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Welcome to another episode of the
Democracy Innovator Podcast and our guest

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of today is Antoni Sakharjewski.

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I'm sorry for the pronunciation.

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So thank you for your time and as

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Totally fine.

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a first question I'd to ask you how did
you start in your journey

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and also what is your background?

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Well, thanks very much first for having me
on.

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It's really great to be here. My
background is in three different ways part

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of a democratic story. So from when I was
quite young,

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as you can probably hear from my voice,

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I grew up in the UK. I was always really
interested in politics.

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I had an uncle who was very involved in
politics in my hometown.

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And he convinced me that it was really
important to make politics part

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of your life and to do things that moves
the world forward.

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And I didn't always agree with him,

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but I took that away from that part of my
life.

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I also studied Athenian history at
university.

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I studied classics, which is the term in
the UK for Greek and Roman history

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and culture. And so I studied about the
Athenian democracy

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and participation really early on in my
academic life.

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And finally, I was at university from
1992.

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So I was very much in the early wave of
like e-democracy conversations online.

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The web came on stream in my first year at
university and because I

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was at a university that had a very
advanced technical lab quite close

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to where I was based, I had high speed
internet in my college rooms from 1994

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onwards. So I was able to be really online
a lot earlier than lot of other people.

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So I saw some of the changes that that was
going to bring about.

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So my starting point was a combination of
politics,

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participation and technology.

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When I went to work for the UK government,

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was a civil servant for 10 years in the
centre and 4 years in local government.

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I took a lot of that with me. Some of the
organisations that people

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may have heard of, like My Society,

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I was not involved in that directly,

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but I was in the same group of friends and
other organisations that worked

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in that kind of area. So even though my
job wasn't participation

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and democracy in government, I worked on
all sorts of things.

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I was always interested in the

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participation element. I was always
interested in how did government keep

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up or more usually not keep up with the
way that society was changing.

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And so when my work in local government
came to an end with a new chief executive

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in the organization I worked for in
Brighton on the south coast of England,

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I decided to take a little nonprofit.

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I'd started with some friends a few years
before called Democratic Society

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and try and make a go of it, try and do
some of the work that I wanted us to

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do or I wanted to be done.

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And so from that point on, which was
February the 1st,

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2010, we've been working as an
organization,

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initially just me and now a team of around
20 all around Europe,

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and now based in Brussels as well,

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to try and make some of those
conversations better,

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to try to create more democratic spaces
and just to build different approaches

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to democracy that are more in tune with
the networked world.

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And so now with the democratic society,

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~ which kind of project are you working
on?

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Or have you worked on?

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So it's been an interesting journey.

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So we've been officially going for 20
years because we started in 2006,

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but really from 2010 we've been doing
proper project work.

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And I think what we've seen in that time
is our own organization has changed.

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We initially started doing practical
projects,

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citizen assemblies, participatory
budgeting,

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when it was still very experimental.

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But over time, partly because of my
background in government,

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but also because that's where the
interesting conversations are,

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we've moved towards a more institutional
innovation space.

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So we're thinking about how do you design
participation?

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Still, we do design for events.

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But also how do you design government and
government organizations to make them more

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responsive, to make them more open,

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to help them work better with citizens,

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but also to help citizens understand more
easily.

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what's being asked of them, what
government should do,

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and try to build that kind of more
constructive long-term conversation
between them.

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So I would say now we're more like a
democratic infrastructure organization.

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We try to build those pieces that connect
up the system more than

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we are an organization that runs
individual democratic participation
events.

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But our big work is still advising and
supporting organizations.

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So we have a... ~

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piece of work with the European cities
mission.

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112 cities have committed to reach net
zero as fast as possible by 2030 ideally.

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And we're working with all of those in one
way or another

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on democracy and governance advice.

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So with the lead for democracy in that
group of European organizations working

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on that. We're also doing some work on
information security,

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the kind of enabling conditions for
democracy,

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~ good information, common understanding
of truth,

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common understanding of participation.

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which is just being kicked off next week
in Madrid.

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And also we have a strand of work building
networks of practitioners

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and trying to connect up some of the other
work that we're doing around climate,

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around democracy and around social change
through a collaborative

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of 27 organisations based around the
world,

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all of them working on those systemic
changes around climate,

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democracy and social justice.

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So a lot of things and I was wondering,

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Lots of things. Yes.

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would you like to share some, I don't
know,

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like ~ you mentioned that you are
supporting organizations

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in relation to participation and also
government practices and I wonder like
what

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could be like some best practices in
regarding to this and...

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I think where my starting point is,

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is always that the government and civil
servants,

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politicians are often operating in the
dark.

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They don't necessarily know what people
think about what they're doing

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or about where things are going.

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You have opinion polling, which is useful
in some ways.

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Politicians will often go and meet voters
at events,

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on the marketplaces and go from door to
door and they'll get a perspective

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as to what those voters think about.

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But there is still a real kind of lack of
information.

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I say this as someone who was a public
official for 14 years.

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There's a lack of information as to what
the public want,

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but also where the public want to take
action themselves and

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how government should be enabling that.

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So one of the big questions for us is how
do we create those more productive

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conversations, not just around a single
decision or around a single space,

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but over the long term. And to do that,

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you need, I think, a set of skills within
the decision-making organization,

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whether it's a

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~ council or a national government,

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but you also need skills within society.

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You need people who are able to engage
with what's going on.

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They need to be confident. They need to be
included in the conversation.

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They need to know that they have access
routes into those conversations.

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And that's a really important role for
civil society organizations,

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not necessarily at our level, working at
largely kind of across the European space,

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because it needs to be local, it needs to
be trusted,

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it needs to be rooted in local
communities.

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But we do need to understand how those
organizations,

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many of which do not see democracy as
their key job,

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how we can bring those together,

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how we can connect them more effectively.

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And that's one of the reasons why I often
talk about democratic infrastructure,

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because a bit like infrastructure,

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it needs to be there for the long term.

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It needs to be reliable. It needs to be
safe.

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But also it needs to be inclusive.

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It needs to reach everyone rather than
just the people who always talk.

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And similarly within government,

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You do need a set of skills that's maybe a
little bit different from

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the traditional skills that government
officials have had.

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So when I started in the civil service in
the United Kingdom in 2000,

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sorry, 1996, I wasn't able to have an
outward facing email address,

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like an email address that members of the
public could email without having special

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permission from a head of unit.

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All of the emails were internal.

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And that's a good symbol, both of how
technology has changed,

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but also how expectations of what
government is have changed.

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Nowadays, you would never have a civil
servant who is totally unreachable

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by the outside world. They may not be big
figures,

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they may not be public figures,

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but at the same time, you would know who
they were.

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They might be like in the European
Commission on a public database.

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And all of that is because people are
expecting a different level

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of engagement and a different level of
openness from government.

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Where I think the skills in government are
falling short still,

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is that there is still a desire always to
look upwards to what

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the political level is saying and an
unwillingness to engage

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in conversations that might be challenging
or difficult with members

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of the public because, and I understand
this because I've been in the same
position,

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because you don't feel you have the right
to make any changes because you're

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responsible to deliver what your minister
has asked you because the minister

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is a democratically elected person.

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That's absolutely legitimate. I'm not
criticizing civil servants for not being

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for being a little bit worried about those
kinds of spaces.

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But all of the experience that we've had
introducing civil servants into high

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quality, well-facilitated democratic
conversations is that they come away
inspired

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and fused, really aware of what citizens
can offer,

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more than they feel worried. So it's a
real education on both sides.

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I've got a few people who I've seen go
from quite sort of,

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you know,

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bureaucratic or ~ quite small scale
mindsets and being exposed to some

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of these participatory practices and being
exposed to some of the ways that these

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change behaviors, actually really then
taking a step forward in their career

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and thinking about how government is
changing,

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how their organization needs to change,

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really having their mind opened.

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as a person who cares about efficient and
effective government policy,

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as well as democracy, I'm a policy person
at heart,

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an institutions person at heart.

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It's also really important for me that
civil servants who are taking decisions
have

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access to the widest possible range of
views and hear from real people

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how they're going to be affected by
things.

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Because if you don't do that, then you end
up being ready to fall into groupthink

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or ready to fall into situations where
people are just telling

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you something and you're listening to it
and assuming that they're speaking

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on behalf of a huge audience when in
practice they may just

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be speaking for themselves. So I think
it's really important to give the

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skills to communities but also to build
the skills within government to

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be able to manage democratic participation
well.

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This tension between the duties of a
public officer

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and the output of participatory
deliberatory process like

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a citizen assembly, it's something that
many times in the conversation

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in the podcast came out and I wonder what
are your thoughts about this

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and if this can be sold because I can
understand as you explained both

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like that.

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No, please,

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Yeah,

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so I think there is less of a tension than
I think there sometimes seems,

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as long as you understand that you have to
reframe the way that government decisions

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are taken as things that are set
strategically by the results of elections,

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but delivered in detail by participation.

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So I think it's really important to
understand that there isn't,

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I think, a world in which you can have
everything done by citizen assemblies.

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I know there are some people who argue for
that.

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I don't agree.

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And the reason I don't agree is because
citizen assemblies are by definition

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not of everyone. And voting is available
to everyone in a way that

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a citizen assembly could never be.

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And although one can say our citizen
assemblies are very representative,

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they're designed in a way to maximize the
number of voices that are heard,

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and all of that is true. And we do design
them as well.

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I'm not criticizing the model.

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It can't be something that you use for
everything because people want
participation

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on the things they care about.

