Work in progress.
The changing role of the citizen in deliverance of social services.
- A paper that explores the theoretical connections between citizenship and democracy
in deliverance of social services within a pluralistic welfare state.
Anna Westin,
Åbo Akademi University.
Abstract:
This article theoretically describes the changing role of the citizen in deliverance of social
services as a pluralistic welfare state in practice changes the conditions for service deliverance.
Organizers of welfare services from the public sector, the private sector and the third sector
give the user different organizational context to empower themselves within. The theoretical
finding regarding governance models are compared with a pre-study on user influence within
deliverance of personal assistance in Sweden. The citizen is expected to act as an agent within
different governance models: consumerism, participative democracy, disempowered users and
representative democracy. The governance models can be expected to give the citizen different
roles as an agent and also divergent levels of empowerment through individual or collective
action.
According to Evers (2011) there are different concepts of democracy that affect how we regard
the citizens’ role in the field of social services within a pluralistic welfare state. A pluralistic
perspective on democracy in social services requires a perspective that aims for ways of
combining and balancing different approaches that are linked to the state, market and third
sector, in practice balancing welfare pluralism. The opposite would be to choose from different
approaches to democracy as holistic and mutually exclusive. This theoretical position requires
not just balancing state and market elements but also to understand that the third sector/civil
society can play a role within this mixed welfare system. In a mixed system we may build a
welfare society where users of social services have to take on and combine different roles as
citizens, consumers and co-producers (Evers, 2011: 43 and 49).
Evers (2011) four concepts of strengthening democracy in social services is a starting point for
a theoretical discussion on how we may act as both citizens and users in our everyday lives. I
understand the concepts as approaches, originating in different analytical models of democracy
that give different tool boxes, that let us act both as citizens and users regarding democracy in
social services.
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Representative political democracy - the citizen act as a voter or elected representative.
For Evers (2011) two of the four concepts of democracy in social services are theoretically
linked to our understanding of the concept of the citizen. Evers first concept of representative
political democracy take the citizen into consideration as a voter or elected representative,
controlling and limiting the power of the municipality or central government to take decisions
regarding social services. The concept of representative political democracy is centered on
governmental control and political planning of social services that uses instruments like
hearings with representatives of the service field, financial control in specific committees of the
municipality or central parliaments and others. With this view in mind, democratic control of
social services mainly means control over the shape of development regarding the service sector
in accordance with the interest of the society as a whole, in practice represented by the elected
officials and not specific groups in the service sector. One important trend here is political
decentralization where municipalities in practice get more power in service planning and
control. Political decentralization will affect the ability to make service provision more
adaptable to different situations and needs (Evers, 2011: 43-44).
According to Brown, Kenny and Turner (2002) there have been many criticisms of the welfare
state since the 1960s. These criticisms include scale problems and the contradictory nature of
the welfare state as well as discussions centered around the appropriateness of welfare state
bureaucracies as providers for the needs of contemporary society. When recognizing third
sector organizations as welfare service delivers it is important to notice that while modern
welfare state bureaucracies might have been suitable to the socio-political forms that developed
in the years immediately after World War II; the modes of centralized standardized welfare
delivery that dominate welfare state bureaucracies are no longer correctly to manage the
conditions of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The centralized standardized
welfare delivery that dominate welfare state bureaucracies are cumbersome, expensive and
coercive, impersonal, remote and are based on principles of authority rather than performance
(Brown, Kenny and Turner, 2002: 161).
With reference to the work of Hirst on “associative democracy” that raised discussion during
the 90’s the administrative regimes of welfare state bureaucracies cannot accommodate public
input into policy decisions and they offer, submit low levels of accountability to their clients.
In practice Brown and colleagues argues that the bureaucratic welfare state model is dominated
by “patriarchal social relations, which ‘authenticates’ the ‘objective’ stance of social ‘experts’
who determine what social needs are, how they should be met and what pattern of social service
delivery should be implemented” (Brown, Kenny and Turner, 2002: 161).
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These critiques within politics have argued that the ways in which welfare provision has been
constructed in the bureaucratic welfare state and the result of this dependency has meant the
construction of passive welfare recipient that undermines active citizenship and political
activism. Another critic is that this dependency as a passive recipient undercuts the individual
responsibility and initiative necessary to the formation of an enterprising society (Brown,
Kenny and Turner, 2002: 161-162).
The debate has been theoretical but it has also reflected observable developments in government
as the governance setting is changing and there is a diminished capacity of governments to deal
with issues in a unilateral, that is one sided way as governments now need to take notice of
other actors. Governments have had to notice citizen´s critical and dissatisfied attitude toward
government and its ways to implement government programs (Geurtz and Van de Wijdeven,
2010: 532).
Clarke (2006) argues that public services have involved the practice of ‘professional
judgement’. Within policy areas like social work, medicine and policing, expert knowledge has
formed the foundation for forms of discretionary power put to use over the users or recipients.
The practice of social care involves the core of the knowledge/power knot, that included the
professional assessment of need and remedies. The image of a ‘knot’ is used as it can be seen
as a woven out of multiple strands. Paternalism address a form of relationship deeply frustrating
and disempowering as it included the professional assessment of need and remedies. There is
also a discriminatory exercise of discretionary authority in which both access and treatment are
distributed in different ways through social criteria. The knowledge/power knot reified and
valued some forms of knowledge, that is expertise over others experience. Professional
knowledge and skills involve the notion of people being expected to submit themselves to such
knowledge and office-based authority. Disabled people’s movements have challenged the
general idea of disability as it is constructed within traditional social services. They argue that
disability should not be seen as an integral part of the ‘medical model’ were professional experts
define the ‘needs’ of disabled people. Professional knowledges, practices and routines involve
contestable relations of power and subordination for the user (Clarke, 2006: 437-438).
