Deliberative Democracy in Asia 9780367609009, 9780367608958, 9781003102441

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Deliberative Democracy in Asia; edited by Baogang He, Michael G. Breen and James S. Fishkin Format: Royal (156 × 234 mm); Style: Supp; Font: Bembo; Dir: T:/2-Pagination/DDA_RAPS/ApplicationFiles/9780367609009_text.3d; Created: 16/06/2021 @ 21:44:31

‘Asia is home to rich deliberative cultures, faltering and flourishing democratic states, and some resolutely authoritarian ones. Deliberative Democracy in Asia explores interactions across deliberative practices and different forms of politics in numerous national cases. The result is a compelling and theoretically sophisticated tour of the ways public deliberation can play out in Asia.’ John S. Dryzek, Centenary Professor, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra ‘Deliberative Democracy in Asia is an essential guide to the old and new forms of deliberative democracy found across Asia. Theoretically sophisticated and empirically grounded, the research presented in these chapters is as eye opening as it is excellent. It is wonderful to see the discourse about deliberative democracy expanding beyond the usual borders.’ Simone Chambers, Professor of Political Science, University of California Irvine

Deliberative Democracy in Asia; edited by Baogang He, Michael G. Breen and James S. Fishkin Format: Royal (156 × 234 mm); Style: Supp; Font: Bembo; Dir: T:/2-Pagination/DDA_RAPS/ApplicationFiles/9780367609009_text.3d; Created: 16/06/2021 @ 21:44:31

DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY IN ASIA

Featuring cases from India, China, Indonesia, Nepal, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Mongolia and Malaysia, the authors demonstrate and compare the differing uses of public deliberation in Asia. Many countries in Asia have long traditions of public deliberation, in both democratic and undemocratic settings, some of which continue today. Yet in the face of pressures from complex governance, popular protests and democratization, certain deliberative practices − notably Deliberative Polling − have been ‘parachuted’ into the region without regard to historical or traditional practices of deliberation. Moreover, the motivations differ. Some states have made use of public deliberation in order to contain dissent, while others have more emancipatory goals in mind. The contributors to this book take a comparative perspective on the emergence and evolution of deliberative practices in Asia and their relationships with democracy. They analyse the main motivations for introducing public deliberation in different political regimes and the effectiveness of public deliberation in Asian countries for solving problems and improving governance. In doing so, they evaluate whether deliberative democratic tools can apply to all societies, regardless of their political and cultural differences. Essential reading for students and scholars of Asian Politics, this book will also be of great use to all political scientists with an interest in deliberative democracy. Baogang He is Alfred Deakin Professor, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Chair in International Relations at Deakin University, Australia since 2005 and was formerly inaugural Head of Public Policy and Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Michael G. Breen is a Lecturer in Public Policy (MECAF) in the School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Melbourne and is the author of The Road to Federalism in Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka: Finding the Middle Ground (2018, Routledge). James S. Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University, where he is Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science, Director of Stanford’s Center for Deliberative Democracy and Chair of the Department of Communication, and in 2014 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

POLITICS IN ASIA

Politics of East Asian Free Trade Agreements Unveiling the Asymmetry between Korea and Japan Byung-il Choi and Jennifer S. Oh ASEAN and Regional Order Revisiting Security Community in Southeast Asia Amitav Acharya The United States’ Subnational Relations with Divided China A Constructivist Approach to Paradiplomacy Czeslaw Tubilewicz and Natalie Omond Deliberative Democracy in Asia Baogang He, Michael Breen and James Fishken Chinese Foreign Policy Toward the Middle East Kadir Temiz Decolonizing Central Asian International Relation Beyond Empires Timur Dadabaev For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Politics-in-Asia/book-series/PIA

Deliberative Democracy in Asia; edited by Baogang He, Michael G. Breen and James S. Fishkin Format: Royal (156 × 234 mm); Style: Supp; Font: Bembo; Dir: T:/2-Pagination/DDA_RAPS/ApplicationFiles/9780367609009_text.3d; Created: 16/06/2021 @ 21:44:31

DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY IN ASIA

Edited by Baogang He, Michael G. Breen and James S. Fishkin

Deliberative Democracy in Asia; edited by Baogang He, Michael G. Breen and James S. Fishkin Format: Royal (156 × 234 mm); Style: Supp; Font: Bembo; Dir: T:/2-Pagination/DDA_RAPS/ApplicationFiles/9780367609009_text.3d; Created: 16/06/2021 @ 21:44:32

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Baogang He, Michael G Breen and James S Fishkin; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Baogang He, Michael G Breen and James S Fishkin to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalogue record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-60900-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-60895-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-10244-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441 Typeset in Bembo by Taylor & Francis Books

Deliberative Democracy in Asia; edited by Baogang He, Michael G. Breen and James S. Fishkin Format: Royal (156 × 234 mm); Style: Supp; Font: Bembo; Dir: T:/2-Pagination/DDA_RAPS/ApplicationFiles/9780367609009_text.3d; Created: 16/06/2021 @ 21:44:32

CONTENTS

List of figures List of tables Acknowledgements List of contributors 1 Deliberative Democracy in Asia: Past, Present and Future Baogang He and Michael G. Breen

ix x xi xii 1

2 Village Deliberative Democracy and Village Governance in China Baogang He, Huang Zhenhua and Wu Jinjin

19

3 Indonesia: Deliberate and Deliver – Deepening Indonesian Democracy through Social Accountability Hans Antlöv and Anna Wetterberg

38

4 Deliberative Democracy in Indian Villages Prabhat Kumar Datta 5 Nepal: Participatory and Deliberative Constitution-making in a Divided Society Michael G. Breen 6 Deliberative Democracy versus Elite Deliberation in Malaysia Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani 7 Consultation as Non-Democratic Participation: Singapore and its Implications Garry Rodan

54

70 87

103

Deliberative Democracy in Asia; edited by Baogang He, Michael G. Breen and James S. Fishkin Format: Royal (156 × 234 mm); Style: Supp; Font: Bembo; Dir: T:/2-Pagination/DDA_RAPS/ApplicationFiles/9780367609009_text.3d; Created: 16/06/2021 @ 21:44:32

viii Contents

8 The Philippines: An Uneven Trajectory of Deliberative Democracy Nicole Curato 9 Democracy and Deliberative Polling in Policymaking in Japan Yasunori Sone

120 136

10 Deliberative Democracy in South Korea: Four Deliberative Polling Experiments Jieun Park

154

11 Deliberative Polling on the Amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act in Macao Angus Cheong, James S. Fishkin and Alice Siu

172

12 Mongolia: Piloting Elements of a Deliberative System James S. Fishkin and Alice Siu

190

13 Conclusion: Comparative Questions About Deliberative Democracy in Asia Mark E. Warren

205

Index

218

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FIGURES

2.1 2.2 9.1 10.1 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 12.1

Increasing frequency of village deliberation Villages’ perception of village deliberation institutions Random sampling and deliberation Opinions for and against the resumption of construction Whether the two laws should be amended Press Council approaches (0-10 points) Broadcasting Council Approaches (0-10 points) Whether to regulate the internet (0-10 points) Proposals before and after deliberation

22 25 146 165 178 179 181 182 198

Deliberative Democracy in Asia; edited by Baogang He, Michael G. Breen and James S. Fishkin Format: Royal (156 × 234 mm); Style: Supp; Font: Bembo; Dir: T:/2-Pagination/DDA_RAPS/ApplicationFiles/9780367609009_text.3d; Created: 16/06/2021 @ 21:44:32

TABLES

2.1 The Raw Data of Villagers’ Perception of village Deliberative Democracy 2.2 Variable descriptive statistics 2.3 Variable descriptive statistics (continued) 2.4 The determinants of village deliberation (negative binomial regression) 2.5 Distribution of the participants 9.1 Seven Deliberative Polls in Japan 10.1 Evaluation Criteria 10.2 Trends of opinion changes by discussion category 10.3 Changing trends during primary and second survey 10.4 Changing trends by discussion category 10.5 Changing trends in tax-raising for spent nuclear fuel storage facility 10.6 Features of the four stages of Deliberative Polling on Shin-Gori Nuclear Reactors No. 5 and No. 6 11.1 Respondent statistics for Deliberative Polling on media laws in Macao 11.2 Selected qualitative text on group discussions 11.3 Post-Deliberative Polling evaluations 12.1 Opinion changes in means and percentages 12.2 Mongolia National Deliberative Poll on Constitutional Amendment: Opinion changes by means and percentages − selected results

24 26 27 29 31 140 156 157 160 162 163 165 175 184 185 195

201

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to thank the organisers, presenters and participants of two conferences on deliberative democracy in Asia, one at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 2015 and the other at Central China Normal University, China in 2019, from which these papers were drawn. The editors would express deep appreciation of Professors Xu Yong and Deng Dacai for their support and this edited book is a part of their publication series on deliberative democracy. The editors acknowledge Taylor & Francis for allowing the extension of material first published as: Breen, Michael G, 2018. ‘Nepal, federalism and participatory constitution-making: deliberative democracy and divided societies’, Asian Journal of Political Science, 26(3): 410–30. Michael Breen thanks the Centre for Constitutional Dialogue in Nepal. Angus Cheong, Alice Siu and James Fishkin thank Sherry Chang and Juliana Yuncg for their contributions to Chapter 11. James Fishkin and Alice Siu give special thanks to MP Zandashatar Gombojav, without whom the institutionalisation of Deliberative Polling in Mongolia would not have occurred. They also thank Mayor Erdene Bat-Uul of Ulaanbataar for his leadership in bringing Deliberative Polling to Mongolia. In addition, the help and advice at every step of Mark Koening of the Asia Foundation was invaluable.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Hans Antlöv has over 35 years of leadership and analytical experience in public sector governance, public policy, civil society empowerment and community development and is currently team leader for the USAID-MADANI Civil Society Support Initiative in Indonesia, managed by FHI 360. Michael G Breen is a Lecturer in Public Policy (MECAF) in the School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Melbourne and is the author of The Road to Federalism in Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka: Finding the Middle Ground (2018, Routledge). Angus WH Cheong is founder and CEO of ERS e-Research & Solutions, a datadriven research company specialising in data mining, public consultation polling and survey research, founding president of the Macao Association for Internet Research and served the University of Macau as an assistant professor between 1996 and 2009. Nicole Curato is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra, the author of Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedy to Deliberative Action (2019, Oxford University Press), Power in Deliberative Democracy: Norms, Forums, Systems (2018, Palgrave, with Marit Hammond and John B Min) and the editor of the Journal of Deliberative Democracy. Prabhat Kumar Datta, formerly Centenary Chair of Public Administration in the Department of Political Science, University of Calcutta, India, is currently Honorary Adjunct Professor, Institute of China Rural Studies, Central China Normal University and Visiting Professor, Xavier Law School, St Xavier’s University, Kolkata. James S Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University, where he is Professor of Communication and Professor of

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List of contributors xiii

Political Science (by courtesy) and Director of Stanford’s Center for Deliberative Democracy In 2014 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Baogang He is Alfred Deakin Professor, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Chair in International Relations since 2005, at Deakin University, Australia, and was the inaugural Head of Public Policy and Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Zhenhua Huang is an associate professor in the Institute for China Rural Studies at Central China Normal University, Wuhan. Jieun Park is a PhD Candidate at the Zhou Enlai School of Government at Nankai University, China and has worked as a researcher of the Sungkyun Institute of China Studies. Garry Rodan is an Honorary Professor of Political Science and International Studies at The University of Queensland and an Emeritus Professor of Politics and International Studies at Murdoch University. Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani is Professor of Politics and International Relations at the School of International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia, a regular columnist on international affairs for the Malay-language newspaper, Berita Harian, and Visiting Adjunct Professor for School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Taylor’s University Malaysia. Alice Siu received her PhD from the Department of Communication at Stanford University and has since advised policymakers and political leaders around the world, at various levels of government, including leaders in China, Brazil and Argentina. She is Associate Director of the Stanford Center for Deliberative Democracy where she has organized and collaborated on Deliberative Polls in many countries. Yasunori Sone is Professor Emeritus, Keio University, a Provost of Japan Akademeia and was formerly the Director of the Center for Deliberative Poll at Keio University, Chairperson of National Deliberative Poll on Energy and Environment (2012) and Acting Chairperson of the Committee on the House of Representatives Election System (2014–16). Mark E Warren, as the Merilees Chair for the Study of Democracy, established the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at the University of British Colombia, which he directed during 2004‑07, and has also worked at the Department of Government at Georgetown University, where he co-founded the Center for Democracy and the Third Sector.

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xiv List of contributors

Anna Wetterberg, currently with RTI International, has over 20 years of experience working on research and project implementation in international development, with a focus on governance and policy analysis. Jinjin Wu is an assistant professor in the College of Management at Shenzhen University, China, and has been a visiting fellow at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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1 DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY IN ASIA Past, Present and Future Baogang He and Michael G. Breen

Setting the Scene and the Aims of the Book Over the past two decades, a wide range of consultative and deliberative meetings have been introduced in Asia. From the reinvigoration of traditional village deliberation to the introduction of Western models of Deliberative Polling®, public participation is burgeoning. Nevertheless, the scholarly work on Asian deliberative democracy is lacking. Although there is a growing body of literature on some Asian countries, the Asian story of deliberative democracy has seldom been heard as a whole. This edited volume is the first to take a comparative perspective on the emergence and evolution of deliberative practices in Asia, and their relationship with democracy. It analyses the main motivations for introducing public deliberation in different political regimes, the effectiveness of public deliberation in Asia, and whether deliberative democratic tools, in particular the Deliberative Polling technique, can apply to all societies and cultures, regardless of their political and cultural differences. In doing so, it examines the prospect of deliberative democracy in Asia. Featuring cases from India, China, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Japan, Mongolia, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia, the edited book reveals the differing uses of public deliberation, from the control of dissent to the empowerment of the public, the impact of traditions, cultures and political regimes, and provides insights into different applications of public deliberation across the region. This book also features renowned figures in the field of deliberative democracy in Asia and the world, such as James Fishkin, Yasunori Sone, Garry Rodan and Mark Warren, bringing together cases from across Asia to address critical questions concerning the past, present and future of deliberative democracy in Asia. It includes academic specialists and practitioners working in fields of development, public consultation and constitution-making. Although Asia has both an extensive DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-1

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2 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

experience and tradition of both public and elite deliberation, scholarly analysis has been limited. Most of the research to date has been by the contributors to this volume. This volume shows how participatory and deliberative institutions are pursued and promoted by national or local leaders, as well as by rural and urban residents in Asia. It focuses on deliberative processes, deliberative institutions, deliberative democratisation and their contribution to governance in Asia. Currently, most research work often examines an individual case of deliberative democracy practice in one Asian country. This edited book aims to develop a comparative study and create new knowledge of deliberative innovations in Asia. This chapter has six sections. Section 1 provides an overview of the theory and practice of deliberative democracy. Section 2 addresses the question of why Asia needs public deliberation to develop, improve and deepen democracy. Sections 3, 4 and 5 examine the issues concerning deliberative traditions, the current state of affairs, and prospects of deliberative democracy in Asia respectively. Section 6 offers an abstract of each chapter.

The Theory and Practice of Deliberative Democracy Deliberative democracy can be described as an ideal or approach that emphasises the role of deliberation among equals, that induces reflection, and that results in binding and legitimate decisions. Decisions should be based on the “power of reason,” rather than political, economic, or military power. A deliberative democracy can use a variety of methods towards reaching collective decisions. Bachtiger and Parkinson (2018), for example, argue that a deliberative democracy is one where “deliberativeness” – reason giving and mutual reflection - is integral to the overall working of a democratic system. Deliberation can be defined separately, as “mutual communication that involves weighing and reflecting on preferences, values, and interests regarding matters of common concern” (Bachtiger, Dryzek, Mansbridge and Warren 2018, 2). Deliberative democratic theory has made great advances over the past 40 years, since the beginning of “the deliberative turn” in the early 1980s (Floridia, 2018). Early proponents like Elster (1998), Cohen (1989), Fishkin (1991, 1997), Dryzek (2000, 1990), Habermas (1996, 1984) and Rawls (1993) contributed to the development of a coherent theory of deliberative democracy, which remains a major field of research today. The turn of the century saw deliberative democratic theory enter an experimental phase and begin to demonstrate how deliberative democracy can work in practice, primarily at the micro-scale through demonstration “minipublics.” Deliberative democracy has influenced theory and practice in several areas including participatory budgeting, public policy, global climate, and constitutionalism (Levy and Kong, 2018). Unlike the conventional constitutionalism study which is “conceived narrowly as ways of curbing political power” (2018, 2), deliberative constitutionalism examines how to establish and expand the power of public deliberation in the

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Past, Present and Future 3

constitution-making process, how deliberation shapes constitutionalism, and how constitutionalism shapes and affects deliberation. However, deliberative constitutionalism remains “abstract and largely unmoored from any particular legal and constitutional tradition” (Levy and Kong, 2018, 2); it lacks the empirical study of how deliberative constitutionalism can work in divided societies. Several chapters in this edited book examine the mechanisms, roles and functions of public deliberation in the process of constitutionalism in the Asian divided society context. The most important developments in deliberative democratic theory include John Dryzek’s (2005) seminal work on deliberative democracy in divided societies and Fishkin’s (2011, 2018) Deliberative Polling on constitutional matters. Both address the domination of politicians, political party leaders, and lawyers, and the exclusion of ordinary citizens in constitutional building and design. Their work has stimulated ongoing discussion about whether deliberative democracy can be effective in deeply divided societies, given the potential for increased polarisation and emotive, value-based debates (see Dryzek, 2005, 219–22). Furthermore, while Fishkin (2009) invented the Deliberative Polling technique and favoured working with the government directly, Dryzek (2005) emphasises that deliberation can be effective in deeply divided societies, if it instead occurs in a “semi-detached” sphere and is not associated with issues of identity and national sovereignty. Dryzek argues that deliberation attached to decision-making results in people (especially elites) being unlikely to change their minds and is instead polarising. He favours local level deliberation and is critical of elite and party-based deliberation. Two of the most widespread and influential deliberative methods are Deliberative Polling, which is one focus of this volume, and Citizen’s Assemblies. Deliberative Polling was first introduced in Fishkin’s seminal publication Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions for Democratic Reforms (1991). Deliberative Polling uses social science methods to ascertain a “more genuine public opinion” – one that is the result of informed reason exchange and reflection. The Deliberative Polling methodology uses a randomly selected cohort of citizens, who are provided with a balanced and independently reviewed briefing package, prior to deliberating together about a set of issues or problems. The use of a questionnaire that is administered both before and after the deliberation is key to the approach. In this way, and because the sample is representative, opinion change can be detected and extrapolated onto the broader public. Deliberative Polling has been implemented in more than 30 countries across the world, including several countries in Asia. Fishkin argues that Deliberative Polling can be implemented in any context regardless of culture. Deliberative democratic theory is now taking a systemic turn (Mansbridge et al., 2012). In 2012 Mansbridge and other leading deliberative democracy scholars issued a “manifesto” for a deliberative systems research agenda. A deliberative system encompasses an approach to governing whereby reason-based discussion, reflection and consensus-building are central to policy- and decision-making processes (Bachtiger and Parkinson 2019, Mansbridge et al., 2012). A deliberative

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4 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

system is not necessarily democratic, and deliberation is itself contingent, performative and distributed (see also Curato, this volume). Public deliberation is not necessarily democratic either. He and Warren (2011) introduced the concept of authoritarian deliberation, through an analysis of China. Authoritarian deliberation “combines authoritarian distributions of the power of decision with deliberative influence” (He and Warren 2017, 156). He and Warren (2011; 2017) argue that the introduction of deliberative methods in China was primarily functionally driven and that it could serve to either consolidate and stabilise authoritarianism or lead to the incremental democratisation of the regime. Several of the case countries considered in this volume, most notably Singapore and Malaysia, are sometimes described as semi-democratic, technocratic or authoritarian (e.g. Case 2007, Rodan 2018). So what makes deliberation democratic? According to Warren (2017) to be considered democratic, a system must serve three functions: it must empower inclusion; enable collective agenda and will formation; and organise collective decision-making. He highlights that deliberative approaches are not suitable for furthering all democratic objectives, that each mechanism (e.g. voting, deliberative minipublics) has different strengths and weaknesses and that there could be “institutional mixes of practices that would maximise a political system’s democratic problem-solving capacities” (Warren, 2017, 39). Warren identifies seven generic political practices, including elections and deliberation.

Why Deliberative Democracy in Asia? There are many concepts of democracy. The most commonly held view equates democracy with (free and fair) elections and majoritarian rule (e.g. Dahl, 1989, Przeworski et al., 2000), which are the basis of most contemporary measures of democracy (e.g. Marshall, Gurr and Jaggers, 2019, Freedom House, 2019). Following this conceptualisation of democracy, we have observed a deepening of democracy in North East Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Mongolia), but democracy is in trouble in many parts of South and South East Asia (Freedom House, 2019). Elections have placed in power nationalist, populist and military-backed regimes, and in many countries, human rights are under threat. In Malaysia, hopes that the 2018 election had heralded a new democratic era were dashed when the vanquished former Barisian Nasional coalition returned to power, despite it lacking an apparent parliamentary majority. Myanmar’s military continues to stonewall democratic reform and perpetuated large-scale atrocities on Rohingya people. Thailand remains largely under military rule (even after elections), while Cambodia and Bangladesh have both used extrajudicial means to restrict opposition movements and predetermine election outcomes. The populist President Duterte of the Philippines has become well-known for state-sanctioned human rights abuses as part of his war on drugs. In India, Prime Minister Modi has used his huge majority to lead a Hindu nationalist agenda that has resulted in an eruption of violent protests right across the country. In Sri Lanka, the electorate returned alleged war criminals to power, in polls called after the unconstitutional dismissal of the prime minister by the then president. These are just some examples.

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Past, Present and Future 5

The world and Asia have witnessed the crisis of democracy. The quality of democracy has declined in India, Cambodia and Myanmar. Thailand has experienced further setbacks and the retreat of democracy, and China has resisted democratisation. The crisis of democracy is worsening in the public sphere: fast and fake information invades and occupies social media just as fast food fills people’s stomach (see also Sone, this volume). To deal with the crisis of Asian democracy, Khanna (2019, 302) describes a new process of gradual shifting from democracy to technocracy in Asia. While there are elements of emergent technocracy in Asia, technocracy itself faces the challenge of complexity governance, information management and citizen’s pressure. We have already witnessed technocratic governments being forced to deploy public hearing instruments in Asia. Thus, to improve and advance democracy and to better develop technocratic governance in Asia, one approach and path is through developing and promoting deliberative democracy − a sort of “slow” but reflective democracy. Deliberative democracy contrasts with and improves an aggregative electoral democracy. An aggregative electoral democracy relies on the counting of preferences, usually expressed through voting, and tends to assume that people’s preferences are fixed, and the main task is to collect and count those preferences. A deliberative democracy assumes that preferences can change, and indeed, that democratic decision-making should be based on such informed and reflective preferences. Deliberative democracy can make citizens more informed and more willing to change their policy preference, thus laying down a solid foundation for better-quality policy. Of course, aggregative and deliberative democratic approaches are not mutually exclusive, and many liberal democracies today combine the two in one way or another. Majoritarian electoral democracy, while an aspiration of many, has contributed to or been associated with minority oppression, civil war, forced migration and resulting refugee crises and, ultimately, the demise of electoral democracy in Asia (e.g. Horowitz, 2000 [1985]; Lijphart, 1977). Given circumstances such as these, leading democratic theorists (e.g. Habermas, 1984; Fishkin, 2009, 2018) contend that deliberative democracy can supplement electoral democracy to overcome the tyranny of the majority, legitimate outcomes and promote the force of public reason. Indeed, public deliberation in Myanmar can overcome the pathologies of public consultation, improve the quality of federalism debates, provide legitimation for outcomes and promote a public reason-based cultural change (Breen and He, 2020). Deliberative democracy can improve and deepen participatory democracy. Some of the earliest ideas about deliberative democracy in political theory came from participatory democracy and an exploration of its problems (see Mansbridge, 1983). Deliberative democracy itself can be participatory – that is based on the deliberation of mass citizens – or representative (as in a liberal democracy) (della Porta, 2018). Participatory democracy emphasises the direct involvement of mass citizens in collective decision-making and stresses that there should be numerous opportunities for participation, and that these should entail “genuine opportunities determine collective decisions” (Elstub, 2018, 189).

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Participatory and deliberative elements of democracy can be combined. Curato et al. (2017, 32) summarise one (of 12) key finding(s) from deliberative democracy research as “participation and deliberation go together.” Deliberative democracy can improve the existing form of participatory democracy in that it can develop public reasoning, encourage in-depth deliberation, and cultivate public spirit. Deliberative Polling, for example, uses random selection to achieve a scientific representation of the selected community. This method has overcome the problem of self-selection, which often exists in forms of participatory democracy (He, 2019). Deliberative Polling can reconcile these tensions and combine citizen deliberation and representation through random selection (He, 2015b). Nevertheless, Lafont (2020) points out the problem of “anti-democratic shortcuts” that are associated with mini-publics. She re-emphasises the importance of participation in public deliberation. In the age of digital social media, every individual can be a journalist, publisher and promoter for certain news. It is true that social media can be a positive force for change, as it has been in Malaysia where it has opened up new channels to challenge existing hegemonies (see Sani, this volume). However, disinformation and fake news pose significant challenges to the operation of democratic institution. In this area, deliberative democracy − for example, Deliberative Polling, can deal with disinformation and fake news successfully. Through deliberative meetings and well-designed moderator arrangement, citizens can discover the truth and be exposed to various perspectives and interests through open debates in a calm environment. Deliberative Polling can generate reason-based opinion change or policy preference change, thus informing and influencing decision-making. In summary, deliberative democracy can contribute to improving the course of democracy in Asia. Many countries in Asia have long traditions of public deliberation, in both democratic and undemocratic settings, some of which continue today. In the face of pressures from complex governance, popular protests and democratisation, certain deliberative practices – notably Deliberative Polling – have been deployed widely in the region. A study of the Asian practice of public deliberation can help us to draw a set of lessons about how to improve and deepen democracy in Asia through deliberative democracy practices. Through this edited book, authors consider to what extent the deliberative practices identified in their case contribute to democracy or democratisation.

Deliberative Traditions in Asia Elite and public deliberations have been a part of political society across the world for many centuries, seemingly regardless of culture. Sass and Dryzek (2014, 4) argue that “deliberation about the use of power…is a basic feature of political systems.” However, they note two main competing views about the impact of culture on deliberation. One, championed by Sen (2009), argues that deliberative public reasoning is a universal trait, even as justice must itself be deliberated on, given its contextual nature. The other is based on the work of Habermas (1984), which

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contends that deliberative capacity is related to modernisation and liberal democracy and is thus temporal. Young (1996) went further and argued that deliberation is essentially the reserve of Western white males and thus disadvantages minorities and non-Western cultures. But in Asia, the deliberative tradition has been among the strongest in the world and a part of culture. In East Asia, Confucian heritage is particularly influential. China’s traditions of public consultation, evident throughout history and Confucian culture have continued, and were even incorporated into Mao’s official ideology (He, 2015a). The strong emphasis on consensus in political culture lends itself to a deliberative process. Today, many in China would argue that their form of deliberative governance entails “a higher form of democracy” than that of the electoral democracy practiced in the West (Ma and Hsu, 2018, 7; Noumoff, 2011). Japan and Korea also have a Confucian tradition to draw on, and both have incorporated certain democratic values and traditions from the West. However, in Japan, deliberation has in some cases been seen to conflict with its “rigid social hierarchies” (Tang, Tamura and He, 2018). On the subcontinent, public deliberation has a long history. The region’s deliberative practices, which were both “state-sponsored” and used to criticise the state, date back more than 2,000 years and cross different religious traditions, including Buddhism and Hinduism (Parthasarathy and Rao, 2018, 807). During the independence period, Mahatma Gandhi advocated for the institutionalisation of village democracy based on citizen participation, equality and deliberation (Gandhi, 1962). Although not incorporated at that time, India has since established the largest participatory deliberative institutions in the world – Gram Sabhas (see 73rd Amendment of the Constitution of India). Gram Sabhas, or village assemblies, provide an opportunity for each citizen to participate, debate and hold the local council and officials accountable for their policies and programmes. Based on an analysis of deliberations in the Gram Sabhas, Sanyal and Rao (2019) develop the concept of an “oral democracy.” The success of India’s democracy, in the face of many challenges, has been credited to this “argumentative tradition” (Sen, 2005). However, one problem with deliberation in the subcontinent pertains to the persistence of its caste system, which formalises a rigid hierarchy. Such hierarchies are not supposed to influence deliberative forums, but inevitably do. Nevertheless, Rao and Sanyal (2010) show how modes of political participation and accountability contribute to the creation of a safe space for deliberation that allows lowercaste participants to speak up and overcome otherwise pervasive social norms. Breen (2018) demonstrates that in the cases of Nepal, Myanmar and to a lesser extent Sri Lanka, the introduction of deliberative institutions and incentives have helped to moderate ethnic and caste division and elite polarisation, particularly during constitutional reform processes. In South Asia, like East Asia, there is a preference for consensus-based politics, which has affected the kind, longevity and operation of democratic institutions. For example, during the initial democratisation in Nepal in the 1950s “many were unhappy with the kind of public conflict involved in competitive elections or in

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Panchayats themselves making decision by majority vote … there was a preference to seek consensus” (Whelpton, 2005, 177). Indonesia also introduced deliberative mechanisms, many of which are based on culture or traditions of deliberation. Its tradition of public deliberation – musyawarah – became incorporated into the state’s national ideology (Pancasila) (principle four, “democracy guided by consensus arising out of deliberations amongst representatives” (cited in Sani and Hara, 2007, 12). In Malaysia, both Malay (Islamic) and Confucian traditions of consensus-building are influential. There is an acknowledgement that public consultation and deliberations are to some extent necessary because “the authority [of the ruler] is dependent upon a just and fair treatment of his citizens and consultation with local elites” (2007, 8). However, according to tradition and much of contemporary political practice (at least until very recently) this deliberation has been the reserve of the elite (Sani, 2009). Some have argued that Asian cultures generally are more communal and consensus-based (e.g. see Mukherjee, 2010, Whelpton, 2005, 173–77, Mauzy, 1997, Meijknecht and de Vries, 2010). Although “productive deliberation is [more often] plural, not consensual” (Curato et al., 2017, 31), a consensual mindset does lend itself to the introduction and institutionalisation of public deliberation. At the same time, however, it is true that public deliberation has been introduced in many cases as a way to control or supress protest movements and support regime continuity, rather than to pursue democratisation or to protect citizens’ rights (Tang, Tamura and He, 2018; Rodan, 2018). In other words, many states in Asia have introduced different forms of public and elite deliberation, but this does not mean that they have introduced deliberative democracy.

The Current Affair of Deliberative Democracy in Asia This edited volume engages with the spectrum of deliberative practices in Asia. It undertakes a theoretical and empirical exploration, and asks three key questions: 1.

2.

3.

What are the main motivations for introducing public deliberation into different political regimes? Have deliberative devices or practices successfully addressed the practical problems associated with the past public meetings? How does public deliberation help to improve governance, solve practical problems, enhance representation increase legitimacy, and in short, contribute to the advancement of democracy in Asia? Can deliberative democracy, in particular the Deliberative Polling technique, apply to all societies and countries regardless of their political and cultural differences? What modifications of Deliberative Polling are required to play different political communication roles in different societies?

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 – Village Deliberation - focuses on the adaptation of more traditional practices of village deliberation, including chapters on India, China and Indonesia. Village gatherings like townhall meetings in the

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USA are grassroots and empowered deliberations, constituting the foundation of a deliberative democracy that is deeply rooted in local practice. Each chapter asks how the practices in Asia exhibit certain components of deliberative democracy and how they might be enhanced. China, India, and Indonesia, all have witnessed the uneven development of village deliberative democracy with some successes and shortcomings. In China, the majority of village meetings have increasingly been regularised, and the number of village deliberation meetings have also been increasing. Some villages have successfully deployed deliberative mechanism to solve practical problems (Chapter 2). In India, Panchayats as institutions of self-government have mandated the representation for women and marginalised groups (Chapter 4). In Indonesia some 75,000 villages have developed village deliberation mechanisms to decide matters concerning village development plans with a result of “local-level power structures were moving away from patronage networks to stronger interactions between citizens and the state” (Chapter 3). Nevertheless, China’s village deliberation faced the challenge of the Chinese Communist Party’s total control in that the Party organisation extends its influence at the cost of genuine village deliberation. In contrast, most of the states of India do not allow political parties to be involved in the Panchayat elections openly. Still, India confronts the caste system, which inhibits the development of village deliberative democracy, while Panchayats are not usually required to implement – or even respond to - the decisions of the village assemblies. In Indonesia, village deliberation also faces the power structure challenge − that is, how to hold those with power to account; and accountability must be enhanced if local-level deliberations are to support the emergence of more deliberative democracy. Innovative forms of social accountability in both cases show potential, but much remains to be done. Several Asian countries have introduced deliberative practices into ethnically divided and semi-democratic states, which are covered in Part 2 of this book. Chapters on Malaysia and Singapore present two perspectives – one is that forms of public deliberation are giving rise to a new politics and an empowerment of civil society in Malaysia, the other that public deliberation is one mode of participation that contains and constrains dissent and supports regime continuity in Singapore. The case of Nepal shows a shift from a controlled elite deliberation to a more empowered and multi-layered public deliberation. In ethnically divided countries, ethnic issues cannot be ignored or hidden behind closed doors. They should be deliberated openly and systematically. Indeed, the very process of deliberating on issues related to ethnic identity entails an act of recognition that is one necessary step towards an ethnic conflict resolution. In the Philippines, populism and authoritarianism have interacted with the trajectory of deliberative practices, which nevertheless remain influential for the country’s democratic resilience. A series of influential Deliberative Polls have been introduced and implemented in Asia, which is the theme of Part 3. Zeguo township, in Zhejiang province, China, organised the first Deliberative Polling in March 2005 (Fishkin et al., 2010);

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in June 2005 South Korea also organised its first Deliberative Polling, which was followed by the first Deliberative Polling in Japan, in 2009, Deliberative Polling on the amendment of media laws in Macao in 2011, the Deliberative Poll in Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital, in 2015 and the national Deliberative Poll on amending the Mongolian Constitution in 2017. So far, China has had about half a dozen local Deliberative Polls (He, 2019); South Korea has had four at both local and national levels (and only one, according to James Fishkin, has met the criteria of Deliberative Polling), and Japan seven at both local and national levels during 2009–14. Despite being the first country to organise Deliberative Polling in Asia, in recent years China has witnessed the retreat of this experiment. In contrast, South Korea has institutionalised Deliberative Polling through establishing the National Public Deliberation Committee for Deliberative Polling, and in Japan, Deliberative Polling has built upon Japan’s democratic traditions and is now being incorporated into decision-making at both national and city levels. Deliberative Polling has been institutionalised as a necessary instrument or stage to pass significant laws in Mongolia. On 9 February 2017 the Parliament of Mongolia amended the 2010 Law on Constitutional Amendment Procedure, requiring Deliberative Polling to amend certain constitutional provisions regarding the powers of Parliament, the President and the Prime Minster (Odonkhuu, 2017). The inventor of Deliberative Polling, Fishkin, reflects on its use in Mongolia, advocating its ability to be used in any context, irrespective of the type of political regime. In Chapter 12, Fishkin and Siu specify democratic criteria to evaluate the operation of the Deliberative Polling as part of a deliberative system and offer democratic procedural steps to make deliberation a necessary component of democratic constitutional change processes.