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So you need to both match the random
selection element of citizen engagement
with

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the people voting or talking on the basis
of the things they care about,

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which is the standard electoral process
that we have today.

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So where that tension exists, I think it
exists in spaces where people

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are not being given permission to be open
or to be flexible on the ways

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in which things are done. If you vote for
a party or if you vote for a candidate,

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you're not saying to them,

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you now can do absolutely everything you
want for four years without ever coming

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back to me. You're saying to that person,

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here is, you're the person or you're the
party that I think broadly speaking

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is aligned with my philosophy.

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And when something happens, you're likely
to be the party who would most

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be like I would be in terms of taking
those decisions.

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You're like closest to me philosophically.

232
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But that's not to say that you can have no
disagreements with them.

233
00:13:27,692 --> 00:13:29,863
Like party members have disagreements with
their own party,

234
00:13:29,863 --> 00:13:30,924
let alone just voters.

235
00:13:31,587 --> 00:13:36,208
So it's important also to create the
systems of flexibility that ensure that

236
00:13:36,208 --> 00:13:39,579
you aren't creating too rigid a system,

237
00:13:39,579 --> 00:13:42,100
that you aren't creating a system where
the minister says we do this,

238
00:13:42,100 --> 00:13:43,630
the civil servants say, yes, OK,

239
00:13:43,630 --> 00:13:46,160
we'll do this, and then it just happens.

240
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I do think that the people are moving away
from that model.

241
00:13:49,221 --> 00:13:51,522
I think it was the model in the past very
much.

242
00:13:51,522 --> 00:13:54,673
I think there's an understanding you need
to open these systems up.

243
00:13:54,673 --> 00:13:57,633
I I'm based in Brussels and the European
Commission,

244
00:13:57,633 --> 00:13:59,864
which I think many people would say is
not.

245
00:14:01,825 --> 00:14:04,346
the reputation of being the most local,

246
00:14:04,346 --> 00:14:06,727
close to the ground organization in the
world.

247
00:14:06,727 --> 00:14:10,688
Even they are doing a lot of work with
citizen panels and with different sorts

248
00:14:10,688 --> 00:14:12,729
of democratic thinking. And to be honest,

249
00:14:12,729 --> 00:14:15,651
I think they're ahead of some national
governments and certainly

250
00:14:15,651 --> 00:14:17,331
of some municipal governments,

251
00:14:17,331 --> 00:14:20,223
just in the level of the thinking that
they're doing and in their willingness

252
00:14:20,223 --> 00:14:22,754
to experiment. All of that is to say,

253
00:14:22,754 --> 00:14:28,106
that we do have to create those systems
that allow for the flexibility.

254
00:14:28,536 --> 00:14:31,257
So I used to be a civil servant in the
finance ministry.

255
00:14:31,257 --> 00:14:35,119
And one of the things in the finance
ministry that's like a real pattern across

256
00:14:35,119 --> 00:14:39,190
all of these institutions around the world
is that the money is kind of

257
00:14:39,190 --> 00:14:42,872
put in at the top and it filters down and
it gets chopped up into budgets

258
00:14:42,872 --> 00:14:44,682
and into allocations to local areas.

259
00:14:44,682 --> 00:14:47,424
And all of these things happen in quite a
rigid way.

260
00:14:47,424 --> 00:14:50,125
And the reason for that is it's taxpayers
money.

261
00:14:50,125 --> 00:14:51,605
So you have to be very careful with it.

262
00:14:51,605 --> 00:14:57,208
But also because the accountability for
how that money is spent has

263
00:14:57,208 --> 00:14:58,208
to be really tight.

264
00:14:58,360 --> 00:15:01,512
it has to be really close. But that
doesn't necessarily mean it has

265
00:15:01,512 --> 00:15:04,504
to be inflexibly delivered. There are
plenty of opportunities,

266
00:15:04,504 --> 00:15:06,866
like in the UK, there's a scheme called
Total Place,

267
00:15:06,866 --> 00:15:10,528
where there's flexibility around the
budgets that are delivered in a place.

268
00:15:10,528 --> 00:15:12,130
Not as much as there could be,

269
00:15:12,130 --> 00:15:14,580
but if you can open up some of those
flexibilities,

270
00:15:14,580 --> 00:15:16,323
then people can say, actually,

271
00:15:16,323 --> 00:15:18,574
in our neighborhood, in our area,

272
00:15:18,574 --> 00:15:20,595
we think the service should be delivered
like this,

273
00:15:20,595 --> 00:15:24,638
or in our area, we think the priority for
spending should be this rather than that,

274
00:15:24,638 --> 00:15:26,880
and that government spending should

275
00:15:27,159 --> 00:15:28,850
be able to flex in those ways.

276
00:15:28,850 --> 00:15:32,302
At the moment, it's still too much driven
on a top-down,

277
00:15:32,302 --> 00:15:34,474
kind of machinery, Ford-based,

278
00:15:34,474 --> 00:15:40,408
Fordist kind of model, which is about
delivering efficiency of output

279
00:15:40,408 --> 00:15:43,960
and action at the expense of
responsiveness to citizens.

280
00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:47,562
And my argument would be, it will be much
more efficient in the end

281
00:15:48,003 --> 00:15:49,664
if you are responsive to citizens,

282
00:15:49,664 --> 00:15:53,856
because you will then much better
understand the impact of the policy
choices that

283
00:15:53,856 --> 00:15:56,328
you're making and the impact of the
services that you're delivering.

284
00:15:56,748 --> 00:16:00,090
So for me, it's not a cost to involve
citizens.

285
00:16:00,090 --> 00:16:05,735
It's actually a benefit. will be the first
to say it's very difficult

286
00:16:05,735 --> 00:16:10,548
to do hard research on that because so
many factors affect the output

287
00:16:10,548 --> 00:16:12,900
of social processes. But at the same time,

288
00:16:12,900 --> 00:16:16,593
I think there is evidence, maybe partly
circumstantial,

289
00:16:16,593 --> 00:16:20,916
partly natural experiments, that it is
more effective and more efficient

290
00:16:20,916 --> 00:16:23,958
to involve citizens in the decisions that
are being taken.

291
00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:27,049
in terms of the quality and the cost
effectiveness of the output.

292
00:16:30,806 --> 00:16:33,507
I'm thinking now about the future.

293
00:16:33,507 --> 00:16:37,309
Let's say that participation became

294
00:16:38,109 --> 00:16:41,310
a practice in population.

295
00:16:41,310 --> 00:16:46,453
How do you imagine the political system?

296
00:16:46,453 --> 00:16:51,455
How can it work? Because now we are living
in a representative democracy.

297
00:16:51,455 --> 00:16:55,080
so I wonder if this can also change.

298
00:16:55,080 --> 00:16:56,545
I don't know if...

299
00:16:57,105 --> 00:17:01,164
could be something more like toward direct
democracy but also something else

300
00:17:01,164 --> 00:17:04,501
we don't know and I wonder like what are
your thoughts about?

301
00:17:05,982 --> 00:17:06,982
I

302
00:17:07,373 --> 00:17:09,944
I don't want to predict where the future
will go because there are

303
00:17:09,944 --> 00:17:13,954
all sorts of different paths. I think the
challenge of direct democracy

304
00:17:13,954 --> 00:17:17,617
and a kind of referendum model like you
have in Switzerland is that

305
00:17:17,759 --> 00:17:21,220
you sometimes replicate the dynamics of an
election campaign,

306
00:17:21,220 --> 00:17:23,442
which is where there's like one or two
issues,

307
00:17:23,442 --> 00:17:24,592
or in the case of a referendum,

308
00:17:24,592 --> 00:17:29,925
just one issue, which doesn't have a
connection into other policy areas

309
00:17:30,185 --> 00:17:32,967
and loads of money gets put into it by
interest groups.

310
00:17:32,967 --> 00:17:34,858
And in the end, people are kind of just

311
00:17:35,001 --> 00:17:38,241
trying to vote a very difficult issue,

312
00:17:38,241 --> 00:17:40,901
a very complex issue with a simple yes and
a no.

313
00:17:40,901 --> 00:17:44,361
And if you imagine that as one piece of
data from each citizen,

314
00:17:44,361 --> 00:17:48,181
that's not enough to be able to understand
why they made those choices.

315
00:17:48,181 --> 00:17:50,821
You see it in the Brexit referendum in the
UK,

316
00:17:50,821 --> 00:17:53,201
52 % of people voted for Brexit,

317
00:17:53,201 --> 00:17:57,961
48 % of people voted against. What sort of
Brexit did those 52 %

318
00:17:57,961 --> 00:18:00,761
of people voting for it want? We don't
know.

319
00:18:00,761 --> 00:18:03,132
We only have one piece of information that
they voted for it.

320
00:18:03,692 --> 00:18:10,266
So direct democracy in that way can create
very complicated,

321
00:18:10,266 --> 00:18:13,978
fragmented politics where it's only really
about one issue at a time,

322
00:18:13,978 --> 00:18:17,030
whereas actually what government is and
what creating the world is,

323
00:18:17,030 --> 00:18:20,942
particularly in the moment of digitization
and the challenge of climate change,

324
00:18:20,942 --> 00:18:23,043
is really understanding how things fit
together.

325
00:18:23,043 --> 00:18:27,426
So for me, I participatory approaches that
are more deliberative

326
00:18:27,426 --> 00:18:30,648
and are more inclusive and are based more
on longer term conversations.

