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Sunday, 10 May 2009
The European Citizens' Consultations: Proxy democracy
The European Citizens' Consultations are finding their end this weekend at the European Citizens Summit in Brussels, and I am following some of the activities through La Oreja de Europa, but I am not glad that there is no live stream of the event nor a journalistic audiovisual coverage available online.
In addition, I don't think that these consultations are of much value for anyone besides the participants and public relations of EU institutions and some of the organisers. There doesn't seem room for a critical analysis - as the what others think section on its website shows - of the format.
I am a big fan of citizens' involvement in policy-making and agenda-setting. And I am convinced that elements of the representative democracy have to be supplemented with other tools to make it fit a modern democracy of the 21st century.
But why should selecting a number of citizens from different countries to discuss European issues be more relevant, representative, or creative than what is already happening in political and non-partisan organisations, within the European Parliament, within public and semi-public online fora etc.?
What makes sure that in the discussions on national and European levels the agendas and recommendations are not shaped by a small number of charismatic, better-informed, or ideologically deadlocked participants who are able to convince the rest while the final result will be presented as "representative"?
Where are the criteria for the choice of participants? Who has set up the agenda of these meetings and hasn't the temporal arrangement of these events already pre-structured the outcome?
I am asking these questions, as I am asking them to any other political event, to any other "consultation", "conference", or however it is called. The participants have been chosen by organisations with a particular interest, and they have not been voted for this task by anyone.
The point I would like to make is that for me this event is not more or less important than any other political meeting, that its outcome does not stand for "the citizens" but for the participants of the event, which in the next weeks will be disguised by those who can take advantage of the outcomes, whatever political or social group this might be.
This kind of consultations is proxy democracy, it is a simulation of a much more complex process (as many of the Model European Union/United Nations/etc. events are), and the results depend very much on the set-up of the simulation and the individual agents chosen. Neither the participants nor the organisations that organised will have to take responsibility for what is said and recommended, so they are playing democracy in an open space, which is nice and can be creative, but which is hardly reproducible outside these conditions.
Pluralist democracy cannot be replaced by proxy democracy, and although I know that this might not be the aim of the European Citizens' Consultations, there is the danger of seeing those events as an easy-to-organise replacement of the much more difficult involvement of the general public in concrete decision- and law-making within the European Union that is often intransparent, overly complicated, and citizen-unfriendly at best.
PS.: After criticism to my post raised by a commentator, I have tried to clarify some of points in the comments. So have a look and tell me whether you feel that I am wrong or overly critical with what I say.
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6 comments:
Firstly, prior to posting your article(proxy democracy)on the web I feel that you should have done your homework.
The European Citizens Consultations 2009 website will answer all your questions on the selection process for this event(purely random).
As a citizen who feels very honoured to have been involved at both national and European level I am in a position to put some light on your other concerns re this event.
1.AGENDA(national events)-THERE WASN'T ANY.
The starting point-our concerns for the future (both economic and social) as ordinaryundsychn citizens These concerns ended up as National Recommendations.How?
democratically voted upon by our citizens who attended this event.
AGENDA(European event).
OUR recommendations:
Developed by a democratic process in all 27 member states(again your homework).One could say putting the meat on the bones.
2.Criteria for choice of participants: None
At both events I met some lovely people,some pro European,some serious sceptics, others just hadn't decided.
3.Pre structured outcome:
Well now do your homework/read the above.
4.What others think:
"Tut Tut" Home work again!!-On line debate Dec 2008-Mar 2009.
Dear Anonymous,
I appreciate that you took the time to react to my post, and I appreciate that you took this task seriously - which I see since you say you felt honoured to participate and since you are helping me to clarify how we should classify this event.
Regarding my homework, I read about some of the details before, not all, I admit, but I dared to take at least a look before I wrote this post.
So I had seen that the participants were chosen at random, although it was not too clear for me from which basis this was. Scientifically, the question would be whether this random sample is representative or not. But lets consider that this was the case, and my doubts are unreasonable.
This was for the first round. Can you tell you tell how the choice for the second round was done? So why were you chosen and not another person?
Regarding the agenda: What I meant with "the agenda" was rather the scheduling, the structuring of the debates, the organisation of the interaction, the drawing up of conclusions.
I have no doubts that within these settings the discussions were open, intelligent, friendly. I also didn't want to say that the result was predetermined. I did not have any doubts that there were different opinions present among the participants. And I have read that you have been democratically voting on proposals. So there is no doubt on the general internal "democratic" procedure of the process itself.
What I wanted to express is that the setting of these main events (temporal scarcity, limits to the amounts of possible interactions etc.) were providing a very particular arena shaping the discussion process. And that I didn't see any criticism or doubt in this regard (which can mean that everything was fine).
Who decided at what point you would interact with MEPs and other politicians? Who decided about the order of speaking? Who limited the number national recommendations to 10? Who decided how much time you would have, when the debates would start and end? Who was in which group for what reason?
This is what I mean with pre-structuring: The rules of this whole game (the "constitution"). And the rules are always important for the game.
Please don't misunderstand me when I say that I don't think that the results can speak for anyone but the participants.
