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1.2: Sociopolitical Contexts of Education

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• Page ID 91097

• Deanna Cozart, Brian Dotts, James Gurney, Tanya Walker, Amy Ingalls, & James Castle
• University of Georgia via GALILEO Open Learning Materials

Although educational policies and practices are sometimes viewed as if they existed in a vacuum, separate from the larger social, political, and cultural contexts, one of the central tenets of multiculturalism asserts that educational decision-making is heavily influenced by each of these contexts. In particular, many scholars of multicultural education point to the importance of the sociopolitical context of education in the modern era as educational policies and practices are increasingly becoming politicized. Given the political nature of educational decision making, the educational policies and practices implemented at national, state, and local levels reflect the values, traditions, and worldviews of the individuals and groups responsible for their design and implementation, which inherently makes education a non-neutral process, though it is often seen as such. Understanding the sociopolitical context of education allows for a critical analysis of educational policies and practices in an effort to reduce educational inequalities, improve the achievement of all students, and prepare students to participate in democratic society.

In the field of multicultural education– and across the social sciences– the sociopolitical context refers to the laws, regulations, mandates, policies, practices, traditions, values, and beliefs that exist at the intersection of social life and political life. For example, freedom of religion is one of the fundamental principles of life in American society, and therefore there are laws in place that protect every individual’s right to worship as they choose. In this instance, the social practices (ideologies, beliefs, traditions) and political process (laws, regulations, policies) reflect each other and combine to create a sociopolitical context that is, in principle, welcoming to all religious practices. There are similar connections between the social and the political in the field of education. Given that one of the main purposes of schooling is to prepare students to become productive members of society, classroom practices must reflect– to some extent– the characteristics of the larger social and political community. For example, in the United States, many schools use student governments to expose students to the principles of democratic society. By organizing debates, holding elections, and giving student representatives a voice in educational decision making, schools hope to impart upon students the importance of engaging in the political process. The policies and practices that support the operation of student government directly reflect the larger sociopolitical context of the United States. Internationally, the use of student government often reflect the political systems used in that country, if a student government organization exists at all. However, sociopolitical contexts influence educational experiences in subtler ways as well.

Throughout the history of American education, school policies and practices have reflected the ideological perspectives and worldviews of the underlying sociopolitical context. As stated above, schools in democratic societies often have democratic student government organizations that reflect the political organization of the larger society, while similar organizations cannot be found in schools in countries that do not practice democracy. Similarly, if a society shares a widespread belief that some groups (based on race, class, language, or any other identifier) are inherently more intelligent than another, educational policies and practices will reflect that belief. For example, as the United States expanded westward into Native American lands during the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, many Americans shared the widespread belief that Native Americans were inherently less intelligent and less civilized than white Americans. This belief system served as a justification for the “Manifest Destiny” ideology that encouraged further westward expansion. Not surprisingly, the larger sociopolitical context of the time influences educational policies and practices. In large numbers, young Native Americans were torn from their families and forced into boarding schools where they were stripped of their traditions and customs before being involuntarily assimilated into “American culture”. These Native American boarding schools outlawed indigenous languages and religions. They required students to adopt western names, wear western clothes, and learn western customs. While from a contemporary perspective these schools were clearly inhumane, racist, and discriminatory, they illustrate how powerful the sociopolitical climate of the era can be in the implementation of educational policies and practices. Educational policies today continue to reflect the larger social and political ideologies, worldviews, and belief systems of American society, and although instances of blatant discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, language, or any other identifier have been dramatically reduced in recent decades, a critical investigation into contemporary schooling reveals that individuals and groups are systematically advantaged and disadvantaged based on their identities and backgrounds, which will be explored in more depth in subsequent sections of this (book/class).

The role of social institutions in educational experiences are another key consideration in developing an understanding of the sociopolitical contexts of education. The term social institutions refer to the establish, standardized patterns of rule governed behavior within a community, group, or other social system. Generally, the term social institutions includes a consideration of the socially accepted patterns of behavior set by the family, schools, religion, and economic and political systems. Each social institution contributes to the efficiency and sustained functionality of the larger society by ensuring that individuals behave in a manner that consistent with the larger structure, which allows them to contribute to the society. Traffic regulations offer an example of how social institutions work together to create and ensure safety and efficiency in society. In order to reduce chaos, danger, and inefficiency along roadways in the United States, political institutions have created laws and regulations that govern behavior along public roads. Drivers found in violation of these regulations face punishment or fines that are determined by the judicial system. Furthermore, families and schools– and to some extent religions organizations– are responsible for teaching young people the rules and regulations that govern transportation in their society. The streamlined and regulated transportation system produced by the aforementioned social institutions allows economic institutions to function more efficiently. Functionalist Theory is a term used to refer to the perspective that institutions fill functional prerequisites in society and are necessary for social efficiency as seen in the previous example.

However, Conflict Theory refers to the idea that social institutions work to reinforce inequalities and uphold dominant group power. Using the same transportation example, a conflict theorist might argue that the regulations that require licensing fees before being able to legally operate a vehicle disproportionately impact poor people, which would limit their ability to move freely and thereby make it more difficult for them to hold and maintain a job that would allow them to move into a higher socioeconomic class. Another argument from the conflict theorist perspective might challenge institutionalized policies that require drivers to present proof of citizenship or immigration papers before being allowed to legally operate a vehicle. These policies systematically deny the right of freedom of movement to immigrants who entered the United States illegally, thereby limiting their civil rights as well as their ability to contribute to the American economy. Both the Functionalist Theory and Conflict Theory perspectives can contribute to a nuanced understanding of contemporary educational policies and practices by providing contrasting viewpoints on the same issue. Throughout these modules these perspectives will inform the discussion of educational institutions and how they influence– and are influenced by– other social institutions.

Much like educational policies and practices, the rules and regulations set by social institutions do not exist within a vacuum, nor are they neutral in regard to the way they impact individuals and groups. Institutional discrimination refers to “the adverse treatment of and impact on members of minority groups due to the explicit and implicit rules that regulate behavior (including rules set by firms, schools, government, markets, and society). Institutional discrimination occurs when the rules, practices, or ‘non-conscious understanding of appropriate conduct’ systematically advantage or disadvantage members of particular groups” (Bayer, 2011). Historical examples of institutional discrimination in abound in American history. In the field of education, perhaps the most well known example of institutionalized discrimination is the existence of segregated schools prior to the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. During this era, students of color were institutionally and systematically prevented from attending white schools, and instead were forced to attend schools that lacked sufficient financial, material, and human resources. Institutional discrimination in contemporary society, however, is often subtler given that there are a plethora of laws that explicitly prevent discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or any other identifier. Regardless of those laws, social institutions and institutionalized discrimination continue to disadvantage non-dominant groups, thereby advantaging members of the dominant group. Use housing as an example, homeowner’s associations are local organizations that regulate the rules and behaviors within a particular housing community. If a homeowner’s association decides that only nuclear families can live within their community and create a bylaw that stipulates such, the practice of allowing nuclear families and denying non-nuclear families becomes codified as an institutionalized policy. While the policy does not directly state that it intends to be discriminatory, it would disproportionately affect families from cultures that traditionally have households that include aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and other extended family members, a practice that is common in many Asian, African, and South American communities. Although hypothetical, this example represents an example of the subtle ways in which institutional discrimination surfaces in contemporary society.

