Through five remarkable decades public policy has been framed by three powerful ideas: a full employment obligation which required governments to address the volatility of labour markets and to provide job security as a fundamental economic policy goal; zero inflation and zero deficit targets that bound public authority to more closely align spending practices with revenue flows. Programme spending was cut back and the once powerful welfare state was replaced by a smaller, supposedly more efficient authority. Social inclusion would like to be the next public policy framework. So far the jury is out, but after the attacks of September 1th 1 we have more need than ever for new concepts with which to address the social effects of markets – inequality, social exclusion and marginalization.
New ideas like social inclusion are always confusing at first because they are used in differing ways. This is nothing new. Noteworthy is the fact that much of our contemporary policy vocabulary is imprecise and many state-of-the- art concepts lack sharp clarity and precision. Think of the words public domain, Washington consensus, social cohesion and citizenship. Why do we invent terms that are soft rather than hard benchmarks for citizens, governments and policy experts? The simple answer is that the larger policy community has moved on. They are increasingly distrustful of mega-discourses such as standardized Marxism, template liberalism and utopian communitarianism, which can no longer provide reliable answers for a world that is increasingly complex, interdependent, rights-focussed and process-driven. A world in which citizens have to do more and want to do more and governments need to do more but are not sure about their objectives and the way to get there. If economic macro-management imperatives are no longer the best or only guide to collective need there is still a host of unanswered questions about why the public has become sceptical of markets and often critical of public authority’s ability to address effectively the hard concerns of our times. There are too many disconnects in the search for a new policy agenda.
The emergence of the global economy, with its predilection for market fundamentals, tough zero-inflation bench-marking, an unstoppable political dynamic of one worldism and silence on the need for an expansive notion of the public sphere in all of its parts, is unquestionably the watershed event of our times. The meta-narrative of globalization has no rivals as the last grand political discourse of the twentieth century and if we understand anything about the endless capacity of the globalization narrative to reinvent itself in a new guise when conditions demand it, today is one of those defining moments. A new kind of state is emerging with its own particular institutions, practices and innovative forms. Yet after the battle in Seattle, the future prospects of ‘market fundamentalism’ are increasingly troubled. A turning point has been reached in the debate over the rising costs and elusive benefits of globalization.
The once solid fundamentals now face a doubting chorus composed of professional experts and loud and insistent, highly articulate critics from civil society questioning the policy processes that occur outside the present reach of the nation-state. As times have changed, the policy capitals of the world have adopted a new rhetoric of poverty reduction, equity and strengthening the role of the state in economic management . The distancing from the old consensus is quite stark and unmistakable. Take just one measure. John Williamson, the economist who first coined the term the Washington consensus, is no longer an unqualified partisan supporter of efficient, pro-market advocacy. He joins the distinguished company of other leading economists, such as Joseph Stiglitz, John Helliwell, Paul Krugman, Sylvia Ostry and Dany Rodrik, who have publically expressed strongly dissenting views about its rigid policy prescription and one-worldism.
This public soul-searching has given the tough structural adjustment goals of the Washington consensus a human face and spawned a moderate vision of reformism among policy insiders. The new policy objectives include: poverty-reduction, improving equity and building socially inclusive societies. Adding the hot-button words civil society, capacity building, transparency, institution building and safety nets makes a fundamental difference at the level of public discourse but the basic problem remains unaddressed. So far, there is still little recognition of the negative correlation between social cohesion and the purist goals of neo-liberalism. The proponents of the new consensus continue to rely on many, if not all, of the old policy-instruments of efficiency and structural reform. What is still not grasped is that these efficiency dedicated policy instruments are not compatible with the new equity outcomes espoused by Washington Consensus reformers. Until goals and outcomes are linked in a radically different way, the rules and norms which underpin the present order will not provide any new hope for global governance or governance at the city level.
Evidently to explain the social effects of markets when they over-perform and over-shoot requires a better explanation. Public authority, with its arsenal of policy tools and large amounts of public resources, has to protect the social bond from corrosive pressures. Strategically we need to wrap our minds around a single proposition, is the state being dismantled as many allege? Or are our minds privatized and globalized to such a degree that we no longer see any value in having any strategy of collective action?
Surprisingly our collective mentality is still rooted in TINA - there is no alternative to markets rather than TAPA - there are plenty of alternatives, if our mental framework changes. The public domain is a crucial idea to explain how society is motivated to reach out, at a time of intense globalization when it appears that markets are triumphant and dangerously pervasive, to delimit property rights, transform the social bond, rein in markets. Then every society will take needed measures to reinforce its public domain, either in a conscious way or in piecemeal fashion, to reclaim all or part of it where it detects the need to defend public space from powerful market actors and renew the public interest.
