Vulnerable Citizens: Will Co- production Make a Difference?

Abstract

One of the presumed benefits of introducing co-production is that it will lead to a greater inclusion of citizens and vulnerable people in particular. The chapter assesses how realistic that is, by discussing how co-production changes the conditions that discourage vulnerable people from engaging with more traditional types of participation. The chapter concludes that co-production has a better chance of involving vulnerable people than traditional types of participation, especially because its relevance is more directly apparent and because it relies less on personal skills. However, it is not a cure-for-all and will never be able to involve everyone.

Full text

Vulnerable Citizens: Will Co-
production Make a Difference?
Taco
Brandsen
Email
t.brandsen@fm.ru.nl
Radboud University
,
Nijmegen
,
The Netherlands
Abstract
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If possible, please provide us with an informative abstract.
One of the presumed benefits of introducing co-production is that it will
lead to a greater inclusion of citizens and vulnerable people in particular.
The chapter assesses how realistic that is, by discussing how co-
production changes the conditions that discourage vulnerable people
from engaging with more traditional types of participation. The chapter
concludes that co-production has a better chance of involving vulnerable
people than traditional types of participation, especially because its
relevance is more directly apparent and because it relies less on personal
skills. However, it is not a cure-for-all and will never be able to involve
everyone.
Keywords
Exclusion
Inclusion
Participation
Social vulnerability
Democracy
Introduction
One of the presumed benefits of introducing co-production is that it will
1✉
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lead to a greater inclusion of citizens. As Verschuere et al. (
2018
, 244)
have noted, ‘
It is (…) important, and a matter of legitimacy, that those who
are affected by co
-
produced services or by participatory decision
-
making
are also included in the process, and have an actual influence on the
outcome
’. Inclusion can have several different meanings. For one thing, it
may imply deepening involvement by those who are already participating,
for instance, by allowing them more influence to shape their own services.
It can also be understood as broadening involvement, by including citizens
who previously did not participate actively. The latter interpretation will be
central to the analysis in this chapter. Theoretically, co-production could
be used to penetrate the nooks and crannies that traditional democratic
institutions cannot reach. What I will try to assess is how realistic this
prospect is.
AQ1
Governments have tried to involve their citizens in decision-making for
decades, with a great variety of approaches (Fung
2006
). However, such
processes have a consistent bias: some segments of the population tend to
be underrepresented, while those who were already well-represented in
traditional democratic institutions also tend to capture new avenues for
participation. Vulnerable and
marginalised people
are particularly at risk of
being underrepresented.
When I speak of participation in a public service context, this refers to a
wide range of phenomena. Participation can take place at several stages of
the
policy
cycle, from public
consultations
at a late stage of the policy
process to the early, close involvement of citizens in designing policies
(Bovaird and Loeffler
2012
). This does not make a comparative analysis of
its effectiveness particularly easy. The term ‘co-production’, though
ostensibly more restrictive, is in practice frequently used to refer to
consultation
processes that are not so very different from what has been
tried for decades. One reason for this is that local and national
governments differ widely in how open they are to participation. What is
revolutionary in one place (say, a local government organising public
consultations
) but old hat in another; yet the term ‘co-production’ (or,
more recently, ‘
co-creation
’) will be used to signify all that is considered
new and exciting in its context. It is the dubious joy of a concept coming
into fashion: everyone will want to claim it for their own, inevitably
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muddying its distinctiveness.
However, co-production can be about more than re-branding existing
practices: in the sense defined in this chapter, it is an essentially different
type of approach. It will be defined as a relationship between a paid
employee of an organisation and (groups of) individual citizens that
requires a direct and active contribution from these citizens to the work of
the organisation (Brandsen and Honingh
2016
). Please note that there are
many other excellent definitions and typologies out there (see, for
example, Pestoff
2012
; Bovaird and Loeffler
2013
; Nabatchi et al. 2017)
and that many of the points raised in this chapter apply to co-production in
all of its different senses and meanings.
AQ2
There is an important admission to make from the start: empirically, we
still know fairly little about how co-production actually affects the
participation of vulnerable people, aside from scattered case material
(Kjellström et al.
2019
). Only a few studies on co-production have focused
on this issue specifically (e.g. Jakobsen and Andersen
2013
) or compared
its effects on different types of people. But we do have a good
understanding of how traditional types of participation function in practice
and how they affect vulnerable people, which means we can theoretically
extrapolate these findings and estimate whether the same dynamics are
likely to affect co-production.
