Journal of Community Practice
ISSN: 1070-5422 (Print) 1543-3706 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wcom20
Multi Modes of Intervention at the Macro Level
Jack Rothman PhD
To cite this article: Jack Rothman PhD (2007) Multi Modes of Intervention at the Macro Level,
Journal of Community Practice, 15:4, 11-40, DOI: 10.1300/J125v15n04_02
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Published online: 25 Sep 2008.
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ARTICLES
Multi Modes of Intervention
at the Macro Level
Jack Rothman, PhD
ABSTRACT. This presentation posits a multidimensional formulation
of community intervention, comprising nine variants of practice. It builds
on this author’s earlier threefold concept, but expands and elaborates it
in cross-tab fashion. Accordingly, there is a breakout into three distinct
forms respectively of social planning/policy practice, of capacity development, and of advocacy. Some of these modes are unidimensional and
others combine strategic elements. Empirical examples of each mode are
provided. These practice modes need not be seen as conflicting initiatives.
Both rationalistic planning in formal organizations and participatory
forms of grassroots problem solving have merits, which can be magnified when linked. A significant challenge for social development involves
mixing the best features of laissez faire societies that emphasize voluntarism and freedom with the best features of more collectivist societies that
emphasize system planning and equality. doi:10.1300/J125v15n04_02
[Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service:
1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2007 by The Haworth Press. All rights
reserved.]
Jack Rothman is Professor Emeritus, University of California.
Address correspondence via e-mail to: Jack Rothman (E-mail: jrothman@ucla.edu).
This presentation is an abridgement of a chapter in a forthcoming book, Strategies
of Community Intervention and Macro Practice, by Jack Rothman, John L. Erlich, and
John Tropman, Eddie Bowers Publishing.
Journal of Community Practice, Vol. 15(4) 2007
Available online at http://com.haworthpress.com
© 2007 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J125v15n04_02
11
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JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PRACTICE
KEYWORDS. Community practice, community organization, social
change, community change theory, models of community practice, social planning, community capacity building, social advocacy
This presentation elaborates on an earlier depiction of community
intervention approaches (Rothman, 2001) with revisions and elaborations. As before, the presentation highlights three basic strategies of
change at the community and broader macro level, but with some alterations in language and other refinements. The strategies are now named
(or renamed) Planning and Policy Practice, Community Capacity Development, and Social Advocacy. A strategic engine propels each of
these approaches.
• Planning and Policy is data-driven. Persuasion is relied on to convey the truth as revealed in empirical facts, which then should lead
toward proposing and enacting particular solutions.
• Community Capacity Development assumes that change is best accomplished when the people affected by problems are empowered
with the knowledge and skills needed to understand their problems,
and then work cooperatively together to overcome them. Thus there
is a premium on consensus as a tactic and on social solidarity as
medium and outcome.
• Social Advocacy deems the application of pressure as the best
course of action to take against people or institutions that may have
induced the problem or that stand in the way of its solution–which
frequently involves promoting equity or social justice. When interests clash in this way, conflict is a given.
Moving beyond this concise listing of distinct approaches, let us
construct a 3 ⫻ 3 cross-tab diagram with the three basic strategies appearing horizontally across the top and again vertically down the left
side–resulting in the grid arrangement in Table 1. The graphic uses an
analytical paradigm, a mental construct rather than the previous observation of community projects in operation to arrive at a map of practice.
Table 1 shows the nine intervention modes that have resulted from
interlocking the three main intervention approaches. The three cells on
the diagonal (1.1, 2.2, 3.3) represent predominant modes, or essentially
unmixed forms of the strategies. The table’s six other cells are all composite modes, representing mixed forms of the strategies. Please note that
with these mixed cells, in each instance one of the two components–the
first one noted–is slightly dominant. It becomes obvious immediately,
Jack Rothman
13
TABLE 1. Basic Strategies of Community Intervention in Cross-Tabular Form
Dominant Mode by Columns
Planning/Policy
1
Community Capacity
Development
2
Social
Advocacy
3
1
Planning/Policy
1.1
Predominant
Planning/Policy
Rationalistic
Planning
3.1
Social Advocacy
with
Planning/Policy
Social
Reformal
2
Community Capacity
Development
1.2
Planning/Policy
with Capacity
Development
Participartory
Planning
3
Social Advocacy
1.3
Planning/Policy
with Advocacy
Policy
Advocacy
2.1
Capacity
Development with
Planning/Policy
Planned
Capacity
Development
2.2
Predominant
Capacity
Development
CapacityCentered
Development
2.3
Capacity
Development
with Social Advocacy
Identity
Activism
3.2
Social Advocacy
with Capacity
Development
Solidarity
Organizing
3.3
Predominant
Social Advocacy
Social
Action
then, that there are different forms of planning, of capacity development, and of social advocacy.
Table 2 provides a useful way to analyze the full set of intervention
modes because it shows for each cell whether it is predominant or composite (with the specific mix), its cell number, a descriptive name for the
mode, its core practice approach, and examples in practice.
I will proceed by working my way through Table 1, rearranging the
order of the cells in a few instances to best carry the narrative forward.
Does this new approach generate useful categories of intervention?
And can they then be identified empirically in the real world of practice? My own assessments yield a positive response to both questions,
and I would now like to demonstrate why.
POLICY AND PLANNING
Let us begin with the set of modes in Policy and Planning: the first
column in Table 1. The first cell, a predominant mode representing rationalistic planning, sets the stage.
