Citizen juries - another daft idea dreamed up in Whitehall

What, I hear you shout! How can the idea of "giving communities a more direct role in decision-making" be a bad idea? Surely this glowing world of empowered and engaged citizens is precisely the point of democracy - harnessing modern technology to transform the way we govern, what could go wrong?

The ideas around citizen participation in the government's new "Civil Society Strategy" sound good:

The Government will also launch an ‘Innovation in Democracy’ pilot scheme in six regions across the country, which could include Citizens’ Juries or mass participation in decision-making on community issues via an online poll or app.

Brilliant stuff! The problem is, of course, that this decision-making would be determined by those who turn up (or in modern terms, download the app, set it for notifications and respond when those notifications pop up). And most people don't turn up leaving the field to activists and the wronged - imagine making planning decisions in a world where angry NIMBYs with an app can flood the system?

Even for less contested decisions the app would be biased. When one US city trialed a clever app people could download that measured road impact (and therefore things like potholes and surface quality) they discovered that all their worst roads were in the wealthy quarters of town. The thing is that, using the only "engineer goes and looks" approach they knew this wasn't true, the big data from the app was wrong because people in poor neighbourhoods didn't use the clever app.

It's already the case that political decisions are disproportionately affected by representation - "he who shouts loudest wins" is an old local political adage. As a councillor, I constantly remind myself that my "full inbox" does not really reflect opinion but rather the opinion of a few people motivated enough to write. Nothing wrong with this until these minority opinions become the basis for policy decisions - "we must do something about X because I've had so many people raise it with me". Here, of course, "so many people" might mean a couple of dozen.

What happens with participatory systems is that, because of the bias, we don't actually decide on the basis of what the citizen panel says but rather treat it as a 'consultation'. The problem here is that, having consulted, it can get tricky to ignore the consultation without undermining the whole point of your whizzo participatory systems.

So let's not do this. We already have a tried and tested system for making political decisions in communities (called 'electing local councillors'). Perhaps we should look at ways in which this can work better - more community councils, a return to the committee system, scrapping party whips - rather than introducing systems that ignore local democracy in favour of app-based participation. Especially when, even the most intensive of participatory approaches gets low levels of engagement - in Porto Allegre where participatory budgeting is something of a religion they still only get 3% of citizens involved (and perhaps unsurprisingly these tend to be the older, home owning, wealthier citizens).

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Is cousin-marriage bad for civil society?

Interesting how this question was asked in the first place but the answer is revealing:

This paper tests the hypothesis that extended kin-groups, as characterized by a high level of cousin marriages, impact the proper functioning of formal institutions. Consistent with this hypothesis I find that countries with high cousin marriage rates exhibit a weak rule of law and are more likely autocratic.

Democracy and a liberal society require family to be open not closed. If your culture deems family, and especially family honour as paramount and seeks to maintain family autonomy then you get more consanguineous marriage (with all the attendant issues). The authors here see how the ending of this pattern in Europe allowed strong non-family institutions including, in the end, democracy. This is a lesson that modern day Pakistan needs to learn:

Two months ago, a council of village elders ordered the rape of a 16-year-old girl, whose brother had been accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in Raja Ram village in central Pakistan. Shocking though it is, the case is no aberration. Revenge rape, honour killings, and the exchange of women are some of the routine ways through which disputes are resolved.

Far from outlawing these councils, Pakistan’s National Assembly shocked the country by seeking to give these councils quasi-judicial powers earlier this year. It passed a Bill providing legal and constitutional cover to jirga and panchayat systems, in an bid to ensure speedy resolution for “small civil matters” and free the formal judiciary of some of its burden.

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Let's give 'The Big Society! a go - it has to be better than what we've got!

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There are two views of Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ – the cynical, knowing, left-wing view that it’s just window-dressing for spending cuts. And the rather more enthusiastic view from others that the ‘Big Society’ could mean a profound shift in the relationship between government and governed – a first stone in the tricky journey towards the voluntary society.

I’m rather more sceptical about the proposals – after all the social sector (“civil society” as we now have to call it) faces an enormous challenge over the next couple of years as the paymasters (mostly local government) retreat back into the redoubt under the onslaught of spending cuts. Most people in this sector recognise the real change that could come from the ‘Big Society’ but, as soon as the positive noises cease, another voice pops in; “how’s it going to be paid for?”

There is a further contradiction in the proposals published yesterday – how do we reconcile (especially in big metropolitan areas like Leeds and Bradford) the centralising and controlling instinct of the council with the liberation implied in the ‘Big Society’? This was David Miliband’s ‘double devolution’ that never happened – how can we be so sure that it will happen this time?

If we’re to set up training for community activists, will it be delivered by the voluntary sector or by bureaucrats within local council?

If we’re to transform the delivery of services within the most deprived places will that be community-led or yet another chapter in the “let’s all hug poor people” statist approach to community development?

If we do hand real influence to local communities over planning are we prepared to face the consequences and to argue that this is right?

Above all – in a time of spending constraint – are we prepared to make the argument for effectiveness trumping efficiency?

At the moment we’ve seen some fine words but I have still to enjoy my buttered parsnips. We don’t yet know just how all this will work – will big monolithic quangos like the Homes & Communities Agency be broken up? Will local councils be instructed to outsource services to the voluntary sector (so much for localism – eh)? And will the cosy oligopoly dominating the welfare agenda be challenged by smaller, creative approaches?

I may be sceptical but I know in my heart – as a conservative – that this is right. This is Burke’s small battalions, this is ordinary everyday folk doing things for their neighbours – not for cash, not because they’ve been told to do so but because it’s the right thing to do. Or at least I hope that’s what it’s about.

Lets' see.

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