A more concrete example of institutionalized discrimination can be drawn from the housing market in New Orleans as homes were being rebuilt in the aftermath Hurricane Katrina. While the Lower Ninth Ward– a mostly black neighborhood– was among the most damaged neighborhood in New Orleans, just down river the St. Bernard Parish neighborhood– which was mostly white– was also heavily damaged. By 2009, most of St. Bernard Parish had been rebuilt, while the Lower Ninth Ward remained unfit for living. As families began moving back into the neighborhood, elected officials in St. Bernard Parish passed a piece of legislation that required property owners to rent only to ‘blood relatives’. In effect, the policy barred potential black residents from moving into the area and served to maintain the racial makeup of the neighborhood prior to Katrina. After several months of implementation, the policy was legally challenged and was found to be in violation of the Fair Housing Act in Louisiana courts. In 2014, the Parish agreed to pay approximately $1.8 million in settlements to families negatively affected by the policy. This example illustrates how institutionalized discrimination surfaces in contemporary society. Throughout the modules, instances of institutional discrimination in schools, as well as in American society as a whole, will be critically analyzed in order to develop an understanding of how educators can work to reduce inequality and promote academic achievement for all students.

A basic understanding of social institutions and institutional discrimination helps inform this course’s approach to key educational issues in the field of multicultural education. As the student body in American schools becomes increasingly diverse, it becomes increasingly important for future teachers to know and understand how students’ identities might impact their educational experiences as well as their experiences their larger social and political settings. While there are many issues facing education today, Nieto and Bode (2012) identified four key terms that are central to understanding sociopolitical context surrounding multicultural education. These terms include: equal and equitable education, the ‘achievement gap’, deficit theories, and social justice.

The terms equal and equitable are often used synonymously, though they have vastly different meanings. While most educators would agree that providing an equal education to all students is an important part of their mission, it is sometimes more important to focus on creating equitable educational experiences. At its core, an equal education means providing exactly the same resources and opportunities for all students, regardless of their background. An equal education, however, does not ensure that all students will achieve equally. Take English Language Learners (ELLs) as an example. A group of ELL students sitting in the same classroom as native English speakers, listening to the same lecture, reading the same books, and taking the same assessments could be considered an equal education given that all students are receiving equal access to all of the educational experiences and materials. The outcome of this ostensibly equal education, however, would not be equitable. The ELL students would not be able to comprehend the lecture, books, or assessments and would therefore not be given the real possibility of achieving at an equal level, which is the aim of an equitable education. Equity refers to the educational process that “provides students with what they need to achieve equality” (Nieto & Bode, 2012, p.9). In the case of the ELL example, an equitable education would provide additional resources– perhaps including ESL specialists, bilingual activities and materials, and/or programs that foster native language literacy– to the ELL students to ensure that they are welcomed into the classroom community and are given the opportunity to learn and succeed equally. Working towards educational equality by providing equitable educational experiences is one of the central tenets of multicultural education and will be a recurring topic throughout these modules.

A second key term that is crucial in understanding multicultural education is the ‘achievement gap’. A large body of research has documented that students from racially and linguistically marginalized groups as well as students from low-income families generally achieve less than other students in educational settings. Large scale studies of standardized assessments revealed that white students outperformed black, Hispanic, and Native American students in reading, writing, and mathematics by at least 26 points on a scale from 0 to 500 (Nieto and Bode, 2012; National Center for Educational Statistics, 2009). Though usage of the term has changed over time, it often focuses on the role that students themselves play in the underachievement, which has drawn criticism from advocates of multicultural education because it places too much responsibility on the individual rather than considering the larger sociopolitical and sociocultural contexts surrounding education. While gaps in educational performance no doubt exist, Nieto and Bode (2012) suggest that using terms such as “resource gap”, “opportunity gap”, or “expectations gap” may be more accurate in describing the realities faced by marginalized students who often attend schools with limited resources, limited opportunities for educational advancement or employment in their communities, and face lowered expectations from their teachers and school personnel (p.13). Throughout this (book/course) issues related to the achievement gap’ and educational inequalities based on race, class, gender, and other identifiers will be viewed within the larger social, cultural, economic, and political contexts in order to create a more holistic and systematic understanding of student experiences, rather than focusing purely on the individual.

Historically in educational research, deficit theories have been used to explain how and why the achievement gap exists, but since the 1970s, scholars of multicultural education have been working to dismantle the lasting influence of deficit theory perspectives in contemporary education. The term ‘deficit theories’ refer to the assumption that some students perform worse than others in educational settings due to genetic, cultural, linguistic, or experiential differences that prevent them from learning. The roots of deficit theories can be found in 19 th century pseudo-scientific studies that purported to show ‘scientific evidence’ that classified the intelligence and behavior characteristics of various racial groups. The vast majority of these studies were conducted by white men, who unsurprisingly, found white men to be the most intelligent group of human beings, with other groups falling in behind in ways that mirrored the accepted social standings of the era (Gould, 1981). Though many have been disproved, deficit theories continue to surface in educational research and discourse. Reports suggesting that academic underachievement is a product of cultural deprivation or a dysfunctional relationship with school harken back to deficit theory perspectives. Much like the ‘achievement gap’, deficit theories place the burden of academic underachievement on students and their families, rather than considering how the social and institutional contexts might impact student learning. Deficit theories also create a culture of despondency among educators and administrators since they support the idea that students’ ability to achieve is predetermined by factors outside of the teacher’s control. Multicultural education aims to disrupt the prevalence of deficit theory perspectives by encouraging a more nuanced analysis of student achievement that considers the structural and cultural contexts surrounding American schooling.

The fourth and final term that is central to understanding the sociopolitical context of multicultural education is social justice. Throughout these modules, the term social justice will be employed to describe efforts to reduce educational inequalities, promote academic achievement, and engage students in their local, state, and national communities. Social justice is multifaceted in that it embodies the ideologies, philosophies, approaches, and actions that work towards improving the quality of life for all individuals and communities. Not only does social justice aim to improve access to material and human resources for students in underserved communities, it also exposes inequalities by challenging and confronting misconceptions and stereotypes through the use of critical thinking and activism. Finally, in order for social justice initiatives to be successful, they must “draw on the talents and strengths that students bring to their education” (Nieto and Bode, 2012, p.12). This allows students to see their experiences represented in curriculum content, which can empower and inspire students– not only to excel academically– but also engage in activities that strengthen and build the community around them. These key components of social justice permeate throughout the field of multicultural education.

In order to develop a holistic understanding of educational experiences, these modules will interpret and analyze educational policies and practices through a lens that considers the sociopolitical contexts of education. By recognizing the role that social and political ideologies have over educational decision making, multicultural approaches to education aim to reduce educational inequalities, improve the achievement of all students, and prepare students to participate in democratic society.

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• Published: 17 April 2018

Integrating evidence, politics and society: a methodology for the science–policy interface

• Peter Horton 1 &
• Garrett W. Brown 2  

Palgrave Communications volume  4 , Article number:  42 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

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There is currently intense debate over expertise, evidence and ‘post-truth’ politics, and how this is influencing policy formulation and implementation. In this article, we put forward a methodology for evidence-based policy making intended as a way of helping navigate this web of complexity. Starting from the premise of why it is so crucial that policies to meet major global challenges use scientific evidence, we discuss the socio-political difficulties and complexities that hinder this process. We discuss the necessity of embracing a broader view of what constitutes evidence—science and the evaluation of scientific evidence cannot be divorced from the political, cultural and social debate that inevitably and justifiably surrounds these major issues. As a pre-requisite for effective policy making, we propose a methodology that fully integrates scientific investigation with political debate and social discourse. We describe a rigorous process of mapping, analysis, visualisation and sharing of evidence, constructed from integrating science and social science data. This would then be followed by transparent evidence evaluation, combining independent assessment to test the validity and completeness of the evidence with deliberation to discover how the evidence is perceived, misunderstood or ignored. We outline the opportunities and the problems derived from the use of digital communications, including social media, in this methodology, and emphasise the power of creative and innovative evidence visualisation and sharing in shaping policy.

Introduction

As the world struggles with complex problems that affect all aspects of human civilisation—from climate change and loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, to overpopulation, malnutrition and poverty, to disease, ill health and an ageing population—never before has it been more important to base government policy for intervention upon scientific evidence. In this article, we outline a methodology for integrating the process of scientific investigation with political debate and social discourse in order to improve the science–policy interface.

