Mark Swift argues that places must move beyond one-off participation initiatives and invest in the civic infrastructure that enables civic capability, confidence, leadership and influence to accumulate across the life course.
This blog is based on Mark’s recent report – Building Civic Capability: A Life Course Framework for Place.
From participation to capability
Over the past two decades, there has been a growing recognition that people and communities should have a greater say in shaping the decisions that affect their lives. Citizens’ assemblies, participatory budgeting, co-production, community organising and a host of democratic innovations have all contributed to this shift. They have opened up new opportunities for participation and helped demonstrate the value of involving people more directly in public life.
These developments matter. They have shown that participation can improve decisions, strengthen legitimacy and bring valuable lived experience into policymaking. But they also raise a deeper question.
What happens after people participate?
Participation is often treated as an event: a consultation, an assembly, a workshop, a project. Yet the most significant effects of participation are often not immediate. People gain confidence. They build relationships. They learn new skills. They discover their ability to influence decisions, organise collectively and contribute to change.
These experiences can be transformative. But they rarely emerge from a single intervention. Confidence is built gradually. Leadership develops over time. Trust and influence accumulate through repeated opportunities to participate, contribute and act.
This observation lies at the heart of my new paper, Building Civic Capability: A Life Course Framework for Place.
The paper begins with a simple question: how does civic power accumulate?
Why civic capability matters
This question feels increasingly important. Across the UK and beyond, policymakers are looking towards prevention, neighbourhood governance, devolution and community power as ways of responding to complex social challenges. At the same time, many places are grappling with persistent inequalities, democratic disengagement, social fragmentation and growing pressure on public services.
In this context, the capacity of people and communities to shape their own futures may be one of the most important assets a place possesses. In the paper, I describe this as civic capability. Put simply, civic capability is what enables people to participate, contribute, organise and influence the world around them. It can be seen in everyday acts of mutual support, in community action, in advocacy and organising, and in the many ways people come together to address shared challenges.
The problem of disconnected participation
Yet while participation has received considerable attention in recent years, far less attention has been paid to how civic capability develops and endures over time.
Too often, participation is approached as a series of disconnected initiatives. A project is funded, people are engaged, valuable conversations take place and then attention shifts elsewhere. New opportunities emerge, but they are not always connected to what came before or what comes next.
As a result, civic energy is frequently generated but not accumulated.
The paper argues that we need to think differently. Rather than viewing civic capability simply as an outcome of successful participation, we should begin to think about it as something that requires infrastructure.
When we hear the word infrastructure, we usually think about roads, railways, utilities or digital networks. These systems matter because they create the conditions that allow other activities to take place. The paper suggests that places also require civic infrastructure: the spaces, relationships, institutions and opportunities through which people can participate, learn, organise and exercise influence.
Viewed in this way, the challenge becomes much broader than increasing participation rates or creating more opportunities for consultation. It becomes a question of how places create the conditions through which civic capability can grow, deepen and endure.
Civic infrastructure and the life course
A key insight from the paper is that civic capability develops across the life course. Early experiences of participation can shape confidence and agency later in life. Opportunities to learn can lead to leadership. Civic involvement can open doors into organising, enterprise and public influence. Equally, exclusion at key life stages can limit future opportunities for participation and contribution.
If civic capability accumulates over time, then places need to think not only about creating opportunities, but also about how those opportunities connect with one another.
Stewardship, place and the future of civic power
The framework presented in the paper explores what this might look like in practice. At its heart is a simple idea: civic capability develops through repeated opportunities to participate, learn, organise, exercise influence and contribute to community life.
The paper also highlights the importance of stewardship: the role institutions play in creating the conditions that allow civic life to flourish over time. If civic capability is to accumulate across the life course, opportunities for participation, learning, leadership and influence need to connect and reinforce one another. This is not about controlling communities or directing civic action. It is about ensuring that governance, investment and institutional practice support the long-term development of civic capability within place.
At a time when many places are searching for new ways to improve wellbeing, strengthen resilience and address complex social challenges, this conversation feels increasingly urgent.
Communities possess enormous reserves of knowledge, creativity, experience and commitment. The question is not whether these assets exist. The question is whether we are creating the conditions that allow them to accumulate, connect and endure.
That, ultimately, is the question that Building Civic Capability: A Life Course Framework for Place seeks to explore.
And it is a conversation that I hope will continue well beyond the pages of the paper.
This blog was written by Mark Swift, Founder and CEO of Wellbeing Enterprises CIC. Mark is a LPIP Hub Place Fellow.
Find out more about the Local Policy Innovation Partnership Hub.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this post are those of the author and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.