Notions Of Empowerment

Empowerment as a notion has gained wide currency and it is one of the most significant concepts to come to the fore in the last many decades.

Though the scope of this concept is very vast yet efforts have been singularly afoot to spread its relevance in all fields of human existence. In generic terms empowerment implies fair and equal distribution of power to all levels of a societal hierarchy.

Through the process of empowerment the focus should remain the common citizens of a polity. It is widely believed that when the focus is the citizen then empow¬erment is the responsibility of the democratic dispensation that is required to ensure that people should be involved in decisions regarding their own lives and should be provided level-playing field to all stakeholders. Empowerment entails that the issues confronting stakeholders are taken seriously with a view to come to a satisfactory solution. It must be kept in view that empowerment is relevant in the current scenario and is applied to stakeholders belonging to public and private sectors.

Empowerment is achieved through consistent interactions with the values of democracy and citizens’ involvement and with the need to decentralise activities from state agencies to oth¬ers. In this respect it is understood that the traditional arbitrators of power are made to correspond to the ethos of empower¬ment to move forward with reforms and change. As a matter of fact empowerment implies effective decentralisation or devolution of power with the notion that local or regional decision makers know better what matches the needs and capabilities of their respective stakeholders.

It must be kept in view that empowerment as a notion is a multifaceted construct and it is open to many forms of deliberation and many meanings could be obtained from it. The concept of empowerment deals with power and its controlling mechanism hence entailing either a relational perspective or a motivational perspective and it is within this ambit that empowerment is made functional. Both the relational and motivational per¬spectives define power as a function of dependence as well as interdependence of stakeholders and they are taken as relying on each other for functional veracity.

In the light of such observation empowerment is practiced through an inclusive perspective with the targets of mutual cooperation set by the participants. Looking at it from motivational perspec-tive it is observed that power is an intrinsic need for self-determina¬tion or a belief in personal self-efficacy therefore empowerment is the creation of conditions enhanc¬ing a strong sense of self-efficacy. In this context four guiding principles form the basis of this process including a match between the available opportunities and participants’ behavioural pattern, competence issues, level of autonomy to be granted and the overall impact of the entire exercise.

These guiding principles shape cognitive realisation of the multiple stakeholders and their respective motivation and expected conduct. It is assumed that empower¬ment processes under this perspective will encour¬age self-managing or cross-functional teams and will provide information about the goals and strategy of the stakeholders aimed at galvanising a sense of ownership. Similarly, empowerment entails a high-involvement approach and this is considered the sine qua non of the process.

The stakeholders are encouraged to change their policies, practices, and structure in order to create and sustain empowerment and this change must dis¬tribute power, authority, responsibility, informa¬tion, knowledge and rewards throughout the polity.

It is often observed that the generic psychological understanding of empowerment in polities is useful and meaningful when state agencies and social governmental environments are taken as the fundamental considerations. It is widely accepted that the discus¬sion of empowerment calls for integration of other concepts such as democracy, citizens’ involvement, public sector reforms and multiple stakeholders’ engagement. Most important, empowerment can be seen as a democratic strategy that involves multiple stake¬holders in the action of governance or in the action of managing governmental agencies.

As such, empowerment allows greater self-contributing behaviour; it encourages individuals’ engagement in public actions and advances the production of public goods and services. It can also contribute to commitment to public service and to public sector motivation by all those who are part of the process, be it public personnel, citizens, residents of cities and communities, or other stakeholders such as the private sector and the third sector.

In this respect one perspective views democracy as a predominantly aggregative theory and the other perspective sees democracy as a predom¬inantly integrative theory. Predominantly aggrega-tive theories see democracy as a means of distributing political power and influence and of regulating conflict within a society. In this context, empowerment refers to equal influence over processes of collec¬tive governance and individual autonomy. Citizens have two means of empowerment available to them when they are not satisfied with the consequences of a collective action: exit and voice. In an aggregative strategy of empowerment, exit by voting for a new political party is a way of punishing politicians and political organizations that were unsatisfactory and a way of escaping unacceptable majority deci¬sions. Voice, in this perspective, is a supplementary means of empowerment as it gives the decision makers information about the reasons exit was taken.

The basis of empowerment encourages democratic means of governing polities. This point of view entails that society is a social construct that is more than the sum of the preferences of individuals. Empowerment is therefore the transformation of individuals into citizens by participation. For this view to become successful it is imperative to allow empowering of individuals as it gives them a chance to participate in decision-making processes. This action empowers as it informs, organizes, and gives confidence to the citizens. It is argued that a strategy of empower¬ment under this perspective must include decen¬tralization of authority, institutionalization of communication channels between citizens and politicians and encourage¬ment of citizen participation in general.

Empowerment involves both the individual and institutional levels as both play significant role in the process. The individual entities known as internal agents of policy and public action are the primary mechanism through which public strategies, policies and actions are implemented. This process of empowering people should go hand in hand with formal rules and pro¬cedures that characterize the public bureaucracy. It must however be taken into view that certain level of flexibility is to be given to all stakeholders and what is required to be ensured in building innovative mechanisms that allow healthy involvement, intra-organizational democracy and self-motivation that works for the good of many. The restraints and control in this respect create problems as they limit the intention and activity of stakeholders and go against the need of team building, job enrichment, and even quality circles or goal-setting strategies that otherwise may increase commitment and build a sense of unified action.

The complex meaning of empowerment in public sector domains requires that the concept is treated higher than the conventional meaning of engagement in lives of stakeholders as this notion has deeper and wider implications. It needs to refer to more stakeholders because it affects the larger sections of society and has deeper connotation with respect to forming and shaping the nature of democratic values. In this context empowerment has a widespread effect beyond the narrow gauge of sectoral considerations and its impact is considered far beyond the realms of official authority and routine matters of governance.