Abstract
Citizens in various countries develop community based initiatives to realize public values and services. Research has addressed various aspects of community based initiatives, including their transformative potential (Wagenaar et al 2015), their evolution (Edelenbos et al 2016), or boundary spanning strategies (Van Meerkerk et al 2017). So far, research on what drives people to participate in these initiatives, and the mechanisms that create continuity in their participation, has been limited. Therefore, this paper focuses on two questions: (1) what motivates citizens to participate in citizen initiatives; (2) what social mechanisms influence participation in citizen initiatives?
The paper draws on Collins’ (2014) theory of interaction ritual chains, to theorize how interaction rituals among citizens generate emotional energy and feelings of attachment that motivate people. By paying attention to rituals and emotional energy, the paper attempts to complement strictly rational theories of citizen motivations and participation which tend to focus on interests and incentive structures. Empirically, the paper comprises a double case study of two ‘neighbourhood blogs’ in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Neighbourhood blogs are social media platforms created by groups of citizens to communicate internally and externally about the neighbourhood, often explicitly aimed to create public value by giving new meaning to the place and re-branding the neighbourbood in a positive way. The paper shows how the neighbourhood blogs generate offline and online interactions that form chains of interaction rituals. These interaction rituals generate emotional energy and feelings of place attachment, which motivates residents to join, post messages and participate in events which ultimately give new meaning to the neighbourhood.
References:
Collins R (2004) Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Edelenbos, J., I.M. van Meerkerk and T. Schenk (2016) The evolution of Community Self-Organization in Interaction With Government Institutions: Cross-Case Insights From Three Countries. The American Review of Public Administration.
Van Meerkerk I.M, M. Zwanenburg and M Van Eerd (2017) Enabling and constraining conditions for boundary-spanning in community-led urban regeneration: A conceptual model. In Dijk, M.N. van, J. Edelenbos and K. van Rooijen (eds) Urban Governance in the Realm of Complexity. Rugby UK, Practical Action Publishing (pp171-193)
Wagenaar, Hendrik, Patsy Healey, Giovanni Laino, Patsy Healey, Geoff Vigar, Sebastià Riutort Isern, Thomas Honeck, Joost Beunderman, and Jurgen van der Heijden (2015) The transformative potential of civic enterprise, Planning Theory & Practice, 16:4,557-585,
breek_eshuis_mommaas_hermsen_citizen_initiatives_emotional_energy_IRSPM_2018_UPLOADED.pdf 