It goes without saying that the #ConventionCitoyenne is a great result from the perspective of deliberative democracy, and a lot of credit should go to @MPubliques and others for making it a reality. But…
What was interesting in Macron’s response to it was not so much the response itself (he disagreed with some things, agreed with most and made some announcements) but the commentary on Twitter.
(Twitter, you might say, is not all of politics, or even a representative sample – and you’re right. But it does drive a lot of opinion coverage and journalism, so in this context it’s interesting)
The comments were often positive about the convention members and process themselves (not always, a few talked about them being “crazy greens” or criticized them for refusing to put all their proposals to referendums).
The real hostility was reserved for Macron. Far-right shoutbot Eric Zemmour demanded “a citizen convention on immigration”, saying he’d be happy to chair it. Many pointed out that Macron disapproved of a dividend tax, others that he had accepted too many green recommendations.
It all felt quite … normal. That’s a good thing, in one way. Very few people were saying that this was an unjust or invalid way of creating policy recommendations. This kind of deliberative event feels like it is reaching the mainstream – the #DelibWave that the @OECDgov
has been talking about. But normal is also a bad thing, if the recommendations just become footballs for the same old political game. The Convention wasn’t cheap, and it wasn’t easy to arrange. If it’s going to deliver value for the money and citizen time expended,
it’s going to need to be seen to deliver something that ordinary processes couldn’t. In one way it has – deeply deliberated proposals from citizens. But in some ways it hasn’t – the war horses of politics are lining up on one side or another, preparing for the same old battles.
This reaction shows that the political system – media, political commentators and politicians – are still squeezing deliberative processes into a representative frame. It will be interesting to see in 3 or 6 months whether the convention’s proposals are still seen as special.
If the current system doesn’t learn how to handle deliberation, we will always crash into the question of mandates. Macron today said deliberative democracy is a complement to representative democracy, which is true, but it doesn’t relieve the tension.
Would it have been right for the 150 citizens to be able to compel the executive elected by millions? If not, then is it only the process and their randomness that makes this better than a think tank report?
On the other hand, if the convention could have compelled, will any future exercise be so hemmed in that they can’t take any meaningful decisions? Models such as that in Ostbelgien can add themselves into representative structures, but it’s far
easier in a community of 70,000 than in a state the size of France. As I say, the Convention Citoyenne was definitely a milestone, but there is still a lot of road to travel.