Improving Civic intelligenceRepairing the Engine on a Moving Car?

Douglas SchulerThe Evergreen State CollegeThe Public Sphere Project

EGOSE 2014, November 19, 2014St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

[contents] • Purpose and Disclaimer• An outlandish supposition…• More civic intelligence• Barriers to civic intelligence• Government & e-government• Nine proxy measures• Stages of civic intelligence development• Changing roles• Civic involvement• Conclusions

Purpose and DisclaimerMy focus will be on the open society, citizen-oriented perspective — which of course must interface with government. My hope is to explore the possible.

I’m trying to be a little provocative with this talk — so I beg your indulgence.

My goals are presenting the idea / framework of civic intelligence (which I’d like to see as an explicit objective in e-governance) and exploring with you now and in the future.

Hopefully at least some of what I say will seem reasonable!

An outlandish supposition…

SUPPOSE that humankind had the capability to address its own problems effectively and equitably.

If that were true, we could make neighborhoods safer and governments more responsible, create good jobs for everybody, address global warming, and even stop or limit war.

We'll call that elusive and potentially useful capability civic intelligence. (And it’s not binary — it’s not something that a group has or doesn’t have.)

Barriers to civic intelligence*• The magnitude of the problems we face (that are extremely complex,

intransigent, durable, reliable, seemingly impervious to reform and eternal)

• Personal and social impairments (including lack of knowledge, time, interest, social networks aren’t interested)

• Institutional impairments (silos, opacity, arrogance, corruption, bureaucracy, lack of purpose — or the wrong one)

• Professional disassemblers (who intentionally sow ignorance)

• Confidence in our inability to take care of ourselves — note the various ways that this is demonstrated.

Maybe civic intelligence is impossible? Or maybe it’s just nearly impossible.

* And civic intelligence isn’t just about overcoming our barriers.

More thoughts on civic intelligence[operational definition] Imagine two cities or regions with approximately the same characteristics and challenges. If one successfully addresses its challenges — and one does not, we can probably assert that one has more civic intelligence than the other.

Centralia, Washington Everett, Washington

Civic intelligence takes different forms in different places — but all of the places are ultimately connected.

Civic intelligence can improve — or degrade — and some of this is under our control.

Civic intelligence can be used to inspire research and to inspire people. The goal is to understand and to improve civic intelligence.

Unfortunately our challenges may be growing faster than our ability to address them.

Civic intelligencecapabilitiesKnowledge

Relational Capital

Organizational Capital

Financial and Material Resources

Attitudes and Aspirations

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KnowledgeRelational Capital

Organizational Capital

Financial and Material Resources

Attitudes and Aspirations

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Government & e-governmentGovernment can be seen in two ways depending on how one views the role of people: as customers or as citizens. “Smart cities” generally privilege the customer role.

Government “efficiency” is only a (small?) part of governance. Currently there is worldwide discontent with government.

Charles Lindblom stated (1990) that, “no society or subgroup within it ever designed a state or government to make it an effective instrument of social problem solving.”

One of the goals of government should be enabling and encouraging public problem solving — and increasing civic intelligence.

Governance needs active citizens because government can’t address the challenges we face without them.

• The problems are too big• Citizens have useful skills and other resources• In many cases government enabled (or, even caused) the problems in the first place.

Proposed proxy measures• Responsive government• Knowledge about the environment — natural and otherwise• Social (political, educational, cultural) engagement• Social capital• Health and well-being• Opportunities — economic and other• Relative equality of inhabitants• Transparency/lack of corruption• Good neighbor (doesn’t take more than it needs; or export its

problems…)

How could we begin to assess the civic intelligence of a city?

Civic intelligence development*1. Critique or question the status quo — even if the critique or question is flawed —

and don't stop this process after identifying some preliminary hypotheses

2. Learning — necessary at all stages of the process; without this we are immobilized

3. Transparency — people need to understand how things work

4. Inclusiveness — we need not to just hear the unheard voices, they must be integrated into the decision-making

5. Networking — connections outside the community being looked at

6. Cultural shift — from power politics to problem solving

7. Governance sharing — not just government "efficiency" and/or citizen "autonomy"

* Proposed elements

Changing rolesWe need to take our roles seriously — not just the formalistic processes, rules, and conventions, but the philosophical rationale as well: Why does this role exist in the first place.

We must pivot from the general way of doing business to new ones.

For government, open up data and dialog — but be careful! You may uncover a hornet's nest of citizens with longterm unmet & unrecognized grievances. Also:

• starting dialogues with citizen and community groups and exploring new collaborations. (And not just online)

• Open up government data for the world to use. • Offer activism classes; it may be counter-intuitive or even contrary to the usual norms, but at

least think about it.

For academia: teach civic skills and the other elements of civic intelligence, knowledge is only part of what citizens need to learn.

For the media: cover the unheard voices, unpack issues and open up questions — and don't just supply "easy answers", and try, if possible, to rely less on the spectacle and conventional wisdom.

Citizen involvement

For the citizen: get smart, act like a citizen; be careful, be realistic, but be bold.

The informed contribution of citizens in an indispensable element of governance. Citizen engagement ideally provides both impetus for social change when it’s needed and a bulwark against tyranny and oppression when that becomes necessary.

With strong, engaged citizenry we may be able to address our problems. Without strong, engaged citizenry we won’t be able to address our problems.

Going forward...The future can't be planned in exhaustive and accurate detail. There are too many unknowns, too many moving unpredictable parts. On the other hand, intelligent action always involves taking action in an uncertain world.

Changing our thoughts and actions in the "moving car" which is our current reality, will take courage — as well as care.

We head into this struggle with uncertain goals, flawed and inadequate resources, dissension within our ranks, disorganization and unruliness, against incredibly strong barriers.

In some sense this struggle is a struggle for common sense and sanity. It shouldn't be as hard as it's likely to be.

Repairing the engine on a moving car would certainly be child's play in comparison to the real tasks before us.

Thanks for listening

Douglas Schulerdouglas@publicsphereproject.orgThe Evergreen State CollegeThe Public Sphere Project

I’m looking forward to continuing this discussion

Questions for further studyWhat is the “car?”

Why is it “moving?”

Who’s driving?

Where is the car going?

Where are we trying to go?

Why can’t we just get out?

What “repairs” are we talking about?

Why can’t we just stop it and fix it?

Can we have our drivers license taken away?

Appendix 1