Lessons for social research from participatory decision making

Graham SmithCentre for the Study of Democracy (CSD)

University of Westminsterg.smith@westminster.ac.uk

Basic premises

• Democracy demands citizen participation

• Citizens have the capacity to participate in the critical decisions that affect their lives.

• Democratic institutions should be designed to enable citizen participation

Democratic innovations

• Institutions explicitly designed to increase and deepen citizen participation in the political decision-making process (Smith 2009).– Directly engage citizens rather than representatives of

organised interests– Institutionalised forms of participation at strategic level

(policy, legislative or constitutional decision making)– Depart from traditional representative institutions– Examples include participatory budgeting, mini-publics,

direct legislation and some developments in e-democracy.

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The sceptical voice

• “It will just be the usual suspects”• “There will be no impact on final decision

making”• “People don’t know enough to make good

judgements”• “Participation is too expensive and time

consuming”• “People don’t want to participate”• “It only works at the local level”

Graham Crow’s BIG questions…

• 'representativeness’ – do participatory fora really open things up in an inclusive

and empowering way or do they suffer from giving a louder voice to ‘the usual suspects’?

• 'quality’ – does involving more people including ‘non-expert’ improve

the process by bringing in a better quality of input or does it lead to 'dumbing down’?

• 'impact’– including whether such processes lead to ideas and

practices being taken more or less seriously?

Learning from exemplary cases

Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre

British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform

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Participatory Budgeting

• Established in Porto Alegre in 1989

• Annual cycle of participation– 20,000+ citizens – $160 million (in 2000)

• Significant involvement from poor neighbourhoods redistribution of budget to

projects in poorest areas of the city

• How?

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Participatory Budgeting • Popular assemblies (16 across the regions of the city)– Citizens bring forward their ideas for investments– Elect ‘delegates’ for 16 Regional Budget Forums– Elect two ‘councillors’ for the Council of the Participatory

Budget (COP)• Regional Budget Forums– Prioritise investments from the popular assemblies– Oversee previous year’s investments

• COP– Sets rules for the distribution of budget – typically

prioritise basic infrastructure and relative poverty index– Applies rules to the investments proposed by each

Regional Budget Forum– Presents budget to the Mayor

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Participatory Budgeting

• Clear incentives to participate– Relationship between participation and outcomes – levels

of participation in popular assemblies affect decisions on regional priorities

– Division of labour – mass participation expected only once a year

– No single group can dominate rule-making – leads to more ‘just’ rules of budget distribution that favour the poor

– Active community organisation across municipality – Demonstration effect – Mayor’s office ensures that annual

investments are implemented

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British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly• Perverse electoral results in British

Columbia, but disagreement over reform options

• BC executive handed decision-making power to a Citizens’ Assembly

• Charged with recommending new electoral system

• Recommendation to be put to binding referendum– 60% popular vote– 60% of electoral districts

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British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly• 160 randomly-selected citizens– 2 from each electoral district plus 2

Aboriginal members• Assembly worked for 11 months in

2004– One or two weekends per month

• Four phases: education consultation deliberation decision

• Recommendation: STV• Narrowly lost binding referendum – 75/77 districts– 57.69% vote (2.31% short)

• Lacked sufficient publicity

British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly

• Random selection ensures an inclusive group of citizens– Return to Athenian principle (c.f. jury service)– No social group systematically excluded

• Formal official invitation to participate• Facilitated deliberation between participants• Unambiguous relationship with legislative

process

Answering Graham Crow’s BIG questions…

1. Representativeness? – do participatory fora really open things up in an

inclusive and empowering way or do they suffer from giving a louder voice to ‘the usual suspects’?

• Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre– Incentives for poorest to engage outcomes;

division of labour; active community mobilisation.• British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly– (Near-) random selection; significant political

issue; power of invitation

Answering Graham Crow’s BIG questions…

2. Quality?– does involving more people including ‘non-expert’ improve

the process by bringing in a better quality of input or does it lead to 'dumbing down’?

• Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre– Local knowledge re. demands for investment– Social justice criteria re. distribution of resources

• British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly– Significant investment in learning on electoral reform and

deliberation.– Recommendation well reasoned – citizens ‘thought

differently… than experts or elected officials’ (Lang 2007)

Answering Graham Crow’s BIG questions…

3. Impact?– including whether such processes lead to ideas

and practices being taken more or less seriously?• Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre– Direct effect on municipal budget– Capacity to reverse investment priorities in favour

of politically-marginalised poorer communities• British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly– Linked to binding referendum

The goods of democratic institutions

• Democratic goods– Inclusiveness– Popular control– Considered judgement– Publicity

• Institutional goods– Efficiency– Transferability

• Not all goods can be realised in a single institution trade-offs in democratic design (Smith 2009)

Beyond exemplary cases

• Mixed results– PB beyond Brazil? – Mini-publics beyond BCCA?

• Participatory governance too often unrepresentative, poor quality and little impact…

• … probably a bit like participatory research methods?!

Why?• Conflicting policy imperatives• Climate of compulsion / funding criteria• Lack of dedicated resources• Lack of clarity about aims of participation• Lack of creativity and imagination in design• Organisational and professional resistance• Tendency towards ‘incorporation’ of citizens• Failure to respond to outcomes• Lack of cultural change in bureaucracies• A tendency to engage ‘natural joiners’• Lack of incentives for participation• Lack of awareness of opportunities• Lack of trust / skepticism (Smith 2005: 106-108)

An addendum…

An example of participatory social research?

• New way of doing social science?– Open source platform for evidence on

democratic innovations– Crowdsourcing dispersed knowledge from

academic research groups, public authorities and civil society practitioners.

• Global executive committee and partners– Academic and civil society organisations

• 1600+ registered users, 400+ cases, 90 methods, 531 organisations…

An example of participatory social research?

• Challenge of creating platform that has utility for academic researchers and practitioners.

• Currently we don’t have the incentives quite right…

• … and we’re supposed to be scholars of participatory governance!