327
00:18:31,188 --> 00:18:35,329
are better suited to a world in which we
are needing to build resilience

328
00:18:35,329 --> 00:18:39,250
and robustness and build long-term change
across multiple different areas.

329
00:18:39,250 --> 00:18:41,811
Now, how that turns into reality,

330
00:18:41,811 --> 00:18:46,013
I don't know, because I think you do have
this challenge of people want

331
00:18:46,013 --> 00:18:47,773
to be involved where they want to be
involved.

332
00:18:47,773 --> 00:18:50,454
They want to be involved on the issues
they care about.

333
00:18:50,454 --> 00:18:53,245
But by definition, because they care about
that issue,

334
00:18:53,245 --> 00:18:57,256
they're not a representative sample of the
audience of the citizenship as a whole.

335
00:18:58,018 --> 00:18:59,438
So we will need to find, I think,

336
00:18:59,438 --> 00:19:02,469
a balance between representative and
deliberative approaches

337
00:19:02,849 --> 00:19:07,011
and between participation through
deliberation and participation through
voting.

338
00:19:07,011 --> 00:19:11,172
And I think where we will end up is that
the end point of that will depend

339
00:19:11,432 --> 00:19:15,053
on which country you're in because so much
of it depends on political cultures.

340
00:19:15,053 --> 00:19:18,494
So I live in Belgium. I'm Belgian now,

341
00:19:18,494 --> 00:19:21,455
but I come from the UK. And those are
like,

342
00:19:21,455 --> 00:19:25,176
if you sort of step back to Africa or to
Southeast Asia,

343
00:19:25,561 --> 00:19:27,361
those look very similar countries.

344
00:19:27,361 --> 00:19:29,101
They're like Northern European countries.

345
00:19:29,101 --> 00:19:31,881
are like, you're very, they're wealthy.

346
00:19:31,881 --> 00:19:34,061
They have like colonial history,

347
00:19:34,061 --> 00:19:36,621
you know, for all of the kinds of things
that one would,

348
00:19:36,621 --> 00:19:38,661
would think of as like a regular European
country.

349
00:19:38,661 --> 00:19:41,541
They can't be that different, but actually
the political systems

350
00:19:41,541 --> 00:19:44,721
are really different and the political
cultures are really different because

351
00:19:44,721 --> 00:19:49,761
the UK has a tradition of like two big
parties of like an election being like
you've

352
00:19:49,761 --> 00:19:51,721
won the election. Then that's you in
charge,

353
00:19:51,721 --> 00:19:52,721
a strong

354
00:19:52,881 --> 00:19:54,651
tradition of parliamentary sovereignty,

355
00:19:54,651 --> 00:19:57,842
so the parliament is in charge of things
and can overrule the courts,

356
00:19:57,842 --> 00:20:02,953
can overrule everyone. Whereas in Belgium
it's a really complicated system

357
00:20:02,953 --> 00:20:07,345
of language groups, ~ regions and of the
federal government,

358
00:20:07,345 --> 00:20:11,826
plus lots more autonomy at local level
because local government is created

359
00:20:11,826 --> 00:20:15,426
in a different way rather than just the
subject of parliament.

360
00:20:15,426 --> 00:20:19,317
So I think these are the sorts of
differences that drive the way in which

361
00:20:19,317 --> 00:20:21,528
we will see a more participative approach.

362
00:20:21,868 --> 00:20:25,990
For example, in Belgium, we are currently
in the middle of a campaign.

363
00:20:25,990 --> 00:20:28,931
We're not directly involved, but our
friends at G1000 are.

364
00:20:28,931 --> 00:20:34,153
To replace the Senate, which is the upper
house of the Belgian parliament that's

365
00:20:34,153 --> 00:20:35,374
on the point of being abolished,

366
00:20:35,374 --> 00:20:37,575
rather than to completely abolish it,

367
00:20:37,575 --> 00:20:41,676
replace it with a standing citizen
assembly that can do two or three

368
00:20:41,997 --> 00:20:46,098
big discussions over the course of a year
that would bring in lots of people

369
00:20:46,538 --> 00:20:50,294
as a wider conversation around Belgium and
would be decided by 100.

370
00:20:50,624 --> 00:20:54,166
Senators who are elected by lot on a
proportional basis.

371
00:20:54,166 --> 00:20:58,278
I think that's a really good idea And it
works very effectively

372
00:20:58,278 --> 00:21:02,141
in the Belgian context because Belgium is
such a complicated country with lots

373
00:21:02,141 --> 00:21:06,273
of different communities and different
political and media spaces that don't
always

374
00:21:06,273 --> 00:21:11,896
talk to each other Building that space in
Belgium is really really useful Would

375
00:21:11,896 --> 00:21:14,477
it be the thing I would invest in in UK
democracy?

376
00:21:14,477 --> 00:21:17,349
Probably not. You know, I do think the
House of Lords,

377
00:21:17,349 --> 00:21:18,920
which is the equivalent of the Belgian
Senate

378
00:21:19,704 --> 00:21:23,126
needs reforming, but actually the work
that's needed in the

379
00:21:23,126 --> 00:21:27,268
UK is strengthening voice at local and
regional level because that's where
there's

380
00:21:27,409 --> 00:21:28,969
a democratic shortfall the most.

381
00:21:28,969 --> 00:21:33,752
So I suspect that this development will
happen driven by national priorities,

382
00:21:33,752 --> 00:21:36,534
but also driven by national cultures and
political cultures.

383
00:21:36,534 --> 00:21:40,836
And we will also see what happens at the
European level because to some extent,

384
00:21:40,836 --> 00:21:45,118
Europe is the most distant from the
citizen because it's dealing with
directives

385
00:21:45,118 --> 00:21:47,800
and these very long-term, high-level
questions.

386
00:21:48,345 --> 00:21:50,205
But at the same time, you're seeing now,

387
00:21:50,205 --> 00:21:51,765
if you look at opinion polling,

388
00:21:51,765 --> 00:21:54,305
that the public are expecting Europe to do
more.

389
00:21:54,305 --> 00:21:56,345
There was a poll the other day,

390
00:21:56,345 --> 00:21:57,625
and I don't have it at my fingertips,

391
00:21:57,625 --> 00:21:59,385
so I can't tell you where it came from.

392
00:21:59,385 --> 00:22:03,025
But one of the top issues that people
wanted Europe,

393
00:22:03,025 --> 00:22:04,925
that European citizens wanted Europe to
handle,

394
00:22:04,925 --> 00:22:07,765
was social security, employment,

395
00:22:07,765 --> 00:22:12,845
and jobs. Now, the European Union can do a
lot about some aspects of the economy,

396
00:22:12,845 --> 00:22:15,964
but has no responsibilities for social
security at all.

397
00:22:16,684 --> 00:22:20,205
That didn't mean that all of those people
wanted a European social welfare system

398
00:22:20,205 --> 00:22:23,677
rather than national one. But Europe is
being asked to do a lot of things

399
00:22:23,677 --> 00:22:25,628
it doesn't really have the power to do at
the moment.

400
00:22:25,628 --> 00:22:30,160
I think there is a positive pathway where
it can involve and engage people more

401
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:34,511
and support a multi-level governance
deliberation like working at local,

402
00:22:34,511 --> 00:22:39,614
regional, national and European levels
together that can really help dissolve
some

403
00:22:39,614 --> 00:22:44,526
of those hard boundaries between different
policy areas and enable us to work

404
00:22:44,526 --> 00:22:45,526
in a much more

405
00:22:45,548 --> 00:22:48,789
consistent and coherent way to achieve
social goals.

406
00:22:53,028 --> 00:22:56,511
Before you mentioned some possible issues

407
00:22:57,091 --> 00:23:00,434
on participation,

408
00:23:00,434 --> 00:23:05,399
I was wondering which kind of issue do you
see at the moment

409
00:23:05,399 --> 00:23:09,062
in the participatory field?

410
00:23:09,062 --> 00:23:15,949
I also read some of your articles

411
00:23:16,593 --> 00:23:21,303
That was about rethinking participatory
participation practices.

412
00:23:21,303 --> 00:23:24,611
So, yeah, what are your thoughts?

413
00:23:25,825 --> 00:23:30,648
Well, think I've got two main thoughts.

414
00:23:30,648 --> 00:23:35,251
The first is that the participation world
that we have been in up till

415
00:23:35,251 --> 00:23:37,773
now is really fundamentally changing.

416
00:23:37,773 --> 00:23:40,294
I think it's changing for a few reasons.

417
00:23:40,294 --> 00:23:44,777
The first is we're moving out of the space
where we were kind

418
00:23:44,777 --> 00:23:46,898
of the interesting experiments around the
edge.

419
00:23:46,898 --> 00:23:52,723
And it kind of didn't matter too much
about what we decided into

420
00:23:52,723 --> 00:23:55,414
a space where participatory approaches are

421
00:23:55,830 --> 00:24:01,933
really important and are making an impact
on decisions that create millions,

422
00:24:01,933 --> 00:24:04,464
tens of millions, billions of euros of
expenditure.

423
00:24:04,464 --> 00:24:10,187
And in those situations, we need to be
much more robust in the processes that

424
00:24:10,187 --> 00:24:15,219
we design to ensure that we aren't being
manipulated by people who want

425
00:24:15,219 --> 00:24:17,610
the outcome of those decisions to go one
way or the other.

