Participatory Democracy in England: an Assessment of Local Government Influence on Democratic Engagement
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Participatory Democracy in England: An Assessment of Local Government Influence on Democratic Engagement Master thesis Political Science, Public Policy and Governance Research Project: Politics of Inequality June 2017 David Stoker [11408987] Supervisor: Franca van Hooren Second Reader: John Grin Word count: 23,750 excl. references 1 2 Table of Contents 1 Introduction 4 1.1 Topic 4 1.2 Academic contribution 6 1.3 Societal relevance 6 1.4 Contemporary challenges to democracy 7 2. Theoretical framework 13 2.1 Concepts 13 2.2 Theories 15 i) Locating the case in deliberative democratic theory 15 ii) E-Democracy 18 iii) Evaluating democratic practises: a framework 20 iv) Emotions and democracy 28 3. Research design: 31 3.1 Methodological literature 31 3.2 Case selection 33 4. Analysis 36 4.1 Description of the Case 36 4.2 Locating the case in democratic theory 40 4.3 E-Democracy 43 4.4 Evaluation of the promotion of democratic values 43 Inclusiveness 44 Considered Judgment 49 Popular Control 51 Transparency 54 4.5 Emotions and democracy 57 5. Conclusion 59 5.1 Summary and answer to the questions 59 5.2 Theoretical implications 62 5.3 Critical reflection on the research as a whole 64 5.4 Policy implications 64 5.5 Future research 65 6. Acknowledgements 66 7. Bibliography 67 8. Appendices 83 3 1 Introduction 1.1 Topic In 2014 it was estimated that up to 7.5 million eligible British voters were missing from the electoral register (Bite The Ballot, 2016: 2) and the UK had lower turnout than many other European countries in 2015 (UK Data Service, 2016: 14). My topic is how to improve citizen participation in democratic processes in English local government.1 It is not an easy time for local government. The grant from central to local government will be phased out entirely by 2020, leaving local authorities to fend for themselves and generate their own income (Publicfinance.co.uk, 2016). Scarce resources make the conditions far from ideal to rebuild engagement and relationships in citizens Democracy can be called a “myth,” or “arguably one of the vaguest terms in common usage” (Emerson, 2014: xi). There are various interpretations of the word “democracy” that envisage different structures of government; today’s democracies cover a wide spectrum of practice with but the one thread common to many of them: somewhere, at some stage or other, people cast a vote, and something, or someone, gains a majority (Ibid). In the West this can include a mixture of: general elections, either for a presidential or parliamentary form of national government; decentralisation of power to regions, for example through elected councils; referenda on specific issues; citizen panels, and more. Theories of democracy that developed before the late nineteenth century - republicanism, liberalism, and utilitarianism - dealt with the tension between equal consideration of collective decision making by linking individuals and the community in various ways (Morrell, 2010: 3). Republicans eliminate the tension by recasting equal consideration in terms of the common good. They delineate between private interests, the sum of which Jean-Jacques Rousseau calls the “will of all,” and the public interest, Rousseau’s “general will” ([1762] 1988, 96, 100-101). Each citizen has an equal voice, but if some disagree with the final decision, they have either misperceived the common good or followed their own private interest (Morrell, 2010: 3). Democratic theory since the middle of the twentieth century has consisted largely in attempts to develop an explanation of democracy’s ability to allow both equal consideration and legitimate collective decisions that is more nuanced and less elitist (Ibid: 5). To take democracy seriously, we must know what we are talking about. Developing a precise definition of democracy is particularly important when trying to describe and explain variation and change in the extent and character of democracy. Tilly (2007: 7) describes four models of democracy: constitutional, substantive, procedural and process-oriented. A constitutional approach concentrates 1 I will use the terms municipality, council, local authority and local government interchangeably for this paper. 