How to leap the gap between citizens and decision-makers

by Agata de Latour, Poland / Belgium

Interview with Dirk Jacobs, professor of sociology and political sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Agata de Latour: What is citizen participation all about?

Dirk Jacobs: In political science and in sociology, we distinguish electoral participation from other forms of political participation, like demonstrating, writing letters, signing petitions, and even wearing buttons, putting up stickers or not buying products – all kinds of actions that go beyond your personal life.

What is the situation as regards participation in the EU?

One of the challenges is what is often called ‘the democratic deficit’ – the gap between decision-makers and ordinary citizens. There will always be some gap between those who specialise in a task of representation and those who are represented. But in the case of the European policy area, an additional difficulty is that the political system is very complicated. It’s difficult for ordinary citizens to understand things.

Furthermore, national politicians, if they have to take unpopular measures, tend to say that everything is decided by the EU. They omit to point out that member states can use their veto. So national politicians and the media have a big responsibility to make clear to citizens that Europe is not something ‘unreachable’.

What can we citizens do to fill this gap?

It would be unfair to ask citizens to make all the effort. The main responsibility lies with elected representatives and the media to give more attention to the relevance of European decision-making processes. They should play the role of translators and go-betweens.

The second step is to make the institutions simpler and more understandable for citizens. Further, participation in European elections can be increased. And what about voting for the European commissioners or for European president, in an open election? This would at least be strongly symbolic.

So you think it would be good to increase electoral participation?

Yes, because what people need is a sense of what is called political efficacy – the belief that one’s personal act makes a difference, that voting has an impact. Many people don’t actually see why it matters to vote in the European Parliament elections, for instance. They don’t see a direct link between electoral participation and European policy. Voting for European Parliament members is of course very important for its composition, but it is only one part of EU policy-making. In the end, the important decisions are made by the Council of Ministers, the representatives of all our member states. There is also the role played by the Commission. It’s difficult for citizens to understand and feel connected.

Participation is not easy!

Well, remember that a lot of people participate without knowing they do, for example by having conversations with others, signing petitions, participating in demonstrations. They tend to disconnect this activism from electoral politics, but actually it’s a continuum, all part of one entity. A lot of people feel that the level of citizens and the level of politicians are disconnected, and this feeling seems to be increasing.

We’ve many more options now to express ourselves interactively on Facebook, Twitter, all kinds of social media, newspapers, blogs. We can easily comment and voice opinions, and often in a very hostile way. But we lack the capacity for effective dialogue, debating together for the common good.

But the social media can be a good tool for gathering people …

Such participation is certainly increasing, and the social media play an important role in this. But if you look at the content on Facebook or Twitter, a lot of it is very negative. That was one of the motivations when a group of people in Belgium two years ago started a large-scale ‘deliberative democracy’ project (I was one of the initiators), called G1000. For example, we looked at the problem of many politicians being trapped at a purely electoral level, so what is important for them is to be re-elected – and that blocks them from ‘doing policy’ with a long-term perspective.

Can the G1000 methods be applied in a wider context?

Yes, with G1000 we showed politicians that, if given the tools and sufficient information by experts, citizens can listen to each other, discuss, debate and argue in a rational way, and come up with recommendations for long-term solutions. Deliberative democracy has also been used on a small scale, for example in the Citizens’ Dialogues. It would be interesting to see it organised in various member states, so citizens can use the model to debate what kind of future they want for Europe. Of course, deliberative democracy should not replace representative democracy. It’s a complementary way of engaging citizens.

In our experience with G1000, everybody agreed that listening, dialogue and interaction are crucial. It’s not about saying ‘I am right, you are wrong’, and exchanging insults! People must really listen to others and try to find a common goal at the level of society. The challenge is to do this not only at the local but also at the European level.