Haus and Sweeting (2006) introduce a typology were they connect political leadership to four
categories of local democracy. The first the most traditional is that of representative democracy
that fit this model mentioned above where political leaders should primarily orient themselves
towards efficient and transparent decision-making in representative bodies. They see
themselves as political leaders of a council where they have majority and party politics are
important to realize different policy agenda. The changing nature of local government in
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western democracies toward a situation of local governance; put pressure on for changing and
rethinking the role of elected representatives; as well as constitute an incentive for institutional
experiments (Haus and Sweeting, 2006: 272-272).
In the study Westin (2014) I compared a municipality, a user-cooperative and an assistance firm
to investigate what kind of user-influence each organizational form give the user. Influence for
the user was defined as a combination, partly as self-determination for the user in his or her
choice of organizer for their personal assistance; partly as their influence as a work leader/user
in everyday live as well as the possibility that exist within the organizational form for the user
to in detail control their personal assistance in everyday life in accordance with their personal
needs. I have chosen to regard self-determination as a higher degree of influence for the user as
the users then are expected to then have the last word (decision) over how their personal
assistance is delivered in a specific situation (Westin, 2014: 118)
Results from the interviews with administrative organizers at the municipality gave answers
regarding social goals that highlighted words like “accessibility”, “participation”, citizens
within the municipality are to be treated the same”, “co-determination”, “security” and “to be
able to grove in their own life”. The social goal expresses freedom for the user and then as
participation through co-determination, not as self-determination. From a right-perspective
everyone should be treated equally, have accessibility, security and be able to grow in their own
life. The user within the municipality had chosen through their written agreement with the
organizer to give away much of their user influence in everyday life as the organizer are
expected to act as work leader (Westin, 2014: 138-139 and 168).
Participative democracy - citizen act with a collective and an individual voice.
Evers (2011) second concept for strengthening democracy within social services is the concept
of participative democracy. The historically background to participatory democracy comes in
part from the long history of self-organization where people acted as members of specific
groups of civil society. These were voluntary organizations like the churches, cooperatives in
the workers’ movements or associations and self-help groups in the new social movements.
These organizations are all marked by direct forms of participation of users and producers in
decision-making, political administration and service delivery. Not just group specific interests,
but also peoples concern as active citizens has always been important within participatory
democracy. A second historical root of participative democracy comes in part from the general
social, cultural and political movements for more democracy during the 60ties. With regard to
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limits and difficulty gaining control in parliament of the rapidly grown service sector, the idea
was to set up additional elements of civic control. These additional elements of civic control
were theoretically aimed at creating new or re-democratizing older independent nonprofit
providers. These additional elements of civic control also aimed for more mechanisms enabling
direct participation in service planning and in running service institutions. “Organizations in
the "third sector" have sought to balance public resources and commitment with autonomy and
special concerns by contracting in accordingly with the public sector.” (Evers, 2011:44).
Eriksson (2012) point to the fact that at the end of last century there was a widespread decline
of public confidence in representative institutions and political leaders, as well as a strong
disbelief in the ability of citizens’ to have an influence on decisions that affect their lives.
Another example of the decline on public confidence in representative institutions and the
political leaders of the time were the downward voting rates and disillusionment with political
parties, common to advanced democracies. The developments at the time, that involved
increasing local and municipal cooperation, network-based relationships and a growing role of
the private sector in service provision have in practice weaken the traditional responsibility
structures and limit, decrease the capabilities for political control based on representative
democracy. These kinds of developments have made it urgent to develop new democratic
practices, based on more direct citizen participation, alongside the representative system and
traditional forms of political participation (Eriksson, 2012: 687).
Civic involvement and citizen participation has according to Eriksson (2012) become an
overarching political theme in many advanced industrial countries and international
organizations during the last twenty years. These developments and the related political
programs have co-existed with the growing possibilities provided by information and
communication technologies in increasing citizens’ ability to get information and improving
citizen-government relations (Eriksson, 2012: 687).
Institutional reforms have as reported by Evers (2011) tried to gain more citizens and userparticipation by innovations in relation to boards in schools, elderly homes as well as by citizen
assemblies in urban renewal or mechanisms that involved the active participation of a group of
citizens, in practice acting for the larger group concerned. Trends are towards more collective
user-involvement in the evaluation and quality control of services. Participation by users in
state public services is threatened to be reduced to mere co-optation. Self-administration and
autonomy of organizations in the third sector can often be threatened to turn into exclusive
corporatist arrangements that lack outside control from state authorities and the public (Evers,
2011:44).
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Haus and Sweeting (2006) categorize participatory democracy as based on the notion of free
public reasoning among equals. The claim of participatory democracy is that the construction,
articulation and promotion of the common good cannot be delegated to representatives and
must evolve from communicative interactions of active citizens. According to this line of
thinking some representation are needed as permanent institutionalization of policy-making and
administrative control. Leadership is seen as public and interactive. Interesting is that
participatory democracy and deliberative democracy are here both used to describe
participatory democracy. The authors do that with a reference to Barber’s work on strong
democracy as he expected decisions to be taken after prior deliberations (Haus and Sweeting,
2006: 278-279). See Pateman (1970: 110) and Barber (1998-1999: 585) for further discussion
on participatory democracy.