Market intrusiveness occurs when private actors appropriate the public interest, and its collective goods that are shared in common, for private gain. Market intrusiveness is also about unregulated market forces and their capacity to redefine the line between the state and the market, by moving it towards the market-end of the public spectrum. Market forces can also be said to interfere with the normal functioning of civil society, such as, when corporate merger and takeover activity become ends in themselves, one so alarmingly predatory that it puts social stability at risk, weakening the redistributive bite of public authority. There is no shortage of contemporary examples of the newfound power these frequently ‘stateless corporations’ exert to enhance the rights of business at any price. Many experts believe that they now overpower the regulatory authority of states. Take just one measure, Infosys of the Bombay Stock Exchange. Its assets are larger than Pakistan’s GDP and the share value of the Bombay Stock Exchange is larger than the foreign currency earnings of India in 1999.
While none of these figures tell us very much about ‘the private use of public interest,’ they are worrying and psychologically damaging for the public everywhere because they give credence to the idea that the battle for an autonomous and vigorous notion of the public is in full retreat.
It is hardly a breathtaking conclusion to say that we need new vocabulary, ideas and strategies of action to takes us into the 21st century. What kind of public authority will make a difference to the quality of life in cities?
The public domain is a conceptual benchmark that enables the public and policy-makers alike to find a way out of this conceptual dilemma and policy predicament on the most basic of questions - what properly should be a public responsibility and what clearly should be privately provided? The public domain enables us to grasp what many in the public policy community have overlooked in recent times, namely, the processes and institutions that furnish society with its collective and social goods, public space and social inclusiveness. If, in a triumphant world market, it is a relatively straightforward proposition to clarify where private goods come from, the expansion of investment rights at all levels, then the infinitely more complex undertaking is to explain the processes and decisions that enable society to establish the goods and assets owned in common and not traded on the open market.
The traditional answer provided by the most rigorous economists is that public services, spaces and places are provided through public regulation and market failure But social movement actors, on the other hand, are equally adamant that the necessities of existence also come from citizens’ efforts to enlarge the not-for profit sector. From education through health, to parks and public places, these are goods that enhance the social bond rather than weaken it. In the potent words of Jacques Attali, the state and civil society require large state-constructed “sanctuaries outside market logic,” outside the reach of the price system.
Governments have been grappling with how to build socially inclusive societies for the past three decades. By social inclusion we mean a state of affairs or condition where all citizens have access to the social, political and economic benefits of society in ways that enable them to realize their full potential. The challenge here is very large. We have two very soft concepts – inclusion and the public domain. What is the relationship between the two?
Cities are constructed around the things we have in common – the spaces, places and goods and services that markets cannot provide exclusively. Think of any city and it is not commercial space that leaps out at you. Rather its character comes from its meeting places, its squares, piazzas, promenades, meetings places, malls as well as its parks, public transportation, social services of all kinds, hospitals, schools, public security, open air markets, concert centres, theatres, art galleries, museums, soccer fields, hockey rinks and dance halls. It is life in public that creates the great and small modern city-scape.
Many capital cities have long had highly visible and very prominent public domains. Some are primarily commercial domains which service sector tourism, the financial sector, public and private museums, art galleries and other meeting places, which are largely organized and maintained by the private sector for profit. New York and Los Angles are prototypical cities in this respect, a mix of public cultural sites and spaces and private interest with the private predominant. Look at a map of Manhattan. It is only in the USA that there are so many private institutions functioning as public museums, art galleries, opera houses and music halls etc. They are not public institutions because they are private creations, owned and managed for profit even when subsidized. What is significant is that they present themselves as protectors of the public interest and needs. But private institutions are dependent on public authority to find new sites for expansion or relocation. They need subsidies from public authority but most of all they need the prestige and authority of public officials and high offices. So they form alliances with incumbent mayors and other high ranking public officials at the state or sub-national level, which is not difficult to do.
Others cities have notably cultural domains. Here the redevelopment of the cultural capital of a great cosmopolitan city derives its prestige and status by the renovation of the city centre. London, Paris or Berlin, once imperial and economic capitals, which at different times have suffered sharp decline, are once again flourishing cosmopolitan centres of enormous vitality. Abounding with art galleries, museums of all kinds, as well as parks and historical sites, they are primary sites of global culture and travel destination. The creation of new public space, services and goods, as well as the expansion and redevelopment of older public places, largely with public monies , establishes a very large buffer against intrusive and unregulated market pressures. Highly visible non-commercial districts and public places are much in evidence in London along the South Bank of the Thames, in the historic centre of Paris, in downtown Rome, Amsterdam, Prague and Berlin. These major sites of publically funded and protected culture co-exist with the adjacent commercial world.
