Scottish Office: Involving Civil Society in the Work of Parliaments

Involving Civil Society in the Work of Parliaments

Section 3: Evaluation of methods of civic participation

Figure 6: Typologies of Participation (Stoker 1997)

	Initiative starts and finishes with the governmental agencies. There may be a genuine element of negotiation within this or it may be a purely cosmetic "listening' exercise but the aim is to enhance the legitimacy ill the eyes of the public. e.g.formal one-off consultation. on policy; consumer-oriented service agreements Stronger commitment from the governmental agency to a two-way process Initiative and framework is; set by the governmental agency but dialogue can lead to substantial changes. Looking for positive Co-operation and stakeholders in implementation. e.g. schemes aimed at particular geographical areas or forums; dialogue with particular communities of interest such as in a particular policy area or initiative. Commitment to open discussion and the active encouragement of the involvement of groups which are excluded or marginalised in 'decisionmaking. In this the governmental agency has no clear policy goal, it in- stead acts as a referee open to competing positions, and committed to strategies helping these groups arrive at consensus e.g. 'visioning' facilitating the identification of priorities and future plans by 'the public; empowering groups top take control of particular policy arenas.
top -down:


'limited dialogue:


bottom-up


The four key principles of the CSG indicate that the Scottish Parliament would want to engage in, at the very least, a participation strategy of 'limited dialogue', if not a fill' "bottom-up' approach. These principles can be summarised as: 1. power sharing 2. accountability 3. participation 4. promotion of equality of opportunity

The latter two principles would seem to indicate that a fully formed 'bottom-up' strategy would be essential if the genuine inclusion of all members of Scottish society is to be realised.

The methods of civic participation we have considered above may contribute to this process by: seeking the views of the citizens recognising citizens by increasing their involvement in direct decision making enabling citizens to influence policy on a particular issue enabling citizens to scrutinise the work of the parliament

However, the following points should be borne in mind when considering how to in-crease citizen participation:

Appropriateness of method

Some of the methods of participation we have discussed are costly and demand a high level of commitment and engagement from the individuals taking part. It is important therefore to ensure that the method chosen is appropriate. For example, consensus conferences may be an appropriate way of allowing a cross section of civil society to have an input into highly technical and contentious issues and to inform a wider audience aboutsuch issues. Standing panels are more appropriate for getting a sense of general levels of public satisfaction with the work of the parliament over time.

Representativeness

Some of the methods we have considered, such as consensus conferences and single citizens' juries do not give a representative picture of wider public opinion. Rather, they allow a cross section of the lay public to take part in the political decision making process. A deliberative poll uses a random sample of the population and therefore better represents the population as a whole but the sample is still not big enough to ensure that particular minorities within the population will not be overlooked. This can be offset to a certain degree by ensuring that a certain percentage of citizen jurors, for example, are from minority groups. Citizens' panels can be large enough to be representative of the wider population but there is trade-off here between the representativeness of the citizens' input and how 'informed' that input is.

Legitimacy

Consensus conferences and citizens juries must be organised by highly credible organisations and not funded by interested parties. These processes must be transparent and seen to be fair if they are to have any legitimacy in the eyes of legislators and policy makers as well as in the eyes of the public.

Political Impact

There must be a real channel between the consultative process and the policy process if there is to be real citizen participation in the work of the parliament. If citizens do not believe that their participation in consultative processes will have any effect, there is no incentive for them to participate. The success of any individual consultative exercise depends, in part, on creating a 'culture of participation'.

Topic choice

Participation is likely to be higher when citizens are asked to participate in decision making or policy scrutiny in areas which have a real impact on their lives. Consulting on issues which are uncontentious and affect few citizens will be seen as a cosmetic exercise.

Consensus

Consensus may be necessary if a particular decision has to be taken. But it may also be useful to know how diverse public opinion is on particular issues. Deliberative opinion polls do not aim at the production of consensus. They are therefore a good means of measuring the diversity of public opinion.

Cost

Some of the methods of participation considered above are costly. However, it is important that the legitimacy of the process is not compromised for the sake of cost.

Monitoring and feedback

Meaningful citizen participation requires an ongoing process of monitoring and reporting the outcome of citizens' input.