Comeback of the Citizens' Jury? 1 LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance

Transcription

1 ECPR Graduate Conference 2016 (Tartu, Estonia) Comeback of the Citizens' Jury? 1 LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance Work in progress. Please do not cite! Johannes Bauser 2 Institute for Political Science - Graduate School of Politics University of Münster Scharnhorststraße Münster, Germany Johannes.Bauser@uni-muenster.de Abstract: LiquidFeedback is one among many other new internet-based participation tools that have come onto the market in recent years. An empirical evaluation of this tool is still outstanding since it is used in some municipalities in Lower Saxony since This paper takes up this issue by outlining the success factors, discussing the prospects and making proposals for further development. The lack of empirical data makes it necessary to resort to the concept of the Citizens' Jury a participation tool which has been developed in the 1970s as part of the governance discourse. However the concept could never prevail over a wide area. The common criticism: too expensive, too complex, too complicated. Nevertheless, the Citizens' Jury is suitable as a benchmark to draw attention to blind spots of Liquid- Feedback and therefrom develop hypotheses which will be used for the ongoing thesis. This paper will outline, what kind of potential in both participation tool lies and how the fledging idea of Liquid Democracy could be further developed. First observations and findings from the ongoing thesis flow into this theoretically based analysis. Furthermore, this paper is presenting the prospects of success LiquidFeedback will have and on which factors they depend on. Finally the research design for the further work will be discussed. 1 Acknowledgments: The author thanks Sebastian Schneider and Larissa Denzinger for the correction of this paper. 2 Johannes Bauser is a PhD student at Graduate School of Politics, University of Münster. He holds a Diploma in sociology (TU Darmstadt) with the minor subjects political science and business administration. His research activities are mainly focused on the areas of (e-)governance, (e-)participation and local politics.

2 Johannes Bauser 2 Keywords: online-participation; LiquidFeedback; Liquid Democracy; political planning; governance; citizens' jury; local politics

3 Comeback of the Citizen Jury? LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance 3 1. Introduction Many participation tools, that were developed in recent years, are based on labeling. That means, existing concepts got modified and distributed under a new name (Kersting 2008: 9). The innovation output of those instruments exist solely in the new naming. The online-platform LiquidFeedback, which is based on the principles of Liquid Democracy, is suspected to be one of such instrument. The Pirate Party advertised the platform with buzzwords like "Democracy 2.0" or slogans like "For this system is an update available" (Bieber 2014: 189) and used it for inner-party opinion-forming and decision-making. Later on in 2012 LiquidFeedback has been established in the first municipality, county of Friesland, in Germany. Since then more municipalities followed the example of Friesland. But is the idea really as new and innovative as suggested? This paper argues that LiquidFeedback adjoins common governance concepts regarding its functionality and impact. As an example it is reffered to the concept of the Citizens' Jury (see Dienel 1992), which has been developed in the 1970s. At the current time a scientific evaluation of LiquidFeedback could be difficult since there is no data to generate reliable results. Therefore, this paper aims to contribute hypotheses which will be drawn out of a comparison between LiquidFeedback and the Citizens' Jury. For this purpose, the democratic theory, local political foundations and the conceptualization of LiquidFeedback will be explained first. This will be followed by the discussion of the success factors for successful citizen participation (first overview of the success factors in Saam 2008: ). Furthermore, the prospects of success and expectations for the use of LiquidFeedback at the municipal level will be derived from the theoretical comparison between LiquidFeedback and the Citizens' Jury. In the last section it will be explained how the work-in-progress hypotheses will be implemented into the research design. 2. Theoretical Framework The Citizens' Jury and LiquidFeedback are so-called democratic innovations. Newton defines democratic innovations as "( ) the successful implementation of a new idea that is intended to change the structures or processes of democratic government and politics in order to improve them (Newton & Geißel 2012: 4). They are used to inform the citizens and to motivate them to take an active role in the political society (Newton & Geißel 2012: 6).