Lessons from the Past and the Future of Deliberative Democracy in Asia To develop and deepen deliberative democracy in Asia, we need to draw lessons from the past deliberative democracy experiments so that the book can help to increase the speed at which the new knowledge of deliberative innovations is disseminated and mobilised across Asia. With this aim in mind, we will focus on Deliberative Polling as one innovative method being adopted in Asia. To learn lessons from the past experiments successfully, we need to examine both successful and failure cases. Indeed, the cases of Deliberative Polling in Mongolia and even in Zeguo, China, have met almost all deliberative democracy criteria (Fishkin et al., 2010). However, some cases in South Korea, as demonstrated in Chapter 10, meet deliberative democracy criteria partly. The Deliberative Polling experiment in Macao has also invited criticisms in the media; and one of the organisers, Angus Cheong, admits that it is difficult to arrange another. Deliberative Polling is increasing in Asia. Through random selection (or “civic lottery”), it establishes an advisory body of citizens, which has already become, and more will become, part of the decision-making process. However, there are several critical issues to be addressed in the redesign or refining of the Deliberative Polling method. One challenging issue that has arisen from the Deliberative Polling experiments is that while the Deliberative Polling is perceived as a fair procedure, some non-participant

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citizens question the legitimacy of the randomly selected participants: “they cannot represent us.” It can be devastating to legitimacy when only a relatively small number of citizens, about 200–300, participate in the Deliberative Polling event. In particular, when the issue is about constitutional amendments, the result of Deliberative Polling itself is not enough to provide sufficient justification; and the result of Deliberative Polling must be verified by referendum, or at least through a more representative institution, like a Constituent Assembly as in the case of Nepal. Indeed, when the Parliament of Mongolia passed the new law through appealing to Deliberative Polling without a referendum, it was a sort of, if we use Lafont’s (2020) term, “democratic shortcut” (Lafont, 2020). As Professor Odonkhuu (2017), at the National University of Mongolia, argues, “In the MPP [Mongolian People’s Party] manifesto, the deliberative polling and the ongoing nominal public participation process constitute sufficient modalities of ‘asking the people’, without the need to organize a referendum.” In the end, perhaps, one still needs a referendum to decide the matter regarding constitutional amendments. There is no “democratic shortcut.” Another issue is related to the selection and composition of experts in Deliberative Polling. To assemble a group of experts in the conduct of Deliberative Polling is an enormous task. Often practical and convenient considerations take over, and sometimes experts’ opinions influence the selection and presentation of balanced briefing materials for the participants. In this context, Odonkhuu (2017) points out several problems, including “participants received unbalanced information” and “almost all the expert explanations favored” certain issues in the Deliberative Polling on constitutional amendments in Mongolia. How can Deliberative Polling deal with the neutrality of experts? Deliberative Polls in South Korea offered us a valuable lesson: the perception of biased experts led to resistance in the 2013 Deliberative Polling experiment, and the neutrality of experts led to the success of the 2017 Deliberative experiment (see Chapter 10). To design a better Deliberative Polling, one needs to avoid and reduce experts’ interference, in particular, avoiding a partisan committee. Perhaps the future design of Deliberative Polling will introduce a new mechanism that allows citizens to have a say about the selection and composition of the expert committee. The role of political parties in the process of Deliberative Polling is another important issue. Deliberative democracy as a normative prescription is proposed as an alternative to party politics. Party-based members of parliament often lack the willingness or ability to engage meaningful public deliberation or change their position as a result of deliberation, as they are bound by party discipline and the party’s agenda and policy. But the result of Deliberative Polling in Mongolia has gone beyond the party line in that the ruling Mongolian People’s Party’s (MPP) policy preference of the indirect election of the president and the opposition Democratic Party’s policy preference of a Second Chamber garnered little support in the Deliberative Poll, and so the parties adjusted their policy positions in response. However, the conduct of Deliberative Polling itself often requires the support from a political party, and such party involvement inevitably brings a kind of bias, manipulation and risk. In China, Zeguo’s Deliberative Polling experiment

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was fully supported by the local Communist Party organisation. In Japan, it was the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) that had initiated Deliberative Polling. Now the ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, perceives Deliberative Polling as a DPJ method (Chapter 9). In Mongolia, the Deliberative Polling experiment was supported by the MPP. In this context, Odonkhuu (2017) argues that “in the absence of safeguards to ensure neutrality, the process [of Deliberative Polling] could merely legitimize the dominance of the actors pushing for the reforms.” There are the two paths that continue to be available to political regimes in the region – to use deliberation to underpin democracy or to develop more resilient forms of authoritarianism. Public deliberation has already become a smarter instrument for authoritarian renewal in Singapore (Chapter 7) and China (He and Warren, 2011, Qin and He, 2021). Such practice is likely to continue and even spread to other countries. Asian citizens need to work out a strategy to utilise deliberative institutions to challenge existing power relations (Qin and He, 2021). Nevertheless, in Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal and Japan, a variety of public deliberations are likely to continue to play an important role in deliberative constitutionalism. While a deliberative referendum on the Tibet question proposed by He (2015c) is unlikely, a deliberative referendum might take place in Japan. Sone discusses the various roles of Deliberative Polling in narrowing the options or choices to be offered in a referendum or becoming part of the referendum process itself (Chapter 9). Scholars and policymakers in South Korea have also discussed the establishment of the National Public Deliberation Committee for Deliberative Polling, and it is proposed that the National Statistical Office would conduct the random sampling. Asia will inevitably witness a further development of deliberative democracy in the next decade. Finally, we call for more dialogues between political theorists and Asian study experts, as well as between Western theories of deliberative democracy and Asian deliberative practitioners. This edited book is the first study to build a bridge between them. Indeed, deliberative democracy theory informs a set of comparative research questions (Chapter 13) and contributes to a better design, and improvement, of a deliberative system (Chapter 12). At the same time, drawing on the practical knowledge of participatory and deliberative institutions in Asia, Rodan is right to argue that “Deliberative Polling methods, for example, cannot simply be parachuted into any given political economy” (Chapter 7); and certain modifications and adaptions are required. It is too naïve for a political theorist to apply a normative theory to Asia without applying any solid empirical study. Only through the interaction, co-operation and collaboration between Western deliberative theorists and Asian study experts (as well Asian citizens) can we produce meaningful lessons and policy recommendation that will be broadly applicable across the Asian region.

Chapter Outline Following this introductory chapter, Chapter 2 by Baogang He, Huang Zhenhua and Wu Jinjin examines village deliberative democracy in China. Village democracy in

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China has expanded from village elections to village deliberation. Using survey results, this chapter assesses the extent to which China has established village deliberative democracy by examining the frequency of village meetings, the disclosure of village affairs, public discussion and reasoning and the actual impact on village decisions and policies. This is combined with case studies that examine how villages can use simplified versions of Deliberative Polling to solve social problems. The chapter also examines the conditions that help or hinder the development of village deliberation and the limitations of local deliberative democracy. The next chapter, on village-level democratic deliberation, by Hans Antlöv and Anna Wetterberg, covers Indonesia and its methods of citizen participation (Chapter 3). This chapter argues that support for citizen participation can consolidate deliberative spaces and improve government performance, if effectively linked to social accountability. The chapter documents shifting methods and magnitude of citizen engagement and public deliberation over two decades of democratisation through a review of village councils, participatory planning deliberations and citizen forums. It finds a stagnation that is largely due to older power structures persisting and concludes that, in order to re-ignite substantive change, citizens need to be involved not only in deliberations but also in ensuring that both elected officials and government bureaucrats are doing their jobs. In Chapter 4, Prabhat Kumar Datta examines village deliberative democracy in India. Datta focuses on village assemblies (Gram Sabhas), which are the prime theatre of grassroots democracy in India and represent deliberative democracy in practice. By synthesising his own studies with other empirical studies on the form and effect of the deliberation in the Gram Sabhas and its variants, Datta identifies necessary conditions for making village assemblies more meaningful and capable. He recommends ensuring local elections are held to mitigate caste-based elitism, allowing the involvement of political parties, banning traditional parallel bodies that do not include women, and bringing the Gram Sabhas even closer to the people through constitutional change. The first chapter in Part 2 (Chapter 5 − Nepal: Participatory and Deliberative Constitution-making in a Divided Society) examines the role of deliberation in finding a middle ground in Nepal’s constitution-making process. Michael Breen explains how, in 2008, Nepali citizens elected a Constituent Assembly to lead a participatory constitution-making process. Using the federalism debates as a case study, he examines various deliberative forums and other means of public consultation to show how a sequenced and multilevel process of elite and public deliberations, combined with representative and participatory institutions, to find a more moderate and less polarised discourse that ultimately underpinned federal constitutional change. Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani analyses the changes occurring in Malaysia in his chapter, “Malaysia: Deliberative Democracy, New Politics and the End of Consociationalism” (Chapter 6). For several decades, Malaysian politics was dominated by a ruling party (UMNO) that governed in a coalition with smaller ethnic parties and allowed for elite deliberation only. This chapter demonstrates that, over the

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past decade, there has been a shift to a “new politics” of deliberative democracy. It analyses the motivations for this change and identifies three factors – the divisive politics of the ruling party, the civil society movement and a burgeoning online media − that have worked together to transform Malaysian society, open the space for public deliberation and end its elite-based consociationalism. Singapore is also an ethnically divided and semi-democratic state. In Chapter 7, Rodan looks at how Singapore has used “Consultation as a Non-Democratic Mode of Participation.” Across a range of democratic and authoritarian political regimes around the world, new consultative institutions have expanded opportunities for citizens to participate in public policy deliberations. This chapter uses the case of Singapore to explain the emergence and political implications of these institutions. It applies a mode of participation (MOP) framework to show how the institutional arrangements and supporting ideologies of the Singapore government’s MOPs reflect the material, political and ideological interests of technocratic politico-bureaucrats under state capitalism and authoritarianism. Moving to the Philippines, Nicole Curato examines the uneven trajectory of deliberative democracy in the Philippines (Chapter 8)). The chapter begins by tracing the development of deliberative norms from anti-colonial movements and post-colonial builders of liberal institutions to everyday practices of deliberation in contemporary times. It identifies the tensions that these practices face with the rise, fall and return of authoritarian and populist politics and investigates the prospect of deliberative democracy in a public sphere that is compromised by disinformation networks and illiberal policies. Ultimately, this chapter argues that the uneven trajectory of deliberative democracy in the Philippines is both a strength and weakness in accounting for Philippine democracy’s resilience amid troubling times. In Part 3, we turn to the implementation of Deliberative Polling. Firstly, Yasunori Sone looks at “Japan: Policy making by Deliberative Polling” (Chapter 9). Sone analyses the seven official Deliberative Poll experiences in Japan, two of which were nationwide. He discusses the politics of their introduction and their benefits in comparison with other methods of seeking public opinion, democratic legitimacy and policy expertise. The chapter concludes that in Japan, participants in a Deliberative Poll can take the place of experts, which means that Deliberative Polling can be used without any corresponding need to change the political system. Further, Sone recommends the use of Deliberative Polling in place of referenda to avoid problems of populism, partisanship and media influence. Jieun Park’s chapter (Chapter 10) on South Korea focuses on the development and features of deliberative democracy and Deliberative Polling. In 2017 the impeachment of then president Park Geun-hye and the peaceful turnover of political power marked a watershed moment in Korean democracy. The new government introduced Deliberative Polling to resolve several contentious policy issues, including denuclearisation. This chapter gives a case study of four of these polls. It shows how Deliberative Polling has spread from central to local governments and why the media is critical to the acceptance of outcomes. Finally, the chapter discusses the institutionalisation process, recommending a permanent Public

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Deliberation Committee to raise the quality of Deliberative Polling and public deliberation. Still in East Asia, Cheong, Fishkin and Alice Siu analyse Macao’s Deliberative Polling on the amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act (Chapter 11). This Deliberative Poll in 2011 was the first in the Macao region. This chapter summarises the results of a comprehensive and systematic analyses of all the data and text collected. The Deliberative Poll also served important social functions of fostering mutual trust between media organisations and the general public; promoting social communication; enhancing citizen education; and meeting citizens’ expectation that their voices matter in decision-making. Chapter 12 focusing on Deliberative Polling is by Fishkin and Siu. They propose four criteria, constituting collective self-rule, to evaluate the practice of Deliberative Polling and deliberative systems. They argue that the combination in Mongolia of a “Law on Deliberative Polling” and two Deliberative Polls − one in Ulaanbaatar and one at the national level − pilot the elements of a workable deliberative system. This system, which is illustrated in the two projects, begins with broad public input in the setting of an agenda, followed by deliberations of an Advisory Committee leading to a Deliberative Poll, whose results constitute recommendations for implementation. In the capital city project, these recommendations were adopted by the Mayor, and in the national project they were a key input to the formulation and passage of a constitutional amendment. This pattern fits their criteria for collective self-rule in a deliberative system. In the conclusion (Chapter 13), Warren engages with the issues raised by each chapter, synthesising the learnings and theoretical ramifications and reflecting on the prospect of deliberative democracy in Asia. He explains how the chapters in this volume show that while deliberative politics is taking root in many Asian countries, it remains an open to question as to whether deliberative democracy is also growing. Deliberative forms of politics have many advantages for political leaders, particularly within fast-developing contexts. Through an organised process of conversation and deliberation, leaders can manage ethnic and other forms of conflict, co-opt resistance, gain information and often develop better public policies. Whether these effects underwrite democracy is another question. The chapters in this volume illustrate a full range of possibilities, advancing not only our comparative understanding of deliberative democracy, but also the development of more resilient forms of authoritarianism.

References Bachtiger, Andre and John Parkinson. 2019. Mapping and Measuring Deliberation: Towards a New Deliberative Quality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Breen, Michael G 2018. The Road to Federalism in Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka: Finding the Middle Ground, Politics in Asia. Abingdon and New York, NY: Routledge. Breen, Michael G. and Baogang He. 2020. “Moderating Polarized Positions on Questions of National Identity and Sovereignty: Deliberative Surveys on Federalism in Myanmar.” International Area Studies Review 23(1): 93–113.

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Case, William. 2007. “Semi-democracy and minimalist federalism in Malaysia.” In Federalism in Asia, edited by Baogang He, Brian Galligan and Takashi Inoguchi, pp. 124–133. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Cohen, Joshua. 1989. “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy.” In The Good Polity, edited by AP Hamlin and P Pettit, pp. 17–34. Oxford: Blackwell. Curato, Nicole, John Dryzek, Selen A Ercan, Carolyn M Hendricks and Simon Nieymeyer. 2017. “Twelve Key Findings from Deliberative Democracy Research.” Daedalus, 146(3): 28–38. Dahl, Robert A. 1989. Democracy and its Critics. New Haven, CT & London: Yale University Press. della Porta, Donatella. 2018. Can Democracy be Saved? Participation, Deliberation and Social Movements. Cambridge: Polity Press. Dryzek, John. 1990. Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy and Political Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dryzek, John S. 2000. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dryzek, John S. 2005. Deliberative Democracy in Divided Societies: Alternatives to Agonism and Analgesia. Political Theory, 33(2): 218–242. Elster, Jon. 1998. “Deliberation and Constitution Making.” In Deliberative Democracy, edited by Jon Elster, pp. 97–122. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elstub, Daniel. 2018. “Deliberative and Participatory Democracy.” In The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy, edited by Andre Bachtiger, Jane Mansbridge, John Dryzek and Mark Warren, pp. 187–203. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fishkin, James S. 1991. Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions in Democratic Reform. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Fishkin, James S. 1997. The voice of the people: Public opinion and democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Fishkin, James S. 2009. When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fishkin, James. S. 2011. “Deliberative Democracy and Constitutions.” In What Should Consstitutions Do?. In E.F. Paul, F.D. Miller & J. Paul, pp. 242–260. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fishkin, James S. 2018. Democracy When the People Are Thinking: Revitalizing Our Politics Through Public Deliberation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fishkin, James S., Baogang He, Robert C. Luskin and Alice Siu. 2010. “Deliberative Democracy in an Unlikely Place: Deliberative Polling in China,” British Journal of Political Science, 40(2):435–448. Floridia, Antonio. 2018. “The Origins of the Deliberative Turn.” In The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy, edited by Andre Bachtiger, John Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge and Mark Warren, pp. 35–55. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freedom House. 2019. Freedom in the World 2018. Gaithersburg, MD and London: Freedom House. Gandhi, M.K. 1962. Village Swaraj. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. Habermas, Jurgen. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and the Rationalization of Society Vol. 1. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, Jurgen. 1996. Between Facts and Norms. Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Translated by William Rehg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. He, Baogang. 2015a. “Deliberative Culture and Politics: The Persistence of Authoritarian Deliberation in China.” Political Theory (42): 58–81. He, Baogang. 2015b. “Reconciling Deliberation and Representation: Chinese Challenges to Deliberative Democracy,” Journal of Representation, Vol. 51, No. 1: 35–50.

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He, Baogang. 2015c. Governing Taiwan and Tibet: China’s Search for Democratic Approaches, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. He, Baogang and Mark Warren. 2011. “Authoritarian Deliberation: The Deliberative Turn in Chinese Political Development.” Perspectives on Politics, 9(2):269–289. He, Baogang and Mark Warren. 2017. “Authoritarian Deliberation.” Daedalus, 146(3): 155–166. He, Baogang. 2019. “Deliberative Participatory Budgeting: A Case Study of Zeguo Town, China,” Public Administration and Development, Vol. 39, No. 3: 144–153. Horowitz, Donald L. 2000. Ethnic groups in conflict (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Khanna, Parag. 2019. The Future is Asian: Global Order in the Twenty-First Century, London: W&N. Lafont, Christina. 2020. Democracy without Shortcuts: A Participatory Conception of Deliberative Democracy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levy, Ron and Kong, Hoi. “2018. Introduction: Fusion and Creation.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism, edited by Levy, Ron, Hoi, Kong, Graeme Orr and Jeff King, pp. 1-13. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lijphart, Arend. 1977. Democracy in plural societies: A comparative exploration. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ma, Deyong and Szu-Chien Hsu. 2018. “The Political Consequences of Deliberative Democracy and Electoral Democracy in China: An Empirical Comparative Analysis from Four Counties.” China Review, 18(2): 1–32. Mansbridge, Jane. 1983. Beyond Adversary Democracy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mansbridge, Jane, James Bohman, Simone Chambers, Thomas Christiano, Archon Fung, John Parkinson, Dennis Thompson and Mark Warren. 2012. “A systemic approach to deliberative democracy.” In Deliberative Systems: Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale, edited by John Parkinson and Jane Mansbridge, pp. 1–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marshall, Monty G., Ted Robert Gurr and Keith Jaggers. 2019. Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2018. Vienna: Centre for Systemic Peace. Mauzy, D.K 1997. “The human rights and ‘Asian values’ debate in Southeast Asia: trying to clarify the key issues.” The Pacific Review, 10(2): 210–236. Meijknecht, Anna and Byung Sook de Vries. 2010. “Is there a place for minorities’ and indigenous peoples’ rights within ASEAN?: Asian values, ASEAN values and the protection of Southeast Asian minorities and indigenous peoples.” International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, 17(1): 75–110. Mukherjee, Kunal. 2010. “Is There a Distinct Style of Asian Democracy?” Journal of Asian and African Studies, 45(6): 684–694. doi:10.1177/0021909610387068. Noumoff, Sam. 2011. “Democracy with Chinese Characteristics.” Economic & Political Weekly, 46(5): 21–23. Odonkhuu, Munkhsaikhan, 2017. “Mongolia’s (flawed) experiment with deliberative polling in constitutional reform,” Constitutionnnet, 29 June, retrieved 12 December 2020 from http://constitutionnet.org/news/mongolias-flawed-experiment-deliberative-pollingconstitutional-reform. Parthasarathy, Ramya and Vijayendra Rao. 2018. “Deliberative Democracy in India.” In The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy, edited by Andre Bachtiger, John Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge and Mark Warren, pp. 805–818. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Przeworski, Adam, Michael E. Alvarez, José Antonio Chiebub and Fernando Limongi. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Wellbeing in the World, 1950– 1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Qin, Xuan and Baogang He. 2021. “The Politics of Authoritarian Empowerment: Participatory Pricing in China,” International Political Science Review, published on 16 Feb 2021. Rao, Vijayendra and Paromita Sanyal. 2010. “Dignity through Discourse: Poverty and the Culture of Deliberation in Indian Village Democracies.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 629: 146–172. Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Rodan, Garry. 2018. Participation without Democracy: Containing Conflict in Southeast Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Sani, Mohammad Azizuddin Mohammad. 2009. “The Emergence of New Politics in Malaysia: From Consociational to Deliberative Democracy.” Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 5(2): 97–125. Sani, Mohammad Azizuddin Mohammad and Abu Bakar Eby Hara. 2007. Deliberative Democracy in Indonesia and Malaysia: A Comparison. Malaysia. Sanyal, Paromita and Vijayendra Rao. 2019. Oral Democracy: Deliberation in Indian VIllage Assemblies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sass, Jensen and John Dryzek. 2014. “Deliberative Cultures.” Political Theory, 42(1): 3–25. Sen, Amartya. 2005. The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity. London: Allen Lane. Sen, Amartya. 2009. The Idea of Justice. London: Allen Lane. Tang, Beibei, Tetsuki Tamura and Baogang He. 2018. “Deliberative Democracy in East Asia: Japan and China.” In The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy, edited by Andre Bachtiger, John Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge and Mark Warren, pp. 791–805. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Warren, Mark. 2017. “A Problem-Based Approach to Democratic Theory.” Americal Political Science Review, 11(1): 39–53. Whelpton, John. 2005. A History of Nepal. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Young, Iris. 1996. “Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy.” In Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, edited by Seyla Benhabib, pp. 120–135. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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2 VILLAGE DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY AND VILLAGE GOVERNANCE IN CHINA Baogang He, Huang Zhenhua and Wu Jinjin

Introduction Since China began instituting village self-government with regular elections in the 1990s, approximately 734,700 villages introduced and implemented more standardised village electoral procedures with villagers (over the age of 18) now able vote for village chiefs and members of Villager Committees every three years (Xu, 1997; He, 2007). However, despite these advances, the quality of village democracy varied hugely in practice. When we conducted research in the early 2000s we found that in some places, villagers still had no way to participate in the democratic management or supervision of rural public affairs, as they were excluded from decision-making processes altogether. We also found that in villages where elections had been held, village leaders did not always solicit villagers’ opinions as part of the democratic decisionmaking process. As others had pointed out, village elections remained by and large an incomplete or imperfect form of democracy, insofar as other democratic measures used were meagre, and the rural problems or conflicts would continue unresolved (Diamond and Myers, 2004; Mohanty, et al., 2007). There existed “accountability without democracy” (Tsai, 2007), “formal democracy without substance” (Xu and Shen, 2015) or “participation without democracy” (Rodan, 2018). As a means to address the above problems, China introduced village-based deliberative democracy. Pressure for establishing village deliberative democracy came from a mix of socio-political factors. The most predominant of these was the “rightful resistance” movement, where villagers across China used the country’s official laws to challenge local government policy (O’Brien and Li, 2006). As Chinese villages became wealthier, villagers paid greater attention to village finances and demanded participation in the financial decision-making process. At the same time, the government sought to uphold the notion of “a harmonious society” by reducing social conflicts through village dialogue. In 2010, the Legislative Office DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-2

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of the State Council drafted a document: “Guidelines on Procedures and Rules for Public Hearings.” The Chongqin municipality in 2012 introduced a set of new open decision-making processes for its villages. China has since developed a variety of village deliberation institutions, processes and procedures, including democratic talkfests, village discussion forums, heart-to-heart dialogues, a “one matter, one discussion” system (Yang and Guo, 2015), and a “village council” system (Xu and Shen, 2015). But most importantly, in the early 2000s, it instituted the regularisation of “all-villagers’ assemblies,” to be attended by all villagers over the age of 18, and village representative meetings. According to the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), by 2012 more than 230,000 village cadres had participated in economic responsibility audits, and more than 2 million villagers had participated in democratic evaluations of the village cadres (Tong and He, 2018). A notable example was the county-level city of Wenling, which displayed an impressive array of deliberative devices. Between 1996 and 2000 it held at least 1,190 deliberative and consultative meetings at village level. During this period, it held a further 190 meetings across its towns, and 150 meetings across governmental organisations, schools and business sectors (He, 2006). Village deliberative institutions had also been established nationwide (He and Warren, 2011; Kornreich et al., 2012). Village deliberative democracy is designed to deepen and strengthen village democracy, allowing village problems to be resolved more smoothly without dragging issues through unnecessary social conflict. It helps villagers to realise basic rights, promotes the construction of rural democracy based on villager self-government, expands the meaning of democracy in the minds of villagers and cadres alike and thereby improves the prospect for rural democracy in village life across the board (Tan, 2006; He, 2006; Huang, 2018). Current studies on village deliberative democracy are, however, restricted to cover either a single case or just a few cases (Zhao, 2015; Unger, Chan and Chung, 2014; Tang 2015). Even from a statistical viewpoint, Tong’s and He’s (2018) quantitative study of local deliberative democracy in China is based on a collection of 466 individual cases. Given that broad data are not available, case studies are the more important to test whether rural deliberative practice meets all or some of the criteria of deliberative democracy (Fishkin et al., 2010). This chapter offers two cases that examine the effectiveness of the operation of village deliberation, but given that these case studies are isolated incidents of deliberation and therefore unrepresentative, this chapter offers a statistical picture of the status of village deliberation and the recent trends; in this way, we are merely attempting to describe the national landscape of village deliberation through the survey data. While a statistical description and discussion might tell us something about the general trend of village deliberation, it says very little about the quality and effectiveness of village deliberation, specifically in terms of how it addresses the real life problems of villagers. In this respect, at least, the two case studies might help us to overcome this limitation. Combining the statistical analysis and the case

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Village Deliberative Democracy and Village Governance in China 21

studies, we can demonstrate how village deliberation has evolved and whether empowered village deliberation has occurred. The data used by this paper draws on the first 2005 National Survey sponsored by the Ministry of Civic Affairs and conducted by the Institute of Sociology in China’s Academy of Social Sciences and on annual surveys conducted by the Institute of Rural Studies in Central China Normal University since 2009. The 2005 National Survey randomly selected 2,710 villages from 130 counties and from 26 provinces and prefecture-level cities across China. The Institute of Rural Studies in Central China Normal University, for its 2009 sample, randomly selected 194 villages across China using the compound stratified sampling method. This method involved a three-step process. First, by taking provinces as a unit, the number of sample villages in each province was determined according to the population and the number of villages. Second, sampling software was used to select specific counties. And third, after determining specific counties, the research team sent investigators to each county and randomly selected a sample village in the local area. After identifying the sample villages, the investigators randomly selected 15 households in each village to conduct a questionnaire. The topic of the 2009 survey related to the state affairs in the previous year, so the reported results start from 2008. Every year since then, research teams have returned to the same villages in order to maintain the overall continuity of the samples, although appropriate adjustments have been made along the way. While their questionnaires have essentially remained the same through years, the 2017 survey had increased the size of the village example to 263 and added a number of questionnaires with respect to villagers’ perceptions of the respective village deliberative democracy activities held in 2016. Fifteen households in each village were randomly selected to answer this questionnaire. In all, the researchers received a total of 3,945 responses from respondents, 3,844 of which were valid. This survey has enabled us to establish a village deliberation index (which we discuss later). The chapter adopts Dryzek’s (2011) definition of deliberation as including authenticity, inclusiveness and consequence. In this regard, we will examine the frequency of village meeting, the availability of public information, representativeness and equal opportunities and right. In particular we assess the degree to which villages have achieved empowered deliberation by focusing on the question of whether village deliberation has impacted on actual decisions. While China has a political system that is based on consultative authoritarianism, as Truex (2017) argues, village deliberation does exist to some extent. This chapter has four sections. Section one discusses the regularisation and frequency of village deliberation. Section two establishes and measures a village deliberation index through an examination of nine indicators. Section three offers a statistical analysis of the factors that appear to have an impact on village deliberation. Section four provides two concrete cases that investigate how villagers use deliberation to solve actual problems and thus improve village governance.

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The Regularisation and Frequency of Village Deliberation To study the operation of village deliberative democracy, an examination of the frequency of various village meetings is of foremost importance. Without the regularisation of such meetings, village deliberative democracy cannot operate. Tellingly, in the initial 2005 National Survey, 59.3 per cent of respondents were unsure of whether there was more than one representative meeting. Only 28.3 per cent of respondents reported that their villages held at least two village representative meetings in 2004 (He, 2007, 96–97). The average number of village representative meetings reported had, however, increased substantially in 2008, to 5.9, and by 2016 this had increased to an average of 7.2. The number of village affairs disclosures had also increased significantly over this period, rising from 5.8 in 2008 to 8.9 in 2016, as had the number of the democratic appraisal meetings from 2.1 times in 2008 to 3.1 times in 2016. However, the number of village assemblies (attended by all villagers) increased only slightly, from 1.6 in 2008 to 2.1 in 2016, but this is partly because of the difficulty in organising such a meeting to be attended by all villagers. In summary, village deliberative democracy seems to have made considerable progress in terms of the regularisation and frequency of various village meetings (see Figure 2.1).

Measuring Village Deliberation Whether village deliberation is democratic depends on whether village deliberation is empowered − that is, whether villagers have opportunities to contribute to decision-making processes and thus influence the outcome. In the 2005 survey, 10 per cent of respondents reported that decisions on schools and roads in their villages in the previous three years were decided by an all-villagers’ assembly. A total

FIGURE 2.1

Increasing frequency of village deliberation

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Village Deliberative Democracy and Village Governance in China 23

of 20.7 per cent said that these decisions had been made by village representative meetings, and 25 per cent by villager leaders. If we combine the first and second responses, 30.7 per cent of respondents confirmed that villagers were able to influence village deliberation through an all-villagers meeting or village representation meetings. In the 2016 survey 36 per cent of villagers confirmed that major decisions were determined by all villagers’ meetings (or assemblies) or villagers’ representative meetings (higher than 30.7 per cent in the 2005 survey). At the same time, the percentage of villagers who believed that major decisions were made entirely by the village party secretary or village chief dropped from 25 per cent to 14.3 per cent. This indicates modest progress between 2005 and 2016; and it might be related to the regularisation of village meetings, as discussed above. Among the surveyed 263 villages in 2016, 165 villages (62.7 per cent) had established a Village Council System. Among these 165 villages, 96 (58.2 per cent) village councils comprised elected village representatives, and 37 (22.4 per cent) of these village council members were directly elected by all villagers. Finally, among the 165 villages, 107 (65 per cent) village councils made the final decisions, and 32 (19.6 per cent) village councils made final decisions through the vote of village representatives. The 2017 survey offered clear empirical indicators of the level of empowered deliberation, which we organised into four categories. The first category of three indicators included whether financial statements (as part of village affairs) were disclosed, whether the contents of all disclosures were true and reliable, and whether the villagers questioned the disclosures. The second category of three indicators was about whether villagers participated in the village meetings, whether villagers expressed their opinions and suggestions, and whether their opinions or suggestions were adopted. The third category covered the decisionmaking process − that is, who made the decisions about the major issues and through which village institution in the village. The fourth category of indicators was about whether the village established a system for the democratic evaluation of village cadres and whether the villagers participated in the democratic evaluation meetings on the village cadres. We assigned three scores for each question, thus 27 scores for all nine questions (See Table 2.1 and Figure 2.2). Overall, the total score of the village deliberation index in China was 13.94 points, accounting for 51 per cent of the possible total score of 27 points. Among the nine indicators, the highest score was the village affairs and financial disclosure system. 74.9 per cent of the villagers had confirmed that their village disclosed village affairs and financial statements to the villagers, with a score of 2.64 (out of 3). A total of 21.7 per cent and 52.5 per cent of the villagers believed that the content of information disclosure was very reliable or relatively reliable respectively. The index score here was 1.92 (out of 3). Only 5.4 per cent of villagers questioned the disclosure of village affairs (including the financial disclosures). Considering that up to 73 per cent of villagers recognised the authenticity of the disclosure of village affairs, the extremely low rate of questioning is understandable. In addition, 25.5 per cent of villagers said that they often participate in villagers’ meetings or the villagers’ assembly, and 46.6 per cent of villagers said that they

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TABLE 2.1 The Raw Data of Villagers’ Perception of village Deliberative Democracy

Primary indicator

Secondary indicator

Original measurement

Deliberative index score

Disclosure of village affairs

Were village affairs and financial statements disclosed? Were the contents of the disclosure true and reliable?

Yes, 2,863 (74.9%) No, 396 (10.4%) Don’t know, 563 (14.7%) Very reliable, 619 (21.7%) Quite reliable, 1,501 (52.5%) reliable, 637 (22.3%) Unreliable, 95 (3.3%) Very unreliable, 5 (0.2%) Yes, 153 (5.4%) No, 2,699 (94.6%) Frequently, 959 (25.1%) Occasionally, 1,780 (46.6%) Never, 862 (22.6%) No meeting, 217 (5.7%) Frequently, 376 (12.6%) Occasionally, 1,222 (41.1%) Never, 1377 (46.3%) Total adoption, 98 (6.2%) Partial adoption, 13 (84.3%) Never adoption, 151 (9.5%) Villagers’ assemblies, 15 (4.0%) Village representative meeting 1,219 (32.0%) Villagers Committee, 84 (22.1%) Village Party branch 113 (3.0%) Village party committee and village committee jointly, 613 (16.1%) Village party secretary or village director, 54 (14.3%) Don’t know, 323 (8.5%) Yes, 1,660 (43.5%) No, 1,145 (30.0%) Don’t know, 1,012 (26.5%)

2.64

Yes, 894 (33.7%) No, 1,333 (50.2%) Don’t know, 427 (16.1%)

1.20

All villagers’ meeting and village representative meetings

Did you question the disclosure? Did you participate in the village meetings?

Did you put forward your opinions and suggestions? Were your opinions or suggestions adopted?

Major village decision making

Who made the decisions on major issues in your village?

Democratic Evaluation of village cadres

Has your village established a system for the democratic evaluation of village cadres? Did you participate in a democratic evaluation meeting on village cadres?

1.92

0.15 1.91

1.20

1.87

1.27

1.78

Sources: Institute of Rural Studies, Central China Normal University

occasionally participate in villagers’ meetings or assemblies. This scored 1.91 points (out of 3 points). Only 12.6 per cent of the villagers said that they offer opinions and suggestions, and 46.3 per cent of the villagers said that they never do so. While 43.5 per cent of the villagers believed that their village had established a democratic

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Village Deliberative Democracy and Village Governance in China 25

FIGURE 2.2

Villages’ perception of village deliberation institutions

appraisal system; the proportion of villagers who participated in the democratic appraisal meeting was about 33 per cent.

Determinants of Village Deliberation We used the 2016 survey data to find out the factors that impact on village deliberation. The dependent variables in the table below are the numbers of all-villagers’ assemblies, villager representative meetings, democratic appraisal meetings and disclosures of village affairs. These form part of the objective data collected from the survey. For independent variables, we chose three types of factors that might affect the operation of village deliberative democracy. First, we included basic information about the village itself, such as population density, village types (urban villages, suburban villages, and remote rural villages), whether villages are multi-ethnic, the income groups of villages, and whether villages are in east, middle and west regions; second, we considered village politics, including the proportion of village party members, the average age of village cadres, the number of village cadres per 100 households and whether the positions of the village party secretary and director were held by one person. Third, we examined whether village election was by “direct nominations” (haixuan) or by the practices of recommended candidates (chuxuan), or “other” (meaning a non-democratic method when both haixuan and chuxuan excluded) (see Table 2.2). We ran a negative binomial regression model for statistical analysis. On the basis of the original co-efficients of the reporting model, in order to intuitively

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TABLE 2.2 Variable descriptive statistics

Variables

observation

Mean

The number of village representative meetings The number of allvillagers’ assemblies The number of democratic evaluation meetings The number of disclosures of village affairs Population density (person/km) Percentage of party members Average age of cadres Number of cadres per 100 households

261.00

5.96

259.00

Standard deviation

Minimum value

Maximum value

4.96

0.00

32.00

2.04

3.32

0.00

25.00

260.00

2.77

4.21

0.00

36.00

260.00

7.13

6.42

0.00

50.00

252.00

653.10

837.46

0.98

5,750.00

261.00

0.03

0.03

0.00

0.33

256.00 261.00

45.92 1.54

7.47 1.33

0.00 0.19

64.00 8.62

understand the marginal effects of the independent variables, we added the marginal effect coefficients after the original coefficients (See Table 2.3). We found that various factors have different influences on village deliberation. The factors that have a significant impact on the number of all-villagers’ meetings are population density, suburban villages, whether the positions of the village party secretary and director are held by the same person, the village committee election methods and rural areas in the western region. Of these factors, population density had a significant impact in terms of reducing the number of villagers’ meetings. This is because the higher the population density, the higher the cost of convening all-villagers’ meetings. The number of village meetings in suburban villages was also significantly lower than in urban villages and rural areas. This is, perhaps, because this type of village is geographically closer to the city and heavily influenced by urbanisation processes. The number of all-villagers’ meetings in the western region was significantly higher than that in the eastern and central regions, as villages in the western region are relatively less developed, so that it is still possible to hold all-villagers’ meetings in public spaces. Comparing other factors like geolocation, village income level and the average age of cadres, village political factors are the most important factor that influences village deliberation. The village power structure where the posts of the party secretary and village director are held by one person is likely to influence village deliberation. Often it is believed that the separation of a village party secretary from village chief forms a power balance and check system, so that such a separation

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Village Deliberative Democracy and Village Governance in China 27

TABLE 2.3 Variable descriptive statistics (continued)

Variables

Frequency

Percentage

Village type Village located in the city Suburban village

Rural village

7.00

2.68

27.00

10.34

227.00

86.97

215.00

82.38

Multi-ethnic 46.00 17.62 settlements One person holding party secretary and village chief positions Yes 91.00 34.87 No 170.00 65.13 Election methods “Direct nominations” (haixuan) Recommended candidate, then elections

Frequency

Percentage

Village income grouping

Ethnic groups

Single ethnic group

Variables

81.00

31.89

165.00

64.96

Low income Lowmiddle income Middle income Upper middle income High income Geolocation

50.00

19.31

51.00

19.69

52.00

20.08

53.00

20.46

53.00

20.46

East

83.00

31.80

107.00 71.00

41.00 27.20

Central West

should increase the number of village representative meetings. Surprisingly, the results show the opposite. The village power structure, where one person holds two positions, seems to be associated with a higher number of all-villagers’ assemblies, village representative meetings and the disclosures of village affairs, with an increase average of 1.5 times the village meetings. (Note: there is no statistical association between this and the number of democratic evaluation meetings, perhaps because in such instances where one person holds two key positions in villages, he or she tends to hold less democratic evaluations of his or her performance). This suggests that the separation of the secretary and the director affects the efficiency of village deliberation negatively. This unexpected result requires further research in future studies. In addition, we found that villages with a higher percentage of party members increased the frequency of village representative meetings, democratic evaluation meetings and disclosures of village affairs. Roughly an increase of 1 per cent of party membership is related to an increase of 0.2 times the village meetings. At the same time, there is no statistical association between the percentage of party membership and the number of all-villagers’ assemblies.