Science advisors and advisory bodies with scientist representation have steadily increased (Gluckman and Wilsdon, 2016 ); for example, in the UK in the form of the Food Standard Agency (FSA), the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) or globally within the commissions and advisory bodies associated with the United Nations and/or the use of technical review panels such as within The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis. The well-established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a model for other panels, such as the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. However, the process by which scientific evidence becomes part of a policy is complicated and messy (Gluckman, 2017 ; Malakoff, 2017 ), and there are many examples to support the view that this results in fundamental failings to deal quickly or effectively with major global challenges. For example, the time lag between the beginning of meaningful climate action in the COP21 Paris Agreement and the science that proved that greenhouse gas emissions are changing the climate, illustrates the difficulty of evidence-based policy making. It also questions the ultimate effectiveness of policy making, since there is evidence to suggest that COP21 may be too little, too late (Rockstrom et al., 2017 ). Similarly, the continued EU embargo on the use of food from genetically modified (GM) crops shows a serious disconnect between public opinion and the huge amount of scientific evidence that shows that the environmental and health risks are infinitesimal.

What is evidence?

The reasons for these apparent failures are complicated and numerous but one key issue is what constitutes evidence. Even when the problem is clearly one where science can provide a solution, evidence is not only derived from scientific investigation, but also from the political, cultural, economic and social dimensions of these issues, resulting in arguments about relative validity and worth. Hence, bias and prejudice are difficult to remove and evidence is often cherry-picked, only lightly consulted, partially worked into policy (if at all), and/or side-stepped in favour of ideological preferences. Even when evidence is abundant and clear, it is often ignored as we enter a ‘post-truth’ era where the opinions of experts are viewed with scepticism and populist solutions predominate (e.g., a 140 character tweet can brand a piece of sound scientific evidence as ‘fake news’). The ready availability and sharing of information through the internet and social media, which in some sense democratise evidence by increasing the diversity of inputs, should be a positive and welcome development. Condorcet’s mathematical Jury Theorem suggests that ‘larger groups make better decisions’ and that more, and diverse, input leads to better ‘collective intelligence’ (Condorcet, 1785 ). Thus, the increase in diverse information should foster ‘the wisdom of crowds’ (Surowiecki, 2005 ) towards ‘the better argument’ (Landemore and Elster, 2012 ). However, online content is personalised through the use of algorithms aimed to harvest and respond to existing preferences. Thus, the internet often fosters an ‘echo chamber’ effect that limits cognitive diversity and increases ‘group think’ by providing and linking information based solely on the entrenched preferences of the internet user and like-minded individuals (Grassegger and Krogerus, 2016 ). In addition, there is a view that scientific investigation is not clear, takes place outside the public sphere and often perceived as purposefully elitist. This gives rise to conspiracies about who produced the evidence and for what purpose, eroding epistemic authority. As a result, highly personalised preferences are reinforced by selective information, despite the fact that this information might amount to misinformation, exaggeration, falsehood and degraded or ‘cherry-picked’ evidence. Hence, rational policy development is thwarted because governments are tempted to use the evidence that concurs with the preconceived views of their constituents as well as their own existing political mantras, or which confirms public perceptions and aspirations, whether this mirrors the best available evidence or not.

The problem with scientific evidence

For scientists this is a particularly difficult problem to deal with. Science establishes facts, such as the fundamental physics proving that increasing levels of CO 2 in the atmosphere will result in an increased greenhouse effect. Even when proof is elusive (such as knowing exactly how, where and when this greenhouse effect will be translated into changes in climate) the notion of evidence is sacrosanct, it being derived from objective analysis, evaluation, testing, experimentation, retesting and falsifiability. To see hard won evidence ignored, distorted or diluted in favour of what seem ill-informed subjective views leads to frustration and anger. However, a more constructive and positive response would be to realise that the evaluation of scientific evidence cannot be divorced from the political, cultural and social debate that inevitably and justifiably surrounds most major issues. Using the two examples above, the long and sometimes tortuous pathway to the COP21 climate change accord results from the difficult economic trade-offs involved and the very different socio-political perspectives of the nations of the world. In the case of GM, the emotional context of food consumption that may favour natural foods cannot be treated dismissively, nor can the legitimate concerns about increased power and control that GM might give to multinational agri-businesses. As stated elsewhere (Cairney, 2016 ), scientific investigation defines problems, but often does not identify policy-acceptable, scalable and meaningful solutions. Scientists are often not effective in communicating their findings to audiences outside academia and frequently hold naive assumptions that good evidence will be readily accepted and can quickly contribute to policy. Not appreciating the complexity and non-linearity of many of the intractable problems that science is addressing (so-called wicked problems—DeFries and Nagendra, 2017 ) is often the root cause of this failure. Thus, the question often asked is can we improve the ways in which scientific evidence is constructed, integrated and communicated, so it can contribute more effectively, efficiently and quickly into policy formulation, in ways that combat the problems of a ‘post-truth’ era.

Producing evidence

Ideas for a policy intervention follow identification of a particular societal problem and may be initiated by a variety of organisations—governments, agencies of government such as research funding bodies, political parties, pressure groups, NGOs, think-tanks or groups of concerned academics (Fig. 1 ). It may be top-down or bottom-up. This is then followed by the production of evidence about the operation, implementation and effectiveness of the policy idea, commissioned or carried out by the policy proposer. The process of evidence production normally follows a number of steps, which are depicted in Fig. 1A as a MAVS cycle—an iterative process of mapping, analysis, visualisation and sharing (Horton et al., 2016 ).

An integrated process for policy development. a MAVS—an iterative process for obtaining evidence for policy development. The first step is to map the component processes and participants in the issue, if appropriate as a system wide exercise. Then this issue is analysed using data and information and appropriate tools such as Life Cycle Assessment together with the tools of social science. The results of this analysis are then visualised in transparent form as a dashboard, ready for sharing among all stakeholders and when appropriate through publication in academic journals and/or news media. The data produced might well identify other dimensions of the issue and initiate further cycles. b Identification of a problem or opportunity that requires a policy intervention is put on the agenda. The first task to assemble evidence using the MAVS protocol. This evidence is evaluated using a two-pronged process, independent scrutiny and testing of the evidence and use of deliberative forums to address key issues arising. Repetition of this process will lead to a policy ready for implementation

The usefulness of formalising evidence generation in this way was demonstrated in addressing a specific policy question of how to reduce the environmental impact of the production of bread (Goucher et al., 2017 ; Horton, 2017 ). Mapping identified all the key actors in the wheat-bread supply chain, from whom data was obtained. This complete data set was then analysed by a standardised process of Life Cycle Assessment. The evidence clearly showed the dominant contribution of fertiliser as a source of greenhouse gas emissions—which was presented in easily visualised form, and shared via publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal (Goucher et al., 2017 ), press releases and a summary article in The Conversation (Horton, 2017 ). These were widely read and discussed across a wide variety of media. The evidence was subsequently taken up by commercial bodies in the wheat-bread industry who are now seeking ways towards a ‘sustainable bread’.

We suggest that the MAVS methodology could be similarly useful in evidence gathering for many other policy purposes. In such cases the evidence might be much more complex than in the above example, because policy more often than not is addressing complex multidimensional wicked problems rather than purely technical ones. One challenge is how to integrate scientific evidence, which is usually quantitative data, with the qualitative data obtained by social sciences. For this, further development of social indicators is crucial, including indicators of well-being, values, agency and inequality (Hicks et al., 2016 ). Furthermore, what is being suggested here is that evidence production should not be limited to only presenting analytically coherent statements about ‘facts’, ‘truth’ and ‘solutions’. Thus, evidence also needs to be generated in direct response to existing preferences as a means to either support or falsify preferences in a way that speaks to them, not over them. Here, interdisciplinary incorporation of social science techniques adds to the scientific data by providing stakeholder analysis, preference identification and social categorisation.