4 Johannes Bauser 4 Meanwhile the literature deals with a huge amount of democratic innovations beneath the Citizens' Jury and LiquidFeedback. To that Kersting (2008: 28) provides a good overview. The instruments can be categorized and differentiated from one another by means of their design. For example Arnstein's "Ladder of Citizen Participation" (Kersting 2008: 16; Arnstein 1969) is appropriate to order instruments to their extent of interference by the citizens. In contrast the democratic rhombus of Kersting shows the mixing of different (online-)instruments and primarily takes the internet-based forms of participation into account since those cannot be assigned to one specific form of participation (direct democratic, deliberative, demonstrative, representative) (Kersting 2013 : 272). There are more proposals to categorize like those of Nanz and Fritsche. They categorize participation tools according to organizational characteristics such as duration and number of participants, recruitment or the selection of participants, the predominant form of communication as well as the function of a method (Nanz & Fritsche 2012: 25). At this point further proposals for categorizing shall be left out. In recent years, the scientific and sociopolitical 3 discussion about democratic innovations has emerged due to the discussion about crisis phenomena of the modern democracy. As a possible reason Kersting presents the growing political apathy 4, lower electoral turnouts and shrinking party membership on one hand, while on the other hand, strong political protest in new social movements and new political parties became obvious (Kersting 2016: 1). Gabriel (2013: 593) picks up the widespread statement that democracy does not meet its own requirements that is "to bind the decisions of the representatives to the preferences of the represented". The citizens react "to this development with a withdrawal of the institutions and processes of the representative, state party democracy as it is expressed in the decline in voter turnout and in party's membership and the simultaneous increase of mass protest against political decisions" (Gabriel 2013: 593). Almost 50 years ago Pateman (1970: 3 At this point, it shall be refered on the election programs of the Pirate Party and the Alternative für Deutschland (AFD). Both parties draw attention in the public debate with their demand for more citizen participation (especially direct democratic options). In addition, the associations "Mehr Demokratie e.v. " and "Liquid Democracy e.v." demand more citizen participation, too. 4 Political apathy (in Germany synonymously used with disentchanment with politics) is often used generally for the public dissatisfaction with the political system. Maier (2000) has created a typology of disenchantment with politics after which certain types of setting tend to a particular voting behavior. Maier mentions disenchantment with politics, disenchantment with parties and disenchantment with democracy as the main subdimensions of political apathy.

5 Comeback of the Citizen Jury? LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance 5 104) also pointed out the low efficacy-value which could be taken into adequate account with an extended influence opportunity. In this context the catchword "participation" is often used as "a wonder weapon against disenchantment with politics" (Voss 2014: 8). Voss summarises that it is all about to improve the problem orientation on the output side and to "increase the legitimation of political decisions" on the input side (Voss 2014: 14). Therefore Gabriel refers to the weak empirical basis which does not prove the causality between poor representation and the demand for direct democracy. However, the demand for direct democracy is mainly charged by such citizens "which do not rate the general representation power of the political system as clearly positive and blame at least one of the central institution of the representative democracy as an inadequate representative of their interests". (Gabriel 2013: 611) Therefore it may be assumed that participation can be considered as a mean of meeting the citizens' lack of interest of political processes. That is why, inter alia, the introduction of referendums and plebiscites, adjustments of elections to the citizens' preferences (cf. Cain et al. 2003) and the development of "new forms of dialogues between citizens, administrators, experts, politicians and employees of public administration who all want to participate" are being debated (Gabriel 2013: 592). With regard to the numerous reforms that have been carried out over the past decades (reviewed in Kersting 2004: ) the "democracy lab" municipality is suitable to test the democratic innovations. This circumstance is not only due to the legal framework 5, for example in Lower Saxony 6 where public petition (Sec. 32 NKomVG 7 ), suggestions (Sec. 34 NKomVG) and surveys (Sec. 35 NKomVG) are provided, but also in comparison with the state and federal level less fragile sphere of action inside which decisions that are influenced by citizens come into effect. Complementary to that is the fact that the citizens assess the op- 5 Thormann (2013: 326) explains that Art. 20 para. 2 sentence 1 of the Constitution is designed by the legislature so that "referendums are only permitted to the matters for which the Constitution expressly provides a referendum". Therefore a referendum is only mandatory for the restructuring of the federal territory (Art. 29 of the Constitution). At the state level (on the example of Lower Saxony, Art of the Constitution of Lower Saxony) people's initiative and referendums are possible in a less restrictive framework. The obstacles to a people's initiative is at supporter signatures; for a referendum a support of 10 percent of the eligible voters has to be proven. In addition, laws regarding state budget, public charges as well as remuneration and pension cannot be subject of a referendum. The Federal Constitution Court has so far avoided to position itself in a democratic-theoretical way which is why the Constitution Law has not been supplemented by any explicit opportunity for citizen participation (Thormann 2013: 327). 6 There are some noticeable differences in terms on condition and the design of citizen participation in each state (cf. Holtkamp 2016; Hildebrandt & Wolf 2008). 7 NKomVG is the German abbreviation for Niedersächsiches Kommunalverfassungsgesetz which stands for the Law of the communal constitution in Lower Saxony.

