Citizenship Projects

Community Empowerment Review 2008-2009 

Professor Gerry Stoker, Professor Graham Smith and Dr. Corinne Wales of the Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (CCD) together with their counterparts at the Local Governance Research Unit, De Montfort University (DMU) carried out a year-long study into community empowerment for the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The project aimed to identify when, where and how government can most effectively act to give people more of a say in shaping local priorities such as health, education and crime prevention. It contributed to the national consultation on the Empowerment White Paper published last year.  It has been the most comprehensive review of its kind and two reports have been published on 1st June 2009 on the DCLG website:

Summary

This study used a robust, replicable method to systematically review the domestic and international evidence base around community empowerment. The aim of the review was to make sense of variable and often competing or contrasting evidence in order to identify which mechanisms empower; in what ways, and in what contexts.

Empowering communities to influence local decision making - A systematic review of the evidence

Summary

This report draws on a systematic review of community empowerment to provide evidence-based lessons for policy makers and practitioners. The aim of the review was to make sense of variable and often competing or contrasting evidence in order to identify which mechanisms empower; in what ways, and in what contexts.

Empowering communities to influence local decision making - Evidence-based lessons for policy makers and practitioners 

 

Rediscovering the Civic and Achieving Better Outcomes in Public Policy. 

Gerry Stoker/Graham Smith/Corinne Wales.  This project will look at how we engage citizens in public decision making and in how policies are delivered.  Engagement is important for achieving the public policy outcomes that the public and policy-makers care about, such as low crime and the absence of anti-social behaviour, economically developed and cohesive communities and a fully working democratic system.

For more details see: http://www.ipeg.org.uk/civicbehaviour/

 

Rethinking Equality:  the challenge of Equal Citizenship.  

Chris Armstrong.  This recent book (2006) investigated the role that ideal of equal citizenship might play as an organising concept in egalitarian theory.