Lessons could be learned from recent experiments aimed to increase health policy outcomes associated with the production of evidence by means of participatory research models, which incorporate stakeholders into the design (mapping), evaluation (analysis), communication (visualisation and sharing) and implementation phases of research. By doing so, several unique features result. Firstly, stakeholders are able to provide ‘on the ground’ insights about the problems or misunderstandings the research needs to address. Hence the research questions are tailored to these needs and the final aims of the research made transparent. Secondly, by including stakeholders throughout the process, it creates ‘buy-in’ and better understanding of how the evidence was created, increasing epistemic authority while undermining conspiratory speculation and claims of elitism. Thirdly, inclusion naturally builds trust in the results, which in many cases in health research has allowed for better policy translation and outcomes, since people are more willing to adopt the rationale for a policy if they feel that they were involved in the process. As an example, positive policy results have been witnessed in a number of cases where health research linked circumcision to reduced rates of HIV infection in Africa. Although it is still a highly contentious issue in many parts of the world, the inclusion of political, religious and cultural leaders in the research process in many cases helped to alleviate existing fears and misunderstandings, which facilitated more exact communication and acceptance of the source of evidence (WHO, 2016 ).

Visualisation and sharing are particularly important steps of the MAVS process. All too often, evidence production and analysis results in lengthy and often impenetrable reports, which make the process of transparent evidence sharing impossible and often counter-productive. For example, Howarth and Painter ( 2016 ) describe the problems translating the information contained in IPCC reports into local action plans. Thus, research is urgently needed to find the best ways to visualise and then communicate evidence, for example, using clever infographics and other digital techniques. There is huge potential for evidence sharing via web-based national and international events and new online publishing models (e.g., Horton, 2017 ). Most important of all, people with expert knowledge need to be active and pro-active rather than passive and reactive; indeed one might argue they have a responsibility to do so. Jeremy Grantham, founder of the philanthropic Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment once stated ‘Be persuasive. Be brave. Be arrested (if necessary)’ (Grantham, 2012 ). Sharing of experience and approaches is also vital, to find out what works and what doesn’t, creating networks if appropriate, such as the International Network of Government Science Advice (INGSA) or less formal and spontaneous movements such as that which resulted in the March for Science. Supplementing evidence with powerful stories from ‘real life’ can also increase the effectiveness of communication. One key implication here is that what may previously have been regarded as research (in a university for example) may become an activity in which the end result, in terms of impact, advocacy and implementation, is not just an optional ‘add-on’ but an integral and obligatory part of the project.

Evaluating evidence

The next step in our methodology is evidence evaluation. This is an open and transparent process that questions the validity of the evidence. Who leads this evaluation process will depend upon who is leading the policy initiative. Given their reputation for impartiality, transparency and interdisciplinary thinking, universities could play a key independent role, so long as they have procedures to include all stakeholders, particularly those directly affected by a policy intervention. This is not always straightforward, especially when research depends upon funding by governments and various external bodies. The key is to break away from the traditional model of the ‘expert panel of mostly white male senior academics’ and strive towards diversity of experience, ethnicity and gender. Again, the criterion for such assessment is not to produce an impenetrable report, but to follow the principles of visualisation and sharing set out above.

Evidence evaluation simultaneously and equally combines discussion, debate and deliberation with testing of that evidence in further independent scientific scrutiny, including using peer review procedures well known for academic science (Fig. 1B ). Evidence from scientific investigation rarely constitutes proof and furthermore does not always meet high standards of objectivity, quality or neutrality. Therefore, it has to be independently assessed, including by consideration of evidence available from other sources and studies. Within the evaluation process it is important to locate not only where evidence is lacking or is inconclusive or ambiguous, but also to understand how evidence is perceived, misunderstood or ignored. Thus, for example, the same piece of evidence can be interpreted in different ways by different stakeholders, leading to disagreement and conflict (discussed in Horton et al. 2016 ). These then become focal points in deliberative forums that consider the tension between different actors and stakeholders.

The use of stakeholder deliberative forums within the evidence policy process not only allows for misconceptions and ideological stances to be located and understood, but also provides deliberative opportunities for various ideological positions to be held to public scrutiny by other stakeholders. Stakeholders with particularly entrenched preferences are asked to share these preferences and give their best defences and evidence to support them. This includes having stakeholder positions tested against the best evidence available and mutual requests of reason giving from other stakeholders. Deliberative forums help to undermine enclave thinking and force ideology testing via the need for public reason giving. They have had empirical success in creating intersubjective meta-understandings between stakeholders, which over time, allow crucial agreements on key factual elements within contested public policy.

There are already many cases of governments instituting deliberative forums for key policy discussions, in efforts to generate policy consensus, rather than relying on aggregative preference tallying models that only measure existing preferences and pit them against each other in simplistic minority/majority binaries. For example, there have been successful deliberative experiments trialled by the Western Australian Department of Planning and Infrastructure, in British Columbia’s ‘Citizens Assembly’, in Ireland during the Irish Constitutional Convention, and by Oregon State in its ‘Initiative Review’ (Rosenberg, 2007 ).

Although deliberative forums have largely been physical meetings facilitated by researchers, governments or experts, the use of the internet to broaden the scope of deliberative forums could hold promising innovation. This could allow much wider participation and larger sets of data to be collected and evaluated, aided by the use of artificial intelligence techniques. This is an area to which future research should be directed (Neblo et al., 2017 ).

Transforming knowledge into policy

The results of this two-pronged evaluation are viewed together in the process by which the evidence associated with a policy idea is transformed into a policy plan, as depicted in Fig. 1B . The policy plan can then be evaluated again, and again, step-by-step until all evidence has been validated and all stakeholder viewpoints have been reasonably satisfied or properly discredited. The policy is then ready for implementation. The anticipation here is that stakeholder ‘buy-in’ will remove barriers to policy implementation and that the use of evidence within these deliberations shape that ‘buy-in’. This is because, although politicians could still ignore evidence-based policy consensus, they would have less incentive to do so if that consensus demonstrated a clear ‘buy-in’ by key stakeholders and the public. In addition, deliberative forums often involve policy makers as key participants and thus can deliver preference alteration, particularly if they are aligned at the same time as other constituent stakeholders.

Can the methodology we describe have an effect on the development of evidence-based policy in general? Combining scientific analysis, participation and deliberation among multiple stakeholders, has been proposed to address the problem of water sustainability (Garrick et al., 2017 ), food security (Horton et al., 2017 ) and health (Lucero et al., 2018 ), and it is in such domains that we foresee it being particularly applicable. However, in many cases the full complexity and messiness of the problem may make strict adherence to this methodology difficult, and here evidence sharing through advocacy, stakeholder outreach and campaigning becomes particularly important. Politicians often take note only when public pressure mounts, for example, because of intense activity in the popular press, as in the recent policy proposals in the UK surrounding plastic bottles, coffee cups and plastic pollution of the oceans. It is perhaps less clear whether our methodology can make impact in more politically charged policy areas such as climate change, where evidence is clear but vested interests, often through ‘post-truth’ and ‘fake news’ work to undermine it. Nevertheless, having a formal framework could be a source of stability, discipline and confidence building, a recourse when problems arise and a way to break through log jams and overcome barriers. By establishing trust between scientists, government and the public, it could help build a more effective science–policy interface.

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PH thanks the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment for their generous support. We wish to thank many colleagues in the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures and the Sheffield Sustainable Food Futures group for the discussion.

