Thomas Glaser retired from the European Commission in 2005 after 30 years' service, his last post as head of the EU Representation in Hungary. Currently a visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest and a member of the advisory board of Generation Europe in Brussels and the Institute for Social and European Studies in Koszeg, Hungary, here he looks at the practical uses of public deliberation in politics:
In Professor Fishkin’s introductory blog, he mentions Athenian democracy as an exemplar, coupling his mention with the word ‘probity’.
Obviously, to a political scientist, the mere mention of Athens brings on a warm, mushy feeling. To an historian, however, the Athenian experiment in democracy led directly to her defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. For the sake of probity and good governance, up to ten generals at a time were voted in for a year. The result was divided command – some generals took a day on and a day off – mutual suspicion, and – since the terms were for one year only – a total lack of strategic vision.
It is also now accepted that Greece was wrongly admitted to the EU in 1981 (far too early) against the technical advice of the Commission, and on a gust of sentiment generated in the Council of Ministers by repeated mention of the names of Solon, Pericles and Demosthenes.
The division between politics and performance has raised similar problems to those of Athens throughout history. The Spanish Armada was manned by two antagonistic groups, the seamen who sailed the ships (representing technical efficiency) and the soldiers who fought for them (representing the superior political order). It was hardly a recipe for success. Even worse were the political commissars attached to each unit of the Red Army, who stifled initiative, enforced their own ideology-based schemes and led to the numerous defeats of 1939, 1941 and 1942.
The point is a fundamental one of trust. Does the political class trust the executive enough to let it get on with the job? In our current democracies – admittedly enfeebled by new technologies, voter apathy and the cynicism of single-issue pressure groups – the political class trusts the executive to get on with it.
But this new political class - the decisive focus groups envisaged by deliberative democracy - has no reason to trust the executive (especially those who feel let down by schools, the NHS and the social services) and will want to ensure that their new power to decide a policy will extend to monitoring its implementation.
Will the vetting of benefit claimants include an interview with a possibly fed-up taxpayer? Will decisions on education depend in part on a non-parent, non-teacher and non-expert? It looks like a return to the days of the commissars but without the excuse that the whole world is against us.
