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Abstract
The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 offered not only an end to welfare as we know it but also suggested a subtle mandate to increase active citizenship in political decision making. Localized welfare policy decisions, according to supporters of devolution, would make government more efficient and effective and would offer an improved quality of life for citizens because citizens would participate more if policies were made within their own communities. With this notion in mind, this research has focused on examining welfare reform in light of active citizenship.
Four classic features of active citizenship were used to examine the role citizens played in welfare reform on the local level. These features include authoritative action, consideration of the public interest, learning/education, and community/relationship. An exploratory case study was implemented to analyze the presence of active citizenship using data from interviews and archival data such as meeting minutes, memos, letters, and newspaper clippings.
Findings indicated that the role citizens played in welfare reform in this jurisdiction was mainly two-fold. In general, citizen involvement was more instrumental, but there was evidence of genuine efforts to engage citizens in the process in a meaningful way. But what hindered authentic participation from blossoming into something more can be contributed to the structure of the committee, which was regulated by the legislation; the perceptions and attitudes of citizens and public administrators; and the all too common instance of playing “politics” in the course of making public decisions.