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TABLE 2. Intervention Modes (Predominant and Composite)
Cell
Number
Mode
Name
Practice
Approach
Practice
Examples
Policy/Planning
(Using Data-Based Problems Solving)
Predominant
Policy Planning
1.1
Rationalistic
Planning
Prioritizing
the use of data
in intervention
Comprehensive city
planning, state
planning of prison
facilities
Policy Planning
with Substantial
Capacity
Development
1.2
Participatory
Planning
Citizen and client
involvement
in designing
and implementing
intervention
United Way,
Citizen planning
councils
Policy Planning
with Substantial
Social Advocacy
1.3
Policy
Advocacy
Internal change
agent designing
and pushing
intervention
Policy advocated
in departments
of health, housing,
and child welfare
Capacity Development
(Building Group Competency and Solidarity)
Predominant
Capacity
Development
2.2
CapacityCentered
Development
Competency
building through
indigenous
self-help problem
solving
Block clubs/
neighborhood
councils,
Peace Corps projects
Capacity
Development
with Substantial
Policy Planning
2.1
Planned
Capacity
Development
Competency
building through
pre-formulated
plans
Community
Development
Corporations, United
Nations economic
development
Capacity
Development
with Social
Advocacy
2.3
Identity
Activism
Competency
Ethnic organizing,
building through/with Self-help groups
activist pressure
Social Advocacy
(Using Pressure to Invoke Change)
Predominant
Social Advocacy
3.3
Social
Action
Using militant
pressure tactics
ACORN/IAF
Environmental
Action-Greenpeace
Social Advocacy
with Policy
Planning
3.1
Social
Reform
Using data as a
change tool
Nader Public Citizen
Projects, Children’s
Defense Fund
Social Advocacy
with Capacity
Development
3.2
Solidarity
Organizing
Using member
solidarity as a lever
for change
Farm Workers
Union, Black
Panthers,
The Student
Movement
Note: In the mixed modes, the first number indicates the marginally dominant component.
Jack Rothman
15
Planning/Policy:
Cell 1.1–Rationalistic Planning
This is the prototypic mode in this set, as it represents “pure” datadriven planning and policy practice. The term Rationalistic Planning
conveys its character, and its practitioners are often referred to as policy analysts or systems engineers. Planners and policymakers in this
mode are empiricists who believe that robust use of information and
logic provide the best pathways to effective and convincing solutions to
problems.
I have grouped planning and policy in this discussion because both
assemble and analyze data to prescribe means for resolving problems.
They employ a set of similar sequential steps from problem definition
and goal setting through program implementation and evaluation. While
the two overlap in some measure, they also have somewhat distinctive
features.
Policy, on balance, leans more toward national and state governmental structures and is associated with selecting large-size goals and framing legislative or administrative standards. Planning concerns itself more
with constructing programs and service delivery systems on the ground.
Nevertheless, there are policy organizations dealing with incremental
change at the county and city levels and planning taking place at the
state and national levels. Gilbert and Specht (1974) speak of a “policy
planner” and define policy as “a course or plan of action,” thereby essentially blending the two. In this discussion, “planning” will frequently
serve as shorthand for the planning/policy approach.
Good examples of this approach are in the literature of operations
research, social choice and decision theory, and branches of public
administration and city planning. The intervention focus is on “task”
goals, aimed at ameliorating important social problems such as delinquency, mental illness, drug abuse, domestic violence, child abuse and
neglect. Heavy use is made of statistical procedures, computer modeling,
and forecasting techniques.
The goal of arriving at a “best” solution gives this mode a top-down
aspect and a heavy-handed feel that are offensive to some community
planners, social workers, and sociologists. (I myself have strong reservations about planning that does not have participation of people directly affected by decisions that seek to resolve their problems.) There
may also be danger in believing that a planner has captured the full reality of a system when the variables chosen are only those readily observed
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and measured, thereby excluding, as if by design, less tangible but meaningful attributes of the human experience.
Since any survey of community intervention practices should include
the various forms that exist, we must recognize that many problems
have quite technical aspects–such as an impending flu epidemic or a
community disaster. Finding solutions to them may call for swift, decisive inputs by experts and for a high degree of technocratic planning and
intervention. Rationalistic planning is both theoretically and practically,
most appropriate when technical knowledge about the problem already
exists, when most people, including the experts, agree on the facts, and
when there is minimal disagreement about goals. Planning then usually
takes on a procedural character.
The comprehensive city-planning approach, which emphasizes exactness and thoroughness, highlights the data-driven concept. Thus in
a standard textbook in the field Branch (1998, p. 3) states that comprehensive planning “embraces conceptually and analytically as many as
possible of the essential elements” in the situation. It makes the “best estimates” of the “full range of components,” identifying those that are
primary and can be dealt with analytically.
Branch goes on to state that “Actions must be spelled out step by step
in the detail required for their effectuation.” He also indicates that plans
have to be amply documented through “written statements, drawings,
charts, blueprints, and other graphic representations; three-dimensional
models, mathematical, statistical and other quantitative formulations.”
As Branch describes it, the master plan has a fortress-like durability
attached it. Still, he acknowledges that some flexibility must be present.
Changes should be made, however, with an eye toward “staying on the
charted course.” He allows that timetables may be adjusted “as concept
encounters opportunity” (p. 4).
We can look beyond city planning for other instances of this tendency in community intervention. For instance, the Social Security Administration projects long-term service policies by closely examining
demographic trends, anticipated revenues, benefit formulas, and eligibility regulations. State prison administrations plan ahead for needed facilities by statistical forecasting on anticipated prison populations and
crime rates, and predicting the evolution of sentencing policies, policing practices, and the like. Similar procedures apply to state planning
for facilities such as hospitals, schools, and health and mental health
clinics that provide crucial services to the public.
In some instances, rational, bureaucratic planning has a participation
aspect, particularly when local citizens and organizations are involved
Jack Rothman
17
in already-formed policies and plans. The locality–and its voluntary associations–becomes an operational arm of the policy/planning apparatus, implementing programs or services that were designed at a higher
level. This occurs in urban planning when citizens are brought together
in forums and town hall meetings basically to be informed of new housing and transportation developments or to rubber stamp them. The Ryan
White Act for implementing AIDS services is another example. Local
organizations in designated cities were given grants to deliver patient
services under strict mandates.
It should be understood that while the planning and policymaking
mode primarily espouses rationality, the other two main modes, advocacy and capacity building, are hardly antagonistic to rational thinking.
Achieving broad civic participation or carrying out a protest demonstration requires reflective calculation. The point is that the planning/policy
strategy intrinsically and particularly has a large and conspicuous datacentered, logic-embracing component. The same general point holds
with regard to the capacity development/participation and the advocacy/
pressure relationships. While dominant in their respective key intervention modes, participation and pressure tactics figure to a greater or lesser
degree in the other modes as well.