6 Johannes Bauser 6 portunity to influence the political processes on local level to be much higher than on federal level (Gabriel 1983: 316). The Citizens' Jury was designed for use in municipalities, while LiquidFeedback is primarily designed for use in parties. The next section will give an overview of the genesis and conceptualisation of LiquidFeedback by means of its application in the Pirate Party and at the municipality level. 3. LiquidFeedback 3.1 Idea, origin, application Liquid Feedback is a web-based platform, which is - to put it briefly a "democratic system in which most issues are decided by referendum (Behrens et al 2014: 22). The platform has two main areas of application: it can be applied in organisations (f.e. partys, companies) or in the whole society. In practical terms, the platform works in that way that proposals or initiatives can be submitted, discussed and will be finally provided to the vote. According to information from the developer of Public Software Group e.v. (based in Berlin) Liquid Feedback combines "concepts of a collectively moderated, self-organized discussion process (quantied, constructive feedback) and Liquid Democracy (delegated or proxy voting)" (Behrens et al. 2014: 16). Indeed, it is especially the so-called "Delegated Voting" or "Proxy Voting", which makes the procedure so charming. The idea is that participants can delegate their vote to another participant permanently or occasionally. The vote can be withdrawn at any time and can be used by themselves or delegated to another participant (Behrens et al 2014: 22). Another special feature is the transitivity of the vote delegation as someone who received a vote from another participant may delegate it to someone else again (Behrens et al 2014: 24f). Thereby so-called "super delegates" may arise, who can decide initiatives by solo effort or they can use their power of veto to block initiatives (May 2014:204). In an ideal case, a proposal or an initiative passes through four phases: In the phase "new" supporters have to be found for the initiative, so that the initiative reaches the "discussion phase". The Pirate Party presumed a 10 percent Quorum, while at the municipal level 8 due to the low participation rates a lower quorum is required. If the quorum is not reached, the process will be canceled and the initiative fails. In the following "discussion phase" proponents and opponents can justify their positions with their arguments. In this 8 What is meant here are the two counties Friesland and Rotenburg and the two cities Seelze and Wunstorf (all in Lower Saxony).

7 Comeback of the Citizen Jury? LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance 7 phase amendments may be included in the original initiative. After a certain time the initiative reaches the "frozen"-phase. From here on, no more changes are possible, but further initiatives can be added, however, they also need to reach the quorum to reach the "vote - phase. In this last phase participants can vote for all initiatives that passed the quorum. Therefore the preferential election is applied, which is based on the Schulze-method 9. In the first step participants may vote for an initiative, reject it or abstain from vote. In a second step they can take the initiative in an order and thereby express their preferences (Bullenwinkel & Probst 2014: ). new seek for supports to reach the quorum quorum passed: initiative enters discussion phase quorum not passed: initiative fails discussion discussion related to the topic/initiative amendments may be brought in frozen no amendments possible any more counter-initiatives may be brought in (need quorum) vote vote (Schulze-method) simple majority: initiative is accepted no majority: initiative fails Figure 1: presentation of the phases in LiquidFeedback (own illustration) 9 An in-depth explanation of this method is provided by Behrens et al. (2014: ).

8 Johannes Bauser 8 Because of the strong focus on the "discussion phase" LiquidFeedback is often connected to the deliberation theory by Jürgen Habermas. The idea of deliberative concepts is to develop a discourse between citizens, within the citizens interchange intersubjectively arguments so that the rationality level is increased. Furthermore the discourse leads ideally to a higher acceptance of the results (Buck 2012: 630). It may be doubted that online-based communication follows Habermas criteria 10. Zimmermann proves that deliberation is not the prevailing participation mode in the comment column of online news readers (Zimmermann 2015: 356). To what extent Liquid Feedback might be an exception here will the detailed analysis within the thesis show. Liquid Democracy is often defined as a hybrid between representative and direct democracy because it liquefies the boundaries between the two political systems (Adler 2013: 72). This alludes to the possibility of transfering your own vote to other participants. But what the "Liquid in Liquid Democracy is becomes even clearer when we look at it as a constitutional political system. Liquid Democracy revokes fixed legislatory terms, so that elections can take place at any time. This makes it possible for citizens to decide on single law initiatives instead of deciding on the complete package which is presented by each party (Vogelmann 2012: 40). This conceptualization can not provide a satisfactory answer to the question what role parties shall play in a Liquid Democracy. The main functions of the parties (personnel recruitment, policy making, policy control) would be applied by the citizens themselves. This raises the question how an attribution of accountability and competence shall be possible if there is no imperative mandate (Buck 2012: ). Andreas Nitsche, developer at the Public Software Group e.v., rejects the claim that Liquid Democracy should be used as a new form of political system. He understands Liquid Democracy as a way to compensate the disadvantages of the two forms of democracy by giving the participants the chance to become active or to delegate their vote to another more competent and trustful participant (Biermann 2013). Liquid Democracy can be applied in parties or organisations or in the whole society. The concept became known to a wider audience due to its application in the Pirate Party in Germany. The former general secretary from the Pirate Party, Jan Huwald, had once the vision to implement Liquid Democracy as a political system in Germany, although it turned out during the concept phase that it should first be used for the inner-party opinion-forming and 10 Schmidt (2008: ) presents an overview of the common critique on the deliberation theory.

