Business
Explore this Section
Democratic Futures - Gavin Bailey
PhD Community, Politics and Extremism (year 4)
Summary:
Democratic Futures is a 'think-and-do tank' that works with local public and third sector bodies to promote the ideals of democracy and address the threats of extremism and apathy to democracy.
About me:
I came to Keele to undertake a PhD on community engagement and far-right and radical Islamist activism, after a number of years working in research in the private and public sector. While carrying out this research I began to think about the idea of a disconnect between official politics and the concerns of the public, and the related fear amongst those involved in politics that the public would increasingly be turned off politics; resulting in apathy or support for extremism. I also felt that knee-jerk reactions to extremist views made relations worse, producing a vicious cycle.
As I have been nearing the end of my PhD I have thought about how best to use what I have learnt. While journal articles and books can reach an academic audience they do not necessarily have an impact on policymakers, the public and politicians. Remembering my previous work researching the community sector, I felt that working at a local level with the institutions of ‘civil society’ would be a better way of improving the defence of politics. In the long run I hope to do both academic and practice work.
About the business:
During the time I participated in the student enterprise programme I, along with my business partner Phil Burton-Cartledge, formed Democratic Futures Community Interest Company. We plan to provide training, research and consultancy to organisations at a local level (including councils, universities, businesses, and community groups) and also use the knowledge built to promote the ideas more widely through publications and events. Philanthropic donations and public / charity sector funding will be sought so that client fees can be low or even free for some of the smallest organisations we will work with.
We are currently thinking through three main ‘products’. The first will assess the health of local democracy, drawing on the work of Democratic Audit, assessing everything from participation residents’ associations and charities to political party membership and voting turnout. The second will be a card-based conversation game (based on NEF’s Democs) that will help people discuss democracy and its problems and to think about practical ways to tackle such problems. This will become the basis of a half-day training session. The third concerns the connection between civic culture and regeneration, exploring how the rich reserves of social capital – the sense of community – can help drive the regeneration process.
How Student Enterprise has helped me:
The programme has given me a solid background in business practice, and has given me the jump start to turn a back-of-the-envelope idea into reality. Funding from SpeedWM is providing marketing materials, branding and equipment. Further money from UnLtd - a social entrepreneurship fund, is paying for the development of the conversation game, including trialling it with public and voluntary sector workers.
Future plans:
We are about to start taking this work out to potential clients and funders. This will begin with a stakeholders’ event where we will invite leaders from the public, private and community sector to shape the projects, and perhaps suggest new ones. We will also road-test our training product so we can take it out to clients in 2012, while continuing to work on the other proposed projects.
Website: www.democraticfutures.org.uk