Herbert Simon was a leading influence in this planning/policy area.
A winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978 for his research in organizational decision-making, Simon sought to make human problem
solving more rigorous and predictable, and did it by combining broad
competencies in economics, political science, public administration, cognitive psychology, computer science, and mathematics. He made a lifetime project out of transferring to social and economic decision-making
some of the precision associated with the physical sciences.
Intellectual roots for rational planning can be found in the thinking of
scholars such as Comte, Lasswell, Keynes, and Herbert Simon. Newer
professional writings that reflect this mode include Beer (1975), Branch
(1998), Grady, (1995), Rechtin and Maier (1997). In the field of social
work, Kahn (1969) has been identified with a highly systematic planning approach.
Planning/Policy with Substantial Capacity Development:
Cell 1.2–Participatory Planning
In this mode, planning and policy incorporate a key feature of capacity development: participation. A shorthand phrase for this cell is participatory planning. In some respects it is an outgrowth of rationalist
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planning. But despite that mode’s coherent intellectual structure and
well-established procedures, classic rationalistic planning has come under increasing criticism because of its conceptual limitations as well as
its limitations in action.
Webber and Rittel (1973) state that the data-driven approach is cognitively flawed because it is based on the assumption that problems are easily
definable, well bounded, and responsive to professional intervention. Instead, they say, contemporary problems are “wicked” in nature–unique,
intractable, intermeshed with others, and situated in a constantly changing and turbulent social environment. Prime examples of such planners’
frustrations are upgrading public education and halting the despoiling of
the natural environment.
Two contemporary sociopolitical factors confound the rationalistic
mode. The first is the strident climate of community politics, a development that makes planning highly contentious and interactive. Sundry interest groups and multicultural activists, believing that they should have
a say in addressing community problems, have acquired a voice in public and city council debates, thus placing themselves vigorously into the
pluralistic process of decision-making. Sustained opposition by these
groups can derail the most meticulously designed plans.
Many planners and policy professionals have come around to believing that the views of community-based groups should rightfully go into
defining goals; after all, this is consistent with American ideals and the
democratic ethic. Also, on a practical level, participation creates stakeholders who will later support the implementation of plans and policies
that they helped to shape. Participation additionally counteracts the image of the professional policymaker who, as an isolated technician in an
ivory tower, calibrates and imposes unwelcome plans upon a hapless
citizenry.
Another factor confounding rationalistic intervention is a tightening
economic environment. The voting public largely opposes increased
taxation and wants to limit governmental spending for social programs,
such as welfare. Spiraling budget deficits as well as the increased power
of conservative politics in Washington, D.C., have dried up funds for
many important, even essential public services whose availability in the
past were taken for granted. Supplying urgent welfare needs in communities is increasingly viewed by the Right as the responsibility of a charitable private sector, and service programs are being relegated to the
domain of privatization, corporate kindness, and faith-based initiatives.
Government is equated by many with “bungling bureaucracy,” as in
the Katrina disaster relief experience. Thus emerging public attitudes,
Jack Rothman
19
political power fluctuations, and economic restrictions create pressures
that work against any usefulness in elegant plans derived from elegant
data, particularly plans that have idealistic roots and humane agendas.
One growing response to these developments has been increased
participation by citizens and community groups in decision-making. It
is widely agreed that promoting participation strengthens democracy,
gives citizens a voice in the development of their communities, creates
connections among different groups, and increases social capital.
Participatory planning can be seen in action in agencies and communities across the country. The United Way is an example of such community-based organizations, as are many foundation-sponsored projects,
environmental bodies, and children’s planning councils. The American
Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and other national
health organizations also draw in clients, donors, and community people in a variety of capacities. Fundamentally, planning with a larger or
smaller degree of participation can be seen far and wide in government
departments and voluntary agencies geared to delivering mental health,
health, aging, housing, and child welfare services.
Much of the basic literature in social work and other human services
articulates this perspective, including writings by Checkoway (1995),
Drake (2001), Gummer (1995), Innes and Booher (2000), Minkler (2005),
United Way of America (2001), and van Berkel and Moller (2002).
Planning/Policy with Substantial Advocacy:
Cell 1.3–Policy Advocacy
Prototypic rationalistic planning has received criticism from another
quarter. The approach assumes objectivity and professional detachment.
Society, though, doesn’t produce benign problems and equal-standing
population groups. Instead, there are the advantaged and disadvantaged,
the well-placed and the marginal, the healthy and the sick. Inevitably,
humanistic values and professional ethics call on those in the human
services to empathize with and support at-risk populations.
Maintaining a neutral stand often allows structural conditions to remain as they are, thus leaving the status quo under the control of elites
who hold the upper hand. Policy specialists have become more sensitive
to the value dimensions of their work and to their mandate to “speak
truth to power” (Wildavsky, 1987). Following that course, the policy
advocacy position represents an alternate mode of intervention.
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In crystallizing the policy advocacy position, Jansson (2003) shows
how it differs from conventional policy practice:
We define policy practice as efforts to change policies in legislative, agency, and community settings, whether by establishing
new policies, improving existing ones, or defeating the policy initiatives of other people. . . . By policy advocacy, we mean policy
practice that aims to help relatively powerless groups, such as
women, children, poor people, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, gay men and lesbians, and people with disabilities,
improve their resources and their opportunities. . . . [It] refers to efforts to help powerless people improve their lot. (p. 13) (Emphasis
in the original.)
Jansson goes on to describe a wide array of analytical and political
skills geared to accomplishing those goals. Analysis skills encompass
such means as using social science research, conducting marketing studies, working with budgets, diagnosing barriers to implementation, calculating trade-offs, and designing policy assessments. Political skills
include using the mass media, taking a personal position, orchestrating
pressure on decision-makers, seeking positions of power, empowering
others, and advocating for compelling needs.
Now I’d like to describe several well-known individuals who in my
view personify policy advocacy in action. These are all people occupying national positions whose work has directly or indirectly impacted
communities across the United States.
