Download Empowerment – Terminological Remarks

Peter Herrmann
Social Empowerment – A Matter of Enabling Society to Cope with Personalities1
Ubuntu
(South African term, meaning ‘I am because we are’)
Empowerment – Terminological Remarks ....................................................................... 2
Dimensions of Empowerment ............................................................................................ 2
Aspects of an individualist approach to empowerment ................................................................... 2
Aspects of empowerment as a societal matter ................................................................................ 3
Social Empowerment – a Different Concept..................................................................... 4
Welfare State and Welfare Society – Challenges for a Global Political Shift................ 5
1
The following presentation is made in preparation of the international conference Social Quality and Sustainable Welfare
Societies: Towards a new partnership in Taipei, GIS Convention Center, National Taiwan University, 28th and 29th
March 2007.
My very special Thank You goes to Laurent van der Maesen, European Foundation on Social Quality, Amsterdam who
had been a competent partner in discussions and collaboration over the last years – and who became a friend. I am as well
very much obliged to Lillian Lih-Rong Wang, Head of the Department of Social Work and Director of the Social Policy
Research Center, National Taiwan University – an obligation that is at the very same time a most pleasant one to fulfil.
Social Empowerment – A Matter of Enabling Society to Cope with Personalities
Empowerment – Terminological Remarks
Empowerment is currently in Europe a catch-all phrase – and as such it tends to be rather useless. It is
uncontested as there is no clear definition; and it is striking that we find actually all disciplines and
professions dealing in one or another way with human beings the concept as kind of leading paradigm
and demand for action – this is true for psychology, social work, social policy and others, all are calling
for empowerment. The thesis here is that the reason for being en vogue is that the societies in which the
term is so frequently used today have lost their identity of being a social entity and the different actors
are now reclaiming the social or they are shifting the responsibility for the social away to others,
namely to individuals.
We can envision the loss of the social in a very simple way, namely by quoting Margaret Thatcher
who stated in 1987
And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and
women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except
through people, and people must look to themselves first.
(Margaret Thatcher, talking to Women's Own magazine, October 31 1987 – from
http://briandeer.com/social/thatcher-society.htm 19/03/07; 07:46)
But this is only one example amongst others; perhaps it is more striking that even social science lost a
clear understanding of the subject matter. Rather than speaking of society and the social, we find
notions of the risk-society (Beck), the experience-driven society (Schulze), the leisure-time society
(Kohl) etc.; and we may find ‘claims of real society’ by orientations on the civil society, civic spirit and
the responsibility of the citizen. In other words, whenever empowerment is discussed, it is concerned
with the individual, with his/her ability to exercise control over personal life. In particular the statement
from Thatcher highlights the ambiguity and contradiction: of course it is important to acknowledge that
any society can only live by the individuals and their activities. However, does this mean to follow her,
accepting that there is no such thing as society? Or does her conclusion actually mean that we consider
empowerment as a matter of pure individualism?
The actual challenge is, indeed, to understand empowerment as a bridge between different levels of
activities and action.
For developing such an understanding, a brief remark is useful on what actually power is about. I
want to highlight the two dimensions that are inherent in the term and concept. Power is first simply
concerned with ability – in French it is the term pouvoir that means capability, competence, mastery.
But power is as well concerned with an unbalanced relationship: supremacy, control, command are
synonyms to this understanding. The problem now is that the two dimensions of power do not
necessarily correspond.
Dimensions of Empowerment
There are at least three dimensions of empowerment which I want to present: the individual-technical,
the mechanical-integrative and social empowerment.
Aspects of an individualist approach to empowerment
Capability, competence, mastery – these terms had been mentioned as synonyms of power, when
looking at the French equivalent. These concepts are very much concerned with individuals, their
ability to relate to themselves and to the natural environment. There is no real social dimension to this
as it is about skills of the individual. Moreover, the individual to asset oneself not even about
understanding: the individual has to know and accept certain rules, s/he has to obtain certain skills –
and it is on the basis of this that situations can be mastered. With respect to the social dimension it
means even more that we are actually concerned with an understanding of other people as objects. This
gets in particular clear when we look at the Western legal traditions. They are nearly entirely based on
individual contractual systems, defined by four elements
* An agreement of free will, between two free/formally equal parties
* Mutual obligations
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Peter Herrmann
* Mutual benefits
* Limited to the obligations expressed in the contract
(Lotti Ryberg-Welander, Lotti: Legal Technics. A structure of legal rationalities.
