Ok Europe \ What kind of Europe between technocracy and populism?

The debate with participants: key areas of action and best practices

In an almost three hours long discussion, participants to the workshop put forward their ideas, proposals and points of view to address the complex challenges ahead of European democracies, providing also examples of concrete practices, experiences and policies. The outcome was unanimous: avoid unanimity, or – in the words of one participant – “let’s not agree for once!”. There was in fact a strong call to value each individual viewpoint, preserving nuances and refraining from the impulse to over-simplify a plurality of voices. That is why, instead of proper recommendations, the group came up with a list of shared priority areas of action. The latter can be clustered in two sets: those pertaining top-down representation and those having to do with bottom-up participation.

With respect to representation, different participants pointed out the significance of having due institutional settings to avoid people’s disconnection from their representatives. At the European Union level, representation is undermined by the excessive reliance of the legislative process on a non-elective body, the Council. This exacerbates the ongoing depoliticization of policymaking and, as such, it should be reformed. Moreover, European politics also needs to better portray open societies as capable to deliver well-being.

Another key area of action identified was the responsiveness of politicians. “They promise the moon and then they give you a rock” stated one of the participants.

People’s expectations of politics are now extremely low due to the tendency of policymakers to not deliver on their promises. Leaders seem anthropologically unable to take seriously many of the challenges faced by ordinary people. A possible way out of this problem may consist in improving the suboptimal conditions under which political decisions are normally taken, promoting approaches that are much closer to how humans really think and decide. Another priority that was brought up during the workshop was reconnecting political parties with hesitant voters by understanding the reasons behind hesitant stances and moving away from polarizing narratives. Also important, although partially controversial, would be to include populist parties in the governmental arena as a way to ensure that their supporters are channelled in the system, in spite of leaning towards extremist perspectives. Finally, some participants also highlighted the need to overcome the paradox of participation, that is the idea that although everyone can participate, only those who have enough time, education or money actually do so.

When it comes to participation, one of the most relevant topics emerging from the discussion was the representative power of civil society organizations. The latter would be in a privileged position when it comes to channelling people’s political interests. However, for these stakeholders to be truly impactful, civil dialogue should be strengthened and better embedded in policymaking, at least as much as social dialogue is. Then, if appropriately upscaled, civil society organizations could become suitable platforms to facilitate the connection between people and institutions. Furthermore, social and human scientists could also be invited more to participate to policy discussions, contributing with their specific knowledge to mediate between realities and politics. Despite the importance of stakeholders’ engagement was widely recognised, some voices in the workshop underlined how participation itself is often relegated to a minority of specialists, constituting another elite that is far away from citizens. Therefore, the importance of other forms of bottom-up engagement also surfaced from the discussion, including deliberative and participative practices. Across the board, workshop attendees agreed that to elicit actual changes in people’s institutional trust, citizens’ fora need to be empowered and made transparent, avoiding “gamification”. Moreover, participatory practices should address political issues that have actual relevance for the people involved and enough time should be allocated to allow participants to immerse themselves in these experiences.

A final and transversal key area of action identified in the workshop was the need to deepen and mainstream narratives resonating with current social identities, such as ecofeminism and social justice. Attention to these narratives would allow to move the political debate away from identity polarisation towards issue polarisation. Related to this, workshop attendees also called for parties and civil society organizations to foster inclusivity, thus ensuring diversity, as well as gender and generational equality. These organizations would indeed have a duty to “lead by example”, hence to implement to their internal structures and strategies the transformations they advocate for externally.

Conclusions: 3 messages

Summing up a dense exchange, the group ultimately put forward three messages, comprising the key areas of action outlined above, in hopes that they could be useful to guide policymakers, stakeholders and citizens in bridging the gap between representation and participation:

• • • politics should be re-politicized to overcome the erosion of responsiveness and accountability of representative bodies and to make sure that these effectively deliver on their promises;

    • new forms of participatory networks need to be relied upon and civil dialogue should be strengthened to create a political environment that welcomes compromises and differences of opinions;

    • parties and stakeholders need to lead by example, first, by mainstreaming new social narratives in their demands; and, second, by making their own internal structures and strategies inclusive.