Evers (2011:44) uses the concept of participative democracy without making a difference
between the models participatory democracy and deliberative democracy. Both participatory
democracy and deliberative democracy as democratic ideals are focused on citizens’ active
engagement and right to vote. However, deliberative democracy as a democratic model aims
mostly its focus on creating good conditions for well-considered judgments and consensus
focused discussions. Participatory democracy as a democratic model is mostly focused on who
is included in discussions (Joas, 2008: 260 and Bengtsson, 2008: 51).
Häikö (2012) argues that arguments for participatory accountability tend to identify citizen
participation within local power structures as a way of empowering active citizens as this is
expected to increase the legitimacy and effectiveness of local authorities beyond the traditional
representative structure. Participatory accountability aims to create new room to manoeuver for
citizen´s within political structures at municipality level. Hierarchical and participatory
accountability both structure accountability according to administrative logic within the
empirical case studies that Häikö has compared for her analysis. Legitimate citizen participation
tends to support local authorities with their local policies and practices. New participatory
approaches may offer many benefits: different, alternative and reasonably priced solutions for
service; new networks for local policy makers; opportunities to define principal problems and
acquire relevant, creative and provocative ideas. Public participation can support policy makers
reach better assessments and eliminate planning blunders because citizens’ local and
experimental knowledge matches their own professional expertise and scientific knowledge
(Häikö, 2012: 425).
Valentinov (2009) has theoretically mapped the third sector in relation to the economist John R
Commons’ theory of transactions and argues that the institutional identity of third sector
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organizations can be traced back to their distinguishing variety of rationing transactions ”that
combines legal equality of transactional participants and significant commonness of these
participants’ interests.” One for me important suggestion of this argument is that some
commonness of interests is also characteristic of markets and hierarchies and generally
underlies the citizenship behavior and goodwill in going concerns. Markets and hierarchies are
treated by new institutional economics as governance structures that mainly differ in their
mechanism of curbing opportunistic behavior downplaying the significance of trust, norms and
rules as factors that affect economic performance (Valentinov 2009: 923-924 and 927).
The opposite view was presented by Putnam who introduced the concept of social capital that
were expected to be created in the forms of trust, norms and networks that are self-reinforcing
and accumulative as good circles are created with a high degree of cooperation, trust and
reciprocity, civic engagement and collective comfort. Civic engagement and the presence of
strong social capital are strongly connected to effective public institutions and economic
development. Horizontal organized networks of voluntary organizations are here seen as the
core of civic engagement. A presence of lack of civic engagement leads to opposite
development shown in mistrust, vertical relations and slow economic development (Putnam,
1996: 211-213).
Valentinov argues contrary to the popular view of new institutional economics on the hybridity
of cooperatives, that cooperatives’; a kind of third sector organization; cannot be viewed as
hybrids between markets and hierarchies. This kind of hybridity would deprive them of their
distinctive characteristic of accommodating considerable commonness of transactional
participants’ interests. Commons himself believed in the historical importance of managerial
and rationing over bargaining transactions, he allocated an essential place to third sector
organizations in making capitalism reasonable (Valentinov, 2009: 927).
Governance in the perspective of Evers (2011), involves at municipal level the balance of
decision-making rights of three groups - the elected representatives, the professionals, and the
users. There is a basic quarrel about principles behind these problems for balancing influence
between groups; that is the constant conflict between representative and participative
democracy. This can be seen as a conflict between public interest, universal rules and the
concerns of specific groups that try to gain specific solutions that concerns them as a group
(Evers, 2011:44).
In practice participatory democracy needs an organizational form according to Polletta (2007)
that is decentralized, non-hierarchical and practice consensus-oriented decision-making. This
can be contrasted with the requirements of bureaucracy that involves centralized decision7
making, an organizational form that is hierarchal and contains division of labor as well as a
majority vote (Polletta, 2007).
Montin (2006) discusses the difference between majoritarian democracy and consensus
democracy and reach similar results as above. Montin claims that we within majoritarian
democracy expect the possibility to enact a clear political responsibility. Within consensus
democracy the participation of the people concerned or representation of opinions are more
important. The citizen is expected to act as a voter within majoritarian democracy while the
citizen is not just a voter within consensus democracy, but is expected also to act and take part
in political processes (Montin, 2006: 7) Consensus democracy as a concept relates to
participative democracy as it is described above in such a similar way that the concepts seem
to be interchangeable.
Pestoff (1998a) introduces the concept of civil democracy that aims to give the third sector a
more strengthened role as a welfare service producer by giving citizens’ a self-governing power
through cooperative production of personal social services. From this perspective the citizens’
will become members in social associations were they directly participate in the production of
personal services at municipal level that concerns them and hence they become co-producers
of their services (Pestoff, 1998a: 24-25).
The concept of civil democracy is closely connected to the concept social capital used by
Putnam (1994) as he sees social capital as a part of society’s organization, a concept that
includes trust, norms and networks that enhances society’s efficiency and make room for more
collective action. Voluntary cooperation is seen as easier to realize in a society that is
characterized by a strong presence of social capital in the form of norms for reciprocity and
networks to implement civil engagement (Putnam, 1994: 167). This kind of reasoning is
interesting as the user is expected to have a voice and influence over his or her social services.