Communitarian domains have quite different characteristics and are largely organized around neighbourhoods and inner city communities, which are peopled by ethnic, working class, gay, counter-cultural and other social movement activists. Toronto’s, Montreal’s and Amsterdam’s or Rotterdam’s downtown core, each in its own way, represents this different kind of city scape, with their contrasting traditions of local grass roots activism, openness and neighbourhood resistance to crude commercial venality.
What is special about a reconstituted cultural, as well as strongly grass roots neighbourhood domain, is that control of the street is the determining element. Common spaces require visibility and maintenance, as well as access to the resources of the city. They have to be safe places in which to visit and meet. Traditionally, cultural domain cities have a lot of community support and participation. Commercially oriented public domains are tightly organized and controlled by the elites and developers, some of whom may have a strong sense of the civic, but whose short-term views are not capable of defending the long-term needs of society. Thus frequently, community rooted domains are very different creatures because they provide citizens the resources and social space to meet, discuss, mobilize and act.
Not surprisingly, world class cities become a strategic point of reference in periods of globalization because ‘taking back the street’ is one of the sites of resistence to the intrusiveness of markets. At the other extreme, the post-modern ‘edge/anti-city’ is indeed a privileged site of consumerism, localism and statelessness. Decentralized, located near the inter-state freeway, organized around the ubiquitous shopping mall and motor freeway, the edge city is the product of unregulated market forces and unplanning. There is no public space to act or initiate new beginnings. It has become a high-risk security environment for the middle class because the US underclass has been ‘enclosed’ in the old inner cities.
Finally, in a category apart are the private domains that function as small, disconnected public spaces typical of many capital cities in the southern world. These displaced public spaces are a powerful reminder that when society does not have the means to create a viable and endowed public sphere, communities will fashion private space sometimes for public use. Sao Paulo is a classic instance of privately created and sponsored public space. The system was created in the 1940´s, by Getulio Vargas, a populist Brazilian president. The name of the institution is SESC, (from Serviço Social do Comércio, which means Social Service for Commerce). SESC-Pompéia is one branch of SESC (the one which is located in the neighbourhood of Pompéia, in São Paulo). There are hundreds of similar branches around the country. SESC has a twin named SENAC (Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Comercial - National Serviço for Commercil Training), a organization dedicated to the task of training workers for commercial firms. SENAC is dedicated to social and cultural activities. Both are funded with a payroll tax. The government collects the tax and gives the money to SENAC/SESC. Funds are managed by the commercial employers association. Needless to say that the "efficiency" of the employers´ association management is questionable. The fact is that the payroll tax money gives power and visibility to whoever gets it.
It is within cities like Toronto and Montreal, New York, Amsterdam and São Paulo that building inclusive societies and reducing the obstacles to inclusion must take place. If we are to have inclusive cities then the people who live there must share in the benefits of society, have access to them and participate to the fullest extent possible. If inclusivity is to become a priority, there has to be the political will to ensure that the process of inclusion is enhanced and the obstacles to inclusion are removed as effectively and deliberately as possible. This is always difficult because the processes of inclusion and exclusion occur simultaneously. There can never be total inclusion; this is to confuse inclusion with assimilation. Inclusion respects and encourages cultural diversity. Societies are constructed with deep cleavages and differences in values. There will always be tension between insiders and outsiders in every society.
What we want is to alter the balance of forces between inclusion and exclusion in favour of inclusion. Those who are kept out of the labour market need to be brought into it. Those whose citizenship rights are not recognized need to be treated fairly. The needs of those who are young or elderly and enjoy little security or well-being have to be addressed. Disability is a huge issue to be addressed fully in large urban cities as well as rural areas. Race and gender are other constituencies of the excluded. The common condition that all experience is the failure of society to organize itself so that all citizens have access to society’s collective wealth and participate in it to the maximum extent possible. So do we think inclusion is primarily an economic agenda or a democratic one? Evidently it is neither but requires civil society as well as government to think outside the box.
At the interface between political will and exclusion, how are different outcomes possible? To creatively tackle the issue, think of building a multi-dimensional view of political will in which prioritization, access, sharing and participation are the key variables. In terms of policy inputs, cities that make significant investments that make inclusion a state priority is a key measure. Developing legislation that promotes the removal of structural obstacles is another. The establishment of inclusion enhancing standards and social regulations is a third criterion.