The first step will be to discuss what vulnerability means. The next is to
analyse how it can affect people’s ability and willingness to participate,
based on earlier studies. I will discuss why they are underrepresented and
assess whether co-production is likely to change their position. The final
step is to consider whether new types of participation such as co-
production can realistically be expected to make a difference. The
conclusion will be mixed: there are reasons why co-production may make
a difference, since there are some respects in which it differs
fundamentally from more traditional types of participation. However, there
are also reasons why it may replicate past biases. To come to firmer
conclusions, we will need to collect more evidence on what is actually
happening, rather than rely on presumptions.
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What Is Vulnerability?
Vulnerability
, like co-production, can have various theoretical meanings,
depending on the disciplinary perspective from which it is defined. The
understanding
of vulnerability
in this chapter will be primarily informed
by a sociological perspective, which links it to the concept of social
exclusion
. The latter is a broad concept that can (again) have various
meanings (Silver
1994
), but here will be taken to refer to access to
resources and opportunities (for instance, access to institutions or
democratic participation) that people are normally expected to possess. In
other words,
vulnerability
is determined by their connection with a social
collective. If they lack these resources and opportunities, they are said to
be on the margins, or excluded. For instance, they may not be well-
integrated in their local
community
. Inclusion is associated with feelings
like trust, attachment and belonging—benefits from which vulnerable
people may be excluded.
AQ3
In
social policy
research, the term ‘
social vulnerability
’ is used to describe
the effects of changing economic, social and welfare conditions on the
resilience of individuals and households (Ranci et al.
2014
). (Elsewhere,
the term ‘
social vulnerability
’ is often used to describe how people and
communities are likely to be affected by natural disasters and
environmental hazards related to climate change, and how easily they can
recover). Vulnerability then refers to a situation where individuals are not
in constant poverty, but constantly at risk of falling into it, because their
employment is temporary, because their
housing
situation is uncertain,
because they have to combine work and care, and/or because traditional
support structures (family, welfare systems) have weakened. This stress, in
turn, may lead to psychological and social problems. Evidence shows that
socially vulnerable people are predominantly temporary workers, people
with low income hit by chronic disabilities and/or health conditions,
women with small children dealing with problems in work/life
reconciliation and individuals whose income fluctuates just above and
below the poverty line (Ranci et al.
2014
).
It should be noted that vulnerability is a term heavily inundated with
normative and moral flavours (Brown
2011
). To speak in terms of
vulnerability emphasises the negative, which is why many scholars now
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consider it more appropriate to approach these issues through the lens of
capabilities and resilience. Moreover, while some people are vulnerable by
virtually any definition, there are also many whose status
is disputed
. For
instance, someone might be fine psychologically and physically, but
become socially vulnerable due to circumstances they cannot control (e.g.
mass youth unemployment or a lack of affordable
housing
). Finally,
categorising (a group of) individuals as vulnerable can in itself affect their
position, by imposing a (further) stigma and thus strengthening their
exclusion
, even if the intention was to help. It may put them in the position
of passive, weak victims, which is not a label they will necessarily like or
identify with. To be clear: in this chapter no normative connotations are
intended, although it is admittedly hard to avoid them when discussing a
theme of such obvious moral and political sensitivity.
How Does Vulnerability Affect People’s Ability
and Willingness to Participate?
To determine whether co-production will make a difference, let me first
analyse the conditions that have made traditional participatory approaches
so unattractive or difficult for vulnerable people to take part in. The step
after that will be to assess whether co-production, which departs from
these traditional approaches, can be expected to make a fundamental
difference.
Participation can have many benefits, for instance, making an organisation
more effective (Neshkova and Guo
2011
) or making it (seem) more
responsive (Halvorsen
2003
; Herian et al.
2012
). However, attempts to
consult citizens have not always been an unequivocal success (Callahan
2007
). This was perhaps to be expected: it is far from easy. It is not a
question of simply unleashing energy and
commitment
. However, over
time we have learnt more about how it should be organised effectively. As
past efforts have been evaluated and new formats have been tested,
experience has led organisers to avoid some of the most obvious mistakes
(although inevitably, the wheel is often reinvented). Likewise, we have
learnt why some people feel less inclined to participate. I will summarise
these in terms of five
key factors: overdemand
, intimidating
formats
,
mismatched
expectations
, fundamentally different perspectives and a
perceived lack of
added value
.
