The Legitimacy of Citizen-led Deliberative Democracy

The G1000 in Belgium

Didier Caluwaerts, Min Reuchamps

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138281943
• eBook ISBN: 9781351983433
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

For deliberative democrats, the strength of any democracy is public deliberation, the frequent and reasoned discussion between citizens on political issues.

Despite all the theoretical claims made about deliberative systems, the question remains how to empirically assess both the legitimacy and function of deliberative systems in the real world and how individual sites of deliberation interact within the larger political system. In other words, what is the legitimacy of each individual component and under which conditions can these components improve the legitimacy of the wider system? These are the central research questions for this book looking particularly through the prism of the citizen-led mini-public G1000 in Belgium, which grew out of a feeling of deep democratic crisis. Offering empirically measurable translations of philosophical concepts, the book enhances our understanding of how political systems function, and of the viability of a deliberative democracy at a larger scale. Finally, it provokes fundamental normative questions on how we want to shape our society, especially divided ones.

This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of deliberative democracy, and to those interested in democratic theory and more broadly political science, communication, sociology, and philosophy.

1Democratic innovation in an unlikely place

In the later chapters of this book, we will explore the legitimacy of deliberative democracy, seeking to understand how to bridge the gap between mini-publics and macro deliberation, taking a citizen-led initiative of deliberative democracy, the G1000, as a case study. This will lead us to extensively discuss who participated in the G1000, which methodological choices were made, and which proposals were generated. However, before we can turn to the design and the impact of the G1000, we should take a proper look at the context within which this mini-public was conceived. After all, this project emerged in a place, Belgium, where the idea of active direct citizen participation in politics never really took root, and at a time when the democratic credentials of the Belgian state were under serious threat. To fully grasp the unlikelihood of the G1000 ever emerging, and the political adversity it met, we will hereafter outline the different societal and political challenges this mini-public faced.

1A society divided

Before turning to the immediate political context in which the G1000 was conceived, we should take the historical context into account. Belgium became independent in 1830 after a short revolution between unlikely allies. The “monster coalition”, as it was called, between liberals and Catholics grew out of discontent with the policies of the Dutch King William, and proclaimed independence on 4 October 1830. However, soon after the revolution, and despite attempts to unify the population, the newly formed Belgian nation experienced problems consolidating the link between the people and its new leaders. One of the main reasons for this was the language issue. Citizens in the north of the country predominantly spoke some type of Dutch dialect, whereas the population of the southern provinces spoke various – mostly but not exclusively Walloon – dialects, with elites throughout the country being francophile if not francophone. However, the conflict went much deeper, in that these linguistic divisions coincided with economic and religious cleavages. The southern Walloon provinces were generally more industrialized and economically stronger, and they were also politically dominant. The early Belgian state was thus a keg of gunpowder waiting to explode.

For a brief period after Belgium’s independence, the predominantly francophone elites attempted to defuse these mutually coinciding cleavages and the political problems they caused by constitutionally imposing French as the country’s official language. However, there were bound to be serious reactions to this “one country, one language” policy, and the Flemish movement soon began to formulate demands for Dutch to be officially recognized. In response to these demands, Belgian governments have increasingly – albeit slowly – adopted laws recognizing the legitimate status of Dutch as a national language ever since the 1890s, but the conflict never really subsided, and the different lines of disagreement continue to reinforce each other to this very day (Reuchamps, 2015).

This is why Belgium is generally considered to be a so-called deeply divided society, a society that by the very nature of its cleavage structure fosters civil strife and political breakdown. “Such societies”, John S. Dryzek (2005, p. 230) argues, “are divided into blocs with dense within-bloc communication but little across-bloc communication”, which essentially means that the conflicts are too great to allow for any meaningful public debate (Caluwaerts, 2012). In deeply divided societies, the public sphere becomes so balkanized that citizens no longer talk to or even hear about members of the “other side” (Reuchamps, 2011, 2013). Whenever this happens, public debates are reduced to little more than a game of discursive hand-wrestling and democratic deliberation starts to malfunction. The glue of interaction and dialogue that holds democracies together fails to do so when conflicts are deep, and deliberative systems in divided societies more often than not come apart at the seams (Steiner, 2012). This is exactly what Belgian politics has witnessed over the past 50 years: slowly but steadily, the deep linguistic divides have split up every aspect of the country (Deschouwer, 2012), and the image that Belgium is “one country with two democracies” has gained traction among citizens, politicians and the media alike.