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To this point, in this volume we have discussed some of the underpinnings related to engaging in research in general and to qualitative research in particular. We have introduced an orientation for inquiry, called the Five Contexts, by which to engage conceptually with a variety of research genres. The first two aspects of this orientation have included a discussion of the autobiographical and the historical contexts of performing qualitative research. We now move on to the third aspect of this orientation, the political context. This chapter introduces the political context of qualitative research, featuring video clips of an interview with Henry Giroux, who offers a reflection on this context and relates it to issues of qualitative research. The particular political stance that is offered in this chapter relates to critical inquiry.

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Giroux, H. A. (1983). Theory and resistance in education: A pedagogy for the opposition . South Hadley: Bergen and Garvey.

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Cooper, K., White, R.E. (2012). The Political Context. In: Cooper, K., White, R. (eds) Qualitative Research in the Post-Modern Era. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2339-9_5

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This chapter offers a critical overview of the book’s unifying theme: the complex and constant interplay between the processes of community development, politics and power. It discusses in turn the contested concepts of ‘community’, ‘community development’, ‘politics’ and ‘power’, before considering some key challenges for the global practice of community development in an increasingly neo-liberalised context. Against the dominance of managerialism and the fracturing of solidarity between citizens, Chapter 1 highlights the importance of a critical vision of community that supports diversity while promoting dialogue across distance and difference. Its latter sections introduce and summarise the varied perspectives presented by contributors to the book, from a range of settings around the world. It concludes with a hope that despite, or even because of, its critical orientation this book will be a politically useful and emboldening resource for its readers.

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The Socio-Political Context: Powers and Principalities

Introduction

As I work on this paper, the media tell me:

• That today we remember the fifth anniversary of the massacres of Screbrenica in Bosnia where 7000 Muslims were killed in an act of ethnic cleansing.
• That today a major slide from the man-made garbage hills in Manila has drowned a whole block in human waste and killed more than 150 people.
• That statistics at the opening of the global AIDS-conference in South Africa reveal that 34 million people are sick with AIDS, most of them in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• That a Norwegian bishop-friend of mine charges all Christians and congregations to lift up the Lord of History the Middle East peace negotiators at Camp David.

For most of my life I have worked for the media and for humanitarian organisations.

There is an anger and a grief within me – an anger that has followed me for many years, since the first time I as a young radio reporter was sent to Wollo and Tigre in Ethiopia in 1974 to report on a famine that killed more than one million – a famine caused by human greed and ignored by the celebration of the OAU tenth anniversary in Addis, less than 100 kilo meters away. An anger that has overwhelmed me and made me cry out in the midst of the genocide of Southern Sudan and Rwanda. An anger that has travelled with me to the poverty-stricken metropolises of Bangladesh and India and Peru and Ecuador. Or got a grip of me in the midst of ethnic terrorism in Ethiopia and the white prisons of apartheid in Johannesburg. And then followed me to the “ignorance” and indifference of Western globalisation, be it in Scandinavia, America or Hong Kong. This anger lies underneath the following pages.

My brief is to focus on evil and Satan as they are manifested in the socio-political realm, both collectively and individually, in such evils as injustice, exploitation, oppression, materialism, war, ethnic hatred, persecution, destruction of humans and of creation. How can sin, the evil one be identified and fought in this realm?

1. Kingdoms in Conflict

Evangelical theology usually views the conflict between Jesus and his adversary as a conflict between two kingdoms. Casting our evil spirits was part of the conflict, but so was also preaching in the synagogues (Mark 1.39). Preaching the Good News, healing, exorcism were all signs of the presence of the kingdom of God (cf. Matt 12.28; Luke 11.20 where exorcism is viewed as a sign of the kingdom). In Evangelical theology this usually points to the reality of a hostile realm in conflict with the kingdom of God (see e.g. Arnold 1998:20ff). This hostile realm has several dimensions or fronts, including what Scott Moreau (1997:18f) calls the systemic front where the agenda is warfare against the domination systems that make up our cultures and societies. We shall later discuss and explain the term domination system as it is used by Walter Wink. Suffice it to say in this connection that these systems (cultural, economic, political, religious) are manifestations of what John calls “the world” ( kosmos : “..the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5.19); cf. John 12.31 and 14.30 where Jesus talks about Satan as “the prince of this world”). This concept of kingdoms in conflict is also illustrated by Satan’s claim of dominion when he offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world (Matt 4.8-9). The point is clearly that even though God ultimately is the sovereign king of heaven and earth, Satan does exercise significant influence over kosmos and its power structures.

The conflict is evidenced in a tension between the two, often overlapping kingdoms. Our allegiance is to the kingdom of God and as citizens of this kingdom we are part of the new creation. Nevertheless we see the impact of evil all around us, in the form of violence, poverty, crime, racism, ethnic strife, betrayal and brokenness.

This way of looking at the kingdoms in conflict was also central to the Reformation. Try to sing the battle hymn of the Reformation “A mighty fortress is our God” and one will realise that the leitmotif is the battle between God’s kingdom and Satan, not just in an internal, personal manner, but on a cosmic scale and in the midst of life in society and as an attack on the church. For Martin Luther the truth that “God is for us” implies that “the devil is against us”. One may therefore claim, as Heiko Oberman does, that if this Reformation understanding of the powers hostile to God is left out, the entire Gospel of incarnation, justification and forgiveness is reduced to vague ideas rather than experiences of faith (Oberman 1992: 104f).

It is therefore essential that we perceive of evil and spiritual warfare in a broad way. It has to do with the common struggle as Christians and it touches every area of our lives – family, relationships, neighbours, communities, work. All these areas of life are battle grounds for the kingdoms in conflict. And we no longer need the Bible to tell us: At different levels we have been forced to recognise that the biblical worldview corresponds to a reality of Auschwitz, Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo – or even closer, the reality of a drug culture, a divorce culture, a culture of ethnic and racist strife, and the devastating effects of a globalised culture marginalising major parts of the world.

As we pursue this topic, we need to bring along a balanced view of evil influences: the biblical perspective highlights the interconnectedness of flesh, world and devil . In this context we use the term world to signify the ungodly aspects of culture, values and traditions, i.e. the prevailing worldview assumptions that stand contrary to the biblical understanding. Satan attempts to exert influence on the societal and cultural levels. This influence may come through idolatry and occult practises and beliefs (e.g. Acts 13 about the magician Elymas). Or it may come through what Sherwood Lingenfelter calls “prisons of disobedience” found in all cultures (Lingenfelter 1992). In a sense every culture and system may be used by the evil one to hold us in bondage by entangling us into a life of conformity to shared values and beliefs that are fundamentally contrary to God’s purpose and will for humanity. Thus Satan has worked on a corporate level, says Lingenfelter, to blind people to the Gospel. We shall come back to this topic when we look at Walter Wink and his assertions that we need to be “reborn” from our primary socialisation in a culture, e.g. a culture that has “convinced” us of the need for violence as a solution (redemptive violence; Wink 1992).

This link between culture/society and bondage illustrates and emphasises by the same token that how that bondage is experienced will vary greatly from culture to culture. In some parts of the world there is great fear of the spirits, and the gospel is heard as the good news of deliverance from these spirits. In other places there is evidence of powerful occult undercurrents with overt demonic activity. In some Latin American countries major parts of the population are caught up in witchcraft, voodoo and magic. Likewise in Hindu cultures there is a pervasive fear of the spirit world. In the West, discarding Christianity has taken off the lid of the ancient jungle of religiosity. As the animals of the jungle re-appear we call them new (New Age) even though they are as old as the fall of man. However, the main bondage most Westerners – or should we say “the westernised/globalised world” – experience is still the desire for affluence. The globalised culture has allowed the pursuit of the good life to shape their perspective, values, and psychology so profoundly that Leslie Newbigin (Foolishness to the Greek) is right in viewing the Western culture as the most non-Christian culture ever.

