Do-It-Yourself Democracy: The Rise of the Public Engagement Industry
... In some parallels with the platformization literature, professionalization research draws attention to similar market forces and logics of standardization, consolidation, interoperability, and efficiency, and their impacts on participatory planning. As Lee (2015) has established, public engagement can now be considered an entire "industry." The field has become a large, professionally-serviced ecosystem comprised of various for-profit and non-profit actors who are paid to supply public engagement facilitation services and products (Lee, 2015). ...
... As Lee (2015) has established, public engagement can now be considered an entire "industry." The field has become a large, professionally-serviced ecosystem comprised of various for-profit and non-profit actors who are paid to supply public engagement facilitation services and products (Lee, 2015). This ecosystem includes the sale of deliberative solutions and the marketing of specialized public engagement consultants to clients, including public sector managers (Hendriks & Carson, 2008;Lee & Romano, 2013). ...
... And it is an industry that is not only responding to market demands for deliberative solutions, but in some cases can be a driving force in the ongoing participatory turn in local government (Mazeaud & Nonjon, 2020). I would situate DDEPs as one of the deliberative commercial goods developed and sold as part of this "market of participation" (Hendriks & Carson, 2008;Lee, 2015;Mazeaud & Nonjon, 2020). ...
Digitally mediated participation in planning processes has grown significantly. In an emergent digital turn for participatory planning scholarship, there is a growing body of research attempting to trace this growth and grapple with its implications. This paper explores how planning scholars and practitioners can deepen their critical stance toward digital modes of participatory planning. In Canada, this approach becomes especially important given the recent and widespread adoption of a specific digital platform type used to support participatory decision-making at the municipal level. Across the country, many towns and cities have embraced what I call Dedicated Digital Engagement Platforms (DDEPs). Despite their growing influence, these platforms for community involvement have not been previously quantified at a nation-wide level, nor thoroughly examined in planning scholarship. New evidence presented here defines DDEPs and documents the extent of their use by local and regional municipalities across Canada. In light of the growing prominence of these platforms, this article then provides the foundation for a more critical digital participation research agenda that draws on important debates in wider planning theory regarding democratic decision-making, the commercialization of deliberative democracy, and the platformization of public participation.
Full text: https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/cpp/article/view/16818
... Ac onspicuous bodyo fr esearch helps us in this regard. Fori nstance, scholars have studiedthe design of innovations in general and CAs in particular (Dean,Boswell, and Smith 2020;S award 2021), and their relationship with decision-makers (Hendriks and Lees-Marshment 2019), administration (Boswell 2016), the wider public (Bedock and Pilet 2020;Jacquet 2019), and even with theburgeoning democratic public engagement industry (Lee 2014). Both academic debate and public commentary report on CAs being initiated in response to the mobilization of social movements (Mellier and Wilson 2020). ...
... In terms of power, CAs might be used to give the impression of involvement with the public without ceding anypower (Johnson 2015), as an instrument of cooptation, or to exclude radical critiques of policyi deas from discussion (Lee and Romano2 013). There can be tensions between the more radical aims of movements and institutional innovators' wish to appease the needs of the neoliberal state (Young 2001;Lee 2014). Deliberative engagement implies challenges, for example, movements havingt oa dapt to the terms of engagement set by organizers,t hereby putting aside their adversarial repertoire of action to pursue more consensual methods instead. ...
... Although, in general, movements rooted in far-right and religious groups (Castelli Gattinara and Pirro 2019) are not openlya dverse to liberal democratic norms and institutions, with the exception of extremist groups,t heir openness to processes of democratization has been questioned and deemed opportunistic. Not all innovators see activists' role in CAs favourably.F unders and facilitators responsible for democratic processes mayneed to be responsive to institutional, professional, and industry logics that mayb ea to ddsw ith activists' wayo ft hinking (Lee 2014). The former might,f or example,e nvisageasubstantially different process by which the socialm ovement'sc oncerns could be recognized or expect the movement to playarole it did not expect.A sr ecentlya rgued by Felicetti (2021), close observations of the real-life practices through which actors engage remains fundamental to understand how in different contexts they consider the opportunity to build ties with each other and how the timing of this interaction enables or hinders their collaboration. ...
... Esse movimento empirista também se fez observar no Brasil, onde análises sobre o funcionamento de desenhos institucionais, como o orçamento participativo e as conferências de políticas públicas, tanto em nível presencial, quanto online, tanto em nível local, quanto regional e nacional, foram amplamente estudados, contribuindo para uma visada abrangente para além dos contextos afluentes do Norte Global (AVRITZER, 2012a(AVRITZER, , 2012b; A principal resposta às limitações apontadas na ênfase aos minipúblicos segue sendo o aprofundamento do conceito de sistema deliberativo, esboçado por Mansbridge (1999), maturado lentamente ao longo dos anos 2000 (Parkinson, 2003;Hendriks, 2006aHendriks, , 2006bGoodin, 2005) e colocado em evidência, nos anos 2010, a partir de livro coordenado por 11 Contribuiu para isso o forte investimento político e financeiro que o poder Executivo federal brasileiro fez na ampliação de instrumentos de participação institucionalizada durante as gestões do Partido dos Trabalhadores (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016), tendo como ápice a criação da Política Nacional de Participação -que seria revogada em 2019. 12 Retomaremos essas contribuições adiante, neste capítulo. ...
... Parkinson e Mansbridge (2012) -ainda que seja fundamental reconhecer que outros pesquisadores apontavam para este caminho de pesquisa de forma madura, naquele mesmo momento, como Dryzek (2010), Miola (2011), Mendonça e Maia (2012), Mendonça (2009) e Marques (2007). Iremos nos deter nos principais pontos desse conceito na sequência, na medida em que ele traz colocações importantes para pensar nossa apropriação da deliberação para a compreensão dos problemas a serem analisados nesta pesquisa. ...
... Importante frisar que a abordagem de Barvosa não foca só no nível institucional, como boa parte das pesquisas em deliberação o fazem, e projeta a importância da circulação discursiva sobre os temas em jogo na sociedade de forma mais ampla, o que ressoa o argumento de Dryzek (2018), dentre outros, de que a efetividade deliberativa não se dá apenas em decisões tomadas no Estado, mas em transformações, por exemplo, na forma como as pessoas comuns encaram determinada questão. Agiu, dessa forma, como um ator que abriu as comportas do Estado para discussões oriundas da esfera pública, para usar concepções habermasianas, ou como um conector de um processo deliberativo (entre sociedade e Estado), para usar terminologias contemporâneas (Mendonça, 2016;Boswell et al., 2016;Hendriks, 2016 Uma das críticas recentes mais contundentes à proliferação de arenas participativas "deliberativas", galvanizadas por atores da sociedade civil progressista, vem de Caroline W. Lee (2015). Baseada numa análise que usa elementos etnográficos, sua crítica se detém não apenas sobre os processos deliberativos de participação, mas também nos discursos e personalidades de quem conduz esses processos. ...
Este trabalho tem por objetivo compreender como se estruturam os constrangimentos ao debate público sobre a mineração no estado de Minas Gerais. Em diálogo com uma perspectiva sistêmica da teoria deliberativa, busca-se observar quais elementos atuam para que, mesmo diante de uma série de situações de conflitos ambientais e de violações de direitos observados na região nos últimos 20 anos, os problemas envolvidos com a atividade mineradora só ganhem projeção pública de forma significativa diante das desastres — como as presenciadas em 2015, a partir da ruptura de barragens da Samarco, na bacia do rio Doce, e em 2019, com uma barragem da Vale na bacia do rio Paraopeba, em Brumadinho. Mesmo com tentativas sistemáticas de lançamentos de alertas por atores da sociedade civil, numa série de arenas formais e informais, e mesmo diante do sofrimento de atingidos, o reconhecimento entre os atores envolvidos com a temática é de que o debate público não tem se realizado com a intensidade necessária. A partir de uma série de entrevistas em profundidade com ambientalistas, burocratas, políticos, jornalistas, dentre outros atores e da observação de arenas formais e informais, propomos a análise de quatro questões estruturais que acreditamos contribuir para o fenômeno. São eles: i) os constrangimentos econômicos, relativos ao financiamento de políticos e da imprensa local por mineradoras; ii) os constrangimentos institucionais, referentes (a) à atuação ambivalente do Ministério Público em relação à temática e (b) aos problemas no desenho institucional de arenas de participação política da área ambiental; iii) a fragmentação da sociedade civil ambientalista no estado; iv) e tentativas de controle da gestão do tempo dos conflitos envolvendo a mineração, por parte dos atores envolvidos.
