Focus and aims

The main objective of this Core Activity is to understand and facilitate the effective contribution of policy proposals coming out of our deliberative processes. To do so, research will focus on the two main actors concerned: policy makers and citizens. Previous research has shown that the policy impact of participatory institutions has been limited. This is partly due to the fact that both researchers and designers of deliberative institutions have given priority to creating ideal conditions for high quality deliberation in a forum setting at the potential expense of having a better insertion with representative institutions and to consider the concerns of policymakers. We know that several factors affect the likelihood of a given policy proposal to be effectively implemented: low costs, being in accordance with the preferences of policy makers (both politicians and civil servants) or representing a continuity with previous policies. However, we have limited understanding of why policy makers reject many of these proposals. Is this related to a general reluctance towards proposals coming from laypeople? Is the rejection due to the fact that they had little say in forming the respective policy outcome? Thus, the first main objective is to understand which general and specific motivations of policy makers regarding these proposals exist and which factors make them change. 

The second main goal is to understand how policy impact affects citizens’ attitudes and behaviours regarding these participatory processes and their outputs. To influence policies is one of the relevant motivations of participants to be involved in these processes. However, we lack a clear picture of how important this motivation is compared to others. The same applies to participants’ satisfaction and the legitimacy they attribute to the process outputs. This will be enhanced by realistic expectations of influence, but it is unclear whether these will prevail compared to other considerations regarding the process itself (quality of deliberation, empathy with other participants, balanced information and others) or the content of the proposals. 

To clarify the importance of each of these factors we aim to test the following hypotheses:

• Policy makers’ attitudes towards participatory proposals will be more negative when they consider the issues addressed in the deliberative process too complex for laypersons;
• Policy makers’ attitudes towards participatory proposals will be more negative when they had little say themselves in the deliberative process;
• Policy makers’ attitudes towards policy proposals will be more negative when proposals (regardless of deliberative process characteristics) go against their own preferences;
• Politicians and policymakers show important differences among countries;
• Citizens’ predisposition to participate will be larger when effective policy influence is guaranteed. Lack of confidence in policy influence will affect disposition to participate negatively;
• The importance of policy influence among the reasons to participate will not be much larger than other factors related to the process design, including issue, characteristics of deliberation, costs of participation;
• Expected policy influence will enhance the legitimacy of the deliberative experience;
• The importance of expected policy influence among the reasons for satisfaction will not be much larger than other influencing factors related to process design and satisfaction with the proposals approved.

Method

Two different research strategies will be adopted to achieve these two objectives. The most central one is an independent strategy (survey and a survey experiment with policy makers), whereas the complementary approach (questions to participants) is fully connected to the Make it Happen activities. More in detail, the following steps are foreseen:

• Undertake online survey to policy makers and high-rank civil servants belonging to the different territorial levels, in order to capture their attitudes (including both a pilot fieldwork in Spain and a fully fledged survey fieldwork in five countries);
• Pose dedicated sets of questions to participants in the deliberative event set out in the Make it happen stage, as to provide an excellent dataset to be used in triangulation with the qualitative information from the interviews;
• Organize a a two-day event with policy makers to discuss the results of our analysis of their motivations (Policy Roundtable);
• Analyse the results from the previous phases and propose accordingly some scenarios for developing new deliberative protocols to improve policy outcome.

Who’s in the first line

CSIC will lead this Core Activity, with the fundamental intake of the University of Warsaw and the contribution of the University of Stuttgart, the University of Siena and TOUR4EU.

Meet our Team Members!

Expected outcomes

D8.1: Pilot Elite Study Report – After the pilot elite study is completed a complete practically oriented report will be issued to be incorporated into the final design of the elite survey. This will include problems faced on the sampling frame build-up, evaluation of the questionnaire and the vignette experiment and learnings from the fieldwork experience and how it can be improved.

D8.2: Comparative elite attitudes dataset – The dataset will include the results of the elite survey and survey experiment in the five countries as well as the complete codebook and fieldwork protocols. We include a three months gap between the end of the survey and the deliverable to complete data checking and cleaning.

D8.3: Elite attitudes report – The report will include the analysis of the elite survey and survey experiment. In addition to the full report we will produce a dissemination version to be used in Task 8.3 as well as an academic version to be published in a scientific journal.

D8.4: Citizens versus Policies report – The report will include the analysis of the pre and post-survey questionnaires, using especially the questions related to this WP. In addition to the full report, an academic version to be published in a scientific journal will be written.

D8.5: Report on the event – A report detailing the development as well as the lessons learned from the meeting will be written, including whether they inform any new interpretation of the ideas developed in D8.3.

D8.6: Proposal for new protocols on policy outcome – Short practically oriented report of how the contents of this WP could inform the organisation of deliberative events, considering the existing attitudes of citizens and elite.