9 Comeback of the Citizen Jury? LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance 9 decision-making process (Bartels 2009: 270f.). To reinforce the weight of the decisions in LiquidFeedback the statutes had to be changed. Accordingly, the institutions and committees are encouraged to follow the decisions that were made in LiquidFeedback. If the institutions differ from the recommended decisions they should justify their position to make their actions transparent for everyone 11 (Pirate Party Wiki). In this context it is an irony of fate that LiquidFeedback 12 survived the Pirate Party at its biggest supporter. Since the Pirate Party lost its relevance after the Bundestagswahlen 2013 (2.2 percent of the votes, website Bundeswahlleiter, see bibliography) LiquidFeedback has been implemented in several lower saxonian municipalities 13 with the goal to integrate the citizens in the political opinion-forming and decision-making process (Biermann 2012). The county Friesland was the pionier in introducing LiquidFeedback at the municipal level. In November 2012 the LiquidFeedback instance for Friesland has been launched and enjoyed a nationwide news coverage for several months (Diefenbach 2013: 31). The district administrator of Friesland, Sven Ambrosy (Social Democratic Party), can be counted as the biggest supporter for LiquidFeedback in Friesland. He is the driving force behind the project and has therefore been invited by other municipalities to present his experience. This had quite a huge effect: The cities Wunstorf (03/2015) and Seelze (07/2015) and the county Rotenburg (03/2015) followed the county Friesland and applied a LiquidFeedback instance. The author of this paper had several informal conversations 14 with the managing employees in the public administration, which were responsible for the implementation process. Their opinions regarding LiquidFeedback were divided. Seelze welcomed the approach and hoped for a possibility to find potential savings to get the heavily loaded budget under control. Wunstorf seemed quite euphoric as well as they were looking forward for new ways of citizen participation. Wunstorf experimented in the past with several instruments (f.e. citizen workshops, town hall meetings). In contrast Rotenburg was very cautious about the implementation of LiquidFeedback. In convrsations it became obvious that the administrati- 11 In accordance to art. 11 para LiquidFeedback is based on the principles of Liquid Democracy. The platform ist offline for some time now. Previously the Pirate Party failed to introduce the platform nationwide (Greis 2014). 13 At the moment LiquidFeedback is used in the county (in German: Landkreis) Rotenburg (Wumme) and in the cities Seelze and Wunstorf. The county Friesland used the platform for four years until they put it offline in April The press spokesman of Friesland informed the author that the platform has been adjusted and will go online again in august At the present time there is no further information about the adjustments. Friesland was the first municipality that introduced LiquidFeedback. 14 The author had several informal conversations with the managing employees in the public administration. The goal was to discuss the cornerstones of the cooperation and to get first impressions of the field.

10 Johannes Bauser 10 on is looking forward for the first results, but does not have high expectations in LiquidFeedback. A turning point in the history of LiquidFeedback might be the decision by the public administration of Friesland to take LiquidFeedback offline (April 2016). It shall be replaced by another platform that will go online until August At the moment it is not known how the new platform will operate. It is definite that citizens will still have the oppurtunity to participate directly (website county Friesland). The problem of the lack of a scientific evaluation can not be solved by internal evaluations as they are performed in Seelze or in Rotenburg. Their statistics solely aim on the user behaviour (f.e. participation rate) which is only one factor in a scientific evaluation as the author of this paper pursues. The following section presents success and evaluation criteria which will be used for a scientific evaluation of LiquidFeedback. 3.2 Success factors (what means "success/failure?) Participation tools can only insufficiently be empirically explored what is partly due to the nature of the tools themselves and is partly due to the fact that a comprehensive evaluation require enormous funds (see Geißel & Joas 2013;. Newton & Geißel 2012). On the other hand the results especially with regard to the participation rate are quite expectable, therefore this paper pleads for a pragmatic research approach. For example we can expect a bias with regard to the educational backrground of the participants in LiquidFeedback, which is caused by the open participation. A representative population survey including citizens and participants would fulfill scientific criteria, but it can be expected that this would not carry out new findings. Therefore the proposed criteria by Kersting (2008a) and Saam (2008) should be applied. Therefore it should be checked if single criteria are feasible and what results may look like. In the next step this criteria will be operationalised, which will takes place as part of the thesis. Kersting suggests three evaluation forms for the scientific analysis of participation tools, which shall be exemplarily presented by means of LiquidFeedback: the process, the result and the context evaluation (Kersting 2008a: 281f.). The process evaluation mainly analyses the representativeness, the quality of deliberation and the rules of implementation of the participation tool. These includes in particular:

