Citizenship

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “a citizen is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights and assumes the duties of membership” (Leydet, 2011). Most traditional theories of citizenship assume the sovereign, territorial state as the basis for citizenship, and generally follow one of two political models: republican or liberal.

The republican camp conceives of citizenship as a role, citizens as political agents, and political action as a duty of citizenship. The liberal camp, on the other hand, conceives of citizenship as a legal status, and citizens as the bearers of rights, freedoms, and legal protections (Leydet, 2011). While the republican tradition still thrives in theory and academic applications, in practice most modern democracies, including Canada, follow the liberal model.

This thesis adopts a slightly different definition of citizenship, which might include but is not limited to the above definitions. I assert that citizenship is the relationship between the members of a political community, characterised by the way they claim their rights from, and/or fulfill their responsibilities to, the other members of the community.

One of citizenship’s most prominent theorists, Bryan Turner (1990), forwards a theory of citizenship described by two dimensions:

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Active vs. passive citizenship: In more active “bottom-up” forms of citizenship the citizen is an active political agent and citizenship is an act to be carried out, whereas with passive “top-down” forms of citizenship the citizen is the subject of an absolute authority, and citizenship is a state of being.

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Private vs. public political space: this distinction refers to the social “space” in which moral and political activity is carried out. The private sphere represents the individual citizen’s privately-held beliefs, property, home, and family life. The public sphere, on the other hand, is a collectively-held space for people to organize in pursuit of social or political goals.

The four possible combinations of these two dimensions describe Turner’s four typologies of

citizenship, as illustrated in Table 2.1.

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Table 2.1 – Turner’s four typologies of citizenship

Active citizenship Passive citizenship Public space Revolutionary context

(ex: French revolution)

Passive democracy (ex: English parliament) Private space Liberal pluralism

(ex: American individualism)

Plebiscitary authoritarianism (ex: German fascism)

Adapted from: (B. Turner, 1990)

An Arendtian perspective

Although she did not articulate her own distinct theory of citizenship, the philosophical works of Hannah Arendt provide some keen insights into the nature of citizenship. Her understanding of citizenship (as outlined in d’Entreves, 2014) was centred upon two concepts: the common world and the space of appearance.

Arendt’s common world is simply the world of human constructions: buildings and infrastructure, political institutions, histories. It is what provides people with a common frame of reference for interaction (d’Entreves, 2014).

The space of appearance is a physical space that is made political through speech and action.

As Mick Smith (2005: 53) explains it, “what we say and do in concert, though not necessarily in agreement, with others, creates that public ‘space of appearance’ where we reveal who (rather than

what) we are, where our unique individuality comes to the fore.” From an Arendtian

perspective, then, political speech and action is a process of self-actualization (Smith, 2015).

For Arendt, the practice of citizenship is to appear in spaces of appearance, and to call forth commonalities from the common world by expressing political opinions. It is through this process that we can begin to negotiate the plurality that Arendt considered so central to the human condition. Arendt understood this plurality as the tension between equality and distinction, which she articulated quite poetically: “[…] we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live”

(Arendt, 1958; p.8).

Although I have until now described Arendt’s theories of political action and plurality as

complimentary to or perhaps even synonymous with citizenship, Latta (2006) employs these

same theories to demonstrate how plurality is in fact at odds with citizenship. He argues that

citizenship, while usually seen as a mechanism for inclusion in that it unites a diverse multitude,

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can also be seen as a mechanism for exclusion in that the “citizen” exists only in the presence of its opposite: the non-citizen “other”.

Citizenship, for Latta (2006), is the “domain of struggle” between the citizen’s desire for an uncontested identity and the “other’s” desire for political recognition. In Arendtian terms, it is the struggle between the erasure of plurality through political closure, and the creative rebirth of the political through speech and action (Latta, 2006). Drawing upon the works of James Holston, Latta argues that the above described struggle can be conceived of as a space of

“insurgent citizenship”.

Insurgent citizenship

Holston’s (2009) concept of insurgent citizenship was developed in the context of rights movements in disenfranchised urban communities in developing countries, particularly in Latin America and South Africa. Although it has not been widely applied outside of that context, when applied to

political rather than urban spaces this theory becomes a useful tool in

understanding the recent pipeline conflicts in Canada.

According to Holston (2009), insurgent citizenships are developed by residents of impoverished urban peripheries as a means of challenging the established structures of rule and privilege in the centralized civic square. “These are citizens who, in the process of building and defending their residential spaces, not only construct a vast new city but, on that basis, also propose a city with a different order of citizenship” (Holston, 2009: 246)

Holston decries the use of stigmatizing labels that paint the urban poor in totalizing, reductive ways, and instead emphasizes the diverse and creative ways in which residents develop strategies to better their everyday lives. Insurgent citizenships emerge when these ingenuities coalesce into movements that seek to redefine existing social structures and distributions of wealth and power. In brief, he argues that “sites of metropolitan innovation often emerge at the very sites of metropolitan degradation” (Holston, 2009: 249).

2.3.2 Public participation

Many of the foregoing discussions of citizenship emphasized active citizen participation in

political processes. Indeed, the importance of public participation is so widely accepted in

democratic contexts that it is legally prescribed in many decision-making processes, such as the

NEB and CEA Agency processes discussed in Section 1. A report by the US National Research

Council on public participation in EA decision-making (Dietz and Stern, 2008) advises that

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agencies should engage the public not only because they

have to, but because it can actually

help them do a better job by increasing the likelihood of better decisions and effective implementation.

