This article is forever current as the differences between treating people as consumers or citizens makes all the difference and sometimes public services don’t know the difference. The article charts the origins of community empowerment and compares the ‘consumerist’ or ‘user and chooser’ approach with the ‘citizens’ or ‘maker and shaper’ approaches to empowering people. It also identifies the key people involved in the community empowerment process.
Consumer or Citizen, the difference in theory and practice
Related papers and tools:
Practicing Participation takes the IAP Spectrum of Public Participation and discusses the stages of participation and the public duty and promises that participatory management places upon service-providers
Involving All the Players examines the process of vertical partnership, as well as the more common horizontal partnership building process
Where Power Lies in the Public Domain WEB Diagnosing Where Power Lies in the Public Domain
Empowerment Tools 1 – Healthy Partnerships Checklist A self-assessment tool for evaluating effective partnership working
Social Capital and Public Sector Professional Work Can the public sector grow social capital?… well yes it can. See this discussion.
Also these materials are reflected upon in a paper that develops a new and more effective approach to managing public resources and services: