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The Value of Pan-European Citizen Deliberation, Chris Littlecott
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The following article has been recommended to you. You can find the original article together with any associated downloads at http://www.e3g.org/programmes/climate-articles/the-value-of-pan-european-citizen-deliberation/ ********************************************************************************* The weekend of 11th-13th October saw the first ever multi-lingual and pan-european deliberative poll take place in Brussels. E3G is a partner of this Tomorrow’s Europe initiative, and I was there to see how things took shape. During the weekend I wrote an article for the dLiberation blog over on openDemocracy, which has been tracking the poll process. If you’d like to comment, I’d suggest you add to the debate over at the original posting. The value of Pan-European Citizen Deliberation The Tomorrow’s Europe project is supported by 22 research institutes, thinktanks and non-governmental organisations from across Europe. Their interests span the themes of public affairs, foreign policy, European integration and more. So what exactly do they see as the value of deliberative polling? Chris Littlecott here provides a perspective from the environmental organisation E3G, one of the Tomorrow’s Europe partners. The European Union is in a difficult position. It has never been more needed, but does it have the ability to act? The core role of the EU is to add value to solving shared problems. Indeed, the dynamic of global interdependence is throwing up ever-more complex problems which member states cannot respond to alone. From climate change to health pandemics and economic competitiveness, successful action requires both the coordination of member state efforts and a more proactive EU role on the international stage. The recent institutional reform efforts have recognised this challenge. Both the failed constitution and the reform treaty currently under consideration aim to improve the EU’s ability to take decisions. Yet in many ways there is a more deeply rooted political problem here that cannot be resolved by institutional reform efforts alone. This problem is one that goes beyond the everyday tensions between member state governments and EU institutions. That is to be expected when powerful bodies collide. Of course national governments try to take the credit when Europe does well, and accuse it when they themselves fail. Who would expect otherwise? Instead, we need to recognise that there is a fundamental problem in how politics is structured which is being experienced in all the world’s prosperous and mature democracies. This is the breakdown of the traditional party system. Prosperity brings with it a certain level of freedom from the politics of the past. As individual citizens have more control over their own lifestyles and the resources to pursue their choices, there is a dropping off of engagement with politics as a whole. Political parties no longer serve class interests for economic emancipation or protection. Instead, they must fight on the middle ground for the attention of the politically disinclined. This dynamic doesn’t just manifest itself in lower voting levels and voter cynicism about the motives of apparently post-ideological politicians. Party memberships have also fallen dramatically across the board, leaving parties at a distance from the base of society and in the managerial clutches of party workers and media operators. This helps explain why party leaders no longer seem accountable directly to their party members, but must appeal over their heads to the electorate as a whole. Indeed, the role that parties once played in communicating political decisions directly to the electorate en masse (and in turn funnelling feedback to elected representatives) appears to have no chance of returning. So why does this matter? This crisis of political parties is a major component of the more generalised distrust in politics. Whenever voters get the chance to give this message, they don’t hesitate in doing so - whether through electoral means or the growing forms of ‘new politics’. And if we couple this deeper political dynamic with the inevitable tensions of cooperation between nation states and international institutions, we can see that national politicians face a difficult terrain. They must use the EU to reach their own goals, but the EU is even more removed from the popular imagination than their own national parliaments and politics. The incentives for politicians to talk and act ‘European’ are weak. So now, more than ever before, a political mandate is needed from European citizens for European action on core challenges. On the positive side, and despite the absence of a ‘European demos’, polling data consistently shows that citizens across the EU would like to see more EU action on shared challenges, such as climate change. On the negative side, there is no effective means of translating this general alignment of citizen preferences into a political imperative for their member state politicians. The crisis of political parties does not mean that we should abandon representative democracy. Instead, we must find ways to strengthen the relationship between representatives and citizens in ways that create new political space and fresh political energy for action on today’s most crucial challenges. Pan-european citizen deliberation is one such potential means. First, we have to see if it can work - the plan D activities so far have indicated that it can, as is this weekend’s Tomorrow’ Europe deliberative poll. Then, such approaches need to be embedded into political structures so that they create effective mandates for action. The role of the European Parliament will be crucial here. By championing citizen engagement it can not only improve its own perceived legitimacy but strengthen its hand in advancing a European perspective. We can’t seek to do away with the perennial tug-of-war between national governments and the European institutions. Instead, it is imperative that we find solutions that really do solve our shared problems. The role of the ‘ordinary’ citizen will be central to overcoming this crisis of politics.
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