Why Collaboration?
Not only because we are approaching local elections but even more because of the urgency to respond to the ongoing challenges to local development in South Africa, I argue for a collaborative approach. If we are not going to start collaborating the South African socio-economic and socio-political system will gradually slide into a deep crisis.
I want to explain in this article what I mean with a collaborative approach, why it necessary and why it is possible.
Non Party-Political Coalitions
The South African local government political landscape is slowly but surely moving away from an ANC monopoly. Except for areas where the demographics allowed the DA to attract support, SA local government has been a one-party affair since 1994. However, this is changing. Due to a loss of confidence in the ANC and messy contestation on a local level space has opened for other parties. In some of these contexts it resulted in typical coalition arrangements. I do not dismiss these as insignificant, but they are more a manifestation of the failure of the ANC than the capability of the other parties. It is also not necessarily an indication of better prospects for local development. Moreover, this is not what I mean with collaboration on a local level.
Of course, it is a good thing if political parties could also learn to work together on common issues whether forced or not. It would even be better if political parties could become transformed to be more ‘developmental’ in their approach but that is not what I am talking about in the first instance.
Sectors of society working together
scenario where different sectors of society work together for the common good. In other words, it is when a municipality (whoever the political party(ies) may be), organised business, civil society, education and training institutions and particularly organised structures at a local community level come together to address issues of common concern.
The collaboration that I have in mind is based on the idea that all sectors of society are co-responsible for making local development happen and all sectors have a contribution to make. This does not mean that the municipality or local government does not remain the principal entity that is responsible for a number of key functions and areas of service at a local level, but it only means that that it is not the only entity responsible for local development. That is ‘statism’ – a fixation on the state which is not working and will not work in South Africa.
Thus, besides the role of all the other-mentioned sectors, there is a particularly significant role for local communities in this approach. This is because of a history of disempowerment and disenfranchisement. We need a system that gives more power to communities. It means that communities and citizens must become more directly and democratically involved so that they can become more self-reliant, resilient, and assertive in a skilled and informed developmental sense of the word. The ideal scenario is something akin to the ‘street committees’ of the 1980s and 1990s when SANCO organised people at a “grass roots” level but instead of such committees being agencies of political activism they should now become enabled to perform the role of development facilitation.
I also see a specific role for “development specialists” in this scenario. Not because I am an immodest “development specialist” but because this is what we train our students to do in Development Studies at university. These are people that understand what local development is about. They are trained to understand different approaches, have the skills to co-ordinate and to facilitate collaboration. This is the capacity that we need to see at a community level.
The Concepts
To better understand what we mean with collaboration we need to distinguish between a few of these concepts. Contestation is competition in which the goal is a win/lose outcome, compromise is a give-and -take relationship in which neither party get what they really want, cooperation is when two parties work together in which each pursue their own goals but collaboration is when people agree on a common goal, understand how their own goals are aligned with one another or are incorporated into a common goal. It should lead to co-creation to achieve the common goal. This does not mean agreement with regards to everything but that they may agree on a number of important issues.
I believe that all political parties and all sectors of the South African society can agree on the need for to undo the excessive inequality, collaborative development, and inclusive wellbeing. We can also agree on a set of basic principles or rules of engagement to guide all our actions in this regard. For instance, we can all agree on a non-violent approach.
A collaborative approach to local government?
To agree on the common goal of inclusive wellbeing or inclusive quality of life will require a mindset shift from self-defeating self-interest to seeing the bigger picture. That is being able to see the importance of developing and enhancing the societal system that we all inhabit instead of breaking it down because it is assumed to be owned by the “other.”
An example from my work environment: A farmer that employs a large number of people from local rural communities cannot be indifferent to the wellbeing of the workers and their communities because the low quality of life will make the workers discontented which would weaken their inclination to be productive and efficient workers. Similarly, workers cannot afford to be indifferent about the quality of the agricultural produce that come from the farm and allow the farm to become unproductive because that could cost them their job and the wages that they take home to their families.
Whether the farmers and the workers like it or not they are in the same system and they are dependent on one another. The problem in South Africa is, of course, that workers are often not paid enough to ensure a decent quality of life. This is a problem that must be addressed. Thus, I am not justifying an unjust situation, but I am suggesting that the way to solve the problem is not by breaking down or damaging the system that everyone depends on. Instead of an adversarial and antagonistic solution both parties must find a way to collaborate to both improve and transform the system to become a more inclusive system.
Is it possible?
This is all healthy and good but is it possible? The question is why not? This is a serious question because a common answer would be that humans are incapable of collaboration because they are by their nature prone to conflict because they are self-interested and motivated by greed.
Now, this is where we all need to wake up in South Africa and take note of what have been found by scientific researchers over the last few decades. Some of the most prominent old and outdated sociological and psychological theories placed excessive focus on the “dark side of human nature” by emphasizing the inclination to conflict, aggression, violence, self-interest, power, money, and hedonism.
Based on more recent research we know today is that it is not so simple. While it is certainly true that there is a malevolent or dark side of human nature, research has also clearly articulated a benevolent, positive, growth-oriented side of human beings – a light side. Too much focus on one aspect of human nature at the expense of the other misrepresents the full spectrum of our complex humanity.
Good research over the last thirty years have not only exposed some of the ‘classical’ research on the dark side of human nature and also produced excellent evidence of, for instance, positive emotions, personal growth, altruism, reciprocity, gratitude, forgiveness, intellectual humility, quiet ego, hope, courage, mindfulness, positive connection, grit, self-efficacy, healthy self-esteem, autonomy, search for meaning, purpose, engagement, flow, self-transcendence, and spirituality, morality, character strengths, mature coping styles and authenticity. These all reflect human traits that can be enhanced an illuminated for making the world a better place.
There is powerful evolutionary evidence that the human inclination to cooperate and collaborate is much more powerful than the inclination to conflict, contest and engage in adversarial relations but we also know that it is not appropriate to assume that we can predict how people will respond in specific situations or contexts.
We need to understand this:
Every societal context is different, and people are different. The complex combination of variable contexts and the diversity of people all makes it impossible to predict and make simple assumptions about any societal-human situation. Simple mono-causal Sociological and Psychological theories that predict human behaviour provides ideologues and politicians with easy arguments to promote their agendas. We must rise above this folly and become more rigorous in analysing contexts and people in a situation. We must explore the complex relationship between context or circumstance and human nature. If we can understand context and people, we could work out what encourages the urge and incentive to conflict or collaboration. Our endeavour should be to reduce the conditions for conflict and enhance the conditions for collaborative development.
Because of the diversity of contexts and the diversity of people it is simply not appropriate to predict if people would be inclined to collaborate or contest in a particular situation without good contextual analysis. There is no simple causal link between context and human action. We must become more informed with the finer contextual detail of the situation to be able to anticipate what may be in the way of collaboration or what may encourage conflict.
What I am suggesting is that we become much more serious about understanding what we need to do to promote collaboration towards the common good instead of spending so much of our time to explain why people have reasons to be angry and antagonistic. If we are not going to do this, we will be making live difficult for all of us and eventually undermine the prospects of a social system that enables a good life for all.