“What are the pluses and minuses of deliberative democracy, nowadays, in Europe?”. That’s how EUComMeet’s Project Co-ordinator, Pierangelo Isernia, summed up the key question guiding the project.
EUComMeet began in March, 2021 with a budget of almost 3 million euros. It involved over 1,500 citizens from five European countries – Germany, Italy, Poland, France and Ireland. Funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research & innovation programme, it was co-ordinated by the University of Siena, Italy. The project focused on multi-level, multi-modal models of deliberative democracy, specifically adapted for the European context.
How was the EUComMeet project organised?
EUComMeet was designed to investigate how the practice of democracy might be brought closer to European citizens via participatory and deliberative processes. It also looked into how deliberative democracy might be used to reduce political polarisation and strengthen European identity.
To do this, it created a set of online participatory spaces, within which citizens could discuss and deliberate. These interactive, scalable spaces were enabled by Convivium, a purpose-built open-source deliberative platform that employs innovative moderation and translation technologies.
Run by a nine-partner consortium composed of leading academic experts and specialist organisations, the project consisted of a series of online deliberative sessions involving a cross-section of between eight and ten citizens.
These sessions began at the local level (involving residents of the same city) before moving up to national level and finishing with an online plenary at the European level. These online plenaries involved citizens from at least three different EU countries.
By the end of the project, over 300 citizens had taken part at all three levels, and over 600 at at least one level, explains Professor Gronlund of the Abo Akademi in Finland.
EUComMeet’s key findings
“There is a real demand from citizens for more deliberative approaches,” says Professor André Bachtiger of the University of Stuttgart. What’s more, “if people show up, they are fairly good deliberators”. Yet he agreed that it is still difficult to get people to come to these events. Although citizens say they want more involvement, they are less forthcoming when it comes to actual participation.
Online participation was found to attract a wider range of participants in terms of demographics. Yet contrary to what you might expect, they were not necessarily younger. Rather, online participation seemed to activate participants between the ages of 35 and 54.
National differences were also found to be significant. For example, on the whole, French participants supported deliberative over parliamentary democracy. But not so German and Italian citizens. Overall, a mix of democratic approaches were favoured by most participants. The result is a system that “looks a bit like ancient Athens” as Professor Bachtiger put it.
The importance of follow-up and policy outcomes
Follow-up is also very important for citizens. Yet as policy co-ordinator at EU Commission, Nora Allavoine, points out, “policy outcomes of participation is one of the main challenges faced”.
Professor Joan Font of the Spanish National Research Council agrees that deliberative projects typically result in low policy impact. He argues that the way in which participatory projects are designed should depend on their purpose. “Do we want participation for democracy, societal justice, better policy or legitimacy?” he asks, adding: “we cannot do all of these things at once.”
Yet, EUComMeet found that both politicians and citizens supported the idea of more involvement from policy makers on citizen panels. Bachtiger agrees that involving politicians in participatory spaces as experts could work, provided they remain in the minority.
Factors affecting participation
Francesco Olmastroni at the University of Sienna investigated a range of factors affecting participation, including topic, selection of participants, scope (i.e. city, national or EU level), duration and the mode (online or offline).
Interest in the topic of discussion was the highest predictor of participation (24%), followed by a desire on the part of citizens to have a say (18%). Larger monetary rewards for participation as well as shorter online events were also found to be positive predictors of participation.
Does deliberation reduce political polarisation?
Deliberation was found to foster more openness and tolerance amongst participants. However, it did not necessarily lead to a change of position. It was also found to have a positive impact on knowledge levels, and citizens reported increased satisfaction with democracy following deliberation. Human moderation proved to be more effective in this regard than automated moderation, explains Jane Suiter, Director of FuJo Media at Dublin City University.
These findings were echoed by Judith Ferrando, Co-founder of Missions Publiques. She also noted that keeping events shorter along with in-person meetings and time for reflection were all key. “Human interaction still plays a very important role – people feel at ease when meeting in person” she says.
Challenges
These findings, suggests Ferrando, highlight the need to develop more digital tools with which participants feel at ease. Indeed, some citizens even took over the role of moderator during discussions. “We must conceive of the participative process both on and offline,” says Ferrando.
One of the key challenges for EUComMeet was developing translation and moderation tools that could be employed across countries, at local, national and European levels.
Nethood, a non-profit based in Zurich, drew up an inventory of existing digital platforms to avoid “reinventing the wheel” as Co-founder, Antoniadis Panayotis, explains. Key issues of privacy, customisation and GDPR compliance were all taken into account.
They took the decision to use a specific type of open source software known as FLOSS (free, libre, open-source software). Panayotis explains that it is “even simpler than open source, is well documented, and the huge community of developers means a better user experience”. A combination of two mature FLOSS platforms’ were used, namely Nextcloud and Jitsi. The first was used for text-based interactions, the second for video conferencing.
A custom platform
Add to this the translation requirements for which a range of different models were tested against Google Translate by Dublin City University. Jane Suiter explained that Google Translate presented challenges in terms of security, cost and customisation.
The end result: Convivium, initially called the M4D2 Platform. It is a bespoke platform incorporating tailored moderation and translation tools for the EUComMeet project. Panayotis explains that Convivium is easy to use, customizable and GDPR compatible.
It is currently being used on the new EU-funded EU-Dare project and by various local authorities for citizen climate assemblies and similar, says Panayotis. However, you need to find someone to host it, maintain it and provide technical support. However, you need to find someone to host it, maintain it and provide technical support.
Looking ahead
“Participation helps to keep open democracy open,” says Ingrid Godkin of the EU Commission cabinet for Democracy and Demography. She explains that the European Commission is now looking across all Directorates Generals (DGs) to build capacity both online and in person in participatory practices.
She encouraged all who attended the conference to approach MEPs across the board and ask them how they plan to incorporate citizen engagement in their area of specialism. “We need to avoid a civic drought in that period between elections” she affirms. If the EUComMeet Project is anything to go by, the rain may well have started falling.