Yet only those participating in the events voted on them and they were not there as representatives but as citizens. So you cannot speak in the name of other citizens, the results reflect the majority of people present.
But that is all fine for me. I am not criticising that such processes happen. They are very valuable for those participating, because they might involve a number of people who usually are not taking an active part in democratic processes. They help to concentrate and focus on some important issues, and they bring together fellow Europeans who can see that they actually share many concerns. That is what I always appreciated at those meetings.
The reason why I am criticising these events - why I called it "proxy democracy" - is that they are big positive PR for the European institutions (as you have read in the project description , quite cheap PR), without actually changing their work.
The Commission, the Parliament, maybe the Council. can now say how open and inclusive they are, how the care for the participation of citizens, while they don't care much for the rest of the time - at least they don't show it. It is relatively easy to organise such an event with a manageable amount of persons and non-binding results
And yes, the results are non-binding. The political actors are in no ways obliged to do what you have developed as conclusions, they can do cherry picking or simply back their already existing plans with what you have concluded.
And they can argue with you as a proxy, telling they are just doing what you concluded.
To summarise:
My critique was not based on a lack of homework, although I could have spent more of my free time researching for more details.
My critique is also not against anyone who participated in these events, and I am sure they were conducted in the best spirit by all organisers and participants.
I just say that the process was structured in a certain way (not the outcome), but the structuring of processes always has an influence on the possibilities and limits of what can happen (and what cannot happen) during democratic process.
What I fear is that these excellent events will be used by professional politicians for their own agendas (I have already seen messages of party politicians on Twitter who claim that the results are close to their electoral manifestos), not least by those institutions of the Union which generally lack transparency and democratic procedures.
I am not sure whether this is in any way satisfying for you, but I hope I was able to make my point a bit clearer - in particular that I have nothing personal against anyone investing time and effort in this endeavour!
Thank you so much for your clarification. I now know where you are coming from.My apologies on the over doing of the homework thing.Bet you can now guess my occupation.
I can now tell you that our nations event represented a good cross section of the population.
Why was I chosen for Europe.?
Honest answer-Don't know. Raffle we were told. But can give you my opinion.
Common denominator:
Articulate
Camera friendly
Enthusiasm -ante and pro
All debates need structure otherwise we will have chaos. At no stage during this process did I feel manipulated.All discussions were well facilitated not shaped.
You have to consider that our M E P S are busy people.
We all accepted the fact that we had to fit into their schedules.Bear in mind that they were both weekend events.
Please suggest an alternative process.
Of course the results are non binding-when did recommendations translate policy. They will cherry pick,use them as manifestos etc. but so what-we have been given this opportunity to bring them to their attention.Mission accomplished.
Next stage-See if we were listen to,then we will both have answers.
To finish:As I Was involved in all recommendations from birth I will recognise any window dressing.
Thank you so much for your clarification. I now know where you are coming from.My apologies on the over doing of the homework thing.Bet you can now guess my occupation.
I can now tell you that our nations event represented a good cross section of the population.
Why was I chosen for Europe.?
Honest answer-Don't know. Raffle we were told. But can give you my opinion.
Common denominator:
Articulate
Camera friendly
Enthusiasm -ante and pro
All debates need structure otherwise we will have chaos. At no stage during this process did I feel manipulated.All discussions were well facilitated not shaped.
You have to consider that our M E P S are busy people.
We all accepted the fact that we had to fit into their schedules.Bear in mind that they were both weekend events.
Please suggest an alternative process.
Of course the results are non binding-when did recommendations translate policy. They will cherry pick,use them as manifestos etc. but so what-we have been given this opportunity to bring them to their attention.Mission accomplished.
Next stage-See if we were listen to,then we will both have answers.
To finish:As I Was involved in all recommendations from birth I will recognise any window dressing.
Dear Julien,
Thanks a lot for your comments on the European Citizens' Consultations. As the project leader from the ECC, I appreciate a lot any debate on this project in general, and your thoughtful comments in particular.
Just for your information: participants to the ECC were randomly selected by professional opinion polling companies. We strive for a maximum diversity of (socio-economic and demographic) profiles, without stating that the sample would be representative in a statistic sense (the samples are too small).
You are right when you say that the process design is of key importance. Any process design has its limitations, and differs from a "spontaneous" public debate. However, we strive for maximum transparency in the process and maximum inclusivity of the participants into the deliberations. We carefully avoid influencing citizens' opinions.
The ECC partner organisations are independent organisations. They believe that more public debate on EU affairs is needed, but they are not interested in a PR campaign for EU institutions. We don't see ECC 2009 as part of a decision-making process, but as a contribution to the poltical debate in the run-up to the EU elections and to the development of a EU public sphere(even if we believe that ECC-type processes have the potential to become part of more formalized decision-making processes.)
It is great if politicians and other decision-makers react to the citizens' recommendations, by supporting citizens' views or rejecting them (both types of reactions occur). A healthy democracy (at EU level) cannot exist without a lively public debate, at local, national and transnational level.
It is still too soon to say whether ECC and similar projects will have an impact on the functioning of the EU institutions. For the time being, we want to demonstrate that participation and public deliberation at EU level is possible and that the results are substantive.
Gerrit
Gerrit,
thanks for your comment, it is much appreciated!
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