Post in I am a citizen not a consumer

Jul 23 22:55 UTC

>> But why set up an opposition between the roles of customer and
>> citizen? Can't we do/be both?

>(I assume that is  rhetorical question and not central to your
identity, so I will challenge the idea and hope you take no personal
offense.)

No offence taken! Actually mine was a more of naive than a rhetorical
question. Rhetorical implies one knows the answer, and I wasn't claiming to.
As for my identity, it's multiple and fragmented. In common with most
people, I play several different roles in the course of each day (e.g.
family member and worker as well as citizen and consumer), and I was
assuming the two roles we're discussing would be relevant in
*different*situations (i.e. not 'at the same time, on the same topic
in the same way').
Although reading Miles' interesting contribution, those dividing lines might
not be as clear-cut as I thought....
I guess most of us probably have a negative reaction when we read in policy
documents or hear politicians and officials using the words customer or
consumer when we feel they ought to be addressing 'citizens'. A
straightforward substitution like that *is** *a narrowing of our rights (as
well as our responsibilities), and I would join you in resisting it.
But remember that action by people as *consumers* can often be very
powerful. Think of the impact the health consumer movement has had on the
whole healthcare sector over recent decades. In the UK, it's issues like the
right to choose doctors and hospitals, to co-decide treatment options, to
access drugs not available through the National Health Service (or sometimes
in a particular health district), not to mention demand for/experimentation
with alternative therapies, that have brought together groups of people,
latterly as virtual communities. Only more recently have policy-makers taken
up the cause of 'patient empowerment' in response. Or take the idea of
devolving the running of some public services to neighbourhood-based user
groups: that's also arguably an example of people mobilising as consumers
rather than as citizens. Though one can lead to the other.
I'm trying to think of a way to bring this discussion back towards
eGovernment and eDemocracy! Maybe Mark's point about inclusiveness provides
an opening. I'd suggest that it's often easier to engage not just immigrants
but a range of other 'hard-to-reach' groups as users of a particular service
rather than as citizens per se *as a first step*. For example, in
eGovernment take-up has been improved by re-training the staff of agencies
who deal with socially-excluded groups to act as information intermediaries,
becoming proxies for their clients' access to online services across the
range of their everyday needs (see the section on Inclusive eGovernment in
the progress report on the EU's i2010 eGovernment Action
Plan<http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/index.php?env=-inlink/visit_link:m1757-1-1-8-s-0:l-8369-1-1-->).
Maybe that's an example of how 'consumer empowerment' (in this case 'service
user empowerment') can pave the way towards expressions of a broader sense
of citizenship for groups who, whether they are officially recognised as
citizens of a jurisdication or not, currently tend not to exercise their
citizenship very much?

Enjoy your holiday, John :-)

Simon Smith