SOWIT: Innovating for citizen deliberation in local government

Dr. Clodagh Harris (UCC)

Dr. Vanessa Liston (TCD)

Mark O’Toole, Kilkenny County Council

Introduction

Strengthening local democracy – key pillar of local government reform.

Green paper (2008) refers to the need to ‘creatively and proactively seek new avenues’ of citizen participation and engagement.

SOWIT: Social Web for Inclusive and Transparent democracy.

Citizen Deliberations

Deliberative processes and institutions can lead to:

1. More informed decisions

2. Fairer and more publicly oriented outcomes

3. Improved civic skills

4. Promote legitimacy

(Hendriks 2006, Held 2006)

Challenges

Existing deliberative fora are:- Timebound- Limited to a representative sample of

citizens- Potentially exclusive- Not integrated

Components1. Public Sphere- Permanent and open on line forum for citizen, councillor and official

communication and information exchange.- Citizens join to connect, exchange information and form discourse

groups- Its output and sentiment can be generated into reports when

requested for discussion in the Council

2. Deliberative Sphere- Activated during the policy development process- Involves randomly sampled ‘discourse speakers’ - Ensures inclusion through diversity of discourses

3. Local Council/policy development Sphere- Output of deliberative sphere is input to policy deliberations in Council- Final Council policy is scored for similarily/difference to deliberated

citizen policy draft. - Provide direct feedback

Proposed SOWIT policy process

Preliminary consultation

Draft compiled

Public Consultation Manager’s report

Council

SOWIT Public Sphere

SOWIT Public Sphere

SOWIT Deliberation

Sphere

SOWIT Deliberation

Sphere

SOWIT Public Sphere

SOWIT Public Sphere

Revised policy

SOWIT Public Sphere

SOWIT Public Sphere

Feedback

Conclusion

SOWIT is being collaboratively developed Potential to - Empower citizens- Harness collective knowledge- Strengthen existing representative process - Increased transparency and legitimacy of

policy making process.