Research project
| Updated 15/03/2012
Access to the publications on "participatory democracy" project below.
About the project
In 1979 the European Parliament adopted universal suffrage and since then its powers have steadily increased. European citizens therefore participate in the European project through their elected representatives. However, a shared public space with an active role for citizens has been slow to take shape.
Certain tools of participatory democracy, such as transnational deliberation, seem to encourage citizens to become involved in EU debates. But these tools are still experimental and lacking rigour. In certain cases they can be counter-productive, reinforcing disaffection and apathy among citizens. How then can we prevent these “citizen conferences” and other such initiatives from becoming gimmicks? Participation projects are nowadays seen as another communication tool, and can be vulnerable to demagoguery. Anti-Europeans from the left and the right have used the theme of participatory or “direct” democracy to feed populist rhetoric which contests the legitimacy of Europe's institutions.
Notre Europe believes that participatory democracy can be a useful tool in the building of a European public space. It has carried out research on instruments in this field which might compliment representative democracy. Its expertise is based on first-hand experience of citizen deliberations (including the first transnational deliberative poll and the DIDACT manual for deliberation practices). And since the French and Dutch “no” to the Constitutional Treaty in 2005 it has been involved in initiatives aimed at stimulating public debate on Europe (including the Europe Forum and the newspaper Libération's forum).
European participatory democracy: an assessment of the first experiments
Listening to Europe's citizens. An assessment of the first experiments in participation organised at EU level, Policy paper, Laurie Boussaguet, March 2011.
Democratising European democracy. Options for high-quality, inclusive, transnational deliberation, Policy Paper, Stephen BOUCHER, June 2005.
Tomorrow's Europe, the first pan-EU deliberative poll
What would Europe's citizens think if we gave them the opportunity to meet each other? How would their vision of Europe's future change after having discussed and shared their different ideas? These were the questions that Tomorrow's Europe, the first European deliberative poll, tried to answer. The event took place in partnership with a wide range of organisations.
The results of the exercise showed that participants' opinions changed significantly on most of the issues they considered. It was clear that the deliberative poll can bring about genuine movement in opinion.
Download the final, full report on Tomorrow's Europe .
Read the introduction to the project and the press review.
Tomorrow's Europe followed a previous exercise led by Notre Europe, on a smaller scale in France on 21 May 2005. Focus groups of undecided citizens were assembled a few days before the referendum on the Constitutional Treaty.
Download the complete analysis of what was learned from this experiment, “European constitution and deliberation”.
DIDACT research programme
The DIDACT research project (Deliberation in Democracy: towards Active Citizenship Training) aims to identify ways in which emerging deliberation practices – whose objective is to aid decision-making in politics – can also serve as educational tools to develop active citizenship.
The project is supported financially by the SOCRATES programme of the European Commission, and is the product of cooperation between five organisations, assembled under a steering committee: Notre Europe (Paris), the Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels), Europeum (Prague), the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe (Amsterdam), and the Institut Universitaire Européen (Florence).
Read the introduction to the project.