... and "How does collaborative impasse emerge?" The study inquires, on the one hand, into the practices of designing collaboration, by investigating the expertise of the 'makers' of collaboration (Lee, 2015) who shape the rationale, framing, and rules operating in the collaborative space. On the other, it analyses how the plans of conveners and facilitators get appropriated, resisted, and transformed (Felt and Fochler, 2010, p. 219) by other actors once the collaboration stage opens to its participants. ...
... Overall, the present work is situated in literature around collaborative governance Emerson and Nabatchi, 2015;Soeresen and Torfing, 2021). To address its research questions, the three articles that compose this cumulative dissertation build on studies of democratic innovation Escobar and Elstub, 2019;; literature devoted to facilitation (Bherer et al., 2017;Cooper and Smith, 2012;Lee, 2015;Spada and Vreeland, 2013); organization studies focused on process (Langley, 1999;Weick, 1995); studies proposing an interpretative approach in public policy (Bartels, 2014;Cook and Wagenaar, 2012); and investigations of the 'ongoing, dynamic and evolving nature' of collaborative arrangements (Vandenbussche et al., 2020, p. 1). ...
... The 'makers' (Lee, 2015) of collaborative settings are variously referred to in the literature as experts of community (Rose, 1999), public engagement professionals (Lee, 2015), facilitative leaders , professional participation practitioners (Cooper and Smith, 2012), or deliberative consultants (Hendriks and Carson, 2008). We call them facilitators (Dillard, 2013;Mansbridge et al., 2006;. ...
Why do exercises in collaborative governance often witness more impasse than advantage? This cumulative dissertation undertakes a micro-level analysis of collaborative governance to tackle this research puzzle. It situates micropolitics at the very center of analysis: a wide range of activities, interventions, and tactics used by actors – be they conveners, facilitators, or participants – to shape the collaborative exercise. It is by focusing on these daily minutiae, and on the consequences that they bring along, the study argues, that we can better understand why and how collaboration can become stuck or unproductive. To do so, the foundational part of this dissertation (Article 1) uses power as a sensitizing concept to investigate the micro-dynamics that shape collaboration. It develops an analytical approach to advance the study of collaborative governance at the empirical level under a power-sensitive and process-oriented perspective. The subsequent articles follow the dissertation's red thread of investigating the micropolitics of collaborative governance by showing facilitation artefacts' interrelatedness and contribution to the potential success or failure of collaborative arrangements (Article 2); and by examining the specialized knowledge, skills and practices mobilized when designing a collaborative process (Article 3). The work is based on an abductive research approach, tacking back and forth between empirical data and theory, and offers a repertoire of concepts – from analytical terms (designed and emerging interaction orders, flows of power, arenas for power), to facilitation practices (scripting, situating, and supervising) and types of knowledge (process expertise) – to illustrate and study the detailed and constant work (and rework) that surrounds collaborative arrangements. These concepts sharpen the way researchers can look at, observe, and understand collaborative processes at a micro level. The thesis thereby elucidates the subtleties of power, which may be overlooked if we focus only on outcomes rather than the processes that engender them, and supports efforts to identify potential sources of impasse.
... Critical to the implementation of 'governancedriven democratization' (Warren 2009) are professional participation practitioners who are commissioned to run these processes. By Professional participation practitioners (PPP) we refer to people who provide professional and consulting services in public participation processes in return for payment. 1 A vibrant participation industry has emerged in the last 25 years to respond to the demand of commissioning authorities to implement these processes (Barnes et al. 2007;Lee 2015). Against this background, some scholars argue that public participation expertise has become a market commodity that is bought by governments and administrations around the globe (Hendriks & Carson 2008). ...
... The general commercialization of the participation sector can be considered to be empirically evident (Bherer et al. 2017b;Lee 2015). Thus, previous studies have raised concerns whether increasing commercialization could harm participatory ideals. ...
... Note 1 We borrow the term Professional Participation Practitioners (PPP) from Cooper and Smith (2012), who use it as an umbrella term covering descriptions such as 'facilitators' (Moore 2012), 'public participation professionals' (Bherer et al. 2017a), 'participatory process experts' (Chilvers 2008), 'public engagements practitioners' (Lee 2015) or ' deliberative organizers' (Hendriks & Carson 2008). ...
Against the backdrop of a perceived crisis of democracy, governments around the globe have extended citizens’ opportunities for public participation. Due to the increasing routinization of participatory processes, a vibrant participation industry has emerged where Professional Participation Practitioners (PPP) sell their services and knowledge to public clients. Despite the powerful role PPP play throughout the process of public participation, scholarly attention has been limited. This study provides seldom insides on PPP self-image and democratic value perceptions using an innovative Q-methodology design. Findings reveal similarities between PPP with regard to the commitment to strengthen democracy, providing transparent and fair participatory processes and raising citizens democratic competences. Further, PPP perceive their influential role within the participatory process but unanimously reject responsibility for final outcomes. Regarding difference among the surveyed PPP an explorative factor analysis suggests five distinguished types (Empowering Democracy Enhancer, Mediating Facilitator, Enlightening Contractor, Democratic Teacher, Agonistic Mediator). This typology sets the ground for further research on PPP who are likely to affect democratic practices not only nowadays but also in the future.
... Much uncertainty still exists about the degree of synchronization between the organizers' conceptions and the recent theoretical developments, such as, considering minipublics as a deliberative stimulant (Niemeyer, 2014) or an institution redistributing power (Curato et al., 2019). Previous studies indicate a gap between theory and practice, as organizers have different expectations and conceptions than theorists Lee, 2014;Hisschemöller and Cuppen, 2015). Yet, the treatment of the (de)synchronization between theory and practice relies on some interviews or field observation, meaning that we have not yet systematically investigated both how organizers conceive minipublics' contributions and the extent to which these contributions coincide with the theory. ...
... We also find a couple of studies about practitioners' posture towards minipublics. These show that practitioners hold different discourses about the purpose of minipublics, either conceiving them as a part of a broader strategy to revitalize democracy or as symbolic tools for decision-makers whose interests subvert genuine citizen participation (Cooper and Smith, 2012: 19, 21;Lee, 2014). Moreover, other works highlight a discrepancy between how particular tools and methods are applied in practice and how they are prescribed by theory (Hisschemöller and Cuppen, 2015: 42; see also Bächtiger et al., 2014). ...
... For instance, several researchers belonged to the organizing committee of the iconic G1000 and are now members of the G1000 platform, which lobbies for the use of minipublics in Belgium and cooperates with other important groups of practitioners such as the King Baudouin Foundation and the Foundation for the Future Generations. Belgium could therefore feature a closer alignment between practice and the theory than in Britain, Germany and the USA where researchers and organizers seem less interwoven (Cooper and Smith, 2012;Lee, 2014). 1 The database includes minipublics completed by 1 August 2021. 2 We observe in both Belgium and OECD countries a steady increase in the number of minipublics between 2001 and 2016, that followed a substantial augmentation; a widespread use of citizens' panels and consensus conferences; and also with the main topics addressed by the minipublics relating to territory, health, and the environment (OECD, 2020; Vrydagh et al., 2021). ...
