Politicians and governments are desperate to find interventions that help them to navigate the contentious incidents or moments of tragedy that draw media attention and fuel community tensions, including hate-fuelled protests or civil unrest.
The clear lessons presented here are drawn from five years of researching polarisation and its impact on communities over two research projects, which were conducted by Amy Sanders and her colleagues in the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD). This work culminated in a Communities Resisting Division Practitioners’ Toolkit that was funded by the British Academy’s Seed Fund and co-produced with the Jo Cox Foundation, Cardiff More in Common Partnership, Cardiff Community Cohesion Team, 106 community practitioners and 34+ community organisations. Online resources linked to this toolkit will be made publicly available shortly, but in the meanwhile, here are key insights for policy makers:
1. Remember the two dimensions: A community cohesion strategy should consider how to promote unity as a preventative measure AND how to support communities when they face contentious incidents. Theory and policy often address these two issues separately, but our findings show that they are two sides of the same coin.
2. Resist the downward spiral: Populations are overwhelmed by the perceived decent towards threat, crisis and division. A strategic aim should be to counter this to enable communities to feel hopeful and part of the solution.
3. Be ready to respond to contentious incidents and support the springboard effect: Our research shows that contentious incidents occur frequently in a locality. Don’t panic. When these unfold, communities can take action and respond. This can be a springboard for future community activities to promote unity. A strategy should be in place to channel support to communities and steer existing resources towards the springboard effect, creating a positive upwards momentum. Provide access to a quick initial fund to build community group engagement and enable this springboard effect.
4. Realise resourcing cohesion is not as difficult as you think: It is not rocket science and the knowledge and skills already exist. Traditional community activities and community development approaches can be used to advance unity. Make use of existing resources through community groups and local voluntary organisations. This needs relatively small funds to orientate activities towards promoting unity. Crucially, to make this work, policymakers must protect existing resources for the community and voluntary sector.
5. Embed the qualities that promote unity in community level interventions: The Wales Centre for Public Policy’s (WCPP) social cohesion evidence review has shown that the connection between community volunteering projects and cohesion needs to be reinforced. Evidenced-based qualities that promote unity through community activity are well recognised and include:
- Exposing people to diversity & celebrating diversity; and
- Encouraging working together on a shared goal.
Additional qualities identified by community members for the toolkit included:
- Food sharing projects;
- Cross-generational projects; and
- Projects that are welcoming and inclusive
6. Follow this clear path to scale up the impact:
Our research shows:
- Local identity can be used to build a sense of unity;
- The impact of this can be scaled up if multiple organisations work together in partnership, and these partnerships then network together across geographical areas; and
- Such network structures can become multi-layered forming networks of networks to create intricate collaborative structure.
Therefore, recognise the value of establishing grassroots networks of community organisations connecting across geographical areas. This mycelium network growth should be encouraged and resourced in national cohesion strategies. This is supported by the WCPP evidence review which emphasised the need to invest in community infrastructures.
7. Governments, know your place: The state must strike a careful balance by supporting networks, but allowing them to grow organically through the community and voluntary sector. A case study of how this can be achieved is the Welsh community cohesion teams linked to the Welsh Government’s Cohesion Programme.
8. Know how to inspire belonging and hope: Recognition should be given to the role that networks can play in inspiring hope to counter the narrative of threat and despair, as illustrated by the Jo Cox Foundation’s ‘More in Common’ network of networks.
9. Reinforce the networks: While there is clear evidence of how to build these networks, our research identified an area requiring further development to ensure the individual community members understand their place in this work. New methods should be piloted which engage individual community members already involved in community organisations to reflect on the role they can play in promoting unity and overcoming division, thereby building belonging to a movement (see 12).
10. Prepare communities: When a community faces a contentious incident or moment of tragedy which can lead to increased tensions, the grassroots community networks described above (see 6) will enable the community to source support. There is clear advice for communities to prepare them for these incidents. Share advice before a crisis arises through these networks, so that community organisations know in advance how to respond and where to access support. Policy makers should build this expectation in the support they offer networks via infrastructure organisations.
11. Use existing media support: Small voluntary and community organisations need comms support when media storms hit. Our research shows that many community organisations lack the communications expertise necessary to respond to the media and all organisations lack the social media expertise needed to know how to avoid fanning the flames. Third sector infrastructure bodies and local authorities have communications teams. Mechanisms should be developed to enable organisations to access comms support from these sources when facing moments of contention or tragedy.
12. Create community communication infrastructures: Organisations need to know about this support in advance of a crisis unfolding. Responsibility should fall on third sector infrastructure bodies and local authority communications teams to connect with these organisations and build pre-existing relationships. Moreover, policy actors want to know how to counter mis- and dis-information and there is a lack of evidence for how this can be approached. Shared comms channels can be developed and then used to disseminate counter-messaging when harmful mis- and dis-information is circulated in real time.
This research details existing cohesion interventions that can be implemented at a structural level and identifies further interventions to meet gaps. The WCPP evidence review found that there is a need for greater understanding of structural and population level interventions given that current cohesion intervention evidence is limited to the group, interpersonal or individual level. Our research was not designed to examine efficacy, so we suggest that the opportunity to capture data on these Welsh interventions is now, and it could meaningfully provide solutions to a social problem that is not just a concern to Welsh policy but of importance on a global scale.
This WISERD research was funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the British Academy New Researchers Network Seed Fund. The research team included Dr Amy Sanders, Professor Mike Woods, Dr Rhys Dafydd Jones and Dr Flossie Caerwynt. There are a number of journal articles pending publication.
