In Investing in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in Collaborative Governance, Carmen Sirianni argues that policy-makers should be doing more to engage citizens in “public work.” Drawing on theory and research about deliberative democracy, community organizing, and other fields, along with three lengthy case studies of efforts at collaborative governance, he maintains that carefully designed and managed government initiatives can foster high levels of civic activity which contribute not only to achieving policy objectives, but also to producing more educated and capable citizens. The result, claims Sirianni, would be to strengthen democracy as well.

This is hardly a novel argument. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville linked the involvement of Americans in civic life to the successful operation of the American political system. Many subsequent observers have done the same. However, with some notable exceptions, such as Skocpol,Footnote ¹ they have generally seen associational life as developing separately from government, creating the kind of civic culture that teaches the skills and fosters the attitudes citizens need to participate in self-government. Indeed, by enabling them to provide services that government could (or should) not offer, or to hold public officials accountable for their actions, the independence of civic groups has often been viewed as an advantage, if not their most important characteristic.

Sirianni, however, would like to see closer collaboration. To be sure, especially since the 1960s, public policy in the United States has been relying extensively on non-governmental groups to deliver services.Footnote ² But Sirianni seems to regard such relationships more as a one-way street than a two-way partnership, with government essentially paying a variety of organizations (including businesses) to carry out its programs. He also criticizes government help to people to pay for higher education, medical care, and other services for treating them more like “consumers” than “citizens.” What he envisions instead are arrangements that would give civic groups real authority over important aspects of public life, along with the tools and training they need to exercise it responsibly for shaping “public work.” In this way, he believes, power would be more broadly shared between government officials and ordinary citizens, with each contributing in their own, complementary ways, to addressing issues of mutual concern.

As an example, Sirianni offers community policing. Widely used throughout the United States, this strategy of crime control aims to engage community residents in working with police and other law enforcement officers. Through a variety of methods, ranging from block watches to restorative justice programs (where civic groups adjudicate minor offenses), local citizens are allowed to utilize their familiarity with their surroundings (and their neighbors) to help promote public safety. At the same time, professional law enforcement officials can still do what they are uniquely qualified to do, such as collect data about the incidence of lawlessness, or, of course, apprehend and punish criminals. As Sirianni views it, this kind of partnership leads to not only better results (particularly in areas where community pressure can affect individual or collective behavior), but also better citizens, more knowledgeable about the problems they face and the often difficult choices required to resolve them.

At a time when surveys show considerable unhappiness over polarization and gridlock in government, collaborations like these understandably have broad appeal in that they transcend ideological divisions. Portions of the Left have always had a fondness for Jeffersonian ideas of democracy, which look upon community groups as schools for civic virtue and vehicles for self-government, worthy of encouragement. And notwithstanding Sarah Palin's jibes about community organizers during the 2008 presidential campaign, segments on the Right have also viewed “empowering people” as an alternative to an expansive and intrusive “welfare state,” even to the point of allowing for the possibility of government help for “mediating institutions.”Footnote ³ In fact, until overtaken by the “war on terrorism,” supporting faith-based and community organizations looked likely to be one of the signature initiatives of George W. Bush's presidency.

Moreover, as the case studies in Investing in Government show, collaborative governance is not an untried concept. Sirianni describes in elaborate detail neighborhood planning efforts in Seattle, Washington, youth engagement programs in Hampton, Virginia, and a variety of environmental projects undertaken by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These examples suggest to him that government can successfully promote meaningful civic activity in different locations and on a variety of issues. Hence, the book's chief recommendations: that federal agencies should do more to incorporate a “civic mission” into their activities and a White House office should be created to give high-level impetus to the idea.

Sirianni acknowledges that previous effort to foster citizen participation, such as the ill-fated (and in his view, ill-designed) Community Action Program of the “war on poverty,” tarnished the idea's reputation. Indeed, a copious literature now exists that seeks to explain what went wrong.Footnote ⁴ However, according to Sirianni, research on deliberative democracy and other efforts to engage the public in decision-making has now illuminated a series of principles that can guide more successful collaborations. These include focusing on community assets (rather than deficits), sharing professional expertise, transforming institutional cultures (especially in government bureaucracies), and several others (p. 42). Since each of the examples he offers manages to incorporate these principles in its efforts, Sirianni sees them as models for implementing the “civic mission” he wants federal agencies to adopt.

Still, the evidence that these experiments in democracy are successfully addressing important policy issues is thin. Although he makes a few claims about results (such as reduced juvenile crime rates in a Hampton neighborhood), most of the Sirianni book describes a seemingly endless procession of studies, meetings, conferences, trainings, and occasionally, even elections or referenda.Footnote ⁵ That is not surprising, since in an important way, the real goal of these initiatives is civic engagement. The time-consuming process of mobilizing citizens and building relationships is assumed to be not just a first, but also an essential step toward getting “public work” done.