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To begin with, there is too much demand on people’s time. In the Western
world, the rise of dual breadwinner families and time invested in jobs has
meant that people spend less time on other activities. In his famous book
on the decline of American civil society, Robert Putnam (
2000
) noted that
volunteering
is declining, in part because people spend more of their time
doing paid work. Since participation is a type of
volunteering
, it is also
affected by this trend. It should be noted that Putnam’s observations have
not been uncontroversial. It has been noted that cross-national patterns of
volunteering
show a diverse picture that cannot be reduced to a single
trend (Dekker and Van den Broek
2006
). Others have argued that the effect
is not, or not only, a decline in
volunteering
, as one might expect, but
rather a shift in how volunteers are committed, related to wider processes
of modernisation (Hustinx and Lammertyn
2003
). Concretely, it may
involve voluntary work being spread less evenly between people, with
some doing more, as others do less. Also, there is a shift towards different
types of voluntary work, with more emphasis on short term, perhaps online
activities. But whatever view one takes, public
consultations
are rarely
high on bucket lists when people are squeezed for time.
Another problem is how participation has traditionally been organised.
Often it has mirrored the formal decision-making processes of which it is
part, making it feel unfamiliar or even intimidating to certain people, who
are then discouraged from participating. This alienation and subordination
of outsiders through cultural expressions is what the sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu (
1984
) has called ‘symbolic violence’: a subtle and often
unconscious method of excluding those who do not possess sufficient
‘cultural capital’. For a start, traditional types of participation are
overwhelmingly based on ‘voice’, in Hirschman’s (
1970
) terms: verbally
communicating suggestions for change or grievances, usually in group
meetings. This naturally tends to favour those who are good at this kind of
communication. Meetings were perhaps structured in a formal style, with
an agenda and a specific type of dialogue (Nabatchi
2012
). The
representatives of public authorities or service providers may be dressed
differently from citizens. They may use jargon that is unfamiliar to at least
a number of the citizens who are expected to join in. This is no doubt an
important reason that highly educated citizens are usually overrepresented
in participatory processes.
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A general problem that plagues participatory processes is that there are
radically different expectations about what such a process should deliver.
It is quite common to find disappointment on all sides, despite sincere
attempts to make it work. Expectations are at the heart of this. A common
problem is that citizens expect more influence than they will actually have,
because the organisers have not clearly communicated the ‘red lines’. For
instance, if citizens come to a
consultation
assuming that a construction
project can still be halted, when in fact it has already been decided on, this
can lead to immense frustration, even if the organisers are making an
honest attempt to discuss the implementation of the project. On the side of
organisational representatives, there may also be misconceptions. They
may come into the process looking for consensus, since they are used to
dealing with organisations that must always define a unified position. But
citizens are not necessarily inclined to agree on a consensus position.
Some of them may simply want to let off steam, regardless of the issue
being discussed. In fact, opinions expressed by participants during such
processes may be less about the issue that is formally under discussion
than about general trust in the institution or decision-makers. This is a
phenomenon also observed in other types of direct democracy, such as
referenda.
Another issue arises from fundamental differences in views of the world:
what is important, what is relevant knowledge? This concerns what kind of
expertise is seen as relevant to the discussion (Martin
2008
). Citizens may
find that what they regard as known or important knowledge (for example,
personal experience) is not recognised as valid by professionals or
officials. James Scott (
1998
) has brilliantly shown how state officials tend
to ignore local knowledge, relying instead on knowledge seen as evidence-
based and universal. For instance, city planners have frequently built and
restructured cities based on ideal views of what city life should be like,
rather than accepting residents’ views on what city life actually is. A
related point is that views of what is important to discuss may vary
radically. On the part of citizens, there may be interest in bread-and-butter
issues that affect them directly. However, to organisational representatives,
these may seem anecdotal and trivial. The latter may prefer to discuss
long-term visions and
strategic planning
issues, which citizens will regard
as overly abstract or irrelevant. Thus, both sides may end up feeling that
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they tried to put the real issues on the table, but that the other side is
ignoring them. This is a tragic, but all too common misunderstanding.