Wilbur Cohen, a former secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, vividly exemplifies a policy advocate who spent a
lifetime in public service. During the Depression-era administration of
Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal he helped draft the 1936 act
that established the Social Security System. Later, he directed the Bureau of Research and Statistics of the Social Security Administration,
and then was in charge of program development and legislative coordination with Congress. In 1956 he was instrumental in instituting disability insurance. Continuing as a prime designer of America’s “welfare
state,” under the Johnson administration in 1965 he set up the Medicare
system. He was President Johnson’s chief liaison with Congress, troubleshooting and persuading reluctant legislators to support administration bills. Johnson described him as the “planner, architect, builder, and
repairman” for most of the social legislation of “The Great Society.”
Take note that although I have singled out Wilbur Cohen for special
Jack Rothman
21
recognition, a flock of staff policy advocates worked with and under
him to achieve those ends.
Another example of policy advocacy is David Lilienthal. As director
of the Tennessee Valley Authority during the New Deal, he fought for
the rights of poor farmers to enjoy the benefits of affordable electricity
on their farms and in their homes. In so doing, he incurred the wrath and
generated the opposition of power companies and their political allies.
His persistence and achievements led his admirers to label him “the
father of public power.”
More recent publicly recognized examples of policy advocates include Dr. David Kessler, who as head of the Federal Drug Administration clashed with the pharmaceutical companies on behalf of safe and
affordable medications for patients; Dr. Everett Koop, who as Surgeon
General, stood up to the cigarette companies in the first major effort to
warn the public about the serious health dangers in smoking; and Peter
Edelman, who faced off with the Clinton administration over sizable
service cuts affecting welfare clients.
Policy advocates are scattered here and there throughout government
welfare bureaus, urban planning departments, and elsewhere. They frequently operate as committed individuals working at the cutting edge
of their organizations, rather than necessarily carrying out mandates of
bureaus that have defined policy advocacy missions. Some of them–
frustrated or alarmed by inaction, inertia, indifference, corruption, and
deception–eventually join the ranks of the whistle-blowers.
The policy advocate as described above operates internal to the system (say, in a government social welfare department). Wilbur Cohen
clearly embodies this particular role. Internal advocates may also perform staff and consulting roles for congressmen and state legislators.
Another principal type of policy advocate (see Social Reform, cell
3.1) works in ways that are external to the system, in a voluntary advocacy organization, such as one of the Nader’s Public Citizen groups.
Ralph Nader himself typifies this role. Whereas someone like Wilbur
Cohen is a government-based policymaker who engages in advocacy,
Ralph Nader is an NGO activist who engages in policymaking. Since
the options and tactics of internal and external advocates differ to a considerable degree, it is important in this analysis to take note of the differences between them, as in access to policymakers and to information,
vulnerability in risk taking, funding for their work, etc.
Some authors who have focused on the Planning/Policy with Advocacy mode include Berkowitz, (1995), Haynes and Mikelson (1999),
Jansson (2003), Krumholz (1990), and Marris (1994).
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COMMUNITY CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT
We are shifting now to the capacity development column in Table 1.
Note that we are also skipping one cell to the middle row, looking at
an undiluted form of capacity development in relation to developing
communities.
Community Capacity Development (Predominant):
Cell 2.2–Capacity-Centered Development
When the term “community development” is used to identify the capacity development approach in communities, as frequently happens, a
problematic interpretation may occur. Community development itself is
a rather amorphous term that sometimes connotes development in a national context or as an element of national development (Walker, 2002),
or more specifically refers to large-scale economic development (Hunt,
1989). Sometimes it is international in scope (Stoesz, Guzzetta, & Lusk,
1999). Therefore, capacity development is the term of choice in this discussion because it provides more precise nomenclature for an approach
that focuses on building social competency.
Thinkers who contributed intellectual roots for capacity development
practice include John Dewey, Mary P. Follett, Kurt Lewin, and Eduard
Lindeman. Among more current professional writings that express and
elaborate this mode are Dionne (1998), Lappin (1985), Lasker et al.
(2001), Ross (1955), Walsh (1997), and Warren et al. (2001).
While the planning mode is data-driven, the thrust of the capacity development strategy is the empowerment of people and communities–
energizing them to act competently on their own behalf in determining goals and taking civic action. At its core, the approach emphasizes
broad participation by a wide spectrum of people operating either at the
local community level or in geographically dispersed interest groups,
which in effect form a virtual community. As stated in an early United
Nations publication: “Community development can be tentatively defined as a process designed to create conditions of economic and social
progress for the whole community with its active participation and the
fullest possible reliance on the community’s initiative” (United Nations,
1955, p. 6).
Garvin and Tropman (1998) identify three dimensions of the basic
strategy. Community cohesion refers to creating commonality among
individuals and groups in a way that counters a lack of shared norms or
the absence of mutual identification. Community capability indicates
Jack Rothman
23
the building of action organizations that constitute a civic infrastructure
through which collective problem solving can take place. Community
competence implies the imparting of action skills and leadership abilities that permit citizens to exercise influence toward intended goals. The
term “capacity development” stands as shorthand for this cluster of
related community building factors.
The strategy puts strong emphasis on what Selznick (1992) terms the
“moral commonwealth.” He describes this in words such as mutuality,
identity, plurality, and autonomy. I would add words like consensus,
sharing, and learning. I discern at least four related themes in this approach:
• Empowerment–the ability of community members to solve problems on a self-help basis
• Social integration or solidarity–achieving harmonious interrelationships among members, including different racial, ethnic, religious, and social-class groups
• Participation–gaining experience in civic action and democratically choosing goals for action
• Leadership development–cultivating indigenous leaders to represent members and guide their actions.
Practitioners of this community-centered approach favor “enabling”
techniques that are nondirective in character and foster self-help. All of
these feature “process goals,” which center on creating and nurturing an
effective problem-solving infrastructure (Rothman, 1964). For these
reasons, I label this cell capacity-centered development.
This type of communal activity, which reflects highly idealistic and
ethical values, has been carried out by the American Friends Service
Committee and other religious groups. The overall style is humanistic
and strongly people-oriented, with the aim of “helping people to help
themselves.” Overriding goals are to educate participants and nurture
their personal development.
