Empowered Communities: Science, Ideology and the Limits of Political Action

Abstract

AIMS - Against the background of an increased interest in community participation in political processes, this article critically examines how the "community" is constituted as a political entity in the Communities That Care drug prevention programme. METHOD - Through an examination of 14 publications written by the programme developers and other collaborators, I have analysed the programme's theoretical foundation. RESULTS - The programme seeks to constitute the community as an expert community, drawing on the principles of prevention science in its decision-making processes and thereby asserting the primacy of scientific reasoning in politics. Disagreement, otherwise regarded as the "essence" of democratic politics, is to be neutralised through the establishment of a common language based on prevention science. The programme constitutes needs as existing independently of any culturally and politically informed interpretations and promptly met by ready-tested, evidence-based interventions. By combining a consumer subject and an instrumental-rational subject, the programme establishes a specific kind of democratic subject expected to exert its choices on a market offering instant solutions to problems formulated outside of the community's decision-making processes. CONCLUSION - The analysis points to a range of limitations and issues on how community empowerment and democratic participation are conceptualised in the programme. By asserting the primacy of scientific reasoning in drug-policy processes, the programme sets limits to what counts as a political problem and which responses are deemed legitimate. This risks exerting significant closure on the ability of communities to speak in properly political terms.