Finally, citizens may feel disappointed because they have the impression
that little has been done with their input. There may be different reasons
for this. One is simply that it may be true. If participation is organised as
an afterthought, when all decisions that matter to citizens have already
been taken, then there is every reason for them to feel cheated. But even if
there is a serious attempt to incorporate their input, there can be a stark
difference between what citizens experience and what has actually been
achieved. This is because the activities may be invisible to their eyes. In
fact, most activities undertaken within organisations are invisible to
citizens. Officials and professionals may be working hard to achieve
change, but it will usually be activity in offices, in closed networks, none
of which is necessarily visible to those who will be affected by the
policies
. Similarly, officials may not notice how much effort has gone into
the contributions made by citizens, since these generally take place in the
community, far away from and invisible to the offices of the officials.
Finally, the experience of time may be very different between participants.
Citizens may live in a different ‘social time’ from professionals and
policymakers, meaning that their temporal perspective varies with their
social background. Research has shown that time horizons differ between
people and that there is a relationship between time
horizon
and social
context (Bergmann
1992
). The exact nature of this relationship is disputed;
nevertheless, in the context of participation, it is likely that at least a
number of citizens will measure the progress of time differently from their
professional counterparts. That matters, because it determines what
amounts to an acceptably quick result. To a seasoned civil servant, such
timing may be measured in months, if not years. For someone with a
street-level perspective, it may be weeks or days. It is possible that one
side is working at (what is to them) breakneck pace, while the other feels
that nothing is happening. Frustration may arise, even though everyone is
working towards the same goal.
These conditions explain why, on average, social groups that contain
above-average numbers of vulnerable people are likely to be
underrepresented in traditional participation processes. Unfortunately, it is
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exactly these groups who will stand to benefit most from being involved.
This is because public services are often primarily meant for them, rather
than for the groups who are well-represented in democratic processes. This
is a more general pattern: the middle and higher classes are known to
benefit disproportionally from public services in general (see, for example,
Le Grand
2018
), since they are generally much better able to demand these
services effectively. A famous example is that police are more present in
safe, affluent neighbourhoods than one would expect, because their
residents are more likely to call and demand protection. This Matthew
effect (‘whoever has will be given more’) seems to be a fact of life, which
makes it all the more important that residents of less affluent
neighbourhoods actively co-deliver their safety.
Let me be clear: none of the problems discussed above are unique to
vulnerable groups. No-one has a monopoly on feeling left out. Rich white
CEOs may feel excluded and not taken seriously. However, the conditions
that cause
social vulnerability
overlap with the conditions that discourage
participation; in particular, the fact that vulnerable people lack the social
skills and self-confidence necessary to operate effectively in certain
settings. The
rules
of the game in democratic processes have generally
been shaped by people who excel in debate and
deliberation
. As a
consequence, although obstacles to participation face citizens of all kinds,
vulnerable people are likely to suffer disproportionately from them.
What We Have Learnt
Fortunately, with time we have learnt how to avoid the most obvious
pitfalls (although a depressing number of participation processes are still
organised the old-fashioned way).
A seemingly obvious, but hard-won lesson is that effective participation
requires a differentiated approach. The
skills of citizens
and their motives
to participate differ greatly (Alford
2009
; Van Eijk and Steen
2014
). While
it is undoubtedly efficient to involve people through a single, standardised
process, such a process will not be inclusive. Vulnerable people are likely
to require additional effort and a targeted approach. One of the challenges
for introducing more open, participatory approaches is to make them
applicable within large service-delivering organisations, which would
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require some form of standardised quality assessment. For instance, could
co-production be included in organisational quality systems, as part of the
routine measurement (Loeffler
2020
)? A key question for the future is how
to reconcile such standardisation with one of the key aims of co-
production, which is to make the process of
service delivery
more personal
and less standardised.
A key condition arising from the literature is that citizens should be
supported in the process of participating. Such support can be provided
either by professionals or by trained volunteers. But it is more easily said
than done: especially with vulnerable people, this can be a challenge,
because professionals will need to juggle several roles to achieve a
successful process of co-production. By implication, this requires a
combination of several qualities and skills. In the context of derelict
neighbourhoods, Vanleene (
2020
) examined how street-level professionals
adopted the different roles of friend, leader, representative or mediator.
The findings showed that it was especially important for professionals to
take a leadership role, whereas a role as friend actually ran the risk of
alienating residents. An alternative or complementary strategy to support
vulnerable people is to enlist the help of citizen experts (Andreassen
2018
). For instance, former drug addicts can be trained to coach current
addicts. This can greatly reduce the barriers to participation, because it
allows the people in question to interact with others who (to some extent)
share their experiences and language. Again, such benefits do not come
easily: providing such support requires adequate training, regulation and
autonomy for the experts involved. Research will have to show what
should and can realistically be expected of citizen experts.
