The role of the organizer is central to how a grassroots organization functions and defines the relationship that members have to the group. John Dewey<\/span><\/span>\u00a0develops a model for thinking about organizations as publics that have recognized themselves as groups of individuals who\u00a0come together over a shared interest<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0His<\/span>\u00a0theory provides a frame for how one might live democratically, and Ella Baker is able to put this into effect as an organizer who advocates for participatory democracy. Baker\u2019s success reveals a shortcoming in Dewey\u2019s theory, as he retains\u00a0that there is a place for hierarchy within a democracy whereas Baker suggests that an organizer should\u00a0reject\u00a0hierarchical\u00a0leadership in order to uplift\u00a0the people.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I<\/span>n defining the role of an organizer, Baker rejects the notion of a charismatic leader\u00a0(someone who leads in order to get power for themselves)\u00a0and instead asserts that organizations should be made up of active members who represent themselves<\/strong>. Baker\u2019s ideal vision of an organization is one that rejects\u00a0bureaucracy functions within a participatory democracy\u00a0as people gather under a united goal of social change.\u00a0Participatory democracy is defined in Carol Mueller\u2019s\u00a0(2004)\u00a0\u201cElla Baker and the Origins of \u2018Participatory Democracy\u2019\u201d as one in which every member of a group is active and interested in bringing power back to the people<\/strong> (p. 80).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Both John Dewey and Ella Baker develop a\u00a0model for social change based on the rejection of individualism and by defining the relationship between an organizer and the people whom they organize to affect change.\u00a0Dewey\u00a0establishes an ideal and provides a\u00a0frame\u00a0for\u00a0how organizations can function as closely to\u00a0his vision of democracy as possible. Baker\u00a0exemplifies the kind of democratic lifestyle that he describes, and her use of participatory democracy in defining the ideal relationship between leaders and groups reveals that\u00a0an organization can approach ideal democracy without Dewey\u2019s notion of representative leaders\u00a0(and thus a hierarchy in organizations). Baker\u2019s emphasis on small organizations\u00a0with active and closely connected members\u00a0rejects individualism just as Dewey did, yet also rejects\u00a0the hierarchy that Dewey maintains in his theory.\u00a0By taking Dewey\u2019s theory as the foundation for defining the role of an organizer within\u00a0a democracy, and identifying Baker as an example of his theory being executed\u00a0to allow an organizer to uplift the public, it can be deduced that reaching Dewey\u2019s ideal democracy is a realistic goal even\u00a0without maintaining a hierarchy in organizations.\u00a0Therefore, the core of organizing falls in rejecting the notion that\u00a0there is such thing as an isolated individual.<\/strong>\u00a0While Dewey asserts that truly democratic social change can occur when leaders are engaged with\u00a0their communities, Baker proves that in practice leaders work best if they act as assistants rather than guides to the people.\u00a0If a leader\u00a0can\u00a0avoid the limelight and\u00a0dismantle the hierarchy that\u00a0Dewey retains, then they have\u00a0enabled this group\u2019s voices to be unequivocally heard and\u00a0make them\u00a0feel that they have organized themselves into the ideal participatory democracy.<\/strong><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Role of the Organizer The role of the organizer is central to how a grassroots organization functions and defines the relationship that members have to the group. John Dewey\u00a0develops a model for thinking about organizations as publics that have recognized themselves as groups of individuals who\u00a0come together over a shared interest.\u00a0His\u00a0theory provides a frame […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-paguirre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}