Citizens’ Governance Spaces: Democratic Action Through Disruptive Collective Problem-Solving
| Author | Carolyn M Hendriks,Albert W Dzur |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720980902 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720980902
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(3) 680 –700
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720980902
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Citizens’ Governance Spaces:
Democratic Action Through
Disruptive Collective
Problem-Solving
Carolyn M Hendriks1
and Albert W Dzur2
Abstract
This article investigates the practical form of citizen engagement that occurs in collective problem-
solving efforts such as civic enterprises, grassroots initiatives and self-help groups. Drawing on
extensive empirical evidence from diverse policy fields, it articulates the distinct experimental
and disruptive policy work that citizens enact in these citizens’ governance spaces and challenges
dominant interpretations which view them as either (i) a testament to the capacity of citizens
to effectively solve complex public problems or (ii) a symptom of advanced neoliberalism where
states off-load complex problems onto citizens. The article moves beyond this dualism to consider
the motivations, challenges, available resources and distinct democratic work enacted by citizens
in these spaces of bottom-up governance. Citizens’ governance spaces, the article concludes, offer
important lessons – both in terms of potential benefits and risks – for the project of deepening
the quality and reach of citizen participation in modern systems of democracy.
Keywords
citizen engagement, public participation, political participation, citizen-led governance, democratic
theory and practice, coproduction, civic enterprises, social innovation, democratic renewal,
democratic innovation, civil associations, community organizations, community organizing
Accepted: 24 November 2020
Introduction
In the early 2000s, a group of Baltimore residents began meeting to figure out how their
newly established community conference centre would use restorative justice practices.
They wanted to work with the local community by offering alternative ways to defuse
1Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, ACT, Australia
2Departments of Political Science and Philosophy, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA
Corresponding author:
Carolyn M Hendriks, Crawford School of Public Policy, Lennox Crossing, The Australian National
University, Acton, ACT 2601, Australia.
Email: carolyn.hendriks@anu.edu.au
980902PSX0010.1177/0032321720980902Political StudiesHendriks and Dzur
research-article2021
Article
Hendriks and Dzur 681
interpersonal strife, ensure neighbourhood safety and reduce future harms (Abramson
and Beck, 2010). Ten years later across the Atlantic, a group of citizens in north-east
Catalonia were putting together plans to create Som Energia – a community cooperative
to produce affordable renewable energy for households in their region (Riutort Isern,
2015). Around the same time down in Brisbane, two citizens who had formed Orange Sky
Australia (OSA) – an organization providing mobile clothes washing services for home-
less people – were training thousands of community volunteers on how to engage in non-
threatening conversations with people living on the street (OSA, 2016).
From the outside, these citizen-led initiatives might appear to be modern-day examples
of the kind of community organizing or charity work that common purpose citizens’ groups
have done throughout the ages. Yet when one takes a closer look at how these initiatives
emerge and what they do, what comes into view is a particular mode of citizen engagement
that deserves fuller scholarly attention.1 In contrast to the ‘invited spaces’ of participatory
and deliberative governance (Nabatchi et al., 2012), citizens are not being asked by gov-
ernments, corporations or non-governmental organization (NGOs) to provide advice or
help make decisions. Instead, they are self-organizing and leading collective problem-
solving activities. In contrast to the ‘claimed spaces’ of protest and social movement activ-
ism (Gaventa, 2006), citizens in these bottom-up initiatives are getting on with the practical
business of addressing complex issues, often in highly experimental and effective ways.
For example, today Baltimore Community Conferencing is diverting felony and misde-
meanour cases from the juvenile courts, with judges inquiring into how they can adopt
more restorative justice programmes (Abramson, 2013). Today, Som Energia is defying
Spain’s oligopolist energy sector by producing, developing and supplying small-scale
affordable electricity from renewable sources to over 66,000 members nationwide
(Pellicer-Sifres et al., 2018; Riutort Isern, 2015).2 OSA has grown into a nationwide vol-
unteer organization offering free laundry and shower services in over 250 locations across
Australia – including in remote indigenous communities (OSA, 2019).
We call these grassroots efforts citizens’ governance spaces (CGS) – a term that cap-
tures practically focused initiatives, projects and groups that are formed and led by citi-
zens working together to address a specific collective problem. Of course, most countries,
rich and poor, developed and less developed, have long traditions of citizens collectively
organizing into community groups to address public policy issues (see Boyte, 2004;
Mitlin, 2008; Ostrom, 1996). While not new, the past two decades have seen an increase
in citizen-led initiatives across diverse sectors and countries, due to a mix of economic,
technical, political and social forces (da Silva et al., 2018; Denters, 2016; Mitlin, 2008;
Smith and Stirling, 2018). These spaces – variously labelled civic enterprises, self-help
groups or grassroots social innovations – have attracted the attention of global institutions
and governments around the world (e.g. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD)/European Union (EU), 2017; World Bank, 2016).3 When the
COVID-19 pandemic emerged, CGS gained popular attention around the world with the
rise of local community efforts and mutual aid groups (e.g. Mahanty and Phillipps, 2020).
It is likely that the recovery phase out the pandemic will also see citizens stepping up to
address the governance voids created in fiscally uncertain times.
In this article, we apply a democratic lens to CGS. We offer nuanced, empirical
insights, perhaps even a Pax Romana, with respect to two dominant yet opposed views on
what these spaces of citizen engagement mean for democracy. Neo-Tocquevillians – from
communitarians to community organizers to participatory democrats – view CGS as a
testament to the capacity of communities to self-organize and solve collective problems
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