Empowerment: just another phrase?

Vesna Terselic

There are such words--buzz words. You catch them here and there. In peace, environmental or women's initiatives, in Peace News and United Nations documents. They change from season to season, from year to year. "Empowerment" had appeared in the meta-language of my colleagues--working on change--as an attempt to explain to ourselves and to others what we are actually doing.

Once upon a time the magic word was "participation", for the last few years it seems to have been "empowerment". People involved in development work during the 1960s, '70s and '80s were swearing by peoples' participation, while activists in the '90s and the beginning of the new millennium are swearing by empowerment.

Surely the term empowerment suits me better--I am up to date with activist fashions!

So I would like to present some arguments explaining why, in my opinion, using or adopting the concept of empowerment is a step forward compared to the concept of participation.

In development circles, the request for participation was made following the big revolutions of the twentieth century, revolutions which have not brought much to the world's poor. Asking for participation was rather humble and modest, not oriented on gaining power or controlling the world's resources. The idea behind asking for such participation was that "big power" might be left to the existing power holders, as long as they left a space for communities to make their own local choices. Soon the big organisations, including the United Nations, had accepted the language of participation and started proclaiming it themselves--but, with or without participation, the poor have continued to get poorer, there have been even more wars, and things have been going from bad to worse for the majority of people.

The phrase "Power to the people" doesn't sound very fresh, but it is promising enough to make one more conceptual attempt. I would like to move away from the definition of power as proposed by Dennis H Wrong: "Power is the capacity of a person to produce intended and foreseen effects on others." (Wrong, 1995:2.) In other words power is the capacity to influence.

In light of Wrong's definition, empowerment could be eventually defined as the increase in one's capacity to produce intended and forseen effects on others. This does not cover all that might be said about nonviolence and social empowerment, but will be good enough for the purpose of this simple argument. Empowerment seems to be better than participation because it expresses determination not just to give any kind of contribution--as participation has very often meant--but to contribute in a way which will lead to a visible shift in power relations. It sounds like ending the era of shyness--when activists felt that whichever kind of power was meant, "power" was a wicked word--many people involved in civic initiatives have been afraid of being accused of being power hungry or of manipulation. Embracing the concept of empowerment might well mean that civic initiatives acknowledge that they do want to have real influence, and through this will realise that there is a need to deal with power.

Participation meant taking part in the existing power structures, empowerment might mean transforming power relationships through transforming oneself, changing relationships in society and changing cultural patterns. At least on a conceptual level. Of course the question remains of how to do it--inequalities which were initially addressed centuries ago are still enshrined within present power structures. Do we know how to act and not merely to complain when power relationships are shifting?

Reality check the concepts

The important question after Seattle and Washington is therefore not "How might the utopian horizon of a more just world look?" but "What small, achievable steps can be taken now?" How many successful empowerment experiences can civil negotiators present in the spaces that open up after successful actions are taken in the streets? Simon Retallack has pointed out in a recent article in The Ecologist that: "Seattle has created a unique and historic opportunity for real change. Now is the time to seize it." (Retallack, 2000: 30.) The point is not just to demonstrate at the front doors of decision-makers, but to actively participate in the process of decision making.

How often have the cracks which have been opened up, using a lot of energy and skill, been fully exploited? Is it just that power holders have not wanted to take our proposals into account--or have we also failed to develop space for dialogue?

I do not want to look for examples too far afield and will therefore start with what is happening in my own backyard. Power structures in Croatia are shifting following the elections in January. The Croatian Democratic Alliance (HDZ) which led my country through the wars, is in pieces, and the new MPs are receptive to different proposals--organisations which have been working on peace-building since the beginning of the war in 1991, are out of breath and out of sight. People are exhausted. The authoritarian regime of the HDZ lasted too long, and it is unclear whether we will be able to use this unique chance to exert any influence at all.

In 1993 when the Volunteer Project in Pakrac began, activists from the Antiwar Campaign Croatia (ARK) had been dreaming about such opportunities for dialogue. We had been hoping for dialogue between people of Serbian and Croatian nationality from the two parts of the war-damaged town. We had been hoping for dialogue on normalisation with the local media and authorities. But our hopes were dissolved following several days of military action in May 1995 in which most of the Serbian people fled from Western Slavonia.

Still there have been some important changes; we may have failed in creating space for dialogue, but have opened paths of empowerment for women. The women's club in Pakrac, which started its activities with a modest laundry in 1995, is now a really strong and visible organisation, and is actively participating in women's rights campaigns. The group carried out impressive actions before the general election, inviting people to use their power and vote. Women who have been invisible a few years ago now have a voice, can put issues on the local agenda and can no longer be ignored.