In my earlier writings, I used the term “locality development” for this
particular strategy, but I have come to realize limitations in that. The
connotation of local geography excludes a multitude of widespread interest groups and functional communities, like the disabled, working
mothers, the elderly and virtual Internet networks that link people with
common concerns. They may be organized effectively to work on their
own behalf, without reference to geography, whether by communicating
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through postal mail, telephone, fax transmission, and text-messaging on
cell phones, or through use of the Internet’s e-mails, group “chat rooms,”
and other possible written or even verbal digitally enabled exchanges.
Some examples of capacity-centered development practice include
neighborhood work programs conducted by settlement houses and other
community-based agencies; federal government programs such as Agricultural Extension and the National Service Corps; and village-level work
in some overseas community development programs, including the Peace
Corps and the Agency for International Development (AID).
We can add community work in the fields of adult education and
public health outreach, as well as self-help and networking programs
conducted through neighborhood councils, block clubs, consumer cooperatives, self-help groups, and civic associations (Burns & Taylor, 1998).
While capacity development espouses high ideals, it has been criticized for its performance record. Khinduka (1987) characterizes it as a
“soft strategy” for achieving change. He charges that its preoccupation
with process leads to endless meetings that are frustrating for participants and make for a slow pace of progress. He further argues that the
emphasis on changing attitudes and values of residents toward mutual
cooperation and civic responsibility may divert attention from more
pressing material issues. On the positive side, embracing consensus as a
modus operandi prevents participating groups taking arbitrary actions
against other member groups. However, it also allows those who may
lose their unfair advantage to veto corrective actions.
Studies have shown that capacity development projects have frequently resulted in negative outcomes (Rothman, 2000). Often participation was low because residents did not see the value of participation
for themselves and their families. The better-off residents were rarely
disposed to share their advantages with the less fortunate. Moreover, the
sponsoring organization often failed to give professionals the leeway or
time to carry out their work.
It is also apparent that the heavy emphasis on the local community in
related community development literature has become less compelling.
The small locality itself has lost much of its hold because patterns of life
are influenced more significantly by powerful national and regional
forces, particularly television and the Internet. People, as I have said,
identify and organize increasingly along interest group and functionalcommunity lines.
It is still an open question, though, whether remotely connected networks can provide the socially nourishing qualities and interpersonal
Jack Rothman
25
depth of the local communities of old. Certainly, traditional communities are still important in many parts of the world.
Capacity Development with Substantial Planning/Policy:
Cell 2.1–Planned Capacity Development
Because of the criticisms and failings of the community capacity development approach, as set down above, efforts have been made to modify it.
I will now address two of these innovations which contain components of
planning/policy practice. One involves the movement toward community
economic development, in large part through Community Development
Corporations (CDCs). The other weds community-based endeavors to
national level planning and social development efforts. I refer to this
new cell under consideration as Planned Capacity Development.
Classic capacity development typically has the practitioner starting
with a blank page and encouraging residents to decide what situations
within their community bother them the most and then what changes they
want to initiate. (Some agencies with a more defined mission may ask,
“What would you like to do about health or children or education?”)
Community economic development, on the other hand, starts with a
concrete agenda and organizing mechanisms. It believes that what distressed communities need most is an upgrade of economic conditions.
Residents are called on to mount programs and actions that will accomplish that. According to Soifer (2002), this means concentrating on
housing development, land development, job creation, and setting up
more relevant financial institutions–primarily banks. This is consistent
with a U.N. study of intervention results, where experts who were surveyed indicated that project outcomes are better when there is adequate
prior planning, including the preparation of supportive organizational
and resource elements (see Rothman, 2000).
Hundreds of CDCs in “enterprise zones” throughout the United States
are the instrumentality for locally-based economic development programs.
These are government-sponsored nonprofit bodies that are locally controlled. Each has a board made up of residents, business owners, and government representatives from the area. CDCs sometimes launch consumer
cooperatives that enable local residents to purchase goods and services
at reduced costs. This approach typically fosters the designing of datainformed plans for economic advancement.
Some critics see enterprise zones as a technique used by political
and business leaders to stimulate local initiative and institute privatization– concurrently scaling back publicly supported social programs that
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directly assist the poor. Indeed, there is evidence that in economic development programs like these, residents who already have assets are
the gainers, while those at the bottom of the economic scale make little
discernable progress (Larrison & Hadley-Ives, 2004).
Turning to national planning for development, reformers working in
developing nations realize that their actions to promote country-wide
economic and social advancement may fail if local communities are not
brought into the effort or are left behind in the results. Thus numerous
U.N. community development projects tie local programs into country-wide programs for national development. That endeavor requires
policymaking and planning efforts that integrate several levels of activity. The World Bank is a major promoter and financer of that approach.
Midgley and Livermore (2005, p. 163) have written on this tactic
from a “developmentalist” point of view. They emphasize the importance of mobilizing local social capital–which means showing a concern for, and thereby involving, people at the grassroots level. The
authors state that “governments together with civil society should purposefully promote economic development” (Emphasis added).
Taking that approach often requires interweaving people, economic
forces, and ecological protection in a common policy framework. Variation in different situations may occur due to whether grassroots empowerment or national policy implementation is given priority. In any
case, while the approach is people-centered, the place of planning and
policy dynamics is conveyed by Midgley and Livermore by terms such
as “judicious intervention,” “managed pluralism,” and “macro-level issues of social policy.” Always present is the danger that the large-scale
components will dominate. World Bank projects, for example, have frequently stressed larger national objectives at the expense of the grassroots component (Easterly, 2001).
Besides these illustrations, planned capacity development occurs in
another circumstance. In a classic capacity development undertaking,
after the competency level of the beneficiary group has risen substantially, the group should be able to improve its own conditions of living,
using data and analytic procedures they have learned to plan effective
actions. In that instance, further work on building competency ordinarily goes into a lower key, while planned action for substantive change
becomes more pronounced. Theoretically, capacity-building practice
should, over time, lead to its own demise.
Writings that discuss capacity development joined with planning/
policy include Blakely (1994), Ewalt et al., eds. (1998), Midgley and
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Livermore (2005), National Congress for Community Economic Development (1995), Sherraden and Ninacs (1998), and Soifer (2002).
