To celebrate the new English-language MA in Comparative Democracy at Goethe University Frankfurt, Hanna Pfeifer, Julian Garritzmann and I took over the Talk Social Science To Me Podcast and produced three episodes on key themes in the field. All episodes are now available on your favourite podcast provider or click on the links below.
I was the guest for the June episode of the new podcast from Goethe University, Talk Social Science To Me. The main theme was to discuss new ways of involving citizens in democracy, but the conversation led us to many topics, ranging from the effects of the pandemic on democratic governance to the role of democracies in the climate crisis. The podcast is now available on Spotify, Youtube and other podcast providers.
Embeddedness is often invoked as a goal for participatory governance, but it tends to remain vaguely defined. So what does embedding participation mean? And how is it achieved? Sonia Bussu, Adrian Bua, Graham Smith and I convened this symposium in Critical Policy Studies in order to explore these questions through case studies from around the world.
Why is it that, in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, his co-conspirators participated as both judge and jury in the process? This would not be an acceptable way to organise a legal trial, so why does it make sense for ‘political trials’? One answer to the question is simply bad institutional design. So how can we redesign our democratic institutions to avoid this situation, where justice, rather than being blind, is determined by partisan blinkers?
Rikki Dean, John Boswell and Graham Smith analyse an attempt to design a systems-oriented democratic innovation: the NHS Citizen initiative. They write that, while the initiative pioneered some cutting-edge participatory design, it failed to resolve well-known obstacles to institutionalisation. They argue that similar projects must evolve strategies to meet such challenges.
When discussing the EU referendum it’s become fashionable to criticise David Cameron for taking a dangerous gamble with the UK’s prosperity for narrow political advantage. The argument runs that the decision on whether to stay in or exit the EU is so complex that it should be left to political elites. Here, Rikki Dean argues that this is old-fashioned thinking. The referendum is not the problem – the campaigns are.
Imagine you are a civil servant. You have just convinced your somewhat skeptical colleagues that your new policy initiative should incorporate extensive public participation in its design process. You now have some tough choices to make: who is going to participate in the process, for example? You know that if you keep participation open to all, then the process will be criticized within your department for just involving the usual suspects. But if you restrict participation, to a randomly selected group for instance, then you know there are some influential policy NGOs who will be vocal about their exclusion…
The launch of the Democracy Matters report on Citizens’ Assemblies in Sheffield and Southampton gives us an opportunity to tease out the different understandings of why ‘participation’ matters.
This post is a response to Sonia Bussu’s recent blog outlining two potential models for the NHS Citizens’ Assembly; the first a deliberative polling approach to informing the overall strategic direction of the NHS; the second, a collaborative problem-solving approach between the Board and citizens.
These are some of my reflections on trying to create a participatory process to involve people in the NHS England’s policy formation called “NHS Citizen”. The thoughts are based on observing an open design meeting held in Bristol on 22-23 October 2013.