11 Comeback of the Citizen Jury? LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance 11 Inclusion (participation rate, representativeness, voluntariness, independence): As already mentioned above this criterion can not be analysed completely in the thesis. At most the participation rate can be analysed by using the data, which is generated by LiquidFeedback itself. Furthermore the voluntariness and the independence of the results can be analysed by using the LiquidFeedback policy, which can be downloaded from every platform. Fairness in the process (process flexibility, rules of decision-making, transparency, access to information resources, interaction, comfort, satisfaction, usability, competence, identification with a common goal, independence, task formulation, earliness of involvement): Again, not all of the criteria (satisfaction, usability, identification with a common goal) can be analysed due to the fact that population surveys are not feasible. The remaining criteria can be applied without any problems, however. The evaluation of the results (output, outcome, impact) uses the following criteria: Impacts on politics (expressivity, effectiveness, efficiency): This criterion can be evaluated very well with the proposed research design (see section 6.1) because there is an access to the policy resolutions and to the political representatives. Impact on the political elites (legitimacy, political trust): Due to the access to the political elites in the municipalities it can be derived via semi-structured interviews in how far these elites trust or distrust the vote of the citizens and furthermore wether they consider the initiatives as legitimate or not. Impact on the participants and the public (gain of knowledge, gain of resources, trust in political elites): For this purpose it makes sense to perform semi-structured interviews with the initiators of the positive decided initiatives. Output criteria (influence of politics, the reaction of the political institutions, impact on the public, stratification of conflicts, costs): Similiar to the previous criteria, output criteria may be evaluated by semi-structured interviews as well. However, there are also problems in terms of costs, for example. It will be very difficult to find a standard of comparison by which it could be checked if the citizens solution is more efficient then the solution by the politics. Within the context evaluation the political community, the sociocultural and political context, the external decision-making process and the organisational structure shall be analysed. We apply this criteria to the subject matter and therefore we focus on polarizing to-

12 Johannes Bauser 12 pics in recent years, external consultations and the specifiy formal and informal decisionmaking processes and organisational structures within the public administration and the politics. In addition we can formulate criterias for sustainability of the process (Saam 2008: 264): Motivational foundations of the public roles: This question can not be answered by the help of the research design (see section 6.1). Motivational foundations of the performers: This question can be answered by analysing if participants tend to participate once or from time to time. Takeover from decisions in LiquidFeedback by the politics: This question will be answered in the evaluation of the results. Finally, it is important to clarify when LiquidFeedback should be classified as "success" or as a "failure". Concerning the latest research results regarding participation tools it can be assumed that no participation tool fulfills all criteria. We have to keep in mind that all participation tools are vulnerable for all sorts of bias. Even elections are vulnerable for some sort of bias, although on another level in comparison to other participation tools. Accordingly the presented criteria shall be used in order to uncover blind spots and disfunctionalities within the process of LiquidFeedback. From there on we come to a conclusion if LiquidFeedback should be kept online or should be canceled. At the moment there is a lack of empirical data regarding LiquidFeedback so that the author has to collect it within the thesis. For the formulation of hypotheses it is useful to compare LiquidFeedback with an already analysed participation tool, which has similiar requirements. For this purpose we reference to the aforementioned Citizens' Jury, which was developed in the early 70s. The experience from the research results of the Citizen Jury will be helpful for the formulation of the hypotheses regarding the further work on LiquidFeedback. 4. LiquidFeedback and the Citizens' Jury in comparison 4.1 Citizens' Jury The political science literature of the 60s and 70s mainly focused on planning processes which are administrated by the public administration and the politics, but less on citizen participation. The few participation research mainly focused on elections and parties, further-

13 Comeback of the Citizen Jury? LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance 13 more on demonstrative participation (f.e. protests). Besides this, the Citizens' Jury attracts attention because it includes citizens in the solution finding process. It was developed in the course of the debate on policy planning and may be considered as a reaction to the failure of this concept in the mid 70s (Görlitz & Burth 1998: 110). Dienel (1992) sums up five problem complexes, from which he developed the Citizens' Jury: Deficit of rational evaluation: Dienel (1992) notes that the political-administrative complex is not able to assess certain societal problems (Dienel 1992: 15f.). As an example he refers to the fact that parties and politics in general are increasingly unable to exert their control function over the public administration. Furthermore Dienel observes an increasingly emotional and polarizing discussion in society which makes it difficult to bring out rational opinion-forming and decision-making processes. Deficit of future: According to Dienel (1992: 17) the state is limited to respond to future developments, even though the need for action is steadily growing. This critic directly aims at the failed governance concept policy planning in the 70s. Deficit of legitimacy: The modern state perceives more and more issues (f.e. planning, control problems, administrative tasks) without a legitimation by the citizens. Moreover parties and public administration seem to tend to hiving off (Dienel 1992: 18). Deficit of interaction with the citizens: The lack of legitimacy is linked to the lack of interaction with the citizens. The citizens are used to contribute low input to the political system according to Dienel. Citizens are accustomed to the benefits of the system, but they are less interested in the question how those benefits are generated. The state has begun to provide compensation measures, which mainly include the informing of the citizens. The consequence is even less participation oppurtunities for the citizens (Dienel 1992: 19f.). Deficit of political socialization: Another problem arises from the fact that the society does not bring out the citizens it needs for a prosper political sphere (Dienel 1992: 21). This leads to the problem that some reasonable decisions are blocked while the feeling of resignation and excessive demand of the citizens is steadily growing. To solve these deficits Dienel suggests to develop a new role in which citizens frame a new relationship towards sociopolitical opinion-forming and decision-making processes. For this

