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
