Dr. Lain Dare & Prof.

David Marsh
Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis

October 21, 2014

Facing the realities of power in regional

communities
Overview
1.What is Community Power and why is it important
2.Luke’s three faces of power
3.Study objectives
4.Study methods
5.New methods to study community power
6.New understandings of community power in case
communities
7.Implications for policy makers
What is Community Power & Why?
•Power in Community!!
•Crucial in debate about Pluralism v Elitism in
US Political Science
•Focus because easier to study than power at
national level
Why is community power important?
•Add to current approaches used to understand
power in communities which typically focus on
current institutions and formal political
structures:
–Local government
–Government agencies
–Service providers/interest groups
Luke’s Three Faces of Power
DESCRIPTION
FACE 1st
2nd 3rd
X / YYY X / YYY // ZZZ
X / YYY // ZZZ

Decision-making approach
Agenda setting Preference shaping
Where:
X = the decision made
Y = the alternatives considered but not taken
Z = alternatives not considered
Grey box = the ‘veil of ideology’, the false consciousness that limits preferences consideration DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
Luke’s three faces of power - nested
Layers of the onion?
Face 1. Surface power
Face 3.
Hidden Power

Study Objectives
(CRICOS) #00212K

4 ELEMENTS
i)Resurrecting Community Power Studies
ii)Reconceptualising Third Face of Power
iii)Exploring Alternative Methods to Study Third Face
iv)Undertaking a Community Power study of, initially, 2
cases

Study Methods 1
Two case study communities:
•Western Queensland – approximately 2500 people, remote, high Aboriginal
population.
•Western New South Wales – approximately 20,000 people, highly multi-
cultural.

Communities chosen due to:

•Differences – size, demographics, location
•Similarities – agriculture and irrigation dependence
•Understanding of communities – previous studies in communities

Study Methods 2
The first two faces of power:
1.Decision Making - documentary analysis and interviews (n=30, x14
Community 1, x16 Community 2)
2.Agenda setting - interviews & scenarios
Community 1 - Coal Seam Gas, levy bank
Community 2 – Community hospital
Study Methods 3
The third face of power (preference shaping):
1.Body-language – 2 people interviewed each respondent, 1 focused on
respondent’s body-language.
2.Photo elicitation – we showed each respondent 6 pictures designed to
illustrate aspects of their town and asked them what the saw in them.
3.Town observations – we observed how each town was used by different
residents in the morning, at lunch-time and at night

The Utility of Methods for 1st and 2nd Face

Interviews
•Enabled focused questions regarding decision-making processes and
outcomes
•Open questions encouraged participant narrative
•Time consuming, small number of participants
Scenarios
•Enabled focus on ‘topic’
•Requires participant understanding/interest in scenario
•Allows exploration of concerns, tensions and conflicts that might emerge
Documentary Analysis
•Used to ‘triangulate’ other sources of information to ensure a true reflection
of process/outcomes
Methods for 3rd Face: Body Language - Utility
•Provides an insight into the ‘narrative’ being told, highlighting where to probe or
seek alternative views:
[Interviewee] was proselytizing - straight back, open, promoting ‘the message’
(Community 2, participant 14)
•Provides a reflection of the ‘hidden’ values, emphasizing intensity of feelings or
angst:
More emotional when talking of [indigenous] issues, brought hands to face, moist eyes.
(Community 1, participant 3)
Shudders when sees image of local government offices. (Community 2, participant 4)
Methods for 3rd Face: Body Language - Issues
•Needs to analyse in conjunction with the preceding question/photo or interviewee
characteristics so as not to read too much into body language (e.g. interpretation of
above response to picture of council building reinforced in interview)
•Emotions can over-emphasise knowledge sharing – need to unpack
•Individual inclinations – expressive and non-expressive people
Methods for 3rd Face: Photo Elicitation - Utility
•Helps to unpack the shared identity and values of the community
“That’s us” (Community 1, participant 5)
“That looks productive and it also looks fun” (Community 1, participant 8)
or
“That is the dirtiest river I have ever seen, I would never swim in it” (Community 2,
participant 11)
“Yeah I am not a fan of the river … I don’t like it.” (Community 2, participant 1)
Methods for 3rd Face: Photo Elicitation - Utility
•Enabled & encouraged their interpretation and narrative
“Some things we have not done well and some things we could do better. It is
a big learning curve” (Community 1, participant 4)
“The design is a deliberate power barrier of council to the community; it is
unwelcoming ‘we are still in charge and are not listening to you really’.”
(Community 2, participant 4)

