Meaningful, but effective? A critical evaluation of Ireland’s citizens’ dialogues on the future of Europe

Abstract

On the 25 March 2017, leaders of the EU27 and European Union (EU) institutions ratified the Rome Declaration. They committed to invite citizens to discuss Europe’s future and to provide recommendations that would facilitate their decision-makers in shaping their national positions on Europe. In response, citizens’ dialogues on the future of Europe were instituted across the Union to facilitate public participation in shaping Europe. This paper explores Ireland’s set of dialogues which took place during 2018. Although event organisers in Ireland applied a relatively atypical and more systematic and participatory approach to their dialogues, evidence suggests that Irelands’ dialogues were reminiscent of a public relations exercise which showcased the country’s commitment to incorporating citizens into the debate on Europe while avoiding a deliberative design which could have strengthened the quality of public discourse and the quality of public recommendations. Due to an absence of elite political will for a deliberative process, as well as structural weaknesses in design, participants’ recommendations lacked any clear and prescriptive direction which could shape Ireland’s national position on the future of Europe in any constructive or meaningful way.

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“…These meetings are not the idealised means of incorporating the preferences of the three actors selected in this study. They, on the contrary, do not involve systematic deliberation, resemble a tokenistic public relations practice (see [42] (pp. 1-2, 11, 13), do not qualify as an authentic dialogue, and are a very basic substitute for representative democracy, and public authorities are not directly and legally/politically bound by the results of participatory forums.…”

“…In some cases, some deliberative democracy tools may even be used by political actors "for show" in order to give the impression that the decision was taken with the participation of all actors who will be affected by it. For example, Anthony Costello [42] (pp. 1-2, 11, 13) describes the Citizens' Dialogues on the future of Europe, which took place in Ireland in 2018, as a kind of deliberative democracy tool and as a tokenistic public relations practice in which the lack of elite political will for democratic deliberation and the design structures and quality were weak and the proposals could not influence the decisions rather than a real dialogue and deliberative democracy practice.…”