Deliberative minipublics—participatory processes combining civic lottery with structured deliberation—are increasingly presented as a solution to address a series of problems. Whereas political theory has been prolific in conceiving their contributions, it remains unclear how the people organizing minipublics in practice view their purposes, and how these conceptions align with the theory. This paper conducts a thematic analysis of the reports of all the minipublics convened in Belgium between 2001 and 2021 ( n = 51) to map whether and how justifications coincide with the theory. The analysis reveals an important gap: minipublics are in practice predominantly presented as contributions to policymaking, while more deliberative functions remain peripheral. Some common practical purposes also remain under-theorized, in particular their capacity to bridge the gap between citizens and politics. This desynchronization, combined with a plethora of desired outcomes associated with minipublics, indicates the creation of a minipublic bubble which inflates their capacity to solve problems.
... Experts and expertise have returned to the center stage of sociological discussions. Whether we are talking of economic expertise (Fourcade 2009), thinktanks (Medvetz 2012), policy expertise (Medvetz 2012;Mudge and Vauchez 2012), legal expertise (Dezalay and Garth 2002), or participation consultancies (Lee 2015), the last ten years have seen the emergence of a rich and varied discussion on the power and influence of experts on contemporary social life and how expertise "acquires value as public intervention" (Eyal and Buchholz 2010, 119), much of it predicated on what Mitchell (2002) has described as the "rule of experts." Increasingly addressed has been the question of the relative powerlessness of some kinds of experts. ...
... There was a broad cultural conversation on both sides of the Atlantic about the dangers of disaffection to the health of democracies. By the early 2000s, there were concerted efforts to transform political institutions to reconnect citizens to their governments, a "new spirit of government" that privileged citizen participation and engagement (Baiocchi and Ganuza 2016;Lee 2015). Innovations like "deliberative democracy, e-democracy, public conversations, participatory budgeting, citizen juries, study circles, [and] collaborative policy making," among many others, became quite commonplace and expected to be included in governance (Bingham et al. 2005, 547). ...
How do urban professionals morally orient themselves toward their work to transform the built environment? Contemporary urban planning is a field that is defined by both a strong ethos of equity and social reform and a widely shared realization that the profession itself is relatively powerless. The question of whether justice can be planned, and whether exercises in planning can ever achieve just outcomes has been a perennial question facing progressive planners. A generation ago scholars of a critical bent made the persuasive case for “no.” Yet planning continues, and the profession continues to attract and train equity-minded, reform-oriented individuals. This paper examines how planning theory and theorists reconcile their motivating civic visions and moral stances with constraints on practice that thwart their efforts to achieve a just society. We find that far from being naïve, planners adopt a reflexive, pragmatic morality that allows them to maintain normative commitments even in highly constrained environments. From this case, we argue for more attention to the moral work involved in professionals’ formulation of strategies for environmental change.
... According to: Tavares consider the voters to be capable of only voting for them, everything else is believed to be far too complicated for them. 26 Involvement of citizens is possible on every level of governance, however, the strongest motivation for involvement appears on the lowest levels of governance since the decisions directly affect specific issues dealt with by the community. The importance of involvement of citizens and decision-making on the lowest levels of governance is promoted by the European Charter of Local Self-Government which introduces the principle of subsidiarity 27 and the Additional Protocol to the European Charter of Local Self-Government on the right to participate in the affairs of a local authority. ...
... 32 The scope of acceptance and implementation of internal decentralization depends solely on the attitudes of local political leaders. 33 As has 26 Bakota, B.; Ljubanović, B., op. cit., note 22, p. 14. 27 European Charter of Local Self-Government, Official Gazette, International Agreements. ...
The basis of every democratic legal order is the involvement of citizens in decision-making. The Member States of the European Union have established such a legal framework that encourages democracy, especially the involvement of citizens, openness and transparency, the principle of subsidiarity and other principles expressed in the corresponding legal documents. Numerous scientific studies have proven that the Europeans expect much more from democracy than the minimum. The model of liberal democracy rests on achieving the widest possible consensus when making decisions. Nevertheless, citizen involvement in making political decisions has its shortcomings, which are often overemphasized, all with the aim of excluding citizens from the decision-making process on public policies. The biggest opponents of true citizen involvement are politicians whose “power” is limited by citizen involvement models. One of the key arguments against citizen involvement is the inability and reluctance of “ordinary” citizens to make quality decisions. Inclusion and participation models are very diverse. This paper puts an emphasis on realizing the principle of subsidiarity through citizen participation in decision-making at local levels through sub-municipal self-government form. This paper presents the results of research aimed at gaining insight into the attitudes and opinions of local politicians (chiefs/mayors, presidents of representative bodies of local self-government units and council members of sub-municipal committees) in Osijek-Baranja and Vukovar-Srijem counties on the need for and opportunities for citizen participation through sub-municipal self-government form. For the purposes of the research, a questionnaire was prepared and sent to the respondents via e-mail. The starting hypothesis of the paper is H1: Local politicians do not support sub-municipal decentralization. Descriptive statistics and appropriate statistical analyses were used to analyse the research results (Kruskal-Wallis H test with Bonferroni test as a post-hoc test, Mann Whitney U test, Kendall's Tau-b correlation coefficient (τb), Cramer's V (φc) and Ordinal Regression PLUM analysis). The results show statistically significant differences in the responses between individual categories of respondents. In addition to the introductory part, the paper consists of a theoretical part that argues the importance of citizen participation in decision-making as a key element of democracy, a description of the methodology of the conducted research, research results, and finally the conclusion. The paper’s contribution to administrative science is reflected in a comprehensive theoretical analysis and original research results that can serve as a basis for empowering citizens and their true involvement in decision-making.
... The expansion of civic engagement initiatives over the past two decades has led to a booming field of practice and practitioners, dubbed by some as an 'industry' (Hendriks and Carson 2008;Lee 2015) that has become professionalised and commercialised (Bherer et al. 2017a, b, c). As a result, deliberative democracy has seen increasing consolidation of a community of practice (Hendriks and Carson 2008), inhabited by professional deliberative engagement specialists, scholars, activists and international networks and organisations. ...
... This is especially relevant as DMPs become more popular and face increased ethical risks. The professionalisation and commercialisation of public participation makes deliberative participation more susceptible to ethical risks such as co-option, manipulation or undue political influence (Bherer et al. 2017a, b, c;Hendriks and Carson 2008;Lee 2015). For some, the establishment of an 'industry' operating in a commercial context is directly in tension with principles of deliberative democracy (Hendriks and Carson 2008). ...
Deliberative mini-publics convene a randomly selected group of citizens to deliberate on a policy issue and generate recommendations for decision makers. A rich field of research and practice has focused on the quality of deliberation and its ideal conditions. As a result, we know what works. But we also need to know what conditions and issues prevent practice from achieving these best practices in the real world. I pursue this line of enquiry through a qualitative thematic analysis of interviews with 25 deliberative practitioners, who are responsible for the design and delivery of deliberative mini-publics. Existing research problematises practitioners’ relationship to commissioning authorities and the tension between commercial and democratic ideals. I find that, counter to previous research, practitioners have the capacity to push back against pressure from commissioners. This paper presents ethical issues encountered during the commissioning, design and implementation of mini-publics. Some practitioners believe that ethical issues can be mitigated through adapting deliberative designs, whilst others feel the limitations of their agency in a context where they are commissioned to deliver a service. These findings demonstrate the reflexivity of practitioners in the deliberative mini-publics community and advance understanding of the ethics and governance of deliberative mini-publics.
... This new field stems from the confluence of a range of practical and theoretical projects advancing the critique and development of democracy throughout the past century. However, the label 'democratic innovation' has only recently started to galvanise a burgeoning academic field built on notable publications (Smith, 2009;Hendriks, 2011;Geissel and Newton, 2012;Geissel and Joas, 2013;Grönlund et al., 2014;Lee, 2015;Font et al., 2014;Elstub and McLaverty, 2014a;Sintomer et al., 2016;Baiocchi and Ganuza, 2017). A critical component of this development has been the formation of new international research networks, for example, the Standing Group on Democratic Innovations at the European Consortium of Political Research 2 or the databases developed by Participedia 3 and the LATINNO project 4 (see Chapters 26 and 38). ...
