The Democratic Odyssey 2024

In the EU Parliamentary year, 2024/25, there was an experimental citizen’s assembly incubated by the EUI. I attended their Florence assembly 22/2 & 23/2, and made some notes. These stayed in my notebook for too long but I have decided to make this page, which collects some reviews and views and may even have some of my notes.

I observed syndicate group 10 or was it 6, and would thank them for explaining their views to me. I enjoyed their company.

Links

1. https://democraticodyssey.eui.eu/home
2. https://euroalter.com/democratic-odyssey-the-campaign/
3. https://kalypsonicolaidis.com/future-of-europe/
4. https://www.publicdeliberation.net/the-democratic-odyssey-design-innovations-in-transnational-deliberation/

My views and comments

The group I chose to observe had the problem of comparing and contrasting the role of IT in enabling citizens in politics or whether its excludes real conversations and solidarity. This wasn’t a group equipped to offer their lived experience on this question and came to be dominated by the best English speakers, both of whom, I think had attended the previous assembly in Athens. Neither the facilitators nor the participants had been trained in ‘brainstorming’ which made building and sharing ideas very difficult. The lack of ‘experts’ which is often part of citizen’s assemblies was also absent (or maybe limited). They did have some knowledgeable speakers from the platform but its not the same.

These weaknesses in execution, reinforce to me that Citizens’ assemblies must echo the lived experience of its participants, and sometimes this will be expertise, at other times it will be the societal estrangement of people or communities.

Day one was held in the Palazzo Vechio, very grand. Here are my notes,

1. Politicians aren’t accountable & don’t consult. Not even their parties.
2. There has been a breakdown of solidarity
3. Democracy is not taught, (and neither is listening).
4. There’s an unanswered question of how to balance freedom and safety. (Is this an IT question?)
5. Parties co-opt individuals and special interests dominate politics.
6. There is a lack of trust in politics at both the macro and micro level.
7. There is a lack of trust in the technology in both Western and Eastern Europe
8. We performed a drama exercise, a mime, to try and demonstrate “Solidarity vs Scale”. I found this deeply uncomfortable, but by eliminating the spoken word, it was in fact more democratic.
9. Humans in control, decisions must be transparent and auditable, and thus open source.
10. Do safe spaces require moderation and/or the prohibition of hate speech?
11. We discussed EU directives vs regulations as enabling local tuning.
12. Everyone is obsessed with AI, although the AI Act looks good.
13. I say, this is just more software, but equally obscure. (Since writing this, the chatbots are getting better at quoting their sources. )
14. We were addressed by https://www.azmanova.com/ who said some good things, she teaches in the UK and so I thought I might catch up with her in the UK, but didn’t.

The second day was held at the University EUI campus.

1. While the assembly was built using sortition, those present are still self selecting.
2. The space was sub-optimal. It was noisy and there was no circulation space.
3. On the second day, the contrast between expert info and lived experience was more acute
4. Should “critical thinking be taught”?
5. On the feed back, the time limits should have been communicated in advance, although whether that would have helped is another matter.
6. One of the groups highlighted the need for dignity for migrants
7. One of the groups spoke of Inclusivity vs Efficiency which I have noted that Meyer’s work on cultire and business communication might be relevant. I have commented on her work on my blog.

The facilitation team created a pol.is presentation/board. to collect consensus

Some notes made by me from informal conversations,

1. There was seen to be a need for common rules for political inclusion to include non-citizen residents and to have a level of immutability to ensure against gerrymandering.
2. The group was not capable of discussing the trade offs in using IT vs. real-world meetings. They retreated to their comfort zones of knowledge and even then often exposing a lack of knowledge about the European Union.
3. In the management of Citizen’s assemblies, how to select topics, and politically, do we need term limits and recall.
4. I discussed UK rejoining, my Slovenian & Greek correspondents want us back possibly because of the UK defence capability. But, the idea we might rejoin without freedom of movement was greeted with horror.
5. When a member state, I trusted the EU to get monopoly regulation right, but too many people here do not know what it does, can this be fixed?

ooOOOoo

Featured image: Florence Skyline via Unsplash.