Where
homes are to be lost to the sea as a consequence of climate change, sea level
rise and related policy decisions, Defra has stated an intention to support
affected communities in adapting to the physical, social and economic effects
of change.[1]
(p.19)
Defra-commissioned guidance for local
authorities specific to this purpose – ‘Guidance for Community Adaptation Planning and
Engagement (CAPE) on the Coast’ - states that
“communities that are most at risk to coastal change (sic) must be informed,
engaged, and empowered to take an active part in what happens locally.”[2] (p.7)
CAPE has it that extensive engagement
might be recommended where consultation is “characterised by (potential or
actual) high conflict, controversy and uncertainty about the problem” although,
again, this is “most likely to affect many.” (p.23) Here, the guidance appears
to assume an awareness and capacity on the part of affected communities that
might inform coherent and powerful protest – but on what basis, or bases, might we expect
people in affected communities to act collectively with a view to influencing
policy?
The
social movement theorist Charles Tilly proposes that “The analysis of
collective action has five big components: interest, organization,
mobilization, opportunity, and collective action itself”, with ‘interest’
concerned with “the gains or losses resulting with a group’s interaction with other
groups”[3] (p.7). Recent decades have
seen reevaluation of ‘traditional’ structural interpretations of collective interest
and action in the context of industrial societies. According to Della Porta and
Diani, such interpretation made central conflicts between capital and labour. Key to this was the idea of a working class identity – and associated
political behaviour – that was the consequence not only of its relationship to
the means of economic production, but also to the concentration of workers in
“large productive units” and in urban areas.[4] (2006; p.38)
However,
change has thrown the utility of this interpretation into question. Della Porta
and Diani propose that a decline in industrial work in favour of administrative
and service occupations and accompanying new middle class, a shift away from
stable and protected forms of work, migration to the stronger economies and the
entry of women into the labour force have all contributed to a muddying of the
water in terms of class relations and conflicts, with the consequence that it
has “affected lines of definition and criteria for interest definition within social
groups, which were previously perceived as homogeneous.” (p.39)
The
rise of consumption sectors
Potentially
useful to us given the centrality of state decision-making to coastal change is
Touraine’s proposal that the crucial cleavage now is “between the different
kinds of [state] apparatus and user – consumers or more simply the public –
defined less by their specific attributes than by their resistance to
domination by the apparatus.”[5] (1981, p.6-7)
Taking
up this theme, Taylor-Gooby describes the development of the state and its
involvement in people’s lives as a “striking feature of the post-war political
economy” and describes as important attempts to understand the relevance of
these developments for political consciousness through “the idea of consumption
sectors”[6] (p.592). This refers to
“the division between groups in society who share common interests based on
division in access to the means of consumption” (p.592). Saunders observes that
“One obvious candidate for such a new fault line is housing tenure, for the
decline of class voting seems to coincide with the growth of working-class home
ownership”[7] (p.206) – again, this seems
apposite given what is at stake for home owners who stand to ‘lose’ from
coastal change.
In
terms of the formation of political alignment and activity, Dunleavy writes
that “Collective consumption…is typically concerned with services provided by
the state apparatus…In exclusively individualized forms for consumption,
location continues to be determined by household incomes…”. Collective
consumption processes, he tells us, “create an inter-subjective-basis for the
development of political action”, in part due to “the directly politicized
context of provision”.[8] (p.418-9) I take this to
mean that conflict is sparked by competing demands on collective provision
which may not all be satisfied as a consequence of decision-making processes. So,
has the UK’s becoming what Peter Saunders has described as ‘a nation of home owners’
surpassed traditional class effects in terms of people’s sense of self,
political attitudes and willingness to work together to protest?
Class
or consumption as a predictor of social action?
Whilst
Taylor-Gooby is of the view that “The consumption sector approach…appears to be
relatively successful in explaining a range of political phenomena – from local
party organization to voting behaviour in national elections” (p.593), Saunders
is less clear – at least as to political alignments and motivations of home
owners. On the one hand, he argues that “In
Britain and in other countries, home owners frequently act in concert against
what they see as a perceived threat to their common interests” (p.256), whilst
on the other he states that “To demonstrate that owner-occupiers share common
material interests is to say nothing about whether and how these interests are
mobilized politically.” (p.229). To cloud the picture still further, he cites Halle’s
view[9] that “a class solidarism
at work may go hand in hand with a tenure-based conservatism at home…we all
occupy a number of different roles which give us different sets of interests to
pursue or defend according to the situation…”. (p.256-7)
Whilst
home-ownership - by far the most popular form of housing tenure – is a prime
example of individual consumption according the consumption cleavage thesis,
the provision of sea defence which, despite recent reforms, continues to be
funded principally by the state – is an example of collective consumption, and
one that is politically contentious in that it’s benefits are not universally
enjoyed. Put crudely, the majority living on the coast will have their
individual assets (and means of welfare) protected by a collectively-funded and
managed ‘good’ for the foreseeable future, whilst a minority will not. There is potential, then, in our asking how
the ‘interests’ of coastal ‘crunch’ communities might be structured by their
consumption position and the effects of this on political mobilization –
although not to the exclusion of consideration of traditional occupational
class structure.
[2] Defra 2009c. Guidance
for Community Adaptation Planning and Engagement (CAPE) on the Coast, working
paper, Scott Wilson/Defra 2009.
[3] Tilly, C. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. New
York: Random House.
[4] Della Porta, D. and
Diani, M. 2006. Social Movements: An
Introduction (second edition). Blackwell.
[5] Touraine, A. 1981. The voice and the eye: An analysis of social
movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[6] Taylor-Gooby, P.
1986. Consumption Cleavages and Welfare Politics. Political Studies, XXXIV, 592-606
[7] Saunders, P. 1990. A Nation of Home Owners. London: Unwin
Hyman
[8] Dunleavy, P. 1979. The
Urban Basis of Political Alignment: Social Class, Domestic Property Ownership,
and State Intervention in the Consumption Process. British Journal of Political Science. Volume 9, 409-443.
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