FIDE — a new European “go-to” organisation for the deliberative field
It’s been a while in the making but will from now on be in your mailbox on a monthly basis. We started out a little more than a 1,5 years ago after several actors in democratic innovation realised that, while there was an increasing appetite for democratic innovations, there was no real European “go-to” organisation to provide expertise to policymakers and connect actors across the field of deliberative democracy.
Since FIDE’s start in spring 2021 we have written policy briefs, helped policy actors design deliberative processes, amongst others the city of Paris, and been advocates for more and especially better processes. FIDE was also one of the founding members of the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies and published a report on the impact of Climate Assemblies. We also held our first capacity-building event for policymakers and practitioners in Estonia in October of this year (see below). We plan to organise more of them in other regions of Europe in 2023. With a growing staff, we also plan to publish much more next year about ongoing assemblies and provide good resources on deliberative best practices.
The actions of FIDE and its network are needed to make sure that what Canadian expert Peter McLeod once dubbed “a deliberative wave” will become the basis for an enduring strengthening of our democracies. There are still risks at bay. While processes are being set up in many countries at all levels, we need to keep in mind that there are strict conditions for deliberative processes to succeed and have an actual impact.
We know for example that several countries have plans for national assemblies but are still mulling over what topic they will put forward to citizens. If assemblies are given innocuous topics or given remits that are framed too broadly or too generically, there is a high risk that recommendations will not really land somewhere in actual policy. We would call on politicians to be bold and hand citizens a policy-problem that they themselves find hard to solve and involves clear trade-offs. They should also be clear on the follow up and not organise citizen input to then just brush it off afterwards. There are good examples around, but many still lack a formal underpinning such as a law and therefore rely on the goodwill of a politician. If deliberative democracy is complementary to representative democracy, the engagement of parties in that relationship both should nevertheless be formal and clearly expressed. We know from experience that given the opportunity, citizens’ will put in their part of the work!
Another risk is that assemblies will be put in place by authorities that don’t want to invest the resources to make them qualitative enough to deliver. While FIDE realises that we are in an economic downturn and budgets are restrained, we think the amounts needed for an assembly are reasonable to make our democracies more resilient. This is related to the temptation to do “assemblies” that are very much reduced in time, have hardly any budget for expert facilitators or have no remuneration for citizens. Moreover, the often-expressed wish “to get the people in the room we otherwise never see” is equally related to the investment of resources, such as supporting staff, translation, and specific facilities for people with special needs. We want to call on authorities to be ready to invest more in the democratic quality of their community. FIDE is there to assist political actors that want to give citizens a qualitative space in their policymaking but are looking for expertise on how to do it right. A good number of politicians know that changes are needed to our democratic structures and want to act, but sometimes don’t know how to start this work. We can help you with resources and advice.
Some regions or local authorities really do not have any resources to spend or have no clear access to expertise to design a good-quality process. We therefore also call on international and national authorities to think about how they can provide support for those policymakers at lower levels that have democratic ambition to give their citizens an increased voice but lack means to materialise them. An example is our call at the end of our latest policy document on Democratic Lotteries (see below), for national (statistical) offices to help in setting up and performing Democratic Lotteries for local authorities. If such a service is not available, it must turn to private providers, and this can already eat a good chunk out of the available participation budget. We want to avoid that Citizens' Assemblies become a luxury good of democracy and are available only for citizens who live in places that have the means to hold them.
Finally, we have seen the first full-size experiment in European Deliberative Democracy in 2021-2022 with the Conference on the Future of Europe. While experts have pointed at flaws in the design -amongst others the obvious fact that there were too many topics for the time available- the Conference did prove that deliberative democracy can be done at the European level if the resources are put in place (such as translation and a dedicated supporting staff and facilitation). It will be one of the key elements for deliberative democrats to see in 2023 how the EU Commission will put in place the use of deliberative methods in her policy-making work. Ursula von der Leyen clearly expressed this promise, and we are very interested to see how this will materialise.
As this first newsletter is also immediately the last of 2022, in name of FIDE I already want to wish you and excellent end of the year.
Yves Dejaeghere,
FIDE executive director
Tartu's Autumn School on Deliberative Democracy
In 2019, the G1000, the Belgian platform for democratic innovation, kicked off a first Autumn School on Deliberative Democracy, an event to learn about innovative deliberative processes across the world and to become able to use them in your own community.
FIDE has taken on this legacy to bring that type of experience to every corner of our continent. Deliberative democracy makes sure all our voices are heard in the room where political problems are solved. FIDE wants to make sure that deliberative democracy is also accessible across different geographical and political realities. We want to give policy-actors throughout Europe the opportunity to attend high quality capacity building ‘schools’ on deliberative democracy.
Organisers and participants of the Autumn School in Tartu
This is how, from the 12th to the 14th of October we hosted our first Autumn School on Deliberative Democracy in the city of Tartu, Estonia. Together with Rohetiiger, we proposed a program that brought together renowned experts in the field that delved into the key aspects of deliberative processes. The participants in Tartu’s Nature house travelled through Europe, from assembly to assembly, learning in detail the aspects of different stages of the process and the possible institutionalization of the method.