Capacity Development with Substantial Advocacy:
Cell 2.3–Identity Activism
Khinduka’s critique of capacity development includes his belief that
the pervasive ideology and strategy of consensus inherent in the practice actually hampers the sought-after community development. It is
true enough, historically and in current observation, that the poor, minorities, and marginal populations often have real exploiters and enemies. Ruling out the use of pressure and conflict tactics can prevent
local people from coming to grips with the problems and forces that
hold them down. Promoting better attitudes toward civic responsibility
and neighborliness within the targeted disadvantaged group is decidedly counterproductive when the attitudes and behaviors that need to be
changed are those of unbending authorities and privileged elites who
are situated comfortably outside poor communities.
There’s still another drawback in a consensus mindset: it can make
for passivity–suppressing a fighting spirit when that is exactly what’s
needed. Consensus is a good fit in situations where the overall population is homogeneous, there is agreement on goals within and without,
and status differences are not large. However, the groups that changeoriented professionals seek to aid scarcely fit that description.
Khinduka does admire capacity development for playing a gentleman’s game in the often sordid arena of community affairs, but he worries
about whether it can win. Recognizing this, professionals and activists often attach elements of advocacy to the competency-building approach.
Ample examples of this approach abound. For instance, some groups
within the women’s movement focus on group identity through sisterhood but tie that in with a fight for women’s rights. One example was
the Puget Sound Peace Encampment–a feminist community of women.
Key precepts of the feminist perspective on organizing draw from the
capacity development approach, including an emphasis on wide participation, a concern for democratic procedure, and educational goals
through study groups featuring consciousness-raising (Hyde, 1989; Naples, 1998). Parenthetically, Hyde (1996) has illustrated that examples
from feminist organizing can be found across the full spectrum of intervention modes, as is true with diverse ethnic and racial groups.
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This activist-tending mode we are discussing is represented in some
streams within the gay movement, where gay pride and solidarity are a
prime aim, but also a means to make gains around gay rights. Add to this
the movements stressing lesbian, black, and Chicano pride, etc. I refer
to this development/advocacy intervention mode as identity activism.
Analogous currents can be seen in self-help groups that come together primarily to share concerns and give mutual support. Some of
these groups also campaign for increased external resources and more
favorable policies and practices. Examples include groups among the
physically disabled, victims of spousal abuse, parents and friends of gay
persons, HIV/AIDs or cancer patients and other special disease-afflicted people, adopted children, the mentally ill, and war veterans (as of
Vietnam, the Gulf, and now Iraq).
Neighborhood block clubs offer a different example. They promote
socializing, sharing of information, neighborhood safety watches, mutual
aid, and preservation of cherished neighborhood values and landmarks.
Generally, activities involve those networking features. However, when
threatened by a porno movie theater coming into the area, or the need
for a traffic light to protect their children, the block clubs will swing into
a strong and even emotional advocacy style.
Relevant writings on the approach include the following: Armstrong
(2002), Bach (2001), Frey (2003), Greif and Ephross (2005), Goodley
(2000), Nylund (2000), and Ogbar (2004).
SOCIAL ADVOCACY
I am starting the discussion of social advocacy with cell 3.3, a predominant mode, and the last one in Table 1.
Social Advocacy (Predominant Mode):
Cell 3.3–Social Action
This strategy relies on pressure as the core instrument of change with
the aim of benefiting the poor, the disadvantaged, the disenfranchised,
and the oppressed. Social justice is a dominant ideal. The approach assumes that key decision-makers, who have the power to correct conditions fostering inequality and hardship, are either reluctant to act or else
oppose making changes. Demanding and forcing change rather than pleading for it is the necessary way of work to achieve the desired outcome.
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This “pure” form of pressured intervention is evident in the militant
social action identified with social change movements in the 1960s. The
call to action emphasized confrontational tactics like marches, picketing, mass meetings, sit-ins, teach-ins, civil disobedience, and other
disruptive or attention-gaining moves. This form of advocacy is often
undertaken by marginal groups, who frequently do not possess funds,
connections, and expertise (the usual forms of influence); consequently,
they rely on turnout in large numbers in their campaigns. This “people
power” can create widespread discomfort and disorder, which provides
an alternative (if not particularly desirable) form of influence. In earlier
versions of this presentation social action of this type represented the
whole social advocacy approach. Here, advocacy is a broader concept,
with social action itself a subset.
Social actionists set out either to organize an aggrieved segment of
the population to make demands for a better life (as in much of the civil
rights movement) or to take action on behalf of the unrepresented and
voiceless (such as in the case of Children Now, or People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals–PETA). They may take aim at legislative policies of political bodies such as a city council, or specific policies and
practices of institutions such as a welfare department or housing authority. The approach may involve both, organizing small groups of sustained day-to-day activists or mobilizing large groups of supporters to
turn out sporadically en masse. Some advocates promote larger fundamental changes, including the redistribution of power and resources and
gaining access to decision-making for marginal groups. Radical socialist
and Marxist groups embody this.
Pressure as a means of influence is also evident in some advocacy
groups that focus on conventional lobbying and legislative reform rather
than grassroots organizing. Examples include Mothers Against Drunk
Driving, the Women’s Campaign Fund, Rock the Vote, AIDS Action
Council, the Gray Panthers, and the American Association of Retired
Persons (AARP).
Given norms in the United States that frown on civic and political
militancy, together with the rise of conservative ideology and political
power, the achievements of militant grassroots social action movements
have been uneven. Yet it is clear that progress has often come from activism that pressures the establishment. Reisch (2005, p. 297) sums up
the successes this way:
Radical organizers in urban areas have enabled communities to
acquire to gain greater control over their schools, health care, and
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social services. They have helped community residents resist the
encroachment of unchecked development . . . and living wage
campaigns have attempted to address the disparity in income levels among U.S. workers. In rural areas, radical organizers have
mobilized farm communities against power companies and the
takeover of family farms by powerful agribusinesses.
Reisch went on to say that it is difficult to make a distinction between
radical and reformist change efforts. I’ll delve into that question in the
next section.
