Foundation
Equitable Engagement
Power and public engagement
Why?
Why power matters in climate engagement
Considering and addressing how power and privilege show up in your local climate engagement isn’t a ‘nice to have’ – it’s essential. Here’s why:
- Reveal why plans and policies don’t work for people
- Shift the focus from quick fixes to understanding root causes
- Help design deeper, more durable solutions
- Understand the needs of everyone affected by your decisions
- Remove barriers that prevent people from participating
- Design fairer, more responsive policies and services
- Build trust and legitimacy
- Help create a more equitable society
Issues and real world example
Barriers to engagement
Using technical jargon that is inaccessible to ordinary people – see more about barriers and how to overcome them here.
Framing
Presenting climate change as a ‘universal issue’ without considering how impacts are felt disproportionately by different communities within and beyond the UK.
Process Design and engagement formats
Expecting participants to be comfortable and able to adapt to formalised or bureaucratic consultation formats.
Refusal or reluctance to participate
People might refuse to engage in the firth place because of historical exclusion, injustice and lack of trust in the decision making organisation.
Power and Public Engagement
- A social reality
- Neither good nor bar by itself
- Always present
To help us understand power, we are using the Powercube model developed by The Participation, Power and Social Change team at University of Sussex. This model helps us to:
- Visualise how power works
- Map who holds power, where, and why
- Identify entry points for action
Expressions of power
Power Over
| What it means | Example | Why it matters in engagement |
| The ability to get someone to do what you want them to do. For you to ‘win’ someone else must ‘lose’. | Debates in parliament take a ‘power over’ structure. Each side is trying to defeat the other to win the argument and force the other side to concede they have lost. | This is the expression of power we try to avoid in good public engagement for decision making. Power over structures can create fear, resistance and limit collaboration. |
Power With
| What it means | Example | Why it matters in engagement |
| Collective action and working together to achieve common goals. There is no limit to the amount of power there can be, and one person gaining power doesn’t mean another losing it. | Collective action, alliance building and unions are all examples of people working together to achieve common goals. | Builds trust and co-ownership of ideas, projects, and policies. |
Power To
| What it means | Example | Why it matters in engagement |
| The unique agency and capacity of every person to make a difference. | Personal leadership development programmes and citizen education initiatives that build the capacity of individuals to make a difference. | Enables everyone to meaningfully participate. |
Power Within
| What it means | Example | Why it matters in engagement |
| A person’s sense of self-worth, confidence and dignity. Having power within often involves unclearing internalised oppressions. | Using storytelling and reflection to help people affirm their self-worth, unlearn negative views about yourself that exist because of prevailing social norms. | Supports deeper engagement and understanding of underlying power dynamics that exist within systems and individuals. |
Pause and Think
- What expressions of power show up most often in your engagement work?
- What would be the benefits of shifting engagement from a ‘power over’ approach to a ‘power with’ approach?
- What changes and support might you need to offer to make this shift?
Forms of Power
Visible Power
| What it means | Example | Why it matters in engagement |
| Contests for power visible in public spaces and in formal decision making bodies. | Council meetings, public consultations, policies and laws. | Visible power is grounded in transparency, legitimacy and accountability, for instance anyone can take part in a public consultation. visible power structures assumes decision making arenas are neutral playing fields where everyone has equal access.However, we know many people aren’t able to access visible spaces of power like public consultations. |
Hidden Power
| What it means | Example | Why it matters in engagement |
| Power that exists but isn’t always visible or acknowledged, or ‘the rules of the game’ that are set behind the scenes. | Agenda setting for a workshop or public meeting. In climate engagement this looks like the group of people behind the scenes deciding on the question, scope, and structure of the engagement exercise. | Hidden power is often used by those with more power to maintain their power, for instance by excluding key topics of conversation from the agenda or defining what is legitimate or illegitimate views or concerns. |
Invisible Power
| What it means | Example | Why it matters in engagement |
| The ways in which we are aware of our own existence within dominant worldviews, social norms, values and ideologies. People may be unaware of their rights, their ability to speak out or assumptions that unfair and unequal existences are ‘natural’ or unchangeable. | Poor people, for instance, may accept their circumstances as the status quo even though they see people with far more resources than them. This may lead to internalised explanations of poverty that focuses on individual behaviour and blame, rather than seeing poverty as a systemic issue. | Invisible power can prevent people from participating in engagement activities in the first place, as people think it isn’t relevant to them or that nothing can change. It can also prevent us from engaging with systemic issues or root causes of climate issues, because they are seen as normal, unchangeable or just the way things are. |
Pause and Think
- Think about the most recent meeting you attended at work.
- This could be with your team, your manager or with an external partner.
- How did visible, hidden and invisible forms of power show up?
Spaces of Power
Closed spaces
| What it means | Example | Why it matters in engagement |
| Decisions that are made by actors behind closed doors, without the pretence of broadening who is included in the decision making process. | In national politics this can look like decisions about trade, macroeconomics and military policies. In workplaces, this can look like decisions about salaries, progression, and strategy. | Closed spaces often involve decisions that are considered ‘off-limits’ to public participation. These are often major decisions that impact people’s lives. Opening up closed spaces is at the heart of good public engagement for decision making, ensuring decisions involve the people who will be most affected by them. |
Invited Spaces
| What it means | Example | Why it matters in engagement |
| Opportunities are made for people to participate, often through direct invitation from decision makers. Most climate engagement fits into this space of power, where members of the public are invited to share their views and inform decisions about climate action in their local area. | A citizens’ assembly or online public consultation are examples where people are formally invited to take part in a decision making process. | Invited spaces are important to ensure people have a say in decisions that affect their lives. It is important to remember that hidden and invisible power are always at play in invited spaces. This means there are a set of spoken and unspoken rules, norms, and agendas that might exclude people or views. |
Claimed Spaces
| What it means | Example | Why it matters in engagement |
| Opportunities for participation created by relatively powerless or excluded groups for themselves. Claimed spaces bring together people around a shared concern, identity or interest. These spaces range from social movements and community groups to those simply involving natural places where people get together to discuss and resist harmful decisions and structures outside of formal policy environments. | Campaign groups like extinction rebellion, community groups like a local repair cafe, or conversations about policies or systems at the dinner table are all examples of claimed spaces. | People who participate in invited spaces may also be involved in claimed spaces. Historically claimed spaces have helped set agendas and shift social norms before this is reflected in visible power structures, for instance the long history of LGBTIQA+ groups campaigning for the legalisation of gay marriage. |
Pause and Think
- Can you think of an example of a closed, invited and claimed space operating in your local area?
- How might each of these spaces be more or less accessible to people in your community?
- How might visible, hidden and invisible power show up in each of these spaces?