What we have also learnt from past processes of participation is that smart
practical organising can go a long way in lowering thresholds and
improving the quality of the process. For instance, it is more effective to
invite people personally, rather than making them respond to a general
call, or select them at random. This strategy was employed, for instance,
by the French government, when in 2019 it organised a nationwide debate
in response to popular unrest. This prevented any particular group from
dominating the local talks. Another method that has been proven to work is
to make meetings small-scale, allowing people to discuss in small groups.
This also has the benefit of encouraging a more constructive dialogue.
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Creative methods
of dialogue have been invented that invite consensus and
prevent the processes from being monopolised by a minority of hard-line
opponents. Participatory
budgeting
is an example of such a method: it
requires participants to allocate funds as part of citizens’ assemblies
(Sintomer et al.
2008
). It forces participants to make trade-offs among
themselves, rather than merely criticising others’ proposals. Simply saying
‘no’ is not an option. Of course, all of this is still a deliberative process,
which still gives an edge to the most articulate. However, if the process of
participation is designed carefully, the threshold can be lowered
significantly.
Another valuable lesson learnt over time is that policymakers and
professionals should preferably go out
to meet citizens
, rather than the
other way round. This means meeting vulnerable people in their own
habitat, instead of inviting them to public buildings where they may not
feel comfortable. Having meetings in places close to people’s homes, in a
setting familiar to them (say the canteen of the local football team) can
make participatory processes seem more familiar and less intimidating.
Furthermore, it is important to see such meetings as part of a longer
process. Effective participation requires sustained communication,
clarifying the nature and extent of the participation, managing
expectations, clarifying the follow-up. Physical meetings are only one part
of a longer process of relationship-building.
A key question for the future is how digital
technologies
will affect this
type of process. Public management literature has so far been
overwhelmingly optimistic on this point (for example, see Linders
2012
).
Digital communication tools can potentially decrease reliance on physical
meetings and involve people in their homes. This can make a huge
difference for people who, for health or social reasons, are unwilling or
unable to go out (e.g. frail elderly people). It also allows quicker and more
entertaining participation for those who might otherwise not be interested,
by introducing elements of
gamification
(Mergel
2016
). Alternatively,
citizens may get access to greater amounts of raw data, allowing them to
assess the performance of public agencies independently or take initiatives
of their own. However, caution would be wise. Such opportunities do arise,
but they rely on the specific application of certain technologies. At the
same time, there have been developments in the opposite direction: a trend
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away from participation, with more decisions based on sensor readings and
algorithms. In the end, co-production may end up squeezed between self-
organised citizens’ initiatives and highly centralised machine decisions
(Lember et al.
2019
). With respect to participation, that would leave
vulnerable people in a worse position than they are in now.
Will Co-production Be Different?
Given that we have learnt these lessons, will co-production make a
difference? This will depend very much on how it is shaped in practice, by
whom, with whom and where. It is impossible to devise a secret recipe that
will work for everyone. Still, it is possible to define some general
expectations. Co-production was defined as a relationship between a paid
employee of an organisation and (groups of) individual citizens that
requires a direct and active contribution from these citizens to the work of
the organisation. This contribution can consist of both helping to design
individual services (say, co-designing a
treatment
plan) and implementing
them personally. If we review the reasons why vulnerable people do not
participate, and how co-production changes the nature of the process, there
are good reasons to suppose that it will indeed be different—at least to
some extent.
One of the prime reasons for the lack of participation was that people are
overburdened and that, facing the
choice
how to allocate their scarce time,
they will opt to spend it elsewhere. That could still be the case for co-
production. However, the difference is that it individualises participation,
allowing citizens to help design and implement services or products that
are particular, and particularly important, to them. That makes it far easier
to create a sense of urgency. People may not give much thought to the
strategic
policies
of their local hospital, but they will care about their own
medical
treatment
. Parents may not care for school board meetings and
general discussions of school performance, but they will be interested in
their own child’s progress. The personal approach also makes any effects
of
co-production
more obvious: clients, or their close relatives, will be
quick to notice whether anything has changed.
Another reason why participatory processes fail to be inclusive is that they
require skills and cultural capital that many vulnerable people do not
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possess. On this point, it is less straightforward what co-production could
achieve. All participatory processes require the articulation of desires and
needs with some basic clarity, of which not everyone is capable. All efforts
to participate, however low the threshold, require a minimal degree of
self-
efficacy
(Parrado et al.