Most of the welfare services that Pestoff (2009) have investigated empirically have been
personal welfare services that are arranged from a top-down perspective that make it hard for
the citizen/user to have a direct influence over the services. Pestoff concludes that it is only the
user-cooperatives that clearly can be defined as belonging to the bottom-up category as the
user-cooperatives gives the user a chance for self-governing and direct democracy in forms of
parent co-operative’s and centers for next of kin that take care of elderly that may be their
husband/wife or parent (Pestoff, 2009: 276-277).
Pestoff (2006) and Vamstad (2007) have compared different organizational forms for child care
in Sweden and found the parent co-operatives to have the highest user influence. No similar
comparative case study has been done within public administration regarding personal
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assistance for user with functional disabilities. Norwegian political scientists have compared
user influence between municipalities and a user-cooperative ULOBA, Askheim (2005). See
also research by Guldvik on ULOBA (2003). However, Askheim and fellow researchers does
not have the same structural conditions as there are no private assistance firms as organizers of
personal assistance in Norway.
In the study Westin (2014) that concerned user influence within different organizations that
organized personal assistance the roles of organizers of respective organization differ
significantly. The organizers within the municipality and the assistance firm both act as workleaders for the user’s personal assistance, while the work-leader are the users themselves within
the user-cooperative. Here the role of the organizers in the user-cooperative is a supportive role
and a role where they as a user-cooperative are not usually involved in the day to day personal
assistance for the user. The users act as work-leader within the user-cooperative and thereby
give the user a social service, personal assistance that he or she controls in everyday life. The
interviewed from the user-cooperative highlighted social goals like freedom as participation for
the user in the form of self-determination and self-help. The members of the user-cooperative
are expected to show brotherhood/solidarity with each other so that they will grow strong as a
group. An important overarching difference here between the organizations is that within the
user-cooperative the administrative organizers only have an advisory and supportive role
towards the user that acts like work leader. In the municipality and the assistance firm the
administrative organizer is work leader and have responsibility to deliver personal assistance
for the user. The organizational form user-cooperative here can be seen as a tool to implement
social goals as self-determination and brotherhood. In the user-cooperative the user has the
possibility to control the personal assistance and their own life (Westin, 2014: 139 and 167168).
In practice a user-cooperative works through co-production by the user. Ostrom (1996) reveals
through empirical research that the production of a service in comparison to a product is hard
without the active engagement of the users of the service, co-production. For instance, if the
students’ are engaged in their education, cheered on and supported by their parents’ and friends
it will not matter so much what the teacher does to make the student learn. The concept of coproduction is thereby expected to give synergy effects between what a public administration
does and what citizen themselves contribute to the process (Ostrom, 1996; 1079).
Ostrom (2000) describes a situation through empirical research were public policies tend to
crowd out citizenship in a way that does not enable norms for trust, reciprocity and knowledge
of local circumstances to be developed. Norms mentioned that are needed for social capital to
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be created. Commonly used public policies tend to obstruct experiments to test the efficiency
of political institutions. In the longer time perspective this can be seen as a threat to the survival
of democratic institutions (Ostrom, 2000: 13).
When discussing the importance of different structured governance models and how they affect
user influence and our ability to act as citizens with voice over our personal social services, we
need to consider how public policy affect practice and administration. If we have the aim to
create a more participatory democracy we also need to consider like Joas the need for a more
democratic administration (Joas, 2012: 19 and Joas, 2012: 25). If participatory democratic
innovations or deliberative decision processes are to be realized, it needs to be implemented in
the hands of a more democratic public administration. A traditional view on public
administration may highlight a division of labor between the administration and the political
system, where politicians are expected to choose from a number of alternative solutions that are
presented by the administration. In practice administrators hereby are seen to be able to frame
the area within politicians can make decisions. Politicians are expected to represent a broad
common interest whereas the administration is expected to consider and intermediate between
organized interest and stakeholders. In the current discussion on forms for multilevel
governance the roles of politicians and administrators have become closer and both politicians
and administrators are expected to represent different interests and to have a political agenda.
In practice hereby administrators do not just provide services they also provide democracy as
they are expected to be a channel for citizen and stakeholder opinion articulation within the
political system. The notion of participatory democracy can here also be seen as a notion of
participatory administration (Joas, 2012: 25).
The new forms of participation for citizens through administration can address weaknesses with
contemporary representative democracy, that is, lack of representativity, lack of resources and
lack of interest to participate in political processes. The public administrator has in practice
various roles within democratic institutions as they can be expected to act as independent
participant, expert, administrator, authority, leader, interest broker and as a co-operation
partner. The administration can also have a role as a producer of services. Administrators can
be expected to be involved in administrative decisions and processes with a central part to
enable a link between citizen and the decision-maker. Administrators can thereby be seen as
having a duty to strengthen democracy (Joas, 2012: 27-28).
As Smith (2012: 106-107) Newton (2012: 4) and Fishkin (2012: 84-85) theoretically points to
the need to use different democratic innovation to gain increased influence for citizens they in
practice want to find ways to integrate participatory and deliberative democracy with each
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other. This can for instance be done if deliberative forums are combined with a referendum for
some political policy question that has binding decision on the outcome of policy. The
important point here is that empirical research is needed as a starting point to make us able to
evaluate democratic innovation to develop democratic theory and reach more functioning
democratic theory. In this way democratic innovations can be a tool to develop democracy as a
whole (Geissel and Joas, 2013: 7). An argument that seems to fit well with Evers notion of
participative democracy.
