What we call "democracy" is an amalgam of values, rights and systems. Attempts to define it will always be fuzzy round the edges. The same goes for "deliberative democracy". Do we mean a situation in which each citizen has an equal right to influence decisions which affect them by a process of informed interactive consultation? Or do we mean something that goes further - more Athenian, something more than "merely" deliberative?

John Jackson chairs the legal firm Mishcon de Reya, and is a director of openDemocracy and History Today

John Jackson's article continues openDemocracy's "Democracy and deliberation" debate, which also features:

James S Fishkin, "Deliberative polling: distilling the crowd's wisdom" (12 October 2007)

Matthias Benz, "Democratic vote or deliberative poll?" (13 October 2007James Fishkin's description of what "Tomorrow's Europe" deliberative poll is attempting makes it clear he is talking about the former and has demonstrated how to do it (see "Deliberative polling: distilling the crowd's wisdom", 12 October 2007). But does it go far enough? There is a growing number of citizens who are disenchanted with mere consultation and want a process which really holds the promise of determining outcomes. Matthias Benz has argued that genuine citizen participation does enrich political culture (see "Democratic vote or deliberative poll?", 13 October 2007). If this is what we want, how should we go about it?

A coalition for change

One way can be teased out of the history and content of the Sustainable Communities Bill, 2006-07 - a piece of draft legislation currently being discussed in the British parliament whose core purpose is to oblige the responsible government minister to work with local authorities and communities to publish action plans that promote these communities' sustainability.

This largely unnoticed but remarkable bill - first introduced to parliament in March 2003 - is expected to become law in England and Wales shortly. The story of this remarkably "Trojan" piece of participative legislation tells us how the distribution of power will have to change for a more Athenian conception of democracy to take hold in Britain.

The background to the bill is widespread local dissatisfaction about the condition of (in particular) the English countryside, especially the way that a range of economic and social processes (with their wider effect on working, travelling and shopping patterns) are turning rural communities into "ghost towns" whose inhabitants are increasingly deprived of good transport links, local shops and post offices, and have little opportunity to influence directly the policies that have made this happen.

Also in openDemocracy: dLiberation - discovering tomorrow's Europe, a blog dedicated to exploring the merits of deliberative democracy in the context of the Tomorrow's Europe experiment on 12-14 October 2007; edited by J Clive Matthews, it features contributions from (among many others) James S Fishkin, Arthur Lupia, Amy Gutmann, and Ian O'Flynn This dissatisfaction resulted in a broad coalition for change, campaigning under the slogan "Local Works". The first step was to organise across the country meetings of community members and their elected local-government representatives to discuss needs and wishes and to assess the level of potential support. So well attended were these meetings and such was the interest roused by this process (which ran for well over a year) that it attracted the attention of national members of parliament (MPs) and, very significantly, one of the main political parties.

This, in turn, resulted in the development of a large cross-party parliamentary consensus and the promise of help in drafting a "private member's" (i.e. non-government-sponsored bill with political support behind it (in the United Kingdom, political backing of this kind is essential if such bills are to make any progress in parliament).

A remarkable outcome

The bill places an obligation on central government to call on each local-governmental authority to produce a plan to enhance the sustainability of those communities by locally implemented economic, social and environmental measures. The bill stipulates that the plan should be arrived at through a process of discussion and deliberation that involves local citizens' panels which have rights of policy-proposal enshrined. Central government has the obligation to cooperate with each local-governmental authority in assisting with the prioritisation and implementation of its plan. In current jargon the emphasis is strongly "bottom up" rather than "top down".

The bill implements a "double" devolution: it devolves from central government as well as introducing direct, participative policy-making.

Also by John Jackson in openDemocracy:

"Mr Town meets Mr Country" (14 June 2001) - a conversation with Richard Rogers

"Do we want freedom, or simply to rattle the bars?" (8 August 2001)

"Write the constitution down!" (17 February 2005)

"A democracy in trouble" (1 March 2006)

"Alice Wheeldon and the attorney-general" (8 April 2007) When the bill was introduced the early, disappointing indications were that it would be opposed by government ministers. It soon transpired that the main source of opposition was not the ministers themselves but the civil servants advising them. This was startling and worrying - and not only in constitutional terms. Private-members' bills opposed by government have a short parliamentary life.

Despite the very large support in parliament for the measure, this opposition by "officials" persisted until a late stage and coloured the discussions with ministers in finalising a text to which they could agree. Eventually the bill went through its parliamentary stages little changed from the original proposal (particularly in respect of the participative elements) and with increasing support and understanding from ministers. On Thursday 11 October 2007, it cleared its passage through the upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords, with formal government support. It is a remarkable outcome.

A message from London

What are the lessons from this saga? Two suggest themselves:

* Democratic change whose impetus comes from the "grassroots" is ultimately hard to resist. But it must still intelligently use and get itself adopted by "the system" - particularly the established parliamentary process. Revolutions rarely work.

* Beware of "officials". All democratic citizens support the independence of the civil service and expect it to have an ethos based on probity and serving the public. But it is not a separate "estate". Although the civil service may feel more comfortable with "its" legislation proposed by "its" ministers, there needs to be vigilance about the possibility that such unspoken sympathy may unduly influence the "impartial" advice that it dispenses.

Could the history of the Sustainable Communities Bill be relevant to the European Union? The present means of making and implementing policy - particularly the bar on the European parliament initiating legislation - make it difficult to see how grassroots pressure might result in Euro-legislation. Europeans should worry about that. Perhaps the powers of the European parliament should be reconsidered, in a deliberative way, by the 490 million of us who elect its members.