public
Notes and Bibliography

Back to Parties & the Public Index