... Forester, 1988Forester, , 2009Shapiro, 1999;Hendriks, 2011); whether participatory processes seek enrolment and co-option rather than empowerment (e.g. Cooke and Kothari, 2001;Cornwall and Coelho, 2007); whether emancipatory practices are giving way to technocratic or depoliticised participatory processes (Lee, 2015;Baiocchi and Ganuza, 2017); and the challenge of scaling up deliberation to develop large deliberative systems (Parkinson and Mansbridge, 2012;Owen and Smith, 2015). ...
... However, their integration has frequently been complicated (Baiocchi et al., 2011;Lee, 2015;Font & García-Espín, 2019;Janoschka & Mota, 2020;Lima, 2019). Regarding this issue, the literature has pointed to the concepts of autonomy, co-optation, and conflict, as if the institutional encounter would lead typically to one of these poles: a moderation of aims due to institutionalization, versus critical learning which reinforces their autonomy or situations of tense unrest (García-Espín & Jiménez, 2017;Lima, 2019;Holdo, 2019b). ...
... Here, there was tension between the ideal of co-production and the actual capacities of activists. These practices of "do-it-yourself democracy" (Lee, 2015) which entail projects that follow a participatory style in which associations, volunteers, and individual residents are responsible for the design, implementation, and evaluation of public services or actions, may substitute the work of state agencies and professionals. As the case of Madrid shows, the problem is that they relocate public obligations and workloads to volunteers who have their own political, work, and family responsibilities, overwhelming them and causing fatigue. ...
The engagement of social movement activists in participatory institutions has been a central question in recent empirical works on democratic innovations. Some researchers point to positive benefits for activism such as transparency towards non-organised citizens and increased information, while other works highlight negative outcomes such as co-optation or moderation of aims (Baiocchi et al., 2011; Lima, 2019; 2020). In this chapter, we explore one effect that has received less attention: the problem of disappointment, due to a maladjustment between activists' social justice aims and the limited powers of local participatory institutions. To examine this puzzle, we explore a case study of local forums in Madrid (Spain) during 2015–2019. Members of social movement organisations decided to engage in these new deliberative forums and, soon after, faced feelings of overload and disappointment. This case is useful to understand why local innovations tend to produce these effects and how they could be addressed in practice, considering the activists' conceptions.
... For instance, beneficiary involvement in decision-making processes is associated with both social and systemic integrative practices. Such involvement is usually seen as a feature of democratic, community-building organizations but may also reflect an organization's capacity to conduct beneficiary surveys or solicit participation, a trait commonly found in organizations tackling social issues through inter-organizational collaborations and political advocacy (35). That different practices may load onto both factors is an important feature of the analysis, although our results also hold when excluding these ambivalent indicators. ...
... These can then pivot, riff and leverage on opportunities offered by the above methods for more plural and conditional innovation politics (Stirling 2008). In resulting variously-styled aspirations to 'deep' (Appadurai 2001), 'participatory' (Rogers 2008), 'direct' (Bookchin 2015), 'deliberative' (Reber 2018;Smith 2003); 'living' (Fisher and Ponniah 2015); 'radical' (Mouffe 1992), 'pluralist' (Dahl 1982); 'reflective' (Goodin 2003) and 'do it yourself' (Lee 2015) democracies, different kinds and degrees of 'techno-social empowerment' (Gordon 2006) may thus unfold with regard to directions taken by innovations that affect people's lives. Either way, if only just as the slogan innovation democracy (Hippel and. ...
Developing earlier work, this paper explores analytic and political implications of ideas about direction in innovation. Unduly hidden in mainstream innovation and sustainability transformations literatures, crucial issues arise for responsible innovation. Although essential to both rigour and effectiveness, key realities tend to be concealed by general hegemonic forces in contemporary global colonial modernity, as well as by more specific expediencies to power and privilege in particular settings. To help resist these obscuring pressures, three contrasting (frequently conflated) meanings are distinguished. Directing innovation involves driving narrow motivating processes towards some given end. The direction of innovation concerns broader steering of pathways towards more openly chosen ends. Directionality of innovation entails grasping deeper political potentialities spanning pluralities of ends. Seriously eroding innovation policy and research alike, much current governance activity fails appropriately to focus or act on these distinctions. To assist greater policy robustness and legitimacy, this paper points to important (but often neglected) practises in each regard. To properly address social and ecological sustainability imperatives, greater attention is advocated to irreducibly political aspects of responsible innovation. This entails renewed emphasis not only on precaution, participation and accountability, but on actively supporting emancipatory struggle towards plural ‘directions for progress’ in innovation democracies.
... Näitä osallistamistoimia on myös kritisoitu runsaasti siitä, että niillä osallistetaan usein niitä, jotka ovat jo valmiiksi aktiivisia yhteiskunnassa (esim. Cooke and Kothari, 2001;Irvin and Stansbury, 2004;Ledwith, 2011;Lee, 2015;Lee et al. 2015). Vaikka tässä kirjassa ollaan ensisijaisesti kiinnostuneita kulttuurisuunnittelusta eli sellaisesta osallistumisesta, jolla pyritään vaikuttamaan erityisesti yhdyskunta-ja kaupunkisuunnitteluun, on osallistumisella merkittävä rooli myös yksilöiden ja yhteisöjen hyvinvoinnin rakentumisessa ). ...
Kestävän kulttuurisuunnittelun tavoitteena on asukkaiden ja yhteisöjen osallistuminen sekä toimijuuden ja hyvinvoinnin vahvistaminen. Kirjan tekstit käsittelevät kulttuurisuunnittelun lähtökohtia, osallistumisen mahdollistavia menetelmiä sekä kulttuurisuunnitteluprosesseissa jaettua asiantuntijuutta. Niissä esitellään kulttuurisuunnitteluhankkeiden käytännön toteuttamista, kulttuurikartoituksen menetelmiä ja tavoitteita sekä keskustellaan muun muassa taidelähtöisistä menetelmistä, digiosallisuudesta, yhteiskehittämisestä, yhteisöjen ja asuinalueiden identiteeteistä sekä osallistumisen esteistä. Kirjoittajat pohtivat myös kulttuurisuunnitteluprosessien toimijoiden välisiä suhteita, jotka liittyvät keskeisesti valtaan ja kestävyysmurrokseen.
(In English)
The goal of sustainable cultural planning is the participation of residents and communities, as well as strengthening their agency and well-being. The texts of volume address the starting points of cultural planning, methods that enable participation, and shared expertise of actors participating in cultural planning processes. The texts introduce practical implementations of cultural planning projects, various methods of cultural mapping, and discuss, among other issues, art-based approaches, digital participation, co-creation, collective identities of communities and residential areas, and barriers of participation. The authors also reflect on the relationships between actors in cultural planning processes, which connect to wider issues of power and sustainability transformation.
... Neben einem ungünstigen Design der Beteiligungsformate und einer fehlenden Verstetigung definieren Fernández-Martínez u. a. (2020) als Hauptursachen für Partizipationsfrust übersteigerte Erwartungen an die Partizipation einerseits und eine als ineffektiv beziehungsweise inkonsequent wahrgenommene Beteiligung andererseits. Mit Blick auf die Erwartungen an Partizipation hat sich mittlerweile eine ganze Partizipationsindustrie herausgebildet, bei der Expert:innen Empfehlungen und Handreichungen entwickeln und verschiedene Beteiligungsformate gegenüber unterschiedlichsten Organisationen bewerben (Lee 2015). Werden sehr hohe Erwartungen geweckt, kann das bei den Teilnehmenden allerdings zu Missverständnissen darüber führen, »um welche Art der Partizipation es sich [tatsächlich] handelt« und wie viel es eigentlich noch mitzuentscheiden gibt (Holenstein u. a. 2020: 79). ...
