Review of:
Brexit and the Migrant Voice: EU Citizens in Post-Brexit Literature and Culture
, Christine Berberich (ed.) (2022)
London: Routledge, 228 pp.,
ISBN 978-0-36770-882-5, h/bk, £35
Citizens' Power in Latin America takes the reader into the heart of communities where average citizens are attempting to build a new democratic model to improve their socioeconomic conditions and to ...have a voice in decisions that affect their lives. Based on groundbreaking fieldwork conducted in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Chile, Pascal Lupien contrasts two models of participatory design that have emerged in Latin America and identifies the factors that enhance or diminish the capacity of these mechanisms to produce positive outcomes. He draws on lived experiences of citizen participants to reveal the potential and the dangers of participatory democracy. Why do some democratic innovations appear to succeed while others fail? To what extent do these institutions really empower citizens, and in what ways can they be used by governments to control participation? What lessons can be learned from these experiments? Given the growing dissatisfaction with existing democratic systems across the world, this book will be of interest to people seeking innovative ways of deepening democracy.
This paper foregrounds an understanding of Brexit as unexceptional, as business as usual in Britain and Europe. It reports on original empirical research with British People of Colour who have ...settled elsewhere in Europe, to bring into view an original perspective to understandings of what Brexit means to Britons living in Europe, and to consider what these testimonies offer to emerging social science research on Brexit. As we argue, focussing on the testimonies of British People of Colour living in the EU-27 offers a unique lens into how Brexit is caught up in everyday racism, personal experiences of racialization and racial violence, and longer European histories of racialization and racism. Importantly, these experiences precede and succeed Brexit, taking place in both Britain and other European Union countries.
Ireland has become something of a trail-blazer in the use of deliberative methods in the process of constitutional review. It is the first case in which the process has been employed a second time: ...the Irish Citizens' Assembly (2016-18) followed upon the Convention on the Constitution (2012-14). The creation of two mini-publics in quick succession and their significant role in supporting key referendums for constitutional change that followed (marriage equality in 2015 and abortion in 2018) suggests a degree of 'systemization' of deliberation in the Irish process of constitutional review. This report sets out the basic details of the most recent Citizens' Assembly - how it was set up, its agenda, its manner of operation, and its outcomes. We conclude with a brief discussion of the recent Irish experience of constitutional mini-publics and the degree to which they speak to a process of systematizing deliberation in the Irish policy process.
A significant shortcoming in contemporary deliberative systems is that citizens are disconnected from various elite sites of public deliberation. This article explores the concept of ‘coupling’ as a ...means to better link citizens and elites in deliberative systems. The notion of ‘designed coupling’ is developed to describe institutional mechanisms for linking otherwise disconnected deliberative sites. To consider whether it is possible and indeed desirable to use institutional design to couple different sites in a deliberative system, the article draws on insights from a case study in which a mini‐public was formally integrated into a legislative committee. The empirical study finds that it is not only feasible to couple mini‐publics to legislative committees, but when combined, the democratic and deliberative capacity of both institutions can be strengthened. To be effective, ‘designed coupling’ requires more than establishing institutional connections; it also requires that actors to step outside their comfort zone to build new relationships and engage in new communicative spaces with different sets of ideas, actors and rules. This can be facilitated by institutional design, but it also requires leaders and champions who are well‐placed to encourage actors to think differently.
In the context of widespread criticisms to good governance, sound governance is proposed to be a viable alternative. This study examines the effect of sound governance on citizens' satisfaction with ...the mediating role of citizens' trust in the context of Ethiopia. Using a concurrent mixed method design, data were collected from eight key informant interviews besides 175 respondents through questionnaire. The results show the positive link between sound governance, citizens' trust, and satisfaction. It also reports a partial mediating role of trust into the relationship between sound governance and citizens' satisfaction.
Since the late 1980s, performance management has become a bon ton in central and local government research and practice. Its emergence is largely a result of neo-liberal ideas and the reforms of New ...Public Management. The goal of this study is to examine the relationship between performance management at the local level and citizens' satisfaction with and trust in government. By using data collected by Israeli local authorities over recent years, several questions were answered. Have years of performance management initiatives been effective in terms of good governance? What relationship do they have with citizens as service recipients? What are the implications of this experience for future reforms in public administration? Three data sets were used concerning (1) citizens' satisfaction with and trust in government, (2) the experiences of senior local government officers with performance management initiatives, and (3) the objective characteristics of the local government authorities. Results indicate that performance management is associated with higher levels of citizens' trust in and satisfaction with local government. Furthermore, the community's socioeconomic status moderates the mediated relationship between performance management and the satisfaction and trust of citizens. Implications of these findings are discussed, and suggestions for future studies are recommended.
The effects of climate change are multiple and fundamental. Decisions made today may result in irreversible damage to the planet's biodiversity and ecosystems, the detrimental impacts of which will ...be borne by today's children, young people and those yet unborn (future generations). The use of citizens' assemblies (CAs) to tackle the issue of climate change is growing. Their remit is future focused. Yet is the future in the room? Focusing on a single case study, the recent Irish CA and Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action (JOCCA) deliberations on climate action, this paper explores the extent to which children, young people and future generations were included. Its systemic analysis of the membership of both institutions, the public submissions to them and the invited expertise presented, finds that the Irish CA was 'too tightly coupled' on this issue. This may have been beneficial in terms of impact, but it came at the expense of input legitimacy and potentially intergenerational justice. Referring to international developments, it suggests how these groups may be included through enclave deliberation, institutional innovations, design experiments and future-oriented practice. .
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