In the kingdom conflict we are, Paul says (Ephesians 6.10-20), confronted by principalities (archai), authorities (exousiai), world rulers (kosmokratores) and spiritual forces (pneumatika). Among Evangelicals these terms are usually understood to refer to satanic forces (e.g. Wells 1987: 76ff; Greig & Springer 1993; Arnold 1992). Paul’s focus is here on the day-to-day struggle of the believer in the midst of culture and society, not on territorial spirits. Neither do the terms seem to describe a hierarchy of spirits. As Arnold says: “The terms appear to come from a large reservoir of terminology used in the first century when people spoke of demonic spirits” (Arnold 1998: 39). As we in the next section focus particularly on the works of Walter Wink, we shall meet a theologian who looks at these powers in a different way – namely as created, fallen, but redeemable.

2. Engaging the Powers

“Engaging the Powers” is the title of the third volume in Walter Wink’s trilogy on the Powers. The trilogy includes: “Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament” (1984), “Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence” (1986), and “Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Dominion” (1992). In addition Wink has published a condensed and popularised version of the trilogy under the title “The Powers That Be” (1998). Wink’s aim, particularly in the condensed version, is to help us reformulate ancient concepts, such as God and Satan, angels and demons, principalities and powers, in light of the world today. Thus the theological thinking is clearly shaped as much by his involvement in the civil rights movement and the fight against apartheid in South Africa as by the study of Scripture. This combination becomes even more evident in his 1998 analysis of the Powers as they appear on the global scene: “When the Powers Fall. Reconciliation in the Healing of Nations”. The refreshing and provocative aspect of Wink is his contextualisation of Powers and Principalities in the midst of our contemporary social institutions. Wink is as concerned with salvation as with justice.

His point of departure is that everything has both a physical and a spiritual aspect. Therefore the Powers are not simply people and their institutions; they also include the spirituality at the core of those institutions. If we want to change those systems – social, economic, cultural, political – we must address not only the outer form, but the inner spirit as well. In the likeness of those management experts who highlight organisational culture, Wink claims that every business, corporation, school, bureaucracy is a combination of visible and invisible, outer and inner, physical and spiritual. However, this spirituality is not always benign. The sole purpose of the institutions is to serve the general welfare; when they refuse to do so, their spirituality becomes diseased = demonic. Against this background Wink views our time as a time of hope and of despair:

We live in a remarkable time, when entire nations have been liberated by non-violent struggle; when miracles are openly declared, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, and the transformation of South Africa….Yet these are also times of endemic violence, ethnic hatred, genocide, and economic privation around the world, as the super-rich hoard increasing shares of the world’s wealth and the poor drown in poverty….I believe that even these rebellious Powers can be transformed in the crucible of God’s love (Wink 1998: 10).

Wink advocates, as already indicated, an integral view of reality that sees everything as having an outer and an inner aspect. In this worldview God is within everything ( panentheism – God in everything = all creatures are potential revealers of God). This view opens up the spiritual reality. Latin American liberation theology made good efforts to reinterpret the powers and principalities, not as disembodied spirits, but as institutions, structures and systems. But it did not see the spiritual dimension – that the Powers at the same time are visible and invisible, spiritual and institutional (Col 1.15-20). Furthermore, we must reverse the process of projecting these spiritual dimensions onto the screen of the universe. Rather the spiritual force that we experience in a system emanates from that actual system. In other words, the demons are not up there but over here, in the socio-spiritual structures and political systems (cf. the demonised pigs of Mark 5 and the political systems of Rev 12-13). And when these powers (which may be personal or impersonal) network around idolatrous values, we get what Wink calls “the Domination System” whose master is Satan. In this way the powers are everywhere around us and their presence is inescapable. The primary issue is therefore to learn to identify them (Paul’s gift of discerning the spirits): When a power pursues a vocation other than the one for which God created it and makes its own interests the highest good, then that power becomes demonic. The task is to unmask this idolatry and recall the powers to their created purposes in the world. This, however, requires the ministry of the church (Eph 3.10) and not just an individual. Wink lifts up as an illustration how corporations ignore God’s humanising purposes by making profit the bottom line. This is a capitalist heresy to which not even Adam Smith would agree. It is therefore the task of the church to remind corporations that as creatures of God they have as their divine vocation the achievement of human well-being (Eph 3.10).

On the one hand Wink views evil as profoundly systemic; on the other hand the powers are not intrinsically evil in his view. Rather, they are at once good and evil, though to varying degrees, and they are capable of improvement. He therefore works on the basis of three theses as his theological framework:

• The Powers are good: They are good by virtue of their creation to serve the humanising purposes of God.
• The Powers are fallen because they put their own interests above the interests of the whole.
• The Powers can be redeemed because what fell in time can be redeemed in time.

This applies in a temporal sense: the Powers were created, they are fallen, and they shall be redeemed. But it is also to be viewed as something simultaneous : God at one and the same time upholds a given system, since we need some such system to support human life; condemns that system in so far as it is destructive of human life; and presses for its transformation into a more humane order (Wink 1998:32f).

This view sets us free from demonising those who do evil. We can love our enemies or nation or culture – critically, yes, calling them back to their purposes. The view also implies that God does not endorse any particular power. He did not create capitalism or socialism, but human life requires some sort of economic system. Thirdly, some institutions and ideologies can only be transformed by being abandoned or destroyed or replaced (sic!). Against this background Wink sees us as being involved in a threefold activity:

Naming the Powers identifies our experiences of these pervasive forces that dominate our lives. Unmasking the Powers takes away their invisibility, and thus their capacity to coerce us unconsciously into doing their bidding. Engaging the Powers involves joining in God’s endeavor to bend them back to their divine purposes (Wink 1998: 34-35).

So the evil is not intrinsic, but the result of idolatry, and therefore the Powers can be redeemed. This in turn means that the task of redemption is not restricted to changing individuals, but also to changing the fallen institutions. And Wink takes even one more step: the Gospel is not the message about the salvation of individuals from the world, but news about a world transfigured, right down to its basic structures. This cosmic salvation will take place when God will gather up all things in Christ (Eph 1.10).

It is not difficult to question some of Wink’s assumptions and views: How does he understand the fall? As a structural aspect of all personal and social existence and/or as a temporal myth? What then does he mean by saying that the Fall affirms the radicality of evil (Wink 1992: 59)? He may describe evil with terrible “human” examples, but one wonders whether evil really stands in contrast and absolute opposition to the living God : “Fallenness does not touch our essence, but it characterises our existence” (Wink 1992. 72). In the same way as one is left uncertain as to whether the human being after the fall, in Wink’s theology, is totally alienated from God. True, he talks clearly about the need for the individual to be changed: Human misery is caused by institutions, but these institutions are maintained by human beings, i.e. the institutions are made evil by us. Yet, I lack a more clear understanding and description of the gulf between God and man, caused by disobedience and sin.

At the same time his view of the Powers as created, fallen and redeemable may help us negotiate a truce between the Anabaptist and the Calvinist traditions. The first one may argue that all social and cultural systems are intrinsically evil (though capable of doing some limited good). The other position may insist that governments and public institutions are intrinsic elements of God’s creation and therefore capable of being “christianised”. The first position may abandon the Powers to secularity while the other installs a sort of theocracy. Wink’s view does neither. Instead it leaves open the door for running for political office or to work to overthrow the political system, depending on the state of disobedience of the system. Furthermore his thinking challenges us to bring together evangelism and social struggle and to include in our evangelistic task the proclamation to the Principalities and Powers of the manifold wisdom of God .

