Crosby B.C., Bryson J.M. - Leadership for the Common Good (2005)(en)
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the common good. Her view supports the notion that citizens can find common ground by engaging in reflective conversation, or dialogue, in which they clarify meaning, describe social relationships, and defend their ideas and principles without pressing for joint endorsement of a theory of justice or the like (Young, 1990).
• Collaboration and organizing among the less powerful. Those who believe enactment of the common good requires direct confrontation of the mechanisms of power, class, and privilege advance this method. West (1994) also supports it. Danish political scientist Bent Flyvbjerg advises those who find themselves left out: “Then you team up with like-minded people and you fight for what you want, utilizing the means that work in your context to undermine those who try to limit participation” (1998, p. 236). These groups may have to work for transparency in a political system or promote civic virtues (such as engaging in respectful debate). Sometimes, counsels Flyvbjerg, direct power struggle works best, sometimes changing the ground rules, and sometimes writing studies that illuminate power relations (1998). Young is among those who argue that minority groups should have the ability to make their own policy decisions. A society might consist of loosely connected publics, and the common good would be determined by the people within them; to the extent there is an overarching common good, it should include some guarantee of self-determination for these groups. Marris, meanwhile, calls for nurturing social conditions that foster a politics of reciprocity. Moral education would help citizens draw on the morality of human nurture that is preached (and often practiced) in the family realm and apply it to public policies. He champions a “grown-up moral understanding” that fuses insight about nurturing and social control and justifies social control by the principles of nurturing relationships (1996, p. 170).
The last three approaches—informed public, active citizenry, and collaboration—are often directly opposed to the others (in the case of the authoritarian state and religious regime) or highly critical of the others (in the case of the market, representative government, and expert judgment).
The Leadership for the Common Good approach emphasizes comprehensive stakeholder analysis and involvement in order to develop shared understanding and enactment of the common
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good. It is a means of discerning and discovering, rather than pronouncing the common good. It has close affinity with the last three approaches: informed public, active citizenry, and collaboration. The policy entrepreneurs introduced in this book have emphasized these three approaches, but they have also used several of the others.
The U.S. physicians and health professionals concerned about the emerging AIDS crisis certainly applied expert judgment in their effort to understand and stop the disease, and they appealed to other experts to get involved. When they realized that public policies had to change, they put pressure on elected officials. When those avenues proved inadequate, they turned more avidly to collaborating with gay activists and trying to convey a sense of urgency to the general public.
Schmidheiny and his colleagues in the WBCSD have promoted active citizenry among businesspeople worldwide and also participated in (and often organized) forums involving numerous other citizen groups debating how best to deal with the problems of pollution and poverty. At the same time, these leaders have promoted a market approach and emphasized that governments of all stripes must become partners in sustainable development initiatives.
In launching the AAMP, Stenglein and Cunningham turned to elected officials (the county commissioners) to sponsor the project, but the project itself has engaged diverse groups of African Americans and other community leaders and experts in deciding what should be done and taking responsibility for advancing the project. The project recruited additional experts who could conduct needed research or facilitate group decision making. Several project initiatives also emphasize empowerment of young African American men, notably through training programs and job fairs that can help these men compete in the labor market.
Hively, Freshley, Schroeder, and their colleagues in the Vital Aging Network (VAN) have convened numerous forums, especially the Vital Aging Summits, to activate citizens—chiefly older people, but also people who work with them or are related to them—to work out the best means of enabling older adults to live a productive, satisfying life. The Advocacy Leadership Certificate Program in particular aims to empower older adults to be effective policy advocates. VAN also seeks to remove barriers to older adults’ participation in the labor market.
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Policy entrepreneurs in all these cases have attempted to foster an informed public that may join the advocacy coalition and help press policy makers to adopt proposals for change. To do this, they have employed plays, newspapers, television, the Internet, and other media.
Exercise 5.2 can help you and your colleagues think about the common good in relation to a public problem that concerns you. The exercise includes questions about whose common good is to be emphasized, the content of the common good, and the means of achieving it.
Exercise 5.2. Thinking About the
Public Interest and the Common Good.
Justification of policy change efforts is usually connected to the common good (well defined or not). How, then, can policy entrepreneurs and other citizens judge whether a proposed change will serve the common good?
It may be helpful to see the common good as a family of concepts:
•Common good
•Good society
•Commons
•Commonwealth
•Public interest
•Public good
•Just society
•Community
This family of concepts contrasts with other concepts:
•Individual
•Personal
•Private
Debate over the common good is part of an age-old debate about the relationship between the individual and society. Some philosophers are skeptical about a common good. They advocate a focus on:
•Loosely connected publics determining their own interest
•Protections that counter majoritarianism: the common good might then be protection of the ability of minority groups, in particular, to make their own policy decisions
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Exercise 5.2. Thinking About the
Public Interest and the Common Good, Cont’d.
Exercise
As your group focuses on a public problem that concerns you, you may want to develop tentative answers to these questions.
1.How do you see connections between the individual and society, the citizen and government:
•What do you think an individual needs from society to flourish?
•What is the role of government in protecting individual interests and common interests?
2.Whose common good will you emphasize:
•The inhabitants of a geographic territory?
•Citizens or residents of a state, nation, or other government?
•Members of a group or organization?
•Future generations?