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28 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

In comparing local elections and deliberation, Ma and Hsu (2018) found that local elections are better than local deliberation in contributing to political trust and local governance. In our study, we found that fair village election methods positively influenced village deliberation and the number of village meetings. The villages that adopted a direct candidate nomination, which is the most fair election method and free from manipulation, are associated with a higher number of village meetings; in contrast, the villages that adopted other methods (excluding more democratic methods) are associated with a lower number of village meetings. Clearly, the non-democratic methods of village committee elections are significantly unfavourable to the implementation of the village deliberative system. The frequency of the disclosures of village affairs is negatively associated with suburban villages. However, where there was a higher proportion of party members in villages, it once again significantly increased the frequency of disclosures of village affairs. This, along with the village power structure where one person holds the two positions of village party secretary and village chief, contributes positively to the transparency of village affairs. Fair election methods are positively associated with the frequency and openness of village affairs.

Case Studies The Deliberative Democracy Experiment at Bianyu Village in 20061 As a suburb on the outskirts of Zheguo Township in Wenling City, by 2005 Bianyu village had undergone dramatic changes, with a great number of firms setting up factories there. By 2005 over 3,000 people had moved to Bianyu, surpassing the population of registered inhabitants. The large influx of the new village population meant that housing rentals now accounted for some 10% of each village household’s income. Bianyu village had witnessed social disorder between locals and migrants, and health concerns arising from environmental negligence. The most pressing concern for villagers was environmental pollution, especially in relation to garbage disposal and river contamination that affected their everyday life and health. To address these practical problems, village cadres randomly select participants from each of the categories in Table 2.5 plus 12 migrants. Four deliberative meetings were organised on issues of rural reconstruction planning on 17 March, on migrant families, social order, and sanitation on 19 March, on garbage disposal on 21 March, and on the village economy and afforestation on 26 June in 2006. To ensure as far as possible that participants had equal opportunities to speak and equal access to information, 12 schoolteachers were trained as moderators on how to facilitate discussions and make all the necessary information available to participants. They ensured that each of the participants was allocated equal time to speak. Before convening the talks, any relevant data or background material had to be prepared and distributed to all participants. Each of the roundtable talks primarily centred on one major issue for two hours. The first hour was set aside for panel discussions. Participants were grouped into six

0.686* (0.392)

0.293 (0.385) 0.0341 (0.229) 0.011 (3.088) 0.344* (0.196)

Village type: urban village

Multi-ethnic settlements

The percentage of party membership

Party secretary and village chief positions are not held by one person

0.556 (0.658)

0.388 (0.552)

Election methods: recommended candidates

0.176 (0.137)

0.089 (0.0675)

Number of cadres per 100 households

0.021 (0.020)

0.0104 (0.00976)

Average age of cadres

0.022 (0.06149)

0.068 (0.462)

0.693 (1.024)

-0.789** (0.396)

-0.489* (0.289)

Village type: suburban village

-0.279* (0.146)

-0.140** (0.0689)

Population density (ln)

(0.193)

0.569

-0.031 (0.0449)

-0.004 (0.00636)

(0.131)

0.248*

0.038*** (0.012)

-0.234* (0.138)

0.543* (0.287)

0.096 (0.522)

0.0270 (0.039)

(0.684)

2.481***

-0.187 (0.268)

-0.023 (0.038)

(0.805)

1.478*

0.228*** (0.071)

-1.288* (0.711)

4.167 2.817

0.584 (0.945)

0.161 (0.232)

Marginal effect

Co-efficient

Co-efficient

Marginal effect

Number of village representative meetings

Number of all villagers’ meetings

TABLE 2.4 The determinants of village deliberation (negative binomial regression)

(0.172)

0.401**

0.005 (0.0563)

-0.010 (0.00902)

(0.204)

0.200

0.059*** (0.020)

0.0441 (0.253)

0.507 (0.389)

-0.377** (0.189)

0.120* (0.0707)

Co-efficient

(0.387)

0.902**

0.015 (0.159)

-0.0292 (0.025)

0.578

0.564

0.166*** (0.059)

0.126 (0.740)

1.886 (1.801)

-.897** (0.425)

0.338 (0.216)

Marginal effect

Number of village democratic evaluation meetings

(0.142)

0.578***

-0.037 (0.0441)

-0.005 (0.005)

(0.133)

0.382***

0.044*** (0.016)

-0.121 (0.170)

0.358* (0.193)

-0.220 (0.154)

0.033 (0.049)

Co-efficient

(0.693)

3.292***

-0.269 (0.320)

-0.038 (0.038)

(1.016)

2.754***

0.321*** (0.118)

-0.838 (1.121)

3.143 (1.971)

-1.443 (0.933)

0.239 (0.355)

Marginal effect

Number of the disclosure of village affairs

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Village Deliberative Democracy and Village Governance in China 29

0.137

0.106 (0.317) 0.143 (0.249) -1.013*** (0.248) -1.067*** (0.277) 0.001 0.158

Middle and higher

Higher

Geolocation: Central

East

Lnalpha

238

0.043

0.158 237

0.312

-0.114 (0.167)

-0.214 (0.147)

0.0429 (0.161)

0.166 (0.170)

-0.111 (0.163)

1.001

-2.538*** (0.847)

-2.465*** (0.817)

0.292 (0.511)

0.212 (0.649)

0.269 (0.550)

-0.728 (1.082)

-1.302 (0.943)

0.259 (0.969)

1.064 (1.086)

-0.619 (0.919)

-0.463 (0.973)

3.506*** (0.940)

237

0.120

0.537

0.223

-0.621

-0.232 (0.240)

-0.145 (0.241)

-0.185 (0.213)

-0.401* (0.237)

-0.124 (0.323)

-0.446* (0.233)

0.541** (0.213)

Co-efficient

-0.668 (0.727)

-0.438 (0.744)

-0.595 (0.713)

-1.162 (0.739)

-0.411 (1.049)

-1.264* (0.717)

1.313** (0.565)

Marginal effect

Number of village democratic evaluation meetings

Note: Clustered standard errors in parentheses. ***, ** and * denote significance at 1 per cent, 5 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.

Observations

Alpha

-1.165

0.132 (0.268)

-0.082 (0.172)

Middle

-0.243 (0.451)

-0.137 (0.255)

0.734*** (0.216)

Village income group: middle and low

1.579** (0.764)

0.852 (0.559)

Election methods: open selection

Marginal effect

Co-efficient

Co-efficient

Marginal effect

Number of village representative meetings

Number of all villagers’ meetings

237

.0503

0.387

0.130

-0.948

0.179 (0.162)

-0.207 (0.163)

0.107 (0.167)

-0.0572 (0.188)

-0.182 (0.179)

-0.346** (0.173)

0.500*** (0.187)

Co-efficient

1.437 (1.252)

-1.376 (1.145)

0.884 (1.361)

-0.435 (1.439)

-1.304 (1.305)

-2.288* (1.227)

2.725*** (1.029)

Marginal effect

Number of the disclosure of village affairs

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30 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

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Village Deliberative Democracy and Village Governance in China 31

TABLE 2.5 Distribution of the participants

Villager delegates

Villagers

Women

Youth

Aged

Entrepreneurs

Poor families

Service men

Nonnative worker

Total

47

9

7

3

3

3

3

2

8

85

panels with 14 participants in each. The groups then came together for a one-hour plenary session. This was an opportunity for the cadres to listen and respond to competing views of the villagers. In brief, the design of village deliberation fully embodied the basic requirements of deliberative democracy − publicity, deliberation, broad representativeness and equality. In the discussion about the migrant issue, there are three different points of view. One did not support migrant families because they jeopardised public security and health. Another view supported migrant families on the grounds that centralised housing was conducive to administering them. According to this view, closer living arrangements help to improve hygiene standards in regards to garbage disposal. The third point of view held that if migrant families continued to settle in great numbers, large concentrations of migrants in the village will make it easier for thieves to mix among them. The democratic roundtables offered the representatives of the disadvantaged migrant population an opportunity to voice their concerns to villager participants. Regarding the public toilet issue, before the roundtable talk only 56.1 per cent of participants supported the building of public toilets in public parks and in the areas where a lot of migrants lived. But after the roundtable, those in agreement reached 80.7 per cent. Before the roundtable 50.9 per cent of participants thought the “migrants” should be charged to use the toilets. However, because representatives from the migrant population had the opportunity to voice their concerns about this to the villager participants in the roundtables, by the end of the discussion 62.7 per cent of people had rejected the proposal. Some argued that because migrant families contributed to developing village growth as a whole, such basic facilities ought to be freely available to them. It should be noted that all policy recommendations regarding migrants have since been implemented. One of the authors revisited Bianyu a few years later and saw a new apartment for migrants being built and managed, resulting in a clean and safe living environment for both villagers and migrants. Part of the agenda for trialling deliberation in Bainyu was to assess the quality of village deliberation. To this end, we tested what effect the moderators had on the outcomes of the talks by setting up control and non-control groups. Moderators in the control group followed standard deliberative practices. They guided the discussions by encouraging the participants to take their time and think through their thoughts and offer their reasons and evidences. Moderators in the non-control group, by contrast, were not allowed to guide the discussions other than to ensure that all participants had at least the opportunity to speak. Participants from both

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32 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

groups were issued with public opinion surveys to complete before and after the deliberations, so that a comparative analysis of the two groups could be made. In doing so, we attempted to identify if the impact of village deliberation, as carried out under the standard practice of moderation, had any change in the participants’ policy preference. Two research assistants listened to the recorded tapes, examined written notes on the group discussion and identified and coded the number of expressed opinions and the number of reasons in support of them in order to measure the level of villager reasoning. These scores were then added up and divided by the number of participants in each group. The results from the control and non-control group experiment confirmed the view that given some guidance and assistance, the level of reasoning among participants was clearly enhanced. Overall, the average number of opinions expressed by each participant under the control group was about 5, but only 2.4 under the non-control group. The number of reasons each participant offered in support of their opinions under the control group was two, but only one under the non-control group. The results demonstrate that the instruction and training of moderators was an effective mechanism for improving the quality of village deliberation.

Modified Deliberative Polling in Guangming Village in 20102 This deliberative experiment used a modified method of Deliberative Polling. Deliberative Polling uses random selection techniques, along with the provision of briefing materials, large and small group discussions, and two surveys to measure the change in people’s opinions (see Fishkin 2009). For this experiment, Professor James Fishkin at Stanford, who developed the Deliberative Polling idea, provided concrete advice from its conception, while Alice Siu, also at Stanford, trained students from Shenzhen University to be facilitators. The experiment adopted basic elements of Deliberative Polling including the provision of briefing materials, the completion of surveys before and after the public consultation, the alternation between small group and large group discussion, and the dialogue between citizens, officials and experts. However, it was a modified version of Deliberative Polling in the sense that random selection was not deployed. This was because the local government selected Guangming village and required all adult villagers to attend the heart-to-heart talks so that the decision could be reached through an all villagers’ meeting. Guangming village, located in Huizhou city, Guangdong Province, was selected to pilot the democratic heart-to-heart talks because local officials wanted to resolve the ongoing problem of married-out women petitioning for equal village benefits. At the time of the deliberation, the village had a population of 230 across 45 households. In 2003 the village’s collective economic income was around 5,000 yuan, and in 2008 it was roughly 200,000 yuan – a 40-fold increase over a fiveyear period. In 2010 the village registered a total of 23 married-out women residents: of these women, seven still resided in the village, while the other 16 had

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Village Deliberative Democracy and Village Governance in China 33

residency status but did not live in the village. All 23 women had previously demanded an equal share of village wealth, but their request was denied, as traditionally they were no longer regarded as villagers when they married out, even though seven had resided in the village for a long time after marriage. In December 2007 at village representative meeting, a majority of the village representatives had voted overwhelmingly to oppose distributive rights for married-out women. As a result, the married-out women continually petitioned the local government, which now looked to the village deliberation forum to solve this problem. The democratic heart-to-heart talks involved the following steps: First, of the 230 total residents, all those over the age of 18 (143 people) were requested to participate. This ensured that every citizen with voting rights had an opportunity to express their views and exercise their rights. Second, before deliberation, briefing materials were provided to participants, to allow them to fully understand the differences of opinion and the reasoning behind the issues that would be deliberated. Third, using the method of small and large group discussions, participants were divided into ten groups. Small group discussions first allowed everyone to express their opinion then discussion took place in the large group. Fourth, to preserve the fairness of the democratic deliberative talks, graduate students from Shenzhen University were trained to facilitate the small group discussions. The facilitators did not take sides and had no direct interests that coincided with those of the villagers. Finally, participants filled in a survey before and after deliberation, so that the comparison between the two could demonstrate the influence of the deliberation on the participants’ thinking. The experiment consisted of three stages. The first was the preparatory stage. Between 2009 and 2010 there were discussions and an initial work meeting to clarify the basic situation and the aims and tasks. The second stage took place between February and May 2010 and included publicising to and mobilising villagers and married-out women, inviting experts, selecting and training staff, etc. The third stage was the holding of the democratic heart-to-heart talks, on 6 May 2010, allowing both sides an open channel for discussion. Experts and local officials responded to questions and provided explanations on the reasons and methods for solving the petition problem. The experiment can be assessed according to the three criteria set up by Dryzek (2011): authenticity, inclusiveness and consequence. It was authentic, as the local government had selected a village in which the practice of married-out women petitioning was most prevalent, and the deliberation was held on site in a public space among village homes. It was inclusive, as it invited all stakeholders to participate, and it was consequential as the stakeholders arrived at a solution through social deliberation which was implemented. The villagers considered competing arguments, changed their previous opinions and developed deliberative capacities. The marginalised, married-out women were heavily involved in the deliberation process, successfully convincing their fellow villagers to change their viewpoint, as they themselves were persuaded to modify their original position through reasoning and deeper consideration of the opposing

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34 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

viewpoints. Let us look in turn at the deliberation day’s three major debates on the question of whether married-out women should receive a share of collective benefits.

Village Autonomy Law versus National Laws Villagers were of the view that within the system of village autonomy, the democratic process fully justified and legitimised the village’s decision that married-out women did not have the right to have a share in the economic benefits. However, the married-out women convincingly argued claims by citing national laws. Section 33 of the Constitution of the PRC states that “PRC citizens are equal under the law.” Section 32 of the PRC Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights states: “women in rural areas have equal rights as men to the distribution of collective funds, compensation payments and all the uses of collective income.”

Traditional Concepts and Customs versus the Modern Concept of Fairness Most villagers followed the Chinese traditional practice that only males have the right to inherit. Regardless of whether the person is in line for the imperial throne or just a common labourer, it is the same: boys inherit but girls do not. In contrast, the marriedout women upheld the modern concept of gender equality in China. Many marriedout women stated in the small group discussion that “male children who grew up in the village like me, after they married their wives, their wives had the right to benefits, and these men increase their share of collective benefits from an individual to multiple shares [referring to the wife and children], but married-out women do not have the right to enjoy a share of the collective economic benefits. This is unfair!” “Why is it that men always leave for the city but they can still have the right to a share?”

Practical Considerations of One-off Compensation Solution The majority of married-out women were residents when the government requisitioned land. They had met their obligations to the village collective and paid all fees and taxes in a timely manner. Therefore, they argued, they should be entitled to a share of collective benefits. In the end, many villagers agreed that resident married-out women who fulfil their collective obligations and responsibilities should receive a portion of the distributive rights to the collective, but they also believe that if someone spends a long time living or residing away from the village and does not fulfil their obligations and responsibilities then they should not have an equal share in the collective economic wealth.

The Outcome of the Deliberative Forum The villagers had discussed many different proposals for solving the benefits-sharing problem: one-off compensation and equal or proportional distribution. After the

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Village Deliberative Democracy and Village Governance in China 35

day of discussions, the villagers’ thinking had clearly changed. Before the discussions, the villagers’ approval of equal distribution was very low, and they believed the issue to be unimportant. However, after discussion, the mean level of importance attributed to this issue increased from 0.7 before the discussions, to 4.0 afterwards (using a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 meaning the least important and 10 the most important), but the average remained below the mid-point of 5. Regarding proportional distribution, on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 representing no share, 100 representing a complete share and 50 representing a half share, the average response by participants to ‘how much of a share would you give to married-out women?’ was 14.6 per cent before the discussion, and increased to 27.3 per cent. The one-off payment proposal received substantial support, both before and after deliberation, with an average of above 5. Guangming village eventually chose a one-off provision of a one hundred square metre apartment (worth approximately 500,000 yuan). This solution clearly reflected the public opinion of villagers. In December 2007 the villagers had opposed distributive rights for married-out women, but in 2012 a total of 80 per cent of original residents agreed and signed their name to the compensation proposal. Sixteen of the 23 married-out women agreed, four pursued the matter through the courts, and three refused to sign as they continued to demand equal distributive rights. By the time one of the authors revisited the village in 2016, all married-out women had accepted the one-off payment solution. Because the social conflict was reduced, the married-out women had no need to take their fight to Beijing or Guangzhou. The village deliberative experiment provided a viable and acceptable alternative to petitioning. When citizens learn to compromise, engage in rational dialogue and exercise self-governing management, they develop and improve their individual ability to reason, as well as the capacity and quality of deliberative citizenship (He, 2018, Tang, 2014). The experimental study showed that deliberation can change deep-seated views or convictions, as villagers on both sides of the argument altered their positions on the idea of equal distribution.

Conclusion This chapter has offered a statistical description of the general trends of village deliberation. Since their implementation in the early 2000s, the majority of village meetings have increasingly been regularised, and the number of village deliberation meetings have also increased. The respondents of the surveys had also confirmed their opportunities to influence village decisions through participation in village deliberation meetings. The two cases discussed in this chapter show that some of the wiser village leaders are increasingly employing new mechanisms to reduce social conflicts. The two cases of deliberative practices have, to a certain degree, met some principles of deliberative democracy such as mutual respect, participation, public deliberation, equal opportunities and empowerment in terms of the impact on policymaking.

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36 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

They demonstrate that the conditions for effective deliberative governance include a bonded community, genuine deliberation, the existence of negotiation mechanisms, a power institution that oversees the whole process and guarantees the implementation of the decision derived from public deliberation and a focus on concrete issues (Huang, 2018, He, 2018). Nevertheless, the overall village democracy index is not satisfactory. While the survey results demonstrate that village deliberation does impact decision-making, such empowered deliberation varies. Moreover, the percentage of village deliberations that have directly impacted village decisions is still low. It appears that the quality of village deliberation in China has a long way to go before it is up to international standards.

Notes 1 For more detail, see He, 2014. 2 For more detail, see He, 2018.

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3 INDONESIA Deliberate and Deliver – Deepening Indonesian Democracy through Social Accountability Hans Antlöv and Anna Wetterberg

Introduction During the past two decades Indonesia has weathered a shift from dictatorship to nascent democracy, rapid and massive decentralisation, economic growth, and the empowerment of civil society and village communities. Unlike the on-going democratic regressions we are witnessing in countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Brazil, the United States and India, democracy has continued to grow its roots in Indonesia, with stable political institutions and respect for freedoms of speech and assembly. Open and competitive national elections in 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019 produced two popular presidents: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–14) who focused on regional conflicts and poverty reduction; and Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi (head of state since 2014) with a focus on infrastructure, economic growth and universal basic services. Indonesia has recently been ranked as an upper-middle income country. Regular local elections of districts heads, mayors and governors continue to produce more responsive local leaders, who are starting to trickle up: President Jokowi started his political career as a popular mayor in the town of Solo, Central Java. There are signs that citizens are moving towards effective electoral accountability in local government elections. Fossati (2017) provides encouraging evidence that voters rely on evaluations of local government performance in electoral decisions, suggesting a trend towards deepening local democracy. However, as noted by a series of recent observers (Berenschot and van Klinken, 2018; Aspinall and Mietzner, 2019; Sambodho, 2020), optimism during the first decade of reform has been replaced by a certain degree of pessimism. These observations suggest a democratic stagnation that is starting to restrict the space for civil society. Driving factors include the rise of a degree of illiberal democracy and a deepening ideological divide in Indonesia’s politics. Vitriolic and divisive DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-3

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presidential campaigns in 2014 and 2019 (in which the same two main candidates faced off in both polls) deepened the political divide in Indonesia and facilitated the rise of populist politics and growing Islamic conservatism, leading to worrying trends of intolerance, especially towards religious and cultural minorities. This chapter will explore how this trend could be revoked using existing public forums and practices: citizens need to be involved in deliberations, but also in challenging the balance of power by holding power holders to account. We will argue that the key is to link citizen engagement through social accountability for service implementation. Public deliberation by itself is not enough – it needs citizen power enforced through accountability as a key lever.

Local-level Deliberative Forums and Practices Indonesia has a long history of engaging citizens through a grassroots deliberative process. The notion of “deliberation” (musyawarah) is enshrined as a core principle in the Pancasila national ideology. Starting already during the authoritarian government in the 1980s, village-level Musrenbang meetings (Musyawarah Rencana Pembangunan, or Development Planning Deliberations) each January (for the following year’s development priorities), lead to sub-district and district-wide meetings, culminating in the national Musrenbang in May each year, approving a national development plan which is the basis for the draft national budget announced at Independence Day in August. The aim of the village Musrenbang meetings is to identify the main development issues in villages as a basis for a list of priority programmes to be funded through the district or national budget. At the sub-district level, the lists from the different villages are prioritised and aggregated upwards, merging with priorities compiled by government sectoral agencies along the way. The best of the village and sub-district Musrenbang have been truly deliberative (World Bank, 2014). Information was provided to citizens, who could make joint decisions through facilitated discussions. However, in the great majority of cases, the Musrenbang have been ritualised events with a series of long speeches by government officials followed by an elite-driven prioritisation – community input was largely disregarded (Wicaksono et al., 2008, vi; Dixon and Hakim, 2009). Villages and sub-districts produced wish-lists rather than priorities based on critical analysis or needs. One main challenge has always been to ensure that public inputs actually are incorporated by local governments. The early years of democracy in Indonesia had also seen the emergence of a multitude of multi-stakeholder citizen forums (Forum Warga), a part of the unleashing of public deliberation after decades of authoritarianism, in which concerned citizens and reformist government officials came together to engage the local government in key priority issues and common causes, such as economic development, environmental protection, infrastructure or tourism. Antlöv (2003) documented one such citizen forum during the early years of reformasi that had quite some local-level success; others supported public deliberations through citizen

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forums that used citizen report cards and citizen charters as new engagement strategies with local governments (McLaughlin, 2008). To address some of these weaknesses in the decentralisation and community development paradigm, in 2014 Indonesia became one of the very first countries in the world to provide far-reaching autonomy and fiscal devolution to its approximately 75,000 villages (Antlöv, Wetterberg and Dharmawan, 2016; Antlöv, 2019). Law 6/2014 on Villages empowers the village government to manage village-scale activities and provided substantial national and district funds to do so. The Village Law opens deliberative spaces as the village level for increased citizen participation. Based on the success of the National Program for Community Empowerment (Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat, PNPM1), principles of participation, accountability and transparency were enshrined into the Law. The Law substantially strengthens the role of communities in planning and implementing development activities. In 2019 each village received an annual average of US $110.000, combined through national and district block-grants to plan, implement and oversee village development. As part of that shift, the Village Law introduce a new deliberative forum, the Village Assembly (Musyawarah Desa), to involve the community in considering strategic matters. The Village Assembly builds on a mechanism in PNPM to hold regular village deliberations for the use the community block-grants and to hold the implementers to account for how the funds were used. Under PNPM, deliberative, inter-village meetings resulted in village-scale infrastructure that was generally of better quality, built more efficiently and with less corruption than equivalent infrastructure built by government or contractors (Wetterberg, 2015, 5–7). There were two reasons for this success: the infrastructure was planned and built by those most affected and the accountability forums held the implementing group to account for how they used the block grant (Fox, 2020, 9). The Village Assembly was inspired by PNPM’s deliberative mechanisms. However, the Village Law and associated implementation regulations embodied some critical differences, which muddled guidance over community representation, as well as who could participate in decisions (Antlöv, 2019). It also distinguished the Village Assembly from the regular development planning process, limiting transparency and reducing opportunities to hold village governments accountable for spending according to plans (Wetterberg, 2015). These differences, described below, foreshadowed some of the implementation challenges that lay ahead.

Implementation of the Village Law Despite its promising premise, implementation of the Village Law has been problematic (World Bank, 2018; Antlöv, 2019). The implementation problems are around entrenched government bureaucracies and party politics, a literal case study of good policy but bad implementation. The main design shift from PNPM to the Village Law was also the move from a national programme supporting community groups with only limited involvement of village and district officials, to a set of

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national regulations that are fully implemented by government officials, who are often hesitant to involve community groups. The end of PNPM also released more than 10,000 trained facilitators who had provided technical and empowerment support to the community groups, including training on issues around transparency, participation and accountability.2 The Law was well intentioned – after 15 years of PNPM, community resilience had been built, and the government wanted to mainstream it into regular structures – but long-established state structures were too strong and took over. In parallel, there has also been a weakening of local-level institutions. A 2013 study on village resilience found that community capacity for collective action had declined (Wetterberg, Dharmawan and Jellema, 2013). The decline in capacity was due partly to increases in large-scale problems that overwhelmed village communities’ organisational and financial resources (such as declining access to drinking water, devastation of productive resources and lack of major infrastructure). In addition, when problems were addressed, there was a marked decrease in the involvement of non-state leaders in favour of village government officials. Recent studies on the implementation of the Village Law show that villagers have little interest to participate in the Village Assembly (World Bank, 2018, 24; Sambodho, 2019). However, Sambodho (2019) notes that increased democratic competition through pluralisation of village elites has increased during recent decades, improving opportunities to make claims on and access services through elites and hold them accountable for delivering on these demands by providing or withholding one’s vote. A website by the Ministry of Villages3 provides hundreds of examples of village innovations of how village heads are involving communities to improve village plans, including historically marginalised groups such as people with disabilities. Innovations are also happening at the district level that provide for better informed plans and policies. A 2019 regulation in the district of Sumbawa (West Nusa Tenggara), for instance, mandates professional facilitators and local resource persons to provide data and information to planning deliberations and introduces participatory methods such as fishbone analysis. The sources of these innovations are a type of hybrid action, reform-minded local leaders and community activists coming together for social change. However, these are still rather marginal reforms, often supported by donors, and have yet to lead to replication at scale or to policy reforms.

Social Accountability Action A shift in the methods and magnitude of citizen engagement with the state points to new deliberative spaces in Indonesia that have the potential to consolidate local democracy. The extent to which these shifts contribute to improved policies and development outcomes, however, depends on the degree to which they can challenge existing power structures and improve the capability of the state to deliver. A key lever to getting beyond the current stagnation is through improved accountability mechanisms for frontline service delivery. From a demand-side perspective,

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improving service delivery starts with direct feedback from the primary consumers to the frontline agency staff – the demand for better service identified by citizens. It is at this frontline point of contact with citizens and communities where we often find the main public service failures, where teacher absenteeism or the lack of trained medical staff or proper medicine means that communities are not served (World Bank, 2015). When government officials deviate from their entrusted tasks, there must be ways to uncover this and sanction them. Formal accountability often fails, as it is embedded in the same norms and practices that created the delivery failure in the first place. Increasingly, we have thus had to turn to social accountability – the right of citizens to ask questions and the obligation of officials to answer for the disbursed power – to reinstate the democratic authority of citizens. Through a combination of formal and indirect accountabilities, citizens are not only involved in the deliberations to design policies, but also in the effective translation of that policy into programmes (Andrews et al., 2017, 99). This is especially important at the frontline agency level, where services are delivered, and the citizens meet the state. Social (or informal, downward, or public) accountability is the obligation of the government to answer to the public for the execution of delegated responsibilities. It encompasses “the array of actions and mechanisms – beyond the ballot box – that engage citizens in holding the state to account” (Brinkerhoff and Wetterberg, 2016, 9). This is a newer form of accountability prompted by the basic notion that there needs to be multiple forms of checks and balances to discipline power and hold authority to account. Social accountability actions can be characterised as four types:





Transparency: collection, analysis and dissemination of information on public policies, programmes and services. Co-production: engagement in policymaking and program/service delivery planning and implementation. Compliance: monitoring and oversight of public policies, programmes and services in co-operation with officials and providers. Confrontational: civil society actions that interrogate or contest state policies and actions.

Specific combinations of these social accountability actions aim to improve service delivery, citizen empowerment and/or governance and democracy. Social accountability varies in terms of its power to hold providers and officials to account but, by definition, all social accountability efforts need to connect in some manner to state institutions to influence behaviours, norms, and incentives for officials, service providers and citizens (Freedman and Schaaf, 2013). In contexts like Indonesia’s – with long histories of authoritarianism and hierarchical state-society relations – such connections often require facilitation. Cornwall and Schatten Coelho (2007) distinguish invited spaces for citizen participation − provided by the state, often prompted by donors or civil society organisations (CSO) − from

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those that citizens have claimed through their own efforts. Mechanisms to create invited spaces have been criticised as mere “widgets”: decontextualised technical interventions following standardised implementation protocols that do little to transform the system of service provision or state-society relations (Freedman and Schaaf, 2013; Joshi and Houtzager, 2012). Studies have shown that invited spaces can have positive impacts on both democratic and socio-economic development outcomes (Gaventa and Barrett, 2012), but it is critical to find the best fit between social accountability mechanisms and local circumstances (Freedman and Schaaf, 2013). Best fit approaches require tailored theories of change and recognition of the complexity and variation within individual contexts (Rocha Menocal and Sharma, 2008). The effectiveness of this demand-side approach (and deliberative democracy more broadly) is related to the degree of influence that citizens, communities and CSOs have on government and service providers. Recent studies have shown that a “light touch” accountability approach focused mainly on transparency is not very effective in provoking improved responsiveness. For example, an experiment carried out in Indonesia in 2018 by a national non-governmental organisation to provide improved information on service delivery to local communities did not show any direct impact on the quality of service delivery (Arkedis et al., 2018). It was too little, too early. The local dissemination of service delivery outcome data has limited impact in real time, as there is nothing that triggers change among government agencies to change how they do their business. In Jonathan Fox’s framing (Fox, 2014), these are “tactical approaches” − bounded interventions limited to society-side efforts, without touching power relations. We will return later to the more effective “strategic approach” that deploy multiple tactics, encourage enabling environments for collective action and that co-ordinate citizens’ voices with governmental reforms that bolster public sector responsiveness. Recent decades have seen some nascent shifts in state-society relations around service delivery in Indonesia. With decentralisation, changes in funding and incentives for service providers – combined with support for structured deliberations and negotiations between citizens and officials – have resulted in some increased responsiveness to local needs in frontline service delivery. Research at primary health centres in four Indonesian districts indicated that some providers responded to citizens’ needs (expressed through a complaints survey and negotiated charter for service improvements) (Wetterberg, Hertz and Brinkerhoff, 2016). Most healthcare providers in the study responded with changes linked directly to shortcomings in service delivery, such as extended hours of operations, additional staff and reduced absenteeism. Some health centre directors also initiated a long-term shift towards citizen input through continued engagement mechanisms. In such cases, citizen engagement was acknowledged as a mechanism for identifying locally recognised and owned problems and, often, accessing financial resources to solve them. At one health centre in Bener Meriah (Aceh), for example, the director’s efforts to address issues identified through the initial social accountability process improved citizen satisfaction, resulting in increased demand for services. The director’s superiors at the district health agency took notice, granting the centre

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greater financial autonomy and recognising the director with awards. Staff from other health centres sought out the director to learn about their processes for engaging citizens and gaining financial autonomy (Wetterberg, Hertz and Brinkerhoff, 2016, 16). Increased responsiveness also involves shifts in providers’ and officials’ attitudes towards accepting citizen engagement. In some districts, state actors saw civil society representatives as active and empowered partners in improving service delivery, with their legitimacy rooted in their rights as citizens (citizen-centred motivation). In contrast, state actors who considered citizens as relatively passive sources of information on performance, with little to no role in solving problems, demonstrated client-centred motivation. Both patterns were associated with service improvements and continued investments in social accountability, suggesting – at least in the short term – different avenues for expanding spaces for citizen deliberations. More investigation is needed to discern whether citizen-centred responses from the state result in more sustainable support for such spaces than client-centred ones (Wetterberg, Hertz and Brinkerhoff, 2016). Other studies also underscore the need for changed policies and incentives so that providers and officials respond to citizens’ engagement. One study of social accountability mechanisms (Transparency for Development, 2018) identified points at which the causal chain – from deliberation to community action to changed outcomes – can break down. When service providers failed to respond to community action with changes in procedures, attitudes and facility improvements, increased service utilisation and quality (as well as expected downstream improved health outcomes) did not materialise. A recent evaluation of a social accountability intervention to improve maternal and child health services in Eastern Indonesia suggests that providers need clear signals to increase responsiveness: “increased awareness of rights and standards on the part of service managers and officials triggered internal accountability systems, such that resources were reallocated and staff were both enabled to, and held accountable for, provision of services to meet standards” (Ball and Westhorp, 2018, 13).

Opportunities to Deepen Deliberative Democracy In the case of deepening deliberative democracy in Indonesia, we have seen that the authorising environment and democratic institutions are largely in place. But there are problems with political representation and lack of implementation that cause the present democratic deficit and stagnation (Tornquist, 2013). How could Indonesia overcome these political and bureaucratic disincentives to deepen democracy, breaking down the problems of the “implementation failures” of democratic practices: why the available deliberative spaces have not been used to deepen grassroots democracy? For the case of the Village Assembly, it seems that villagers do not see the meetings as very useful or meaningful. The community assemblies worked well in PNPM because they were moderated by trained facilitators; under the Village Law,

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they are led by the village elite and government officials. They are heavily ritualised, dominated by village officials, and have turned into the “shouting contests” described above for the Musrenbang: those who can speak best (and loudest) win. Others are merely observers – women, the poor, the young. For the district Musrenbang, the background issues are the same: ritualised and state-centric, in which community input is not taken seriously. The poor often chose not to engage since they know they will get nothing, and instead use other “weapons of the weak” strategies for engaging with the elite, such as invoking notions of family, decency or social obligations (Sambodho, 2019). As Sambodho (2020) notes, there is a general sense of fatigue in Indonesia with the results of public deliberations not being adopted by government (see also World Bank, 2018). Activists in the community citizen forum that were so prominent a decade ago are in most cases still around, but the citizen forums themselves have declined in importance. Many activists and CSOs have become more focused on technical interventions and delivering: either in terms of oversight of public services or on supporting local economic developments. As a result, they have often been unable to meaningfully engage on policy and are losing their ability to promote transformation. The fragility and ineffectiveness of civil society can be seen most clearly in how public participation is losing its meaning − it is only used procedurally, to legitimise the actions and decisions of the small political and economic elites, while the public still has no control over issues regarding shared life. Increased engagement between local government and civil society has also been tarnished by what Antlöv (2003) has called “Not Enough Politics.” This is the continuation of a trend in the early 2000s: i.e., civil society actors seem primarily concerned to keep themselves relevant to the state actors, instead of building a political coalition and momentum for change. Democracy activists have not successfully entered politics or engaged with political parties. When local citizen groups started to engage, there was a tendency to focus on using the new relationships with government to extract short-term benefits in the form of increased budget allocations or public services for particular social groups, and thus perpetuating a history of transactional and clientelist politics, rather than creating a culture of accountability (Antlöv and Wetterberg, 2013). The ability of local CSOs to collaborate with the technical needs of local government and address gaps in services is important. However, there must be a follow-up strategy to ensure that this can produce a more transformative outcome. Collaboration is still mostly on a technical basis and through contractual relationships for specific activities. This “technocratic turn” (The Asia Foundation, 2019, 12) has at times led to direct and tangible improvements in quality of service provision, but it may be unsustainable in the long run as CSOs risk losing their “confrontational” edge. Contractual relationships in service delivery have been productive, but CSOs can lose sight of their potential as a long-term, independent counterbalance to the state (Sambodho, 2020, 23–24). We have, however, also seen innovations that could improve representation and deliberation. Notably, many of these innovations align with the types of social

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accountability action outlined above. Innovations converge on the need for (1) providing better data during Village Assembly or Musrenbang meetings so that decisions on plans can be based on evidence (transparency social accountability); (2) having the meetings facilitated by a professional facilitator to enable citizen input (co-production social accountability); and (3) making the deliberations meaningful by ensuring that inputs are used (compliance social accountability). For example, the Ministry of Home Affairs has discussed the introduction of “Musrenbang Plus” events that, in addition to planning for next year, also would be an accountability forum for how last year’s funds were spent. One interesting innovation tried out by the National Development Planning Agency is SEPAKAT4 that puts together several previous free-standing data and information tools such as Pro-poor Planning, Budgeting and Monitoring, Integrated Information Management System and the Sub-national Poverty Assessment into a single application and dashboard. Put to proper use during the community Musrenbang, community and government decision-makers would be better informed and accountability easier to induce. Participation also relates to the quality of engagement in deliberations. In the Journal of Public Deliberation’s programmatic article on how to revitalise American deliberations (Thomas, 2014), a main proposal was to offer an approach to college student civic learning and engagement in democracy. Likewise, in PNPM, more than 10,000 facilitators provided training to communities on the basic democratic principles of transparency, accountability and participation. There are plans in place for a cascade training of Indonesia’s 75,000 villages in governance issues. Such training should include basic democratic values and link to direct practice of democratic decision-making in the Village Assembly and Musrenbang. The main problem with deepening democracy in Indonesia is institutional: government is still an overwhelming actor. State dominance is a global challenge for deliberative democracy: “it is not that citizens are incompetent, it is that institutions are not enabling” (Fishkin, 2018, 209). Communities are still too unorganised or powerless to be a countervailing force. For deliberative democracy to take root, citizen input must be meaningful and taken seriously by the state. Lack of government response is frequently the main barrier to sustaining citizen engagement. Wetterberg and Brinkerhoff (2016, 163) identify multiple means for the state to help to overcome barriers to social accountability and encourage deliberative democracy, all of which should be considered in Indonesia. Examples include: garnering support from one level higher in decentralised state structures to leverage top-down accountability for responsiveness; focusing on elected officials and bureaucrats alike; identifying shared goals between citizens and state actors; and recognising positive outcomes from engaging with citizens through public acknowledgment and concrete rewards that improve incentives. One of the key challenges for increasing responsiveness is the need in Indonesia to move away from “one size fits all” solutions to designs based on local assets and knowledge. Even with decentralisation, Indonesia’s emphasis on a unitary state means that very little authority is delegated to local governments on how to

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implement national programmes. Instead, technical regulations from the national ministries detail how, for instance, the district Musrenbang or Village Assembly should be implemented, often paralysing local governments and suppressing local innovations. As we have seen, it is possible to take exception to these – to implement the functions rather than the forms – but most local governments are not willing to go through that hassle: even more so in the knowledge that the Ministry of Home Affairs often annul problematic district regulations. Reform champions at national respective ministries must be identified to build internal support and external acceptance (Andrews et al., 2017, 227). A well-performing government is answerable to its citizens and responsive to their needs. Criteria for government performance thus need to be expanded beyond rule-adherence to include responsiveness (provide the right services), efficiency (provide the services in the right way) and accountability to citizens. This requires a set of interventions to establish which services the agency provides and what roles and responsibilities the citizen-users have, and how the performance of service unit can be improved. There is a link to forums for public deliberations here, as that is where feedback is provided. In providing the opportunities and incentive for government to demonstrate what results they have accomplished, performance information projects a positive view of accountability. Rather than expressing subjective perceptions of satisfaction, published standard performance measurement allows for a more constructive dialogue between service providers and citizen-users based on defined expectations and measurable outcomes. And rather than diluting accountability forums to mere Q&A sessions in a local council or a shouting contest during a town-hall meeting, publicly available performance information provides clear standards to which government is responsible, can be held to account for, and be sanctioned for, if not achieved. This type of accountability addresses both the decline in democratic institutions and the breakdown in policy implementation. Social accountability is difficult: it cannot be driven purely from below, as citizens are in most cases not in position to hold to account (Chandhoke, 2009, 33) nor through national policies legislating new forms of accountability which will just lead to isomorphic mimicry (Andrews et al., 2017, 29). Global experiences show that it needs to be driven by organised social forces and hybrid public action groups that have the political clout to enforce accountability. In Indonesia, both social accountability and deliberations are complicated by the persistence of “mediated citizenship” in which access to state actors and services is often through personal relationships with brokers (Berenschot and Van Klinken, 2018, Sambodho, 2019). Mediation adds a layer of intermediary communication and interaction that can distort interests, priorities, and assertions of rights. But social accountability – even if mediated citizenship favours co-production over contention, and representative rather than direct deliberation − could start to address challenges in policy implementation, as well as the diminishing democratic space. As the economist Blane Lewis (2013, 21) has noted, “the most important initiative that could be undertaken to reform decentralization would be to convince Indonesia’s citizens that

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they deserve better [quality services] and to encourage them to vigorously express their demands to their local leaders.”