Strengthening society’s collective obligations through the entrenchment of rights is another step in the process. At the level of promoting inclusion-based processes, city government has to adopt new kinds of policy instruments. They require developing strategic targets and positive benchmarks to safeguard public places, spaces and services. Equity-based outreach programs such as affirmative action are another step towards broadening our commitment to inclusion at the city level. In terms of sharing society’s collective goods, city and regional authorities need to have a commitment to the active enforcement of pro-active remedies, which remove the obstacles to inclusionary values and practices. Finally inclusion is always a metaphor for democracy and governance. To make the city, where so many of us live and work, a vital centre of debate and discussion entails broadening citizen engagement in policy- consultation, making and development.
The city is the primary conduit for this process of creating benchmarks and broadening the rights and obligations people have to each other. The open city is the much vaunted ideal. Here the city is the primary site of embrace for the many different forms of diversity that cities today support and nourish. This inclusive diversity is the substratum of a strongly democratic culture. The open city is always a work in progress and no city is ever completely open. There are always newcomers and new groups who face exclusion and want full access and participation.
Where inclusion and the public domain fit together like a glove and fingers is in four critical areas of modern life: human services, human security, the information environment and the physical environment.
Human services are crucial because in most cities of the world housing, transportation and security are locally delivered. Human services comprise the core of public goods through the public domain. Many human services are directed to the particular needs of specific groups who have been excluded from full participation. Income security is a key component because adequate income is a prerequisite for all forms of social participation. Health care, too, is another essential element. Those whose state of health is compromised by disease and disability are less able to share in the benefits of society or to fully participate as citizens in its governance. Housing and education are two other services that give individuals the human capital and the knowledge of social, cultural and political processes which enable them to participate fully in society.
By contrast, exclusion of groups and individuals from city life at all levels is antithetical to human security because it puts the individual and the group on the outside. Being outside generates all the insecurities experienced by race, class, gender and disability. By contrast, human security requires open societies where membership is diverse and barriers minimal and falling. The information environment is critical today. If we are to have a society in which the benefits are shared, then individuals will require the skills necessary to participate in the information society. Most people don’t have access to the information commons. The physical environment is critical and it is necessary to ensure that policy-makers address situations that promote environmental conditions which ensure sustainable human development. Population health and human well-being are themselves directly impacted by environmental variables such as the availability of safe water, clean air and adequate human sanitation facilities. Thus in large urban settings, the degree to which human beings have access to these vital resources is directly tied to principles of inclusion whether social or environmental in nature. The notion of environmental inclusion in all cities has to be thought of as the capacity of the physical environment to facilitate and promote sustainable human development. Here inclusivity means establishing environmental standards which actively reduce the negative environmental consequences for people living close to high areas of industrial production activity. Of particular concern are vulnerable age groups, including children and the elderly, as well as populations close to toxic or hazardous waste sites or to nuclear facilities.
There is a powerful logic of collective action evident here. How is the city to become a more inclusive habitat without a process of inclusion anchored in the public domain? In a general way, breaking down barriers to inclusion requires an active political commitment to broaden democratic participation. It needs to enlist social processes that remove attitudinal barriers and promote recognition and tolerance. Equality of opportunity demands new investment in education, housing, human security and public places. Sharing and distribution are always key policy weapons to promote the open city. An open city today has to have a redistributional tax regime, workplace regulations and fair wages as well as an effective social minima that provides groups and individuals the social capital for health, education and housing. If all these measures were implemented, would we have reached the goal of inclusion?
Probably not. Public authority has to find ways to reinforce inclusion practices and goals so that they are stronger than the exclusion effects. Many obstacles are difficult to remove and many are rooted in attitudes and values that are deeply held. So the removal of major structural barriers is not as straightforward as theory suggests. The primary stumbling block is our individual and collective mind set and the question is, are we ready to move from TINA to TAPA -- ‘there are many alternatives if we open our eyes’. It is the mind-set more than any other factor that is determinate and at present prevents all citizens from having access to the social, political and economics benefits of society.
In a era of globalization, we have seen that political will among elites is often in short supply and that many societies do not have the political will to remove the structural obstacles to inclusion. Nonetheless a third agenda is forming around the soft but compelling notion of inclusion. It appeals to the Post-Modern in all of us with its focus equally on social groups and the individual: it evokes an incipient Marxism with its strong sense of economic inequality and social justice and, finally, inclusion draws heavily on modern liberal thought with its enlarged notion of rights and values. This is why soft concepts are so useful; they cross boundaries and address the complexities of modern existence in innovative ways.
From a policy perspective, inclusion is a powerful benchmark:
Our ability to speak effectively about inclusion requires a national urban agenda. More than this, we need to rethink the public domain and the public sphere in all its parts in order to remove the obstacles to inclusion and find the political will to do so. This is the task of the hour and time is short to make the city and citizenship the cornerstone of building inclusive societies.
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