maandag 14 oktober 2013

 

This blog is about the history of the international conference Borders to Cross about democratic innovation and civic driven change, to be held in Amsterdam, 29-31 October 2013

 

The Border Story

In 2000 I was among the civil servants who organised an international conference about innovative policymaking in Maastricht.  We gathered examples from all over Europe and some even beyond, where we saw similar developments in horizontalizing relations between government and society. The representatives of the selected projects were simply asked to tell their stories. In the Dutch context the subject had become topical out of experiences in building new large infrastructure. This could no longer be done without evoking a lot of resistance. So the public authorities should wisely take good notice of the local knowledge and opinions and even negotiate with stakeholders. We were naïve to think that all this might be a typically Dutch whim, a corrolary of our ‘Polder-model’. Soon enough we discovered that other countries experienced even more radical system-changes. Also a few examples of grass-root initiatives were present (I remember artists developing an area in Britol and a large open space planning event in Essen) , but the main type of stories had to do with the influence of citizens into public policymaking. I remember that the Dutch examples appeared a bit bleak besides those from our neighbouring countries.
Although a booklet was composed afterwards titled “The Border Story”- of which I possess one of the rare copies. I do not remember that much academic reflection was devoted to the proceedings of the conference in Maastricht. The main purpose of this event was to be inspired, to extend the horizon of the participants beyond their own country. As such the conference was a success.

Borders-2, differences

When some of the initiators of the BtC-I conference met again and told some colleagues of a younger generation about this event, the idea was soon born to organise a repraisal, be it with more depth thanks to the progression of time. The opportunity could be taken to look back and ask: which of our expectations of the period had born fruit and which had not? Also the new generation would be able to refrase its own expectations for the future.
There are obvious differences in the nature of examples and of outlook in 2000 and now. At the dawn of the new millennium most examples in BtC were oriented at cocreation in area-development. So two parties were involved: government and civil society – with government clearly in the driver’s seat -  and the main object of their co-operation was the creation of new physical plans.
In 2013 the initiative shifted from government to civil society, and the theme of the endeavours was more often social services, not only physical planning. Self-organisation from bottom-up is now a phenomenon that a decade or so ago we could only dream of, or that we could frown at with hideous examples of gated communities in our minds. Another new aspect is the introduction of alternative market-configurations, like trusts and cooperatives, whereby all strict lines between public and private are becoming blurred. 
 

Between dreams and reality

The former generation of Borderers probably believed in an overall consensus about planning solutions as long as government would step down from its throne and take all relevant perceptions seriously. Maybe even the upcoming ICT could help to reach this aim. Although in a simple form (everyone gets what he wants) this is clearly impossible, the participants can each a high level of legitimacy concerning a result in an open process.
The present aspirations of the Borders to Cross II-generation are also sometimes elevated to a point of utopia. Maybe many of us believe in a society of Everyday Makers that not even persisted in Copenhagen, but now nobody is able to foresee how the new balance between government, civil society and market of public goods will be reached. One thing is clear: democracy, public service production and government will never be the same. We see the shifting of borders between the domains that formerly were unequivocally stable: the systems world of bureaucracy, the free market and the personal affiliations of people, must affect deeply rooted values. Government being based on equal attribution without distinction, communities living with personal relationships and markets emphasising differences between people’s needs and wants possibly should evolve towards a common vocabulary of values and methods rather than stay in each separate domain of thinking and acting.

Jan Schrijver
October 2013