Presentation University College of Cork, Department of Applied Social Studies;
15.1.2007 – see abstracts for William-Thompson Lectures at http://williamthompson.ucc.ie)
Empowerment in this first and technical sense, being concerned with the individual then means that the
relationship to others is based on the simple knowledge of how to do things. Part of this is of course
very much a psychological moment: the self-esteem and consciousness of the own abilities.
If we look at the four dimensions of the social quality approach:
Socio-economic security
Empowerment
Inclusion
Cohesion
we can see that they are redefined in a very specific way as shown in the following table.
Income from Employment and Family Support
Kinship (networks)
Skills Training
Peer Group Building
Aspects of empowerment as a societal matter
– Still, would that bring us anywhere? Is the society we are living in really so limited that we are
dealing with ourselves and finding a way for ourselves amongst other individuals? Of course not. And
to talk about a loss of the social does not mean that we really lost society. The actual point in question
is more that our societies are defined in a very specific and limited way. Looking at the current EUorientation – and this can be taken as orientation for all individual member states of the EU alike –
these societies are characterised by two main features, namely
* competitiveness and
* employment.
This means in short that the social dimension of these societies is defined by two main features. The
first is that their identity is not meant to be a positive identity. Instead we are facing a definition of
distinctiveness – only by distinguishing ourselves from others we gain identity as society. The EU in
relation to the USA and the Asian countries, England compared with France, the rich Italian North
compared with the poor Mezzogiorno etc. are supposedly meaningful approaches of defining the own
identity. And the second dimension is again concerned with specific relationships between individuals
in regard of employment and as consumers. Again, we find this reflected in individual contracts. To get
aware of how far this actually goes we can see in the so-called Western world an increasing tendency
not only to define relationships by legal contracts, but to actually live them in this way. Children bring
their parents to court to obtain support; neighbours communicate with each other via solicitors to settle
problems of noise or space to park their vehicles … or they suffer from the mouse-hole-syndrome
when getting unemployed, search solutions in violence as in the French banlieues – many examples
could be listed. – Mind you, all these individualist strategies are not developed because of people
getting emotionally and morally bad, but because of an ever-extending pressure that they can actually
not cope anymore with social solutions in an entirely anti- or non-social society.
And politicians as well as social scientists have not much else to offer than empowering people by
looking for strategies of increasing employment. – It is actually interesting that current social policy
focuses on flexicurity. This is understood as means not primarily of maintaining socio-economic
security, inclusion and cohesion but as means of integrating individuals into a system that remains an
alienated externality for them.
Now, being employed by an individualist understanding of empowerment does not only mean to
deal with technical issues of building up self-confidence, providing skills training etc.; it means at the
same time that such an approach is geared to building up and maintaining hierarchic structures. In other
words, competition is seen as the glue that has to compensate for the loss of the social. We can see
again, the problem is actually not so much that the individual lacks power; the more fundamental
problem is that a society which is restricted to competition, does not allow real socially empowered
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Social Empowerment – A Matter of Enabling Society to Cope with Personalities
individuals. In other words, in this society social personalities are not allowed; instead, this society can
only deal with individuals and their power as power of unequals. 2
If we look again at the four dimensions of the social quality approach:
Socio-economic security
Empowerment
Inclusion
Cohesion
we can see that they are again redefined in a very specific way as shown in the following table.
Wages, social insurance, ‘benefits’
Employment
Skills Training
Competition
Social Empowerment – a Different Concept
It is proposed to start from an entirely different angle. Social empowerment is different as we are here
dealing with the simultaneous and mutual processes of empowering individuals and communities and
societies. Rather than simply changing individuals, the process of social empowerment means to bring
the social back to society.