Consumerism - a way to develop democracy by self-service.
Evers (2011) third concept of bring about more democracy to the area of social services is the
most recent and most influential one, consumerism. The concept of consumerism in relation to
social services claims to combine more democracy and market-like measures in connection to
the production of social services (Evers, 2011: 44-45).
The notion of user-democracy recommends according to Haus and Sweeting (2006) a
marketization of political relationships. Competition within the public sector and consumer
satisfaction turns this view of local democracy into a mood of producing a common good under
conditions were the market is the central mechanism of overcoming dissent. The common good
in this context aimed for efficiency as maximum possible increase in the aggregation of
individual’s preferences and satisfaction. User-democracy was as a part of New Public
Management in the 1980’s seen as a way of interest mediation and responsibility of office
holders and administrator’s. The administration should act more like a private sector business.
Political leaders are expected to withdraw from direct day to day oversight and draw broad
brush like pictures of aims, goals and directions. Politicians are expected to oversee matters and
strengthening the management role in decision making (Haus and Sweeting, 2006: 275-276).
According to Häikiö (2010) participatory democracy and user democracy in practice open up
new public spheres to residents of a municipality. Participatory democracy emphasizes the need
for representation of non-political civil society organizations and participation is done in a
collective manner, representing “neighborhood” in policy-making processes. Structured groups
are here seen as normalized in interaction with political institutions and they are supposed to
improve the knowledge of the elite about what people think. User democracy on the other hand
regards all users as potential participants with private interest in social services that affect them.
Users have experience and knowledge about the services they receive and user democracy
constrains decision-making power within the limits of specific social services. The competing
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ideologies provide grounds for several democratic identities. Therefore, we need to consider
the positions of citizens in relation to power structures and resources in policy-making and
theory (Häikiö, 2010: 379-381).
According to Evers (2011) participatory democracy have often been comprehended as a way of
broadening political democracy in the social services and as a complementary feature to
governmental decisions and representative democracy clearly separated from the economic
markets. By contrast, the concept of consumer democracy (or user democracy) is usually linked
with a deep-going transformation of paradigm. The underlying idea is to regard public
institutions less as authorities more as special producers among others, and regard social
services less as an exact area and a public good. The idea behind consumerism within social
services is to see a potential market and products which are after all not so diverse from other
sought-after marketable goods. With this perspective the municipality becomes an enterprise
and the introduction of market relations through consumerism within social services in relation
to democracy, a way to introduce both more cost-efficiency and more democracy. The central
agent is not the citizen but the consumer and customer. This managerialism approach discusses
issues of local development, not in terms of suitable mechanisms of political decision-making
but as technical and organizational challenges to find appropriate "steering mechanisms"
(Evers, 2011: 44-45).
Democracy within social services is not so much an issue of public control as about introducing
more individual autonomy. People can now opt for money instead of service-use and choose
between different suppliers of welfare services including for profit organizations which can
expect similar treatment by public authorities as pubic welfare organizations. Mixed markets
seem be created in countries like Germany within areas of child care and in psychosocial
services. The advancement of the private sector companies’ role as a producer of welfare creates
a specific role model for managing public services and defining the user’s interests. In the
background of this development may be the perceived limits of the public collective models for
political participation. Another possible reason is that in times where time is limited and people
are busy, having more choice between services that offer a quick fix seems to be a more realistic
concept than schools and day care centers which call for the users’ participation in more time
consuming types of active participation and social cooperation (Evers, 2011: 45).
According to Fotaki (2011) the transformation of public health systems originated in the
introduction of the internal market reforms in the UK and public competition in Sweden. Until
the late 1980s before the reforms, health systems in the UK and Sweden were publicly financed,
service delivery was organized by the state or municipality and “equity of access” was their
12
main principle. The marketization was signifying a departure from the post-war values of
egalitarianism and universalism that had underpinned both healthcare systems with the aim to
balance and reconcile users’ needs with cost-effectiveness and responsive services. These
reforms have paved the way for the marketization of public services that in practice creates the
need of developing new hybrid forms of governance. In practice, the pro-market reforms of the
late 1980s and 1990s have only to some extent managed to accomplish their aims of providing
better quality of care at a lower cost, or improving choice and responsiveness while generating
incentives for differences in access to services by some user groups (Fotaki, 2011: 939-940).
The idea of marketization according Häikiö (2012) a call for a new, active role for citizens and
their communities. Active citizens in this perspective, consumers are seen as individuals who
want to make choices about the services that they use. “Empowered communities” are thought
of as places were citizens solve common problems, deliver care, innovate to solve problems
and save public money. The New Public Management idea is that market mechanisms for
service delivery promote the common good and connects participation with efficient
governance and resource allocation as well as non-hierarchical governance. Citizen
participation and more importantly consumer involvement are expected to improve service
delivery (Häikiö, 2012: 422).
There seem to be an important theoretical difference between perceived individual action of the
consumer and collective action of the citizen. For instance, Montin and Eländer (1995) regards
the main differences of policies at the time; the first as freedom of choice, conceived as a matter
to vote with one’s feet (or consumer solutions that emphasize service responsiveness); while
the other policies emphasize voice through collectivist solutions, opportunities to exert
influence on goals and performance within a given institution (Montin and Eländer, 1995:43).