Conclusion As described in the Introduction to this volume, the past two decades have given rise to a substantial literature and set of practices about how to deepen democracy through deliberation and citizen participation in what has been labelled the deliberative turn of democratic theory. With an emphasis on the interaction between the “supply side” of government and “demand side” of civil society, this type of “citizen politics” broadens the role of citizens beyond being objects of state policy, passive recipients of government funding or voters at national elections every four or five years. Instead, citizens should assume greater responsibility in addressing the needs of the community and the country. However, the deliberative democracy approach has been criticised for ignoring larger patterns of dominance and marginalisation (Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Harriss, Stokke and Tornquist, 2014; Shaffer and Black, 2018). By using non-threatening, apolitical language and practices of building trust, establishing pacts, promoting social cohesion and creating spaces, these critics argue that deliberative democracy reinforces existing power relations. It is seen as part of a neo-liberal agenda of depoliticising society by weakening the state politically, promoting selfhelp and citizen choice, and bypassing interest-based groups such as labour and farmers (Mohan and Stokke, 2008, 11; Crook and Manor, 1998). An exclusive focus on civic engagement in the technical processes of planning and public service delivery may restrict citizen input to the task of petitioning, making connections and lobbying, rather than creating a culture of accountability or a sense that citizens have a right to demand effective government (Grindle, 2007). A review of the state of deliberative democracy in 2014 noted a disconnection between the deliberative turn in democratic theory and the wider world. Deliberative scholars “have not come even close to affecting the daily lives of most people” (McCoy, 2014, 1; see Shaffer and Black 2018 for an update of the argument). This is because deepening democracy is a “wicked problem”; transactionintensive, discretionary and not based on any known technology or solution (as defined by Andrews et al., 2017, 109). And the solution to the very real threat of authoritarianism around the world is not simply “more deliberations”: even the editors of the Journal of Public Deliberations acknowledge that it must also include activists, legislative and legal forms of engagement through protests, political organising, litigation and policy reform (Thomas and Upchurch, 2018, 17). Needed are solutions that “begin with generating locally nominated and prioritised problems, and that work iteratively to identify customised ‘best fit’ responses… in the process working with an expanding community of practice to share and learn at scale” (Andrews et al., 2017, 5). We would argue that a deliberative democracy approach can be improved by linking it to direct service improvements that matter to people: a hybrid model of

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better-informed deliberations and strengthened implementation and follow-up through social accountability. The solution to a faulty democracy is more democracy, not less. But it is not enough to simply bring government closer through administrative decentralisation or open deliberative spaces for citizen. The disenchantment with governments must be addressed by improving the capability and orientation of the state to deliver what citizens demand. James Fishkin (2018, 13–14) summarises four conditions for popular control over the polity: (i) all adults have an equal opportunity to participate; (ii) alternatives for public decisions are available; (iii) people are motivated to engage in reasoning; and (iv) people’s choices influence decisions. As we have seen, Indonesia fulfils the first two criteria but is weak on the latter two. Collective motivation and capacity have waned during the past decade, and there are clear challenges in the knowledge-topolicy-to-implementation process. Thus, there need also to be actions that allow new voices to be heard and give power to the poor and marginalised to be involved in governing their communities. Efforts must go into community and political organising, building the capacity of civil society and community to hold government to account. There is a need to ensure that communities have the necessary means to participate in decision-making and accountability processes. Learning from experiments with social accountability in service delivery – some which we have highlighted here – suggest the need to focus on a combination of transparency, co-production and compliance actions. In parallel, governments need to shift capabilities and structures to respond to citizens, allowing it to influence decisions and change outcomes. With the aim of fostering the responsiveness and accountability of local government to communitylevel needs, interventions must take place at both the supply and demand side, supporting robust and inclusive community-level organisations that are empowered to carry out participatory planning, implementation and oversight; and responsive service providers who can provide quality services, engage communities and are held to account for their performance – moving closer to binding decisions by the state (Mansbridge cited in Fishkin, 2018, 200) and empowered participatory governance (Fung, 2004). Champions at the sub-national and national levels must be provided even more space to authorise, motivate and convene around these issues (Andrews et al., 2017, 224). This means identifying state and civil society actors who are champions of change, able to leverage existing practices (such as those above) and working through coalitions of change action to diffuse innovations, replicate best practices and bring solutions to scale, without isomorphic mimicry. Importantly, these leaders must be held to account for their actions to drive lasting change. It would pre-suppose that government officials and political parties would be willing to give up some of its power. In exchange, government officials would get public policies that are easier to implement, and political parties would get a strong ideological basis from which to recruit members. This argument must be tried out locally and iteratively.

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As citizens and the reform-minded are empowered, old systems of patronage must be dismantled. This involves reforms of the centralised political parties and powerful civil service in Indonesia and addressing issues around political representation, including political organising on behalf of the disadvantaged and underrepresented, improving their collective bargaining power. The empowerment of previously marginalised groups is an inherently conflictual process of shifting interactions with more powerful groups (Gibson and Woolcock, 2008, 154). Further work needs to be done to address how the “losers” in these outcomes react and attempt to recapture their lost advantages. A key solution to the flawed representation that is causing the democratic deficit is to find new forms of popular empowerment, both in public deliberation forums and in holding government to account in delivering services. Representatives – government officials as well as elected politicians – “must be compelled to represent interests of their constituency” (Chandhoke, 2009, 33, italics in original). Improved policy implementation capability needs a culture of accountability so that government becomes responsible for the quality of service that it provides. Indonesia is in a better place than most countries for this ambitious endeavour. There are pockets of reforms, an enabling environment, freedom of assembly and speech and strong communities with a history of public deliberations. The country is on a promising path, and there are clear arguments and a history of public consultations and consensus-seeking that could be mobilised to deepen democracy through various forms of deliberative governance. There is also ample scope for improvement within the system, particularly at the subnational, frontline facility and community level – no need to wait for whole-of-system reforms. The focus should be on a thousand locally recognised tiny empowerments (Sandercock, 1997), with people having the freedom and capability to engage in deliberative exercises, and to hold government to account for delivering what has been decided. In this way, democracy can deliver and be better appreciated, and the threats of backsliding, as in other countries, are experiences that can be avoided. Indonesia needs co-ordinated multi-stakeholder coalitions among pro-accountability actors embedded in both state and society, working towards an interrelated set of reforms that engender synergistic, sustainable change. This refers to what Jonathan Fox (2014, 22–25) calls a “strategic approach” to social accountability: interventions that deploy multiple tactics and are mutually reinforcing, that encourage enabling environments for collective action and that coordinate citizen voice initiatives with governmental reforms that bolster public sector responsiveness. This can be resisted – as it is in many other countries – by the established political actors who have much to lose by empowering citizens to take decisions otherwise with politicians but could be overcome through support from reformminded officials and public intellectuals. The key to this is the argument that citizen action – through public deliberations and social accountability – will improve service implementation and governance. In the face of ongoing failure of the existing system (including corruption and the poor quality of public services), this might just prove to be an attractive proposition, especially among newly elected

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local heads of government. But public deliberation by itself is not enough – it needs citizen power and teeth through social accountability as a key lever. This can in turn provide new nodes for political representation, in which public deliberations and hybrid public action groups can play a key role.

Notes 1 Initially set up as the Kecamatan Development Program by the World Bank, between 2008 and 2015 PNPM was the flagship community empowerment pillar of Indonesia’s new national poverty reduction agenda. A total of 80 per cent of funding came from the national budget, and the World Bank provided technical assistance in drafting Standard Operating Procedures and ensuring financial compliance. 2 The authors participated in many PNPM community assemblies when they were working at the PNPM Support Facility in 2010–14, and the quality of facilitation was generally very high. 3 https://inovasidesa.kemendesa.go.id. 4 http://sepakat.bappenas.go.id.

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Cooke, Bill and Uma Kothari. 2001. Participation: the new tyranny?London: Zed Books. Cornwall, Andrea and Vera Schatten Coelho. 2007. Spaces for change?: the politics of citizen participation in new democratic arenas. London: Zed Books. Crook, Richard C. and James Manor. 1998. Democracy and decentralisation in South Asia and West Africa: Participation, accountability and performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dixon, G. and Hakim, D. 2009. “Making Indonesia’s Budget Decentralization Work: The Challenge of Linking Planning and Budgeting at the Local Level.” International Public Management Review, 10(1): 119–167. Fishkin, James S. 2018. Democracy When the People Are Thinking: Revitalizing Our Politics through Public Deliberation Hardcover. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fossati, Diego. 2017. “A Tale of Three Cities: Electoral Accountability in Indonesian Local Politics” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 48(1): 23–49. Fox, Jonathan. 2014. “Social Accountability: What Does the Evidence Really Say.” GPSA Working Paper Series. Washington, DC: World Bank. Fox, Jonathan. 2020. “Contested terrain: International development projects and countervailing power for the excluded.” World Development, 133: 104978. Freedman L.P. and M. Schaaf. 2013. “Act global, but think local: accountability at the frontlines”. Reproductive health matters, 21(42): 103–112. Fung, Archon. 2004. Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gaventa, John and Gregory Barrett. 2012. “Mapping the outcomes of citizen engagement.” World Development 40 (12): 2399–2410. Gibson, C. and M. Woolcock. 2008. “Empowerment, Deliberative Development, and Local-Level Politics in Indonesia: Participatory Projects as a Source of Countervailing Power.” Studies in Comparative International Development, 43(2): 151–180. Grindle, Merilee S. 2007. Going Local: Decentralization, Democratization, and the Promise of Good Governance. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Harriss, John, Kristian Stokke and Olle Törnquist. 2014. “Introduction: The New Politics of Democratisation.” In Politicising Democracy: The New Local Politics of Democratisation, edited by John Harriss, Kristian Stokke and Olle Törnquist. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition (first edition, 2005). Joshi, Anuradha and Peter P. Houtzager. 2012. “Widgets or watchdogs? Conceptual explorations in social accountability.” Public Management Review, 14(2): 145–162. Lewis, Blane D. 2013. “Public services: The legacy of decentralisation.” East Asia Forum Quarterly, 5: 20–22. McCoy, M.L. 2014. “The State of the Field in Light of the State of our Democracy: My Democracy Anxiety Closet.” Journal of Public Deliberation, 10(1): Article 13. McLaughlin, Karrie. 2008. “Engaging with Local Government in Indonesia: Multi-stakeholder Forums and Civil Society Coalitions. Lessons from Selected LGSP Jurisdictions.” Jakarta: Local Governance Support Program. Mohan, Giles and Kristian Stokke. 2008. “The politics of localization: From depoliticizing development to politicizing democracy.” In The Handbook of Political Geography, edited by K. Cox, J. Robinson and M. Low, pp. 545–562. London: Sage Publications. Rocha Menocal, Alina and Bhavna Sharma. 2008. Joint evaluation of citizens’ voice and accountability: Synthesis report. London: Department for International Development. Sambodho, Johanes Prio. 2019. “Choosing the Playing Field: Non-Participation in the Village Level Participatory Deliberative Forums.” Masyarakat Jurnal Sosiologi 24(2):143‑165. Sambodho, Johanes Prio. 2020. Collaborative Governance in Strengthening Accountability and Tolerance in Indonesia: a MADANI Programmatic Report. FHI360 MADANI, Working Paper 1.

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Sandercock, Leonie. 1997. Towards Cosmopolis: Planning for Multicultural Cities. New York, NY: John Wiley. Shaffer, Timothy J. and Laura W. Black. 2018. “Authoritarianism and Deliberative Democracy: Responding to Our Current Political Times and Contexts.” Journal of Public Deliberation, 14(2): Article1. The Asia Foundation. 2019. Navigating intolerance and nationalism: Trends in Indonesian civic space, Southeast Asia Civil Society Scoping Study. Jakarta: The Asia Foundation. Thomas, Nancy L. 2014. “Democracy by Design.” Journal of Public Deliberation, 10(1): Article17. Thomas, Nancy L. and J. Kyle Upchurch. 2018. “Strengthening Democracy by Design: Challenges and Opportunities.” Journal of Public Deliberation, 14(2): Article9. Tornquist, Olle. 2013. Assessing Dynamics of Democratisation. Transformative Politics, New Institutions and the Case of Indonesia. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Transparency for Development. 2018. “Can social accountability improve health: Mapping pathway and pain points from the T4D program,” presented at the Global Partnership for Social Accountability Partner Forum, 31 October 2018. Harvard Kennedy School Transparency for Development Program and Results for Development. USAID. 2018. Assessment Report Civil Society Organizations in Indonesia. Jakarta: USAID. Van Klinken, Gerry. 2009. “Patronage Democracy in Provincial Indonesia”. In Rethinking Popular Participation, edited by Olle Tornquist, Neil Webster and Kristian Stokke, pp 141–160. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Wetterberg, Anna, Leni Dharmawan and J. Jellema. 2013. The Local Level Institutions Study 3: Overview Report. Jakarta: PNPM Support Facility. Wetterberg, Anna with Victor Bottini. 2015. Integrating Community-Driven Development Principles into Policy: From PNPM Mandiri to the Village Law. National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction/Secretariat of the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia. Wetterberg, Anna, Derick W. Brinkerhoff and Jana C. Hertz (eds.). 2016. Governance and Service Delivery: Practical Applications of Social Accountability Across Sectors. Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press. Wetterberg, Anna and Derick W. Brinkerhoff. 2016. “Cross-Sectoral Social Accountability in Practice: Findings from Six Cases.” In Governance and Service Delivery: Practical Applications of Social Accountability Across Sectors, edited by Anna Wetterberg, Derick W. Brinkerhoff and J.C. Hertz, 147–176. Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press. Wicaksono, Sarosa, Misbahul Hasan and Ari Nurman. 2008. “Making People’s Voices Matter: An Analytical Study on District Planning and Budgeting.” Jakarta: Decentralization Support Facility. World Bank. 2014. Planning and Budgeting in Indonesia. Jakarta: World Bank. World Bank. 2016. Indonesia’s Rising Divide. Jakarta: World Bank. World Bank. 2018. Participation, Transparency and Accountability in Village Law Implementation, Baseline Findings from the Sentinel Villages Study. Jakarta: World Bank.

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4 DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY IN INDIAN VILLAGES Prabhat Kumar Datta

Introduction Deliberative democracy in rural India has been institutionalised through the 73rd amendment to the Constitution and christened as Gram Sabha. While the ups and downs of its history have impacted on this institution of participation in various ways, the fact remains that their death knell was never sounded. The freedom movement led by Gandhi highlighted the need for village swaraj (self-rule) as the starting point of India’s democracy. And although the architects of the Constitution did not attach much importance to the village democratic institutions, both Gram Panchayats (village councils) and Gram Sabhas received constitutional sanction in 1992 in the context of a paradigmatic shift in India’s policy in 1990. Overall, there are about 250,000 village panchayats in India, collectively holding numerous individual meetings each year. Gram Panchayats are one of three tiers in the Panchayati Raj system of village governance, and the only directly elected local government tier. Gram Panchayats consist of a village or a group of villages divided into smaller units called wards. Each ward elects a representative who is known as the Panch or ward member through direct election. The constitutional amendment provides for a quota for women and the marginalised sections of the rural population in Gram Panchayats. The other tiers in the Panchayati Raj system take more of a co-ordination and implementation role, governing at the block level (a larger group of villages) and the district level. This chapter focuses on Gram Sabhas, which are the place of public deliberation. A Gram Sabha, which consists of persons registered in the electoral rolls covering the area of a Panchayat, is the constitutionally mandated institution of village level direct democracy. The 73rd Amendment of the Constitution envisages Gram Sabhas as the crucial pillar of rural democracy. It is an accountability forum, where the elected representatives face the electorate to whom they are answerable, at least once in a year. DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-4

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The functions of the Gram Sabhas are defined in the Acts and rules of the respective states, as the institution of deliberative democracy in the villages. Gram Sabhas can also be used by the local government as the tools for discussions with villagers about other relevant issues of the concerned wards, including the implications of the post 1990s neoliberal policies, their implications for the day-to-day life of the villagers and their role in new situations. The changes are posing a big challenge to the states, especially traditionally left-leaning states like West Bengal and Kerala because the villagers by and large are hardly aware of the implications of this fundamental change in the policy of the Indian government. In some states, Gram Sabhas are emerging as a sort of school of democracy and political education, where villagers are learning how to play their roles as citizens in democratic institutions. Some states, like West Bengal, have developed additional deliberative institutions below Gram Sabhas. They have varying names, including Gram Sansads in West Bengal. In the context of the politicisation of villagers in electoral politics, village deliberative democracy offers a new democratic renewal. However, current works on village deliberative democracy are mostly case studies, focusing on some states. This chapter aims to provide a national picture of the development of village deliberation through a synthesis of the other scholarly work with my studies; it is based on my observations and personal experiences in village meetings. This chapter examines the historical roots of village deliberation,as well as constitutional mandates and state-level initiatives to devise village deliberation system. It analyses the working of Gram Sabhas in village India against the historical backdrop, discussing the issues, challenges and how to make Gram Sabhas truly deliberative. The chapter is divided into five sections, beginning with the history of village deliberation in India (section one), followed by an overview of the first and second generation Gram Sabhas (section two). Section three goes beyond and below Gram Sabhas to explore innovative initiatives in some states, in particular West Bengal. Section four looks at the issues and challenges in the working of Gram Sabhas, and section five offers a series of reflections on making the Gram Sabhas truly deliberative bodies, followed by a conclusion.

1. Brief History of Village Deliberation in India The journey of deliberative democracy in Indian villages began in ancient India around two and half thousand years ago (Sen, 2005). For centuries, deliberative bodies were central to systems of local governance, and religious discourse and dialogue (Parthasarathy and Rao, 2018). Historians have used inscriptions and other sources to identify patterns of association and resistance among peasant communities in both north and south India, that evidenced a variety of different “political or social communities” (Bates, 2005, 167). Significantly, the sabhas, which were popular in those days, included the members of the poorer sections of the community, alongside the notables and high caste people. “The term sabha (association) itself originally indicated a meeting in which different qualities of people and

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opinions were tested, rather than the scene of a pronunciamento by caste elders” (Bayly, 2000, 187). In ancient Indian polity, while a particular caste (Kshatriyas) was entitled to rule, the power was shared by the whole community (Altekar, 2001). When the British arrived, the deliberative tradition was alive and well. While writing about the Indian villages in 1832 to the Select Parliamentary Committee on the East India Company’s Charter, Metcalfe mentioned the village communities as “little republics.” Henry Maine found evidence of active autonomous village governments where the participatory democracy was practised. In these villages, the council of village elders were not bound by top down dictation but had flexible structures of governance that could account for changing conditions and traditional customs (Mantena, 2010). For a time, the British (notably Lord Ripon) tried to develop village self-governing bodies in India as schools of democracy, a centre of political education of the people (Tinker, 1954). But neither the situation on the ground nor the time was conducive. The villages then were controlled either by the local landlords or by the police leaving hardly any scope for the people to raise their voices (Datta, 1988). The Royal Commission on Decentralization and the Monatgue-Chelsford reforms in 1918 tried to revive the village committees. But the widespread suspicion derived from their earlier experiences dampened the initiative. In the census report of 1911, attempts were made to track down and enumerate village committees. Most of them were democratically elected, although in the Uttar Pradesh, all elections by the Gaon Sabha had to be approved by the local magistrate (GaonSabhas are discussed below). In the wake of the development of the parallel British court system the villagers lost interest in taking their issues to the village committees where the high caste “influentials” used to decide everything. This was why village committees, wherever they existed, stagnated for some time and steadily declined. During the days of the freedom struggle, Gandhi pleaded strongly for vibrant democracy in villages (Datta, 2017). Gandhi did not conceive of local participation simply as a tool of political education of the citizens of India but as a form of democratic self-governance. It is true that Gandhi did not expect full realisation of his ideal of little republics −Gram Sabhas− federating themselves to create the state by what he considered genuine home rule through individual restraint and selfcontrol (Nadkarni, 2018). Significantly it was Rabindranath Tagore who was the first to plead for self-regulated councils in the villages as early as 1900s, and it received a lot of attention during the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal between 1905 and 1910. But like the modern liberals, Gandhi was convinced that deliberation and participatory democracy cannot blossom unless and until citizens see each other as equals, and there is room for taking their voices in decision-making. Gandhian socialists like Jayaprakash Narayan pleaded for direct democracy at the village level and representative government upwards to Delhi. He further said that the relationship between the Panchayat and Gram Sabha should be like that of the cabinet and assembly (Bandyopadhyayetal., 2003). However, the architects of the Constitution of India were hesitant, as evident from the debates in the Constituent

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Assembly, to create a system of effective decentralised rural governance. The objective resolution introduced by Nehru reflected his preference for the Western state model, and did not, like Gandhi, visualise the village as the basic unit of the new political system. Ambedkar, who was the chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, was severely critical and ruled out the possibility of a robust vibrant participatory democracy because of persistent social and economic inequality in the villages. As expected, the decentralised democracy found a place in the Directive Principle of State Policy, known as the backyard of the Constitution, which is not enforceable in the courts of law. Local government was left to be dealt with by the state governments.

2. The First and Second Generations of Gram Sabhas The first generation of decentralised village democracy under the new Constitution of India, the Panchayati Raj, was initiated on the basis of the recommendation of the Balvantrao Committee Report. It contained the idea that a kind of deliberative democracy would be institutionalised through Gram Sabhas. Legal provision for Gram Sabhas was made in many states. Uttar Pradesh was the first to institutionalise participation of the villagers through a deliberative body called Gaon Sabha, which met twice a year to discuss and prioritise the concerns of the village (Retzlaff, 1963). But none of them functioned effectively. The Diwakar Committee observed in 1963 that Gram Sabha meetings were thinly attended, and a quorum was seldom achieved (Diwakar, 1963). The state of Karnataka tried to strengthen Gram Sabhas in 1985 (Aziz, 2000) but the increasing resentment of the councillors, who faced criticisms in the meetings, hastened the process of their decline (Crook and Manor, 1998). Despite the setbacks, the experiment in Karnataka received wide support across the political spectrum. The L.M.Singhvi Committee (1986), constituted by the Indian state, laid stress on the formation of the Gram Sabhas (Venkataraman, 1989). It was a time when a good number of developing countries had started implementing some form of participatory democracy with varying degrees of financial and political power. Mention can be made of the Philippines, Honduras, Bolivia, Namibia, Uganda and Tanzania, where enabling legal frameworks and institutional channels for citizen participation at the local level have been developed. For example, in Tanzania it was known as Ward Development Committee, in Bolivia as Village Committee, in Nepal as Village Development Councils. In India, the demand for constitutional amendment to strengthen grassroots democracy gained ground in 1990s, most particularly after the government accepted neo-liberal policies. This led to the amendment of the Constitution in 1992. The second generation of Gram Sabhas was marked by the 73rd Constitutional Amendment of 1992. Article 243 (B) of the Constitution defines the Gram Sabha as a body consisting of persons registered in the electoral rolls relating to a village comprised within the area of the Panchayat at the village level. The Indian Parliament

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created a space mandated by the Constitution for the participation of the villagers to discuss issues of their governance and development. In other words, the state has sought to “induce participation” and in doing so, facilitate allocation of resources for the poor (Mansuri and Rao, 2012). These institutions have created opportunities for transferring decision making power from the public bureaucracies to the villagers and neighbourhoods. The introduction of gender quotas and quotas for the Scheduled Castes and tribes through the constitutional amendment also seeks to add a new dimension to participation. The spread and population of a Gram Sabha varies from state to state. The average numbers of villages in a Gram Sabha (Panchayat) vary from 11.5 in West Bengal and Orissa to 1.2 in Haryana. The average size of a Gram Sabha is around 1000 persons in Uttar Pradesh, and 30,000 people in Kerala (Participatory Research in Asia, 1997). In some states like Kerala, Odisha and West Bengal, there are different deliberative institutions like Ward Sabha, or Palli Sabha Gram Sansad (Datta, 1999). They are not coterminous with the Gram Panchayats, as in most of the states, but are located at a space which is closer to the villagers (Datta, 2001). Article 243 (A) of the Constitution says that the Gram Sabhas may exercise such powers and perform such functions of the village level as the Legislature of a State may, by law, provide. A study of the State Panchayat Acts reveals that the Gram Sabhas have to perform a wide array of functions which include inter alia, examination of the annual statement of the accounts and audit report as well as annual report of administration of the Gram Panchayat in the last financial year, identification of the beneficiaries of various anti-poverty and rural development programmes and the like (see Oommen, 1996). Most of the state legislation empowers Gram Sabhas to exercise control over the Gram Panchayats and to take final decisions on matters of village development. However, it is not binding on the part of the Gram Panchayats to implement the directions and decisions of the Gram Sabhas. Some of the states like Kerala and West Bengal have amended their laws to make it mandatory for the Gram Panchayats to discuss the recommendations in the formal meetings and to adopt resolutions stating why it would not be able to implement them. This resolution has to be read in the next meeting of the Gram Sabha (Datta, 2006).

3. Beyond and Below Gram Sabhas: Innovative Initiatives in Some States Gram Sansads in West Bengal Unlike the general practice in most of the country, some of the states like Kerala, West Bengal and Odisha have made legal provision for the creation of another body below Gram Sabhas. Here we may briefly refer to the experience of the workings of such a deliberative body known as Gram Sansads in West Bengal, which attracted a lot of attention in the country in 1980s and 1990s and has been widely researched.

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Webster (1992), for example, found formal participation in the para (locality) meeting of the Gram Sabhas and other regular public meetings, and informal participation through “mighty discussions” amongst villagers. G.K.Lieten remarked that although the “boktrita (lecture) culture” was not altogether absent in the Gram Sansad meetings, participation used to take place. About one-quarter of the males he could speak to, stated that they participated in the meetings (Lieten, 1996). Ghatak and Ghatak’s (2002) study demonstrated that the participants, who comprised all sections of the population, actively voiced demand for new projects, suggested how allocated funds should be spent and debated how projects should be designed. The pradhans (the chairperson of the Gram Panchayat) and the local representatives have to answer a lot of questions and often face allegations about the misuse of funds and selection of beneficiaries (2002). My research showed that more than one-third of the villagers were not aware of the Gram Sansad, and in some Gram Sansads, the leaders conducting the meetings were intolerant of the views of the people belonging to the opposition parties (Datta, 2001). A large number of the respondents felt that the party offices became the real action theatre. This finding has been supported by another empirical study conducted by Bhattacharya (1998). Bhattacharyya (1999) also mentioned the lack of interest among the villagers. An empirical study based on a large sample and conducted by the Centre of Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, found a similar lack of enthusiasm among the members of the Sansads. Many reported that Gram Sansads turned out to be forums for approving the decisions of the Gram Panchayat, instead of being active deliberative bodies (Centre for Study in Social Sciences, 2006).

Gram Sabhas under PESA and Forests Act The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) 1996 is an important Act, which has given Gram Sabhas special importance in the Scheduled Areas. “Scheduled Areas” may be declared under the Constitution in places populated by tribal people, enabling special protections and rights, as well as certain exemptions. Under the PESA, the Gram Sabha is responsible for the protection of the forest, wildlife and the biodiversity of the forest in a Scheduled Area (Singh, 2016). To meet this responsibility, the PESA has given special powers to the Gram Sabha to raise any type of issue regarding a lease given for mines in their area, land acquisition, management of water bodies and infrastructure development in tribal areas (Kar 2016). The uniqueness of Gram Sabhas lies in the provision that they must work in conformity with the tradition, culture and customs of the tribe instead of merely being used as a tool for revenue generation. Gram Panchayats prepare and implement all development plans subject to the approval of the Gram Sabha. The Gram Sabha is empowered to issue the certificate of the utilisation of funds for various plans and programmes, identify persons as beneficiaries under the poverty alleviation programme and for other applications to implement other programmes (Pal, 2000; Kurup, 2008).

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One study (Prasad 2020) has shown that local people are largely unaware about the legal strength of the Gram Sabhas. Even the lower-level government official was not adequately aware of PESA. A lack of complete infrastructure is also responsible for irregular Gram Sabha meetings. Interestingly, Prasad has found attendance of women very high because males are engaged in agricultural activities outside their places of residences. The participants also mentioned that even when the beneficiaries of the programmes such as the old age pension, the public distribution system, etc., were identified by the Gram Sabha, local bureaucrats and Block Development Offices did not consider the decision taken under the Gram Sabha meeting.

4. The Working of the Gram Sabhas: Issues and Challenges In studying Gram Sabhas across the country, one notices that there are important variations in the frequency of meetings and in how agendas are decided, with some states establishing their own legislative framework. Although it is difficult to prepare a checklist of the issues commonly discussed in the Gram Sabha meetings, broadly speaking, villagers gather to deliberate, debate and press for provisioning of their preferred public goods, be it the construction or repair of local roads or irrigation canals or the provision of hand pumps and sanitation facilities or the selection of beneficiaries under different individual benefit-orientated schemes. The studies conducted in some of the major states tend to show that meetings of the Gram Sabhas are not being held regularly, despite the fact that all the states have amended their laws to provide for Gram Sabhas in conformity with the constitutional provisions. The data collected by National Council of Applied Economic Research in 2006–08 reveal that, on average, 13 per cent of villagers attend Gram Sabhas (Das, 2015). The Institute of Social Sciences carried out a study in Madhya Pradesh 1995 that showed that out of the legal requirement of six meetings a year, only three were held. Even when the meetings were held, attendance was far below the requirement, leading to postponement and adjournment of meetings. Singh (2013) reported in his study that out of about 800 households only 24 per cent regularly participated in Gram Sabha meetings, and 33 per cent seldom attended them. The remaining 43 per cent of households never participated in the meetings (Basu, 2010). Nayakara (2010) stated that the extent of the people’s participation in Gram Sabha meetings of village panchayats of Sriperumbudur Block in Tamil Nadu barely met the required quorum for the meeting. As Gram Sabha meetings were conducted during the morning, most members working in the nearby industries could not attend. Researchers at the Institute of Local Self-Government and Responsible Citizenship (2014) had attended and observed 204 Gram Sabha meetings in Badgaon and Gogunda block in Rajasthan from August 2010 to November 2013. The Institute reported that the total presence of voters was 4.3 per cent in 2010, which increased to 4.9 per cent in 2011, 5.3 per cent in 2012 and 8.3 per cent in 2013. Significantly, meeting attendance is not always primarily driven by incentives of the poorer households to include themselves in the beneficiary lists of different

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targeted government welfare schemes (in some states the names of beneficiaries under different schemes are not selected by the Gram Sabhas but by the officials). This consideration is there but it is not the sole consideration. It is interesting that the attendance of both men and women are affected by the gender of the head of the Gram Panchayat (Bhattacharjee and Chattopadhayay, 2011). This finding was further confirmed by my study in two Gram Panchayats in West Bengal (Datta, 2003). In a couple of the meetings of these Gram Sansads, where I was personally present, it was seen that villagers, having failed to get their demands and arguments accepted by the ruling leaders, boycotted the meeting in a group, shouting slogans without disturbing the meeting, which continued after some time. In states like West Bengal, where participation of the villagers in Gram Sansad meetings was remarkably high in the 1990s, cultural factors played an important role. While attending meetings in these villages as a participant observer, I observed that local leaders had organised meetings of the Gram Sabhas on any of the days on which village fairs were held. Fairs are still an integral part of village life. These fairs are usually accompanied by a variety of cultural programmes. These attractions had pulled in a good number of villages. In one of the meetings, I noticed a significant number of young boys and girls who are not usually seen at the Gram Sabha meetings. In fact, fairs and cultural programmes attracted them. Some of them attended meeting and raised issues like the repair of roads, the sinking of tube wells, etc., which were pertinent to their daily lives. In some of the states the dates of the meetings of the Gram Sabhas are not decided by the people or their representatives but by the state governments. For example, the Tamil Nadu government issues orders to conduct the Gram Sabha on 26 January, 15 August, 1 May and 2 October every year (Dwarakanath, 2013). States like Madhya Pradesh are also doing this. The studies conducted by Participatory Research in Asia (1997) demonstrate that except in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh, Gram Sabha meetings do not really serve the purpose of establishing village level priorities. The researchers have also underscored the lack of skills of those who conduct meetings. However, a clear positive linkage between the holding of the meetings of the Gram Sabhas and the improvement in governance has been identified (see Besley, Pande and Rao, 2005; Swaminathan, 1990). In some states like West Bengal, there is a legal mandate that lists of certain beneficiaries must be ratified in the Gram Sabhas, which allows for a social audit of the people included in the list and enhances the accountability of the officials. However, participation has not, by and large, taken the form of Gram Sansad (village assembly) meetings. Instead, there is a great deal of informal discussion of these matters in the localities. In most of the states, the Panchayati Raj legislation specifies that public good projects that receive favourable support in the meetings of the Gram Sabha should be incorporated while preparing the annual budgets of the village panchayats and that the budget must be approved by the Gram Sabha before it is sent to the block panchayat for financial support. The studies done by Foster and Rosenzweig (2004) show that having elections makes public good provision more sensitive to the

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preferences of lower castes, while the studies done by others show that reserving the post of heads of panchayats for women or caste/ethnic minorities also affects the composition of public goods provided (Chattopadhaya and Duflo, 2004; Besley, Pande and Rao, 2005, 2012; Dunning and Nilekani, 2013; Gajwani and Zhang, 2014). It is a concern, however, that the attendance of women is as low as 7 per cent. Women were not invited to Gram Sabha meetings, and most of the women who did attend were reluctant to participate in Gram Sabha meetings in the presence of a large number of elder members (Nambiar, 2001). In addition, their household responsibilities left them very little time to contribute to Gram Sabha meetings (Datta, 2001). State intervention, in the form of network building and training, can lead to the transformation of the role of women at the Gram Sabha. The Pudhu Vaazhvu Project, which was designed to address the building of networks, has succeeded in improving women’s participation in the Gram Sabha meetings (Parthasarathi, Rao and Palaniswami, 2017). The rise and growth of self-help groups formed by women has led to a remarkable increase in attendance and participation in the meetings (Datta and Sinha, 2008). The neighbourhood groups under the Kudumbashree programme in Kerala are also working for this purpose. The groups mobilise women and take them to the meetings. This is contributing to the improvement of oral competency of the female speakers (Sanyal, Rao and Prabhakar, 2015). Gram Sabhas also play an important role in giving the poor a voice (Rao and Sanyal, 2009). Gram Sabhas are safe spaces that enable lower castes to speak out and make claims without fear of reprisal, because electoral accountability prevents political parties from taking action against villagers who challenge them or social norms in Gram Sabhas. It has been noticed that the villagers have started demanding their entitlements even if some of them are guided by their petty and selfish interest. This is very important as it reflects citizens’ “capacity to aspire” for a better life (Appadurai, 2004). But it has to be kept in mind that “While deliberation can thus become a tool for social inclusion, such dignity claims may simply reflect the low levels of literacy characteristic of rural India that result in low ‘oratory competence’” (Parthasarathy and Rao, 2018, 812; and see Sanyal, Rao andPrabhakar, 2015). In other words, emotions and personal interest become key aspects of deliberative discourse (Sanyal 2015). Jane Mansbridge (2015) notes that while this does not meet the rational deliberation ideal, standards of deliberation are evolving to admit more emotive and interest-based forms of argumentation, which are more reflective of the deliberative styles of the marginalised communities in India. Still, Sanyal (2018, 175) finds that many Gram Sabhas do not meet even Mansbridge’s “minimalist standards.” Low literacy compounds the substantial information asymmetries facing villagers when negotiating with public officials. Media is one source of information that villagers do try to make use of in order to challenge officials, but the requests are easily “ignored, evaded, or dismissed” by Gram Panchayat members on the basis that the media is an unreliable source of information (Bhattarcharjee and Chattopadhaya, 2011, 46). Creating a more common or shared information base for deliberations in Gram Sabhas is one obvious way that equality and deliberative standards can be improved.