14 Johannes Bauser 14 he suggests the role of the planner, who has to think long-term for the general public. If this role could be provided on a massive scale, then specific abilities and attitudes will be spread to a greater extent then at the moment. In Dienels understanding, it should be possible to offer planning as an element of the citizens' role. The demand for an extension of the citizen role emphasises the importance of more citizen participation, so Dienel (1992: 31). This role would be applied within the concept of the Citizens' Jury (later on it is called Citizen Report 15 ) in which citizens work on solutions for solvable plannings problems. Therefore 25 citizens are selected by chance and released from their work duties in return for payment for the time they are involved in the Citizens' Jury. The citizens are accompanied by two process supports and two consultants from the responsible ministries. Their goal ist to work on a solution for an assessment, control or planing problem (Dienel 1992: 74) 16. Dienel sums up several quality criteria, like the neutrality of the initiator of the Citizens' Jury, the provision of controversial information related to the planning problem and the guarantee that the dicussion and decision-making takes place between the citizens in the Citizens' Jury (Dienel 2014: 79-83). As a conclusion the Citizens' Jury focusses on the deliberative interchange of arguments between citizens, process supports and the consultants from the responsible ministries. Based on theoretical considerations and empirical findings, Dienel summarizes the effects of the Citizen Jury in three groups: the systemically relevant, the individualrelevant and the socially relevant effects 17. A systemic effect is that the Citizens' Jury leads to better planning in comparison to the technocratic planning. Due to the heterogeneous composition of the participants, the opinions of underrepresented population groups can be included in the planning. In addition, citizens have a better awareness for social side-effects of plans and increase the innovation performance in comparison to professional planers. Furthermore the use of citizens as planners leads to a higher legitimacy of the planning results because the citizens take the interest of the other citizens into account. Even in comparison to the civic planning the Citizens' Jury shows positive effect, so Dienel. Civic planning activities suffer from increasing emotionalisation which can not be found in the Citizen Jury. The expert consultation and the objectification of the planning problem largely prevent an emotionali- 15 In German: Bürgergutachten 16 Due to the extent of this paper we hereby resign to give a detailed description of every single feature of the Citizen Jury. For a more detailed view see Dienel (1992: chapter III). 17 Dienel derives the mentioned effects at the theoretical level. It may be discussed if those effects can be empirically proved.

15 Comeback of the Citizen Jury? LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance 15 sation. Another effect of the Citizen Jury is that the participating citizens are often very well informed compared to other participation tools. Another effect relates to the possibility of conflict of interests, which is often critizised in citizen participation processes. The selection by chance minimizes the danger that citizens with a high self-interest participate in the Citizens Jury. In general there are also positive effects for the public administration as their level of information is increased by the Citizens' Jury. Another effect is that results from Citizens' Juries are way easier to enforce. In addition the politics benefit from the neutral information that are provided by Citizens' Juries in contrast to associations or companies (Dienel 1992: ). On the individual level Dienel highlights additional effects that are positive for the relation between citizens and the political-administrative complex. The Citizens' Jury is an oppurtunity for the citizens to interfere in the political opinion-forming and decision-making processes. The selection by chance allows that currently inactive citizens become active and perceive their political function by legitimising public governance and controlling the political system. In the process citizens develop an understanding how to encounter such complex problems and how to gather and use relevant information to solve planning problems. Futhermore Citizens' Juries create identification possibilities with the state because citizens are used to leave their passive role behind and take the planning role, which is originally used in the political-administrative complex, to work on political problems. Besides the participants learn soft skills, such as presentation techniques or networking, which they can continue to use for their private and professional life (Dienel 1992: ). Finally the Citizens' Jury has also an impact on the social level. The wealth of information will steadily grow in the future, this is because the Citizens' Jury needs a lot of information, f.e. reports or forecasts. An additional application area may be in underdeveloped regions. The tool can be used to upgrade those regions through planning so that it become economically viable (Dienel 1992: ). 4.2 Evaluation of the Citizens' Jury The Citizens' Jury evaluation criteria are very strongly based on the combined evaluation criteria for participation tools by Kersting (2008a: ). König and König propose to im-