In diesem Beitrag wird Zusammenhalt als Resilienz der Gesellschaft gegenüber konfliktbasierten Spaltungstendenzen betrachtet. Dabei wird zum einen aus einer reaktiv-konfliktzentrierten Perspektive gefragt, wie sich gesellschaftliche Konflikte angemessen bearbeiten lassen. Im Fokus stehen dabei Konflikte im Kontext der Energiewende und Beteiligungsverfahren als möglicher Konfliktlösungsmechanismus. Zum anderen wird aus einer aktiv-gestaltenden Perspektive betrachtet, inwiefern Zusammenhalt mithilfe von dialogorientiertem Wissenstransfer auch proaktiv gestaltet werden kann. Zur Beantwortung dieser Fragen werden innerhalb eines dialogorientierten Transferformats zunächst Erfahrungen aus der bisherigen Beteiligungspraxis zusammengetragen und diskutiert. Anschließend wird erhoben, wie das Transferformat von den Teilnehmenden wahrgenommen wurde und inwiefern es zu einer Veränderung oder Verfestigung bestehender Sichtweisen beigetragen hat. Im Ergebnis wird das Konfliktbearbeitungspotenzial von Beteiligungsverfahren eher kritisch bewertet. Insbesondere kann eine Kluft zwischen dem gesellschaftlichen Bedürfnis nach Dialog und den in der Praxis häufig engen Verfahrensgrenzen von Beteiligungsformaten festgestellt werden. Genau hier kann dialogischer Wissenstransfer ansetzen. Diskursorientierte Dialogformate schaffen einen alternativen, kollaborativen Raum, der durch die Überwindung bestehender Konfliktlinien und die Etablierung gemeinsamer Diskurspraktiken einen aktiv-gestaltenden Beitrag zum Zusammenhalt leisten kann.
... Many deliberative democrats, however, build on modern thinking without questioning it, and this has implications for the practice of deliberative democracy. The commodification and de-contextualisation of deliberative innovations is one dimension of this issue (Johnson, 2015;Hammond, 2021;Lee, 2014). Another dimension of the problem emerges in the internal relations within the academic field, as Westernised academics can only interpret related concepts through Western lenses and fail to recognise the originality and plurality of non-Western contributions. ...
While deliberative democracy is driven by ideals of equality and inclusion, it has yet to confront its own particularity and its rootedness in Western thinking. In this debate, a range of scholars position themselves vis-a-vis the question of whether deliberative democracy can be decolonized. They critically interrogate the exclusions and blind spots of the deliberative democratic project and show ways forward.
... Osallistumisen ideologiaa on kritisoitu paljon (esim. Cooke & Kothari, 2001;Bäcklund, Häkli & Schulman, 2002;Irvin & Stansbury, 2004;Ledwith, 2011;Lee, 2015;Lee ym., 2015). ...
Artikkeli käsittelee asukasosallisuuden toteutumista kulttuurisuunnitteluun perustuvassa Kylä-OSKU-hankkeessa. Hankkeessa pyrittiin selvittämään kahden erilaisen alueen, kasvavan kaupunkilähiön ja pienen maaseututaajaman, asukkaiden näkemyksiä ja toiveita erilaisten kulttuurikartoituksen menetelmien avulla. Artikkelissa analysoimme, miten soveltamamme menetelmät toimivat ja millaisia näkökulmia ne toivat esiin. Arvioimme käyttämiämme menetelmiä erityisesti osallistumisen ja siihen sisältyvän vuorovaikutuksen ja yhteiskehittämisen näkökulmista ja pohdimme, miten osallistava kulttuurisuunnittelu voi edistää asukasosallisuuden vahvistamista. Tutkimuksemme osoittaa, että asukasosallisuus edellyttää eri osapuolten näkökulmien kuulemista ja ymmärtämistä, sekä vuorovaikutuksen jatkuvuutta. Asiasanat: subjektiivinen hyvinvointi, paikka, paikkakokemus, asuinalue, lapsinäkökulmatutkimus
... nt about practical ways to inject deliberation into political systems has even led to new administrative services dedicated to citizen participation and deliberation (Bottin & Mazeaud, 2023;Gourgues, Mazeaud, & Nonjon, 2021) as well as to commercial industries promoting citizen deliberation (Bherer, Gauthier, & Simard, 2017;Hendriks & Carson, 2008;C. W. Lee, 2014). ...
[Full text: http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/277762
Data, and R scripts: https://osf.io/2xuha/]
Many political theorists and pundits deplore the way we talk politics. Conversations among elites and ordinary citizens alike arguably often show a lack of argumentation and mutual respect. This has spurred widespread interest in finding new ways to stimulate deliberation, that is, respectful political talk marked by a give-and-take of reasons.
A fundamental critique is that deliberation goes against human nature. This view of deliberation and human nature has so far received little scrutiny but has had major implications for how we think about what deliberation requires. Some maintain that interventions to promote deliberation are futile and others that deliberation requires substantial institutional tinkering and corrective pedagogy. In this dissertation, I critically engage with this commonly held pessimistic view on human nature and deliberation from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective.
Theoretically, I ground our understanding of deliberation and human nature in the existing literature on human evolution, in particular work in the field of evolutionary psychology. Doing so allows me to advance an alternative view on deliberation: human nature dictates that deliberation under certain conditions will feel intuitive to most people. I put forward what I call the ‘group hypothesis’ of deliberation, which holds that deliberation formed an adaptive response to the problem of intra-group political disagreements, a problem recurrently encountered by our distant ancestors who used to live as (semi-)nomadic hunter-gatherers. Based on broader insights from evolutionary psychology, I expect that when people today disagree about politics with others from their ingroup (i.e. the group to which they (feel they) belong), they will still be inclined to deliberate. Conversely, disagreements with others from an outgroup should reduce people’s propensity to deliberate.
Empirically, the dissertation relies on diverse sources of data to test these expectations: ethnographic evidence on political decision-making in historic hunter-gatherer societies; longitudinal-cross-sectional data on the propensity of political representatives to deliberate in mass societies; and experimental data on the drivers of deliberation in informal talk among citizens. While I find little support for the expectations derived from the group hypothesis, the findings provide relevant insights for future work to start building a research program on human nature and deliberation.
The dissertation makes three key contributions to the literature on deliberation:
1. It grounds discussions about human nature and deliberation in the literature on evolutionary psychology, moving past mere philosophical speculation;
2. It shows how an evolutionary perspective can help to integrate research in the field of deliberation and incorporate insights from diverse disciplines such as anthropology and biology; and
3. It engages in theory-building based on existing evolutionary insights and novel empirics in an attempt to kickstart a research program on deliberation and human nature.
... We can mentionh ere the fact thatt he more they are known and appreciated within their administration, the more the deliberative public servants can be drawni nto multiple organization of participatory devices whose quality can onlydecrease duet oalackofr esources (Escobar 2013). We can also mention that the need to be recognized in their administration and the impossibility of controlling their jurisdiction partlyexplains the tendencytofocusattention on the participatory event rather thano nt he participatory outcome intendedt og uide a changei np ublic policy (Gourgues, Mazeaud and Nonjon 2021), and thus to feed the phenomenon of proceduralization of participation, (Ganuza and Baiocchi 2012;Lee 2015), which maye xplain whyp rocesses with limited effects continue to multiply. ...
... Others worry that deliberative forums are toodiscreteand isolated, and thus have limited engagement or capacity to address democratic disfunctions in conventionali nstitutions (Pateman 2012). There is also agrowingcritique that the refined and routinized practices of professional forum-making can function as atool by which governing elites seek to tame difficult issues, shutting out or quieteningt he "noise" from the public sphere (see Lee 2015;F uji-Johnson 2015). c) Unclear/uncertain role of designed forums: The forum does not necessarilyproduce immediate policy clarity or certainty -mostlyitforms part of, and becomes absorbed within, the complex, recursive,s poradic practices of policy work (e. g. see Wells, Howartha nd Brand-Correa 2021). ...