The militant social action approach has been embraced by the Industrial Areas Foundation–IAF (the Alinsky group) and ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), as well as labor
unions and radical political action movements. Training institutes have
been set up by the Midwest Academy and Industrial Areas Foundation
to equip low-power constituencies with appropriate skills. This form of
organizing is seen in environmental protection organizations, anti-war
demonstrators, some gay and lesbian organizations, civil rights groups,
and organizations protesting abuses of the global economy. The WalMart campaign which has blocked expansion of the retailing giant and
fought its low wage practices is a conspicuous contemporary example.
Thinkers providing an intellectual foundation for the advocacy approach include Marx, Fourier, Bakunin, and Habermas; it was then
advanced, in part, by advocacy activities of Jane Addams and her Progressive Era allies. Alinsky’s Reveille for Radicals (1946) and Rules for
Radicals (1972) spell out his slant on philosophy and tactics. Newer
writings on social action include Andrews and Reisch (2002), Buhle
(1998), Hall (1999), Mondros (2002), Reisch (2005), and Thompson
(2001).
Advocacy with Planning/Policy:
Cell 3.1–Social Reform
Militant social action does not have the currency it once had. There
is less public tolerance for the disruptive tactics used by agitators. Citizens scowl at those methods rather than give sympathetic support, and
officials and power elites have become skillful in counteracting confrontations.
Also, wrangling and fragmentation among single-issue advocacy
groups has been wearing and unproductive. Each aggrieved constituency has been advancing its own particular interests in a “politics of
Jack Rothman
31
identity” (Gitlin, 1996). People of color–African Americans, Latinos,
Asian Americans, and Native Americans–have tended to go their own
ways, independently and often competitively. Multiculturalism, then,
has its downside. But since many local groups are typically not strong
enough to achieve significant results on their own, coalition building has
become endemic in social action. However, these coalitions are fluid,
shifting, and irregular; new configurations have to be formed for different issues constantly–causing burnout and draining off energy that
could be focused on external targets.
Some militants have come to realize that they need to take a tactical
turn, which involves an approach continuing a deep commitment to social justice, but combining it now with the measured use of data-infused
planning methods. Militants who have shifted over often find, perhaps
to their surprise, that other staunch advocates are already there–and hard
at work.
Social reform is probably the best terminology for this alternative approach. Social reform is closely associated with the Progressive Era at
the beginning of the 20th century. America had experienced enormous
industrial growth, and with it came both soaring prosperity for the industrial giants and aching social despair for those below. An extraordinarily talented and dedicated group of intellectuals, activists, and social
workers hastened to rectify those conditions: Jane Addams, John Dewey,
Lillian Wald, Margaret Sanger, Upton Sinclair, Carrie Chapman Catt,
Robert M. La Follette–just to name a few prominent leaders in that
busy reformist period. They steered through the political system an
abundance of laws and regulations on child labor, housing codes, merit
employment, food and drug safety, women’s suffrage, juvenile courts,
immigrant rights, workers’ compensation, and many, many more. They
thereby provided a lasting model of sophisticated activism to promote
equity.
To my mind, the most prominent contemporary prototype of social action is Ralph Nader, for the profusion of citizen action entities
he has spawned carry forward the tradition of reform. Advocacy in favor of consumer interests is Nader’s primary thrust and his work features tactics that involve media exposure of corporate and governmental
abuses, consumer boycotts, legislative campaigns, and the like. The
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a counterpart organization
that focuses on federal and state social policy expenditures impacting
low- and middle-income people. Social reform advocacy relies heavily
on factual documentation through well-researched and high-level reports prepared by expert data analysts and policy specialists.
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From the very start–presenting a mountain of data to expose the safety
hazards in the automobile industry–Nader, aided by his many associates
and staffers, has used information power as a chief weapon against special interests and malefactors. Separate divisions of the Nader-inspired
Public Citizen organizational complex deal with health, energy, social
litigation, critical mass energy, environmental protection, congressional behavior and, of course, auto safety. The work also includes the dissemination of accurate factual information to consumers so that they can
make valid choices. The Internet is an important medium for this purpose
(as a resource to support advocacy work generally).
The Children’s Defense Fund, a high profile child advocacy organization, uses research data similarly, as does the Natural Resources
Defense Fund in the environmental protection area. The list is long:
Planned Parenthood, American Civil Liberties Union, National Council
on the Aging, National Women’s Health Council, Common Cause, The
International Forum on Globalization, and the Urban Institute.
The reformist orientation is treated in Jaycox (2005), Marten (2005),
Nader (2000), Patton and Sawicki (1993), Ross (1973), and Southern
(2005).
Advocacy with Substantial Capacity Development:
Cell 3.2–Solidarity Organizing
“Solidarity forever, for the Union makes us strong”: If there is an anthem in the American labor movement, the song “Solidarity Forever” is
it. Members who know no other union song know this one (and maybe
also folksinger Woody Guthrie’s “Union Maid”). An organizer for the
Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW or the “Wobblies”) wrote
the song that captured the bold character of that organization–uniting all
laboring people into one great union that would win their rights and give
them a better lease on life.
With the Wobblies, brotherhood among all workers, who were already joined together in the laboring class, was a value in its own right.
But, more importantly, it was an organizing tool–the way to gather enough
strength to lift them out of their plight. Big Bill Haywood, the Wobblies’ founder and leader, conceived of a worldwide general strike of
laboring people that would determine who would run things–the workers or the bosses.
This history is relevant because it talks to undercurrents in present-day America. Traces of that earlier vision are detectible in the operations of the Farm Workers Union. The grape workers in the fields are
Jack Rothman
33
not striving to take over the headquarter suites of the company executives. But they and their Union want to break the hold the companies
have on the miserable conditions and barely livable wages they work
under.
Migrant farm workers in California endured an impoverished existence for over a century. Largely uneducated, moving from region to region, farm to farm, and season to season, sleeping along roadsides, they
were no match for wealthy farmers and later giant agribusinesses who
were more than happy to make use of them as cheap labor. Cesar Chavez,
who came from a family of such laborers, was able to see beyond things
as they were and in the early 1960s took steps to organize his compatriots in the field into what became the United Farm Workers Union.