Fotaki (2011) regards aspects of consumerism as incompatible with the goals and nature of
public services. Acting as a user of social services is not just about revealing preferences by
sovereign agents as a consumer, users of social services may also act as a citizen and be seen
as stakeholders in the creation of the public good. The citizen can be defined by her belonging
to a community; this is not the case for the consumer. To be make a choice as a citizen
emphasize different evaluation of alternatives because as a citizen, one must confront the
implications of one’s choices, their meaning and moral value. Some oppose this simplification
of consumerist identity and emphasize culturally dynamic and morally deliberating individuals
that affect the environment they live in (Fotaki, 2011: 937-938).
With guidance of the work by Eriksson (2012) that writes about self-service democracy we can
see how consumerism may risk narrow the sphere for political deliberation within democracy.
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Eriksson argues that participative politics takes its starting position in the transition from statecentric to network-based governance. A transition in which questions related to special social
problems and particularly to the implementation of many public services are taken from the
sphere of the state as the only center of governance and extended to the whole society through
diverse kinds of partnerships and contract relationships (Eriksson, 2012: 687).
Eriksson (2012) develops a concept of self-service democracy where the citizen’s role is to act
as a consumer, customer and user. The aim of policy is activation and responsibilization of the
citizen. The role of civil society is to have civic networks as a resource of well-being and the
object of deployment. The principal mode of action concerns individual freedom by
independent consumerism. Principal form of knowledge within self-service democracy is selfassessment and accountability. This get quite interesting compared to the model of participative
democracy where the citizen’s role concerns active citizenship with the aim of policy to produce
civic activities within civil society. The role of civil society and networks within civil society
is to produce social capital. The principal mode of action is public deliberation and involvement
in politics as well as the production of content within services. The principal form of knowledge
is the citizens’ own personal knowledge (Eriksson, 2012: 694).
If participative politics had apparent depoliticizating effects according to Eriksson (2012), selfservice politics tends to narrow the area of political debate. This development can be separated
into three main contributing factors, the first relating to the nature of interaction, the second to
network form, and the third to the blending together of politics and society. Self-service politics
relocates political questions to the sphere of personal transactions, emphasizing the technical
dimension of these transactions. Interaction remains sporadic, its starting point is located in the
government and not in citizens, and the ability to take action for genuine deliberation is nonexistent. Thus many governments endorse ‘political participation’ but in practice actually
provide participation services only. Self-service politics establishes a network between public
authorities, private sector and organizational sector and risks depoliticizing the decision
mechanisms of political bodies as power is not confined to a well-defined place. As a network
is principally inclusive and not exclusive, it becomes difficult to identify the real responsibility
relationships in a continuously changing and varied whole. Whereas political programs were
traditionally defined by their differentiation between inside and outside, now the programs
aiming at extending democracy and activating civic communities operate as if no borders
existed at all (Eriksson, 2012: 694).
These kind of developments risk to narrowing the place for action and deliberation between
government and citizens, reducing the interaction to citizen consultation about pre-defined
14
topics, making it difficult to criticize the network-like field of power, and closing the social
reality into its own image (Eriksson, 2012: 696).
The collective voice of the citizen is thereby transformed into individual consumer preferences
and voting by your own feet within this governance model. The results above correspond well
to the study on user-influence within different organization forms conducted by Westin (2014)
as administrative organizers from the assistance firm gave answers concerning social goals for
the organization that highlighted issues like: “security”, “closeness”, “the user is with (us) and
decides”, “where we together”, “accessibility” and “quality of life”. A social goal here regards
freedom for the user but as within the municipality it regards participation for the user through
co-determination, not as self-determination. These goals are social goals to reach justice for the
user. The user within the assistance firm had in practice chosen through their written agreement
with the organizer to give away much of their user influence in everyday life as the organizer
are expected to act as work leader (Westin, 2014: 139 and 168).
The concept of democracy through co-production
The fourth concept introduced by Evers (2011) to the area of social services is the concept of
enlarging democracy, that I will clarify as democracy through co-production has no immediate
connotation with one of the models mentioned before. The theoretical background is not a
regulatory political model but builds on a professional concept of social work, care and service
delivery. With this perspective on social services, service relations in a modern society include
the perceptions of members of problem groups that are aware of their basic rights and dignity
as citizens. Their doubts and abilities on behalf of cooperating actively in caregiving or training
concepts is recognized by the professionals in a process of dialogue, learning and negotiation
where both sides accept each other as co-producers of a service. An empowering approach calls
for a continuing reduction of the initial power gap between the professionals and their clientele.
There is a need of developing and strengthening components of democracy by a kind of "user
friendly" service concept that can basically be created both in a public and private for-profit
context (Evers, 2011: 45-46).
Ellis (2011) claims that there is a renewed interest in the way that policy is implemented at
point of delivery within social services. Changes in implementation, creates a shift in
perspective from top-down to bottom-up that leads to more diffused accountability; government
changes from traditional government to governance through policy networks. Management
15
changes will affect frontline decision making as a dynamic interaction between opposite forces
like top-down authority and street-level discretion (Ellis, 2011: 240-241).
Research about co-production have had much of a starting-point in the research by Ostrom that
concerned the role of user-organizations in producing mutual services regarding joint property
(Verschuere, Brandsen and Pestoff, 2012: 1085).
Ostrom (1993) argues that the way that production and consumption are organized in
communities will influence, have an effect on the incentives or disincentives among users to
participate actively as co-producers of services. Unless public administrators and the organizers
of services take into account the aspirations and preferences of the people they serve, they are
probably to encounter quite citizens who consider themselves victims of exploitation rather than
active participants in collaborative efforts to realize joint outcomes. Co-production has in theory
a strong potential relationship to efficiency and local self-governance (Ostrom, 1993: 231).