“It is modern, it is a working place, it is here for a purpose, it marks it as an

agricultural area” (Community 2, participant 5)
“We need to respect our ancestors who did this – built these channels”
(Community 2, participant 11)
Methods for 3rd Face: Photo Elicitation - Utility
•Identified tensions, impacts and often a lack of ‘understanding’ or
‘knowledge’ within communities:
“Too many fights – it’s history, a generational thing and a few stuck in the mud”
(Community 1, participant 5)
“Government introduced structure that gave opportunity for indigenous people to earn
a living, it gave us a future.” (Community 1, participant 2)
“Should open their purses up more for [the] community” (Community 1,participant 2)
“[There is an] inflated opinion on how multicultural we are … you see a majority of
white Anglo-Saxons on the street … the point is we don’t mix all that much.”
(Community 2, participant 14)
Methods for 3rd Face: Photo Elicitation - Issues
•‘Team’ selects photos (in this case) rather than asking participants to
take photos of what is important to them
•Careful selection of photos needed to bring out relevant ‘stories’ –
need an good understanding of the communities first
•Need sufficient ‘space’ in approach to enable and encourage dialogue
and narrative
Methods for 3rd face: Town Observations
Utility:
•Identifies issues of social cohesion
–Different ethnic groups use different parts of the community for different reasons at
different times
•Reflection of the ways in which communities co-exist
–Mixed social activities (e.g. sport teams)
–Parallel lives by choice (e.g. religion & cultural differences)
–Cycle of multiculturalism
•Identifies hidden ‘institutions’
–Underlying economic activities
Issues:
•Temporal, requires further validation
Community Power – Case Community 1: Context A
preliminary Analysis
•Formal Structure
–Powerful Mayor with good connections to State & Federal
–Mayor (& council) set agenda
–Top down policy-based agenda setting
•Tension Mayor/Council and some Council staff – predominantly not with
locals
–Particularly with community development staff
–Lack of consultation and consideration of others interests
–Issues of accountability (levy bank)
•Powerful interests
–Large irrigators – good relations with Mayor
•Indigenous Population
–2 mobs with ongoing tension re native title dispute
–Policy-based funding arrangements and associated distribution tension
–Not wholly segregated from broader community, some common use of space especially around sport

Community Power – Case Community 1 – Faces of

Power
First face (decision making)
•Levy bank: Mayor used opportunity of post-flood State funds and community
concerns to push through levy bank with contested levels and forms of consultation –
revealed by interviews/scrutiny of documents

Second face (agenda setting)

•Economic Development v Community Development – revealed by interviews; Coal-
Seam Gas – revealed by scenarios; Farm channel banks regulation – interviews – Pics

Third Face (preference shaping)

•A sense of ‘common’ identity much stronger here than Community 2 – smaller,
history, river a uniting force
•Still evidence of separate communities between Indigenous & others, unless some
reason to interact (sport) – increasing with current generation
•False ‘veil of ideology’ regarding protection of agricultural lands from mining
inhibiting constructive debate around CSG

Community Power – Case Community 2 - Context

Formal Structure
•Council – weaker Mayor than Community 1. Concerns regarding Mayors community
connections and capacity in the role – although seen as improvement from previous Mayor
by many.
•Less obvious connections with State/Federal governments

Tension within Council

•Significant Issues among Council Officers – very negative about work environment, again
it was community development officers who were most negative

Powerful interests
•Large companies – good relations with Council and community(?)

Multiculturalism
•Community divided ethnically with both positive and negative outcomes
•Changing power dynamics across cultures – emergence of new migrant community
Community Power – Case Community 2 – Face of Power
First face (decision making)
•Private Community Hospital! Promoted by economically
powerful actors– contested – usual suspects with inevitable
outcome
Second face (agenda setting)
•Above e.g. also touches on 2nd Face (why not improve
public provision directly).
Third Face (preference shaping)
•Attitude to River – easy to see which prevails
Complexity hidden within nested layers
Faces of power are nested and hence need to understand and
reflect across all three faces to really understand reality
Implications
•These methods do add to our understanding of
community power/how community operates
•Allows us to penetrate the layers of the ‘onion’
•Need more research – one approach would be an
analysis of interviews using Critical Discourse Analysis

Conclusion
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all of our research participants for sharing their
experiences and insights with us.

This Murray-Darling Basin futures research is supported through the

Australian Government’s Collaborative Research Networks (CRN) Program