... Critical observers of the field have noted that democratic innovations often reflect a compromise between emancipatory and governmental logics, an interface that generates new forms of citizen participation but also accommodates the imperatives of the state and other powerful stakeholders (Cooke and Kothari, 2001;Gaventa, 2006;Cornwall and Coelho, 2007;Lee et al., 2015). This has given place to a critique of the limits of democratic innovations that offer participation but not empowerment (Böker and Elstub, 2015;Lee, 2015). Baiocchi and Ganuza (2017: 50) question 'empowerment processes that take place within the limits set by administrators'; they argue that the 'contradiction of democratic innovations is that they invite participation to debate the common good but do not endow ordinary citizens with the power to determine outcomes. ...
... Others, meanwhile, fi nd that mini-publics have become 'offthe-shelf ' solutions without paying close attention to the local realities and political contexts in which they take place (Christensen and Grant, 2020 ). 'Governing by focus group' or 'outsourcing governance' to the community engagement industry with commercial interests are other concerns (see Hendriks and Carson, 2008 ;Lee, 2015). The integrity of the process is crucial to participants' deliberative experience. ...
Introduction
The burgeoning literature on DMPs has studied and debated the merits of this form of democratic innovation. It is striking that this field of research contains no unanimously accepted definition of DMPs. As explained in Chapter One of this book, our goal is not to determine which definition is the most appropriate. Rather, we work with a definition of DMPs based upon two basic constitutive elements: (1) it should be a mini-public, meaning participants are selected through a process that generates a representative sample of the public; and (2) it should be a deliberative process, meaning that participating citizens reach their conclusions or recommendations after receiving information and engaging in a careful and open discussion about the issue or issues before them. We build from this to examine the diversity of real-life examples of DMPs that have taken place over the last two decades.
Real-world DMPs are indeed diverse, ranging from planning cells to citizens’ assemblies, consensus conferences and deliberative polls. This chapter derives from the empirical diversity of DMPs a general description of their organization and core design features, and the ways in which they have been implemented across countries. In particular, we will build upon the inventory of DMPs instituted by national and regional public authorities across Europe produced within the POLITICIZE project. This data set, which has been gathered by one of the authors of this book, has identified and described over 120 different cases since 2000. We have chosen this data set because it provides a comprehensive inventory of mini-publics. We recognize that this data set only covers European cases and that there are other data sets with broader coverage, such as the one compiled by the OECD or the Doing Mini-publics project. Nonetheless, we find this data set valuable, for it provides detailed information regarding how the mini-publics were composed and organized, as well as on the topics deliberated and on the outcomes. To enrich our analysis, we also bring in insights from other DMPs that have occurred outside Europe or before 2000 that are not covered by this inventory.
Capitalizing on this original data set, the chapter describes the core features of DMPs along three dimensions: their composition; their format and topic of deliberation; and their outputs.
... Others, meanwhile, fi nd that mini-publics have become 'offthe-shelf ' solutions without paying close attention to the local realities and political contexts in which they take place (Christensen and Grant, 2020 ). 'Governing by focus group' or 'outsourcing governance' to the community engagement industry with commercial interests are other concerns (see Hendriks and Carson, 2008 ;Lee, 2015). The integrity of the process is crucial to participants' deliberative experience. ...
Introduction
The increasing popularity of DMPs raises expectations as to what these forums can achieve. A Financial Times editorial declared that ‘deliberative democracy is just what politics needs’, referring to the power of citizens’ assemblies to address political polarization (The Financial Times, 2019). A year later, an editorial in The Guardian echoed the same sentiment, calling for ‘deliberation, not confusion’ as it spotlighted the UK's first climate assembly (The Guardian, 2020). Calls for various forms of democratic innovations emerged in the early days of the pandemic as societies imagined what it would take to make the ‘new normal’ work for all.
The increasing calls for DMPs are testament to the normative force as well as empirical track record of these forums. However, we are cautious not to pitch DMPs as a panacea that can revive democracy in challenging times. In this chapter, we take the position that DMPs are best appreciated as forums in democratic systems. This means two things. First, DMPs are not an end to themselves, but one of many potential practices that fulfil particular democratic functions, like elections, representation and exit, among others (Warren, 2017). We find that DMPs are helpful in facilitating collective will formation due to these forums’ design features but less so for collectively binding decision-making due to the lack of accountability of DMPs to those affected by their recommendations. Second, appreciating DMPs as forums within democratic systems means linking democratic deliberation with other practices of participatory decision-making. In this chapter, we take a close look at two empirical examples – the Irish Citizens’ Assembly and Ostbelgien modell – to demonstrate how DMPs can be meaningfully linked to institutions of representative democracy.
While this book focuses on core design features, we find it necessary to present an extended discussion on the wider purpose of DMPs to clarify these forums’ relationship with existing institutions of representative democracy. Viewed this way, we offer a measured appreciation of the transformative power of DMPs. We recognize that DMPs are not always the best option in solving democracy's problems, and the challenge lies in determining the precise ways in which DMPs can contribute to democratic reform.
DMPs and democracy's functions
We begin our discussion by taking a step back and thinking about the problems that a political system needs to solve to count as democratic.
... Others, meanwhile, fi nd that mini-publics have become 'offthe-shelf ' solutions without paying close attention to the local realities and political contexts in which they take place (Christensen and Grant, 2020 ). 'Governing by focus group' or 'outsourcing governance' to the community engagement industry with commercial interests are other concerns (see Hendriks and Carson, 2008 ;Lee, 2015). The integrity of the process is crucial to participants' deliberative experience. ...
Introduction
DMPs should be consequential. Participants who experience taking part in a mini-public may find the exercise valuable in its own right, but without impact outside the process, DMPs are at risk of becoming insignificant talking shops that do little to enhance the quality of collective decision-making. This, indeed, was one of the early concerns raised against DMPs. For Carole Pateman (2012: 9), their reach was limited, they had little influence in decision-making and the public did not know a lot about them (see also Rummens, 2016).
Fast-forward to a decade later and, today, DMPs are increasingly becoming visible in public life (see OECD, 2020). They are commissioned by national leaders like President Emmanuel Macron in France or parliamentary committees in the UK. They are part of the global environmental group Extinction Rebellion's core demands. Belgian political party Agora won a seat in the Brussels Parliament by running on the single issue of calling for a citizens’ assembly. Similarly, editorials in publications like The Financial Times, The Guardian and The Economist recognize the merits of DMPs. As the popularity of DMPs grows, the concern shifts from their insignificance to the implications of giving power to an unelected, randomly selected group of individuals.
At the heart of this issue are concerns about the legitimacy of DMPs. To what extent should DMPs shape decision-making? Should DMPs be empowered to make binding decisions? Are they better off taking an advisory role? What is the basis of DMPs’ legitimacy in the first place?
These issues, among others, point to the challenge of finding the sweet spot of ensuring that DMPs are neither too powerless, nor too powerful. This chapter examines this challenge in three parts. We begin by establishing the premise that before any mini-public should seek to influence decision-making, it should first establish its internal legitimacy. While there is no established consensus on what count as ‘legitimate’ DMPs, we can draw on a range of literature that defines what counts as good deliberation in mini-publics. We are cautious that before any calls for mini-publics’ consequentiality are made, it is necessary to first establish whether the procedure was run with integrity and demonstrated good-quality deliberation. We then turn to the second section and consider what makes DMPs legitimate from the perspective of non-participants. We draw on the growing empirical work on this topic.
... Voice formation in dialogues is a complex process that always takes place in power relations through numerous decisions and concrete practices. In an ethnographic study of facilitation in the USA Lee (2015) shows how facilitators are contributing to the establishment of new power inequalities while claiming to reduce them. Laine and Gretschel (2009) expose how power within dialogues with youth in the EU is determined by the roles and conducts of organizers, facilitators and other (young) experts in dialogue. ...
In recent years, the EU Youth Dialogue (EUYD) gained significant popularization as an important political mechanism through which young people in dialogue with policymakers from the local to the EU level jointly formulate youth policies. In an ethnographic study of the sixth cycle of the EUYD, I applied the Foucauldian analytics of government to analyze how the voice was constructed. In contrast to the representations that EUYD annuls hierarchies and offers a space for equal discussion between young people and policymakers, thus producing a genuine voice, I argue that the construction of the voice is always under the influence of various power relations that form specific voices. I illuminate how, through concrete techniques and micro-practices, EUYD worked as a disciplinary technology that sought a docile voice of the youth and at the same time offered a space for shaping the subjectivity of young delegates as active and responsible EU citizens.
