WT45 – The participation of citizens in the life and choices of society

Workshop Presentation

Whatever the political system formally in place, there is a broad aspiration of the members of a society for dignity and the possibility of sharing, in one form or another, the definition and management of the common good and the future.

Those who govern, in order to retain their legitimacy, are for their part called upon to ensure via various channels, in which election is but one of the forms, that they meet the expectations of their fellow citizens. The European political tradition is still marked both by the ideal of the Greek city – free citizens who meet on the public square to debate the management of society – and, in the Germanic world, by the autonomy of base communities gathering freely in more or less voluntary and more or less broad confederations.

From the 18th century onwards, representative democracy, in the technical context of that time, became established as the model and embodiment of the democratic ideal. But, whatever the political system, the evolution of our societies today demands that we innovate boldly. Indeed, everything has changed: the technical means of information, a revolution embodied by the Internet, the scale and overlapping of problems, and also their complexity.

In the sphere of science and technology, the bulk of choices are no longer made either within public institutions or at national level, and so society is dispossessed of the main means of steering its destiny. Within the European Union, the collective choices made at European level are increasingly determining factors in the daily lives of its citizens without to date a living and citizen-based democracy having been put in place at European scale.

To respond to these questions which transcend the formal political institutions and may perhaps mitigate the apparent divisions between a democratic Europe and a more authoritarian China, new mechanisms for involving citizens in the life and choices of societies are being invented from the local level to the continental or global level. This is what is referred to in Europe as both the development of participatory democracy and the role of civil society.

In China, new procedures of debate are emerging, giving the Internet a role to play for example. On both sides, the processes of developing a policy are changing and these increasingly value dialogue between private and public players, between experts and political leaders. It is these different experiences and perspectives that the workshop will tackle.