426
00:24:17,610 --> 00:24:21,692
And it isn't, I think, pure paranoia to
say,

427
00:24:22,188 --> 00:24:25,909
that as soon as large amounts of money or
big political decisions get involved,

428
00:24:25,909 --> 00:24:31,571
is easier or it is a natural thing for
attempts to be made

429
00:24:31,571 --> 00:24:35,690
to corrupt those processes or for attempts
to be made to warp the decisions that

430
00:24:35,690 --> 00:24:39,573
are taken in favor of particular
organizations or particular interests.

431
00:24:39,573 --> 00:24:42,654
And I think we have not focused enough on
that.

432
00:24:42,654 --> 00:24:47,245
I think the sector has been very keen on
like methodological discussions,

433
00:24:47,245 --> 00:24:48,695
which are interesting and important,

434
00:24:48,695 --> 00:24:50,776
but I think we have not yet thought

435
00:24:51,116 --> 00:24:52,857
Partly because it's a very hard question.

436
00:24:52,857 --> 00:24:57,780
How do you strengthen those processes
against ~ inauthentic behavior

437
00:24:57,780 --> 00:25:02,983
or against corruption? And how do you
ensure that if we are talking about
processes

438
00:25:03,403 --> 00:25:06,004
that are affecting huge amounts of
spending,

439
00:25:06,004 --> 00:25:10,867
that we put the resources into those
processes to secure them that is
necessary?

440
00:25:10,867 --> 00:25:12,828
If you think about a parliament,

441
00:25:12,828 --> 00:25:14,729
like the European Parliament down the
road,

442
00:25:14,729 --> 00:25:19,222
it has an office that deals only with
declarations of members' interests.

443
00:25:19,916 --> 00:25:24,137
deals with the Office for the Fight
Against Fraud,

444
00:25:24,137 --> 00:25:26,558
OLAF, which is a whole European
institution.

445
00:25:26,558 --> 00:25:31,399
All of these democratic bodies have ~ lots
of money spent

446
00:25:31,399 --> 00:25:35,380
on securing their processes, on ensuring
that their processes can't be corrupted.

447
00:25:35,380 --> 00:25:39,421
sometimes they don't work, but a lot of
the time they do,

448
00:25:39,421 --> 00:25:42,842
but it's an investment. And I think that
if you look at the sector as a whole,

449
00:25:42,842 --> 00:25:47,544
democratic institutions and democratic
organizations like ours are always short

450
00:25:47,544 --> 00:25:48,544
of money.

451
00:25:48,793 --> 00:25:53,395
20 people, that makes us comparatively
large for an organization specializing

452
00:25:53,395 --> 00:25:54,795
in participation and democracy.

453
00:25:54,795 --> 00:25:57,406
If you think about organizations of that
size,

454
00:25:57,406 --> 00:25:59,217
all of whom are seeking funding all the
time,

455
00:25:59,217 --> 00:26:02,628
the amount of money that we have to invest
in the design and the robustness

456
00:26:02,628 --> 00:26:04,719
of the processes is far too low.

457
00:26:04,719 --> 00:26:06,039
So that's the first challenge.

458
00:26:06,039 --> 00:26:11,331
The second challenge is actually what's
being driven by the political headwinds

459
00:26:11,331 --> 00:26:18,044
and things like the AI revolution enabling
a lot more ~ AI slop or a lot more ~

460
00:26:19,492 --> 00:26:24,735
negative commentary driven by bots and
driven by artificial intelligence online.

461
00:26:24,735 --> 00:26:29,298
So you've seen this in the UK over the
last few days where a terrible tragic case

462
00:26:29,298 --> 00:26:34,781
of a student who's been murdered is being
turned into this absolute political frenzy

463
00:26:34,781 --> 00:26:40,324
~ driven by the far right, driven by Elon
Musk and by the algorithms on X.

464
00:26:40,324 --> 00:26:45,386
And it's a real concern for just being
able to hold onto the concept

465
00:26:45,707 --> 00:26:48,108
of shared truth and shared reality.

466
00:26:48,964 --> 00:26:52,095
Which is one of the reasons why we're
focusing on that in one of our new
projects,

467
00:26:52,095 --> 00:26:55,838
you know How do you create and maintain a
shared concept of truth

468
00:26:55,838 --> 00:26:59,730
and shared reality? What I think that
means for us is that we

469
00:26:59,730 --> 00:27:06,264
in the participation sector need to be a
little bit less a Little

470
00:27:06,264 --> 00:27:10,186
bit more focused on the nature of power I
think there is sometimes

471
00:27:10,186 --> 00:27:13,618
a feeling when I'm at these sessions that
I'm in a gathering

472
00:27:13,618 --> 00:27:16,260
of herbivores talking about how to deal
with the carnivores

473
00:27:16,938 --> 00:27:19,550
And you know what happens with herbivores
and carnivores is the carnivores

474
00:27:19,550 --> 00:27:24,714
eat the herbivores. So there is a real
question for me about the level

475
00:27:24,715 --> 00:27:28,388
of attention that we pay to power and the
level of attention that we

476
00:27:28,388 --> 00:27:30,379
in our sector pay to politics.

477
00:27:30,379 --> 00:27:33,962
Because part of my critique,

478
00:27:33,962 --> 00:27:37,065
and it's an affectionate and a positive
critique I hope,

479
00:27:37,065 --> 00:27:42,209
of the organizations in our space is that
occasionally we have seen politics

480
00:27:42,269 --> 00:27:44,391
as the thing we've been trying to get away
from.

481
00:27:44,391 --> 00:27:45,782
That politics is kind of

482
00:27:46,189 --> 00:27:50,171
the nasty polarizing, difficult to handle
stuff.

483
00:27:50,171 --> 00:27:53,173
And ours is democracy, and democracy and
politics are different.

484
00:27:53,173 --> 00:27:55,834
But I've really fundamentally challenged
that view,

485
00:27:55,834 --> 00:28:00,097
because politics is the only way in which
we can control the power of the state,

486
00:28:00,097 --> 00:28:04,109
which in itself is the only thing that has
the ability to act against some

487
00:28:04,109 --> 00:28:09,822
of the commercial and the bigger actors
that are going to be a real challenge

488
00:28:09,822 --> 00:28:13,544
to the achieving of democracy if we let
things run as they are.

489
00:28:16,312 --> 00:28:18,677
And because you mention power,

490
00:28:18,677 --> 00:28:21,765
what is power for you?

491
00:28:21,765 --> 00:28:23,329
~

492
00:28:24,396 --> 00:28:25,657
Well, what is power for anyone?

493
00:28:25,657 --> 00:28:30,359
Power is agency. It's the ability to make
things the way that you want them to be.

494
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:34,460
And at the moment, it is being highly
concentrated in a very small number

495
00:28:34,460 --> 00:28:38,302
of people who are able to drive online
conversation and who are able

496
00:28:38,302 --> 00:28:43,834
to drive an enormous number of business
and other commercial initiatives because

497
00:28:43,834 --> 00:28:47,056
they have a huge amount of resources.

498
00:28:47,056 --> 00:28:48,486
There are different sources of power.

499
00:28:48,486 --> 00:28:51,758
The state has power. In the classic
definition,

500
00:28:51,758 --> 00:28:52,758
it has the

501
00:28:52,682 --> 00:28:56,875
monopoly and legitimate violence in its
territory and states still do have power

502
00:28:56,875 --> 00:28:59,374
if you want to understand that look at
what's happening in China with

503
00:28:59,374 --> 00:29:03,399
the internet but at the same time
individuals have power you know you have

504
00:29:03,399 --> 00:29:07,112
the power to go to a protest march or to
not turn up to work and go

505
00:29:07,112 --> 00:29:10,904
on strike but those powers at local the
power and the agency of

506
00:29:10,904 --> 00:29:16,128
the individual and at local level are much
easier to to use as soon as

507
00:29:16,128 --> 00:29:18,790
you get into these higher levels they
become much more difficult one of

508
00:29:18,790 --> 00:29:22,212
our one of the purposes of democracy is to
give people

509
00:29:22,602 --> 00:29:26,816
Agency and power like its democracy demos
kratos the power of the people

510
00:29:27,076 --> 00:29:30,138
is the collective power of the people But
it's also the power of

511
00:29:30,138 --> 00:29:33,631
the individual to affect that collective
will and I think this is one

512
00:29:33,631 --> 00:29:39,456
of the areas where we risk ~
Individualization creating a huge number

513
00:29:39,456 --> 00:29:44,330
of people who have zero actual empowerment
But are being told ~ you can

514
00:29:44,571 --> 00:29:48,504
you can vote online you can participate in
this March or whatever

515
00:29:48,504 --> 00:29:50,636
it is being controlled being

516
00:29:51,115 --> 00:29:55,047
Influence so strongly by people behind the
scenes that their agencies

517
00:29:55,047 --> 00:29:59,830
is not effective It's useless and people
need that sense of agency They need that

518
00:29:59,830 --> 00:30:02,992
sense that they can make the world better
because otherwise you end up

519
00:30:03,152 --> 00:30:09,376
in a totally In a place of despair where
you just feel like you have nothing
Nothing

520
00:30:09,376 --> 00:30:13,078
you do can change the situation you're in
nothing you do can change the world

521
00:30:13,078 --> 00:30:15,780
in any way And that's a very negative
place to be

522
00:30:16,312 --> 00:30:19,032
Yeah, there's a there's I think it was
Napoleon who said that if you want

523
00:30:19,032 --> 00:30:22,872
if you tell him some the world as some
world as it was when someone was 20,

524
00:30:22,872 --> 00:30:25,192
he would tell you what their political
views were.

