Redesigning Local Democracy

Through practices of collaborative imagination and making, or "doing design otherwise,” design experiments can contribute to keeping local democracies vibrant. In this counterpoint to the grand narratives of design punditry, Carl DiSalvo presents what he calls “doing design otherwise.” Arguing that democracy requires constant renewal and care, he shows how designers can supply novel contributions to local democracy by drawing together theory and practice, making and reflection. The relentless pursuit of innovation, uncritical embrace of the new and novel, and treatment of all things as design problems, says DiSalvo, can lead to cultural imperialism. In Design as Democratic Inquiry, he recounts a series of projects that exemplify engaged design in practice. These experiments in practice-based research are grounded in collaborations with communities and institutions. The projects DiSalvo describes took place from 2014 to 2019 in Atlanta. Rather than presume that government, industry—or academia—should determine the outcome, the designers began with the recognition that the residents and local organizations were already creative and resourceful. DiSalvo uses the projects to show how design might work as a mode of inquiry. Resisting heroic stories of design and innovation, he argues for embracing design as fragile, contingent, partial, and compromised. In particular, he explores how design might be leveraged to facilitate a more diverse civic imagination. A fundamental tenet of design is that the world is made, and therefore it could be made differently. A key concept is that democracy requires constant renewal and care. Thus, designing becomes a way to care, together, for our collective future.

Austerity has left local government struggling to meet the demands for local services. In this context, this book asks ‘what are the fundamental principles that should guide decision-making by local councillors and officers?’ It seeks to move the agenda from ‘what works?’ to ‘what should local government do?’ and ‘how will its policies impact on social justice and local democracy?'. Reclaiming local democracy examines the politics of human need and argues that local government should provide a voice for those that lack power. It avoids the dry, familiar debate about what structures and powers local government should have, instead seeking to energise all concerned to re-engage with a political and ethical approach. Written in a persuasive and accessible way, the book examines how local government can develop active citizens and make a difference to the well-being of those in disadvantaged areas – truly 'reclaiming local democracy'. Combining theory and international practice, it will be relevant for councillors, policy officers and activists in the third sector, as well as academics and students in politics and social policy.

This book examines localism as a political idea and policy approach and explains what localism is about, why it is growing in importance and how it relates to other themes in politics. Illustrated with case studies from the United Kingdom, mainland Europe and the Indian sub-continent, the book analyses localism in conceptual and theoretical terms and locates it within the overall landscape of political thought. Key themes covered in the book include place, space and scale; decentralization and devolution; multi-level governance; public value; democracy and empowerment; and political design. With the focus on the bottom-up, constructivist aspects of localism, the book argues that localism is most likely to work successfully in a political order where sovereignty is ‘distributed’ across various social spheres and levels of government. It offers a comprehensive view of localism by synthesizing its various strands and creating a distinctive framework for design and evaluation. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, students and practitioners of localism, particularly within local and regional government, public administration and policy, human and political geography, and urban studies. Chapter 8 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license at: https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9780367810054_oachapter8.pdf

A call to action for school and community leaders to reframe educational institutions as open systems that are adaptable and responsive to the needs of students, families, and communities. Landon Mascareñaz and Doannie Tran propose that, even as events of this decade have exposed stress points in existing top-down, closed systems within education and other public institutions, they have also created prime opportunities to rethink and redesign those systems in ways that encourage civic participation and invigorate local democracy. In The Open System, Mascareñaz and Tran argue for a critical revitalization of public education centered in openness, an organization design concept in which an entity receives, considers, and acts on input from the community it serves. As they demonstrate, open education policy improves information flow, increasing opportunity, bolstering public trust, and making room for cocreation and coproduction driven by community partnerships and family engagement. Based on their groundbreaking work with educational coalitions such as the Kentucky Coalition for Advancing Education and Colorado’s Homegrown Talent Initiative, Mascareñaz and Tran introduce six key liberatory moves that can bring about open system transformation. They highlight real-life examples of the types of incremental, specific, and discrete projects that leaders can use to create openness in educational systems at the school, district, and state levels, providing a blueprint for changemaking.

"A luminous work about everyday citizens that should free up local democratic energies across the land!"--Aihwa Ong, author of Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America "Local Democracy Under Siege argues persuasively that American democracy is at a pivotal moment where the forces of exclusion and the ideology of market rule contest with new forms of political activism and engaged citizenship. Readers will take away new perspectives on power, race, class, and activism from this cogent and timely analysis."--Louise Lamphere, co-author of Sunbelt Working Mothers: Reconciling Family and Factory "This unique study provides a vital enquiry into the troubled times of local democracy and poses critical questions about its future in the USA."--John Clarke, author of Changing Welfare, Changing StatesWhat is the state of democracy at the turn of the 21st century? To answer this question, seven scholars lived for a year in five North Carolina communities. They observed public meetings of all sorts, had informal and formal interviews with people, and listened as people conversed with each other at bus stops and barber shops, soccer games and workplaces. Their collaborative ethnography allows us to understand how diverse members of a community-not just the elite-think about and experience "politics" in ways that include much more than merely voting. This book illustrates how the social and economic changes of the last three decades have made some new routes to active democratic participation possible while making others more difficult. Local Democracy Under Siege suggests how we can account for the current limitations of U.S. democracy and how remedies can be created that ensure moremeaningful participation by a greater range of

When pundits refer to the death of community, they are speaking of a number of social ills, which include, but are not limited to, the general increase in isolation and cynicism of our citizens, widespread concerns about declining political participation and membership in civic organizations, and periodic outbursts of small town violence. Making a Place for Community argues that this death of community is being caused by contemporary policies that, if not changed, will continue to foster the decline of community. Increased capital flow between nations is not at the root of the problem, however, increased capital flow within our nation is. Small towns shouldn't have to hope for a prison to open nearby and downtown centers shouldn't sit empty as suburban sparwl encroaches, but they do and it's a result of widely agreed upon public policies.

In today's globalising world, there is growing emphasis on local democracy. More than ever, cities need new ideas for ways of managing the political challenges and opportunities that arise from increased urbanisation and globalisation. Governing effectively at the local level is all the more urgent as vigorous local civic engagement builds the foundation for a strong and more enduring national-level democracy. Organised into six chapters and written by experts from around the world this handbook offers: practical suggestions for designing systems of local governance; principles and policies for managing culturally diverse cities; choices for enhancing local elections and representative democracy; options for expanding citizen participation; recommendations for the international community for enhancing local democracy.