Chavez had a different concept of union organizing. He started out
initially working for the Community Service Organization, an Alinskysponsored social action group concerned with a range of quality of life
issues. Chavez eventually took it upon himself not only to improve economic conditions of the migrant workers, but also to enhance their perception of themselves as a group. He initiated a program of Latino
activism that aimed for immediate standard of living gains, using picketing, marches, strikes, and a dramatic grape boycott. But he also sought
to foster a sense of peoplehood for Mexican Americans. Underlying the
advocacy is a component involving mutual aid and community building
among the membership, almost in the form of an extended intraethnic
block club.
As Tedjada-Flores (2004) has declared: “His vision didn’t include just
the traditional bread and butter issue of unionism; it was about reclaiming dignity for a people who were marginalized by society . . . La Causa,
the cause.” La Causa thereby became both an organizing tool and a
long-term goal. Chavez had invented something new: a union that was
also an ethnic civil rights organization.
Pablo Freire’s work involves a similar blend, in that he has endeavored through an educational approach originally to empower impoverished peasants in Brazil and Chile to act against the forces holding them
down. He visualizes “education as the practice of freedom,” and through
“conscientization” brings uninformed people together to perceive both
their collective state of being and ways to change it (Freire, 1998).
Friere’s is an inspiring model that has general applicability and has been
adapted by the Black Power, La Raza, and other ethnic movements.
In feminist groups, the women’s “9 to 5” movement emphasized
focused change in work arrangements, with sisterhood in lower key.
Earlier, in women’s consciousness-raising study groups of the 1970s,
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solidarity was dominant and specific change goals secondary. In some
movements, the precise weighting of rights and solidarity is difficult to
determine. The balance may even shift from time to time within the
same organization.
Writings on this intervention mode are in Cleaver and Katsiaficas
(2001), Daniel (1981), Friere (1998), Gall (2003), Hall (2001), Kamper
(2003), Navarro (2000), and Vargas (2005).
AN ARRAY OF STRATEGIC MIXTURES
The overall framework presented here in both text and tables constitutes just one of many possible ways to analyze and describe community and macro practice. Admittedly, the ninefold framework has
limited scope. But by modulating the proportions of the basic strategies
innumerable variations can be produced. For example, combining a
very large degree of capacity development with a very small degree of
advocacy is characteristic of religious institutions. Local churches and
synagogues illustrate that mix. Most of their efforts are aimed at building and educating the membership and creating fellowship. Yet they
sometimes engage in advocacy when they feel their interests are threatened. For instance, they might fight a plan for restrictive parking on the
block because it could interfere with church attendance.
Probably infinite configurations can be made by combining these
three basic strategic approaches to intervention in varying proportions.
Classic community welfare planning councils, for example, brought together social agencies to share ideas and information, and to strengthen
their bonds, in order to form a more successful and integrated service delivery system. In conjunction with the agencies the councils also designed
plans and policy frames geared to providing more effective and efficient
services to community residents. In addition, these organizations engaged in advocacy, lobbying the city council and the state legislature for
more funds and broader mandates to meet client needs and expedite
agency operations. Chambers of Commerce use the same threefold set
of intermingled actions on behalf of the business community.
Despite its obvious malleability, this conceptual framework delineated here at least provides an orienting lens–a heuristic tool for finding
one’s way around the field of social intervention for human betterment.
It furnishes one of several maps that can be used for that purpose. Alternative conceptual frameworks are in Friedman (1987), Jeffries (1996),
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35
Minkler and Wallenstein (2005), Mizrahi (1999), Popple (1996), and
Weil and Gamble (2005), among others.
As I have shown in my previous work (Rothman, 2001), different
strategies bring forth different practice roles, and the same applies when
the strategy repertoire is broadened in the way suggested here. Likewise, I have shown that the strategies are phased over time and can be
mutually reinforcing in their application, rather than encapsulated or in
conflict. Further, value dimensions of the human service professions selectively support one or another of these social change initiatives. Elaboration can be found in my writings.
A FINAL NOTE
It is clear that planning and policymaking are significant elements in
contemporary life. Vast funds and armies of trained and sophisticated
practitioners, officials, and academics from many fields energize this
enterprise in both the governmental and private spheres. That is no surprise. In a socially and ecologically complex and sometimes threatening
world, expert social planning and policymaking by large, rationalistic
bureaucracies equipped with specialized professionals and technologies are essential for national and community survival.
At the same time, the tendencies of such bureaucracies and their sponsoring government regimes to become heavy-handed, arrogant, rigid,
and self-serving are well-known. “Get the government off my back!” is
a lament heard from many who feel hemmed in and regimented by rules,
regulations, and blundering policies imposed upon them from above.
Citizens tend to view large formal bodies, together with their policymaking and planning operations, as callous oppressors rather than helpful benefactors. They are to a large extent disillusioned, cynical, and
suspicious because of financial corruption, cronyism, and lack of transparency.
The offsetting influence of local concerns and indigenous interests
helps keep policies and plans fluid and responsive to real needs. Voices
of the grassroots provide information, perspectives, and drive that make
planning all the more effective and give it a human quality. The perpetual
crush of pluralistic pressures, without mediating instrumentalities, can
lead to a neo-Darwinian nightmare of chaos, competition, and inequity.
Also, experience shows that on their own–even when grassroots organizations coalesce–they cannot muster the power and wherewithal needed
to overcome the mammoth predicaments of the day.
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Both rationalistic planning in formal organizations and participatory/
grassroots forms of problem solving have merits, and these can be
magnified when linked (Litwak & Meyer, 1966). Yet theorists and adherents of each side often take separate tacks, either ignoring or disparaging the other. That kind of separation is mostly counterproductive, even
damaging.
On a global scale, an important challenge ahead lies in mixing the
best features of laissez faire societies that emphasize voluntarism and
freedom with the best features of more collectivist societies that emphasize system planning and equality. Effort involving the melding of these
different layers and tendencies can create a rewarding balance–and
in the long run probably offers the best formula for people-validating
social change.
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