3.Develop a general idea of what a regime of mutual gain might look like in this case:
•What widespread, substantial benefit do you hope to achieve that could be accomplished at reasonable cost?
•What might be the elements of a desirable regime (ideas, rules and norms, formal relationships, informal relationships, rights, responsibilities, etc.)?
4.What combination of methods will you use to achieve the common good?
•Markets
•State control
•Informed public
•Active citizenry
•Expert judgment
•Religious directives
•Other (please specify)
The group can record its answers to the questions and refer to them as it proceeds with the policy change effort. The answers may be revised as the group expands and develops a deeper appreciation of the problem and promising solutions.
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Summary
This chapter has given an overview of the policy change cycle and explored several approaches to enacting the common good. The policy change cycle has been described as organized anarchy that includes many predictable features as well as constant flux. To be effective navigators of the change cycle, policy entrepreneurs must manage ideas, analyze and involve stakeholders, and wisely design institutions. To discern and foster the common good, policy entrepreneurs can help constituents think about the relationship between individuals and their communities, the groups whose well-being is most crucial, the content of the common good, and means of achieving it.
This chapter has introduced the seven phases of the policy change cycle. The remainder of this book amounts to a handbook for policy entrepreneurs seeking to operate wisely in each phase. Particular attention is given to stakeholder analysis and involvement.
Part Two
The Process of Policy
Entrepreneurship
The remaining chapters offer extensive practical guidance and resources for policy entrepreneurs as they move through the policy change cycle. Each chapter discusses the purpose and desired outcomes of a particular phase and offers leadership guidelines for completing the phase successfully. Methods of analyzing and organizing stakeholders are emphasized throughout.
Chapters Six through Eight emphasize the design and use of formal and informal forums. Chapter Six focuses on the initial agreement phase and offers guidance for getting a change effort off the ground. Chapter Seven explains how policy entrepreneurs help constituents appreciate and define a public problem so that it can be remedied. Considerable attention is given to reframing the problem in a way that helps numerous stakeholders join the change effort. Chapter Eight offers methods for finding solutions likely to achieve the common good. We emphasize the importance of developing a policy “story” that highlights the significance of a public problem and illuminates the pathway to a better future.
In Chapter Nine, the focus shifts to executive, legislative, and administrative arenas, as we explain how policy entrepreneurs can shape a promising solution into a proposal that can be supported by policy makers and implementers. The work of building and sustaining a supportive coalition is highlighted. The focus on arenas continues in Chapter Ten, which considers how policy entrepreneurs build additional support for their proposals and persuade
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policy makers to adopt them. Chapter Eleven explains how policy entrepreneurs ensure that adopted policies are actually implemented so as to honor the vision that inspired the change effort. The focus is on administrative arenas and courts.
Chapter Twelve helps policy entrepreneurs review implemented policies to know whether they should be continued, modified, or terminated. We offer specific strategies for continuing an existing policy, significantly modifying it, or bringing a policy regime to an end. Also in this chapter, we suggest how policy entrepreneurs can move on to tackle a new public problem affecting their organization or community. We end the book with a Summary and Conclusion, highlighting the main concepts in the Leadership for the Common Good framework, noting achievements of the four minicases featured throughout the book, and emphasizing the importance of widespread citizen leadership in tackling global challenges.
Chapter Six
Forging an Initial
Agreement to Act
It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would benefit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have
the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.
NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
MARGARET MEAD
As previously noted, policy entrepreneurs may get involved just about anywhere in the policy change cycle, but they often have to begin again at the beginning—either because an effective advocacy coalition has dissipated (or never formed) or because an adopted policy is inadequate in some way. Policy entrepreneurs might have to invest a large amount of time and energy in the initial-agreement phase, but without such investment they are likely to face tremendous difficulty in subsequent phases.
This and the chapters to come describe important outcomes of each phase and offer leadership guidelines and tools.
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Purpose and Desired Outcomes
The basic purpose of the initial-agreement phase is to develop a commitment among key stakeholders to do something about a public problem. A number of outcomes constitute the foundation for problem definition in the next phase:
•A sense among at least a small group of stakeholders that a public problem can and should be remedied through a sustained policy change effort
•Attention to what the common good might be in this change effort
•An understanding of what change might mean in practice through engaging stakeholders in a discussion of problems and solutions
•A commitment to the change effort
•One or more actual agreements among a group of stakeholders to launch or join the change effort
•Identification or recruitment of powerful sponsors, effective champions, a coordinating committee, and a planning team
This first phase and the next two—or frequently, the next three— in the change cycle often form a continuous loop, as the momentum for change builds and as what happens in one phase informs the next. The phases must be linked in this fashion to generate action and place an issue on the public agenda. Moving an issue to the public agenda principally involves bringing about a change in public perception so that a situation that was not viewed as a solvable problem is seen as an area in which action is possible. For this problem to become an issue, a viable solution must be available (Kingdon, 1995). As an example, before the formation of the business group that became the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, businesspeople typically viewed economic growth and environmental protection as opposing goals and moreover gave primacy to economic growth. The contribution of the WBCSD has been to offer a solution to the conflict between the two goals by showing how each can contribute to the other.
The three phases together constitute the issue creation process, and they clearly must be thought of as interdependent. Issue creation is high-level politics involving important elites and opinion leaders (Lynn, 1987; Sabatier, 1991; Baumgartner and Jones, 1993)