When an entire network of Powers integrates around idolatrous values, we get a Domination System . Thus the Domination System is the system of the Powers. In this way the Domination System is equivalent to what the Bible often means by the terms “world”, “aeon” and “flesh”. Examples: A farming family in Bangladesh loosing everything to crafty lawyers and hired guns, being forced into the city slums of no labour, crime, prostitution and starvation. And it is actually true that around 16 million people die to starvation and poverty-related diseases every year. Or blacks struggling against apartheid, or rather the apartheid system, because that was how it was perceived – as a demonic system. Or the consumer sickness of wealthy societies, fuelled by belief in endless progress and by a commercialised information society saying less and less to more and more. Or the sick combination of violence and sexual perversion available for all ages on Internet and video and crippling the minds of old and young. The Domination System is characterised by unjust economic relations, oppressive political relations, biased race relations, patriarchal gender relations, hierarchical power relations, and the use of violence to maintain them all (Wink 1998: 59). The basic structure of this system has persisted since the rise of the great conquest states of Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. At that time the horse and the wheel together made conquest lucrative, and the plunder and conquest included females as slaves, concubines, wives, resulting in female subordination and a system of patriarchy. Wife-beating and child-beating develop as a male right. Evil is blamed on women. In addition plunder and conquest give rise to new classes of aristocrats and priests – people producing nothing, but dominating others through a spiral of violence.

And to uphold the Domination System a myth of redemptive violence comes into being, a myth that lifts high the belief that violence saves, that war brings peace, that might makes right. Violence in this way becomes the nature of things. It becomes inevitable, the last and increasingly through history the first resort in conflicts. This myth is the Babylonian creation story (Enuma Elish from around 1250 BC) where the young god Marduk kills the mother god Tiamat in a terrible manner and then splits her skull and stretches out her corpse and from it creates the cosmos. In this way, and in stark contrast to the Bible, creation is an act of violence. The world is created from the cadaver of a woman. Chaos is prior to order, and evil precedes good. The gods themselves are violent. In contrast, the Bible portrays a good God who creates a good creation where good is prior to evil and where neither evil nor violence is a part of creation, but enter later as a result of the serpent and human sin (Gen. 3).

It is, however, the Babylonian myth that has dominated much of history and has spread everywhere: Human beings are created from the blood af a murdered god, our origin is violence, killing is in our genes, life is combat, peace through war, security through strength, and the common people live to perpetuate the advantage that the gods have conferred upon the kings, aristocrats and priests – because religion exists to legitimate power and privilege. Here are the core values of the Domination System as it is found in every society.

It is not difficult to see the traces of the myth in contemporary Western media, sports, nationalism, militarism, foreign policy, etc. The TV cartoons and comic books of the Western world can be stark illustrations of the violence, anger and scapegoating. In a similar way the American western makes the law suspect and weak compared to the hero with the gun. Rambo and James Bond become the Messiahs in a world where justice is lodged in the gun. And the reason why we swallow this is that the myth of redemptive violence is the simplest, laziest, most exciting, uncomplicated, irrational, and primitive depiction of evil the world has ever known. It strikes the cords of original sin and opens the door for the demons of hell into a culture that has lost its point of departure. Both in a Western culture and to some extent also and increasingly in other cultures we socialise our children through this myth, by making violence pleasurable, fascinating, and entertaining. In this way the Powers are able to delude people into compliance with a system that keeps them in bondage – the Domination System. One illustration: an average child in the US is reported to see 36.000 hours of television by age eighteen, viewing some 15.000 murders. Just think what this does to an entire civilisation. Not to speak of the sadistic combinations of sex and violence available on videos – and available everywhere and in all major cities, also in Africa and Asia. The youngsters in Addis Ababa watch the same demonic stuff as the youngsters in New York. There are boys who receive their first introduction to sex by watching on video women being raped, decapitated, dismembered and cannibalised. Even the devil seems to have abandoned sophistication!

It is the same myth of redemptive violence that we make use of in international conflicts , be they in Bosnia and Serebnica or on the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea where teenager soldiers last year were being used as a shield against the tanks of the opponent. The myth gives divine sanction to the nation’s imperialism. In this way the Cold War was a satanic trick to make both sides believe religiously in the terror balance of violence. I think Wink is right in claiming that “the myth of redemptive violence serves as the inner spirituality of the national security state. It provides divine legitimisation for the suppression of poor people everywhere, and the extraction of wealth from the poorer nations” (Wink 1998: 57). The result is that nationalism becomes idolatry and ethnicity becomes demonic.

The myth of redemptive violence…speaks for God; it does not listen for God to speak…It misappropriates the language, symbols, and scriptures of Christianity. It does not seek God in order to change; it embraces God in order to prevent change. Its God…is a tribal god worshipped as an idol. Its metaphor is not the journey, but the fortress. Its symbol is not the cross but the crosshairs of a gun. Its offer is not forgiveness but victory. Its good news is not the unconditional love of enemies but their final elimination. Its salvation is not a new heart but a successful foreign policy. It usurps the revelation of God’s purposes for humanity in Jesus. It is blasphemous. It is idolatrous (Wink 1998: 61-62).

Based on Revelation 12-13 Wink outlines the delusional apparatus of the Powers and the Domination System (1992: 87ff). If it had not been for the powerful delusions, why would people, why would we all, tolerate the Powers and the Domination System? Therefore, exposing this system of delusion must be a central task in the discernment of the Powers, for the Powers are never more powerful than when they can act from concealment (cf. the imagery in Scripture of wolf in sheep clothing). True, the system may use violence, but even more effective is to drop out of sight, to masquerade as the permanent furniture of the universe, to make oppressive structures appear to be of divine construction. This is illustrated when John strips off the mask of Roman imperial benevolence and reveals the true spirit of Rome: It looks like a prosperous peace-maker, but conceals a monstrous deformity aiming at supplanting God or a harlot inviting intercourse with the kings she has intoxicated with power (Rev 17). At the centre of the delusions John sees that the Dragon creates another Beast (Rev 13.11) – a beast that imitates the lamb. A beast that proselytises by means of a civil religion that declares the state and its leaders divine. This element of power worship is central in John’s vision – because it represents the manufacture of idolatry . So deception and propaganda are not enough for the Evil one. Misinforming people about the nature of the System may not last. But if you can cause people to worship the Beast, you have created a public immune to truth, Wink claims (1992: 94).

Since the beginnings of the Domination System some five thousand years ago, it has deceived people by means of a series of delusional assumptions; these assumptions are what Col. 2 calls the stoicheia tou kosmou , in Wink’s opinion. They may come and go, but continually they have reasserted themselves:

• The need to control society and prevent chaos requires some to dominate others.
• Men are better equipped by nature to be dominant than women, and some races are naturally suited to dominate others.
• Violence is redemptive, the only language enemies understand.
• Ruling is the most important of all social functions.
• Rulers should therefore be rewarded by extra privileges and greater wealth.
• Money is the most important value.
• The production of material goods is more important than the production of healthy and normal people and of sound human relationships.
• Property is sacred.
• Institutions are more important than people.
• There is no higher value or being or power than the state. God is the protector of the state.
• God is not revealed to all, but only to select individuals or nations and their rulers and priesthood.

May it not be claimed that for Christians and the church to expose these delusionary assumptions is a central part of spiritual warfare in society and culture? The trouble is, however, that we do not have much training in so doing.

But also at a personal level we remain responsible for what we do with the demonic delusions and propaganda. Telling the truth and living the truth remain the most forceful danger to any system of falsehood. The fundamental threat to a system of lies is the threat that just one is living the truth ; we know this from the recent history of Nazi and Communist domination. We even know it from a fairy tale where a single child cried out, “The emperor is naked!”.

Along the same lines a sense of powerlessness may hide a spiritual disease deliberately induced by the Powers to keep us afraid. The sense of political powerlessness in some of our countries represents in my view a demonic deception to keep us believing that politics are dirty and that we do not make any difference. Could it be that the victory of faith over the Powers lies, not in being immune to them, but in being set free from their delusions. And to break the spell of lies and delusions we need a vision of God’s domination-free order.

3. Fighting the Powers

The fight against the Powers has already been under way a good long time by our engaging them and diagnosing their strategies and delusions. We may take one step further by adding the vision of God’s domination-free order, to show the clear distinction between a domination system and a partnership society, between the myth of redemptive violence and the story of Jesus. Rather than doing this in a general way, let me show the contextual chart Wink has developed to clarify the differences between the Domination System and God’s domination-free order (1992: 46-47).