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5. Making Sabhas a true deliberative body Effective deliberative processes are difficult to establish, particularly in societies where traditions of democracy are weak, where social and economic inequality and illiteracy are deep rooted, or where identity politics are firmly entrenched in the social structure. Again, the knowledge produced through deliberation cannot be called neutral. Those who hold power have all the means at their disposal to distort communication and manipulate the outcomes, and thus to use Gram Sabhas as democratic instruments for legitimisation of their decisions. The constitutional amendment defines panchayat bodies not only as institutions of self-government but also as instruments of planning for economic development and social justice. The Fourteenth Finance Commission has enhanced the grant size of the Gram Panchayats and has stressed delivery of the basic services. Keeping these in mind, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, in consultation with various stakeholders and experts developed a manual in 2016 for what is popularly known as the Gram Panchayat Development Plan. The Gram Sabha is the first in the entire process of plan preparation. One case study in Haryana shows that the elected representatives are now less sceptical about people participating in the meetings of the Gram Sabhas. The self-help groups have also been found to have learnt about how to formulate and raise questions (Sinha, 2018). But there is much more to be done. To make Sabhas meaningful and capable of serving the purposes for which they have been set up, I would like now to examine some of the necessary conditions. First, the caste system, which divides the people hierarchically, is still playing an important role in major spheres of rural life. But its impacts and influences are reduced when the democratic processes like holding of elections at regular intervals and meetings of Gram Sabhas are set in motion. Thus, it calls for effective intervention by the Government of India, including holding back funds from the states that refuse to hold elections to panchayat bodies as per the constitutional mandate, and cannot ensure holding of Gram Sabha meetings at regular intervals. In West Bengal, the State Government is authorised by law to dissolve a Gram Panchayat if it fails to hold meetings of the Gram Sabha; and if the concerned member of the Gram Panchayat is found responsible, then he or she can be removed. Similar or stronger penal provision is required to ensure holding of the regular meeting of the Gram Sabhas. The Parliament, which has amended the Constitution, is required to keep special vigil and surveillance over it. The second issue is about the involvement of political parties. In most of the states, political parties are not allowed to participate in the Panchayat elections openly, however, many studies (e.g. Haldipur and Paramhansha, 1970; Rajasekhar et al., 2017) have shown that they remain active through backdoors because they have to build their support bases from the villages. Given this existing condition or compulsion, it seems wiser to accept the recommendation of the Ashoke Mehta Committee to permit political parties to participate in local elections. If it is allowed, then the frontal organisations of the political parties like the peasant

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organisations, youth organisations and women’s organisations can be motivated and asked to play an important role in mobilising the villagers to attend meetings. It has yielded desired results in West Bengal (Datta 2001). The support of the local civil society organisations can be solicited for this purpose. Third, in some states, traditional parallel bodies like Khap panchayats (Yadav, 2009) and Gavkis (Lele, 2001) which women do not have access to, seem to be working against participation of women in Gram Sabha meetings. It underscores the need for strong legislative actions to impose a blanket ban on these bodies. It cannot be done without creating wider political consensus because they have political clout and one of the reasons of their survival is political support, overt or covert. Effective participation of women in the Gram Sabhas is likely to increase if provision is made for declaring a meeting null and void if at least one-third of the participating members is not made up of women. It is in conformity with the reservation of seats for women in all the elected tiers of the Gram Panchayat. It requires another round of constitutional amendment. As the self-help groups (SHGs) are playing an instrumental role in mobilising women, it would be useful if the rules of the working of the SHGs make it clear that this is one of their mandatory functions. Another supportive condition for the development of village deliberative democracy is the improving literacy rate in India. Over the course of one decade alone, adult literacy grew by roughly 10 per cent to 74 per cent, with the strongest gains in rural regions and among women (Census of India, 2011). Fourth, there is the need to review the provisions of the constitutional amendment relating to Gram Sabhas in the light of the experiences gathered in different states. The location of the Gram Sabhas as co-terminous with the Gram Panchayat is not conducive for meaningful participation because of the size and numbers of the members. In states like Kerala, West Bengal and Odisha, there are deliberative bodies apart from Gram Sabha that are closer to the villagers, which seems to be a better option. There is another need for reviewing the constitutional amendment which was done hurriedly and suffers from the compulsions of the Indian federal system. As local government is a state subject in the Constitution of India, the Parliament seemed to have made compromises in making this amendment. The hands of the central government, which piloted the amendment, are tied on many counts. This issue needs to be resolved through discussions between the centre and the states because narrow partisan and electoral considerations of the party or parties ruling the states have on many occasions been responsible for halting or impeding the democratic processes at the local level to work. Moreover, the functional relationship between the Gram Panchayat and Gram Sabhas has to be clearly spelt out in laws and rules. It would motivate sceptical members of the community to participate in meetings.

Conclusion Gram Sabhas mandated by the Constitution are an innovative democratic institution in village India. Gram Sabha meetings, despite all their weaknesses, should be looked at as an attempt to move towards the equality of citizens and social inclusion.

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With time, gram sabhas are likely to become even more effective tools in India’s quest to give its citizens a better life. In this sense, they demonstrate the potential value of deliberation for development and poverty reduction, a subject that is becoming increasingly important in the developing world. (Parthasarathy and Rao, 2017, 17; see also Heller and Rao, 2015) The lower castes have started using the open discursive space to make claims of dignity, which the powerholders find difficult to ignore. But more remains to be done. Programmes to train and empower citizens, like the People’s Campaign in Kerala (Isaac and Franke, 2017) or the women-centred PudhuVaazvhu Project in Tamil Nadu, suggest that facilitated deliberation can usher in a new democratic atmosphere. Here facilitation means hand-holding support through training and workshops. In these workshops, the stakeholders participate and offer useful suggestions from their day-to-day experience. In such workshops, an attempt is made to sensitise and motivate the participants with the help of colourful presentations, charts, tables, photographs and the like. Nevertheless, there are variations and unevenness in the quality and integrity of implementation of Gram Sabhas. The assemblies have faced inherent constraints of traditional village society with relatively low literacy rates, structured inequality rooted in the caste system and gender bias, which is sustained by the deeply embedded patriarchy coupled with political support. Given the strength of the constraints, there is a strong need to elicit the full-throated support of civil society organisations, including local electronic and print media, which in recent times have gained some ground in the villages, as well as to rope in the informal leaders of the society who champion the cause of deliberation for effective and good governance. In states like Kerala, government servants who return to their ancestral village homes after retirement play a key role. But it might be difficult to replicate this in other states, where the rural-urban divide is wide. The basic amenities, for example, are not available in such villages. However, the working of democracy in the villages through electoral politics has largely politicised villagers. Therefore, strong bottom-up pressure, generated through sustained collaborative work, has to be mounted to compel the political parties to extend their support by letting their frontal organisations, such as peasant organisations, women’s organisations, youth organisations and students’ organisations, work to mobilise villagers in meetings and ensure their participation.

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Patrick Heller and Vijayendra Rao, pp. 27–50. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Mansuri, Ghazala and Vijayendra Rao. 2012. “Localizing Development: Does Participation Work?” World Bank Policy Report. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Mantena, Karuna. 2010. Alibis of empire: Henry Maine and Liberal Imperialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Nadkarni, M.V. 2018. Decentralised Democracy in India: Gandhi’s Vision and Reality. Oxford and New York, NY: Routledge. Nayakara, V. 2010. Functioning of the Gram Sabhas in Tamil Nadu: A Study of Selected Villages in Sriperumbudur Block, Proceedings of the National Seminar on Gram Sabhas organised by Abdul Nazir Sab State Institute of Rural Development, 30 September−1 October 2010, Mysore, Karnataka. Oommen, M.A. 1996. Panchayat Raj Development Report. New Delhi: Institute of Social Science. Pal, Mahi. 2000. “Panchayats in Fifth Scheduled Areas.” Economic and Political Weekly, 35 (19): 1602–1606. Parthasarathy, Ramya and Vijayendra Rao. 2017. Deliberative democracy in India (Policy Research Working Paper No. WPS 7995). World Bank. Available online: http://docum ents.worldbank.org/curated/en/428681488809552560/pdf/WPS7995.pdf, [Accessed 20 October 2020]. Parthasarathy, Ramya and Vijayendra Rao. 2018. “Deliberative Democracy in India.” In The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy, eds. Andre Bächtiger, John Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge and Mark Warren. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Participatory Research in Asia. 1997. Proceedings of the seminar strengthening Panchayati Raj institutions in India. New Delhi: India International Centre. Prasad, Sachchinand. 2020. Decentralisation at the Grassroots: A Panchayat Extension to Scheduled areas of Jharkhand. Unpublished PhD thesis submitted to the Central University of Rajasthan. Rajasekhar, D., M. Devendra Babu and R. Manjula. 2017. “Are Elections to Gram Panchayats Partyless: Evidence from Karnataka.” Working Paper No. 402. Indian Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bengalaru. Rao, Vijayendra and Paromita Sanyal. 2010. “Dignity through discourse: poverty and the culture of deliberation in Indian village democracies.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 629(1): 146–172. Retzlaff, Ralph H. 1962. Village government in India: a case study. Mumbai: Asia Publishing House. Sanyal, Paromita. 2015. The Role of Emotions in Deliberative Development. In Deliberation and Development: Rethinking the Role of Voice and Collective Action in Unequal Societies, edited by Patrick Heller and Vijayendra Rao, pp. 167–191. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Sanyal, Paromita, Vijayendra Rao and S. Majumdar. 2015. “Recasting culture to undo gender: A sociological analysis of Jeevika in Rural Bihar, India.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, 7411. Sanyal, Paromita, Vijayendra Rao and U. Prabhakar. 2015. Oral Democracy and Women’s Oratory Competency in Indian Village Assemblies: A Qualitative Analysis (Policy Research Working Paper No. WPS 7416). Washington, DC: World Bank. Available online: https:// openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/22652/Oral0democracy0qua litative0analysis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y, [Accessed 20 October 2020]. Sen, Amartya. 2005. The argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian history, culture and identity. London: Macmillan.

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Singh, N. 2016. “Tribe and Prejudice: A historical perspective of forest state relations.” In Governance: Issues and challenges, edited by Shivani Singh, pp. 110–124. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Sinha, Rajesh Kumar. 2018. “Participation in Gram Sabha and Gram Panchayat Development Planning for sustainable development: Field experience from Haryana.” Journal of Rural Development Review, April−June 2018: Paper 51. Swaminathan, Madura. 1990.“Village Level Implementation of IRDP: Comparison of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.” Economic and Political Weekly, 25(13): A17–A27. Tinker, Hugh. 1954. The Foundations of the Local Self-government in India, Pakistan and Burma (Vol. 1). London: University of London, Athlone Press. Venkataraman, A. 1989. “Proposed constitutional amendment on Panchayati Raj—Some reflections.” The Indian Journal of Political Science, 50(July–September): 405–406. Webster, Neil. 1992. Panchayati Raj and Decentralisation of Development Planning. Kolkata: K.P. Bagchi. Yadav, Bhupendra. 2009. “Khap Panchayats: Stealing Freedom.” Economic and Political Weekly, 44(52): 16–19.

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5 NEPAL Participatory and Deliberative Constitutionmaking in a Divided Society Michael G. Breen

Introduction Over the past 20 years, Nepal has undergone a remarkable transformation. At the turn of the century, it was mired in a civil war between Maoist rebels and the state. Ten years later, it was in the midst of a participatory constitution-making process with a view to establishing a secular, federal, democratic republic. The Constitution has now been enacted and is being implemented. Elections have been held for three levels of government, and the Maoists have been transformed into legitimate political actors. It was not an easy process. The constitution-making process went on for more than seven years, requiring two Constituent Assembly elections, protest movements, extensive negotiations within and across parties and the engagement of hundreds of thousands of regular citizens. In particular, there were several “contentious issues,” headlined by federalism, where a consensus was elusive. The main issue in the federalism debate concerned the basis of the demarcation of new federal provinces. The deliberative elements of the participatory constitution-making process were pivotal to its resolution. Whereas political communications by parties and other vested interests tended to be instrumental, leading to polarisation between two ideal approaches of “ethnic” or “territorial” federalism1, deliberations at the local levels were able to overcome this divide and have a widereaching influence. This chapter overviews and evaluates the both the elite and local level deliberations. After setting the local and theoretical context (sections two and three), it asks why Nepal introduced deliberative components to its constitution-making process and how the deliberative components ran and influenced decision-making (sections four to six). In doing so, it demonstrates that deliberative democracy can moderate ethnic politics in divided societies and that it can be designed to respond to different cultural traditions and contexts (section seven). It contributes to the emerging literature on DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-5

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deliberative constitutionalism (see Levy et al., 2018) by showing how sequenced multilevel deliberation in participatory constitution-making can help to overcome “the elite problem” (Levy, 2019), balance ideals of representation with wide participation (e.g. Fishkin, 2011) and moderate ethnic division on fundamental issues, including the identity of the state (contrary to the arguments of Dryzek, 2005).

Nepal in brief Nepal is renowned for its cultural and geographic diversity. From the tallest mountains in the world to flood-prone lowlands, its unique environment is home to more than 100 different identity groups, based on a combination of ethnicity, caste and language. However, Nepal’s political and social structures have been dominated by upper caste Hindus from the hills (Pahadis, herein referred to as Khas Arya) (Lawoti, 2007). Although caste discrimination has been banned, it persists in practice and informs a pervasive and complex ranking system (Whelpton, 2005; Gellner, 2007). It was this discrimination and the political exclusion that accompanied it that led to the Maoist insurgency, from 1996 to 2005. Geographically, Nepal is remote, and its mountainous terrain and poor infrastructure have created economically and socially isolated regions, where the government has had little reach. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, Nepal was highly centralised, with formal but poorly empowered and underutilised regional and local government bodies (Lawoti, 2005). It is not surprising that an uprising against this social and political domination and over-centralisation eventuated. During an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to bring in democracy in the 1990s, the communist parties joined forces, as the “Maoists,” and waged a guerrilla war lasting about ten years. Eventually the Maoists were able to control most of the country outside of the central Kathmandu Valley and set up an alternative (quasi-federal) model of governance, collecting “taxes” from local businesses and tourists to fund services. However, no side was able to reach a decisive victory, and in the aftermath of a crackdown by the king at that time, the Maoists teamed together with the main political parties to sign a comprehensive peace agreement and overthrow the monarchy. Key outcomes of this peace agreement included the election of a Constituent Assembly to prepare a democratic, secular and federal constitution, and an interim constitution to underpin the election and constitutional drafting process (Support to Participatory Constitution Building Nepal, 2013). The Maoists sought to establish a new and more inclusive constitution. Central to this was the idea of ethnic autonomy, later given form through federalism. Federalism became to be seen as a “magic bullet” that would deliver the “emancipation” of the marginalised people. But first, the key actors would need to both draw the boundaries of, and decide new powers for, the new federal provinces. Nepal has areas generally considered to be “ethnic homelands,” and many of its ethnic groups live in clustered communities. However, its more than 100 ethnic groups and history of internal migration, hastened by the war, makes it virtually

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impossible to draw new federal provinces whereby the target identity group becomes a majority (Sharma, 2007; Bhattachan, 2008). Nepal’s social and political culture has until recently remained largely unchallenged owing to the relatively poor development and education standards, particularly outside the major cities. The exclusion from state institutions of a majority of its population persisted for so long because of the traditional cultural beliefs of the dominant Khas Arya group and its inherent justification of a hierarchical and elitist form of political leadership (most especially via the caste system) (Bista, 1991; Lawoti, 2005; Whelpton, 2005). Nepal’s Janajati (indigenous) groups, many of which are Buddhist, are traditionally more egalitarian. Nepali political culture is also consensus-based and influenced by strong communal sentiments and their precedence over individual rights-based sentiments such as equality (Whelpton, 2005, 173–77). Nepal has, in the past, introduced participatory processes. Initially, the Panchayat system of local government introduced under the monarchy in the 1960s entailed a form of participatory community decision-making, itself based on traditional village governance. But their autonomy was gradually diminished by the modern state, which outside of the major cities, failed to supplant the position of traditional elites (Hachhethu, 2008, 48–51). In 1999 participatory planning processes were introduced at the local government level as part of the democratisation agenda. However, from 2003 local governments were without elected officials. Instead, bureaucrats led a variety of participatory processes. Of those, Bhusal (2019) found that informal participatory forums were the most deliberative and inclusive. Most were sequenced and linked to decision-making processes. Forums were initially open to any participants and then narrowed to include community representatives, local officials and political actors who would deliberate on the recommendations or proposals and make decisions (Bhusal, 2018; 2019). Many of these approaches can be seen to reappear in the participatory constitution-making process.

Deliberative Democracy, Divided Societies and Constitution-making Three particular theoretical debates in the deliberative democracy literature are relevant to the practice of Nepal’s participatory and deliberative process. One regards consensus. Deliberative democratic theory has moved beyond the idea that deliberative processes should aim for consensus (see Curato et al., 2017, 31). Such processes can result in a compromise that simply reflects or adapts the views of the dominant group. But if Asian political cultures are traditionally more consensusbased, as many have argued (see Mauzy, 1997; Mukherjee, 2010), then perhaps deliberation in Asia should be designed accordingly. In Nepal it was, and consensus was a specific requirement of many of its deliberative processes, most notably its Constituent Assembly. Second, to what extent does deliberation need to influence or direct decisionmaking to be considered “democratic.” For Elster (1998), deliberative democracy does not need to involve decision-making or be otherwise direct. However, for Fishkin (2011) public deliberation should be “consequential,” and his Deliberative

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Polling methodology emphasises direct links between public deliberation and government decision-making. The third issue is whether deliberative democracy can be effective in deeply divided societies. Several conditions that are supportive to quality deliberation, like trust and mutual respect, are often low and there is high potential for emotive and value-based debates that may undermine reasoned analysis and compromise (see Dryzek, 2005, 219–222; He, 2015). Sunstein (2003) argues that deliberation in divided societies simply leads to further polarisation. This may be especially the case when deliberations concern matters of national sovereignty or identity – both of which were integral to the constitution-making process in Nepal. However, institutional design has been proven to be able to incentivise deliberation and create conditions that are more conducive to its practice and growth, which are self-reinforcing, and which can be effective across all kinds of societies (Fishkin, 2009; 2011). O’Flynn (2006) and Dryzek (2005) both emphasise the potential of local-level deliberation to bridge divides in such contexts. Dryzek (2005) further contends that deliberation should occur in a “semi-detached” sphere and not be associated with national sovereignty or other identity-based issues, because deliberation attached to decision-making means that people (especially elites) are less likely to change their minds. In a constitutional setting, these challenges are heightened. But deliberative methodologies are well placed to take them on. Deliberation and participation in constitution-making have been shown to increase the understanding and the legitimacy of outcomes, including those relating to self-determination claims (He, 2013; 2015, 217–219; Wallis, 2014). Sequencing is also important. International peace-building practice, for example, applies a three-staged approach, distinguishing between dialogue, deliberation and decision-making (Pruitt and Thomas, 2014). Drake and McCulloch (2011) recommend a two-stage process: the first relaxes deliberation’s requirement for public reason to “avoid pre-emptive exclusions,” and the second incorporates decision-making. Fishkin (2011) argues that the tension between normative values of political equality, deliberation and participation can be managed by emphasising some principles earlier and others later as part of a sequenced deliberation process. Nepal is a case in point.

The Constituent Assembly and Participatory Processes Following the end of World War Two, Nepal, like many other countries in the region, became a modern state and attempted to establish a democracy. However, the 2015 constitution was its sixth post-war constitution. Each of the previous Constitutions had failed. They were prepared by elites from the dominant Khas Arya ethnic group without public participation, and they entrenched, formally or in practice, discrimination, ethnic exclusion and the continuing political, economic and social domination of the Khas Arya (Ghai, 2011; Lawoti, 2005). The political parties, goaded by the Maoists, would aim to ensure that these mistakes were not repeated. A comprehensive peace agreement (2006) and an interim constitution (2007) recorded commitments to an inclusive and participatory constitution-making process and

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“the progressive restructuring of the state in order to resolve the existing problems of the country relating to class, caste, region and gender” (Interim Constitution 2007, preamble). The main vehicle by which the participatory constitution-making would proceed was through a Constituent Assembly (CA). Elections were held in 2008, resulting in an inclusive institution in which different ethnic, caste and religious groups were proportionally represented, more or less, and more than 33 per cent of the CA members were women (see Breen, 2018, 160–1). The elections also consolidated the Maoists transition to a political party. The Maoists won the most seats (38 per cent of the total), and the two other main parties, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) (UML), longstanding political actors, performed poorly. The CA election process also saw the rise of Madhesi2 parties, which were instrumental in securing a commitment for federalism. To fulfil its mandate, the CA established committees to deliberate and make recommendations. The CA’s procedures required it to aim for consensus. Voting (requiring a two-thirds majority) was a last resort. Deliberations were based on proposals from members, but in practice discussion was limited, and the political parties controlled the agenda. Sessions were often postponed as political parties sought to reach consensus decisions before their presentation to the CA. The CA formed 11 Thematic Committees and three Procedural Committees, with 43 CA members each. The Thematic Committees’ job was to prepare preliminary drafts of each part of the constitution (e.g. state restructuring and the distribution of power). The Procedural Committees engaged the public through a variety of methods including surveys, information campaigns, technical consultations and by gathering public opinion on the penultimate draft constitution (Centre for Constitutional Dialogue, 2009). The processes undertaken by the Thematic Committees were quite deliberative. They studied international examples and engaged experts and the public in numerous consultations, while holding extensive discussions among themselves. The Committee on the Restructuring of the State and Distribution of State Power (Committee on the Restructuring of the State and Distribution of State Power, 2010) listed 127 discussions and 49 sub-committee meetings, plus field studies, public consultations, workshops and seminars. Committees also consulted with each other with a view to a co-ordinated and coherent outcome. All but two of the committees were able to achieve their stated aim of reaching consensus. Unfortunately, the Committee on the Restructuring of the State and Distribution of State Power (CRSDSP) was one that could not reach agreement. This represented a deadlock would not be broken for another five years. Members of the CA also established cross-party caucuses that were based on identity, for example Dalit, indigenous, Madhesi and women. These caucuses, comprising about 30‑40 members, deliberated across party lines to produce common concepts and recommendations. Usually they held up to 20 meetings, and their procedures were fairly ad hoc. They were able to reach consensus on

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many issues given their common interests (e.g. Dalit rights), less so because of their deliberations. In any case, most of their recommendations were not incorporated into subsequent drafts (International IDEA, 2015), and the caucuses did not continue beyond the life of the first CA. At the local level, numerous kinds of public deliberations and consultations were introduced. These were meant to not just elicit the opinion of the masses, but to increase understanding and buy-in of the resultant constitution. The CA led its own processes, while international actors and civil society instigated others. The CA’s local level processes included public consultations, through the distribution of questionnaires after public meetings, and deliberative forums. These forums were in many cases led directly by members of the CA, and in others, they submitted directly to the CA. Overall, CA members held about 2,000 meetings and received over half a million returned questionnaires from individuals and organisations in their local areas (Khanal and Kushiyait, 2010, 5). The questionnaire contained hundreds of questions covering everything from broad principles to specific technical matters (see Committee on Citizens, 2009). Among civil society, the regional “federalism dialogues” (Sanghiya Sambad) conducted by the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) in each of the CA’s initially proposed 14 provinces, were among the most important. These dialogues involved around 60 persons each, including members of political parties, local non-governmental organisations (NGO), government officials and activists. They ran for three days each and comprised two distinct sections – the first focussed on education and building a shared understanding for future deliberations. The second section involved small and large group deliberations over particular issues. Participants were meant to be representative of the different identity groups in the given locality; however, selection was targeted at local elites and therefore replicated existing hierarchies, to some extent. Nevertheless, the dialogues were highly deliberative in practice: each participant was given adequate opportunity, discussions were informed, respectful and reasoned, and agreements were reached. At times, participants became emotive and a wide range of communication techniques were accommodated, such as storytelling and singing, but facilitation kept deliberations on track and on point. At the end, participants made agreements – “suggestions” – for the CAs consideration (see for example Centre for Constitutional Dialogue 2010a, 2010b). Various local and international NGOs also provided information and forums for deliberation, culminating in the formal submission of consolidated suggestions to the CA. For example, the “democratic dialogues,” which focused on giving the marginalised peoples a voice (Khanal and Kushiyait, 2010). Run by local NGOs and funded by the UNDP, almost 1,000 meetings involving around 50,000 people were held.

Federalism and the Basis of the Provinces Federalism, the forms of governance and the electoral system were the most contentious issues delaying the finalisation the new constitution. The Thematic

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Committee tasked with drafting the federal elements, the CRSDSP, was by far the most divided. All parties had committed to federalism in the lead-up to the CA elections and through the CA’s declaration of a new Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. However, some were “reluctant federalists,” and most had vastly different ideas about the bases of the provinces, and the associated discourse (Karki, 2014). The Maoists, Madhesi parties and some members of UML claimed that federalism was the cure to all ills: “Federalisation will …steadily end the present poverty, lack of education, unemployment, external dependence, and other factors hurting the self-respect and sense of sovereignty of the Nepali people” (Bhim Rawal, UML Vice-President, quoted in Shrestha, 2014). But Nepali Congress, some members of UML, monarchists and others came to fear federalism and associated demands for ethnic federalism with secession and the potential break-up of the state. This polarisation seemed to mirror a polarisation in society. The public discourse on federalism was framed as an apparent choice between ethnic federalism and territorial federalism and the public bought into this. During the insurgency, the Maoists established ethnically based parallel governments while the stated purpose of federalism was to overcome subordination. Thus there was great expectation among the indigenous groups, who equated federalism with ethnic autonomy. The rise of the Madhesi and other ethnic parties bought the fears of the “reluctant federalists” front and centre. The Madhesi parties demanded a single Madhesh province, running unbroken across the southern plains of Nepal (the Terai), home to about 50 per cent of the population and the major trade routes with India. On the ground, activists blockaded cities, and armed groups ran rampant, heightening fears of secession and the expulsion of new provincial minorities. In eastern Nepal, ethnic parties demanded autonomy, and threatened a “bloody agitation” if there demands were not met (Kantipur Report, 2010). Political parties eventually signed agreements with these ethnic based parties, promising specific federal outcomes (e.g. a single Madhesi province), most of which were not delivered (Hachhethu, 2009). Among all these demands and promises, it was perhaps unreasonable to expect the CRSDSP to find some resolution. And indeed it was unable to reach a consensus and had to finalise its report by a vote. The report provided two models: one supported by the majority of the committee and the other a minority. The majority sought to deliver each major ethnic group a province of their own, or if not possible, other special structures such as autonomous regions. The minority preferred a kind of territorial federalism that mixed up all the different ethnic groups and that would focus on viability rather than identity (Centre for Constitutional Dialogue, 2010d; Committee on the Restructuring of the State and Distribution of State Power, 2010). There was, however, a consensus on a third local level of government and on the division of powers between the central, provincial and local governments. Resolving these contentious issues became the major challenge facing the political parties. But instead of embracing the participatory ideals they had promulgated, they sidelined the people and the CA itself. The parties stopped seeking

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public opinion and the CA never became the forum for debating issues. The CA established a new structure – The State Restructuring Commission – to make what were meant to be the defining recommendations on the numbers, bases and boundaries of the new provinces. It comprised technical experts and did not have a mandate to consult the people. But it too failed to reach a consensus, and its recommendations were rejected. Political leaders shifted to negotiating in private and by May 2011 appeared to have reached a breakthrough. They announced an 11-province model, with provinces based more on identity (ethnicity) than viability (territory). But this exclusive approach to negotiating did not go down well. It was only a matter of days before the Maoists and the Madhesi alliance reneged on the deal, because the political leaders were unable to convince their own party members of the deal (Republica, 2012), let alone the public, who, as we will see, increasingly turned away from identity-based (ethnic) federalism.

The Second Constituent Assembly A second CA election became the only viable option for progressing the constitutionmaking process. The Maoists had had their chance, but had failed to deliver, and the people punished them. The election for a new CA, held in November 2013, saw Nepali Congress and UML became the largest parties. Together they were able to form a two-thirds majority (along with some minor parties), meaning that they could force through a new constitution. But they did not do this and continued to seek consensus. Nevertheless, with the new balance of power, the dynamics of the debate began to change. UML and Nepali Congress reverted to their previous position that federalism should be territorially based − that is, based on economic viability, infrastructure and geography. The Maoists, perhaps sensing what was at stake, began to compromise and change the elite-level discourse. A series of hybrid and territorial options emerged. The Maoists withdrew their demand for political prerogatives for each province’s titular ethnic group and began to assert that they “never asked for ethnic federalism,” only recognition of identity and historical continuity (Kumal, 2014). The Madhesi parties suggested they “could live with” two states along the southern plains. The number, boundaries and names of the provinces became the sole issue regarding federalism. The parties agreed to two criteria for delineating these provinces on a “hybrid” basis, combining identity and viability.3 But this did not take them any closer to agreement, and these were in fact the criteria that were used by the CSRDSP. Neither the parties themselves, nor the new CA, gave any further indication of priority or balance, which was the fundamental issue. Of course, they would always have to be combined in some way. But the elites had become so polarised and their positions so entrenched that the “leaders of the ruling parties [could] see no point discussing the opposition [Maoist] demand” (Post Report, 2015). Had deliberation reached its limit? Theorists like Sunstein (2000) have warned that deliberation in divided societies might only entrench division and polarisation, and it seemed, at face value, that this is what has happened. That is, up until they reached agreement.

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Following devastating earthquakes of mid-2015 and an urgent need to rebuild, the leaders agreed to finalise the constitution. They released a draft, which included only six provinces, without boundaries or names. This was not well received. Protests were launched across the Terai and in the far west of the country, where local groups sought their own provinces. Some protests became violent, resulting in several deaths. The parties agreed to create one more province, and in September 2015 the new constitution was promulgated by the CA, with near unanimity. The new Constitution established seven provinces based on a mixture of ethnicity and territory (or identity and viability), but with an emphasis on territorial criteria – largely reflective of the prevailing local level discourse.4 In creating one additional province, the political parties conceded the demands of the Karnali peoples (who are predominantly Khas Arya) but denied the demands of the historically marginalised Madhesi and indigenous Tharu people. This, and a lack of single-identity ethnic provinces, caused some observers to criticise the new model as a continuing hegemony and a sell-out of the gains of the civil war (for example, Lawoti, 2016). This may be partly true, but it was also based on an acceptance, once partisan politics was put aside (albeit briefly), of a mixed yet territorially weighted basis for provincial demarcation, rather than a strict ethnic basis, consistent with the deliberated outcomes. And one should not diminish the profound achievement of establishing federalism, secularism and republicanism for the very first time, alongside the reestablishment of democracy.

Evaluation – Local and Elite Deliberation and their Changing Emphases Nepal introduced a participatory process in order to ensure that the Constitution would be more inclusive, meaningful and legitimate. In fact, the process was a combination of representative, participatory and deliberative processes. Political parties were the key actors and the CA was the primary decision-making institution. They acted as representatives of the people but were informed by the participatory and deliberative processes. First, the actors needed to address the limited public knowledge of constitutional issues and federalism. In 2005 only 10 per cent of survey respondents had heard of federalism (Sharma and Sen, 2005). There were subsequently many “public participation campaigns to increase citizen understanding of, and participation in, the drafting process” (Centre for Constitutional Dialogue, 2009, 1). The proportion of people who had heard of federalism gradually increased to over 50 per cent by 2010 (Sharma and Khadka, 2011). The political parties had made out that the public wanted federalism, but a 2007 study comparing CA members and the general public showed that 93 per cent of CA members supported federalism compared with 42 per cent of the general public (Hachhethu et al., 2008, 87). The initial popularity of ethnic federalism was also overplayed5 while problems and difficulties arising from the low level of understanding persisted (e.g. Centre for Constitutional Dialogue, 2010b, 2–3). By 2015 awareness of federalism had

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plateaued, but support for ethnic federalism continued to fall (Sharma, 2015). But what was the role of deliberation? The CA itself was not a very deliberative institution. It was dominated by the major political parties, which preferred to negotiate and make decisions in another place and to use the CA only as a rubber stamp. The Thematic Committees and caucuses were far more deliberative, but their role in resolving the contentious issues was confined to the first CA. The six province proposal released in mid-2015 was decided after “days of closed door negotiations” between the four main political parties (Nepali Times, 2015a). Political party leaders, instead of trying to reach a mutual accommodation, were apparently just “trying to tire each other out” (International IDEA, 2015, 16). In time, “the debate on federalism polarised the country to such an extent that the two factors to be used as the bases for federalism were seen to be mutually exclusive, either-or values” (Manandhar, 2014). The Maoists in particular were blamed for “provoking the issue of single identity based on ethnicity in the name of state restructuring only to fulfil their political interests” (MB Pandey, Foreign Minister (UML) quoted in eKantipur Report, 2014) and in doing so “provoking the janajatis to the streets” (K.P. Oli, UML Chairman quoted in (eKanitpur, 2014). Meanwhile, the opposition warned of disintegration and proclaimed “national integrity is a key for federalism. Madhes and hills must not be separated” (Jhala Nath Khanal, UML leader, quoted in Post Report, 2014a). At the local level, however, it was a different story. Local-level dialogues (e.g. Centre for Constitutional Dialogue 2010a, 2010b) displayed genuine deliberation and resulted in a moderation of vested interests. For example, the federalism dialogues concluded that the new provinces should be based on a mixture of ethnic and territorial criteria, rather than the “either or” approach, as framed by the elite level discourse. The democratic dialogues resulted in broad agreement around a vast majority of matters, and the proposals made in the resulting submissions were mostly incorporated into the 2010 drafts prepared by the Thematic Committees (Khanal and Kushiyait, 2010). The collection of feedback on the draft constitution, however, was more about aggregation than deliberation. There were 186,964 suggestions collated (Nepali Times, 2015b), plus the questionnaire responses. The timeframe was short, and there was a feeling that dissent was not welcome, based on the high police presence at feedback collection programs (see Karna, 2015). The questionnaire was quite technical and complex, and the information underpinning the questions was inadequate. Notably, the questionnaire asks respondents to rank the top three bases for demarcating the new federal provinces, selecting from among several ethnic (e.g. language, historical identity) and territorial criteria (e.g. geography, population) (Committee on Citizens, 2009, 64). This suggests an understanding that a mixed approach was inevitable, with design a question of priority. Throughout these processes, the public have been increasingly against the idea of ethnic federalism, even though initially polarised. In 2010, support for ethnic versus territorially based federalism was even at 25 per cent each (see Dixit, 2010).

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However, by 2015 support for ethnic federalism had halved to about 12 per cent, while opposition increased to around 80 per cent (see Shakya, 2015). Although the survey did not include a mixed option, its results are consistent with the outcomes of the public deliberation process and, eventually, the broader media and elite level discourses. In the two years following the first CA election (July 2008 to June 2010), media discourse mirrored the elite level polarisation, with 43 per cent of relevant media reports and interviews advocating for ethnic federalism and 51 per cent supporting territorial federalism. Only 6 per cent of relevant articles preferred a model based on mixed criteria (author’s calculations). Four years later, with the second CA and renewed debate on federalism, three key changes to the discourse were observed. First, there was a decline in, and a moderation of, advocacy for ethnic federalism. The head of the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities even denied that they had ever sought ethnic federalism (while subsequently arguing for a version thereof) (Kumal, 2014). In the media, advocacy for ethnic federalism dropped from 43 per cent to 25 per cent of relevant articles over the post-CA II period. Second, there was more discussion of, and advocacy for, a mixed model, and some recognition that both ethnic and territorial criteria must be used. Indeed, support for a mixed model increased from 6 per cent to 30 per cent. Political parties that had advocated for an ethnic model changed and began advocating for a mixed model and avoiding the use of polarising language. Third, there was more emphasis on territorially focussed options, especially among those parties that had previously oscillated between the two options (UML especially). The final Constitution is reflective of these three shifts. The provinces, while few and prioritising viability factors, have a clear ethnic basis albeit with two or more major groups generally together in one province. Out of the seven provinces, one has a majority of Madhesi, and three have a majority of Janajatis (indigenous), with a plurality of one particular identity group (author’s calculations). The dominant Khas Arya are divided across each province, breaking up the hegemony of this group and that of the central government. The final Constitution, then, is consistent with the outcomes of local level deliberations, the prevailing public opinion and the shift in the prevalent discourse. In fact, the number of provinces proposed by decision-making bodies gradually decreased, in concert with the discourse and public opinion change (Breen, 2018, 169–71). Of course, there was deal-making and a protection of certain vested interests, but in the main the deliberative processes have been effective and influenced decision-makers. Not only were the contentious issues resolved in accordance with deliberations and discourse change, but in fact the vast majority of issues were agreed by a consensus-based deliberative process in the first CA. Polarisation could not be completely overcome – many Madhesis and Tharus in the west of Nepal are particularly discontented – but it has been reduced, and a base from which to build has been established. In short, Nepal’s participatory constitution-making process was an exercise or demonstration of deliberative democracy in action, however imperfect.

