A Strategic Framework for Building Civic Capacity Stephen Page, Associate Professor Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs University of Washington, Box 353055 Seattle, WA 98195 206.221.7784
[email protected] Prepared for presentation at the Annual Meetings of the Western Political Science Association, Seattle, WA, April 2014 A Strategic Framework for Building Civic Capacity Abstract: Wicked problems such as education, housing, or transportation prompt fundamental disagreements about the nature of urban issues as well as appropriate solutions. Only extraordinary initiatives that blend political conflict and cooperation to marshal resources and joint commitments from multiple stake holders offer the potential to address them. This article develops a framework of strategic mechanisms that support such initiatives, and compares their interactions in the fields of urban growth and transportation over the past two decades in Seattle. The framework suggests that the civic capacity to address wicked problems depends on a combination of networks, governance institutions, and leadership. While networks, governance institutions, and problem wickedness differ across policy areas, the study finds that acts of leadership can reshape them over time to “tame” and address wicked problems. The conclusion draws lessons for strategic efforts to build civic capacity, and generates hypotheses for future research. A Strategic Framework for Building Civic Capacity Students of urban politics have documented both promise and difficulty in attempts to build civic capacity to address longstanding policy problems in big cities. Embodied in an array of actors working together to address a pressing policy issue, civic capacity features shared problem definitions and joint commitments from a broad range of elites and grassroots actors (Stone, Henig, et al.