... In this transformation PB has become a politically neutral instrument which could be implemented by any kind of administration to give transparency and power to citizen which are already capable to participate. The possibility of standardization, a potential win-win scenario, and prominence in public policy recommendations by international organizations as, for example the World Bank (Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2015), have also been the fundament for a growing public engagement industry (Lee, 2015), driving the dissemination of participatory processes. Here, process-oriented software tools combined with social media applications can significantly help to decrease the costs of participation and promote participatory initiatives. ...
Participatory budgeting (PB), associated with experiences from the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, was one of the most important democratic innovations of the last 50 years. This paper analyses the influence of internet technologies known as social media on the introduction of participatory budgeting in Germany. It will be argued that internet technologies played a key role in transforming approaches of PB from a “strengthen democracy” model to a “democratic offer” design. Empirical data comes from a document analysis of 11 evaluations of German PB projects between 2006 and 2015.
Drawing on Goffman's Frame Analysis and 20 years of observations of city planning councils in Western Europe and North America, this article lays the groundwork for a grammar of democratic ambiguity characterizing top‐down participatory processes and other public meetings aimed at some degree of citizen inclusion in local, municipal, or regional government. After pointing out Goffman's singular conception of the “interaction order,” the author shows how institutional organizers and ordinary citizens deal with interactional ambiguity, in its contrasting effects on the dynamics of these participatory assemblies. A primary form of ambiguity, between a “representative” and a “deliberative” definition of participatory democracy, is proving inhibiting for citizens' involvement and tends to “suspend interaction.” A second type of ambiguity arises from a wide range of facilitation methods (playful, dramaturgical, educational, therapeutic, esthetic, etc.) designed to transform the initial ambiguity to offer more fluid interaction and more stimulating involvement opportunities, yet in an activity that now has only an uncertain connection to civic participation. The author concludes by presenting some frame‐analytical tools for tracking and evaluating dynamics of ambiguity transformation in participatory processes and emphasizes the implications of this type of sociological analysis for political theory.
À l’heure où sciences et recherches participatives se développent, les modalités plus ou moins inclusives du « produire avec » sont à interroger, afin d’en mesurer les effets sur la perpétuation ou le recul des inégalités en leur sein. Cette réflexion a tout intérêt à se construire dans un dialogue entre sciences et société, et pas seulement depuis le point de vue des chercheur·es académiques. Tissant des parallèles entre les dilemmes et faux-semblants de la participation dans divers mondes sociaux, cet article explore d’abord le phénomène de redoublement des inégalités auquel la participation peut paradoxalement conduire, drame qui se rejoue de manière comparable dans la démocratie participative et les recherches participatives. La deuxième partie, centrée sur les leviers permettant de lutter contre les inégalités sociales et les injustices épistémiques, apporte des clés d’analyse sur les enjeux de pilotage pluriel et de validation croisée des démarches participatives.
Since the deliberative turn, a growing number of political analysts and practitioners have been committed to supplying conceptual innovations which could help redress the crisis of legitimacy affecting liberal democratic regimes worldwide. This chapter discusses a set of conceptual innovations, the main goal of which is to integrate (as opposed to overcoming; see Chap. 5) liberal democratic institutions, so as to boost their declining legitimacy. A remarkable ensemble of first-class political theorists, scientists and entrepreneurs is committed to this task (despite their variegated scientific interests and world views), making this quadrant of our Cartesian space the most densely populated. The chapter aims to (i) systematise the wealth of conceptual innovations and institutional solutions proposed to date, (ii) assess the innovations’ and solutions’ intellectual cogency and practical effectivity, and (iii) show their limitations and shortcomings. First, it focuses on those approaches which view sortition as a tool to improve both citizens’ participation and the quality of deliberation within civic bodies (Boricius, Journal of Public Deliberation, 9(1), article 11. https://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol9/iss1/art11, 2013; Coccoma, The case for abolishing elections. Boston Review. https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-case-for-abolishing-elections/, 2022; Delannoi and Dowlen, Sortition. Imprint Academic, 2016; Dowlen, The political potential of sortition. Imprint Academic; Guerrero, Forget voting—It’s time to start choosing our leaders by lottery. Aeon Essays. https://aeon.co/essays/forget-voting-it-s-time-to-start-choosing-our-leaders-by-lottery, 2014; Sintomer, Politics & Society, 46(3), 337–357, 2018, The government of chance: Sortition and democracy from Athens to the present. Cambridge University Press, 2023; P. Stone, The luck of the draw. Oxford University Press, 2011, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 19(3), 339–356, 2016; Van Reybrouck, Against elections: The case for democracy. The Bodley Head, 2016). Second, it investigates the ability of minipublics to affect public opinion, and to make the official sphere more responsive to the citizenry. While appreciating the cogency of those conceptual innovations, and the practical benefits that could be brought about by the institutional solutions they have inspired, the chapter questions some of the reasons used to justify them, and stress the inherent limitations of the piecemeal approach that characterises integrative models of DD (IDDs). The discussion starts with the work of James Fishkin (Democracy when the people are thinking. Oxford University Press, 2018a), the author who exemplifies the aspirations of IDD theorists better than anyone else. To a large degree, Fishkin has also been pivotal in the development of many practices at the centre of the democratic experimentation that is taking place at present. Based on this bird’s-eye view of the quadrant under investigation, the conceptual building blocks of the ideal-typical IDD will then be identified and analysed. To this end, a number of theoretical contributions, the aim of which is to refine, complement and expand on Fishkin’s integrative approach, are also brought into consideration and evaluated.
The chapter describes the outcome of the Conference as perceived by the organisers, and whether it advanced the cause of EU democracy. In spite of the strong discursive emphasis on the importance of ‘citizens’ in the process, the outcome illustrates a shift in the traditional relation between EU institutions and EU citizens, which is increasingly oriented towards reaching out ‘directly’ to ‘citizens’. The chapter describes the public-private institutionalisation of ‘citizen participation’ through the European Commission. Then, the chapter focuses on the EU inter-institutional struggle to ‘own’ citizen participation, with a particular emphasis on the Commission’s 2023 work programme. Relatedly, it analyses the ‘new generation’ of European citizen panels on food waste, virtual worlds and learning mobility, suggesting that the panels tend to turn ‘everyday citizens’ into EU ‘technocrats’ within the process, and aim to make them ‘ambassadors’ outside of it. The chapter concludes by arguing that this type of citizen participation is not ideology-free, and that it mostly reproduces the ideology mobilised by the organising institution, the Commission.
The chapter analyses the evolution of the EU in terms of democracy and participation that leads up to the Conference on the Future of Europe, conceived as the ‘citizen turn’. This turn breaks away from the ‘participatory turn’ described by (Saurugger, European Journal of Political Research 49:471–495, 2010) in that it decouples ‘citizen participation’ from civil society and the idea of a European public sphere, both in discursive terms as well as in the ensuing political practices. The chapter begins with the post-Brexit shift of the EU in the way in which its relation with ‘citizens’ is conceived. It describes the citizen dialogues and the European Citizen Consultations (ECCs) as a prelude to the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE). The latter initiative consolidates the EU’s ‘citizen turn’ through an experimental exercise in which (a few hundred) ‘everyday citizens’ are situated at the centre through the European citizens’ panels. While there are innovative elements, the chapter argues that the ‘citizen turn’ does not meaningfully contribute to the emergence of an agonistic European public sphere and strong collective actors. It is therefore coherent with the preexistent depoliticised EU political dynamics of ‘democracy without politics’.