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Culture and Deliberation in Divided Societies So what does this mean for the future of deliberative democracy in Asia – can public deliberation help to advance democratisation in Asia? Can deliberative democracy apply to all societies regardless of history and culture? And what about Deliberative Polling? It is clear that one challenge of the participatory process was to make it meaningful – this is one of the trade-offs between deliberation and participation as highlighted in the introduction. The most effective and influential forms of participation were those that involved smaller numbers of people engaging in an informed and multi-day deliberation. Aggregative measures, like the questionnaire were not influential. They were too detailed and had no point of earlier comparison. But representation at the deliberative forums was somewhat ad hoc and did not include many laypeople. Using the sampling techniques and methodologies of Deliberative Polling would have been more effective as it combines the benefits of a survey approach, which removes pressure for consensus and compromise, with an informed public deliberation. Second, Nepal, like many other countries in the region, is a traditionally hierarchical society with a preference for consensus. But it is also communal. Loyalty to your identity group can conflict with finding consensus in inter-group situations, because it is difficult to put aside ethnic interest-based perspectives. It could be that this is a relatively unique feature of deliberative practices in Asia – that is, selection, representation and deliberation will more often take place in a way that is framed by ethnicity and communal interests and their discourses, and often in a context where one particular group is socially, economically or politically dominant. Again, Deliberative Polling can address these issues by using stratified random sampling to reconcile participatory and representative ideals, as well as methods that ensure equality of information and opportunity. Finally, democratic deliberation in divided societies and post-conflict state-(re) building situations is viable, particularly when processes are sequenced. Trust and mutual respect may be lacking in such situations, but this makes democratic deliberation all the more important. The Nepali process has demonstrated that inclusive and sequenced deliberative approaches can help to build trust, overcome polarisation (see also Breen and He, 2020) and contribute to decision-making. In particular, running local-level public deliberations prior to elite-level deliberations increases the likelihood that the public deliberations will influence decision-makers and decision-making and avoid elite capture. It also demonstrates that deliberation can be just as effective when semi-detached or when formally linked to decisionmaking processes.

Conclusion After ten years of civil war, Nepal established a participatory constitution-making process in order to develop a new and more inclusive federal, secular and democratic constitution. It was hoped that the process itself would help to build

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legitimacy and contribute to a more sustainable constitution. The process lasted for more than seven years, beginning in 2008 and concluding with the enactment of a new constitution in 2015. The participatory process involved several deliberative institutions at both the elite and popular or local levels. Headlined by an inclusive Constituent Assembly (CA) and its Thematic Committees, a series of local-level federal and democratic dialogues and half a million questionnaires, the public were able to play an integral role in the development of a new constitution. However, the political parties, which controlled the CA, became deadlocked on the most contentious issue – how to design the new federal provinces. They had used political communication instrumentally and played into the idea that there was a choice between two mutually exclusive alternatives: ethnic or territorial federalism. Deliberations had successfully resolved a vast majority of constitutional issues, but not the most contentious. A second CA election became necessary, and Nepal’s great experiment seemed destined for failure. But following the second CA election, the discourse began to change. Local-level deliberations and the opinion change within the broader public had consistently displayed a growing preference for mixed or hybrid solutions that prioritise territorial factors, or viability. Elite-level discourse eventually followed. Political leaders began to seek compromise positions, and advocates of ethnic federalism stepped back from hard-line positions. Eventually, in 2015, a new hybrid seven-province model, with provinces based on a mixture of ethnic and territorial criteria, was established. This shift and its linkages and correspondence with deliberated outcomes show that deliberation can work in divided societies, even on the most contentious identity-based issues, by being inclusive, sequenced and linked to decision-making. Nepal’s process would have benefited from a more systematic use of deliberative democracy methods, like Deliberative Polling, that can deal with traditional hierarchies and communal representation. And of course, the deliberation is only one reason behind the final agreement, and many factors have played essential roles along the way (see Breen, 2018). Nor were the process and its outcomes without their problems and critics (e.g. Lawoti, 2016; Karki, 2014), and many Madhesi and Tharu people in the south-west of Nepal remain particularly dissatisfied. But overall, the participatory constitution-making process has been a success and contributed to a more inclusive and legitimate constitution. The chapter thus makes several contributions to the literature on deliberative constitutionalism. The mandated inclusion of local level deliberations combined with the inclusive CA and sequenced processes prevented the elites from consolidating (too much) power in the new federal institutions and ensured that the deliberative and participatory values were largely maintained, addressing deliberative constitutionalism’s elite capture problem highlighted by Levy et al. (2018). It led to more moderate positions on ethnic rights and contributed to a more inclusive state identity, even against the warning of Dryzek (2005) that such matters are not suitable for deliberation. It was sequenced to maximise influence and balance different ideals, while lowering the stakes and giving the opportunity for

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inter-ethnic exchange (e.g. Drake and McCulloch, 2011; Fishkin, 2011; Dryzek, 2005). The outcome is broadly legitimate, not because of a deliberative referendum (as recommended by He 2015, or Sone in this volume), but because of the broadly inclusive process that combined representation, participation and deliberation, and in doing so, demonstrably influenced the final constitution, with final legitimation through an inclusive and representative CA. In the longer term, the new structures, the deliberative traditions and the democratic experiences derived from the constitution-making processes bode well for the future of deliberative democracy in Nepal. Although the elite level of political parties remains mired in factional and personality-based politics, and a dominant party has emerged by the merging of the Maoists and UML, deliberation at the local level has been given renewed importance and could again permeate upwards. Local governments are now directly empowered by the Constitution, citizens have more experience in representing their interests and participating in democratic exercises, there are more opportunities for multilingual deliberations that are inclusive of marginalised peoples, and there has been a continuation and improvement of the existing participatory forums.

Notes 1 Ethnic federalism means that provincial borders would be drawn on the basis of ethnic identity to recognise historical continuity and that there would be some kind of additional rights afforded to that ethnic group. Territorial federalism is understood to be neutral, with borders based on geographic and economic factors. 2 The Madhesi people live mostly along the southern border adjacent to India. Most were politically aligned to the Maoists, but split off prior to the Constituent Assembly election to form their own parties. 3 Identity meant: “ethnicity; language; culture; geographical and regional continuity; and history.” Viability referred to: “economic interrelationships and capability; status and potential for infrastructure development; availability of natural resources; and administrative feasibility” (Item 5, Committee on the Restructuring of the State and Distribution of State Power, 2010). 4 The naming of provinces was deferred to be decided by the provincial assemblies. As at July 2020, four of seven provinces have been named, and each of these were given geographically based names. 5 Those from minority ethnic groups tend to be supportive of ethnic federalism, but the difference at the local level between minority and dominant group opinion is relatively small (see Sharma, 2013).

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He, Baogang. 2010. “Western Theories of Deliberative Democracy and the Chinese Practice of Complex Deliberative Governance.” In The Search for Deliberative Democracy in China, edited by Ethan J. Leib and Baogang He, pp. 133–148. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. He, Baogang. 2013. “Deliberative Democracies and Deliberative Conflict Resolution in the Divided Society.” Taiwan Journal of Democracy (Special Issue 63–65): 63–86. He, Baogang. 2015. Governing Taiwan and Tibet: Democratic Approaches. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Horowitz, Donald L. 2000. Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press, c. 1985 (2000 [printing]). International IDEA. 2015. Nepal’s Constitution Building Process: 2006–2015: Progress, Challenges and Contribution of International Community. Kathmandu: International IDEA. Kantipur Report. 2010. “Limbuwan, Khumbuwan furious over federal provinces.” eKantipur. Kathmandu, 22 January 2010. Accessed 22 January 2010. Available at: http://ekantipur. com/2010/01/22/National/Limbuwan-Khumbuwan-furious-over-federal-provinces/ 306844. Karki, Budhi. 2014. “State Restructuring and Federalism Discourse in Nepal.” In The Federalism Debate in Nepal (Vol II), edited by Budhi Karki and Rohan Edrisinha, 1–22. Kathmandu: United Nations Development Programme, Support to Participatory Constitution Makin in Nepal. Karna, Laxman Lal. 2015. Weekly Interview: No more bad checks. We want hard cash this time. Interview with Paudyal, M., Kathmandu, 29 July 2015. Accessed 30 March 2016. Available at: http://myrepublica.com/interview/story/25423/weekly-interview-no-m ore-bad-checks-we-want-hard-cash-this-time.html. Khanal, Krishna and B.K. Kushiyait. 2010. A Review and Analysis of the 2009 Civil Society Public Submissions to the Constituent Assembly. Kathmandu: United Nations Development Programme. Kumal, Nagendra. 2014. That Janajati’s want ethnic states is baseless propaganda [Interview] with Rana, S., Kathmandu, 25 August 2014. Accessed on 13 September 2014. Available at: http://ekantipur.com/2014/08/25/interview/that-janajatis-want-ethnic-states-is-baselesspropaganda/394048.html. Lawoti, Mahendra. 2005. Towards a democratic Nepal: Inclusive political institutions for a multicultural society. New Delhi: Sage Publications India. Lawoti, Mahendra. 2007Contentious politics and democratization in Nepal. New Delhi: Sage Publications India. Lawoti, Mahendra. 2016. “Constitution and Conflict: Mono-ethnic federalism in Polyethnic Nepal.” In Identity Assertions and Conflist in South Asia, edited by Vivek Sachdeva, Queeny Pradhan and Anu Venugopalan, pp. 32–60. New Delhi: Routledge. Levy, Ron. 2019. “The ‘Elite Problem’ in Deliberative Constitutionalism.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism, edited by Levy, Ron, Hoi Kong, Graeme Orr and Jeff King, 351–369. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levy, Ron, Hoi Kong, Graeme Orr and Jeff King. 2018. The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Manandhar, Narayan. 2014. “Imagined divide: When it comes to federalism, identity and capability cannot be either/or bases.” Kathmandu Post (eKantipur). 8 June 2014. Accessed 9 June 2014. Available at: http://ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2014/06/08/editoria l/imagined-divide/263722.html. Mauzy, D.K. 1997. “The human rights and ‘Asian values’ debate in Southeast Asia: trying to clarify the key issues.” The Pacific Review, 10(2): 210–236.

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Mukherjee, Kunal. 2010. “Is There a Distinct Style of Asian Democracy?” Journal of Asian & African Studies, 45(6): 684–694. Nepali Times. 2015a. “Map of federal Nepal.” Nepali Times. Kathmandu, August 8, 2015. Accessed 10 August 2015. Available at: http://nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/08/ 08/map-of-federal-nepal/. Nepali Times. 2015b. “Public Feedback in CA.” Nepali Times. 28 July 2015 Accessed 2 August 2015. Available at: http://nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/07/28/public-feedback-in-ca. O’Flynn, Ian. 2006. Deliberative Democracy and Divided Societies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Post Report. 2014. Dahal lashes out at UML chief Oli, Kathmandu Post. 22 December 2014. Accessed 22 December 2014. Available at: www.ekantipur.com/2014/12/22/capital/da hal-lashes-out-at-uml-chief-oli/399351.html. Post Report. 2015. “Federalism issue divides Constituent Assembly.” Kathmandu Post. 17 January 2015. Accessed on 18 January 2015. http://ekantipur.com/2015/01/17/topstory/federalism-issue-divides-constituent-assembly/400456.html. Pruitt, Bettye and Philip Thomas. 2014. Democratic Dialogue - A Handbook for Practitioners. Stromsborg, Sweden and New York, NY: International IDEA and United Nations Development Programme. Republica. 2012. “Deal on 11-province model is preliminary: PM.” Republica. 19 May 2012. Accessed 11 June 2012. http://myrepublica.com/feature-article/story/39846/dea l-on-11-province-model-is-preliminary-pm.html. Shakya, Ayesha. 2015. “Himal Media Public Opinion Survey 2015.” Nepali Times. 16–22 January 2015. Accessed 16 January 2015. Available at: http://nepalitimes.com/page/hima l-media-public-opinion-survey-2015-outcome. Sharma, Subhindra. 2013. “Federalism and Public Opinion.” New Spotlight News Magazine. 6 (7), 22 February 2013. Accessed 1 May 2016. Available at: http://spotlightnepal.com/ News/Article/Nepal-Federalism-and-Public-Opinion. Sharma, Subhindra. 2015. Nepal Contemporary Political Situation Opinion Survey: Main Findings of NCPS XI & Trends. Kathmandu: Interdisciplinary Analysts. Sharma, Subhindra and Khadka Bal Krishna. 2011. Nepal Contemporary Political Situation – VI, VII & VIII: Opinion Poll Report. Kathmandu: Interdisciplinary Analysts. Sharma, Subhindra and Pawan Kumar Sen. 2005. Nepal Contemporary Political Situation: Opinion Poll Report. Kathmandu: Interdisciplinary Analysts. Sharma, Vijaya. 2007. “Comparative Study of Federation Proposals for Nepal.” Liberal Democracy Nepal Bulletin, 2(1): 33. Shrestha, Bihari K. 2014. “Frivolous Federalism.” Nepali Times. Kathmandu, 14−20 November 2014. Accessed 2 December 2014. Available at: http://nepalitimes.com/regula r-columns/GUEST-COLUMN/frivolous-federalism-nepal. Sunstein, Cass S. 2000. “The Law of Group Polarization.” In Debating Deliberative Democracy, edited by J.S. Fishkin and P. Laslett, pp. 80–101. Oxford: Blackwell. Support to Participatory Constitution Building Nepal. 2013. “Introduction.” In Interim Constitution of Nepal 2063 (2007), edited by Support to Participatory Constitution Building Nepal. Kathmandu: United Nations Development Programme. Wallis, Joanne. 2014, Constitution making during state building. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Whelpton, John. 2005. A history of Nepal. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

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6 DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY VERSUS ELITE DELIBERATION IN MALAYSIA Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani

Introduction After decades of practising elite-based consociational democracy to manage ethnic division, Malaysia has been exploring a new politics, based on public deliberation (Sani, 2009). However, its progress is tenuous. Malaysia is made up of three main communities − the Malay, Chinese and Indians − each of whom have a different language, history, religion and lifestyle. Following independence in 1957, elites from each community formed an alliance (Perikatan) of each of their community’s major political party − the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) and Malayan Indian Congress (MIC). Most policy decisions were made through elite deliberation in this Perikatan. After the race riots of 13 May 1969, the Malaysian model of consociationalism was modified by the then ruling alliance (later named Barisan Nasional—BN, National Front) to favour the majority ethnic group, the Malay. This period bought relative stability, produced a large middle class and educated population and grew new political competition. Despite losing its two-thirds majority in the 12th General Election (GE12), of 2008, the BN remained in power. It made some concessions towards the burgeoning civil society and new media influences, but otherwise continued with and even reinforced its consociational politics and elite deliberation practices. But change was on the horizon. The 14th General Election (GE14), on 9 May 2018, marked a turning point in the establishment of a “New Malaysia,” where the consociational democracy that had existed since independence diminished further. Former prime minister Mahathir Mohammad formed the Pakatan Harapan (PH) alliance, and collaborated with his former political foe, Anwar Ibrahim, to run against the incumbent prime minister Najib Razak. It was a comeback for Mahathir, who had retired in 2003 (Sani, 2015). The outcome of GE14 was a shock victory by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-6

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alliance that ended the ruling BN coalition’s 60-year grip on power. BN’s rout was made possible by a “Malaysian tsunami,” in which all major ethnic groups turned out to vote against the ruling coalition (Lau, 2013). Although the PH alliance has since been displaced, its election marks a major juncture in Malaysian political history. With an historic GE14 event in Malaysia, what could we understand about Malaysian democracy? Is Malaysia in the process of transforming itself into a genuine new politics with more input on democratisation? This chapter looks into the current situation of Malaysia’s consociational democracy. It asks whether Malaysia is taking a deliberative turn in introducing various forms of public deliberation and, indeed, whether deliberative democracy is suitable in the “New Malaysia.” Thus, this chapter revisits the debate on new politics started after GE12 and continuing into the post-GE14 Malaysia. It identifies the four major factors influencing whether and to what extent public deliberation will become institutionalised in Malaysia and then examines two particular deliberative institutions introduced since the beginning of the political transformation. It concludes with a discussion about the prospects of deliberative democracy in Malaysia.

Old Politics: Elite Deliberation in Consociational Democracy Malaysia had practised a kind of consociational democracy since its independence from the British in 1957 (Sani, 2009). Consociationalism, which emphasises cooperation and deliberation among elites, is often recommended for ethnically divided societies like Malaysia (see especially Lijphart, 1977). It comprises four key features: a grand coalition government (alliance), proportional representation (PR), segmented autonomy and minority veto (Lijphart, 1977). Although Malaysia did not adopt a PR electoral system (it instead followed the British first-past-the-post system), the other features have been in place, more or less, since 1957. The success of Malaysia as a nation has depended on its political stability and racial harmony, which it has safeguarded through consociational practices of elite deliberation. However, the electoral system, the party system, the nature of political contestation and even the constitution have been changed several times since independence to ensure that Malays retain political power. For instance, after the racial tensions in 1969, the government returned to the constitutional contract to uphold and implement Malay political primacy more vigorously including favouring the Bumiputera (sons of the soil). In this way, the first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, appeased the forces of Malay nationalism. At the same time, to pacify to the non-Malays, he recognised their rights to citizenship and their participation in the economy and the administration, but warned that the “democratic excesses” had to be curbed (Kheng, 2002, 126–27). Tun Abdul Razak, the second former prime minister, has described Malaysian democracy as “a democracy which is suitable for a developing country with different communities” (Mansor, 1990, 30). It is a democracy that takes into account “Malaysian realities”, Malay–non-Malay animosities, where democratic practices

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must not jeopardise the fragile stability, and political contestation is acceptable only as long as this condition is preserved. Although the BN coalition government is dominated by UMNO, and Malaysia’s executive authority lies mainly with the Malay leadership, a power-sharing arrangement has been in place since independence. Other coalition partners, notably the non-Malay parties (the MCA and the MIC) participate in the Cabinet and enjoy a degree of influence over government policy. Consociationalism’s focus on consensual decision-making and respect for authority (government by elites) are important factors that maintain political stability and power sharing between races in Malaysia. Indeed, consensus-building is grounded in Malaysian society. The authority of a ruler is dependent upon a just and fair treatment of his citizens in consultation with local elites. Thus, the building of consensus and respect for the masses remain essential elements in present Malaysian politics – the “Barisan (BN) way” (Collins, 1998, 261–79). William Case wrote, “even as UMNO proclaims before the Malay…its defence of their birthright, it tries to persuade the Chinese and Indians that it responsibly checks Malay chauvinism. The institutional basis for striking this balance – redressing Malay grievances while at some level respecting non-Malay identities and property rights – is, of course the consultative Barisan way” (Case, 1995, 104). However, this consociational solution cannot be deliberative, save on the thinnest notion of what deliberation might entail, as there are severe restrictions on who can deliberate (bloc leaders only) (Dryzek, 2005,15). John Dryzek (2005) claims that the consociational condition of “segmental autonomy” excludes highly contentious issues from the public debate. He explains that: Contentious deliberation occurs only between the leaders of different blocs, and even then mostly in secret (in fear of inflaming publics)…. The political communication of ordinary people is shepherded into within-bloc channels where it can do little damage. This channelling obstructs any kind of deliberation still less agonistic interaction across different blocs below the elite level, because ‘segmental autonomy’ is basic. (Dryzek, 2005, 222) Dryzek argues that restricting deliberation is not an effective way of dealing with the underlying causes of conflict: “By freezing cleavages, a consociational regime may actually reinforce or, worse, create the kind of conflict that it is designed to solve” (Dryzek, 2005, 223). Most Malaysian leaders would disagree. They argue that the consociational approach is inclusive and effective. A former prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, as reported by the New Sunday Times on 22 August 2004, claimed that “All have the right to speak, even if the issue involves matters related to specific races or specific religions. In the BN style, we are confident that we can discuss all issues, even if they involved sensitive topics, in a wise manner and come to a

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consensus. The key to this is that we must engage in discussion in an attitude of moderation” (Sani, 2009). Najib Razak, another former prime minister, explained that “We remain as one nation not because of the need to meet the constitutional requirements, but because we are able to reach political consensus under the BN” (Sani, 2009, 99). The BN made decisions on the basis of mutual agreement, not majorities, such that the small parties had the same rights and voice as the big parties in the BN. The traditional UMNO-led BN coalition understood that each and every political party in the coalition would represent the interest of their racial group within the government. It is no mere coincidence that political parties of such varying complexions have found common ground in a philosophy based on the belief that the problems of Malaysian society can never be solved if sections of the polity are in perpetual conflict with one another. However, the former administration also believed that restrictions on political and civil rights, like freedom of expression, are not only justified but necessary to maintain stability and ensure racial harmony (e.g. The Star, 2004, 4). Such unlimited state power to restrict civil liberties can be detrimental to the very quality of life that such control is supposed to protect. But the debate over such restrictions should not be couched crudely, either as a tool to be manipulated by political or capitalist regimes, or as an artificial screen to shield wilfully illiberal governments. Rather, the debate of the last two decades should be seen as an episode in a longterm post-colonial politico-cultural state-building project.

Embracing New Politics: The Shift to Public Deliberation I have previously discussed the possibility of deliberative democracy replacing consociationalism in Malaysia (Sani, 2009). Several scholars have since tried to develop the analysis of deliberative democracy in Malaysia while arguing that consociationalism is in decline (e.g. Weiss, 2013; Muhamad, 2016; Chinnasamy, 2018; Aziz, unpublished; Ooi Kok Hin, 2018). They believe that it is time for Malaysia to move away from consociational democracy for a deliberative form of democracy and at the same time to avoid ethnic conflict. If Malaysia remains stable after the GE14, there is a possibility that deliberative democracy could be realised. But how far would it go, and is there a limit in its implementation? I argue that the ideal concept of consensus politics in Malaysia should be generated through the process of public deliberation, not elite deliberation, as implemented by the BN government. Consensus through public deliberation is more holistic and able to reflect and serve the people’s interests in public policy and political culture. This concept or method is more likely to protect the common good of society from manipulation, especially by the state. I identify four factors that influence whether and to what extent this shift to a new politics of public deliberation will occur – traditional culture, the decline of old politics, civil society and the new media. I consider each of these in turn.

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Deliberation and Consensus in Traditional Culture The idea of deliberation is not new to Malaysia. The Malay traditionally embrace the concepts of musyawarah (deliberation) and muafakat (consensus). Anwar Ibrahim, for instance, explained that “the preference for consultation (deliberation) and consensus…to take the middle path, the Confucian Chun Yung or the Islamic awsatuha…This spirit of consensual musyawarah (or muafakat) is very much at play as we progress towards a cohesive regional community” (Ibrahim, 1996, 4). According to Bunn Nagara, among the most urgent forms of policy decision-making is dispute resolution and settlement through musyawarah and muafakat. “In this region (South-East Asia) in particular, political anthropology acknowledges the special place of consensus building in the public interest. In littoral South-East Asian states, the processes of musyawarah (consultation) and muafakat (consensus) are traditional norms” (Nagara, 2013). However, these concepts could only say that deliberation and consensus existed in Malaysian tradition, and these could be referred to as elite deliberation, not public deliberation. Therefore in describing the public deliberation in Malaysia’s tradition, the concepts of musyawarah and muafakat must be embedded, together with the concept of gotong-royong (mutual co-operation). This idea of gotong-royong, as well as musyawarah and muafakat, is applied not only to all communities in Malaysia, but is part of the culture in Indonesia as well. Joseph Chin Yong Liow (2005, 31) argued that these concepts underpinned decision-making in the traditional social-political structure in the village or grassroot level. Furthermore, the Malay community spirit is supposedly augmented by the traditional idea of gotongroyong (mutual co-operation), as in the sharing of labour in assisting each other among kampung (village) dwellers (Chua, 2004, 18). There is a view that harmony is achieved not by a proliferation of interests, but by each precisely fulfilling his ordained relationship or by subtly deferring to the requirements of muafakat. The outcome has been therefore a reassertion in Malaysia of the idea of gotong-royong, musyawarah and muafakat in order to create a balanced and harmonious Malaysian society (Jones, 1995, 63). The Malay values of patience, respect and public deliberation are applied through people’s tactful actions in everyday social interactions, but more importantly, they are also achieved through linguistic indirectness, grassroots, hedges and other “positive politeness strategies.” According to Lim Beng Soon (2017), by avoiding disagreements, criticisms, complaints and any other face-threatening acts that might reduce the desirability of the addressee and using hedges or even white lies to avoid conflicts, one shows forbearance, achieves harmony and demonstrates gotong-royong together with musyawarah and muafakat, thus meeting the essential requirement of Malay etiquette. Malay culture thus has significant implications for negotiation processes and outcomes. In negotiation, the Malays’ compromising and obliging conflict-handling styles are probably manifestations of their collective nature, which prioritises group over personal interests. In compromising and obliging styles, negotiators employ

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deliberation and are more concerned with maintaining relationships and safeguarding their partner’s feelings, hence the seemingly perceived “weak-styles” in goaloriented negotiation. To the Malays, even though achieving their goals in a negotiation or deliberation is important, their values in preserving harmony and respect for elders take precedence in the negotiation process (Lailawati, 2005, 8). For Malaysia, to introduce and develop public deliberation should not be too difficult, because culturally, deliberation is already part of Malaysian psyche. This traditional practice could be brought back to the mainstream in order to propagate and apply deliberative democracy in Malaysia. But in the current context, the extent of the transformation of power is more likely to determine whether or not there is such a shift.

The Transformation of Power The 2018 election (GE14) results heralded a new two-coalition system. Previously, the Malaysian political system was dominated by the BN and UMNO. So pervasive was this dominant party system that all previous attempts to form a rival coalition had failed. However, the system has been evolving towards a two-coalition system as opposition alliances became stronger and more stable. Finally, the opposition PH alliance defeated the ruling BN coalition in GE14. It was the first time since Malaysia had gained its independence from Britain in 1957 that the ruling coalition has lost an election. Winning GE14 was an extraordinary victory for an opposition that had long faced cheating and gerrymandering by the BN, a dissolution order against Mahathir’s party and a refusal by the Registrar of Societies to register the opposition coalition PH, which had to campaign under the logo of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR, People’s Justice Party). There was euphoria in Malaysia about the result of GE14. People were stunned that the decades of authoritarian and corrupt rule was finally over. Mahathir pledged an end to the kleptocracy that had marked BN rule. The opposition won a total of 113 seats in parliament – one more than is required for a simple majority. Of these, 104 were won by PKR and nine by the Democratic Action Party (DAP). With the eight parliamentary seats won by PH’s ally Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan, the Sabah Heritage Party), PH had a substantial majority. So why did the opposition win after all these years? Was it a rejection of consociational politics? According to Bridget Welsh, the reasons for the BN setback in GE12 had more to do with the coalition’s lacklustre performance under Abdullah than the strength of the opposition (Welsh, 2008). She argues that in his four years in office, Abdullah maintained economic growth but was ineffective in channelling the benefits to ordinary citizens. Furthermore, comparatively low wages, a growing lack of confidence in Abdullah’s administration and persistent corruption translated into massive disgruntlement among Malaysians of all races. This declining economic situation was compounded by a shocking record of managing ethnic relations, particularly the concerns of the non-Malays (Welsh, 2008). Chinese, Indian and east Malaysian voices were ignored and often insultingly

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dismissed as rising Malay chauvinism went unchecked within Abdullah’s party (Lopez, 2006). In fact, the Chinese and Indian votes decisively swung to the multiethnic parties, causing ethnic parties to lose massive support (ASLI, 2008, 2). Weiss explains that “Intra-ethnic inequality is startlingly high. There has been a lot of disproportionate access (to economic privileges) by the few….The underlining trend seems to be that interests are defined now by socioeconomic class rather than ethnicity” (cited in Lau, 2013). Indeed, the opposition made major inroads or increased its mandate in many urban, middle class and multiracial constituencies. Hence, GE14 was determined not by the “Chinese Tsunami;” rather it was due to the “Urban Tsunami” from all races. The people’s vote had underscored that governance could no longer be elitistorientated but must include multiple stakeholders. It is clear that the new politics had emerged with the promise of more freedom, fairness, transparency and accountability (Gartland, 2018). It is also a sign that consociational democracy has come to the end. I hope in the era of ‘New Malaysia’ that there will be the political will to embrace deliberative democracy by calling for more public deliberation in decision-making. To this end, the role of civil society is critical.

The Growth of Civil Society Civil society in Malaysia has become a legitimate channel for social and political participation and for influencing policy formation and public opinion. Signs of change started to appear during the Reformasi (Reform) movement period following the arrest of Anwar Ibrahim, former deputy prime minister ousted by prime minister Mahathir, in 1998. The contribution that Malaysia’s nascent civil society made to the anti-authoritarian struggles in the 1990s is widely recognised today. During GE12 political analyst James Wong said that: “There is the traditional opposition which has been now joined by civil society, students, independent journalists and non-government organizations” (cited in Kuppusamy, 2008). Several activists have contested, and emerged victorious, under the banner of the DAP and PKR. The civil society movement has now entered the arena of real politics in struggling for power. The problem with civil society in Malaysia is that little or no attention has been paid to these organisations, because they have been critical of the state. More often than not, the views and arguments of these critically minded non-governmental organisations (NGO) are dismissed by the state on the grounds that they are antidevelopment and sponsored by foreign agencies for ulterior motives (Ramasamy, 2004, 209). The government controls mainstream media, thus the space in the public sphere is very limited for NGOs, except in cyberspace. The government belittles criticisms from the NGOs by portraying them as marginal and out of touch with the mass public. But against this, civil society has proven that they could become a new force to be reckoned with. The elections also marked the gradual coming of age of the new Malaysian middle class. Powered by economic growth, a new generation of educated white-collar

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Malaysians has finally been able to flex its political strength. Until the opposition parties put together their new moderate working alliance, the choices before this middle class were stark: either to vote for an avowedly Islamic Malay-based party, or for an avowedly secular Chinese-based one. For many, this was no alternative, and the BN was the ultimate choice. This new generation has grown up ripe for change and cynical about the country’s illusion of harmony and equality. They are educated, skilled and unafraid to take the chance on the opposition. The largely urban minority communities, in particular, have long felt marginalised by the government’s long-running affirmative action programme (Rudha, 2008). Many among the middle class wished to see whether the government could upkeep integrity, transparency and democratic rights in the running of the government. Members of the middle class developed interest group activities and lobbied governments on particular issues such as the Gerakan Mansuh ISA against the draconian Internal Security Act, and the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (BERSIH). They have also mounted a serious and direct political challenge to a regime. In the lead-up to GE14, the government hastily passed two laws that sparked outrage in civil society. First, the government approved the re-delineation of the constituencies’ borders, which prompted accusations of gerrymandering toward the Electoral Commission. The new borders cramped Malay voters into smaller constituencies and opposition voters into larger constituencies. Mere days later, a “fake news” bill accompanied by a public campaign followed, further restricting freedom of expression in a country that already had sedition laws in place. But civil society did not quiet their voices. PEMANTAU, a civil society group observing the electoral process, identified politicians who have constantly used race and religion as political tools to gain votes from the members of their constituencies (Radu, 2018). The BERSIH 2.0 and ENGAGE civil society groups expressed alarm over major flaws discovered in the electoral roll, which further called into question the integrity of the elections and the Electoral Commission’s failure to ensure clean and fair elections. These civil society organisations played a vital role to ensure that democratisation is embraced in Malaysia, and Malaysians are educated in mature democracy (Radu, 2018). The concern in post-GE14 is that civil society has becoming partisan to support the PH government. Tunku Zain Al-Abidin, the son of the reigning Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan and President of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs urged civil society to remain neutral, otherwise Malaysia will lose a valuable force for checks and balances in society (Augustin and Aris, 2018). Furthermore, scholars such as Jurgen Habermas (1996) have argued that in order for civil society to function well, it needs to be assisted by the media. The problem was that Malaysia did not have a free media. However, the current revolution of media industry and technology since the introduction of the internet has created a new public sphere for public deliberation. These new media strengthened the civil society movement and utilised it to transform public opinion, such as during GE12.

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The New Media The internet has proven to be a capable tool for challenging the less democratic regime in Malaysia and weakening the traditional printing and broadcasting media, which are controlled by the regime or companies with close ties with the regime. The internet, especially through blogs and news portals, has become the new public sphere for giving civil society and Malaysian people new hope that they can deliberate critical views that challenge the government. After all, the mainstream media forbids or limits such criticisms. The true impact or strength of these new media is when reports and coverage on the internet are strong enough to influence the people to vote for the opposition. In GE14, the social media became the dominant medium of communication for the electorates to engage with political parties. This is because 80 per cent of voters in Malaysia are active social media users, especially among the youth. Young people access news on social media rather than in print and broadcasting media. One essential point mentioned by both Najib and Ahmad Zahid is that the ruling BN lost out in social media to the opposition in GE12 and GE13. In GE12, the BN was not ready to challenge the dominance of the opposition on the social media. BN overly relied on its campaign machinery focused on print and broadcasting media, given its close connection with almost all print and broadcasting media companies (Sani, 2014). Social media was already an important instrument in promoting democracy, but it was largely unnoticed by the ruling BN. Social media opened up a space for Malaysian citizens to deliberate on political issues and gave opportunities for the opposition to influence the election result (Sani, 2014). This was what the government at that time had underestimated. During the GE13 campaign, the BN was again defeated on social media. It won the election with a slightly reduced majority compared with GE12 and surprisingly lost the popular vote for the first time since 1969. There was a huge swing from the urban and suburban constituencies towards supporting the opposition party Pakatan Rakyat. During GE13, social media became very trendy, cheap and easy to access. Online channels such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, news portals and blogs became the avenues for political parties from both the BN and PR to win votes (Sani, 2014). Some scholars observed that in the GE14, the BN had the capability to overpower the strength of opposition on the social media. UMNO, the main party in the BN coalition, activated all its 191 divisions to wage an online war. The BN mobilised armies of youthful “cyber troopers” trained to connect with their peers. It sought to burnish its online image through a new web portal, “therakyat.com,” which was launched by Prime Minister Najib Razak. Meanwhile, the PH employed many methods in its online battle against the mighty BN. For instance, the Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Malaysian United Indigenous Party), one of the PH alliance parties, increased its social media presence to woo younger voters through memes, GIFs and short, quirky clips. The PH launched an online “do-ityourself” kit to distribute campaign materials (Sivanandam and Rahim, 2018).

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Malaysian political parties have also claimed to use big data analytics in gathering information for election. In 2017 for example, Rafizi Ramli, Vice-President of the PKR, a coalition member of PH, started Invoke, a Big Data analytics outfit to work with some 50 election candidates from the PKR and the Parti Amanah Negara for the general election (Avran, 2017). Big data analytics is regarded as the future of social media in Malaysia because it enables political parties to identify candidates and issues that have traction in their constituencies as well as predicts how people will vote, and which seats are winnable or not (Avran, 2017). The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) also used Big Data analytics by engaging companies groups, and local universities since 2013. Social media remains crucial for all political parties to reach to the electorates in winning the election, and for the emergence of a strong civil society. Social media has influenced the election results and provided space for civil society to help to inform and shape public opinion, countering the hegemonic influence of the old media and old ways of managing ethnic division through elite consensus building and segmented autonomy. But has it led to the emergence of a deliberative democracy?

