Browsing by Subject "deliberative democracy"

Participatory budgeting is a democracy innovation that has become popular around the world during the past decades. The capital of Finland is one of the many actors running participatory budgeting. The Helsinki participatory budgeting initiative – called MyCity – defines equal opportunities for participation as one of the main principles and improving parity as one of the key goals for the initiative. This MA Thesis focuses on themes of parity in Helsinki participatory budgeting. The attention is on different parity goals set for the initiative as well as the realization of these principles. According to the literature, inclusion is vital for all democracy innovations, and can be approached in two ways: from equality and equity perspectives. The first emphasizes everyone’s right to be treated similarly in society. The latter one acknowledges that fairness in access and contributions can be achieved only when tuning into each individual’s background differences. The data for the study is twofold, it consists of public documents and interviews. Through document analysis of key policy documents, different equality and equity goals and actions are identified. Further analysis on how these goals complement and contradict is taken. In addition, five qualitative interviews of MyCity cooperation organization representatives were conducted. The methods used are qualitative. Both the policy documents and interviews are analyzed with content analysis. The analysis of the study demonstrates a harmony of equality and equity actions in the recruitment, ideation and co-creation phases of MyCity. In the latter two phases of the process, voting and implementation, equality and equity actions are contradictory. Equality holds the main emphasis in the cost of equity. The study discusses two scenarios for the result: firstly, dismissal of equity goals and the downsides of it: risking tokenism and increasing inequalities. And secondly, an alternative explanation is discussed: unintended lack of clarity in parity priorities. The cooperation organization interviews present the reality of participation for the least privileged citizens: participatory budgeting is largely inaccessible. Main themes identified from the interviews are: employee supported participation was possible for the least privileged, fears on majority citizen’s preferences surpassing the less privileged voices and superficial equality projects as hindrance. In the end, three recommendations to improve equity in MyCity are made: renewal of equity guidelines for the initiative; forming stronger cooperation alliances with the minority organizations; and adjusting the rules and scope of MyCity.

After the all-time low voter turnout in the European elections in 2014, the European Parliament faces its legiti-macy being undermined. While the mass media is often made responsible for being a major contributor to the lack of an active political European public sphere where the EU governance can be debated, social media has been considered as a means to connect the European institutions and its citizens through direct communi-cation. From the viewpoint of deliberative democratic theory, the European Parliament can restore legitimacy through engaging citizens in public deliberation and involving them in the European decision-making process. At the same time, political institutions are known for their attempts to generate legitimacy in social media through promotional campaigns that do not stipulate policy impact. This study contributes to the debate about the European public sphere by exploring the motivations behind the European Parliament’s institutional communication on the social networking site Facebook. Its theoreti-cal underpinning hence links together the debates about the EU’s democratic deficit on the one hand, and the democratic potential of social media on the other. Specifically, this research scrutinises how the members of the European Parliament’s Web Communication unit make sense of their work practices on Facebook and which role they ascribe to themselves and other actors in the construction of a European public sphere. The goal is to offer a critical assessment of the European Parliament’s Facebook communication against the back-drop of the normative framework derived from the deliberative theory of public sphere. The qualitative research is based on two data sets: The first data set was collected through participant obser-vation in the European Parliament’s Web Communication unit in February 2018; the second one through eight semi-structured interviews with the Unit’s communication officials working with Facebook. Based on positioning theory, an interpretative interview analysis is conducted. The findings assert that the European Parliament’s Facebook communication must be understood as a politi-cal, top-down, promotional campaign rather than an attempt to engage ordinary citizens in an online delibera-tion. Thus, it does not provide for a systematic political bottom-up policy impact. The findings hence support the view that the narrative of social media connecting political actors and the citizens is most of all put forward to legitimise political promotion. This study moreover emphasises a liberal representative understanding rather than a deliberative understanding of European democracy within the European Parliament’s administration. Accordingly, the role of the European Parliament web communication officials in the European public sphere is to substitute the weak media coverage about the Parliament and raise aware-ness about its benefits to the voters.