In the previous chapter we saw how publics constituted by reference to particular identities may find it hard to secure space for public deliberation in the context of official participation discourses and policies that prioritise community as ‘place’. In this chapter we consider two examples of initiatives that have even less of a profile within contemporary democratic practice: initiatives that are based around campaigns and policy making in relation to specific issues. The fact that we only studied two such examples, one in each of the case study cities, is in itself evidence of the much lower profile of such initiatives in local policy making. As we will see, these examples illustrate many similar issues in terms of the dynamics of the relationship between autonomous SMOs and the official sphere of local policy making. However, their origin in issue rather than identity-based action also leads to some different factors affecting not only issues of membership, but also the nature of the deliberation in which they are engaged. Such issues reflect, in part, the analysis that has been made of differences between ‘instrumental’ movements and both ‘sub-cultural’ and ‘countercultural’ movements (Kreisi et al, 1995). In different ways the logic of action of sub-cultural and counter-cultural movements is focused on identity: the constitution of collective identities within group interaction in, for example the women's movement, and the generation of collective identity from conflictual interaction with other groups in terrorist organisations and some ethnic movements. Instrumental movements, in comparison, have more of an external orientation and action logic; their aim is to impact on the external environment. The ecology movement and peace movement have been identified as examples of instrumental movements. The lower profile of such actions also reflects the way in which policy ‘problems’ are currently constructed and thus the potential for opening up deliberative spaces within which policies can be debated.

The first example grew out of community action focused around poverty. The particular focus of the action we studied was a campaign relating to fuel poverty, which had emerged from a broader-based poverty action group in City B. It was evident in the early stages of our research that our references to ‘social exclusion’ when we introduced the research to local stakeholders prompted rather different responses in the two cities.