Institutionalizing deliberative mini-publics? Issues of legitimacy and power for randomly selected assemblies in political systems

Courant, Dimitri

doi:10.1080/19460171.2021.2000453

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Obviously, within the framework of a democratic reverse dominance system, these citizens' assemblies should not simply be consultative but also be decision making. Although space does not permit this complex issue to be addressed here, it remains a line of development connected to certain important aspects of the reverse dominance principle (Altman, 2019; Courant, 2022; Guerrero, 2014; Jakob, 2019; Krämling, 2022; Lafont, 2017; Michels & Binnema, 2018; Niemeyer, 2011; Setälä, 2014; Setälä & Smith, 2018).…”

Section: Rethinking Democracy From the Original Democraciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracy against Homo sapiens alpha: Reverse dominance and political equality in human history

Collantes¹

2023

Constellations

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For tens of thousands of years Paleolithic hunter-gatherer communities lived in democratic systems. These democratic communities based their relations on power and freedom on what Christopher Boehm has called "reverse dominance hierarchy" systems, which, for much of human history guaranteed political equality among members of hunter-gatherer communities. The reverse dominance hierarchy is a principle that could be used today to rethink the foundations of current democracies and design political systems that ensure true political equality in our societies. To understand democracy in the history of Homo sapiens and to evaluate current democratic systems, it is necessary to broaden the usual limited perspective on democracy. Robinson (2010) points out that modern humanism considers prehistory in rather negative terms and as largely irrelevant, yet prehistory covers most of Homo sapiens' existence and has left deep evolutionary traces in modern humans. Carroll (2015) proposes that power and dominance structures can be divided into four major periods: (a) dominance by an alpha male individual or group; (b) egalitarianism and democracy in hunter-gatherer societies; (c) the return to dominance by an individual or groups in postagricultural societies; and (d) the resurgence of democracy in today's modern democracies. Such a far-reaching historical perspective, while admittedly rather schematic and simplified, is important because it links modern democracies to a past that encompasses thousands of years of the existence of Homo sapiens. Sterelny (2021a, 2021b) offers a chronological perspective in affirming that, since our species was established around 300,000 years ago, 97% of its history has developed in egalitarian and democratic communities. This perspective should radically change the Homo sapiens vision of themselves, their past and present, and their possibilities for the future.The image we have of democracy and of today's liberal democracies is influenced by our vision of the history of democracy. The currently dominant perspective is that today's liberal democracies are a democratic exception in the authoritarian history of humanity, and there is a tendency to be condescending in relation to liberal democracies and to generously excuse their shortcomings. However, a perspective that recognizes long periods of radical democracies in human history can be more critical. The democracies of the Palaeolithic demonstrate that democratic political systems cover most of human history, that humans have imagined and built democracies with a very high degree ofThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Section: Rethinking Democracy From the Original Democraciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracy against Homo sapiens alpha: Reverse dominance and political equality in human history

Collantes¹

2023

Constellations

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“…During the last session, they were asked questions about this, and their answers show that most of the participants did not feel like they could claim to be representing the public at large. This attitude of humility seems to be quite common in experiences of this sort (see Courant, 2021) and may derive from the fact that participants, in contrast with elected officials, have not received an explicit authorisation from their fellow citizens to represent them or speak in their name. (Table 2) The question was: 'Which of the following best describes your role in the deliberations?'…”

Section: The Discourse Of Complementaritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflicts of Legitimacies in Representative Institutions: The Case of the French Citizen Convention for Climate

Buge

Vandamme

2022

Representation

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Conceived as an alternative form of democratic representation, the random selection of citizens for a political task comes in tension with the logic of electoral representation. The idea, carried by random selection, that anyone can be a good enough representative challenges the assumption that we need to choose the most competent among ourselves. And the fact that citizens' assemblies are sometimes tasked to draft legislation may undermine the authority of elected representatives. This article tests this hypothesis of tension between competing forms of representation on a recent case: the French Citizen Convention for Climate (CCC) in 2020. Drawing on parliamentary hearings and questions as well as public political reactions to the CCC, we find indications that elected representatives may feel threatened in their legitimacy even when most randomly selected citizens do not see themselves as representatives. This may be due to the fact that the CCC was seen by some as stepping on the prerogatives of the Parliament. This suggests that future experiments of the sort could benefit from a clearer functional division between the two forms of representation.