16 Johannes Bauser 16 plement the following quality criteria for the Citizens' Jury evaluation (König & König 2014: ): Motivation: Participants will be randomly chosen. It is desirable not to involve directly affected participants as they aim to impose their own interest and therefore have no neutral access to the problem that has to be solved. Social heterogeneity: A representative sample is intended to ensure that women and men participate equally as well as members of the upper and middle class of the Citizens' Jury. Level of knowledge: To supply the managing layperson with sufficient information, external experts are needed who are supporting them in the role of a consultant. To ensure that the experts do not affect the process beyond their advisory function and communication problems are created between the participants, additional facilitators have to be used to mediate. Sustainability: To give the participants a sustainable share in the results and the further utilization, the facilitators shall prepare a report and shall inform the participants about the current status. König and König (2014) have investigated the Citizens' Jury by using these quality criteria in the context of the municipal and administrative reform in Rhineland-Palatinate. Those results are not generalizable due to the variety of conducted Citizens' Juries in Germany 18 and across national and continental boundaries. But at this point, they should still be represented as an example. With regard to the motivation, König and König (König & König 2014: 348) determine that the majority of the participants has developed a strong interest in the subject and were also very motivated. With regard to the social heterogeneity, a broad spectrum of citizens could be actively involved per cent of the participants were male and 41.5 per cent were female. The youngest participant was 16 years old, the oldest 79 years old. The average age was 48 years. It is striking that 13.1 per cent of the participants are active in the field of politics and representation of interests (König & König 2014: 350). The proportion of people entitled to vote who are a member in a party or an association was just at 2.50 per cent in the year 2008 (website of Federal Agency for Civic Education). Despite those selection mechanism there seems to be a self-selection bias which might arise due to the fact that the 18 Dienel presents an overview of a selection of Citizens' Juries in Germany (2014: ).

17 Comeback of the Citizen Jury? LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance 17 participation in citizen jury is on a voluntary basis. With regard to the criteria of sustainability it could be observed that the participation in citizen jury has helped to support the process (König & König 2014: S. 351). In terms of knowledge the participants stated that the level of informing by experts was carried out reasonable and sufficient (König & König 2014: 351f.). However, the Citizens' Jury can also be critized. Firstly, there are some literature references that the citizen jury is given no or only less controversial information material as a working basis. There is the risk that the results of the Citizens' Jury extend in a guided direction and degenerate the Citizens' Jury to a mere acclamation device. Another criticism is aimed at the various educational horizon of the citizen reporters. Merkel is critizing that "the participating discourse participants [have to] have similar cognitive and argumentative resources: but long-term unemployed people, unskilled worker and supermarket cashiers usually have not the same argumentation skills like lawyers, judges, negotiators in business or professors. (Merkel 2015: 61, cf. Leyenaar 2008: 212) This can be replied to with the argument that by the use of the conceptualization of the Citizens' Jury the negative effect of enforcing well-educated classes with their arguments is prevailed. But this will not be further investigated within the evaluation criteria (cf. Dienel 2014). The above stated criteria mainly plays a role in the evaluation. What is not being covered is not being checked again - assuming that the theory can be transferred 1:1 into practice. This problem is intensified by the fact that participation in Citizens' Jury is on a voluntary basis. The composition may therefore "be distorted for the benefit of political interested and informed citizen. The probability is high that marginalized groups (less educated people, immigrants, less interested citizens) are still not able to express their attitude. (Leyenaar 2008: 211). A further criticism is made with regard to the top-down-initiations of Citizens' Juries. Those are commissioned by the political-administrative complex which leads to the bonding of the Citizens' Jury to that commission (Leyenaar 2008: 212). Furthermore it is often critized that the ultimate decision-making power lies with the representative bodies. Thus, despite of the enormously preparatory work by the citizen reporters a rejective decision can be reached from the political side (Leyenaar 2008: 212). One last point of criticism is the cost factor. Dienel and Franzel (2014: 450f.) split up the average costs for projects in four citizen juries. This incurs costs in the amount of approximately euros of which two third are distributed to the allowances and reimbursements for loss of wages of participants, fees for experts, moderation and organistion for pre-

18 Johannes Bauser 18 and post-processing as well as for any travel expenses. By comparison: LiquidFeedback costs about euros per year 19. The debate over whether the income justifies the high costs seems to be strongly influenced by normative ideas and should be omitted at this point. What is certain: The citizen jury is more expensive and more time-consuming with regard to the organization directly compared to other participation tools. 4.3 Citizens' Jury and Liquid Feedback in comparison After the participation tools Citizens' Jury and LiquidFeedback have been presented with regard to their conceptualisation and sphere of action in the preceding sections, this section shall explain the introductory thesis. This paper argues that LiquidFeedback conceptually connects to the Citizens' Jury. This will result in implications for the mode of action of Liquid- Feedback and any forecasts for the further development. The aim of this paper is also to make recommendations to citizens, politics and administration as well as to provide a proposal of how LiquidFeedback could be used as an instrument of political control to ensure calculability and conduction of social tasks. LiquidFeedback and the Citizens' Jury essentially follow the same idea: within an open discourse citizens should exchange intersubjectively comprehensible arguments whereby the rationality level gets increased. This discourse leads ideally to the fact that the acceptance of the results is increased by the discourse participants. One big difference between the two methods is that the Citizens' Jury is top-down initiated whereas LiquidFeedback can be designated as a bottom-up process. Despite of the participation offer by administration and politics, the citizens, however, decide by themselves which topics they want to put to the vote. In addition, the administration has the possibility to set their own initiatives as well as the politics, however, the politics excluded this in advance by commitment. Accordingly, the process on each platform varies greatly. In LiquidFeedback all citizens of the respective local authority may principally participate. In Citizens' Jury only those who have been invited may be participate. In any case, participation is voluntary which leads to the usual distortions with regard to the composition of the participants. This effect may turn out significantly more serious with LiquidFeedback because LiquidFeedback takes place in a less formalised way then Citizens' Jury. 19 This includes the server costs and the fees for consultancy and maintenance which are charged by the administrator.

