In an article published in “Le Monde”, two political scientists believe that there is a tool available to fulfil the French President’s wish to organise a major consultation on the future of Europe: the “deliberative poll”.
Opinion column. At the Sorbonne on 26 September, the French President reiterated his promise to organise a major consultation on the future of Europe. While European governments know that they need to be enlightened about what their peoples want for Europe, it is unlikely that they will all support Mr Macron’s proposal.
Can they be persuaded that a citizens’ consultation can be more than a publicity stunt that could backfire or a ploy to promote a certain vision of Europe? With years of experience in deliberative democracy, we now know how Mr Macron can persuade his peers to genuinely consult citizens across Europe.
The many dilemmas facing the EU are not just technical choices to be made by experts. They involve choices of value that reflect the interests and concerns of the public. The EU has long been perceived as a project for technocrats. How can we better connect EU issues with the public? How can citizens grasp complex problems and make a useful contribution to the decision-making process without governments fearing that they will be stripped of their sovereignty?
If you simply consult citizens, the responses are not representative: only those who are very strongly for or against Europe (or the lobbyists) express themselves. If you consult small groups of citizens, through consensus conferences, focus groups or citizens’ juries, you obtain samples that are too small to be statistically significant. If you conduct conventional public opinion polls, all you get is a simplified reflection of the latest headlines.
“Rational ignorance
Social science shows that most people “rationally ignore” most policy issues. If I only have one vote among millions, why would I spend a lot of time and effort studying the intricacies of the arguments for and against a distant European Union? It’s more rational to concentrate on my family and the areas where I can take action.
This is where a method such as the “deliberative poll” can help, a method that has been tried out in twenty-seven countries around the world (but never in France). Deliberative polling is designed to answer the following question: what do people think about a collective issue under the right conditions of debate?
The idea is simple: you survey a representative sample of the population, before and after they have had a chance to deliberate in depth on a given subject. The success of the operation therefore depends on the quality of the sample and the in-depth debate.
This involves providing balanced documentation that shows the advantages and disadvantages of the different options on the table. It also requires the use of trained moderators to facilitate discussions between the samples, randomly divided into small groups of twelve to fifteen people, alternating between discussions in small committees and plenary sessions with experts and decision-makers who do not speak ex cathedra, but only answer the questions put by each group. These experts and representatives represent the different points of view present.
Putting the EU’s population in a single room
The opinions of the population consulted in this way are gathered through an in-depth questionnaire submitted before and after the deliberations. It covers both the major strategic choices and more specific aspects that shed light on why people support or do not support the major options presented to them.
This method would make it possible to put the population of the whole of the EU in a single room in conditions that would really allow them to reflect together on their future. It would allow us to understand how these opinions evolve after deliberation and why. It would give governments direction and priorities, rather than closed recommendations that governments could only adopt or reject wholesale.
This process has already been applied in one hundred and seven cases. It led to Texas’ decision to invest heavily in wind power. It has led to decisions on nuclear power in Japan, constitutional changes in Mongolia, desegregation of Roma schools in Bulgaria and many other policy changes on complex issues on six continents.
Bringing together all points of view on Europe
Could this be applied on a European scale? What might seem impossible has in fact already been successfully achieved in 2007 and 2009, with representative samples of European citizens meeting in Brussels to deliberate together in twenty-two languages.
A deliberative poll supported by all EU governments in 2018 could build on the different scenarios developed by President Juncker for the future of Europe. After the deliberation, the data collected could be discussed by think tanks, civil society, policy makers and political parties to inform key policy choices ahead of the EU parliamentary elections in 2019.
If we want to avoid fanning the flames of public frustration by organising an uncoordinated debate in which only a few states take part, at a time when the EU is faced with strategic choices, Mr Macron and his colleagues can adopt a tried and tested tool of deliberative democracy. It is high time to bring together all the points of view on Europe in a single room and allow the peoples of Europe to express what they really think about their common future.
Originally published in Le Monde.
James Fishkin (Director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University) proposed the first deliberative poll in 1988. Stephen Boucher (Organiser of Tomorrow’s Europe) is the author of ‘Petit manuel de créativité politique – Comment libérer l’audace collective’ (Editions du Félin).