According to Fotaki (2011) co-production does not depend on collective arrangements in the
way traditional partnerships do (for example user representation in elected councils or in the
boards of commissioning bodies). Nor is it driven solely by the action of an individual user. For
example, individuals could participate in decisions concerning their treatment or decide to use
direct payments in social care, but they may also start up self-help groups or create alliances
with professionals to promote and initiate the type of services needed. If placed on a continuum,
the collective forms of collaborative partnerships, and the individualism of the market on its
other end, co-production occupies a middle position, as neither is crucial for co-production but
both might be its constitutive components (Fotaki, 2011: 947-948).
Haus and Sweeting (2006) mentions “network democracy” as a local democracy model that
focuses on problem solving by building organizational networks at the core of policy-making.
The current problems with local government are not so much seen as efficiency problems as
linked to the problems of modernity, especially the functional differentiation of society were
organizations gain more autonomy in their specific functional contexts. Problems cannot be
solved according to proponents by local public institutions or market solutions by its own,
problems need so be solved by involving all organizations with control, public organizations
and private organizations (Haus and Sweeting, 2006: 281). In this context network democracy
might fit well to the context of co-production.
Ewert and Evers (2014) shows that co-production in not unproblematic with regard to its
practice in the German health system were user-organizations’ have reported that the user may
feel divided between different roles that they are expected to fulfill. They are expected to build
relations that are built on trust and are expected to show compliance with the advice from
16
doctors; at the same time, they are also expected to act as self-taught experts aiming to reserve
the best additional choices and services they may have. Earlier in the traditional welfare state
the users were expected to comply with the doctors’ expert advice. The modern demands that
are connected with co-production create new demands on the user’s role. As a result, there
might be an emergent social divide, caused by social inequality since users have different
practical attainment and ability to handle choices; choices that are dependent on the user’s
individual cognitive and practical skills, (Ewert and Evers, 2014: 436).
Researchers’ on co-production have specifically focused on organizational aspects and their
effect on success for co-production. One approach focuses on workplace processes within
organizations and how these processes affect effective co-production. The other approach
focuses on how different organizational forms, private firms, public administration and
organizations from the third sector affect and give different conditions for the development of
co-production (Verschuere, Brandsen and Pestoff, 2012: 1089).
The changing role for the citizen as an agent within different governance models
There is a challenge of creating political structures as their legitimacy may rest on dual claims
according to Geurtz and Van de Wijdeven (2010). Claims that reflect the popular will and cope
with the demands of governance in a modern state. There is no structure that has been designed
to effortlessly balance representative and direct, participatory democracy. These two types of
democracy remain theoretically incompatible in internal logic, such as different types of
accountability, different receipts on legitimacy, and different types of operating. There is a need
for a pre-designed balancing structure that makes the actors to actively balance representative
and direct participatory democracy and create a common practice (Geurtz and Van de
Wijdeven, 2010: 534).
Co-production in itself can be an important democratic innovation that can contribute to
combine the two theoretical concepts of representative democracy and direct democracy.
Bifulco (2013) argues that citizen participation is a vague concept with a variety of actors,
procedures and powers involved in its practices. There is a relationship between participation,
agency and voice. Bifulco suggests an embeddedness of individual agency where the powers
and freedoms of participation needs to be analyzed with reference to social and institutional
aspects and not just with a starting point in the rationality of the actors (Bifulco, 2013: 174 and
178).
17
Voice (of the user) can be seen as an integral part of agency as there is a relation between
participation, capabilities and capacities to aspire for the individual, where differences depend
on freedoms and powers, conditions for exercising voice and possibilities for mobilizing and
change one’s future. We need to understand how participation nourish agency and voice,
freedom and desire (Bifulco, 2013: 182-183).
The work of Pestoff (2014) on co-production suggest that we need to distinguish between
individual acts and collective action. While this may seem relevant or necessary as part of a
research design, in practice there is often a mix of both of them in public service delivery.
Individual acts of co-production include ad hoc, unplanned acts done in public or at home. The
individual acts can also be a necessary part of the service or a mandatory activity expected of
all citizens. Collective acts of co-production include formally organized and institutionalized
activities that are done together with others and often as a part of the provision of enduring
welfare services. These kind of services are usually produced by a small group and often imply
more collective interaction than collective action. The former, collective interaction can
promote the development of social capital, mutualism, and reciprocity shown by Pestoff (2006
and 2009). Many acts of co-production combine both individual and collective actions and is
relevant when it comes to social services, particularly enduring social services (Pestoff, 2014:
386).
This line of theoretical thinking implies that a strong individual agency give room for greater
voice as well as greater possibilities for co-production. Institutional design may in practice
facilitate more collective action in public service provision or even a greater mix of both kinds
of action. From a public administration perspective diverse governance structures theoretically
give the citizen different agency roles that likely will affect user influence within social service
deliverance. I have constructed a figure.
18
Figure: The changing roles for the citizen as an agent within different governance models for delivering social services.
Scale of
empowerment
High
empowerment
CONSUMERISM
Social goal, freedom by profit maximation.
PARTICIPATIVE DEMOCRACY
Social goal, brotherhood, self-help and benevolence.
Consumer is responsible agent.
Citizens’ are agent by collaboration in concerned groups.
– exit (replaces voice).
