John Creighton

December 13th, 2009 by John Creighton in Dispatches

Tags: Culture-Structure, Public Leaders

What is required to build public will for action?

Public leaders often turn to public relations, marketing and public opinion research professionals to help answer these questions.  This cadre typically advises that building public will is a matter of precisely framing issues and staying on message.

There is merit to this point of view.  The ways in which people talk about an issue influences how they think about the issue and ultimately influences their actions and the political ideas they’re willing to support.  It makes sense then to try to shape how people talk about issues.

The effort to reframe “estate tax” as “death tax” is a good example of how framing and messaging can change a policy debate.  There was widespread support for an estate tax in this country for decades.  The frame “death tax” changed the game.

A “death tax” seems inherently unfair.  Why should the government take money from a family just because a loved one has died?  This idea resonates with me to an extent.  My wife and I choose to put our earnings in investments and savings to gift to our children in the future.  Why should our choice to spend our money in this way rather than on consumer goods we don’t need be taxed at a higher rate?

The “death tax” frame has effectively focused people’s attention on taxes imposed on individual families and buried discussion about whether there are social benefits to an estate tax.  An original intent of the estate tax was to mitigate the accumulation of power.  Inheriting great wealth bestows power upon people who have accomplished nothing more than winning a DNA lottery.  Is that what we want?

Reframing the estate tax as a “death tax” and staying consistent on this message helped to build the public will to ignore the social benefit part of the policy conversation.  This is one example that framing and messaging do matter.  But, the barriers to building public will for action, as often as not, have nothing to do with messaging.

I wrote in a previous post that culture follows structure.  This axiom suggests that infrastructure, technology and policy influences people’s behavior, attitudes and values.  Not necessarily the other way round.  This idea helps us to understand that it is possible for public will to exist but structural barriers prevent people from taking action.  Change the structures and people will act.  Here is an example.

Communities that allow residents to place all recyclable materials into a single curb-side receptacle – often called single-stream recycling – divert far more materials away from landfills than communities that require people to sort their paper, cardboard, plastic and metal and then haul it to a collection center.

Longmont, Colorado, where I live, recently adopted the single-stream approach.  Not surprisingly, recycling rates went way up.  Had people’s attitudes changed?  Was there suddenly greater public will to act in an environmentally conscience way?  Not likely.  Recycling just became more convenient.

I write this post as a caution to public leaders.  Issue framing and messaging are important and powerful tools.  I help to pay our family’s mortgage, in part, by helping public leaders use these tools.

But, it’s important that public leaders not become too enamored with public relations, marketing and public opinion research.  It’s not always better messaging that builds public will.  Often, we don’t need to change people’s minds to get them to take action.

We need to build the public structures that enable people to act on the aspirations they already have.

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John Creighton writes on community life and public leadership at johncr8on.com.  He can be found on Twitter @johncr8on and on Facebook.

Picture Credits:  Curb side recycling by Flickr user otisjohnsonblog.