Citizens in the Era of Governance: Citizen Participation and Active Citizenship

Abstract

Nowadays strong emphasis has been placed on “governance” and “citizen participation”; citizens are expected to be ever more involved in the policy process and to ever more actively govern society. The promotion of citizen participation, however, should entail thorough consideration on citizenship or citizens’ qualifications and capabilities. This paper theoretically examines the notion of citizen in the era of governance and highlights active citizenship as necessary for citizen participation; any participant must be an active citizen.This paper avers that education for active citizenship significantly contribute to individuals being active. Given that values, knowledge and skills — both basic and practical/applied — need to be developed for political participation, education for active citizenship should be provided for not only young people, but also adults who are participating or will soon participate in the policy process; in this sense, both child/youth education and adult/social education are important. Due to the heterogeneity and diversity of individuals, and given that a wide range of knowledge is necessary for active citizen participation, moreover, education for active citizenship should be provided by various agencies in various ways. An educational system for active citizenship, consequently, needs to be designed on the basis of the recognition that the system should contain child, youth, postgraduate and adult/social education programs; and that the system should utilize characteristics of diverse agencies such as elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, graduate schools, NPOs and citizen’s colleges. Without such a citizen development system, active citizen participation would be hardly possible to be successfully promoted.Designing a citizen participation mechanism accompanied with citizen development programs (educational programs for active citizenship) is an arduous task. This task involves not only new participants in the policy process, viz., so-called ordinary citizens. Policymakers also have to adapt to the changing political process. Scholars in various study fields, as well, are required to academically and practically contribute to designing and facilitating citizen participation. Citizen participation in the policy process, nevertheless, sounds nice to many people and thus might be promoted without careful consideration. This paper is intended to warn against such promotion and to be a starting point for defining “citizen in the era of governance” and for establishing an effective citizen participation mechanism accompanied with an educational system.