We may disagree on several accounts with Wink’s interpretation of God’s reign – at least I do; but there is for us Evangelicals a serious challenge in his attempt to place God’s reign in a socio-political and cultural setting . Without such daring contextualisations we run the risk of transforming the Gospel into a timeless, placeless, eternal nowhere. The same may then happen to the Powers. The challenge for us as we fight the Powers is to proclaim the Gospel as a context-specific remedy for the evils of a society and a culture dominated by the Powers.

The primary weapon against the Powers has always been and will always remain the liberating message of Jesus . That small word or testimony is sufficient to bring down the whole army of Powers and Principalities. The Gospel is the most powerful antidote for domination that the world has ever known. It was that antidote that inspired the abolition of slavery, the women’s movement, the non-violence movement, the civil rights movement, the human rights movement, the fall of Nazism, Fascism and Communism, the break-up of apartheid.

In our fight against the Domination System, we shall lift up the biblical focus on servanthood and servant leadership (Luke 22.22-27), not just as a principle, but because the central core of the Gospel is the slave or servant of the Lord who took upon himself our transgressions. The consequence of this gospel truth is the repudiation of the right of some to lord it over others by means of power, wealth, shaming, or titles. The man on a donkey is the master of God’s people in their fight against Powers and Principalities in this world.

Does this challenge not also include a call for equity ? Breaking with domination means ending the economic exploitation of the many by the few, in a local social setting and at a global level. Is not the growing gulf between rich and poor a satanic abomination in the eyes of the Lord? Are we not challenged to change the economic order and to shout to our consumer cultures, “Enough is enough!”

And what about the redemptive violence surrounding us, even after the demise of the Cold War? True, a society with an unfair distribution of goods requires violence. And violence is the only way some are able to deprive others of what is justly theirs. And do we not need means of violence to keep the rest of the world away from our meat pots in the rich world? All these heathen immigrants….Jesus rejects violence as far as I can read, not resistance, but violence. And Paul tells us that the weapons we use in our fight are not the weapons of the Domination System (kosmos) but God’s powerful weapons which we use to destroy strongholds (2 Cor 10.4).

My intention is not to make Jesus a reformer or revolutionary, attempting to replace one oppressive power with another. Rather we may view his ministry as a struggle against the basic presuppositions and structures of oppression, against the Domination System itself, against Satan himself .

The first serious lessons in spiritual warfare I received as a young Scandinavian missionary derived from the East African Revival. These lessons changed my life and they still follow me, also in relation to fighting the Powers:

• Do not become too preoccupied with analysing demons and the tricks of Satan. With the occult people do their utmost to catalogue demons, their name, colour, smell, origin, taste, etc. When people come to faith in Jesus, they refrain from this. Jesus has conquered the demons, and we do not need to study their activities to gain control over them.
• Lift up Jesus and him crucified. All spiritual gifts are to be used to lift up the cross – also signs and wonders.
• The decisive mark of the power of the Holy Spirit is a contrite heart, and not speaking in tongues or mighty deeds; they may appear, but the central sign of God’s power is repentance.
• The only way to break the power of Satan in everyday life, in society and in culture is by walking in the light with all of your life so that Satan may not get a chance to bind you in the darkness. And to walk in the light means to live in openness with others, in small groups where intercession and healing are central.
• The gifts of grace belong in relations and contexts that are cleansed by the blood of Christ. The power of the Lord is the blood that cleanses from all sin.
• The person who is cleansed and walks in the light, renounces the devil and all his works absolutely and totally.
• Out of cleansing and walking in the light in close communion with sisters and brothers, the testimony grows and the gifts needed on the way out with the word about Jesus.

Notice how central the cross is in this East African understanding of spiritual warfare. In the same way Paul claims that it was not primarily through the resurrection that the Powers were unmasked, but on and through the cross: “Unmasking the Principalities and Powers, God publicly shamed them, exposing them in Christ’s triumphal procession by means of the cross” (Col. 2.13-15). Jesus died because he challenged the Powers. But something went wrong for the Powers. Their use of violence exposed their own illegitimacy. Their nailing him to the cross meant the end of the Domination System. The Powers that led him out to Golgatha are led in God’s triumphal procession. When they tried to destroy him, they stepped into a divine trap, as Luther says somewhere: “The devil saw Jesus as his prize, snapped at the bait, and was pulled out of the water for all to see”. Therefore on the cross the Powers themselves are paraded and made captive. And so the cross marks their failure and the failure of violence. The power of God is here hidden under seeming powerlessness (sub contrarie specie).

And so the cross continues to challenge the entire Domination System. Because the cross reveals the delusions and deceptions, because the cross reveals that death does not have the final word. Jesus entered darkness and death and made it the darkness of God: It is now possible to enter any darkness and trust God to wrest from it resurrection. And the cross proves that truth cannot be killed. The mighty forces of deception and lie cannot ever kill the truth anymore. After Good Friday it will continue to survive, even in a single Chinese student standing alone before a column of tanks in Tianamen Square.

“Killing Jesus was like trying to destroy a dandelion seed-head by blowing on it. It was like shattering a sun into a million fragments of light” (Wink 1992: 143).

So let us continue to lift up the cross of Christ because we know that where the cross is lifted high, the Powers are losing strength. And this I mean in a very literal sense: Proclaim the cross to the leaders of this world, whisper the name of the crucified in the dark prisons, shout it out in the midst of our modern consumer temples, walk into the battle zones of Ethiopia and Eritrea with the cross of reconciliation, challenge the ethnic fighting in Easter Europe in the name of Christus Victor.

And then let us die with Christ to the fundamental assumptions of the Domination System – the stoicheia tou kosmou that Paul talks about in Col 2.20: “Why do you let yourselves be dictated to as if your lives were still controlled by the kosmos?” I sense in my own life and ministry a need for understanding better what Jesus meant by losing my life: “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it” (Luke 17.33). Does it also have something to do with my bondage under social and cultural values invented by the Powers? I know that I need to die to my private egocentricity, but is there also a call here to die to the hybris of Western culture? Do we Evangelicals need to be more radically social-oriented when we talk about dying with Christ?

And let us build bridges from our daily lives to him who has all power and honour, through praying in the name of the crucified and risen Lord – because we know that the act of praying is itself one of the primary means by which we engage the Powers . Here their secret spell over us is broken. Intercession can affect the shape the future takes. Therefore the gift of intercession must be encouraged and given room. In Scripture we see that intercession changes the world and it changes what is possible to God. It creates islands of freedom in a world in the grip of the Powers. And it rattles God’s cage and wakes God up and sets him free. Praying is joining God on the battlefield in the conflict between the kingdoms. The drastic and unexplainable changes in the former Soviet Union or in South Africa or the Philippines would not have happened, had it not been for people praying so that God found an opening and was able to bring about change. The answer to prayer may take time, maybe because the Powers are blocking God’s response. But when we fail to pray, God’s hands are tied.

The primary task of the Church with reference to the Powers and Principalities is to unmask their idolatrous pretensions, to identify their dehumanising values, to strip from them the mantle and credibility and to set free their victims. This includes the testimony to the crucified – to the rulers and powers. It does not include a commission to create a new society; rather we are, in the midst of society, to call the Powers’ bluff, to de-legitimate and ridicule the Domination System.

Central in calling the Powers’ bluff , our offer of praise and worship to the one true God stands. Because in and through that praising of the one true God, the bluff of all idols is revealed. So as we fight the Powers, we shall ascribe to God glory and strength.

Arnold, Clinton E.

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The politics of Cruelty. New York: Norton & Company, 1994

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Essentials of Spiritual Warfare. Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1997

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God the Evangelist. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987

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