Let us first have a look at the proposed definition:
Social Empowerment is concerned with the means and processes and relations
necessary for people to be capable of actively participating in social relations
and actively influencing the immediate and more distant social and physical
environment.
Or shorter we can say that
Social Empowerment is the degree to which the personal capabilities are and
the ability of people to act is enhanced by social relations.
With this we gain a different focus. Instead of dealing with education and training the following
dimensions are getting meaningful, all linked to the different angles of the developmental and structural
aspects of social quality.
First, empowerment is concerned with supporting interaction as action of individuals, respecting
mutuality and responsiveness (community dimensions). Support means here to make sure that society
is not reduced on a one-dimensional being (of the kind of simple legal contracts), but that the person is
accepted and supported as personality.
Second, this means not least to provide a space for influencing institutions and the societal system
by individual and collective action (institutional and societal dimension).
Third, we are not, however, dealing with the independent, autarkic individual but with individuals as
personalities. As such they are social beings and individual action is influenced by known and
consciously controlled determinants and coordinates, dealing with individual and collective action.
Fourth, and in short, empowerment is about developing individuality as matter of personalities that
are acting socially consciousness and responsible.
The following tables may present this in a clear way, the first reminding you of the four conditional
factors.
Socio-economic security
Inclusion
Empowerment
Cohesion
The following table shows the actual social meaning of the conditional factors – mind that we are here
dealing with regaining the social for Western societies – the economic dimension gains in this context
an entirely different perspective, going far beyond the simple mechanisms of demand/supply
relationships and the production/re-production circle. – At a later point – when we are revisiting the
question of the welfare state and the outlook on a welfare society – we will come back to this as we are
actually facing a fundamental difficulty here.
Resources for social relations
Integration into social relations
2
Capabilities for participating in social relations
Strength of social relations
Paradoxically this builds on the principal of formal equality.
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Peter Herrmann
It should get clear as well that this is closely linked to the three other conditional factors of social
quality as the following graph shows.
The real challenge is to balance three dimensions of action – mind the emphasis on action rather
than supply or support:
* access,
* participation and
* control.
And the most crucial is to develop a concept of power that allows to act along a zero-sum-line. In other
words, we can only speak of real empowerment if and when society does not accept inequalities. For
instance, rather than providing knowledge from above we are actually dealing with developing
capabilities of the individual. This means as well that we never blame the individual and that actually
any process aiming on empowerment is a matter of collaboration rather than provision. From here we
find the following concrete guiding questions along which indicators have to be searched for:
1) What kind of knowledge do people have and how do they obtain it?
2) To which extent are people in control of their position on the labour market?
3) What is the relation between relevant institutions and individuals like?
4) How is the relevant public space structured?
5) Do supportive personal networks exist?
Welfare State and Welfare Society – Challenges for a Global Political Shift
By way of a summary, we can point on the three by four matrix, grasping the Social Quality Approach,
and reproduced in the following.
Constitutional (processes)
Personal Capacity
Conditional (opportunities)
Social Empowerment
Social Recognition
Personal Security
Social Responsiveness
Social Cohesion
Socio-Economic Security
Social Inclusion
Normative (outcomes)
Social Justice (including
Equity)
Solidarity
Human Security
Democratic Citizenship
From here and the previous explorations, social empowerment emerges as central moment of social
quality, being means and ends of developing sustainable welfare … – well, here we come to a most
sincere problem and challenge.
If we look at the different dimensions of empowerment again, we see its complexity. It is especially
here where the social quality approach has to face a fundamental problem that is given by introducing
the time-dimension.
On the one hand we are dealing with a given welfare state. With regard to empowerment, this state
is not interested in social empowerment as we defined it. Rather, this welfare state is at most interested
in the following two forms of empowerment:
* personal empowerment as psychological process
* “integrational empowerment” as skills training.
Actually, such supposed empowerment strategies are undermining social empowerment as the state
leaves it to the individuals to deal with the social. This means as well, that social empowerment is
under these conditions actually not possible or even dangerous. We see the danger in the fact that
empowerment is a privilege of a small number of upper-middle-class people and/or that it is understood
as means of exculpation of the state, a kind of outsourcing. We see this actually in many initiatives to
foster self-help and civic initiatives as replacement of state-responsibility and means of blaming the
victims. In theoretical and political terms we find in particular in the USA, but as well in Western
Europe communitarism as one of the features; another feature is to open governing structures. These
mechanisms are nothing else than the empowerment of individuals and processes of strengthening
individual relationships.