It is important to note that, even though Belgium has been split up along linguistic lines, plurilingualism in itself is not necessarily a problem for the functioning of democracy (Reuchamps, 2009). Switzerland is characterized by multiple official languages, but it is still able to fulfil its democratic functions. In Belgium, however, languages are proxies for strong identities and interests, which are intrinsically linked to political preferences about how the country should evolve (De Winter & Baudewyns, 2009; Reuchamps, Kavadias, & Deschouwer, 2014). Indeed, because of the linguistic divisions, Flemings and Francophones are often presented with diametrically opposing political visions and discourses that further exacerbate the conflict (Reuchamps, Sinardet, Dodeigne, & Caluwaerts, 2017), even if differences can be bigger within language groups than between them (Dodeigne, Gramme, Reuchamps, & Sinardet, 2016). This goes back to the very beginning of the new country. At that time, the French-speaking elites attempted to develop a Belgian identity throughout the country, and were unwilling to recognize “regional” identities and differences (Witte, Craeybeckx, & Meynen, 1997).

Another reason why languages prove to be deliberatively problematic in the Belgian context is because plurilingualism fosters informational inbreeding. As is often the case in divided societies, the Belgian media system is deeply segmented. From the early 1900s onwards, Flemish demands for linguistic and cultural recognition were driven by the desire for autonomy, and decoupling of the Flemish and Francophone media was considered to be the cornerstone for self-rule in cultural affairs. As a way to acknowledge the existence of two internally homogeneous language groups in Belgium, the national public media service, NIR-INR, was split into a French- and a Dutch-speaking side. Even though they physically share the same building in Brussels to this very day, Flemish (VRT) and Francophone (RTBF) broadcasters have complete autonomy with regard to programming within their linguistically defined territory. This arrangement differs from most other divided or multilingual countries, where public broadcasters are still united (Shaughnessy & Fuente Cobo, 1990).

This regionalization of news broadcasters inevitably led to widely diverging news coverage on both sides of the linguistic divide. Recent research has shown that French- and Dutch-speaking media often frame political problems in different and opposing terms, and that coverage of news items from the other side of the divide is very limited. Moreover, journalists and politicians often use an “us vs. them” rhetoric in order to make issues readily understandable (Sinardet, 2013).

This is further enhanced by the increasing lack of knowledge of the other national language (Van Parys & Wauters, 2006). If both sides’ media were in the same language, the threshold for following the other segment’s media would be very low, and arguments from one part could easily penetrate the other parts. However, a multilingual society requires active knowledge of the other language, which has decreased significantly over the last decades (Van Parys & Wauters, 2006). This raises the threshold for citizens (and politicians) to inform themselves about public opinions on the other side of the linguistic divide, and it renders democratic innovations, such as deliberative mini-publics where groups actually have to talk together, much less likely.

It is therefore pertinent to say that the separation of the national media had significant consequences, from a deliberation perspective. It was much more than just a mere administrative change, as it also led to balkanization of the Belgian public sphere and to public deliberation being organized at a sub-systemic level. Once the media had turned inwards, their coverage became very one-sided, and even reinforced commonly held nationalist prejudices (Sinardet, 2013). This one-sidedness in media coverage leads to enduring misperceptions (and overestimations) of political differences, and it hinders the establishment of the common public sphere which is often deemed necessary for the success of democratic innovations.

The split in the media system, combined with high demands in terms of language knowledge, thus discourages the different parts of the system from hearing each other’s arguments, and it rendered the emergence of deliberative democracy, of which the G1000 is a prime example, less likely. In fact, the regionalization of the media ensures that public opinion is anything but open to “the other side”. Combine the proliferation of nationalist symbols through the media, the biased news coverage, and the closed-mindedness that follows, and it is not hard to see that the Belgian linguistic divisions created a very unlikely setting for the G1000 to take root.

2Consociationalism and public passivity

However, despite its deeply divided nature and its deliberative stress, Belgium has not known any violent outbursts of ethno-linguistic conflict since the 1960s. The main reason for this is its consociational nature. Over the years, tensions between the different language groups have been steadily rising, and in order to reduce them the institutional infrastructure of Belgium was transformed in such a way as to physically and politically separate the two groups as much as possible (Caluwaerts & Reuchamps, 2014, 2015; Perrez & Reuchamps, 2012).