That being said, it’s important to note that poorly executed public participation can in fact be a barrier to effective decision-making. As emphasized by the National Research Council:

A poorly designed process that lacks adequate support and engagement by the agency or that fails to meet major challenges posed by the specific context can decrease, rather than increase, the quality and legitimacy of an assessment or decision and damage capacity for future processes (Dietz and Stern, 2008: 227).

Participation as a ladder

One of the most influential illustrations of the positive and negative facets of citizen participation is Sherry Arnstein’s (1969) ladder of citizen participation, shown here as Figure 5. Arnstein very explicitly equates citizen participation to citizen power, and explains that

“participation without redistribution of power is an empty and frustrating process for the powerless. It allows the power holders

to claim that all sides were considered, but makes it possible for only some of those sides to benefit. It maintains the status quo.” (Arnstein, 1969: 216) Arnstein uses a ladder metaphor to illustrate eight levels of participation.

The rungs at the top of the ladder represent a real transfer of power to citizens; the middle rungs a potential or symbolic transfer of power; and the bottom two rungs entail no power shift at all, but rather a preservation of existing power relationships.

Arnstein’s ladder, and much of the ensuing literature, casts public participation in an always-desirable

Figure 5 – Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation

Source: (Arnstein, 1969: 217)

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light. However, as argued by Margot Hurlbert and Joyeeta Gupta (2015: 101), “participation is not always necessary, not always useful, and may not always lead to consensus.” Building on Arnstein’s model, Hurlbert and Gupta propose a split ladder of participation, shown here as Figure 6, to help assess what sort of public participation is appropriate for the problem in question.

In Hurlbert and Gupta’s ladder, the level of public participation needed depends, in part, on the nature of the problem being considered (as described in Hurlbert and Gupta, 2015):

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Structured problems are problems in which there is general agreement on what outcomes are desirable, and what knowledge sources are relevant.

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Moderately structured problems are problems where there is some level of agreement on either norms or knowledge, but not both.

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Unstructured problems are problems where there is disagreement both on what outcomes or values are desirable, and also on the knowledge or science required to solve the problem.

Figure 6 – Hurlbert and Gupta's split ladder of participation

Source: (Hurlbert and Gupta, 2015: 104)

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The extent to which a policy problem can be seen as structured or unstructured depends in large part on how it is framed, which is in itself a value-laden process. Hurlbert and Gupta (2015) warn that “Structural disconnects between major groups and their ‘perspectives’ may result in a democratic deficit in which democratic systems lose viability”.

Another important factor in determining the appropriate level of public participation is the type of social learning needed to address the problem (as described in Armitage, Marschke and Plummer, 2008)

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Single-loop learning identifies alternative actions or behaviours to resolve specific problems.

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Double-loop learning reconsiders the values and worldviews that shape actors’

behaviour. This type of learning is facilitated by trust-building efforts, transparency, and a high degree of public participation.

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Triple-loop learning reconsiders the governance structures that underlie single- and double-loop learning. It involves reflection, system orientation, integration, negotiation, and participation.

Learning requires mutual trust, explain Hurlbert and Gupta (2015, p.103). This might be the trust that people have in those they know, but more importantly it includes social trust in people they don’t know, but where they have confidence in the social structure in which they interact.

Participation as a cube

As emphasized by Arnstein (1969), citizen participation can be understood as citizen power.

The nature of power, however, is also widely theorized. One theory of power that sheds

considerable light on public participation is John Gaventa’s (2006) “power cube”. Gaventa’s

power cube (shown in Figure 7) outlines three dimensions of power in public participation: the

levels, spaces, and forms of power.

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The levels of power in participation are fairly straightforward: power can be held at the local level of everyday community life, the national level of the sovereign nation-state, or the global level of international institutions.

Spaces for participation are the “opportunities, moments, and channels where citizens can act to potentially affect policies, discourses, decisions, and relationships that affect their lives and interests” (Gaventa, 2006: 26). These spaces (as described in Gaventa, 2006) can be closed, invited, or created:

- Closed spaces: the powerful make decisions without consultation or public participation.

- Invited spaces: authorities invite people to participate in decision-making in formal, institutionalized arenas.

- Created spaces: the less powerful carve out spaces to gather, debate, discuss, and resist outside of institutionalized policy arenas.

Figure 7 – Gaventa’s power cube: the levels, spaces, and forms of power

Source: (Gaventa, 2006: 25)

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Forms of power in participation is the extent to which conflict over key issues and the voices of key actors are “visible” in the spaces outlined above. VeneKlasen and Miller (as cited in Gaventa, 2006) suggest that power can be visible, hidden, or invisible:

- Visible power: the formal rules, structures, authorities, institutions and procedures of decision making.

- Hidden power: the powerful maintain their power by controlling who gets to participate in decision-making, and what makes it onto the agenda. This form of power operates on many levels to exclude or devalue the concerns and representations of less powerful actors.

- Invisible power: this form of power is used to shape the psychological and ideological boundaries of participation – that is, how individuals think about their place in the world.

This form of power shapes people’s beliefs, sense of self, norms, and ideas about what

is acceptable and desirable.

In document Experiencing citizenship through pipeline politics : the case of the Trans Mountain Expansion project in Canada (sider 48-55)