Nothing less than the future of British democracy has been preoccupying some of our leading thinktanks of late. However, while all are agreed that politics in this country faces a crisis of participation, there is little consensus on how to solve it.
According to the Hansard Society report, Members Only? – Parliament in the Public Eye, responsibility for current low levels of participation lies primarily with parliament’s failure to look beyond ‘its own, often inward looking, procedures’ and ‘to link its work to other representative bodies and forums for discussing public issues’.
What is needed, therefore, is ‘a complete overhaul of parliament’s current communication structure’, including the establishment of a communications service, the appointment of a chief executive and independent House of Commons commission, and the lifting of unnecessary broadcast and visiting restrictions. ‘A more effective parliament would make a greater contribution than anything else to the renewal of British democracy,’ it confidently concludes.
However, a report for the Power Inquiry, Beyond the Ballot, casts doubt on the assumption that straightforward institutional reform at the national level will be enough to reverse the decline in participation.
Drawing on lessons from ’57 democratic innovations from around the world’, including direct, deliberative and e-democracy projects, the report’s author, Graham Smith, asserts that governments ‘need to be creative and imaginative in designing and combining approaches to citizen participation’ if they wish to see levels of engagement in the political process improve.
Too often, warns the report, ‘public authorities lack the will, resources and freedom to embrace democratic innovation.’ As a starting point to increased participation, therefore, ‘citizens must be respected or given genuine incentives (or a reason) to participate. This can be as simple as directly inviting citizens to be involved.’
As usual, Demos chooses to see the issue through the other end of the telescope in its contribution to the participation debate, Everyday Democracy: Why We Get the Politicians We Deserve.
According to the report’s author, Tom Bentley, ‘the current proposals for reviving our political culture cling to a model of constitutional democracy from which people are turning away. There’s a danger that they distract us from the real issues – how to connect the issues we face in our everyday lives, from our families to the work place, to genuine democratic choices.’
To realise this goal, Bentley advocates a programme of ‘everyday democracy’ to look at new ways in which families, workplaces, schools and the media can incorporate democratic decision making.
Among the options explored in the pamphlet are proposals to create rights of initiative and petition, enabling community and campaigning organisations to play a greater role in decision-making, introducing new forms of neighbourhood governance, and promoting models of democratic organisation in the business, public and charity sectors.
So what are we to make of the conflicting advice offered up by the three thinktanks? There is little doubt that Britain has seen a significant decline in levels of political participation in recent decades. While turnout in general elections during the 1950s saw highs of over 80 per cent, governments now count themselves lucky if they achieve a turnout of over 60. Many have traced this decline to inherent inequities in the British political system, giving rise to proposals for reform such as those advocated by the Hansard Society and the Power Inquiry.
It is not just in Britain, however, that levels of participation have declined. Other European countries, many of which have the constitutional innovations demanded by UK thinktanks, have seen a similar drop in turnout, suggesting that a wider, cultural explanation may be required.
In view of this, it is perhaps Tom Bentley who makes the most pertinent point in his contribution for Demos: unless an effort is made to develop and sustain an underlying culture of participation, then it is unlikely that any amount of constitutional reform and democratic innovation will have an effect.