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A cynical view of "Stakeholder engagement" (not ME/CFS-specific)

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
Just came across the following which resonated with me:

The BC Government is not ignorant of what disabled people need. It knows how badly it has treated disabled people since the nineteenth century. But the Government’s priority is how to dodge having to act on the facts.

Experience has taught the Government that many disabled people and their families are suckers for what Public Relation fraudsters call “stakeholder engagement.” Stakeholder engagement is a magic show intended to create an illusion of democracy. And like all magic shows, stakeholder engagement only works if the audience wants to be fooled.

from: http://beaconnews.ca/surrey/2013/12/disabled-needs-no-secret-to-bc-government/
(this was highlighted in the National ME/FM Action Network magazine)

I have become suspicious of the value of some initiatives over the years e.g. that the CFSAC is set up partly to allow people vent.

Anyway, that's not to say such initiatives can't be useful. It's just that having a forum or outlet to vent is not progress by itself.
 
Messages
13,774
Also, it seems to me that representatives who aren't sceptical and engaged can be often be manipulated by those working in these areas.

And sometimes I get the impression that they're just happy to be in the same room as these impressive people with white coats.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
This comment with respect to CFSAC I have heard more than a few times. Its also arguable that it applies to the CDC.

In a similar process, it is claimed that co-opting advocacy groups has the same purpose. Get them to cooperate, and give them reason to cooperate, and you can direct where they put their effort.
 
Messages
1,446
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http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/11/2/112.full



STRATEGIC ATTACK



… ‘Ron Duchin graduated from the US Army War College, and served as special assistant to the Secretary of Defence and director of public affairs for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) before joining Pagan International and then MBD.



In 1991 he gave a speech to the US National Cattlemen's Association describing how MBD works to divide and conquer activist movements.



Duchin explained that activists fall into four categories: radicals, opportunists, idealists and realists, and that a three-step strategy was needed to bring them down.



First, you isolate the radicals: those who want to change the system and promote social justice.



Second, you carefully `cultivate' the idealists: those who are altruistic, don't stand to gain from their activism, and are not as extreme in their methods and objectives as the radicals.
You do this by gently persuading them that their advocacy has negative consequences for some groups, thus transforming them into realists.



Finally, you co-opt the realists (the pragmatic incrementalists willing to work within the system) into compromise.

“The realists should always receive the highest priority in any strategy dealing with a public policy issue . . .

If your industry can successfully bring about these relationships, the credibility of the radicals will be lost and opportunists can be counted on to share in the final policy solution.”1



Opportunists, those who are motivated by power, success, or a sense of their own celebrity, will be satisfied merely by a sense of partial victory.



“The realists should always receive the highest priority in any strategy dealing with a public policy issue . . .”

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