19 Comeback of the Citizen Jury? LiquidFeedback as a new form of Governance 19 Both methods have in common that the results will be treated as a proposal within the representative bodies. Although LiquidFeedback has a voting system, this gets only used in order to determine which initiative is preferable in regards to a competitive initiative. In more detail, you can compare the processes with the assistance of the experienced effects within the Citizens' Jury by Dienel. Systemically relevant effects: Initial observations confirm the assumption that the initiatives with LiquidFeedback are mainly supported by rational arguments. Scandalisation and emotionalisation can only be observed in individual cases. Regarding the composition of the participants LiquidFeedback differs from Citizens' Jury. Due to the highly formalized process of the Citizens' Jury it is expected that it may present a more heterogeneous composition of participants. But even the Citizens' Jury cannot fully solve the problem. LiquidFeedback cannot keep up with the Citizens' Jury with regard to the level of information due to the absence of process supports and experts. Also LiquidFeedback runs into danger that a crackdown of interest is taking place which cannot be stopped due to the absence of moderators. Here LiquidFeedback relies totally on swarm intelligence which is intended to prevent that particular interests are not put to the vote. On the other hand, LiquidFeedback stimulates citizens to articulate prolems that have not been recognized or even ignored by administration and politics. Thereby citizens' interests may be increasingly be addressed and may be edited - if there is a political will to do so. LiquidFeedback is at the front with regard to transparency because the course of discussion can be viewed at any time by all and it can also be actively followed and it can be supplemented with own comments where necessary. The planning within the Citizens' Jury is taking place in a quasi locked room; the results of these plans are made public at a later date if the process has already been completed. Individually relevant effects: Both methods provide inactive citizens with the opportunity to participate with the solution of political problems - with varying degrees of success. The Citizens' Jury manages to reach more inactive citizens due to the higher formalization (invitations, compensation for service failure, etc.) while at LiquidFeedback most likely the "usual suspects" (Escher 2010) participate. However, within the Citizens' Jury the limitation applies that in spite of a representative composition the interest of one group will dominate in the end. More information on these social-psychological phenomena can be read at Carpini et al. (2004), Mendelberg (2002) and Cooke and Kothari (2007). In addition, it can be presumed that the socializing effect, which is assumed to the Citizens' Jury, cannot be detec-

20 Johannes Bauser 20 ted to the same extent with LiquidFeedback. The participation in LiquidFeedback is designed too partially and less intensively. A long-term analysis of the various interests that must be considered in the solutions of political problems does not take place. In general, the individual relevant potential of LiquidFeedback remains largely unused. For those issues, there are some opportunities for improvement which are described below. Socially relevant effects: LiquidFeedback is able - at least on a theoreticallyconceptual level - to initiate processes and innovations that are exposed only for the individual problem due to the strict formalization of the Citizens' Jury. There are also some opportunities for improvement of the platform. This comparison makes it very clear that a constitution of a participation process can make a difference. LiquidFeedback is outstanding in creating spaces that can be used by citizens for their own ideas and initiatives. However, the more formalised Citizens' Jury has a more intense and perhaps even more sustainable impact on the participants and the political-administrative complex. To bring both methods conceptually together seems as not possible without damaging the core idea of each participation tool. It should also be avoided to play off those two tools against each other, because each tool has a clearly defined application field. Due to the comparatively expensive Citizens' Jury (cost of a project with four citizen juries amount to approx Euro, cf. Dienel & Franzl 2014: 450f.) it may be desirable to use those for outstanding projects whereas LiquidFeedback can be used as a permanently installed tool for small problems. Here, the administration and politics are definitely advised to coordinate both processes when they are used so that the participants of each process do not play off against each other. In addition, some points of the analysis are worth it to take them into account when developing LiquidFeedback. A major disadvantage of LiquidFeedback compared to the Citizens' Jury is that the citizens are not institutionally involved. One way to address this issue would be to invite interested citizens (participating in the discussion) to a particular expert committee where the issues will be discussed. The city of Wunstdorf has already begun to invite the initiators of successful initiatives. It would be desirable if this could already happen within the discussion phase. Providing information packages on each initiative by the administration, so that the citizens have a basis for making decisions would be another possible improvement. That would possibly encourage politics to offer some additional material that illuminates the particular problem from another side. That would provide a political compe-