525
00:30:25,192 --> 00:30:27,972
Although I think that's not 100 % true.

526
00:30:27,972 --> 00:30:31,092
But when I was 20, the Berlin Wall had
just fallen.

527
00:30:31,092 --> 00:30:33,632
And democracy was spreading around Europe.

528
00:30:33,632 --> 00:30:36,272
Europe was uniting. was like the
Maastricht Treaty,

529
00:30:36,272 --> 00:30:37,852
all of these great things were going to
happen.

530
00:30:37,852 --> 00:30:42,392
And my kids are 20 now. And they see Trump

531
00:30:42,750 --> 00:30:46,302
and environmental disaster looming and the
war in Ukraine.

532
00:30:46,302 --> 00:30:50,365
And yeah, understandably, their vision of
the world and their vision

533
00:30:50,545 --> 00:30:52,766
of democracy is much more pessimistic than
mine.

534
00:30:52,766 --> 00:30:56,499
I don't think that's just because they're
20 and they haven't grown up yet.

535
00:30:56,499 --> 00:30:59,551
I think it's because of the world that
they see around them.

536
00:30:59,551 --> 00:31:05,935
We have to give people of my kid's age and
younger the ability to change the world.

537
00:31:05,935 --> 00:31:07,646
And that starts from the knowledge that
they can.

538
00:31:08,268 --> 00:31:10,603
And if we don't have those, if we don't
have the agency,

539
00:31:10,603 --> 00:31:13,319
if we don't create the systems for sharing
that out more widely,

540
00:31:13,319 --> 00:31:18,632
then I think we end up with a very ~
negative future.

541
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:24,861
Absolutely. And I was thinking,

542
00:31:24,861 --> 00:31:27,362
going back, because before we mentioned,

543
00:31:27,362 --> 00:31:33,344
like a digitalization, and there is ~ this
interesting,

544
00:31:33,344 --> 00:31:38,726
~ let's say, paper that is about

545
00:31:38,766 --> 00:31:42,697
the agentic state. I don't know if you saw
it.

546
00:31:42,697 --> 00:31:46,168
yeah, I don't know.

547
00:31:47,014 --> 00:31:49,477
This is by, I think, my old friend Tiago
Pesciotto.

548
00:31:49,477 --> 00:31:51,620
Yes.

549
00:31:49,694 --> 00:31:51,854
Yeah, exactly. And

550
00:31:51,854 --> 00:31:55,694
we also interviewed him and also Simone
Maria Parazzoli,

551
00:31:55,694 --> 00:31:59,774
that is another guest of the podcast he
worked on it.

552
00:31:59,774 --> 00:32:04,194
And yeah, I wonder what are your thoughts
about it

553
00:32:04,194 --> 00:32:08,334
and also regarding digitalization in
general.

554
00:32:08,334 --> 00:32:11,434
So what could be the pros cons?

555
00:32:11,968 --> 00:32:17,608
So I will be the first to say that I'm not
an expert in AI or in these kind

556
00:32:17,608 --> 00:32:22,948
of technological shifts. I'm trying to
keep up with an enormously rapidly
developing

557
00:32:22,948 --> 00:32:26,128
field. But you know, I also have like a
family and a football team to support.

558
00:32:26,128 --> 00:32:31,048
I can't do it 24 hours a day. The work of
Tiago,

559
00:32:31,048 --> 00:32:33,948
I really respect and have done for a long
time.

560
00:32:34,528 --> 00:32:37,949
I think the work on the agentic state and
what that can lead

561
00:32:37,949 --> 00:32:41,180
to is really challenging and inspiring.

562
00:32:41,180 --> 00:32:45,772
think it's pointing out some real benefits
and some huge potential in

563
00:32:46,052 --> 00:32:47,972
the way in which new technologies can
work.

564
00:32:47,972 --> 00:32:53,854
I think there's a distinction for me
between the state as

565
00:32:53,854 --> 00:32:58,136
a provider of services, like the state as
the guarantor and the state as the state.

566
00:32:58,136 --> 00:32:59,276
So if you imagine...

567
00:32:59,768 --> 00:33:03,428
the state as the state, the of what you
call in French the regalia principles,

568
00:33:03,428 --> 00:33:04,948
like the things that adjust to the state,

569
00:33:04,948 --> 00:33:08,428
like defense and tax raising and foreign
policy and things like that.

570
00:33:08,428 --> 00:33:13,708
I think digitization affects those only
indirectly by creating different routes

571
00:33:13,708 --> 00:33:17,568
for people to influence the conversations
that happen in the political spaces where

572
00:33:17,568 --> 00:33:20,088
those are decided. At the other end of the
spectrum,

573
00:33:20,088 --> 00:33:23,928
I can totally see how digitization of
government provided services

574
00:33:23,928 --> 00:33:26,188
can really create a lot more flexibility.

575
00:33:26,188 --> 00:33:27,308
So I was talking earlier.

576
00:33:27,681 --> 00:33:31,044
about the importance of flexibility and
the importance of people being able

577
00:33:31,264 --> 00:33:34,624
to make things different as they feel able
to,

578
00:33:34,624 --> 00:33:36,168
I think able to make a change.

579
00:33:36,168 --> 00:33:41,352
I think that ~ through some digitalization
opportunities,

580
00:33:41,352 --> 00:33:43,823
you can make some of the services more
flexible,

581
00:33:43,823 --> 00:33:45,516
more responsive, more personalized,

582
00:33:45,516 --> 00:33:47,167
and that can make a huge difference.

583
00:33:47,167 --> 00:33:52,061
I think we've already gone, even before we
reached AI agent territory,

584
00:33:52,061 --> 00:33:55,704
we've already moved from a system where
you kind of got what you were told.

585
00:33:56,600 --> 00:34:02,003
20, 30 years ago from public services to
one that is trying to be more responsive,

586
00:34:02,003 --> 00:34:05,145
more linked to what people need.

587
00:34:05,145 --> 00:34:07,526
I know in the UK, for example,

588
00:34:07,526 --> 00:34:10,128
there is a thing called the team around
the child.

589
00:34:10,128 --> 00:34:14,811
So if a child has difficulties or a family
has multiple difficulties like

590
00:34:15,110 --> 00:34:17,772
unemployment or disability or whatever it
is,

591
00:34:17,772 --> 00:34:22,665
services will try to come around them in a
format that works for that family

592
00:34:22,665 --> 00:34:23,815
or that works for that child.

593
00:34:24,216 --> 00:34:27,036
rather than having the family or the child
needing to like talk to

594
00:34:27,036 --> 00:34:29,856
15 or 16 different government
organizations,

595
00:34:29,856 --> 00:34:32,896
each of which is structured in a
traditional hierarchical way.

596
00:34:32,896 --> 00:34:37,076
I can see the agentic state and the
agentic models really helping

597
00:34:37,076 --> 00:34:40,956
to accelerate that personalization and
accelerate that responsiveness of
services.

598
00:34:40,956 --> 00:34:44,335
But of course, those are much more about
the individual's relationship with

599
00:34:44,335 --> 00:34:47,876
the state. The state almost, the
individual almost is a consumer

600
00:34:47,876 --> 00:34:50,996
of state services rather than as a
citizen.

601
00:34:50,996 --> 00:34:53,563
Because to be a citizen is to be a
consumer and

602
00:34:54,146 --> 00:34:55,266
John Alexander, another friend,

603
00:34:55,266 --> 00:34:56,387
has been talking a lot about this.

604
00:34:56,387 --> 00:34:58,077
They're quite different things.

605
00:34:58,077 --> 00:35:00,518
And you can be a consumer of government
services,

606
00:35:00,518 --> 00:35:04,839
but you also are a citizen of the
government that provides those services.

607
00:35:04,839 --> 00:35:08,110
And this is where I feel like there's some
really interesting areas

608
00:35:08,110 --> 00:35:12,501
to explore in the middle. I think we've
spoken for a long time in

609
00:35:12,501 --> 00:35:15,462
our sector about digital tools for
democracy.

610
00:35:15,462 --> 00:35:18,303
And they've always fallen short for a
couple of reasons.

611
00:35:18,303 --> 00:35:21,964
The first is that they aren't profitable.

612
00:35:21,964 --> 00:35:23,604
There isn't a model where you can make

613
00:35:24,108 --> 00:35:29,443
Democratic participation tools profitable
because fundamentally like every

614
00:35:29,443 --> 00:35:32,935
government thing you have to reach
everybody It's not difficult to make

615
00:35:33,276 --> 00:35:36,829
a kind of mailing list tool profitable or
a campaigning tool profitable nation

616
00:35:36,829 --> 00:35:41,523
builders being profitable But to try and
reach literally everybody including those

617
00:35:41,523 --> 00:35:44,705
people who are less online who don't speak
the local language You

618
00:35:44,705 --> 00:35:48,378
all of these things those that's where
your costs occur And if it's going

619
00:35:48,378 --> 00:35:50,610
to be truly democratic it has to reach all
those people.

620
00:35:50,610 --> 00:35:52,532
So so plenty of democratic

621
00:35:52,729 --> 00:35:55,670
tools have been started and plenty of them
have failed.

622
00:35:55,670 --> 00:35:58,490
And the reason I think they fail is first,

623
00:35:58,490 --> 00:36:01,061
it's not a service that people pay for,

624
00:36:01,061 --> 00:36:04,472
so you can't pay, you can't take money
from the consumer.

625
00:36:04,472 --> 00:36:09,833
Government is a very poor procurer of
these sorts of services.

