Abstract
Political science and the public know what has gone wrong with liberal democracy and continues to go wrong, but what can be done to counter this trend? What can slow down the de-democratisation, what can reverse the development that has been observed ever more urgently since shortly after the turn of the millennium? As one instrument the chapter discusses citizens’ councils, which have been field-tested in many places in recent years and whose strengths and shortcomings can now be evaluated. We will give an insight into the theoretical foundations of deliberative and participative democratic innovations focusing more closely on citizen assemblies with an exemplary evaluation of France’s climate assembly, the Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat (CCC), a rather elaborate one of citizen participation, associated with a wide public attention and accompanied by an intense scientific and intellectual debate in France. The CCC has been, in terms of political activation and discourse, successful, whereas in terms of its general policy impact and structural changes of French society and politics, it has not been a full success story. Instead of promoting a positive French exception to the conventional antagonism of etatism and street protest, this experiment perished in 2022/23.
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Notes
- 1.
For more information on the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review see here: https://participedia.net/method/592
- 2.
See also Susen, S. & Habermas, J. (2018). Between democratic deliberation and deliberative democracy. In R. Wodak & B. Forchtner (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of language and politics (pp. 43–66). Abingdon.
- 3.
For more information on the UK climate assembly see here: https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/committees/climate-assembly-uk/
- 4.
For more information on the Berlin climate assembly see here: https://klimaneustart.berlin
- 5.
A process tracing analysis was conducted to evaluate in how far the procedural structure of the Convention impacted the democratic qualities of the process (Beach & Pedersen, 2013).The goal of a process-tracing analysis is to “open the black box of causality” and to unpack the causal mechanisms of processes (Trampusch & Palier, 2016, p. 1). The deductive analysis followed a four-step approach: (1) formation of a theoretical framework (Hall, 2006); (2) conceptualisation of assumed causal mechanisms based on the framework (Beach & Pedersen, 2013); (3) collection of empirical evidence (Beach & Pedersen, 2013); and (4) analysis of the individual steps to evaluate whether they explain the case. The analysis of collected empirical data was assessed based on an analytical framework assuming that realising democratic qualities throughout the process legitimises it on the micro-level, leading to higher perceived legitimacy on the macro-level (Elstub & Escobar, 2019; Smith, 2009).
- 6.
A media frame analysis is a useful approach for assessing public perception. The media takes the outputs of deliberative processes, repackages them, and makes the information eligible to citizens by disseminating these translations through various channels (Neblo & White, 2018). Thereby it has the power to frame and set narratives. Framing can be defined as selecting “some aspects of perceived reality and [making] them more salient in a communicating text […] to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (Entman, 1993, p. 52). The chosen newspapers broadly cover the width of the political spectrum. Seventy-three articles were analysed, from April 2019, when the Convention was announced until 6 July 2020 after the French president received the proposals made by the Convention.
- 7.
For a more coherent overview of the gilet jaunes movement: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/12/20/what-frances-yellow-vest-protests-reveal-about-the-future-of-climate-action/
- 8.
The letter can be found here: https://observdebats.hypotheses.org/18
- 9.
More information on the Grand Débat can be found here: https://granddebat.fr/
- 10.
An overview of some of Macron’s ambitions announced in 2017: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39845905
- 11.
For more information see here: https://www.equaltimes.org/france-s-citizens-movements-taking?lang=en#.Xy0q_xnRb8o
- 12.
Selection criteria and procedure can be found here: https://www.conventioncitoyennepourleclimat.fr/en/how-are-the-participants-selected/
- 13.
Find a full overview of the contributions here: https://contribuez.conventioncitoyennepourleclimat.fr/
- 14.
For a full overview see here: https://reporterre.net/Convention-pour-le-climat-seules-10-des-propositions-ont-ete-reprises-par-le-gouvernement#
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Kirby, N., Leggewie, C. (2024). Democratic Participation and Climate Politics: Notes on the Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat in France. In: Evers, A., von Essen, J. (eds) The Interplay of Civic Engagement and Institutionalised Politics. Palgrave Studies in Third Sector Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54231-2_3
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