Interrupting the flow

As the dust begins to settle on the aftermath of what was an entirely unexpected, though for many unsurprising, wave of rioting in the UK, there are likely to be many policymakers, journalists and other social commentators coming to terms with their occasionally all-too-unmeasured responses.

As the dust begins to settle on the aftermath of what was an entirely unexpected, though for many unsurprising, wave of rioting in the UK, there are likely to be many policymakers, journalists and other social commentators coming to terms with their occasionally all-too-unmeasured responses.

Although much of the debate immediately following the riots focused on how we might address the root causes of gang culture and violence, from the right citing moral degradation to the left blaming an unequal and unjust society, others looked at what could be done to curtail the use of social media for organising and encouraging destructive acts of violence in future disturbances. This prompted a few to suggest that the the likes of Twitter, Facebook and BBM should be shut down for certain periods, while David Cameron indicated he was considering “banning people” altogether from using these social media platforms.

While a firm response is admirable, the kind of cumbersome, heavy-handed reactions that we’ve seen so far are reminiscent of the New Labour technocracy that the government itself is so often critical of. What is more, as my colleague Thomas Neumark points out in a recent RSA Comment post, if recognised and used in the right way, social media can help give people access to wider networks and in the process foster more positive cross-community relationships. As a recent study by the Pew Research Centre in the US has found, those using sites such as Facebook are far more likely to receive emotional support and companionship than their counterparts; the medium, it seems, is certainly not the problem, but rather part of the solution.

Perhaps at the heart of this confusing debate lies a deeper inability among policymakers to “let go” and accept that events are for the most part unpredictable and complex. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb would say, people still seem to be living in a stone-age “mediocristan”, whereby they envisage that a specific set of actions should, by way of a linear process, lead to a given set of results. Indeed, it’s what our hunter-gatherer brains have evolved to expect. But attempting to deal with today's adaptive problems using technical solutions is at best naïve, and at worst negligent.

Rather, the focus of our efforts should be to go with the grain of what we have already, accepting that we can’t control everything that’s going to happen, but at the same time realising that there are numerous assets out there which we can tap into to control and dampen any given situation. The most obvious and highly effective of these assets are the people that already sit within these networks.

As Matthew Taylor noted before the riots took place, the culture of gang violence which is endemic in many areas can only truly be addressed by young people themselves (or in some cases community leaders). Allowing and encouraging these individuals to “monitor” social media platforms and intervene before things get out of hand is likely to be much more effective than any response offered by the police or statutory services. A new documentary, The Interrupters, which follows outreach workers in Chicago as they attempt to pick up on small incidents and mollify them before they turn into something bigger, is testament to the power of this approach.

While Tony Blair’s injunction for policy makers to attack what is a specific problem with a specific response has been criticised for being too technocratic and for ignoring underlying tensions in society, there is no doubt that he is certainly on to something. What is missing in his response to the crisis, however, is some kind of recognition that we need a specific person to provide that specific response to that specific problem. Relying solely on public services and the police to tackle these dilemmas is symptomatic of a state that is used to delivering positive change through top-down managerial efforts and heavy-handed responses.

It is now becoming ever more apparent that a large degree of future of policymaking has to lie instead with harnessing the power of networks, and in particular the key individuals within those networks. Yes, it is important to tackle the root cause of a problem, whether you believe it to be an irresponsible culture or an unequal society, but let’s also focus on what’s achievable in the present, drawing upon the best reserves of communities to help them intervene in their own challenges.