We strongly believe, " remarked Home Secretary Jack Straw at a recent conference on the third way, "that people's sense of engagement with society is linked in part to their ability to have a say in how they are governed and whether they can influence decision-making."
Behind such a statement lies a recognition that people will only subscribe to New Labour's vision of a more inter-dependent society if they can experience themselves as full participants in the political process, able to make some sort of difference to the world in which they live.
This in turn implies the need for a new form of relationship between the governed and those who govern. But how is such a relationship to be established? And does this government have a strategy for bringing it about?
"We are altering," Straw said, "the balance of power between the citizen and the State to ensure a more accountable, open and honest government." He was referring to the enthusiasm for consultation expressed in the establishment of numerous Advisory Committees; the will to implement constitutional change that is leading to regional governments, elected mayors and a new voting system; and the commitment to openness evident in the government's publication of regular reports on its progress.
But even if it were true that this added up to a strategy for "altering the balance of power", would it also constitute a new form of relationship? The public might learn more about what the government does in its name, might come to recognise that some power had moved to other hands, and might even find itself feeling less cynical about the political process as a whole, but still not experience itself as having real opportunities for political expression and engagement.
For this to happen, policy-makers need to acknowledge the contribution that the wider public can make to evolving significant responses to the challenges that face their society, strategies that draw from their communal experience and understanding. "We now know," said Sue Goss from the office of Public Management at the same Nexus conference, "that the effort, knowledge, energy and commitment of the people whose lives are affected by social problems are the most vital resources."
What we lack to make this happen on a scale that goes beyond the occasional council estate or crime afflicted community is a model of how to engage the whole of society in a constructive discourse, one that will generate effective responses to the environmental, industrial, economic and social changes going on around us. We are palmed off instead with nods in the direction of a 'listening' - focus groups and the recent peregrinations around the country of the Leader of the Opposition.
We need an alternative notion of power, one that sees it not as something that has to be divided up and parcelled out between the State and other institutions, but rather as a joint project. The State does not need to limit itself to consulting individuals about what decisions it should take, or to handing over some decisions to bodies other than itself, it can initiate
instead a dynamic process of continuous dialogue with society, engaging people's sense of responsibility and their creativity in finding solutions to problems.
Many will find such an idea unimaginable. They will point to the evidence that people's willingness to participate in the political process is minimal, and that the government's desire to centralise power is irresistable. But, as Straw hinted, people will not participate in a process they think is phoney, any more than governments will give up the power they need in order to make an impact. The challenge is to find ways of generating decisions whose effectiveness will be guaranteed by their source in popular deliberation.
This requires us to develop new forms of political speaking and listening. We need to set up structures to help the electorate become reflective about the challenges that confront us, and about the strategies which can meet them. And we need systems for communicating to those who must make the decisions the textured fabric of people's thoughts, feelings and experiences.
Recent decades have taught us that positive social change cannot simply be legislated in Whitehall and implemented outside, nor will it spontaneously emerge from an individualistic free-for-all. There is a need to replace both approaches with a new sort of political relationship, one that is capable of engaging us all in formulating policies that are sufficiently flexible, responsive and adventurous to achieve whatever is required for the well-being of society.
Over one hundred people attended Antidote's meeting on the first day of the Labour Party Conference in Brighton in 1997. The discussion focused the significance of the organisation's approach to issues around welfare-to-work. These are some of the things that were said by our speakers :
Antidote is bringing something very different to the political agenda. The reason I became involved is that I have felt, for many years, a need to enrich political analysis and political debate. Patricia Hewitt MP
Senator Bill Bradley has a phrase about politics, in which he says, 'Politics is broken'. What he means is that the language in which we talk about and do our politics is no longer adequate. This is a very serious issue. It is about the borderline between the inner world and the outer world. We have been suffering from the delusion that nothing matters in the inner world, and it is only what happens in the outer world that counts. What Antidote stands for is serious, judicious challenging of that inner-world, outer-world boundary, with the goal of refreshing the language of politics. Andrew Samuels.
We run the risk that Welfare to Work, instead of being a force for modernising, for recognising the changes both in the economic structure and in people's desires and aspirations, will be instead a failed attempt to recycle old policies in new clothing. It could be a very expensive failure. Susie Orbach
For some people, work is becoming more and more important in their sense of who they are. For others, it seems to be becoming less and less important. We can start to think of people who are work-rich and identity-poor, and of people who are work-poor and identity-rich. This is not to impose a sort of middle-class set of values on issues to do with work. It does matter that people work, and that they get paid properly for it. At the same time, I don't think we should rush headlong and unthinkingly into an embrace of the proposition that everything to do with work is good, and everything to do with unemployment is bad. I am not saying that not working and not having money is good. I am saying let's think about the kind of work that we hope and expect people will do. Andrew Samuels
Just imagine that we legislated for the phasing in, over a ten year period, of a thirty hour week, and a redistribution of work to reverse the trend towards over-employment and under-employment. Just imagine how the important agendas around parenting, social responsibility, social participation and education might suddenly fall into place. Just imagine how the terror that faces young men who are currently unemployed, and who have absorbed the idea that, without work, the only valuable identity is to be 'hard', might be transformed. Just imagine what the potential for parenting would be if parents weren't continually stressed out. Just imagine what it would be like if we valued the work that goes on in relationships. Just imagine if we rethought the school timetable, the curriculum and the deployment of skilled teachers so that children's thirty hour week didn't conflict with parental jobs. Just imagine increasing the number of skilled workers and skilled professionals who were not continually stressed out by the demands put upon them. Just imagine having time to develop identities that were a fuller reflection of who you were and what you did, rather than based on the job you did or didn't have. Just imagine having time to learn, to think, to reflect, to not make every decision based on speed, but with respect to its complexity.Susie Orbach
Throughout our society, we are struggling to deal with constant change and the destabilisation that is endemic in the technological age. Schools are especially at risk. With increasing and unrealistic pressures on teachers to continually raise standards and prepare people for this ever-changing life in the world of the technological revolution, the over-stretched and over-burdened classroom teacher more and more resembles the juggler who spins plates at the end of a stick, with a disaster in the waiting. To be adequately equipped for the challenges of their education, pupils have to become multi-skilled. However, there seems to be an absence of one particular skill, which can enable children and young people to reach their full potential. That is Emotional Literacy. Evelyn Pellow