Tartu was not chosen randomly (although we have a specific affinity with randomness). The city was selected to hold our first Autumn School for two reasons. Firstly, in April and May 2022, a climate assembly was held there, gathering 55 inhabitants that recommended to the municipality how to reduce traffic and preserve and increase biodiversity in the city. Secondly, Tartu is a city 50km away from the Russian border and for us, it was symbolic to emphasise that not even wars can shut citizens voices by organising our school there.
The 2 days school followed a systematic format in which deliberation among participants was fostered. After each presentation, the group was encouraged to debate their own projects, and co-create among peers on the possible ways to design their own deliberative processes while being helped by our group of experts. It was powerful to see how after a couple of hours, the hierarchies between ‘teachers’ and ‘students’ blurred and the room became the space of manifesting collective intelligence.
Yves Dejaeghere, FIDE’s executive director, opened the floor with a provocative presentation, ‘why do we need deliberative Democracy?’. He set the scene for what came afterwards, the response to the question on how to actually make democracy better. And thus, one by one, our experts delved into deliberative democracy from different angles, in different contexts, with a variety of examples from all over Europe.
Jane Suiter, Professor in the School of Communications, at Dublin City University, taught us about the topics that are suited for a citizens' assembly, whereas Kelly McBride reflected on the communication strategy of the process by analysing the Climate Assembly of Scotland.
Teele Pehk and Maiu Lauring from the Green Tiger and Eva Bordos showed us the challenges of 2 climate assemblies. Tartu in Estonia, and Miskolc in Hungary were both local processes that had to find a space in a social arena not used to this type of citizen engagement.
Damir Kapidzic explored the recruitment process of the Mostar Citizens' Assembly in Bosnia and Herzegovina giving participants a tour of what doing sortition actually means. A stirring speech came from the presentation of Zakia Elvang, who offered a glimpse on how to do facilitation, leaving us with appetite for a second round.
The main takeaway of the Autumn School is clear:
‘doing deliberative democracy right takes time and resources, but by putting citizens at the core of democracy our representative institutions can strengthen our wobbly political system’.
This is FIDE’s objective, improve the capacity of governments to include citizens in their decisions and Tartu has been our first stop in this deliberative mission.
Citizen participaton in the European Union - Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE)
The Conference on the Future of Europe was a one-year process between May 2021 and May 2022 which involved thousands of citizens from across the EU in an unprecedented democratic exercise. Throughout the process, four European Citizens’ panels were organized allowing citizens to jointly think about the future they want for the EU. On 9 May 2022 a report was submitted to the Presidents of the EU institutions. The Report outlined 49 proposals and more than 320 measures including concrete objectives. While the Conference has delivered in quantity and quality of proposals, its success will ultimately hinge on the change it can deliver. The European Commission, along with both the Parliament and the Council, committed in the Joint Declaration of March 2021 to following up on what was proposed within the framework of their competences.
The European Commissions’ communication in June 7th announced it will enable Citizens' Panels to deliberate and make recommendations ahead of certain key proposals to continue the CoFoE legacy. The first of this new generation of Citizens' Panels will be held on the topic of food waste reduction. The Commission has not yet announced in which manner these panels will be organized. Several research institutes such as the The Bertelsmann Stiftung and the European Policy Center have however proposed models on what the European Citizens’ panels could look like (see below: interesting papers). One recommendation they all have in common is that the panels should be fully embedded in the existing policy making frameworks to keep the process as slim and concise as possible.
Although Von Der Leyen's initiative is a substantial and positive evolution for EU policy making, a real influence on the legislation must be guaranteed for having successful Citizens' Panels.
To keep citizens up to date, a conference is planned on 2 December, during which the three institutions will communicate about their progress concerning the follow-up on the CoFOE.
Some interesting papers on the topic:
European Capital of Democracy
The European Capital of Democracy (ECoD) is a Europe-wide initiative to innovate and strengthen democracy. A European Capital of Democracy will be designated for every year. Each participating city joining the European Capital of Democracy Initiative will become a champion of democratic innovation, fostering cohesion, collaborative opportunities, and citizen participation. An experts' jury will review the applications and select up to five nominee cities which will be forwarded to a citizens' jury of 10,000 citizens from all Council of Europe members states. You can join the jury here.
We will keep updating you about this exciting initiative where we hope deliberative processes can be a key part of the next European Capital of Democracy.
OUR LATEST PUBLICATIONS
FIDE's newest Policy Research: ‘Organising a Democratic Lottery'
All citizens in a democracy have an equal right to have a voice in their society by participating in its decision-making table. A democratic lottery (or sortition) is the method used in deliberative processes to randomly select a group of demographically representative citizens that will constitute the members of an assembly for taking public decisions.
FIDE has delved into the intricacies of the method in this research paper. The document presents a detailed overview of the two-stage process, discussing the advantages of the methodology and the criteria that must be taken into consideration by policymakers and organizers when implementing a Democratic Lottery.
DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY — Selection of deliberative processes taking place across Europe
Citizens' Assembly in Bulzi (Sardinia, Italy)
Topic: How to revive a small village in the hinterland?
Citizens' Assembly in Ireland
Topic: Biodiversity loss
The Ostbelgien model
Current Topic: Digital Skills
Brussels Citizens' assembly
Topic: Environment