626
00:36:09,833 --> 00:36:14,274
It buys them short term, it buys them
occasionally,

627
00:36:14,274 --> 00:36:18,435
it doesn't have the long term ability to
spend,

628
00:36:18,435 --> 00:36:21,656
and it also doesn't have the budgets for
these sorts of services.

629
00:36:22,166 --> 00:36:23,997
that they need to develop properly.

630
00:36:23,997 --> 00:36:27,199
However, the agentic state or the agentic
model,

631
00:36:27,199 --> 00:36:31,953
I think does provide some opportunity to
join up some of these conversations

632
00:36:31,953 --> 00:36:33,684
and to create more participative spaces.

633
00:36:33,684 --> 00:36:35,745
The thing I think we've got to be careful
about though,

634
00:36:35,745 --> 00:36:38,606
is remembering that when you're a citizen,

635
00:36:38,606 --> 00:36:40,889
you are in a particular persona.

636
00:36:40,889 --> 00:36:47,173
So, you know, I often use the example of
my online shopping order.

637
00:36:47,173 --> 00:36:50,646
If an agent was doing my online shopping
order,

638
00:36:51,128 --> 00:36:54,048
It might buy what I've been buying
previously.

639
00:36:54,048 --> 00:36:57,548
It might buy the things, it might know
that it's the World Cup.

640
00:36:57,548 --> 00:37:00,468
And when it's the World Cup, I eat lots of
crisps because I'm sitting

641
00:37:00,468 --> 00:37:01,788
in front of the television watching
football.

642
00:37:01,788 --> 00:37:04,488
Now, maybe I don't want to do that.

643
00:37:04,488 --> 00:37:07,268
Maybe I feel like actually I've put on a
few kilograms,

644
00:37:07,268 --> 00:37:08,908
it's time to lose a bit of weight.

645
00:37:08,908 --> 00:37:10,508
I'm going to focus on healthy food.

646
00:37:10,508 --> 00:37:13,208
Now, obviously I can tell the agent that,

647
00:37:13,208 --> 00:37:17,388
but the automaticity of it is to go for
what's happened in the past.

648
00:37:17,388 --> 00:37:18,568
It's like it's backward looking.

649
00:37:19,094 --> 00:37:22,126
Whereas citizenship and democracy are
inherently forward looking.

650
00:37:22,126 --> 00:37:24,898
They're expressing what you want from the
future,

651
00:37:24,898 --> 00:37:26,809
not what you've done from the past.

652
00:37:26,809 --> 00:37:30,352
And so I think it's really important that
in this kind of agentic state model,

653
00:37:30,352 --> 00:37:35,585
we retain people's citizen personas as
things that are them making choices about

654
00:37:35,585 --> 00:37:37,016
the world they want to see in the future,

655
00:37:37,016 --> 00:37:40,078
not mere representations of what they've
been in the past.

656
00:37:40,078 --> 00:37:41,739
And this is certainly true in the,

657
00:37:41,739 --> 00:37:48,344
I've seen a few ~ startups which have
promised a kind of deep citizen,

658
00:37:48,631 --> 00:37:51,062
like a sort opinion poll without having to
ask people questions,

659
00:37:51,062 --> 00:37:53,103
if you can imagine what I mean,

660
00:37:53,103 --> 00:37:56,865
that they just read off the behaviour of
millions or billions of data points

661
00:37:57,186 --> 00:38:00,447
and that from that they draw a perspective
of what people want.

662
00:38:00,447 --> 00:38:04,009
But my point about about politics and
citizenship,

663
00:38:04,009 --> 00:38:09,102
is if you took all of it, if you had
perfect vision and you took

664
00:38:09,102 --> 00:38:12,594
the decisions and the choices of
absolutely everyone in the world,

665
00:38:12,594 --> 00:38:14,415
that still wouldn't be their politics,

666
00:38:14,415 --> 00:38:16,596
because politics is an expression of the
future.

667
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:18,721
And people are hypocrites, right?

668
00:38:18,721 --> 00:38:23,826
don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that
it's impossible

669
00:38:24,247 --> 00:38:28,650
to read off from everyone's behaviour what
they are doing now,

670
00:38:28,650 --> 00:38:30,993
what their revealed preference is in the
jargon.

671
00:38:30,993 --> 00:38:34,686
But that's not politics. Politics is about
what you want to be in

672
00:38:34,686 --> 00:38:36,978
the future and what you personally want to
be in the future as well.

673
00:38:36,978 --> 00:38:41,062
And I think it's a denial of that
possibility of change and a denial

674
00:38:41,362 --> 00:38:43,434
of that agency and the potential for
optimism.

675
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:47,046
if all we do is just poll people on what
they've been doing so far,

676
00:38:47,046 --> 00:38:50,152
because you then hide all the
possibilities the future is away from.

677
00:38:54,309 --> 00:38:58,712
Interesting. like, ~ yeah,

678
00:38:58,712 --> 00:39:00,623
sorry for the randomness of the question,

679
00:39:00,623 --> 00:39:06,918
but I wonder like, which kind of open
question do you have in your mind now,

680
00:39:00,630 --> 00:39:01,630
No, totally fine.

681
00:39:06,918 --> 00:39:09,179
like something that maybe you are thinking
and...

682
00:39:11,436 --> 00:39:13,437
I think the biggest, so there's a couple
of things.

683
00:39:13,437 --> 00:39:15,997
I think the first question is,

684
00:39:15,997 --> 00:39:18,558
and they're related, the first question
is,

685
00:39:18,558 --> 00:39:23,159
what does the future of politics look like
alongside participation?

686
00:39:23,159 --> 00:39:28,911
You I think this is really interesting to
me because I've always been like someone

687
00:39:28,911 --> 00:39:31,301
who's quite political. I've been a member
of political party or,

688
00:39:31,301 --> 00:39:36,703
you know, of a political tradition in
different countries for 30 years.

689
00:39:36,703 --> 00:39:40,664
So it's always been something that has
been important to me.

690
00:39:41,145 --> 00:39:44,665
But equally, I've seen the contradictions
and the tensions between my

691
00:39:44,665 --> 00:39:50,145
day job and participation in democracy and
my kind of life as a political actor,

692
00:39:50,145 --> 00:39:51,605
as a member of a political party.

693
00:39:51,605 --> 00:39:55,965
I think we do need to understand how these
come together.

694
00:39:55,965 --> 00:40:00,305
I think it's important for us to
understand where in the participation
space

695
00:40:00,305 --> 00:40:04,225
are we making a claim that is kind of a
political claim?

696
00:40:04,225 --> 00:40:07,365
Where is participation a political act?

697
00:40:07,365 --> 00:40:09,625
Because it doesn't have zero political
value.

698
00:40:10,284 --> 00:40:13,967
You know, there are people in the
political space who do

699
00:40:13,967 --> 00:40:17,240
not believe in participation. They do not
think the citizens should have a voice.

700
00:40:17,240 --> 00:40:22,024
They think that the leader or a religious
text or whatever,

701
00:40:22,024 --> 00:40:24,526
whatever, should be directing society.

702
00:40:24,526 --> 00:40:25,877
And, you know, that's the end of it.

703
00:40:25,877 --> 00:40:30,831
So to some extent, those people are not
accessible to the sorts of processes that

704
00:40:30,831 --> 00:40:34,324
we create. But if you turn that picture
around,

705
00:40:34,324 --> 00:40:37,767
we are also expressing what I hope is a
majority view,

706
00:40:37,767 --> 00:40:38,908
but is a

707
00:40:38,978 --> 00:40:41,690
political view about the way the world
should be in the future.

708
00:40:41,690 --> 00:40:46,833
I think we haven't yet worked out how do
we balance the need for us to reach

709
00:40:46,833 --> 00:40:49,055
a very wide audience with those sorts of
processes,

710
00:40:49,055 --> 00:40:55,098
with the need to understand or the need to
defend ourselves as a political project,

711
00:40:55,098 --> 00:40:57,801
as a project for a particular way that the
world should be.

712
00:40:57,801 --> 00:41:00,603
I think, you know, I forget who it was who
said,

713
00:41:00,603 --> 00:41:04,466
you know, a liberal is a person who won't
take their own side in an argument.

714
00:41:04,466 --> 00:41:07,548
And I feel that sometimes we don't take
our own side in the argument.

715
00:41:07,788 --> 00:41:11,721
And I wonder how we do that without
polarizing further and turning

716
00:41:11,721 --> 00:41:16,225
off the people who might be convinced by
what we have to say as a kind

717
00:41:16,225 --> 00:41:17,976
of local community conversation,

718
00:41:17,976 --> 00:41:21,139
but who are really turned off by language
around kind of community

719
00:41:21,139 --> 00:41:24,442
and participation because they see it as
like left-wing or green

720
00:41:24,442 --> 00:41:26,964
or a political tradition that they don't
belong to.

721
00:41:26,964 --> 00:41:30,366
So that's my first question. And my second
question is,

722
00:41:30,366 --> 00:41:33,289
how do we make this work at scale?

723
00:41:33,289 --> 00:41:37,022
I think if you look at all of the things
that we've done through participatory
work,

724
00:41:37,209 --> 00:41:39,749
and we've done loads. I mean, not just
EMSOC,

725
00:41:39,749 --> 00:41:43,229
everyone. It's still quite small scale.

726
00:41:43,229 --> 00:41:45,289
I was listening to John Alexander,

727
00:41:45,289 --> 00:41:48,849
who I mentioned before. He was talking at
a Harvard event I listened in

728
00:41:48,849 --> 00:41:50,589
to the other day. And he said,

729
00:41:50,589 --> 00:41:52,469
there's been over 1,000 citizen
assemblies.