Since the first wave of federalization in Belgium at the end of the 1960s, the country has been increasingly organized along community lines, with a strong institutional separation, and this has impacted the deliberative capacity of the political system. On the one hand, the nature of the federal system is not based on a cooperative federalism, or on what is often called intergovernmental relations (Reuchamps & Dodeigne, 2009). In fact, apart from the so-called conciliation committee, which is made up of representatives from both federal and sub-state levels and was formed to discuss conflicts of competences but which is only important on paper, typical intergovernmental relations are not very highly developed in Belgium, in contrast to what can be found in other, similar, multinational federations such as Canada (Poirier, 2002, 2009). On the other hand, while the federal level is the main – even the only – meeting point between the two main groups, this level is built around recognition of homogeneous linguistic groups. In parliament, each MP has to be a member of one group or the other. In fact, linguistic identity is key in the Belgian federal system, because its main rules rely on this identification. For instance, the government has to have equal numbers of Dutch-speaking ministers and French-speaking ministers – with the possible exception of the prime minister (Deschouwer, 2012; Reuchamps, 2007).

Moreover, if key elements in the federal organization of the country are to be changed, special-majority laws apply, namely laws that are passed by two-thirds of federal MPs but with a majority within each language group: in other words, a majority of Dutch-speaking representatives and a majority of French-speaking representatives. Similarly, an alarm bell procedure can be used by one of the two language groups if it fears a bill might strongly impact the interests of its community. These rules therefore force the elites to work together on fundamental political and constitutional issues. This ensures that not all lines of communication are closed, but it severely reduces the number of issues on which agreement, consensus and deliberation are necessary (Caluwaerts & Reuchamps, 2015).

This politics of separation has, however, had some very negative effects on the potential for nation-wide deliberation on political issues, which the G1000 envisaged. Even though a large number of policy choices are still being made at federal level, public opinion and political debate are increasingly being organized at sub-systemic level (Reuchamps, 2013b). In other words, there is no longer a national public sphere, as political and policy debates take place primarily within the linguistic boundaries. This should not be a problem as such, as long as these regional public dialogues succeed in fuelling the decision-making processes at federal level, but they fail to do so. As a result, Belgium is a textbook case of a segmented country, and its politics of (physical and symbolic) separation of the people into two groups goes radically against the deliberative assumption that citizens are able to sit together to discuss their differences and learn from each other (Dryzek, 2005).

Belgium’s consociational nature has thus significantly reduced the likelihood of deliberation between linguistic groups, because there is simply no longer any arena within which citizens of both linguistic groups can meet. This is further reinforced by the elitist nature of consociational democracy. After all, Belgian politics is based on the assumption that the elites have to build bridges, whereas ordinary citizens should remain deferent. The peaceful accommodation of conflicts would only work if the population remained passive (Huyse, 1970; Lijphart, 1975). Grumbling masses would mean the deathblow for the politics of pacification, because they would put pressure on their segmental elites and render any compromise unacceptable (Huyse, 1970, p. 169). “The central position of the elites”, Huyse (1970, pp. 157, translation by the authors) argues, “is balanced by a third-rate role of the citizen.”

This idea of public passivity has been firmly ingrained in Belgian politics because of one historically bad experience with direct democracy, namely the Royal Question. When the German forces invaded the country during the Second World War, the Belgian government sought refuge in London, whereas King Leopold III stayed in Belgium. After the liberation in 1944, however, the king was taken to Germany but the question soon reached the political agenda as to the political fate of Leopold III. Flemings and Francophones differed strongly in their preferences (Witte et al., 1997) and in an effort to solve the conflict, a referendum was held on the King’s return. In total, 52% of the population was in favour of a return. However, 72% of the yea votes came from Flanders. In Wallonia, 58% was opposed, and in Brussels, 52% voted no (Bouveroux & Huyse, 2009, p. 23). The referendum thus exposed a clear split in the political preferences across the country, even though there were also differences within the regions (Mabille, 1997). However, in the 1950 elections the Catholic party won an absolute majority in parliament, and its party leaders decided Leopold III would return to the throne. Soon after this decision, violent riots took place in the region around Liege. Railway tracks were bombed, three protesters were shot, and threats were made to organize a march on B...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Studying the legitimacy of citizen-led deliberative democracy
• 1 Democratic innovation in an unlikely place
• 2 The G1000 and the funnel of citizen participation
• 3 Participants and non-participants
• 4 Democratic credentials and trade-offs
• 5 Deliberation and the challenge of multilingualism
• 6 Political uptake
• 7 Public endorsement
• 8 Social offspring and long-term consequences
• Conclusion: Deliberation between mini- and maxi-public
• Index