What the women's club in Pakrac, together with most peace organisations in Croatia, still find difficult is how to speak to power. How to address really important issues such as the return of refugees, war crimes and peace-building in the media? How to start local projects to increase economic empowerment? How to open public dialogue?

For civil initiatives in Croatia and anywhere in the world, it is still to be seen whether we are empowered to take responsibility for transforming crisis. Are we empowered to stop assuming that everyone will see the value of our arguments? Are we empowered to step out of the marginal ghetto and jump into mainstream culture, to avoid compromise while promoting dialogue?

Assumptions and fears

Are we ready to speak about our assumptions, are we ready to face our fears?

In the summarising chapter of his study The Strategy of Nonviolent Defence, Robert J Burrows underlines how crucial personal change is, pointing out that "everyone can learn to speak the truth...everyone can learn to deal with the conflict in their personal lives... everyone can learn to respect others more deeply.." (Burrows, 1996: 276.) Of course everyone could choose to do all that, and even more. But why should one do that?

More then two thousand years ago Buddha made similar recommendations, two thousand years ago Jesus Christ reiterated the message, later codified in the Gospels. Utopian socialists like Thomas Moore described towns of happy, satisfied people, Mary Wollstonecraft demanded equal rights for women, and friends of mine--working on the protection of human rights--share the same dream as Martin Luther King and also hoped for, and even demanded, the impossible.

All of them could just do their best to explain that things might work better if we could all act according to certain prescribed ideals. The saints have been proposing different options, meditation as a way of conscientious living, respecting the ten commandments as written in the Old Testament, following any kind of expected behaviour--from moral Christian to consequent feminist.

But that does not answer the question-- what about the people who do not find themselves following these prescribed ideals? Everywhere in the world activists are a minority. Dialogue between ourselves is important. But isn't it even more important to speak to the majority? How do we continue dialogue with people who are not ready to give up mainstream values, and are not interested in searching for other kinds of power, but are more then ready to struggle for their portion of power over?

How to confront the feeling of insecurity which Elias Canetti described in his book Crowds and Power. "Rulers tremble today, not, as formerly, because they are rulers, but as the equals of everybody else." (Canetti, 1992:546.) Everybody is afraid, we are all caught not just in networks of relationships and power structures, determined by social and cultural contexts, we are also prey to disabling fear.

While being abused some feel it is better to sit still and wait, others resist. But resisters seem to be the much smaller group. Activists often speak about apathy, prevalent in many communities. As Louise K Schmidt says "The cause of apathy is linked to indifference. However if we look more deeply, we will find the cause of our apathy stems more from the fear we feel surrounding despair than from indifference. Apathy is a defence that prevents one from facing fear. It is a refusal to feel that, which unattended, creates numbness and ultimately non-action." (Schmidt, 1995:68.)

Many people tend to follow what the family dictates--and in most cases it suggests obedience. As Clarissa Pinkola Estes has written: "When culture narrowly defines what constitutes success or desirable perfection in anything--looks, height, strength, form, acquisitive power, economics, manliness, womanliness, good children, good behaviour, religious belief --there are corresponding dictates and inclinations to measurement in the psyches of all its members." (Estes, 1992:173-174.)

The majority of people in northern countries tend to live up to these culturally and socially prescribed standards and this in turn might entitle them to gain her/his share of security--and maybe even of power. In place of hoping to see a change in that ancient pattern, maybe it is better to work out methods of involving more people in dialogue, and eventually in common projects.

In place of a conclusion

Empowerment may be a more promising concept than others that have been offered in the development debates of previous decades. Taking steps closer to power, on both a conceptual and working level, means something--but the questions arising from previous concepts have remained unanswered, and are still painfully present. Tangible change is not exactly around the corner. However, that does not dissolve my desire for change or diminish my will for accountable power. Even if it does turn out that empowerment has been just another phrase.

Notes

Canetti, Elias, Crowds and Power, Penquin Books, London 1992.
Burrows, Robert J, The Strategy of Noviolent Defence, SUNY, New York 1996.
Pinkola Estes, Clarissa, Women Who Run With the Wolfes, Doubleday, New York 1992.
Retallack, Simon, After Seattle: Where next for the WTO, The Ecologist, Vol. 30, No 2, April 2000.
Schmidt, Louise K, Transforming Abuse, New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, 1995.
Wrong, Dennis H., Power, Transaction Publishers, 1995.