Deliberative Democracy in “New Politics”: Grassroots Parliament Up until the election of the PH alliance, it was difficult to find any institution during the period of “New Politics” in Malaysia that really implemented the process of public deliberation. One institution that I had managed to observe closely and that could admit that public deliberation was taking place is the Temerloh Parliamentary Consultative Council (TPCC). It was established at the local government or district level in Temerloh. Its aim was to have a structured consultation and deliberation process among all Temerloh stakeholders and people so that they can together formulate better policies and programs and improve the delivery system for the benefit of all residents. The Council was established and headed by a member of parliament (MP) for Temerloh (P88), Saifuddin Abdullah, who won the seat in GE12. Its governance consisted of the MP, three state assemblymen (two from the ruling BN and one from the opposition PAS), officers from various district institutions such as the District Office and representatives from business communities and NGOs. In order to involve every level of society in the consultation, some local leaders such as the Head of Villages and the Chairs and members of Village Advancement and Security Committees were invited as well. These people act as the direct source of information and demand from the grassroots (Abdullah, 2017). I was invited as an observer to the meeting. Saifuddin called the TPCC a “people’s assembly” or “grassroots parliament,” and he admitted that the TPCC was an experiment in practising deliberative democracy at the grassroots level. The participants in the deliberation started with 70 in the first meeting in 2008. By the last or seventh meeting, on 5 January 2013, there were 150 participants. Each meeting took an average of 4 hours. The meetings

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were held at the Local Council Hall and arranged in a U-shape with members provided with tables and microphones. These meetings were open to public where the media was invited, and a public gallery was prepared for the residents to observe the proceedings. The council acts as a direct communication or debate in terms of policies, information and demands engaging all sorts of interests. The district officers received information, suggestions, feedbacks and complaints from the local people. The communication line between the MP and district officers with the people is also open and inclusive. Sometimes the business communities and NGOs acted as mediators between the local officers and the people. Since its establishment in 2008, the success of TPCC was determined by the seriousness of Saifuddin, who was also the Deputy Minister of Higher Education, to show to Malaysians that participatory democracy or deliberative democracy can work in Temerloh if properly practised. The mission and agenda of the TPCC were to formulate policy for the constituency and discuss local problems and the ways to resolve them. It also performed a check and balance role on MPs and local government officers to ensure that they are transparent and accountable to the people. The TPCC became a medium for people to engage their leaders with regard to their grievances and concerns to the MP and state assemblymen. According to Saifuddin (2008), the people are important in the process of decision-making. It is this level of people who were left behind in the previous consociational democracy. The TPCC was able to heighten the role of the people as well as including them in policymaking and development activities, rather than the state being the exclusive body to decide and act. The ultimate goal of the TPCC is to create awareness among the people that the government is keen to improve the level of democracy in practice. Such deliberative democracy should create a platform for a more matured democratic practice. The TPCC was disbanded after Saifuddin lost Temerloh constituency in GE13. Interestingly, Saifuddin lost his confidence in Prime Minister Najib over Najib’s alleged involvement in the 1MDB corruption scandal and decided to defect to the PKR and became the Secretary-General of the PH. He contested the GE14 as the PH candidate and won the Indera Mahkota parliamentary seat. In 2018 he established the Indera Mahkota Parliamentary Consultative Council (IMPCC), following similar activities such as in the TPCC. He had the first meeting in November 2018, which I was invited to. Saifuddin said that he would strengthen the deliberation process to ensure that policy at the grassroots level reflected the interests of the electorate in his Indera Mahkota constituency.

Deliberative Democracy in “New Malaysia”: Deliberative Councils Post-GE14 Soon after winning GE14, the PH government announced the establishment of the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP) on 12 May 2018, consisting of former Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin, Central Bank Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz, business tycoon Robert Kuok, prominent economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram and

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former CEO of the state oil company, Petronas, Hassan Marican (Bernama, 2018). The CEP completed its task on 19 August 2018. The CEP had an advisory role, and its top priority was the restructuring of government institutions and stateowned enterprises. Many had doubts about the role of the CEP because, they argued, it served as a higher power to the cabinet and because the CEP is neither a creation of statute nor a body of enquiry under Malaysia’s Commissions of Enquiry Act 1950. Furthermore, it was not formed by a parliamentary vote, nor does it function as a select committee that is answerable to the country’s lawmakers. According to Gnanasagaran (2018), the CEP “is very much reminiscent of China’s politburo structure where power is centralised within the hands of a small group of individuals. There is also the added furore to the council’s actions given that its five members are unelected by the people and are seemingly not held accountable to the country’s set of checks and balances.” The cabinet, however, was insistent that it was not being arm-twisted by the CEP and was acting independently. But the glaring gaps in the government’s explanation of the CEP’s role must be addressed − in particular, the boundaries within which the council should operate. While it can be argued that the CEP was not legalised, many kinds of deliberative democracy are not legal entities in their country, nor are they decision-making bodies. The CEP was established by government to provide a platform of deliberation in order to find solutions to problems faced by Malaysia, and to identify the reforms needed for the country. According to the CEP Chairman, Daim Zainuddin, it was set up solely to advise the new PH government in policymaking and implementing its 100-day election manifesto promises and to review the nation’s existing business dealings. It did this by undertaking a process of public deliberation, consistent with the idea of a “deliberative council” (see Atlee, 2003). Over the course of 100 days, the council met over 350 individuals from more than 200 organisations, including civil society activists and personalities such as artists, corporate leaders and civil servants. Some individuals were selected to meet the CEP. They ranged from regulatory enforcement agencies, bankers, trade associations, chambers of commerce, corporations, small-medium industries, consumers, producers, retailers and others. The meetings were held behind closed doors and not open to public. The CEP also met civil society and public personalities, as well as ambassadors from China as part of the process to review mega-projects in Malaysia, some of which involve Chinese investment (Aziz, 2018). The PH government also formed a five-member Committee on Institutional Reforms (IRC) (a type of sub-deliberative council), comprising prominent legal minds and civil society activists to look into institutional reforms in the country (New Strait Times, 2018). Its formation was announced by the government-appointed CEP, and the committee members will report to the council. The committee reviewed several key institutions, such as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and Election Commission, and many laws, particularly on political financing and political freedom, which are essential to the constitution and the rule of law. The IRC received about

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1,000 submissions from members of the public, including letters and e-mails for the reforms (Ramasamy and Muhamading, 2018). In response, the PH government initiated the restructuring of some government agencies and was considering the pledge to abolish and amend several laws. Many of the purely political appointed officers who had been put in place under the previous, BN government, were dismissed in order to minimise political sabotage and many other political risks. However, the PH government’s reform agenda was cut short by the political turmoil that led to the resignation of Mahathir as prime minister and the reinstatement of the former alliance, under the guise of the Perikatan Nasional (PN) alliance. Muhyiddin Yassin took over as Prime Minister on 1 March 2020.

Conclusion It is clear that the Malaysian people now see the power that they have to change the government and ensure the reforms that they want. People now use many channels including civil society and new media to deliberate with the government and hold it accountable. Therefore, governments will need to be more responsive to the people’s needs in order to be in power. Deliberative democracy can bring fresh dynamism and maturity to Malaysia’s new politics because people know their rights and responsibilities in this new Malaysia. Furthermore, Malaysia has a culturally embedded tradition, in the concepts of musyawarah, muafakat and gotong-royong, that can assist the practice of public deliberation at national and grassroot levels. However, we should not be too optimistic about the prospect of deliberative democracy in Malaysia. Since the collapse of the PH government in February 2020, there is little political will to disregard the practice of elite deliberation in favour of public deliberation. However, many Malaysians realise that the country can no longer follow the old approach of elite deliberation. Any issue of public interest must be engaged with through public deliberation with the people before any decision is made. It is obvious that Malaysia has yet to be exposed to models of deliberative democracy such as Deliberative Polling, and Citizens’ Jury. Therefore, there is more that needs to be done in order to expose policymakers to these models. It is also clear that ethnic politics cannot be dismissed in Malaysia, as the majority will continue to be the determinant in influencing the ethnic relations in Malaysia. The PN government, as well as the PH before it, decided that it will retain all constitution provisions regarding the Malay and Bumiputera, such as Islam as the religion of the Federation, the Malay language, special rights of the indigenous people and the roles of Malay royalty. Public deliberation should be the way of dealing with the issue of interethnic relations. However, this issue needs to be dealt with cautiously. Malaysians can openly discuss any question such as socioeconomic issues, legislation and foreign relations, but not ethnic relations. The previous BN government avoided discussing ethnic issues in public because it was considered as sensitive to society. However, I see it differently, if we follow Dryzek’s strategy of deliberation.

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Dryzek (2005) showed that deliberative democracy can yield positive results on contentious issues in which the fundamental values and beliefs that the participants bring to the table are diametrically opposed or contradictory. Dryzek recommends that deliberations should occur within an “informal communicative realm” that takes place over time, such as a public network, Deliberative Poll or policy dialogue. This affords participants the opportunity to admit to having been persuaded by the other side. If the deliberations are not directly linked to political decisions, the contest for power is less likely to prevent people from openly changing their minds. That is why it is imperative to call representatives from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds in Malaysia to engage and deliberate, for example in an interfaith dialogue, in order to strengthen peaceful ethnic relations in Malaysia. This, I think, is where deliberative democracy is essential in the context of Malaysia.

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Dewan Masyarakat. 2008. “Daim Zainuddin: BN mesti mendengar semula rintihan rakyat.” 22 May 2008, 22. Dryzek, John S. 2005. “Deliberative Democracy in Divided Societies: Alternatives to Agonism and Analgesia.” Political Theory, 33(2): 218–242. Gartland, Annette. 2018. “Malaysian opposition wins general election for first time since independence.” Changing Times, 10 May 2018. Accessed 10 May 2018. Available at: https:// changingtimes.media/2018/05/10/malaysian-opposition-wins-general-election-for-first-timesince-independence. Gnanasagaran, Angaindrankumar. 2018. “Malaysia’s Council of Eminent Persons: A politburo?”, The ASEAN Post, 27 July 2018. Accessed 5 April 2019. Available at:https://thea seanpost.com/article/malaysias-council-eminent-persons-politburo. Habermas, Jurgen. 1996. Between Facts and Norms, translated by William Rehg. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ibrahim, Anwar. 1996. Speech, International Conference on Philippine Revolution and Beyond. 23 August 1996, Manila. Jones, David M. 1995. “Democracy and Identity: The Paradoxical Character of Political Development.” In Towards Illiberal Democracy in Pacific Asia, edited by D.A. Bell, D. Brown, K. Jayasuriya, and D.M. Jones, pp. 41–71. New York, NY: Palgrave. Kheng, Cheah Boon. 2002. Malaysia: The Making of a Nation. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Kuppusamy, Baradan. “Politics-Malaysia: Civil Society Leaders Enter Election Fray.” Inter Press Service News (IPS News), 13 February 2008, 1. Accessed 3 June 2008. Available at: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41175. Lailawati, M.S. 2005. “High/Low Context Communication: The Malaysian Malay Style.” Proceedings of the 2005 Association for Business Communication Annual Convention. p. 8. Kuala Lumpur: Association for Business Communication,. Lau, L. 2013. “In BN win Najib faces tug-of-war between two Malaysias.” The Malaysian Insider, 6 May 2013. Accessed 8 May 2013. Available at: www.themalaysianinsider. com/malaysia/article/in-bn-win-najib-faces-tug-of-war-between-two-malaysias. Lijphart, Arend 2000. “Varieties of Nonmajoritarian Democracy.” In Democracy and Institutions: The Work of Arend Lijphart, edited by M.M.L. Crepaz, T.A. Koelble and D. Wilsford. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Liow, Joseph Chin Yong. 2015. The Politics of Indonesia-Malaysia Relations: One Kin, Two Nations. London: Routledge. Lopez, Leslie. 2006. “Race rhetoric is part of UMNO politics.” The Straits Times, 17 November 2006, 1. Accessed 15 August 2008. http://malaysia-today.net/blog2006/ newsncom.php?itemid=792. Mansor, Norma. 1990. “Political Contestation in Malaysia.” In Political Contestation: Case Studies from Asia, edited by Norma Mansor and Zakaria Ahmad, pp. 30. Singapore: Heinemann Asia. Muhamad, Rosyidah. 2016. “Political Deliberation on the Internet: The Malaysian Political Parties’ Web Sphere.” The Social Sciences, 11(2016): 4734–4744. Nagara, Bunn. 2013. “ASEAN way of consensual decision-making.” The Korean Herald, 5 December 2013. Accessed 10 December 2013. Available at: www.koreaherald.com/view. php?ud=20131205000971. Ooi Kok Hin. “The End of Ethno-centric Elite Rule in Malaysia.” New Naratif. 30 November 2018. Accessed 26 May 2019. Available at: https://newnaratif.com/research/the-end-ofethno-centric-elite-rule-in-malaysia/share/xuna/98f0d5f93731b7f3186531c37cca0945. Radu, Alexandra. 2018. “Malaysia’s Fierce Campaigning in Action: Glimpses of the campaign in Malaysia’s most hotly contested election to date.” The Diplomat, 8 May 2018.

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Accessed 9 May 2018. Available at: https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/malaysias-fiercecampaigning-in-action. Ramasamy, Manirajan and Masriwanie Muhamading. 2018. “CEP has ended its tenure, says Daim.” New Straits Times, 20 August 2018. Accessed 3 April 2019. Available at:www.nst. com.my/news/nation/2018/08/403488/cep-has-ended-its-tenure-says-daim. Ramasamy, P. 2004. “Civil Society in Malaysia: An Arena of Contestations?” In Civil Society in Southeast Asia, edited by Lee Hock Guan. Singapore: ISEAS, 198–216. Rudha, Natasha. 2008. “Door opens for opposition and hope in Malaysia.” The Canberra Times, 3 November 2008, 1. Accessed 20 April 2009. Available at: www.canberratimes. com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/door-opens-for-opposition-and-hope-in-malaysia/ 135631.aspx. Saifuddin Abdullah. 2017. New Politics 2.0: Multiracial and Moderate Malaysian Democracy. Shah Alam: IDE Research Centre Sdn Bhd. Sani, Mohd Azizuddin Mohd. 2009. “The emergence of new politics in Malaysia from consociational to deliberative democracy.” Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 5(2): 97–125. Sani, Mohd Azizuddin Mohd. 2014. “Malaysia’s 13th General Election: Political Partisanship in the Mainstream Print Media.” Asia Pacific Media Educator, 24(1): 61–75. Sani, Mohd Azizuddin Mohd. 2014. “The Social Media Election In Malaysia: The 13th General Election In 2013.” Kajian Malaysia, 32(2): 123–147. Sani, Mohd Azizuddin Mohd. 2015. Trends in Southeast Asia: Islamization Policy and Islamic Bureaucracy in Malaysia. Vol. 5. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) Publishing. Sivanandam, H. and Rahimy Rahim. ‘Going big on social media.’ The Star Online, 9 January 2018. Accessed 1 March 2018. Available at: www.thestar.com.my/~/media/online/2018/01/ 08/23/10/geee.ashx/?w=620&h=413&crop=1&hash=115ECC475D8E8F350696DE9E7 351AD9D1580D437. Soon, Lim Beng. 2006. “Malay Saying as Politeness Strategies.” Journal of Modern Languages. 15(1): 65–79. The Star. “Political management vital for race relations, says Najib.” The Star, 7 September 2010, 4. Weiss, Meredith L. 2013. “The Consociational Model in Southeast Asia: Is It (Still) Relevant?” Taiwan Journal of Democracy, Special Issue: 149–170. Welsh, Bridget. 2008 “Malaysia’s Democratic Opening.” Open Democracy, 11 March 2008, 1–3. Accessed 15 March 2008. Available at: www.opendemocracy.net/article/democracy_ power/politics_protest/malaysia_democratic_opening. Zamani, Anis Amira. 2017. “Social Media Crucial In Malaysia’s 14th General Election” Bernama. 5 December 2017. Accessed 8 December 2017. Available at: www.bernama. com/en/politics/news.php?id=1416843.

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7 CONSULTATION AS NONDEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION Singapore and its Implications Garry Rodan

Introduction New consultative mechanisms and institutions have emerged across a wide range of democratic and authoritarian regimes around the world in recent decades. This has expanded opportunities for citizens to participate in public policy deliberations, but with what political implications? Wide consultation of individuals and groups by authorities does not necessarily infer or involve collective or equal power in decision-making, nor does it necessarily mean those consulted have any democratic authority to represent others or be held accountable by them. Precisely because of this, consultative ideologies − often imbued with technocratic, apolitical notions of participation as problem solving and eschewing political competition − have remarkably broad appeal and tactical political utility. Across Southeast Asia, conflicts associated with, or exacerbated by, contemporary capitalist development have presented challenges for elites and opportunities for their opponents, leading to a range of initiatives in consultative modes of participation. However, sociopolitical coalitions arising from the different ways that capitalism is organised and controlled in these countries vary. Consequently, elite strategies to contain conflict through consultation also vary in degree, effectiveness and importance − as do the strategies by other forces to support or exploit consultation to other − including democratic − ends. In no cases, though, have democratic forces been able to significantly expand the permissible bounds of institutionalised political conflict. Instead, a striking theme of these experiences is containment of democratic forces and ideologies through elite controls over who participates, how and on what. In particular, new institutions of consultative representation have almost uniformly succeeded in politically fragmenting democratic reformist forces. This includes through structures of participation and representation that segment and compartmentalise public policy issues, as well as related ideological DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-7

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appeals around notions of rationality in governance. To illustrate this general finding, this chapter focuses on consultative institutions in Singapore—the site of the most concerted political project of such innovative modes of participation anywhere in Southeast Asia. My finding is significant regarding evaluating the democratic impact or potential of any individual institution of consultation, or the prospects of enhancing democratic capacity more systemically through various consultative and deliberative processes (see, for example, Mansbridge et al., 2012; Dryzek, 2009a). The ability to organise and mobilise for reform through collective action is fundamental to democratic capacity, yet also under-explored in deliberative democracy literature. Much attention has been devoted to analysing deliberative procedures and mechanisms, but little consideration of when, how and why social inequalities and structurally based power, including class and gender, can be challenged through political participation. Indeed, if deliberative democracy can comfortably co-exist with − or even facilitate the obstruction of − such challenges, then the problems and conflicts it can address are necessarily and fundamentally constrained. Theorists of deliberative democracy have generally overlooked the possibility of insights from political economy. To overcome this deficiency, I develop an analytical mode of participation (MOP) framework. A MOP refers to the institutional arrangements and accompanying ideology shaping who can participate in political decision-making, how and on what basis. The framework emphasises the importance of understanding the historical and social foundations of political institutions and the distinctive and dynamic political economy relationships therein. It also breaks decisively from liberal pluralist and culturalist conceptions of institutions. Analysis is steered away from questions of whether or not institutions approximate or depart from ideal-typical models of democracy or authoritarianism. It also rejects ethnic, racial or religious cultural determinism in attempting to explain patterns of political participation.

The MOP Framework The MOP framework instead centres analysis on universal struggles over the margin for political contestation and policy reform through institutions. It is premised on the observation that the inability of existing political institutions to contain or address conflict − especially in a context of intensified inequalities under advanced capitalist development − has precipitated a new stage in such struggles. Ethnic, gender, religious and other conflicts with pre-capitalist roots continue to form a basis for conflict. However, the conditions under which struggles are conducted − and the political coalitions possible − are fundamentally influenced by the transformative and contradictory nature of contemporary capitalist development. Hence, there has been a proliferation of consultative and deliberative practices across different regime types, but necessarily varying in their extent and significance for political change.

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Crucially, the motivations of those involved in new consultative initiatives vary according to the interests and ideologies of the social and political forces involved. Under the MOP framework, the democratic significance of deliberative and consultative processes rests principally on the extent to which these can facilitate challenges to existing power relations—rather than merely operating within elite-determined limits. This political economy approach offers two distinctive insights for understanding the political nature and prospects of new forms of political participation. First, it steers analysis towards appreciation of the complex and historically specific politics mediating what sorts of deliberative institutions and processes can or might take root. Deliberative polling methods, for example, cannot simply be parachuted into any given political economy because they were “successful” elsewhere. They require social foundations. Second, what constitutes successful deliberative politics depends very much on the extent to which the possibility of challenges to existing power relations are the benchmark. Inclusive deliberative processes may be tolerated, encouraged or led by powerful elite interests as a way of containing or diverting the potential for such reform possibilities. The discussion to follow begins with elaboration on the MOP framework as a prelude to the case study of Singapore demonstrating its utility for explaining the emergence, distinctive forms and political implications of consultative political participation in Singapore. The MOP framework generally stands in sharp theoretical contrast with liberal pluralist approaches to analysing institutions, but particularly their influence in hybrid regime and related quality of democracy literature, including in studies of Asia (see, for example, Case, 2002; Levitsky and Way, 2002; Morlino, Dressel and Pelizzo, 2011). Of special relevance for this collection of essays, hybrid regime analysts continue to evaluate political institutions against democratic ideal-types. This keeps analysis locked implicitly within a democratic transition paradigm (Carothers, 2002), preventing institutions departing from democratic ideal-types being understood on their own terms (Jayasuriya and Rodan, 2007). It is towards a more open analysis of political institutions and their regime implications that the MOP framework was initiated. The framework also links institutions to wider societal conflicts and power relations, both seen as integral elements of an inseparable struggle over how state power is exercised. This shifts focus from institutional ideal-types to more universal and fundamental questions of whose interests are served by an institution, how and why. These questions are pursued under the MOP framework through analysis of four interrelated political economy relationships. First, it is observed that capitalism is inherently dynamic and conflict prone. Thus, interests can change leading to intra-elite conflicts, while new social forces and unequal distributions of the costs and benefits of capitalism also provide foundations for friction. Second, these conflicts generate pressures and opportunities for elites and their opponents to respectively contain or contest existing power and resource distributions. In this context, modifications to, and innovations in, institutions of political participation can emerge. Third, where this happens, ideologies

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of political representation play a crucial mediating role in the ensuing struggles over whether this expands or limits the scope for institutionalised political conflict. Fourth, the different ways that capitalism is organised render some ideologies more useful or threatening to contending forces engaged in struggles over political representation (Rodan, 2018, 15). The MOP framework also introduces two non-democratic ideologies of representation, namely consultative and particularist, alongside the more established ideologies of democratic and populist. While not strictly mutually exclusive, these four ideologies have fundamentally different emphases in rationalising preferred institutional arrangements for facilitating participation in public policy decision-making. The primary emphasis in democratic ideologies is on actors being accountable directly or indirectly to fellow citizens. It is this accountability that bestows the political authority of actors as representatives (Pitkin, 1967). Parliamentary and non-parliamentary political competition and conflict is channelled through representation, essential to which are intermediary civil society groups (Chandhoke, 2009; Collier and Handline, 2009). It is accepted that multiple forms of representation are necessary to maximise the indirect participation of citizens in political decision-making (Kuper, 2004; Brown, 2006; Runciman, 2007). Crucially, however, innovative forms of representation and participation − including through deliberative practices and institutions − must constitute supplements to democratic authorisation and accountability − not alternatives to them. Moreover, in the MOP framework, the democratic status of deliberative and consultative processes depends on the extent to which they ideologically and structurally enable challenges to prevailing inequalities of power. Evaluating the political potential of participatory budgeting, Pateman (2012, 10–11) goes so far as to distinguish between participatory and deliberative democracy. The former, she argues, necessarily involves reforming undemocratic authority structures so as to transform − and not just supplement − existing institutions. Populist ideologies of representation, by contrast, emphasise direct links between ‘the people’ and the leadership of political movements, in many cases declaring this as direct democracy in action. Intermediary institutions − consultative or otherwise − are downplayed or bypassed in favour of this direct relationship (Laclau, 2007; Mouzelis, 1985; Hawkins, 2010). Some permutations of populist representation movements include potential to transform undemocratic authority structures. However, emphasis on bypassing or dismantling intermediary organisations also has potential, often realised, to reduce political pluralism and increase authoritarianism. Consultative ideologies of representation and participation place emphasis on the problem-solving utility of incorporating various interests and expertise into public policy processes for effective economic, social and/or political governance. This takes priority over political competition, narrowing the political space for differing normative perspectives on the objectives of public policy. In effect, consultative representation promotes a notion of depoliticisation that conceives of power relations in state and civil society as completely separate. Consequently, conflicts can be solved through “problem-solving” guided by rational deliberations. Importantly,

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those consulted do not necessarily enjoy equal power vis-à-vis authorities and formal political elites in shaping the outcomes of policy deliberations, nor necessarily any democratic authority to represent others. Furthermore, consultation is promoted as an alternative form of participation to political competition and depicted by elites as evidence that the public interest is represented in policy decisions. However, some forces seek to harness and exploit consultative MOPs to advance different ideas about the purpose and means of political participation. Particularist ideologies of representation emphasise the entitlement to representation of discrete communities and identities based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, geography or culture. Claims to such can be made by dominant or marginalised groups. This can, for example, include rationalising or advocating political supremacy by ethnic Malays in Malaysia (see discussion in Sani, this volume). It can also include calls for regional self-rule or separatism, for example, where claims for an autonomous Bangsamoro region in Mindanao are based on Islamic religious and cultural identities with deep pre-capitalist roots. In Southeast Asia and elsewhere, particularist ideologies often prove attractive to elites seeking to pre-empt classbased or cohesive cross-class reformist movements. Consultative − like populist − ideologies, have assumed increasing significance across different regime types, including in established liberal democracies where mass-based political parties and social democratic movements have declined (Katz and Mair, 1995; Mair, 2013; Tormey, 2015). This includes in the UK and Western Europe (see, for example, Hay 2007; Flinders and Wood 2014). In Southeast Asia, where historical and geopolitical factors − not least the Cold War − militated against strong independent civil societies taking deep root in the first place, many elites have looked to consultative MOPs to contain contemporary conflict. Meanwhile, other social forces have to varying degrees sought to open up the scope to acknowledge and address conflict through participation in these MOPs. Importantly, though, typically the sorts of institutions that consultative and particularist ideologies avoid are those emphasising independent class-based organisations, including trade unions, favouring instead different bases of political representation to dilute class conflict. This invariably limits the extent to which core power relationships can be effectively scrutinised and challenged, thus favouring non-democratic MOPs. Before examining concrete examples of non-democratic consultative MOPs in Singapore, we must first identify the different broad sociopolitical coalitions of interest associated with capitalist development in that country.

Foundations of Consultative MOPs in Singapore Conflict initiated or exacerbated by an increasingly unequal distribution of the costs and benefits from rapid capitalist development has placed growing pressures on political institutions throughout Southeast Asia. This has unleashed a new phase in struggles over MOPs through which conflict is either contained, addressed or repressed. There are points where the historical and social foundations of these

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struggles in the region converge and diverge. This influences the differing degrees, complexions and impacts of initiatives in public policy consultations and deliberations to emerge. Here the focus is on Singapore, where such initiatives have been most extensive. Consultative MOPs align strongly with the interests of technocratic politicobureaucrats under state capitalism and authoritarian rule in the city-state. The concentration of power by politico-bureaucrats is accompanied by ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) claims to rational, meritocratic rule where policy decisions are purportedly above politics. New state-sponsored MOPs also afford opportunities to consolidate and extend avenues for political co-option to pre-empt the revival of more independent civil society space. Consequently, as conflicts have heightened with increasingly unequal outcomes from capitalist development, the PAP has continually innovated with and fine-tuned consultative MOPs. The exceptional political ascendance of technocratic politico-bureaucrats in Singapore was the outcome of an historic power struggle with roots in the anticolonial movement that led to the establishment of the PAP in 1954. This brought together both Chinese-educated, popular forces with grassroots organisations and English-educated, middle-class forces in a formidable coalition that swept the PAP to power in 1959. By 1961, however, the PAP had split as underlying tensions became more manifest between the English-educated faction headed by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the more leftist and economically nationalist Chinese-educated faction. The latter formed a separate party, the Barisan Nasional (Socialist Front). With total control over the executive and government, Lee and his PAP colleagues systematically repressed opponents, not least through the dismantling of independent trade unions. State and party were also subsequently merged, a power transformation rationalised on the basis of what the PAP claimed was the creation of structures essential to an apolitical agenda of Singapore’s social and economic development. This shift to authoritarian developmentalism emphasised roles for capable technocrats overseeing sound administrative structures and rational policy solutions. Such enhanced political power of, and close nexus between, bureaucratic and political elites was, according to PAP leaders, reflective of a new form of governance: meritocratic governance. The ideology of meritocracy became a foundational myth to explain the social and political order fostered under PAP rule (Rodan, 2006; Barr, 2006). The power of politico-bureaucratic elites was consolidated and extended as the PAP government combined an embrace of economic globalisation and foreigninvestment in export-oriented industrialisation with the expansion and diversification of state capitalist enterprises. This accumulation strategy generated substantial egalitarian outcomes during the 1960s and 1970s, including sharp reductions in poverty, major improvements in the provision of public housing and education, and significantly increased upward social mobility. From the late 1970s, however, social contradictions inherent to Singapore’s development model laid foundations for new social conflicts.

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By the early 1980s industrial restructuring in Singapore in response to the emergence of rival and lower-cost manufacturing production sites in Asia had generated significant social disruption. Rising living costs including in healthcare, transportation and housing also began to exert pressures on lower-income Singaporeans in particular − none of which the PAP was inclined to address through more substantive policies of social redistribution. Indeed, the earlier phase of egalitarian development was starting to reverse. Thus, despite considerable constraints on electoral competition with the PAP including gerrymandering, media controls and curbs on free expression, there was a 12.9 per cent swing to opposition parties at the 1984 election − predominantly from the working class. Rapid capitalist development had also resulted in more educated and socially diverse categories of Singaporeans − some of whom showed an interest in independent advocacy around feminist, environmental and other issues. Against this background, the PAP began creative political institution building to pre-empt any prospect of either further growth in opposition politics or independent civil society. This particularly included new public policy feedback mechanisms through the Feedback Unit (FU) set up in 1985 and revamped in 2006 as Reaching Everyone @ Home for Active Citizenry (REACH), nominated members of parliament (NMPs) in 1990, and a string of major, separate government-led committees of enquiry incorporating public participation; the first of which reported in 1986, the most recent being a year-long Our Singapore Conversation (OSC) from October 2012. Significantly, the need for continuing refinements to and innovations in this range of new consultative MOPs has been driven by the success − not failure − of Singapore’s model of capitalist development. Towards promoting high value-added industries and services including finance and biotechnology, Singapore attracts skilled professionals on big salaries. At the same time, there remains heavy reliance on low-cost unskilled labour in residual manufacturing, construction, hospitality and domestic services. Average growth rates of 5.7 per cent during 2000–14 were supported by foreign workers who comprised as much as one-third of Singapore’s workforce by 2010 and immigration policies contributing to 32 per cent population growth. Economic growth and income inequality went hand in hand, the Gini co-efficient measuring this up from 0.42 to 0.49 between 2000 and 2012, with absolute poverty standing at an estimated 11–12 per cent in 2011 (Rodan, 2018, 48). Not coincidentally, the government’s share of the total vote fell by a combined 15 per cent in the 2006 and 2011 elections, with support for the PAP in 2011 reaching its lowest level since independence in 1965. It nevertheless retained all but six of the 87 seats in parliament owing to the first-past-the-post voting system and electoral gerrymandering (Tan, 2013). Issues of immigration, foreign workers, wages, welfare, housing, healthcare and pensions were all contentious. There was also unprecedented critical public scrutiny of the PAP’s ideology of meritocracy. Consequently, what followed the 2011 election was the OSC initiative − the most imaginative and successful consultative MOP thus far. PAP leaders were convinced

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that OSC contributed to a 9.8 per cent swing back to the government at the 2015 election. The discussion to follow centres on Singapore’s three most significant consultative MOPs of the NMPs, FU/REACH and OSC. The analysis highlights common features to each of these MOPs inherent to their non-democratic nature: the ideological premise that public policy choices can be apolitical; participants’ absence of authorisation by, or accountability to, those they are projected to represent; high degrees of elite control over who can participate, how and on what in public feedback and deliberation; elite structuring of public participation in ways fostering political fragmentation of participants, militating against the formation of cohesive reform movements; and the discretionary power of elites to decide what public feedback they accept or reject.

Nominated Members of Parliament In the wake of the 1984 election’s increased support for opposition parties, the then prime minister Goh Chok Tong (1986, 7) declared that: “What a plural society like ours needs is a tradition of government which emphasises consensus instead of division, that includes rather than excludes, and that tries to maximise the participation of the population in the national effort, instead of minimising it.” However, Goh did not have in mind any loosening of controls on political opposition but instead new alternate avenues for participation in policy deliberations. Subsequent legislation modifying the Constitution establishing NMPs referred to “independent and non-partisan views” in the selection criteria. This wording reflected elitist and technocratic thinking, that parliament needed experts capable of constructive public policy input. Yet the scheme was also intended to more effectively incorporate a wider variety of social interests to try and prevent further support for opposition parties. Serving terms of up to 2.5 years, NMPs are appointed by the President on the advice of a parliamentary Special Select Committee chaired by the Speaker and invariably dominated by PAP MPs. Candidates can be nominated by the Committee and the public for consideration, either because they have performed distinguished public service or because they come from social, community, sectoral and/or professional organisations that can ensure greater diversity to the composition of parliament in its policy deliberations. Since 1990, when two initial appointments were made, the scheme has significantly expanded to provide for up to nine appointments per term. By 2021 there had been a total of 112 NMP appointments, with some NMPs serving more than one term. The legislative impact of NMPs has been negligible; the 1994 Maintenance of Parents Bill − echoing PAP views on filial piety – is the sole successful initiative, together with numerous minor refinements to legislation introduced by the PAP as result of NMP suggestions. The greater significance of NMP appointments lies in its utility for the political co-option of two different segments of society: first, a range of pro-PAP forces from business, labour, and the professions to voice policy

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concerns; and, second, select individuals outside the political and economic establishment, including members of small, independent civil society organisations championing progressive views. Elitist assumptions underpinning the PAP’s technocratic worldview reflect in the exceptionally high numbers of people from the professions and academia among NMP appointments. These account for more than 27 per cent of all appointments since the scheme’s inception, appointments of medical and legal professions being especially prominent. This pattern extends beyond the bias towards the appointment of members of the PAP establishment, or supporters thereof, to include individuals portrayed as representatives of women, ethnic minorities, environmentalism and social welfare. The common denominator is the high level of formal education, implicitly linked to the capacity for rational public policy engagement (Rodan, 2018, 76–77). By 2021 the NMP scheme had also incorporated 13 labour movement members, exclusively from the PAP-affiliated National Trades Union Congress (NTUC). These NMPs have been largely inconsequential to opening up debate, let alone injecting any forceful advocacy on issues of inequality and other matters relevant to the working class. Meanwhile, in the PAP’s strategy to contain conflict over Singapore’s development, the official categories of functional groups to be welcomed into the scheme have been continually expanded. These include now: business and industry; professions; labour movement; tertiary education institutions; media, arts, and sports organisations; civil and people sector organisations. The effect has been to promote a multitude of seemingly self-contained areas of policy advocacy, encouraging issue compartmentalisation and competition among NMPs for policymakers’ attention. There are no routine mechanisms for engagement among NMPs that might facilitate the identification of common structural barriers to addressing a range of discrete policy concerns. This not only reflects the institutional design of the NMP scheme, but also the pervasive influence of accompanying consultative and particularist ideologies. Rationalist belief that the power of argument in consultative processes is paramount to prospective potential policy influence has resonance with many professionally trained NMPs. Through the appointment of NMPs from various ethnic- and gender-based organisations, for example, the scheme also provides incentives for the continued prosecution of group rather than class identity or any broad reform coalition-building. Yet given the apprehension of many Singaporeans about open participation in formal oppositional politics, the NMP scheme has proved attractive for some reform minded Singaporeans. In particular, the scheme has provided an avenue for select critical voices from Singapore’s small group of independent civil society organisations. This includes NMPs linked to the environmentalist group Nature Society of Singapore, foreign workers’ advocate Transient Workers Count Too, and the feminist Association of Women for Action Research. To be sure, many of these NMPs have taken up causes neglected by the PAP and/or downplayed by the small number of elected opposition MPs. This includes instances of forthright criticism of the PAP’s foundational ideologies on race,

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ethnicity and meritocracy (Rodan 2006). However, many of these NMPs embrace or accommodate themselves to non-democratic notions and practices of representation and accountability. This includes explicitly or implicitly conceiving of themselves as ‘discursive representatives’ (Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2008; Dryzek, 2015), through which ideas are represented to foster broad deliberative processes but without any avenue for endorsement or disciplining by constituents. Although this notion of representation enhances political pluralism and the range of debates within parliament, it has made no discernible contribution to coalitionbuilding that could link different elements of civil society in challenges to existing inequalities of social, political and economic power. Indeed, the NMP scheme has proven adept at increasingly accommodating a greater diversity of interests and views as new conflicts linked to capitalist development in Singapore emerge. This accommodation has been achieved in ways that keep critics and opponents of the PAP organisationally fragmented and distracted from any points of possible intersection of interest in combined political action linking different elements of civil society.