4 on laws that a regime enacts concerning political activity (Ibid). Substantive approaches focus on the conditions of life and politics a given regime promotes: does this regime promote (as a list of possible topics to emphasize) “human welfare, individual freedom, security, equity, social equality, public deliberation, and peaceful conflict resolution” (Ibid)? Most procedural observers center their attention on elections, asking whether genuinely competitive elections engaging large numbers of citizens regularly produce changes in governmental personnel and policy (Ibid: 8). Process-oriented approaches to democracy differ significantly from constitutional, substantive and procedural accounts. They identify some minimum set of processes that must be continuously in motion for a situation to qualify as democratic (Ibid: 9). Contemporary challenges to democracy, as discussed in chapter 1.4 could if unchecked, lead to undemocratic movements, such as nationalism and from there, authoritarianism (Burston, 2017), as evidenced by the rise of populist right-wing figures in Western democracies: Trump, UKIP, Front Nationale, Alternativ für Deutschland and more. Moreover, the consequences of complacency in local government democracy could mean further political disengagement and disaffection from citizens, which could in turn eventually destabilise government through populist movements, or public disorder, as seen in the 2011 riots that started in London and spread to other English cities. Citizen engagement, citizen participation and co-production are rapidly becoming catch-all concepts, buzzwords continuously recurring in public policy discourses but that quite often point more to the rhetoric of participation than to its reality (Castelnovo 2015). My research seeks to improve our understanding of methods that improve the quality of public debate and empower people to influence decisions that affect their lives. My objective is to discover how municipality officials and citizens interpret the purpose and effectiveness of one particular local government citizen engagement initiative. I look specifically at processes of active engagement. My motivation is to find out what is and isn’t working in citizen engagement practice, the meanings behind this and to find barriers to and opportunities for better engagement. What are the effects of efforts to engage citizens? Consequently, the following two research questions are formulated: “What principles, processes and procedures can we take away from the Kirklees Democracy Commission to build into a model of participatory democracy best practice?” “How and to what extent has the Kirklees Democracy Commission contributed to the promotion of democratic goods?” This study is structured in three parts. The first part, Chapters 2 and 3, consists of the theoretical framework and the methodological approach. In the theoretical framework the concept of participatory democracy and its alternative deliberative democracy are discussed, as well as existing 5 literature on how to judge the quality of a democracy. In the second chapter a research design is formulated. The second part, Chapter 4 , contains the empirical findings, starting with judging what the evidence reveals about the principles, processes and procedures of the KDC case. The third part, Chapter 5 includes the conclusion and discussion of the findings. 1.2 Academic contribution Academically, I hope to shed light on three things. Firstly, my intention is to add to the third generation of deliberative democracy (as specified by Elstub, 2010) which concerns institutions, and the challenges of doing democracy in reality (compared to the idealised settings of earlier theorists). Second I wish to add the theory around e-democracy, defined as the process of using telecommunications technology by democratic actors, including governments, elected representatives, civic organizations, communities, political groups, and activists to improve the political process and political institutions (Khosrowpour, 2013: 311). Examples of e-democracy include online discussion groups, blogs, government websites, and other forms of networked participation and civic engagement. (Cruz, 2009). Specifically I wish to add to the theory of e-democracy in institutional settings, which is a small niche in the literature and is under-represented in more general democratic literature considering the rate of change. The literature suggests there is a lack of innovation in e-democracy. I seek to fill gaps and add insights to the theory regarding the ways digital tools can in principle help improve the overall health of a democracy. Thirdly and finally, I aim to add to the theory regarding emotions in political and specifically democratic practice. We see that emotions have been increasingly studied in politics, particularly with regards to the rise in nationalism in western liberal democracies. However it is remarkable to me that emotions clearly drive political campaigns but are omitted from consideration in policy formation processes. 1.3 Societal relevance The findings of this study are relevant in various ways. Socially, the findings may shed light on ways councils can improve the legitimacy of and alleviate disaffection with their democratic institutions. It could be the starting point for cross-country learning