In terms of statutes or better: state-formations, we can point on the following patterns. However,
note that this is a tentative and heuristic account – especially the attribution of the different dimensions
of the conditional factors needs further consideration and systematic analysis.
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Social Empowerment – A Matter of Enabling Society to Cope with Personalities
First, the social state, looking after functional capabilities and being concerned with the
constitutional factors. In its centre we find
* in terms of socio-economic security income from employment, family support, and benefits
* in terms of inclusion kinship (networks) and employment
* in terms of cohesion peer group building and competition and
* in terms of empowerment skills training and semi-public services and institutionalised provision.
Within this welfare system, social relationships are very much encapsulated in instrumentalist patterns.
Second, we find the well-being state, as protective, (re-)distributive, supplying institutional system.
It centrally looks at the conditional factors. Looking again at the different conditional factors we find
the following orientations.
* in terms of socio-economic security income from employment, family support, and benefits
* in terms of inclusion kinship (networks) and employment
* in terms of cohesion peer group building and competition and
* in terms of empowerment skills training and semi-public services.
Being the same as before, there is however a different emphasis in favour of benefits, employment,
competition and services. The difference to the previous system is that we are now facing (a) a stronger
orientation of the statutory and institutional system towards redistributive mechanisms and (b) a system
strongly following an utilitarist approach in building social relationships.
Third, a well-fare state model can be seen as another traditional welfare-system, being protective, in
some part (re)distributive and predominantly based on subsidiarity. Focusing on the normative factors,
we are here concerned with a highly voluntarist system. Important is here with regard to the conditional
factors that, by emphasising subsidiarity, civil society and approaches play a more prominent role. This
means as well, that in different regards the search for “new governance mechanisms” play some role.
If we look, however, at the broader picture we are confronted with the need of a complex process of
empowerment, dealing with different dimensions, arching between biographical and societal
development, and between systems and communities.
Societal Development
Access as dimension of
Autonomy as
socio-economic
dimension of
security in terms of
appropriating and
empowerment as
utilising resources in
personal capability
order to be capable of
and relationships
actively participating
in social relations and
actively influencing
the immediate and
more distant social and
Systems, institutions,
physical environment
Communities,
organisations
configurations, groups
Participation as
Control as dimension
dimension of inclusion of cohesion in terms of
in terms of
empowerment as
empowerment in terms
accessibility of the
of empowerment as
institutional system
civic rights
(comprising of civil,
political and social
rights)
Biographical Development
Here we are concerned with social policy of the sustainable well-fare society, a fundamentally different
welfare system. It is arguing from the complex relationship of the social as the outcome of constantly
changing processes through which human subjects realise themselves as interactive human beings. As
such, the concern of conditional factors shifts as well into a different direction:
* in terms of socio-economic security we look at independent resources for social relations
* in terms of inclusion we are concerned with integration into social relations and accessibility of
institutions
* in terms of cohesion the major concern is redistribution and
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Peter Herrmann
* in terms of empowerment we are looking at capabilities for participating in social relations.
What is fundamentally different here is the challenge to grasp empowerment as being in itself a
multidimensional process. The challenge then is to find new mechanisms of governance and to
understand conditional factors as fundamentally different to supply mechanisms. As such
empowerment has to deal with empowering individuals and at the same time society, and it has to
reorganise institutions and communities. The challenge is to deal with a complex process of managing
simultaneity. It is the challenge of bringing society back into the state and allow the state to (re-)gain a
social identity. Or in other words: it is the challenge to reinvent the welfare state as a strong and
responsible entity that allows the development and maintenance of a welfare society. Only from here
we can arrive at social quality, defined above as being
concerned with the means and processes and relations necessary for people to be
capable of actively participating in social relations and actively influencing the
immediate and more distant social and physical environment.
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