The squared circle of participatory democracy: scaling up deliberation to the national level

Abstract

Can participation be scaled up to the national level? And if so, can large-scale participation be attained without forfeiting deliberation? This article addresses these two questions, providing empirical evidence that deliberation can be scaled up, together with participation, and manage to impact on national-level policies. It argues that participation can be feasible at the national level, and that deliberation can be effective on a large scale, once the appropriate institutional design is in place. A theoretical framework composed of two overlapping dimensions (feasibility and effectiveness) is proposed to assess the degree to which participation and deliberation can be scaled up. As for the feasibility of large-scale participation, the article argues that the institutional design of participatory experiments should allow participation to be scaled up according to three criteria: actors, space, and volume. As for the effectiveness of deliberation, it is argued that large participatory experiments should provide for the deliberative process to follow criteria of transformation and impact in order to scale up local preferences to the national level and make sure they affect policy outcomes. The theoretical framework is tested against the empirical background of the world’s largest participatory and deliberative experiment known to date, the National Public Policy Conferences in Brazil.

Keywords:

• democracy
• participation
• deliberation

Notes

1. 1. The 40 policy issues that have been the object of NPPCs so far are: Health, Oral health, Workers health, Health of indigenous peoples, Mental health, Environmental health, Science, technology, and innovation in health, Management of labor and education in health, Medication and pharmaceutical care, Rights of the elderly, Rights of people with disabilities, Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transvestites and transsexuals, Indigenous people, Public policies for women, Rights of children and adolescents, Youth, Promotion of racial equality, Brazilian communities abroad, Environment, Solidary economy, Aquaculture and fishing, Sustainable and solidary rural development, Food and nutritional safety, Cities, Public security, and Communications.

2. 2. BRASIL. Ministério da Justiça. Regimento da I Conferência Nacional de Segurança Pública. Brasília 2007, p. 4, article 15; p. 9, article 44. Available from: http://www.ipea.gov.br/participacao/images/pdfs/conferencias/Seguranca_Publica/regimento_1_conferencia_seguranca_publica.pdf.

3. 3. This information is available from: http://www.cartamaior.com.br/templates/materiaMostrar.cfm?materia_id=16259 [Accessed 10 December 2012].

4. 4. Jornal em Questão, published 9 January 2012 by the Secretary of Social Communication of the Presidency of the Republic.

5. 5. Examples are the 2007 I NPPC on Public Security, the 2012 II NPPC on Education, and the II NPPC on Youth Policies. For the last two see, respectively: http://fne.mec.gov.br/images/pdf/regimentointernoconaeversao29_10_12_formatada.pdf and http://www.juventude.gov.br/conferencia/documentos/manuais-orientadores/manual-das-conferencias-livres [Accessed 19 March 2013].

6. 6. Jornal em Questão, published 9 January 2012 by the Secretary of Social Communication of the Presidency of the Republic.

7. 7. Available from: http://www.sepm.gov.br/pnpm/livreto-mulher.pdf [Accessed 19 March 2013].

8. 8. Propostas e Recomendações da II Conferência Municipal de Políticas para Mulheres. Available from: http://www.spm.salvador.ba.gov.br/images/stories/relatorio_cmpm.pdf [Accessed 19 March 2013].

9. 9. Available from: http://www.bibliotecafeminista.org.br/index.php?option = com_remository&Itemid=53&func = fileinfo&id=358 [Accessed 19 March 2013].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thamy Pogrebinschi

Thamy Pogrebinschi is Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Social Sciences Research Center Berlin (WZB) and Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Social and Political Studies at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ), where she coordinates the Laboratory for Democracy Studies (LED-IESP). She is the author of several books published in Brazil and is currently working on a research project entitled Pragmatic Democracy, which addresses theoretical and empirical issues concerning the relationship between representation, participation, and deliberation in Latin America.