730
00:41:52,469 --> 00:41:54,429
And it's like, well, OK, on one level,

731
00:41:54,429 --> 00:41:57,569
yes, great. But even if there's been
10,000,

732
00:41:57,569 --> 00:41:59,829
if each one of them involves 100 people,

733
00:41:59,829 --> 00:42:03,729
that's just a million people. In a
continent of 450,000 people,

734
00:42:03,729 --> 00:42:04,729
that's not very many.

735
00:42:05,112 --> 00:42:09,192
you've got a one in 45 chance of having
participated in a citizen assembly.

736
00:42:09,192 --> 00:42:13,172
I don't think we are yet at the scale
where we can understand

737
00:42:13,172 --> 00:42:16,252
how these things interact. And this is the
bit of me that is

738
00:42:16,252 --> 00:42:19,032
a government official still rather than a
participation worker.

739
00:42:19,032 --> 00:42:23,732
The other problem is that one of the ways
in which government works and

740
00:42:23,732 --> 00:42:27,112
one of the ways in which political parties
work as well is they take different

741
00:42:27,112 --> 00:42:29,572
positions and they make them work
together.

742
00:42:29,572 --> 00:42:31,892
So they, example,

743
00:42:33,150 --> 00:42:35,282
they build a road in a particular place.

744
00:42:35,282 --> 00:42:39,516
It doesn't stop at the boundary and then
start at one local authority

745
00:42:39,516 --> 00:42:41,988
and then start at the other boundary
because they have to

746
00:42:41,988 --> 00:42:43,509
do something that's connected,

747
00:42:43,509 --> 00:42:45,210
like a road has to connect with other
roads.

748
00:42:45,210 --> 00:42:47,382
Railways have to work on standards,

749
00:42:47,382 --> 00:42:51,326
those sorts of things. And I think that we
sometimes haven't worked out

750
00:42:51,326 --> 00:42:56,160
how do we create synthesizing spaces
beyond the individual issues that we're
talking

751
00:42:56,160 --> 00:43:00,922
about. So if you're asking citizens about
issue X,

752
00:43:01,452 --> 00:43:04,404
How do you demonstrate the connections
with issue Y,

753
00:43:04,404 --> 00:43:09,987
issue Z, issue A, issue B without
confusing them too much and giving them

754
00:43:09,987 --> 00:43:13,719
far too much information to take in in the
relatively limited time we have?

755
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,221
So we need to understand scale of
practice,

756
00:43:17,221 --> 00:43:22,223
but also scale of question. And I think
that there's a project called Scale Dem,

757
00:43:22,223 --> 00:43:27,767
which is being, I know you had Antoine
from Musi en Public on the other day,

758
00:43:27,767 --> 00:43:29,267
and they're working on that project.

759
00:43:29,267 --> 00:43:30,267
How do you scale?

760
00:43:30,711 --> 00:43:32,182
I forget exactly what it is, out,

761
00:43:32,182 --> 00:43:34,563
deep, up, all of these sorts of questions.

762
00:43:34,563 --> 00:43:36,964
But the fundamental question is scale,

763
00:43:36,964 --> 00:43:39,325
not because we need to seek scale,

764
00:43:39,325 --> 00:43:41,455
but if we're going to operate at
governmental level,

765
00:43:41,455 --> 00:43:45,377
if we're going to operate on the scale
where whole governments are involved

766
00:43:45,377 --> 00:43:48,728
in these kinds of questions, then both the
organizations that

767
00:43:48,728 --> 00:43:53,991
are running those processes and the
citizens need to have a lot more resource,

768
00:43:53,991 --> 00:43:57,492
a lot more capability to make that really
effective.

769
00:44:00,287 --> 00:44:06,808
Interesting questions. I have some
thoughts regarding them.

770
00:44:06,808 --> 00:44:11,248
I don't know the future of politics how it
will be.

771
00:44:11,248 --> 00:44:15,708
But I'm thinking if this digitalization,

772
00:44:15,708 --> 00:44:18,948
the process will continue and they can
imagine yes,

773
00:44:18,948 --> 00:44:22,708
then I don't know if we're following the
lines of the agentic state

774
00:44:22,708 --> 00:44:24,028
or something similar.

775
00:44:26,524 --> 00:44:31,876
An open question that I have in my mind is
what could be the role

776
00:44:31,876 --> 00:44:36,859
of political parties because I can imagine
that also them will have to maybe

777
00:44:36,859 --> 00:44:43,061
in some way to adapt and I wonder if like
if political parties could be like

778
00:44:43,061 --> 00:44:48,774
a sort of ~ they can mediate between let's

779
00:44:48,774 --> 00:44:53,236
say the agentic state and the citizens in
regarding to participation

780
00:44:53,884 --> 00:44:58,184
in regards to participation. But yeah,

781
00:44:58,184 --> 00:44:59,964
it's still an open question to me.

782
00:44:59,964 --> 00:45:01,344
I don't know.

783
00:45:01,917 --> 00:45:03,437
It's really fascinating question.

784
00:45:03,437 --> 00:45:06,438
And I think on the political parties
point,

785
00:45:06,438 --> 00:45:12,881
political parties are really a very simple
thing in a political system.

786
00:45:12,881 --> 00:45:18,533
They're a group of people who rep a group
of interest groups or group interests

787
00:45:18,533 --> 00:45:23,776
or group group built around a philosophy
or philosophical position that

788
00:45:23,776 --> 00:45:27,777
is internally coherent, that is competing
against other political parties

789
00:45:27,777 --> 00:45:29,708
in the same in the same political space.

790
00:45:30,423 --> 00:45:33,595
So for example, in the UK and in the US,

791
00:45:33,595 --> 00:45:36,927
you have a very small number of large
parties because

792
00:45:36,927 --> 00:45:39,579
the electoral system privileges large
parties.

793
00:45:39,579 --> 00:45:44,242
So the Labour Party, which is the party
that I belonged to when I lived in the UK,

794
00:45:44,242 --> 00:45:47,044
the Labour Party is an internal coalition.

795
00:45:47,044 --> 00:45:49,085
There are some people in it who are more
to the left,

796
00:45:49,085 --> 00:45:50,766
some people who more to the right,

797
00:45:50,766 --> 00:45:52,908
some people who are more communitarian,

798
00:45:52,908 --> 00:45:54,969
participatory, others who are more,

799
00:45:54,969 --> 00:45:58,141
you know, directive, who want the state to
take control because that's

800
00:45:58,141 --> 00:45:59,552
the best way of guaranteeing equality.

801
00:46:00,086 --> 00:46:02,497
And all of those questions are dealt with
internally.

802
00:46:02,497 --> 00:46:04,988
And then the Labour Party candidate is on
the ballot.

803
00:46:04,988 --> 00:46:06,979
And if you're a Labour Party member or if
you're a supporter,

804
00:46:06,979 --> 00:46:11,681
you vote for them. And the Conservatives
have a different internal coalition,

805
00:46:11,681 --> 00:46:13,782
but they still have an internal coalition.

806
00:46:13,782 --> 00:46:19,814
And that's how that happens. It will be
hard to say for the Labour Party,

807
00:46:19,814 --> 00:46:23,566
for example, that there is a single
political tradition that's represented by
it.

808
00:46:23,566 --> 00:46:27,288
There are some people in the Labour Party
who are like classical Marxists,

809
00:46:27,288 --> 00:46:28,288
know, real sort of

810
00:46:28,672 --> 00:46:32,294
It's all about the, not exactly the sort
of the revolution,

811
00:46:32,294 --> 00:46:35,975
but it's certainly about a class-based
structure.

812
00:46:35,975 --> 00:46:39,997
And there are others who are much more
kind of ~ liberal,

813
00:46:39,997 --> 00:46:42,458
left liberal in their perspectives.

814
00:46:42,458 --> 00:46:45,379
And those traditions coexist within the
Labour Party than they always have.

815
00:46:45,379 --> 00:46:47,620
If you look at somewhere like the
Netherlands,

816
00:46:47,620 --> 00:46:49,461
where they have a really pure political,

817
00:46:49,461 --> 00:46:51,762
a pure proportional representation system,

818
00:46:51,762 --> 00:46:55,784
huge numbers of parties exist across a
wide range of spectrums.

819
00:46:55,784 --> 00:46:56,784
So,

820
00:46:56,726 --> 00:46:58,517
You would say on the left you have Denk,

821
00:46:58,517 --> 00:47:02,520
you have Pévende A, and you have the Es
Pé,

822
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:06,943
all of whom in different ways represent
those kind of traditions.

823
00:47:06,943 --> 00:47:10,566
And similarly on the right, you have Jain
and Twente,

824
00:47:10,566 --> 00:47:14,659
you have Pévévé, you have to some
extent the Vévédé,

825
00:47:14,659 --> 00:47:17,170
which is kind of on the right edge of the
center.

826
00:47:17,170 --> 00:47:18,872
You saw right edge of center right.

827
00:47:18,872 --> 00:47:23,505
And then you have Févédé. And they all
represent the different kind

828
00:47:23,505 --> 00:47:25,016
of electoral bits of coalition on the
right.

829
00:47:25,942 --> 00:47:28,513
So political parties in the Netherlands
are,

830
00:47:28,513 --> 00:47:30,674
there's far more of them, but they're much
narrower.

