Janice

Americans envision a civic infrastructure for public dialogue and deliberation

2 Comments / Community, Democracy, Methods / By

Over a long and rainy weekend in Seattle, I joined members of the US-based National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) in a trendy downtown eco hotel for their semi-annual conference. NCDD celebrated their 10th anniversary as an organisation by taking on the monumental challenge of envisioning a robust “civic infrastructure” for public dialogue and …

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You’ll miss Europe if we kill it: the EU benefits the world more than people appreciate

Leave a Comment / Democracy, European Union / By

Several years ago, after a lifetime in the heartland of America, I moved to the heart of the European Union. Having heard Brussels described as the Washington, D.C. of Europe, I expected to see politicians from opposing parties insulting each other, lobbyists bearing checks as they flitted between campaign fundraisers, and legislation to benefit ordinary …

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All the old unfamiliar places: America is home-but why doesn’t it feel that way?

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America is a foreign place. This shouldn’t be so. I’m American. I was born here. I’ve lived most of my life here. But five years ago I left and moved to Belgium. Five eventful years of economic recession and political dysfunction and environmental catastrophe. Now I’m back in the same city, same neighborhood, even same …

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The troublesome child could be a shining star: lessons in direct democracy from the American West

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Direct democracy can seem at times like a troublesome, unloved child in the family of democratic tools. A major reason may be press accounts of the American state of California which blame direct democracy for that state’s fiscal problems. To learn more, I joined a direct democracy study tour of California, Arizona and Oregon. It …

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North-Westward ho! Oregon embeds public participation in lawmaking

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The eyes of the American public participation community are riveted on the Pacific Northwest state of Oregon. It recently became the first American state to institutionalise a citizens jury-style process to improve one method of lawmaking known as the citizens’ initiative. The tale of how the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) made it into state …

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Putting EU citizens before lobbyists: is the ECI the tool?

1 Comment / Democracy, European Union / By

A friend recently asked me to sign a petition opposing a soon-to-be-implemented EU directive which will effectively ban many herbal medicines. Putting aside the merits of the topic, my first reaction was “Why so late? The directive was approved in 2004!” It seemed a perfect example of how citizens typically first learn about EU decisions: …

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Warning: EU elections may be dangerous to your democracy

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If the first election in which a young voter participates is a European election then that voter is less likely to vote in any kind of election for the rest of their life compared to their first electoral experience being a national election. This finding from Professor Mark Franklin of the European University Institute in …

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A (real) democratic life for EU citizens…

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The European Union (EU) is moving quickly to clarify and enforce the rights of its citizens, driven by the very senior, results-oriented Commissioner Viviane Reding. The Commission’s focus is the rights of individuals when engaging in cross-border activities, such as purchasing products from another country or obtaining social services when living abroad. However, it is …

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Who’s afraid of the world’s first transnational participatory democracy tool?

1 Comment / Democracy, European Union / By

Europe will begin the first-ever experiment in transnational participatory democracy later this year with the launch of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). This participatory agenda-setting tool allows one million European Union (EU) citizens to ask the European Commission to propose new legislation. Very simple in theory. Not so simple in practice. The ECI was created …

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