– voice.
– information.
– participation.
– control of resources.
– political influence.
Scale of action
Individual acts
CO-PRODUCTION.
CO-PRODUCTION
FORCED CO-PRODUCTION.
NO CO-PRODUCTION OR IS IT?
DISEMPOWERED USERS
Collective action
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
Social goal, justice by equal acquisition.
Responsibilized agent.
Beneficiary is the agent.
– exit (replaces voice).
– absence of voice
– no control of decisions.
– absence of choice.
– total responsibility for enforced
choices (absence of choice).
– dependency.
– no involvement.
Low empowerment
The figure above is further developed from Fotaki (2011: 945), Fotaki (2011: 947), Evers (2011:
46) as well as Pestoff (1998b: 10).
The figure above may be of help if we try to analyze the most important conditions for the
citizen acting as an agent within different governance models that affect how organizations
deliver social services.
The first scale in the figure above is the scale of empowerment, where co-production can be
expected to occur in the governance models of participative democracy and consumerism, that
relates to high level of empowerment for the user. No levels of empowerment can be expected
where the co-production is forced individual acts as for example when care for elderly relatives
are seen as forced acts without any alternative in practice, (for further discussion see Fotaki,
2011). Low levels of empowerment for the user can also be expected within representative
19
democracy as the governance model sees the citizen as having influence on election-day and
the citizen is regarded as a beneficiary of social services with absence of voice and choice. The
administrative experts are expected to determine the user’s needs and that creates dependency
for the user.
The scale of action in the figure above suggest that there is a primary mood of action within the
governance models that affect user influence. Both the governance models of consumerism and
disempowered users are based on individual acts and a perspective on the individual that can
be seen as atomistic, without any strong focus on surrounding social context. Within
consumerism the citizen becomes a consumer as a responsible agent that makes choices by their
feet, that is by choosing another provider when they are not satisfied with the service, or acting
as an individual within the organization. There is usually no room for collective action and
voice although some co-production of their personal services may occur. Within representative
democracy collective action involves our choices on election-day as citizens, but in ordinary
lives administrative experts usually make judgements of our needs. The absence of coproduction within representative democracy can be questioned as it should be possible to create
a more functional democracy that give room also for co-production within representative
democracy and make the beneficiary act also as a citizen. Participative democracy corresponds
well to third sector organizations and user-cooperatives in particular and gives the citizen as a
user high levels of empowerment, voice and possibility to act as a user as well as take part in
collective action as a member of an association. Citizens are here acting as agent in
collaboration in concerned groups.
Within the figure above the governance models, consumerism, participative democracy and
representative democracy are expected to aim for different social goals that will affect userinfluence as a citizen within the models. A social goal for consumerism can be seen as freedom
by profit maximation for the user. In participative democracy social goals for the user are to
reach a feeling of brotherhood, self-help within the group and benevolence. An important social
goal within representative democracy is to achieve justice by equal acquisition.
The figure above is based on the concept of ideal organizational types and that can be
misleading as we also need to take hybridization into consideration. Evers (2005) point to the
need to understand how shifts in the welfare mix in the field of social services indicate that the
traditional clear-cut separation of market based, state-based and third sector-based units are
becoming increasingly insufficient. The hybrid structure of many social services starts
processes of hybridization that may constitute an ambiguous challenge against core values of
20
the welfare state as equality, welfare guarantees and democratic transparency (Evers, 2005:
738).
There is a need to balance participative networks within participative democracy and
representative politics within representative democracy with professional autonomy. We are
now seeing new forms of governance that that mirror the present shifts in welfare mixes and
hybridization strategies that are used to cope with uncertainty both as organizations as well as
individual actors (Evers, 2005: 744-745).
The study (Westin, 2014) briefly presented gave results that are very similar to the governance
models presented by Evers (2011). However, I have not reached similar results regarding one
important aspect, as both Evers (2011: 45-46) and Fotaki (2011: 947) suggest that co-production
can be part of consumerism as a governance model. Maybe this divergence in results can be
explained in the fact that I investigated a large assistance firm in the study and small assistance
firms can give different institutional conditions for the user to reach influence and voice (see
Andersen, Hugemark and Richter Bjelke, 2014 for further discussion on the importance of
organizational size); or maybe the difference can be explained by divergent local structures of
governance that lacked invitation to the organizers to have collective voice through cooperation
with the public administration at the municipality level.
Conclusion
We need as researchers empirically investigate governance as a concept hand in hand with
democratic innovations that can help us create a more functional democracy with empowered
citizen within social services. In future research organizational form is an important aspect to
investigate to enable us to create more appropriate governance structures that enables the user
to act both as a user and a citizen in the deliverance of welfare services. More empirical research
is needed to investigate the presence and preconditions for co-production within the different
governance models.
Geurtz and Van de Wijdeven (2010) were right when they argue that there is a challenge of
creating political structures whose legitimacy rests on dual claims to accurately reflect t he
popular will and to implement the demands of governance in a modern state. There is no
balancing structure that makes the actors involved actively balance representative and direct
participatory democracy and create a common practice (Geurtz and Van de Wijdeven, 2010:
534). This need for a new balance structure that may involve co-production for citizens
21
regarding their own personal welfare services corresponds well to Joas demands for more
democratic administration (Joas, 2012: 19 and Joas, 2012: 25). If participatory democratic
innovations or deliberative decision processes are to be realized, it needs to be implemented in
the hands of a more democratic public administration.
22
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