2013
; Fledderus
2016
). Again, it is unlikely
everyone can muster this. However, co-production can be about ‘doing’ as
well as ‘
talking
’, which does make a difference (Parrado et al.
2013
). To
stay with the example of schools,
parents
may feel uncomfortable speaking
in public to other parents, but may be perfectly happy running a stand
during a school festival, or helping their children with homework
(Honingh et al.
2018
). The types of skills demanded will be more varied.
In other words, co-production will not work where basic preconditions for
participation are lacking, but it may work for a larger number of people.
A third reason why vulnerable people have generally played only a small
part in traditional participation processes is that the knowledge they bring
deviates strongly from the rational-scientific knowledge which is regarded
as legitimate in bureaucratic or professional processes. At the level of
management and strategy, it can be hard to see the relevance of individual
views and experiences, but few would deny that people are experts on their
own (families’) lives. A teacher has the better knowledge of didactics, but
the parent has the better knowledge of the child. Combining the two types
of knowledge makes obvious sense. Co-production therefore makes it
easier to integrate experiential knowledge, because in individual cases
these are inherently relevant and because it does not demand specialist
scientific knowledge.
Of course, this is assuming that professionals are willing to listen. It is not
only the vulnerable people who will need convincing that this is
worthwhile. Although some evidence suggests that under the right
conditions professionals are willing to engage in co-production (Steen and
Tuurnas
2018
) and that they can be trained to do so more effectively
(Honingh et al.
2018
), we do not yet know nearly enough about the
conditions under which professionals are likely to engage in co-
production.
Another potential advantage is that it is relatively easy to organise co-
production in a familiar setting. Discussions on topics affecting all clients
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of an organisation are often organised in a public setting, in large groups.
However, as noted earlier, small-scale meetings tend to get the best out of
people. Co-production, by its nature, is often
small-scale
. For instance,
discussions of the progress of an individual
treatment
or a child’s school
performance will usually be held privately.
Where co-production is organised through digital
technologies
, this effect
may be especially strong. It may allow people to get involved from their
own homes, at their own leisure. Where people feel insecure, this may be a
great advantage in drawing them out. It may also be possible to use more
visual, less language-reliant means of participating (e.g. through images).
Potentially, this could reduce major obstacles to the participation of
vulnerable people. However, as noted earlier, technological advances may
also make it easier for professionals to make decisions for, rather than
with, vulnerable people. For example, it is already possible for welfare
departments to assess with some accuracy, on the basis of accumulated
data, which young people are likely to get in trouble, and to design
targeted interventions accordingly (Berk
2019
; Bovaird and Loeffler
2014
). By contrast, co-production may appear rather inefficient and
unnecessary.
All in all, co-production seems to have a better chance of involving
vulnerable people than traditional types of participation, because it
removes some of the elements that make the latter less accessible and
attractive. However, co-production is not a cure-for-all. It would be
utopian to suggest that this approach (or indeed any approach) will work
for everyone, or that it will ever be accepted in all organisations (Batalden
et al.
2016
). Co-production is a solution that will work well for certain
people—the question is for how many. To determine this, we will need less
conjecture, and more experiments and pilots.
Conclusion
Vulnerable people are underrepresented in many areas of life, including
participatory processes. In this chapter, I have explored whether co-
production can be expected to change this. The analysis allows room for
cautious optimism. Co-production could indeed make a difference, in that
it lowers the threshold for participation in a number of ways. Especially
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where it is individualised and where the format of the
interaction
does not
rely too heavily on deliberative skills, individuals who have hitherto been
underrepresented could become engaged in greater numbers. This is not to
say that everyone can be mobilised: that would be a fantasy. It is also
likely that different types of people will require a different kind of
approach
; in other words, we should not think of co-production as a single
type of method, but as a family of methods.
The fact is: there is insufficient evidence to make any firm statements one
way or the other. At this point, co-production is mostly a promise.
However, things could move quickly. There was a time when a (perceived)
lack of education and sound judgement was used as an argument to
exclude the majority of the population from
voting
. Likewise, participation
in decision-making is often still felt to be beyond the capabilities of certain
kinds of people. Yet co-production has been known to work for welfare
recipients, mental health care patients, drug addicts, refugees and victims
of abuse. It is unlikely to work for everyone, but perhaps for more people
than we would expect.
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