Des mini-publics délibératifs pour sauver le climat ?

Abstract

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Experts and expertise in practices of citizen engagement in climate policy: a comparative analysis of two contrasting cases

“…The country had been known as a 'climate laggard' for many years, with the 2017 National Mitigation Plan being highly criticised for lack of ambition (Torney and O'Gorman 2019). Whereas climate change would initially be addressed as the last out of the ve topics, Assembly members voted to move it to the second topic and devote two weekends to it instead of one (Courant 2020). The Assembly was tasked with the following policy question: "How the State can make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change".…”

When Digital Mass Participation Meets Citizen Deliberation: Combining Mini- and Maxi-Publics in Climate Policy-Making

“…[27][28][29] acknowledge that mini-publics are frequently too "tightly coupled" with governmental bodies; and that their "scrutinizing role" is limited. Critics also point to the example of how the steering body of the French Climate Assembly converted into a "politicized" forum and was likely to be associated with the ideals of those who initiated them [28,30]. Furthermore, climate mini-publics may encounter opposition once they aim to take a powerful place in political decision-making e.g., in Belgium [31].…”

“…Ref. [30] observed tendencies in the French Climate Assembly to rely on a group of "internal experts", working for agencies, state-related institutes, and businesses. Some of these "experts" were repeatedly telling citizens what to propose.…”

“…Some of these "experts" were repeatedly telling citizens what to propose. This procedural flaw was further augmented by the fact that various speakers had unequal speaking times, ranging from 50 min for a representative of the Ministry of Ecology to 5 minutes for an NGO [30]. Since climate assemblies are micropolitical processes that are a part of a broader political system, the authors of [10] recommend that mini-publics procedures and outputs must be at least open to public scrutiny (e.g., through live broadcasting, public sessions, etc.)…”

“…In practice, climate mini-publics can become ingroups with their own biases. Members can come to believe that the public "will not understand the proposals because they have not spent nine months working on them" [30]. There is empirical evidence that participants from the wider public process objective information provided from a mini-public quite differently than the members of this mini-public.…”