Mikko Rask

The tragedy of citizen deliberation – two cases of participatory technology assessment

Despite welcoming rhetoric and increased practice of citizen participation in S&T governance, there is little evidence of the political impact of such processes. In this paper I will analyse how the roadblocks to translating the results of citizen participation to effective policy making manifested in the context of two transnational participatory technology assessment projects, global-level World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews) and EU-level Citizen Visions of on Science, Technology and Innovation (CIVISTI). Resulting from the analysis, three types of roadblocks are identified: (1) diffuse understanding of the usability of deliberation as a component of policy making (cognitive level); (2) inadequate infrastructures for facilitating the translation of public-interest oriented deliberations into effective public policy (structural level); (3) inadequate resources and skills in deliberative bodies for effective social outreach of participatory processes (operational level). The paper contributes to more effective pTA by proposing a new ‘guiding vision’ for citizen deliberations, anticipating more influential policy pathways and proposing new skills for pTA.

Prospects of Deliberative Global Governance

Global governance is often equated with international institutions such as the United Nations and the World Bank that were established after World War II to address problems transcending national borders. While these institutions incorporate norms of representative democracy that evolved in national societies, their legitimacy is often questioned on grounds of limited effectiveness and remoteness from the citizens they purportedly serve. The arguments of many democratic theorists that deliberation among ordinary citizens can legitimize policies that heed these views thus bear important implications for global governance. In this paper, the possibility and different ways that civil society enhancing public participation, transparency and accountability in global governance are addressed. The empirical focus will be on the worlds first global deliberation—WWViews (world wide views on global warming) that was held in 38 countries with all inhabited continents in 2009. The social drivers that encourage innovation in global democratic governance are analysed, as the main successes and challenges of WWViews and sketch three scenarios of the future of deliberative global governance are based on the experiences and plans around global citizen participation. The authors argue that despite some challenges, such as ensuring high quality of deliberation in highly variant policy cultural contexts and building policy pathways conducive to political impact, the prospects of deliberation in helping solve global environmental and policy problems are high, and likely to see cumulative progress in the near future.