831
00:47:30,674 --> 00:47:35,156
And I can imagine that's probably the
future of political parties

832
00:47:35,477 --> 00:47:42,280
in a more digitized age, that they become
not so much broad tent parties like

833
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:46,122
Volksparteien, mass parties, but they
become much more focused

834
00:47:46,122 --> 00:47:47,342
on particular interest groups.

835
00:47:47,342 --> 00:47:51,094
And then the synthesis that you have to do
comes within government.

836
00:47:51,735 --> 00:47:54,768
I think the challenge that we have is that
there are some parties,

837
00:47:54,768 --> 00:47:58,290
and I'm thinking here about Rassemblement
National in France or

838
00:47:58,290 --> 00:48:00,532
~ Alternatief für Deutschland,

839
00:48:00,532 --> 00:48:05,837
which are protest parties and based on a
core of right-wing politics.

840
00:48:05,837 --> 00:48:09,930
A lot of the people who vote for AFD,

841
00:48:09,930 --> 00:48:13,303
Vlaams-Berlin in Flanders, Rassemblement
National,

842
00:48:13,303 --> 00:48:18,547
are voting not because they are
ideologically aligned with the positions

843
00:48:18,547 --> 00:48:19,547
of the party.

844
00:48:19,618 --> 00:48:21,309
but because they are the protest vote,

845
00:48:21,309 --> 00:48:22,989
because they're the party that wants to
shake things up,

846
00:48:22,989 --> 00:48:27,512
that wants things to change. And that's a
pretty significant part of the population,

847
00:48:27,512 --> 00:48:29,282
like 20 to 30 % in most countries.

848
00:48:29,282 --> 00:48:31,813
In fact, there's quite some great research
on this.

849
00:48:31,813 --> 00:48:37,808
And the rest of the political spectrum is
maybe 70%,

850
00:48:37,808 --> 00:48:40,507
80%, but it's split into multiple parties.

851
00:48:40,507 --> 00:48:43,709
So you end up with a situation where the
far right look like they're

852
00:48:43,709 --> 00:48:46,100
in the lead because they're the...

853
00:48:46,794 --> 00:48:50,967
a single electoral block because people
are not particularly driven by policies.

854
00:48:50,967 --> 00:48:55,511
And what happens is that they then start
driving the narrative because they're

855
00:48:55,511 --> 00:48:58,173
the biggest party. And the fact that all
of the other parties

856
00:48:58,173 --> 00:49:02,197
in the democratic space are occupying far
more of the political,

857
00:49:02,197 --> 00:49:06,640
are voted for by far more of the
electorate than the far right doesn't make

858
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:08,222
a difference because they're all arguing
with each other.

859
00:49:08,222 --> 00:49:11,805
And I think we do have this risk that the
narrative control of the

860
00:49:11,805 --> 00:49:15,888
far right is going to just create ~ an
atmosphere.

861
00:49:16,436 --> 00:49:21,841
in which parties of anywhere from the
centre right to the left are unable

862
00:49:21,841 --> 00:49:23,723
to manage a collective position.

863
00:49:23,723 --> 00:49:26,976
So we may see, I don't know this is
definitely going to happen,

864
00:49:26,976 --> 00:49:30,229
but we may see the development of what you
call block politics,

865
00:49:30,229 --> 00:49:34,002
where actually there are multiple parties
in a right block and multiple parties

866
00:49:34,002 --> 00:49:37,716
in a left block and some maybe in a centre
block and they switch votes between them,

867
00:49:37,716 --> 00:49:40,839
but it's very rare for people to switch
across from block to block

868
00:49:40,839 --> 00:49:42,000
and the strength is

869
00:49:42,647 --> 00:49:45,398
The strength of the block is what matters
and there's like standing alliances

870
00:49:45,398 --> 00:49:47,610
between those parties. If that happens,

871
00:49:47,610 --> 00:49:52,152
I think we might end up with what looks
like quite a traditional political party

872
00:49:52,152 --> 00:49:57,825
system, but rather than being based on a
set on a socioeconomic axis from like more

873
00:49:57,905 --> 00:49:59,766
redistribution to more free markets,

874
00:49:59,766 --> 00:50:01,827
it's based on a cultural access,

875
00:50:01,827 --> 00:50:06,199
axis rather, of like stronger border
controls,

876
00:50:06,199 --> 00:50:10,641
less immigration, more ethnic purity to
more liberal,

877
00:50:10,641 --> 00:50:11,682
more open policies.

878
00:50:12,064 --> 00:50:16,826
If that happens, I suspect it will be ~
one of the frames in which

879
00:50:16,826 --> 00:50:19,687
the agentic state operates. The agentic
state will take on a

880
00:50:19,687 --> 00:50:23,629
lot of the socioeconomic and the practical
and the service delivery elements.

881
00:50:23,629 --> 00:50:28,731
And the political system will be focusing
on the broader kind

882
00:50:28,731 --> 00:50:33,533
of cultural and life issues. The thing I
think would break that is if there

883
00:50:33,533 --> 00:50:39,780
is a big crisis, either a climate disaster
or mass unemployment from AI.

884
00:50:40,246 --> 00:50:45,439
That I think would drive us back into a
kind of socioeconomic service delivery

885
00:50:45,439 --> 00:50:49,742
~ access for politics and that probably
favors the maintenance

886
00:50:49,742 --> 00:50:51,914
of the existing left-right party split.

887
00:50:51,914 --> 00:50:55,876
And do you have, maybe as a last question,

888
00:50:55,876 --> 00:50:57,957
also if you want to add something else,

889
00:50:57,957 --> 00:51:03,159
feel free. ~ Like if you have a message
for the people that are working

890
00:51:03,159 --> 00:51:06,350
in the field, building prototypes,

891
00:51:06,350 --> 00:51:08,881
finding new ways for participation.

892
00:51:11,461 --> 00:51:12,712
The first thing say is thank you.

893
00:51:12,712 --> 00:51:14,422
I think it's really important.

894
00:51:14,422 --> 00:51:16,934
mean, the fact that people are dedicating
their lives to this issue

895
00:51:16,934 --> 00:51:20,796
is absolutely essential. I spent 20 years
working on it.

896
00:51:20,796 --> 00:51:23,367
I don't think I'm so amazing or so
essential,

897
00:51:23,367 --> 00:51:25,978
but it's a commitment I've made because
it's what I believe in and

898
00:51:25,978 --> 00:51:28,619
I respect the other people. I respect
others who are doing that.

899
00:51:28,619 --> 00:51:33,932
I think the second thing I would say is
don't give up.

900
00:51:33,932 --> 00:51:36,063
There is an enormous amount that needs to
be done.

901
00:51:36,253 --> 00:51:39,374
And we are in a time where sometimes it
feels very hard to get out of

902
00:51:39,374 --> 00:51:41,465
bed in the morning because you see what's
on the news.

903
00:51:41,465 --> 00:51:44,977
I think that what we are doing in our
sector is building

904
00:51:44,977 --> 00:51:51,349
the slow alternative infrastructure or the
slow alternative mechanisms

905
00:51:51,610 --> 00:51:55,191
to some of those kind of high speed
algorithm driven,

906
00:51:55,191 --> 00:51:59,283
influencer driven mechanisms that are
creating the rather poisonous politics

907
00:51:59,283 --> 00:52:00,754
we have at the minute. So don't give up.

908
00:52:00,754 --> 00:52:03,975
But the third part is I think we need to
join up.

909
00:52:04,583 --> 00:52:09,187
I think there is a lot of ~ NGOs are very
bad at this,

910
00:52:09,187 --> 00:52:11,689
right? This is not a kind of, yeah,

911
00:52:11,689 --> 00:52:12,990
I'm not saying we're so wonderful.

912
00:52:12,990 --> 00:52:17,133
In general, NGOs are terrible at mergers
because they don't have assets.

913
00:52:17,133 --> 00:52:20,905
don't have, scale is not quite the same
thing when you're dealing with

914
00:52:20,905 --> 00:52:24,859
a think tank or a service as it is with
the service industry.

915
00:52:24,859 --> 00:52:27,842
But still, I do think we need to form a
more united front.

916
00:52:27,842 --> 00:52:30,933
And it's really interesting to see in the
European context that

917
00:52:30,933 --> 00:52:34,267
the European Commission has talked about
creating a stakeholders forum.

918
00:52:35,279 --> 00:52:36,700
or stakeholder platform rather,

919
00:52:36,700 --> 00:52:41,242
to support democratic organisations or
democracy supporting organisations with

920
00:52:41,242 --> 00:52:43,563
common tools, with research, all these
sorts of things.

921
00:52:43,563 --> 00:52:46,464
It's still very vague exactly what it's
going to look like,

922
00:52:46,464 --> 00:52:49,675
but I know that there are conversations
going on about shaping it up

923
00:52:49,675 --> 00:52:51,106
and turning it into something real,

924
00:52:51,106 --> 00:52:53,439
either for next year or for 2028.

925
00:52:53,439 --> 00:52:57,588
I think I would definitely encourage
people to spend a little time watching

926
00:52:57,809 --> 00:53:00,900
for that conversation, taking part in it
to make sure that what

927
00:53:00,900 --> 00:53:03,401
is created is something that is really
meeting the needs.

928
00:53:03,783 --> 00:53:05,574
of the democratic innovation sector that
we have.

929
00:53:07,888 --> 00:53:09,669
Thank you a lot, Anthony, really.

930
00:53:09,669 --> 00:53:12,492
Thank you.

931
00:53:10,430 --> 00:53:11,430
My pleasure.