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00771: A French evaluation of Ségolène Royal's efforts [Fwd: on participatory democracy]

From: "M. Kolar" <wddm(at)mkolar.org>
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 01:36:31 -0800
Subject: A French evaluation of Ségolène Royal's efforts [Fwd: on participatory democracy]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: on participatory democracy
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 01:50:49 +0100
From: Albano Cordeiro <cordei(at)ccr.jussieu.fr>

Comment from Albano Cordeiro (Paris)

Dear Sir,

Filia has sent me your message.

In fact, I defend a deliberative and participatory democracy in my
writings (even they are very few, I guess).

What I can say about Segolene’s propositions is that they are not in
favour of a _real_ participatory democracy. But … but we can be grateful
for the fact that her proposition, the one concerning “Citizen Juries”,
has given the opportunity for a debate. A debate not so large : only
some few articles in the press and medias, sometimes in television
debates, where generally big confusion in concepts is present.

There are at least two ways of raising this question. Some starts from
an established fact that representative democracy presents nowadays a
deficit of legitimacy. This balance of the relations between elected
people and citizens introduces propositions in order TO SAVE
representative democracy from an announced wreckage or simply from a
dangerous situation of lack of credibility towards people who trust less
and less in candidates and programs.

A second aspect is that the defense of participatory democracy has two
aspects: one concerns the deliberative process and the other, the
control of the application of the norms by the elected people and the
way a program is carried out.

The proposition of Segolène Royal is about Citizen Juries. The citizens
members of these juries are chosen by draw lots (“tirage au sort” in
French) from electoral lists. By this way foreign residents are excluded
of the operation: they cannot be members of these juries. The aim is to
follow the activity of elected people, and, if necessary, to decide
sanctions against them if they don’t respect norms and program (probably
also in ethical matters, can we imagine)

The proposition of Segolène Royal has then a relationship with the
efforts of some political parties to give a new credibility to
representative democracy, by one side and by other side, it is a form of
control of the activity of elected people.

It is not a proposition on real participatory democracy, in which the
citizens intervene in the deliberative process of laws, by one side, and
control their application and the program announced by the executive
power by different institutions plunged in civil society.

The Segolène’s proposition belongs also to counterpower
(“contre-pouvoir” in French) approach. This means that these juries must
await a grave fault coming from elected people, and ONLY THEN they can
express their disapproval and produce sanctions … after the facts in cause

For us, the participatory democracy must be different of the one many
people talk about. These people mean consultative institutions, which
can have a role in deliberative process, but have no power to write
legislative propositions. The network of consultative institutions, even
big, doesn’t change the nature of representative democracy

(We cannot develop this point now, but it needs more explanation)

For us, the aim must be to combine participatory democracy and
representative democracy. This last one must continue to be submitted to
universal suffrage, and the elected people, at different levels (region,
province, country), must be the last authority (“instance” in French) to
say that the GENERAL INTEREST is respected, after the itinerary of
construction of a proposition of law (from bottom to the final
synthesis) is finished. The function is to be a referee.

But, I insist that the proposition of Segolène Royal has the merit of
launching a debate on these matters.

Best greetings
Albano Cordeiro

---------------

op 15-11-2006 10:20 schreef Miroslav Kolar op wddm(at)mkolar.org:

I heard here in Canada interesting report about Ségolène Royal
the top candidate to the French Socialist Party nomination for the
French
presidential election in 2007.
It was claimed that she supports participatory democracy and wants to
use
Citizen Juries if elected French president.

I actually found a similar online news item:

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=287195&rel_no=1

Here site "Desires for the future" apparently practising participatory
democracy (citizens debates on various subjects) can be found here:
http://www.desirsdavenir.org

How serious progress toward DD is this?
Can any observers closer to France report something on it?

Mirek
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