Many democratic societies struggle with issues around knowledge: fake news spreads online and offline, and there is distrust of experts, but also fear of technocratic tendencies. Citizen Knowledge discusses how knowledge, understood in a broad sense, should be dealt with in societies that combine a democratic political system with a capitalist economic system. How do citizens learn about politics? How do new scientific insights make their way into politics? What role can markets play in processing decentralized knowledge? The book takes on the perspective of “democratic institutionalism,” which focuses on the institutions that enable an inclusive and stable democratic life. It argues that the fraught relation between democracy and capitalism gets out of balance if too much knowledge is treated according to the logic of markets rather than democracy. Complex societies need different mechanisms for dealing with knowledge, among which markets, democratic deliberation, and expert communities are central. Citizen Knowledge emphasizes the responsibility of bearers of knowledge and the need to support institutions that support active and informed citizenship. It develops the vision of an egalitarian society that considers the use of knowledge in society not a matter of markets, but of shared democratic responsibility, supported by epistemic infrastructures. It contributes to political epistemology, a new subdiscipline of philosophy, with a focus on the interrelation between economic and political processes. It analyzes the current situation, drawing on the history of ideas and on systematic arguments about the nature of knowledge and epistemic justice, developing proposals for reforms.
When we participate in political debate or protests, we are judged by how we look, which clothes we wear, by our skin colour, gender and body language. This results in exclusions and limits our freedom of expression. The Politics of Becoming explores radical democratic acts of disidentification to counter this problem. Anonymity in masked protest, graffiti, and online de-bate interrupts our everyday identities. This allows us to live our multiple selves. In the digital age, anonymity becomes an inherent part of everyday communication. Through our smart devices we express our selves differently. As cyborgs, our identities are disrupted and reassembled. We curate self-representations on social media, create avatars, share selfies and choose the skin colour of our emojis.
The Politics of Becoming encourages us to engage in a revolution of the self. Democratic pluralism is not only a matter of institutional design but also about how we express our identities. Inner revolutions change our personal realities and plant a seed for democratic futures.
Participation seems to have become a catchword since the turn of the millennium (age of participation”, see Harles and Lange 2015; participation in the twenty-first century, see Nabatchi and Leighninger 2015; Roberts 2015; Chilvers and Kearnes 2016), a greater (direct) involvement of citizens in decisions and modi operandi in democracy and the promotion of participatory bottom-up activities of citizens seems to represent an overarching consensus (Ullrich et al. 2014; Bentele et al. 2014; Düber et al. 2015). Praxis and research on participation may now look back on more than 40 years of experience in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).
“Public Engagement” is a salient term that signifies industry-deployed strategies and tactics to manage public demands for recognition and participation in the formation of public policy. The term also includes government responses to these demands by outsourcing public-government relations to interested organisations. This Public Engagement Industry (PEI) legitimises actions and policies through consulting enterprises, public relations (PR) and commercial organisations that take advantage of weakened public spheres, to which the PEI contributes. The PEI is oriented toward officially planned outcomes by folding public concerns into formulaic engagement practices. A local example highlights generic lines of division between the PEI, its clients and resistance groups. More generally, the PEI's assumptions of communication, dialogue, deliberation, and transparency are criticised, along with its methods of data gathering that pose “public engagement” as though public stamps of approval had been demonstrated, claims that deserve critical analysis.
Practitioners who facilitate public participation in governance operate at the interface of three policy agendas: public service reform, social justice and democratic innovation. Scotland offers a paradigmatic site for studying this interface through the role of officials who work as facilitators of public participation. Reforms in the last two decades have generated new spaces for engaging citizens and communities while challenging official facilitators to reconcile grassroots community action with institutional engagement. This article draws on empirical research from the What Works Scotland dataset (2014–2019), which is the first to examine the nature of this role across Scotland. Our analysis unpacks the tensions of interactive modes of governance and explores facilitators’ agency in responding to cultural practices that are resistant to change. The paper argues that official facilitators are more than process designers and discursive stewards; their work involves challenging and changing the cultural practices of the state at the frontlines of democratic upheaval and renewal.
The EU has recently organised a series of ‘citizen-centred’ processes that may be indicative of a new pattern in terms of democracy and participation. The article begins with this observation in order to pose the following question: to what extent the introduction of ‘citizen participation’ mechanisms in the Conference on the Future of Europe reflects a rupture with the EU’s dominant understanding of democracy? While there are innovative elements in the Conference, which are described in detail, the article develops a normative critique of the underlying philosophy with which it was organised and constructed, as it followed an alternative legitimacy logic that fundamentally deviates from an agonistic public sphere perspective. The Conference illustrates a ‘citizen turn’ that breaks away from the ‘participatory turn’ described by Saurugger (2010 Saurugger, S. 2010. “The Social Construction of the Participatory Turn: The Emergence of a Norm in the European Union.” European Journal of Political Research 49 (4): 471–495. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.2009.01905.x.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in that it decouples ‘citizen participation’ from civil society and the idea of a European public sphere, both in discursive terms as well as in the ensuing political practices. The article concludes with a wider conceptualisation of what the ‘citizen turn’ means for EU democracy, and why the disintermediation of European politics is coherent with the preexistent depoliticised EU political dynamics, conceived in the case of the Conference as ‘democracy without politics’.
Public participation professionals (PPPs) are individuals hired to design, implement, and facilitate participatory forums. Since PPPs are seen as third actors who ensure that dialogue between sponsors and citizens in these forums is fair and open, perceived impartiality is important to their profession. While studies on the impartiality of PPPs have mostly focused on their interactions with citizens in these kinds of forums, less attention has been paid to the role of PPPs as third actors interacting with sponsors. This article seeks to describe some strategies PPPs use with sponsors to ensure fair and open dialogue in participatory forums. Based on 35 interviews with PPPs in Quebec, six strategies employed by PPPs to maintain impartiality are described in detail. An organisational field approach was used to identify these and other strategies and capture the nature of the interdependence and mutual recognition among PPPs.
Nossas democracias estão enfrentando desafios profundos, desde os sistemas econômicos que estão afetando muitos cidadãos, até questões globais de meio ambiente, segurança e migração que cruzam as fronteiras nacionais. As eleições estão cada vez mais falhando na promoção de governos com capacidades suficientes para enfrentar esses desafios, ampliando a insatisfação de amplos segmentos de cidadãos, o déficit de nossos sistemas de representação, e o eleitorado de populistas autoritários. Podemos complementar as democracias representativas eleitorais com inovações que respondam a esses déficits democráticos? Embora a democracia eleitoral esteja sendo crescentemente desafiada, a “democracia” não está em crise. Na maioria dos países, os valores democráticos são fortes e estão se consolidando. Precisamos pensar sobre as inovações democráticas sistematicamente, em termos dos tipos de valores que elas capturam e das deficiências de desempenho que poderão enfrentar. Ao fazermos isso, podemos refinar uma agenda para o campo das inovações democráticas focada no projeto democrático, para além das instituições legadas da democracia eleitoral.
https://www.economie.gouv.fr/igpde-editions-publications/organisations-publiques-participation-n13
How does an established institution incorporate deliberation by randomly selected citizens? Can they deliberate on an equal footing with interest group representatives? How do the latter envision citizen participation? This article attempts to answer these questions by analysing the deliberative mini-public 'New Generations' set up by the French Economic Social and Environmental Council (ESEC) in 2020. A socio-economic consultative assembly, the ESEC was the subject of a legislative reform adopted in January 2021, which establishes the possibility for the Council to have randomly selected citizens deliberate alongside representatives of interest groups. Relying on semi-structured interviews (n = 15), surveys at multiple points in time (n = 190), direct observation (11 days) and content analysis, we illustrate the limits of the integration of citizen deliberation within the ESEC. Articulating a longitudinal macro perspective (on the institutional and legislative transformations of the Council) with a sociological microanalysis (of the 'New Generations' experiment) allows us to underline that in the current implementation of citizens' participation in the ESEC, the institution seems to be 'flying without instruments'. Indeed, with few references to legal frameworks or scientific guidelines, the Council relies mainly on private consultants to implement deliberative practices. We thus worry that within the current political context, citizen deliberation is on its way to become an ad hoc resource, used by interest groups and institutions to defend their causes in the public sphere, but not leading to a direct implication of citizens in the decision-making process.
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