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“…There is a plethora of different types, theories, models, toolkits, frameworks, guidance (and so forth) for participation and stakeholder engagement. These include (but are not limited to) Arnstein's ladder (1969), more recent adaptations of the ladder typology (IAP2, 2018), deliberative democracy (Dryzek, 1990(Dryzek, , 1992Scottish Government, 2021), citizens' assemblies and deliberative mini-publics (Courant, 2022;Sandover et al, 2021), participatory budgeting (Röcke, 2014), participatory politics (parpolity) (Cohen and Kahne, 2011;Loader and Mercea, 2011), participatory crowdfunding (Lam and Law, 2016), procedural justice indicators (Bell, 2014), the wheel of participation (Reed et al, 2018a), and the recent tree of participation (Bell and Reed, 2021). More recently, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) have published 'Guidelines for Citizen Participation Processes' which describe steps for designing, planning, implementing, and evaluating participatory processes (OECD, 2022).…”

Section: Key Models and Theories For Understanding Effective Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engagement in the digital age: practitioners’ perspectives on the challenges and opportunities for planning and environmental decision-making.

Hafferty

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Effective engagement is crucial for making better quality decisions for more sustainable, equitable, and resilient outcomes. The involvement of members of the public and other stakeholder groups has been increasingly promoted in research, policy, and practice from local to international scales. However, whether engagement achieves its goals is highly variable between different social and institutional contexts. In the digital age, there are still many unanswered questions regarding the benefits of digital tools and their effectiveness at addressing the goals of engagement. These questions became increasingly urgent during the COVID-19 pandemic which placed technology-related disparities into the spotlight. This thesis explored practitioners’ perspectives of the challenges and opportunities for public and stakeholder engagement in the digital age, focusing on planning and environmental decision-making processes in the UK. The research was interdisciplinary, participatory and action-oriented, driven by an impact goal and co-produced with practitioners to produce relevant and useful outcomes for policy and practice. This approach was agile and adaptive in responding to the needs of potential users and beneficiaries of the research. The research followed a mixed-methods approach involving a survey questionnaire and in-depth interviews with practitioners in UK public, private, and third sectors organisations. The findings revealed a comprehensive range of technical and ethical debates around the use of digital tools for engagement and inclusion, digital literacy, power relations, social interaction and connection, trust and transparency, digital well-being, privacy and security, among other issues. Challenging attitudes of ‘digital by default’ and ‘digital first’, the findings demonstrated that there is no single digital, in-person, or hybrid approach which guarantees successful engagement in all situations. The research also responded to a gap in the evidence on the institutionalisation of engagement practices, delivering novel insights into the barriers and enablers for undertaking engagement across a range of different organisational settings from a practitioner perspective. This included considering a range of organisational constraints including available resources, skills and expertise, participant expectations, and practitioner agency. This research revealed that many of these issues are rooted in the cultures and governance structures of organisations and therefore may require a culture change to be successful in the long term. Overall, the findings support and contribute original and evidence-based insights to existing theories and frameworks understanding what works for engagement, including factors that are uniquely important for digital engagement. 10 thinking points for effective engagement in the digital age are suggested for policy and practice which can be used to enhance existing guidelines, models, and toolkits for effective engagement in an increasingly digitised world.

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Institutionalizing deliberative mini-publics? Issues of legitimacy and power for randomly selected assemblies in political systems

Cited by 7 publications

References 38 publications

Democracy against Homo sapiens alpha: Reverse dominance and political equality in human history

Democracy against Homo sapiens alpha: Reverse dominance and political equality in human history

Conflicts of Legitimacies in Representative Institutions: The Case of the French Citizen Convention for Climate

Engagement in the digital age: practitioners’ perspectives on the challenges and opportunities for planning and environmental decision-making.

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