Research provides some support for that view. For example, communities rich in “social capital”—networks among citizens and between civic groups and the police—have lower crime-rates than those with weaker social tiesFootnote ⁶ and schools that involve parents in their efforts are likely to out-perform those more bureaucratically controlled.Footnote ⁷ But civic activism can produce a variety of less salutary results as wellFootnote ⁸ and Sirianni does little to demonstrate that Seattle's neighborhoods, Hampton's young people, or the large number of watersheds and other sites involved in the EPA's programs are better off for having networks of engaged citizens.

The challenges governments face in embracing a “civic mission” ought not to be overlooked either. Much of the interest in collaborative government stems from a belief that public (and to a lesser extent, non-governmental) agencies have become too professionalized and hence, too distant from and unresponsive to citizens.Footnote ⁹ Accordingly, giving people greater opportunities to participate, and furnishing them, where necessary, with enough training to do so effectively, seems called for to restore public trust in government.

However, apart from the question of the willingness of ordinary citizens to spend their spare evenings contemplating the finer points of, say, zoning, education, or environmental rules, the kinds of initiatives Sirianni advocates are apt to demand a great deal from government too. As earlier efforts to create partnerships have shown, more sophisticated management—including better monitoring and measurement of results—will be required. Predictions that “governing by network” will save taxpayers money or trim the ranks of public employees are apt to be illusory.Footnote ¹⁰ If anything, it requires more professionalism, not less.

Sirianni's own accounts bear this out. All the more remarkable, then, is that one of his main recommendations is to expand AmeriCorps—the federal government program that recruits and pays mostly young people for up to two years of work with community groups—and assign its members to help public agencies fulfill their “civic mission” (pp. 235–239). Whatever the overall merits of the program (and that is still debatable), largely untrained, short-term volunteers are not likely to bring to government the skills needed to implement complex, long-term efforts at collaboration. Indeed, if the public is to become more engaged in doing “public work,” the contention that too much professionalization is at the root of disaffection with government perhaps itself ought to be reconsidered.

So too should another claim of collaborative governance advocates: that excessive conflicts currently existing in government prevent it from acting on important issues The efforts Sirianni describes are meant to foster greater consensus. By engaging a wide range of citizens working together on common tasks, under carefully designed relationships, the prospects for reaching agreements are expected to be enhanced. The examples Sirianni offers are, in fact, notably free from the kinds of divisions that so often characterize local and national debates today.

Even so, does this mean that collaborative governance is a useful approach to reducing conflicts? Or that it works best where disagreements are small and readily bridgeable? Sirianni's book does not provide enough information to tell. However, the ability to arrive at agreements is only one sign of health in a democracy, and sometimes a dubious one. At least as significant, democratic theorists have long argued, is the ability of all sides of contentious issues to be heard. Robust debate may be more important than manufactured consensus and finding common ground less valuable than clarifying the scope and nature of dissenting positions. Yet, oddly for an approach that purports to be aimed at revitalizing democracy, collaborative governance places more emphasis on the virtues of cooperation and exercising authority than it does on encouraging the expression of differences and challenges to power.

This is especially problematic when government is called upon to play a more active role in structuring civic life. The arrangements Sirianni describes are heavily influenced by administrative actions, legal mandates, financial aid, and other instruments employed by the public sector. In fact, one of the main points of Sirianni's book is to illustrate the many ways government has to cooperate with civic groups.

But the power to collaborate is also the power to co-opt. And what Sirianni does not explain is how much autonomy the civic groups involved in his case studies maintained, or which groups were not included because they may have been too uncooperative to begin with. Through tax laws, corporate statutes, grants and contracts, and a variety of regulations, both the federal and state governments already exercise considerable influence over the so-called “independent sector,” prompting criticisms that non-governmental groups have grown too close to public officials.Footnote ¹¹ Collaborative governance will only exacerbate this problem.

To be sure, civic groups in the United States have never been wholly independent from government. And many want even more connections than they currently have. More participation by Americans, either through their associations or individually, could conceivably benefit government as well. Exactly how might surprise those, like Sirianni, who notes he served as an advisor on civic engagement to President Obama's campaign. “Tea partiers,” it is worth noting, are citizen-activists too.

Striking the right balance between a citizenry that actively participates in public affairs and political institutions that can govern effectively has always been a challenge for American democracy. But despite Sirianni's efforts, the case that collaborative governance offers a fruitful new approach—a “third way” between the public and private sectors—remains unpersuasive.