We are now in a unique political situation. While the president keeps the call and test the most innovative configurations, so it appears that the political parties have a total locked down at their initial positions from the election campaign. The consequence is a lull in the sakpolitiska development where right now nothing happens.
If we lift our eyes from the ongoing formation of the government so we quickly realize that regardless of how our next government will look like is the situation just a symptom of a structural systemic problems: the political parties, and hence the system of representative democracy, canlı casino crisis.
The political parties have long since ceased to be a link between the citizens and the political system. Two clear indicators of this is the sharp medlemsflykten ( today is about 2 percent of the Swedish population as active members of a political party) and the very low förtroendesiffrorna (in the latest ”Förtroendebarometern” answered approximately 17 per cent that they had quite a large/very great confidence in the political parties according to the Line Sifo/Medieakademin).
Our elected officials talk often warm up for the innovations. So my challenging question to the (in due time) the next government is: why not try something new when the current approach seems to have stalled?
This is no news. Already 2000 years Demokratiutredning indicate that the political parties ”shows a lack of adaptability to new conditions for political work”, which the investigators not only see as a problem for the parties themselves but there is a high degree, the citizens and the democracy problem” ( SOU, 2000:1, p. 245-246).
This line of reasoning pursued also in the past the democracy commission considers from 2016 which states that ”the political parties have changed, weakened, and do not have as broad support as in the past”. This statement is then followed by an interesting conclusion in which the investigators join the ranks of the idea that the parties ‘problems’ justifying the ways of political influence at the side of the parties and the general elections opened” ( SOU 2016:5 p. 19).
But how then can these ”paths of political influence at the side of the parties” as the investigators call for?
In my dissertation I examine these ”new ways”, which is also referred to as the ”democratic innovations”. The main purpose of democratic innovations in different ways to create new channels for political participation through which citizens can formally affect the substance of policy between elections.
There are a number of different variants of democratic innovations in which some of the most common are: medborgarbudgetar, citizens ‘ consultations, e-petitions, political crowdsourcing and medborgarsamlingar. I thought this focus on the two variants that I consider especially interesting: medborgarsamlingar and e-petitions.
1.
. The basic idea of the medborgarsamlingar is through a randomised selection create a representative group of the given society (a town, region, or state) and that this group should represent the population. The concept for a medborgarsamling can differ, but usually, participants receive the first information about the merits of the case from multiple perspectives. After they had taken part of the information they get time to discuss and converse with each other (often led by a moderator). To conclude the process, they have the opportunity to vote on which proposals should go further into politics.
the Benefits of medborgarsamlingar are several. Secondly, research shows that they can contribute to increasing participants ‘ knowledge of the policy area that is in focus, but also that the participants can change their opinions during the process. The research also suggests that randomiseringen include citizens who otherwise would not have participated in political decision-making, and by taking in new ideas can help to solve political problems. There are also a few studies that suggest that medborgarsamlingar can increase the legitimacy of the political system.
Medborgarsamlingar, however, is not trouble-free. The first is that they are relatively expensive to implement, as it requires both personnel and logistics, partly to get a randomized selection and also a number of experts and moderators on the site. There is also a risk that those who get selected in the randomiseringsprocessen (by becoming a new ”private group”), in fact, ceases to represent the population they are meant to represent, which can lead to the proposals in spite of everything becomes difficult to weigh into the decision-making process.
2.
the E-petitions differ from medborgarsamlingar in the question of design, as they are based on självurval (that is to say, all who wish may participate). It is basically a relatively simple principle, in which citizens are allowed to come in with a proposal on the municipality’s or the state’s website and where other citizens can then vote on these proposals. The innovative aspect of e-petitions is that they are formally linked to the decision-making process, often by setting a limit for how large the minimum support, the proposal must have in order to get to the relevant political committee.
the Benefits of e-petitioning is several. The main advantage is that it is a easy tool for citizens to mobilize themselves and thus raise an issue on the political agenda. There is also research, including my thesis, which shows that participation can change the trust (in both the positive and negative direction) to the political system. In addition to that, it is a (in theory) easily accessible tools for citizens to participate online, which lowers the threshold for participation.
But also e-petitions have their problems. One of the really big problems that several empirical studies show, contrary to the theory of lower thresholds) is that the citizens who are already politically active is greatly over-represented, which is liable to expand (rather than equalize) the political inequality.
, but instead think that the various innovations perform different system functions. Therefore, is a combination of several innovations, along with input from interest groups and experts, to recommend in order to create broad support in the society in a given sakpolitisk question.
Our elected officials talk often warm up for the innovations. So my challenging question to the (in due time) the next government is: why not try something new when the current approach seems to have stalled? A concrete proposal is to organize a national medborgarsamling where, together, we put ourselves in and develop a sakpolitiskt area.
Two areas that are in urgent need of new insights and solutions is the education policy and housing policy, so why not start there? It would be both courageous and innovative. And, above all, it would be important both for Sweden and for our democracy.