Feedback Unit/REACH Established within the Ministry of Community Development, the FU was among the first post-1984 election initiatives towards new consultative MOPs. In contrast with NMPs, consultation is conducted through public administration institutions, availing authorities of even more intricate mechanisms for shaping who can participate, how and on what. Consequently, the scope for promoting the atomisation of citizens as political actors and the compartmentalisation of their concerns is also more acute. No less importantly, politics is projected as an administrative exercise to enhance government policy effectiveness and problem-solving, a notion systematically reinforced by one or other arm of the state. The FU was charged with four objectives: receiving public suggestions on national policies and problems; collecting feedback on existing or pending policies; ensuring speedy responses by government departments to public complaints; and helping to inform and educate the public about national policies and problems. Significantly, who could be involved in consultations, why, how and on what issues is subject to assorted administrative controls and political judgements. At a formal level, general guidance has been set by a supervisory panel chaired by a government (PAP) minister that also comprises other PAP MPs, as well as members of PAP-affiliated organisations and government-linked companies. In recent years, this composition has been supplemented with the inclusion of some private sector elements. Opposition politicians and independent civil society activists have never been incorporated. The FU − and REACH, as it was later rebadged − has certainly provided new avenues for individual and collective participation and consultation over public policy. Individual participation has involved a range of electronic platforms, including email opportunities to register service complaints and to submit reactions

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to e-consultation papers produced by government departments and agencies on various public policy topics. More open-ended avenues for individual participation are through online discussion on the FU/REACH website. Often, however, topics are initiated by officials who implicitly or explicitly define the nature of the problem to be discussed. Many of the channels through which individuals are most able to submit comments and views beyond categories and topics prescribed by authorities are directed to relevant government departments or state agencies for a private reply (see Rodan and Jayasuriya, 2007, 800–801). Opportunities for collective participation have included through Dialogue Sessions, Tea Sessions, and Policy Feedback Groups. Generally, two supervisory panel members, including a minister, chair these meetings. In principle, Dialogue Sessions are open to the general public but, in practice, have tended to be dominated by selective invitations to members of the People’s Forum data base of registered respondents and to “strategic partners” such as the PAP-affiliated NTUC. Critically, FU/REACH constructed categories of sectors or groups are invited to consultations. In Tea Sessions, for instance, this has included meetings with and about professionals, youth, ethnic communities, women, small and medium enterprise operators, and “heartlanders” that could otherwise be understood as working-class Singaporeans with limited upward social mobility prospects. These categories are useful conduits through which particularist ideologies of political representation and identity can be reinforced or boosted to promote political fragmentation (see Rodan, 2018, 94–98). The possibilities and limitations of policy engagement through this institution are well illustrated by the experience of Policy Feedback Groups chaired by private or social sector actors. These Groups were established in 1997 to undertake in-depth policy studies of their own determination, leading to policy proposal submissions for government. Chairs and members of Feedback Groups could be nominated by the Supervisory Panel chair and members or solicited from policy-relevant professional bodies or institutions. Groups determined their own agenda and, following presentations to government at the annual conferences, proposals would be published and include responses from the appropriate ministry or agency. These proposals would be then backed by evidence and argument drawn from a range of consultations under the work groups’ auspices. At one point there were 17 Feedback Groups, some having an impact in public policy refinement, others not. For example, the Healthcare Feedback Group succeeded in persuading the government to make changes in 2004 to medical coverage and insurance to protect employees changing jobs amidst economic restructuring associated with globalisation. In sharp contrast, the Political Matters and Media Feedback Group was decidedly uninfluential and short-lived. Its 2002 Recommendations for Best Practice in Political Governance, calling for reforms to secure the independence of democratic institutions, were never seriously engaged with by authorities as they did not fit ministerial priorities (Rodan and Jayasuriya, 2007, 802–804). This Group’s chair departed from common practice to invite participation from opposition parties and civil society activists. Not surprisingly, this was the last time that PAP critics were involved with Feedback Groups.

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This was not the end to PAP efforts to draw more Singaporeans into state-sponsored feedback mechanisms. Boosted opposition support at the 2006 polls, despite a booming economy, had been accompanied by creative use of the Internet for increased independent social and political commentary. The FU was thus revamped and renamed REACH, with a view to engage Singaporeans—particularly younger ones—on such issues as immigration and foreign workers, public transport, public health, employment and income distribution issues. Accordingly, REACH established Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. It also introduced e-Townhall webchats, generally chaired by the REACH head or other PAP MPs. There would be additional initiatives, all driven by the need to respond to a rapidly accelerating array and scale of contention over issues linked to the social contradictions inherent to Singapore’s rapid capitalist development. Given the 2011 election result, the PAP concluded that it needed not just to continue to evolve REACH, but also to supplement it with a new consultative mechanism for political participation.

Our Singapore Conversation The exclusion or containment of genuinely oppositional voices from state-controlled consultative MOPs had contributed to the shock 2011 election results. Working-class voters in particular had to look to opposition parties to impress upon the government the seriousness of their grievances. The PAP thus sought to stem the drift towards oppositional politics through more creative and seemingly inclusive consultative processes. Hence, the establishment of the Our Singapore Conversation (OSC). Previous government-led enquiries incorporating public participation included the Economic Committee (1986), the Next Lap (1991), Singapore 21 (1998), the Economic Restructuring Committee (2001) and Remaking Singapore (2002). However, the OSC differed in the scale, forms and methodology of public consultations over Singapore’s future, encompassing normative aspirations and policy consideration (Rodan, 2018, 104). Led by a government minister, the OSC comprised a 26-member committee, including members from business, academia, media, the legal profession and community groups. However, it was dominated by politicians and other members predominantly of the PAP establishment − many sharing the technocratic worldviews and apolitical notions of consultation of the ruling party. With no opposition politicians or independent civil society activists, it was unrepresentative of Singapore’s political diversity. Nevertheless, the committee genuinely sought to widely incorporate Singaporeans into consultative processes. This extended to open invitations to groups and individuals to organise their own activities. The OSC therefore involved political risks for the PAP. These were to be strategically managed by the OSC Committee. Approximately 47,000 people were engaged through the OSC. This included through 660 dialogues organised by the OSC Committee, government organisations, grassroots organisations and state-linked unions, as well as select civic and civil society

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organisations, interest groups, and companies. Consultations and engagements were held in 75 different locations, some involving small groups in coffee shops. Additional feedback was obtained through 1,331 email threads, 4,050 Facebook wall posts, 211 Facebook private messages and 73 YouTube videos (OSC Committee, 2013, 3). Despite the number and diversity of individuals and groups involved, the process by which feedback was collected and harnessed ultimately helped to produce the very outcomes desired by the PAP. The first six months of the OSC was loosely structured around consultations and feedback concerning Singapore’s preferred directions as a society. The OSC Committee distilled public feedback to identify twelve thematic perspectives. These perspectives provided the background for a second phase of consultations and deliberations focussing on healthcare, housing, education and old age policy issues. The end result of year-long deliberations was a report penned by the OSC Committee − Reflections of Our Singapore Conversation: What Future Do We Want? How do We Get There? The report heralded the inclusive nature of the OSC processes and the range of views unearthed and documented. Significantly, though, no specific policy recommendations were submitted. Instead, the report nominated five “core aspirations” of citizens: opportunities for all; communities with purpose; assurance of basic needs; spirit for a compassionate society; and trust in engagement with policymakers (OSC Committee, 2013, 4). How to translate aspirations into policy was left to government discretion. Arguably, these “core aspirations” could be viewed as a response to conflicts over inequalities and elitism, issues on which opposition parties had already proposed concrete policy responses to (Rodan, 2018, 106). The political point of the report was to project the PAP government as having embarked on a direct political relationship with “the people,” obviating the need for oppositional politics. To be sure, the OSC report acknowledged views diverging from PAP’s, including on public housing, marriage and family, and meritocracy. It also sought to play down the significance of such. On meritocracy, for instance, participants were depicted as calling for a “recalibration of the way we practice meritocracy” (OSC Committee, 2013, 27), when some participants’ views more fundamentally challenged the ideology of meritocracy. In any case, the unrepresentative nature of the OSC Committee deterred most opposition and civil society activists from participating in the OSC. This restricted the range of views captured, also robbing the process of significant involvement by independent collective organisations, limiting any potential for progress towards cohesive collective challenges to PAP ideologies or policies. By contrast, government departments and agencies as well as grassroots and other PAP-linked organisations organised and facilitated the incorporation of diverse societal forces into new consultative MOPs. This included several organisations that were part of the PAP’s strategy to discourage class-informed understandings of the root causes of disadvantage and poverty in favour of particularist identities and associated forms of political representation (Rahim, 1994; Chua, 2007). Many

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additional organisations active in the OSC had an apolitical civic rather than more political civil society complexion, such as voluntary welfare organisations and interest groups. Despite OSC democratic shortcomings, ahead of the 2015 election, the PAP linked OSC processes to key policy announcements and a purported embrace of greater social redistribution, declaring a shift towards a “compassionate meritocracy” (Ong, 2014). This included new commitments in healthcare, public housing, education and income supplements, all of which contributed to boosting support for the PAP by 9 per cent at the election. Contrasting ideologies of political representation and accountability were central to the election campaign. The Workers’ Party called on voters to consolidate their empowerment by further increasing opposition numbers (Chong, 2015). Government leaders portrayed reforms as solely the product of state controlled OSC deliberations − its revitalised consultative MOP alternative to competitive politics. In the context of rising conflicts associated with Singapore’s capitalist development, the new concept of “compassionate meritocracy” looms large in rationalising the limits to political change in Singapore. Ideological insistence of “meritocracy” is fundamental to legitimising continued power domination by a narrow politicobureaucratic elite. The prefix of “compassion” simply bolsters an elitist political paternalism under which the PAP and state authorities dispense welfare out of kindness, not out of recognition of social citizenship rights reflecting a more democratic power relationship between citizens and political representatives. However, the OSC’s political success in containing conflict proved short-lived. In the 2020 elections, an 8.7 per cent swing to opposition parties, and a 39 per cent share of total votes, produced the highest number of opposition seats since the city-state’s independence—still a modest ten of 93, owing to the voting system and gerrymandering. This time, opposition pitches for checks and balances on the PAP and greater diversity of elected voices resonated more strongly with voters. Unresolved voter concerns, many linked to the unequal distribution of costs and benefits of Singapore’s capitalist development, exposed the limitations of state-sponsored participatory strategies to contain conflict. PAP creative refinement and development of non-democratic MOPs will continue, but they cannot deliver the reforms needed by many Singaporeans.

Conclusion What then are the fundamental implications of this MOP framework and Singapore case study for other contributions to this volume? First, without due consideration of historically specific political economy relationships and dynamics, prescriptions about deliberative democracy tend towards voluntarism. Second, the bar against which deliberative democracy is measured places a premium on political pluralism ahead of the capacity of political participants to be able to seriously challenge elite power and associated social and political inequalities. The Singapore case study does not just analyse the political history and context leading to the introduction of new MOPs. It does this in a way that highlights

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dynamic conflicts inherent to capitalist development and the challenges this poses for the reproduction of elite power. The analysis explains how and why technocratic politico-bureaucratic elites in Singapore embarked on consultative MOPs, emphasising the coalition of interests behind this direction and the systemic difficulties of more democratic reformist forces seeking to exploit these MOPs. Crucially, though, elsewhere in Southeast Asia and beyond, the precise conflicts and coalitions of interests necessarily vary. Differences in how capitalism is organised affect the specific configuration of winners and losers from capitalist development and the resulting political and substantive reform possibilities. Consequently, studies of Deliberative Polling cannot simply be based on a search for “best practice” by comparing forms and impacts of different institutional initiatives. They need to identify and explain coalitions of interest aligned with or against specific institutional arrangements of deliberative polling. These forces are rarely if ever driven by a search for institutional quality. Instead, they seek institutional arrangements that protect or advance their material and ideological interests. Depending on those interests, they may or may not be amenable to expanding or refining Deliberative Polling. Struggles over techniques and methodologies of deliberative models therefore need to be linked to broader analyses of conflicts over state power. With this in mind, there is scope to extend or supplement some of the questions addressed in other chapters in this volume through the MOP framework. For example, in Yasunori Sone’s impressively detailed evaluation of Japan’s deliberative polling experiences, what broader social and political conflicts lay behind the eventual limited introduction of deliberative polling? Where the public policy issues that polling centred on − including public pensions, city planning, and food safety and security − ones that could not be adequately addressed through existing political institutions? If so, why not? What interests − or coalitions thereof − might have fared better or worse in attempts to develop public policy responses to these conflicts through Deliberative Polling? What does this tell us about the significance of Deliberative Polling experiments for transforming or merely reflecting existing power structures? Elsewhere, He and Breen (2020) submit a fascinating account of Deliberative Polling on federalism that they administered in Myanmar − a country struggling to make a democratic transition from authoritarianism even before the military coup in 2021. They conclude that polarised positions on identity and sovereignty could be moderated through facilitated deliberation. Yet the characterisation of Myanmar as a deeply divided society is not located within any analysis of the political economy, raising vital questions. How might moderated views, even if sustained and generalised in polling, have translated into actual policy reform? This is where Deliberative Polling potential meets political reality. In the transition to electoral politics, not only has the power of the military been institutionally bolstered but this has also been used to consolidate the military’s economic interests. Without identifying how Deliberative Polling might precipitate new coalitions to counteract or moderate the dominance of these interests, it is difficult to meaningfully extrapolate about the potential for constitutional reform at odds with military interests.

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This leads to the question of how we evaluate the democratic contribution of Deliberate Polling and politics more generally. If what can be achieved through such mechanisms is fundamentally conditioned by what is acceptable to ascendant elites, then it falls well short of the notion of democracy advanced under the MOP approach. This can be most fairly judged over time once we can ascertain whether new dynamics have been activated − intentionally or unintentionally − through experiments in Deliberative Polling. But here we would be looking for the formation of new networks, alliances and coalitions capable of seriously challenging existing power structures so as to enforce change. A broadly inclusive deliberative political process − even if it can be achieved − need not necessarily threaten powerful vested interests well served by existing state powers, nor generate the cohesive collective political movement capable of effectively challenging those interests. Considerations of where and how such collective democratic capacity has, or could be, developed through deliberative processes is lacking. Yet this is essential to understanding the extent to which deliberative processes might assist in reforms to redress deeply embedded social, economic and political inequalities.

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Goh Chok Tong. 1986. A Nation of Excellence. Singapore: Ministry of Communication and Information. Hawkins, Kirk A. 2010. Venezuela’s Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Hay, Colin. 2007. Why We Hate Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. He, Baogang and Stig Thøgersen. 2010. “Giving People a Voice? Experiments with Consultative Authoritarian Institutions in China.” Journal of Contemporary China, 19(66): 675–692. Hutchison, Jane and Andrew Brown, eds. 2001. Organising Labour in Globalising Asia. London: Routledge. Jayasuriya, Kanishka and Garry Rodan. 2007. “Beyond Hybrid Regimes: More Participation, Less Contestation in Southeast Asia.” Democratization, 14(5): 773–794. Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 1995. “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party.” Party Politics, 1(1): 5–28. Laclau, Ernesto. 2007. On Populist Reason. London: Verso Books. Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way. 2002. “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism.” Journal of Democracy, 13(2): 51–65. Mair, Peter. 2013. Ruling the Void: The Hollowing Out of Western Democracies. London: Verso. Mansbridge, Jane, James Bohman, Simone Chambers, Thomas Christiano, Archon Fung, John Parkinson, Dennis Thompson and Mark Warren. 2012. “A Systemic Approach to Deliberative Democracy.” In Deliberative Systems: Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale, edited by J. Parkinson and J. Mansbridge, pp. 1–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morlino, L., Dressel, B. & Pelizzo, R. 2011. “The Quality of democracy in Asia-Pacific: issues and findings.” International Political Science Review, 32(5): 491−511. Mouzelis, Nicos. 1985. “On the Concept of Populism: Populist and Clientelist Modes of Incorporation in Semiperipheral Polities.” Politics and Society, 14(3): 329−348. Munro-Kua, Anne. 1996. Authoritarian Populism in Malaysia. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Ong, A. 2014. ‘Consider What Compassionate Meritocracy Entails.’ Singapolitics (Straits Times). 8 January 2014. Accessed 1 March 2019. Available at: www.singapolitics.sg/news/con sider-what-compassionate-meritocracy-entails-lim-siong-guan. OSC Committee [Our Singapore Conversation Committee]. (2013). Reflections of Our Singapore Conversation: What future do we want? How do we get there?Singapore: Our Singapore Conversation Secretariat. Pateman, Carole. 2012. “Participatory Democracy Revisited.” Perspectives on Politics, 10 (1): 7–19. Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel. 1967. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rahim, Lily Zubaidah. 1994. “The Pardox of Ethnic-Based Self-Help Groups.” In Debating Singapore, edited by Derek Da Cunha, pp. 46–50. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Rodan, Garry. 2006. “Singapore’s Founding Myths vs. Freedom.” Far Eastern Economic Review, 169(8): 13–17. Rodan, Garry. 2018. Participation without Democracy: Containing Conflict in Southeast Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Rodan, Garry and Kanishka Jayasuriya. 2007. “The Technocratic Politics of Administrative Participation: Case Studies of Singapore and Vietnam.” Democratization, 14(5): 795–815. Runciman, David. 2007. “The Paradox of Political Representation.” Journal of Political Philosophy, 15(1): 93–114. Tan, Netina. 2013. “Manipulating Electoral Laws in Singapore.” Electoral Studies, 32(4): 632–643. Teo, Y.Y. 2018. This Is What Inequality Looks Like. Singapore: Ethos Books. Tormey, Simon. 2015. The End of Representative Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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8 THE PHILIPPINES An Uneven Trajectory of Deliberative Democracy Nicole Curato

Introduction The Philippines was once the darling of international press. In 1986 the People Power Revolution showed the world how a peaceful mass mobilisation can end the 20-year rule of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The young nation served as beacon of hope as repressive regimes continued to rule Eastern Europe and the rest of Asia. “Your peaceful People Power Revolution was an inspiration to us for our own revolution,” said Czech President Vaclav Havel, fomenting the imaginary that the Philippines set in motion the first wave of velvet revolutions (see Katsiaficas, 2013). Thirty years later, the Philippines once again grabbed global attention, this time to serve as a warning. Rodrigo Duterte – the man whose campaign promise was to literally kill all drug addicts – won a landslide victory in the 2016 presidential race. This turn of events positioned the Philippines at the forefront of the global tide of populism. Four years into his term, President Duterte continued to enjoy “excellent” performance ratings despite, if not because of, the rising toll of fatalities in his administration’s brutal anti-narcotics campaign. Genocide is how some observers describe the situation in the Philippines today (see Simangan, 2017). Does deliberative democracy stand a chance in a country under a strongman rule? What shape does public deliberation take in a nation occasionally lured by authoritarian fantasies? Are institutions robust enough to protect spaces for democratic deliberation? Are there discursive spaces where deliberative virtues and aspirations can flourish? This chapter seeks to answer these questions in four parts. I begin by revisiting the scholarly debates that characterise the deficiencies of Philippine democracy. I propose a shift in discussion from a deficit-oriented view of Philippine politics to one anchored on the aspirations and practice of deliberative democracy. My DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-8

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approach is both normative and sociological. As a normative approach, I make a case for deliberative democracy as a political ideal that resonates with the Philippines’ complex histories and contemporary realities. I argue that, as a sociological approach, deliberative democracy is not only a realistic aspiration but a political practice that has been attempting to gain ground in traditional political institutions, resistance movements, and new forms of political participation. Despite constraints of colonial legacies and political economy, I argue that there remain spaces for vigorous contestation of discourses, construction of counter-narratives, and governance innovations that allow deliberative politics to take root. I organise these observations around the themes of traditions, institutions, and habits of deliberation. I conclude this piece by imagining a post-populist Philippines by revisiting deliberative democracy’s normative aspirations.

From Democracy’s Deficits to Deliberative Aspirations Scholarly accounts about the character of Philippine democracy are often framed using a deficit-oriented vocabulary. In these accounts, the deficiencies of Philippine democracy are highlighted by identifying the structural conditions that derail democratic consolidation. Benedict Anderson (1988) described the Philippines as a “cacique democracy,” tracing how the Spanish colonial period created a privileged local class that accumulated wealth and power which evolved to today’s modern elite. The position of these elites was further entrenched when Spanish caciquism combined with American electoralism. Central to America’s colonial legacy is the use of elections to moderate inter-elite competition. The government installed by the 1986 People Power Revolution is not an exception. As Walden Bello puts it, “what took place in those glorious February days was not a revolution but essentially a transfer of power from one faction of the Philippine elite to another” (Bello, 2007, 1070). The Philippines might have the trappings of liberal democracy, but in practice, “it has functioned as an oligarchical state, where centuries-old elite families manipulate democratic processes to their liking” (Teehankee and Calimbahin, 2020, 120). It is not an overstatement to say that electoral politics in the Philippines have been fought based on “shifting clan alliances than programmatic political parties” (Putzel, 1999, 207). Today, some 70 per cent of the members of the Philippine Congress come from political dynasties, putting into question the extent to which liberal democracy served to redistribute political power (see Mendoza, Beja, Venida and Yap, 2012). Duterte’s rise to presidency is often viewed as a response by a nation frustrated by the false hopes of liberal democracy. There are many explanations about the controversial leader’s appeal across a wide spectrum of society (see Thompson, 2016), but what the Duterte phenomenon brings to surface is another deficiency of Philippine democracy – one that emphasises the central role of coercion in shaping economic and political relations. John Sidel’s work on political bosses is particularly illuminating. Bosses, Sidel argues, are “predatory power brokers” who exercise monopolistic control over economic resources and coercive power, acting as if

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their jurisdictions are personal fiefdoms (Sidel, 1999, 19). During his two decades long tenure as mayor of Davao City, Duterte acted as a warlord who reserved his firepower towards criminals – to fight “the unscrupulous others” that bring misery to “virtuous Filipinos” (Curato, 2016). Duterte is not unique in his tactics as there have been many local mayors known to use the police and vigilante groups as personal death squads to further entrench their families’ control over provinces. What Duterte did, however, was to create a “national-level boss rule” comparable to the Marcos dictatorship (Sidel, 1999, 144). Duterte’s drug war is the clearest instantiation of how liberal democratic principles of human rights and due process are subverted by a strongman who promised peace and prosperity at the expense of individual liberties. Extending from the repression associated to the drug war are many other manifestations of democratic backsliding from jailing opposition leaders, killing activists, shutting down media organisations and orchestrating the ouster of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court known for her record of defending human rights. The scholarly accounts I have discussed thus far present a deficit-oriented view of Philippine democracy. They identify the structural constraints that limit the Philippines from evolving to a mature and stable liberal democracy. While these accounts are illuminating, their portrayal of democracy has limitations. Marginal in these accounts are the agentic and oftentimes micro political performances of democratic citizenship that incrementally reshape the process of collective opinion and will formation. Nathan Quimpo captures this gap in his description of the Philippines as a contested democracy. For Quimpo, democracy in the Philippines cannot be reduced to machinations of corrupt caciques, predatory oligarchs, and political bosses but is constantly reshaped by subordinate classes claiming space for greater participation in decision-making (Quimpo, 2009). Political agency, in other words, is not exclusive to economic elites. Philippine politics in the 21st century is defined by “streams, even torrents of rural organizations” that have exerted pressure over local landlords and government officials to seriously consider their grievances and demands for agrarian reform (Kerkvliet, 1995, 416) while the Marcos dictatorship trained a cadre of activists that built capacity for deliberative politics after the end of the dictatorship. Building on Quimpo’s account, I propose a shift in conversation from a deficitorientated view of democracy to one that foregrounds aspirations and modest achievements for political reform. I argue that deliberative democracy offers a resonant political ideal and a practical political project for the Philippines. As a political ideal, deliberative democracy refers to a normative vision “in which people come together, on the basis of equal status and mutual respect, to discuss the political issues they face and, on the basis of those discussions, decide on the policies that will then affect their lives” (Bächtiger, Dryzek, Mansbridge and Warren 2018, 2). While the quality of democracy in the Philippines has always been benchmarked to the ideal of liberal democracy (e.g. free, fair and competitive elections, human rights record, media freedom and so on), I argue that examining the quality of Philippine democracy from a deliberative perspective has merit in

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examining institutional logics, informal spaces, as well as unexpected practices that serve to facilitate or subvert democratic deepening when it comes to collective decision-making. Deliberative democracy, however, is not “just” a political aspiration. It is also a practical political project that comes alive in concrete practices that aim to challenge but sometimes end up perpetuating the exclusionary character of the Philippines’ elite democracy. How then is deliberative democracy a resonant aspiration and plausible political project? I offer three reasons in the next sections. Each of the sections demonstrates the practical manifestations as well as constraints of deliberative practice. By identifying these spaces, I hope to bridge the conversation about deficits and aspirations to a discussion of reasonable scope for reform.

Tradition of Deliberation The view that deliberative democracy is a product of the Western European tradition of Enlightenment has increasingly been challenged over the past decade. Deliberation, as André Bächtiger and John Parkinson (2019) put it, is contingent, performative and distributed. It is contingent as far as deliberation pursues different goals in different contexts. It is performative because deliberation is often used with other forms of democratic communication. And it is distributed because deliberative virtues are dispersed over time and in different settings, instead of being concentrated in a single forum. This is a critical development in deliberative theory for it underscores deliberation’s pluralistic character. Deliberation is no longer idealised as the gentlemanly exchange of reasons, but a political practice that has wide variations in terms of culture and histories. One way of appreciating the Philippines’ deliberative tradition is to anchor it in relation to broader global transformations in which Filipino revolutionaries, intellectuals and bureaucrats served as active agents of world making, instead of being portrayed as passive recipients of “Western ideals” of Enlightenment. Take the case of anti-colonial struggles in the Philippines. The Kartilya or the code of ethics of Katipunan – the Philippines’ revolutionary movement – emphasises the counterpart virtues of the Enlightenment including equality (pagkakapantay) and reason (katuiran) (see Richardson 2013). The writings of Apolinario Mabini, the so-called “brains of the revolution,” locates the Philippine revolution against Spain in connection to the American and French Revolutions that are moved by the same ideals. The Philippine revolution has a cosmopolitan character that placed “Filipinos at the vanguard of a global anticolonial movement” which links the birth of the Filipino nation to virtues of progress and democracy (Rafael, 2016, 30). The virtues of equality and reason are manifest in Katipunan’s commitment to deliberation. Andres Bonifacio, the leader of the 1896 Philippine Revolution, was described to have a “consultative approach to warfare” (May, 2013, 449). Decisions on key policies, including the question of “whether today is the right time to declare a revolution against the Spaniards” was decided by ballot, after several days and nights of deliberation. As Glenn Anthony May puts it, “Katipuneros became

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revolutionaries only after due deliberation and only because a representative group of them had reached a decision to go to war” (2013, 454). Bonifacio made forceful arguments but as chair of the pulong (assembly), he did not shift the discussion to further his views. “Bonifacio appeared to take seriously the counsel his fellow Katipuneros were proffering, even when it conflicted on his own,” adds May (2013, 455). Ultimately, the decision-making authority in the movement rested not with its leader but with the pulong. The Philippine revolutionary movement, of course, had its own democratic shortcomings. Apart from the exclusion of women in decision-making, Katipuneros narrowly represent “a category of urban residents” comparable to today’s middle classes. They are not elites but neither are they plebeians. They did not have diplomas but neither were they illiterate (Cullinane, 2014, 88). Contrary to popular portrayals of the movement, there is little evidence demonstrating their solidarity with the masses. Instead, Katipunan’s selective membership drew from a “politically volatile and often angry class, the ambitious urban poor that has improved itself but sees no hope in the existing regime” (Corpuz, 1989, Vol. 2, 219). One could argue that the demographic profile of the Katipunan maps on the character of middle class-led social movements in the Philippines today (Tadem, 2019). While acknowledging the limitation of Katipunan’s inclusiveness, this historical account is important in clarifying impressions about Asian cultures as predisposed to strongman leadership. Instead, May’s analysis of the Katipunan links this tradition to the kind of leadership in pre-colonial Southeast Asia, where rulers were not autocrats but decentralised, delimited and consultative (Wolters, 1999). As closeknit societies dependent on smooth interpersonal relations, mandalas are only considered “men of prowess” when they share power and engage in consultation. By revisiting this explanation, I do not mean to homogenise the pre-colonial experience of the region. Instead, my intention is to emphasise the practicality of norms of deliberation in conditions of cultural and linguistic diversity. The practicality of deliberative virtues extends to nation-building in post-colonial Philippines. In the book Liberalism and the Postcolony, historian Lisandro Claudio argues that a “civic, deliberative liberalism is a necessity in the postcolony, for postcolonies are, like other polities, venues where multiple value-claims are debated” (Claudio, 2017, 18). As countries chart the course of their political futures, deliberation, while not utopian or revolutionary, is a practical means by which adversarial dispositions are unpacked, preferences are crystalised, and power is shared (Claudio, 2017; Ugarizza and Caluwaerts, 2015). Claudio traces the precise ways in which “pencil-pushing” bureaucrats established institutions that facilitate deliberation – from an educational system that espoused Dewey’s liberalism not because schools embraced colonialism but because they see the potentialities of liberalism in the Philippines, to amplifying the voice of the Third World in the United Nations General Assembly by rejecting the assault of First World imperialism and Second World Communist authoritarianism against human rights (Claudio, 2017, 161). In Claudio’s account, the liberal tradition in the Philippines rejects the politics of revolutionary shortcuts and embraces the slow and often boring politics of democratic exchange as drivers of nation-building.

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What can we learn by tracing the Philippines’ deliberative tradition to revolutionary movements and post-colonial nation building? I offer two lessons. First, this section demonstrates the rootedness of deliberative politics in the Philippines. Far from being a concept uncritically imported from the West, deliberation is a practice that is responsive to social and political realities of the Philippines. It is an aspirational ideal as much as it is a real-world practice that evolves based on historical contingencies. Second, these accounts emphasise the connectedness of the deliberative projects in the Philippines to a global project of democratisation.

Institutions of Deliberation The design of democratic institutions in the Philippines provides a framework for inclusive deliberation when making collective decisions. The 1987 Constitution guarantees “the right of the people and other organizations to effective and reasonable participation at all levels of social, political, and economic decision-making” (Section 16). The Constitution also empowers workers to “participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law” (Section 30). These principles are reflected in the Local Government Code of 1991, where local governments are mandated to consider people’s organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGO) as “active partners in the pursuit of local autonomy” (Section 34). The State is required to “conduct periodic consultations with appropriate local government units, nongovernmental and people’s organizations, and other concerned sectors of the community before any project or programme is implemented in their respective jurisdictions” (Section 2c). Taken together, these provisions guarantee spaces for non-state actors – from workers to NGOs to people’s organisations – to shape the process of collective decisionmaking. Democratic politics is not limited to electoral representation but direct and deliberative participation of ordinary citizens − at least on paper. In practice, institutions designed to uphold norms of deliberative democracy demonstrate an uneven track record. Let’s critically examine two examples.

Local Development Councils Local Development Councils (Councils) are advisory legislative bodies formed at the provincial, city or municipal and barangay (village) level to set the direction of economic and social development efforts. Forming the Council are elected politicians (e.g. village captains, mayors), officials from relevant government agencies, and representatives from NGOs and the private sector who come together to plan development programmes, prioritise projects and allocate budget. These Councils hold the potential to facilitate consequential deliberation among a variety of stakeholders. One could argue that this is part of the post-colonial, post-authoritarian project of nation-building where loyalties to political families and relationships of patronage are transformed to democratic procedures for deliberative decision-making. As a tool for democratisation, the Local Government

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Code prescribes that decision-making “ought to be steered not only by the local government units but also by the people in localities and communities with whom co-governance is assumed” (Medina-Guce, 2020, 3). Developments in national legislation further deepen the requirements of inclusion in these forums, as in the case of the enactment of the Magna Carta for Women which compels Councils to prioritise women in selecting private sector and NGO representatives if the sex ratio of 40 per cent is not met. Public policy scholars find the deliberative quality of these local councils to be mixed (Kawanaka, 1998; Shatkin, 2000; Medina-Guce, 2020). Gaps in institutional design and implementation are related to the deficiencies of Philippine democracy discussed in the first part of this chapter. Patronage politics, dominance of political families, centralisation and authoritarian legacies thwart the inclusive character of these Councils. A survey commissioned by the Department of Interior and Local Government finds that 14 per cent of NGO representatives were appointed or selected by local chief executives while 41% are not aware of the selection process (in Medina-Guce, 2020). Some observe that NGO representation is dominated by groups like the Rotary Club and the Lion’s Club which do not represent the interests of marginalised communities (Shatkin, 2000: 2362). The accreditation of civil society representatives also tends to be politicised, where those engaged in “public displays of closeness” to local chief executives tend to get preferential treatment (Medina-Guce, 2020: 9). As a result, NGOs in these Councils end up taking part in the same patronage system that co-governance via deliberation needs to subvert (Porio, 2017). Some scholars also raise red flags about the practice of collusion instead of deliberation in these Councils (Ishii, Hossain and Rees, 2007: 363). Given the selectivity in accreditation procedures of NGO representatives, members of the Councils feel pressured “to be under the thumb of the mayor or governor” to maintain their seat (Wurfel, 2003: 221). This reality reflects Garry Rodan’s critique of participatory processes in the Philippines as “participation without democracy” (Rodan, 2018). There are, however, some exceptions. Naga, a city of 200,000 people in the island of Luzon, is often hailed as the prime example of empowered civil society participation in post-authoritarian Philippines (see Ledesma-Gumasing, 2019). Beyond the requirements of the local government code, civil society groups are “literally empowered to have rights of influence on local governance from policy making to program implementation” through the Naga City People’s Council (Ishii, Hossain and Rees, 2007: 366). The Naga People’s Council serves two functions. First, it serves as a “community organizer” by creating an association of NGOs and people’s organisations representing urban poor communities, senior citizens, and persons with disabilities, among others. Its main role is to build consensus among diverse constituencies about their positions on issues tabled for deliberation not only in the Local Development Council but also in standing committees of the city’s legislative body. Second, the People’s Council creates mechanisms for a directly deliberative democracy by linking public deliberation to formal spaces of decision-making. They enrich deliberations in Local Development

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Councils by articulating crystalised positions, which, in turn, allow other members of the council and local government to respond to their arguments. There are many examples of the People’s Council’s persuasive power – from contributing to the decision to reject a proposal to build a golf course based on arguments about environmental protection to supporting proposals to redistribute private and government-owned land to disadvantaged families. Why, one might wonder, does Naga have the capacity to institutionalise deliberative politics in a city that was also once under the rule of political families? For sociologist Teresa Melgar (2020), Naga’s success was a result of a combination of “reformers in power,” “a vibrant civil society” that seeks to maximise democratic spaces before and after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship, and a “decentralization process” taking place in the late 1980s that called for experiments in alternative institutional arrangements. A reformer in power is personified in the city’s mayor, Jesse Robredo, who is known for his approachable and collaborative style of governance. While Robredo himself was a handpicked successor of one of the region’s most powerful political dynasties, he is well-regarded among advocates of good governance for demonstrating that “effective city management is compatible with yielding power to the people” (Ramon Magsaysay Foundation, 2000). Of course, one has to be careful not to overly romanticise Robredo’s legacy. As Takeshi Kawanaka (1998) reminds us, people’s organisations also served as pillars of Robredo’s political machinery that commanded loyalty to his administration. Nevertheless, Kawanaka recognises that institutionalisation of people’s participation created a system of public service that can directly respond to residents’ needs, especially urban poor communities. Naga’s success, however, was not Robredo’s singlehanded achievement. Quite the contrary, Robredo’s success in mobilising people’s participation depended on the vibrant civil society that already existed in Naga even before Robredo came to power. The vibrant civil society in Naga was a product of the city’s position as the trade and education centre for the Bicol region. The city has been home to domestic migrants who have weak ties with political patrons. Many of Naga’s residents were active in anti-dictatorship movements or a counter-public that deliberated on possibilities for realising citizen empowerment in democratic settings. “And when that democratic setting came about,” Melgar argues, they saw an opportunity to “deeply embody the notion of having citizens’ voice in these governmental spaces so that decision-making is no longer just monopolized by government” (Melgar, 2020). The decentralisation process prompted by the Local Government Code further created space for civil society organisations not only to assert their right to participation but also demonstrate their capacity in governance from developing annual investment plans with city hall officials to amplifying the voice of marginalised sectors in policymaking. Naga, of course, is one of many examples of cities where deliberative virtues are put in practice through institutional and informal mechanisms. In 2019, the twenty-nine-year-old Vico Sotto toppled the twenty-seven-year rule of a political family in Pasig − a high urbanised city in Metropolitan Manila. The young mayor admitted to being inspired by Robredo’s brand of leadership, vowing to practice

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participatory governance in pursuing his health, education, housing and anti-corruption agenda. Meanwhile, in the island of Camotes in Central Philippines, the local government institutionalised a purok system or a sub-village level form of governance for disaster preparedness. While this system has its own limitations in addressing inequalities in voice and poverty, it has proven to be effective in cultivating an active citizenry capable of deliberating and implementing the island’s policies on disaster preparedness (see Curato and Calamba, 2020). These examples, among others, demonstrate that deliberative innovations can stand alongside deficiencies in democratic politics. The challenge is how bright spots for deliberative democracy can thrive and expand and deepen their reach.

Community-Driven Development Programmes Community-driven development programmes are another space for democratic deliberation in the Philippines. Similar to village assemblies in India (Gram Sabhas) and the National Program for Community Empowerment (Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Mandiri) in Indonesia, the Philippines has KALAHI-CIDSS which stands for Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan (link arms against poverty) – Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (see Antlöv and Wetterberg, in this volume; Sanyal and Rao, 2018). It was launched in December 2002 as part of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s good governance agenda, after another mass mobilisation ousted Joseph Estrada from the presidency due to corruption charges. KALAHI is community-driven in the sense that the programme empowers local communities to propose, design and implement projects at the local level. It is a development programme not because it directly raises household incomes but because it aims to address different dimensions of poverty such as voicelessness and deprivation of basic opportunities and services (Tiglao-Torres, 2011: 201). By giving control to communities in charting their own anti-poverty agenda, they are treated as citizens with deliberative agency who can identify needs, argue about development priorities with their peers, and persuade an “approval committee” to fund their proposed projects. This programme is designed to address the problem of political patronage by loosening the reliance of communities from political patrons’ largesse. It also transforms the relationship between local governments and citizens by regularly incorporating underserved communities in project planning and implementation through structured community deliberations and informal consultations. Summarising qualitative and quantitative evidence on the programme, Amaryllis Tiglao-Torres finds that the programme, overall, “enabled community members to acquire or improve knowledge, skills, attitudes and practices through their engagement in decision-making process, as well as involvement in the subprojects themselves” (Tiglao-Torres, 2011, 212). KALAHI’s developmental goals were also achieved as subprojects like building roads and health centres had “ripple effects” in improving standards of living (Tiglao-Torres, 2011, 212). This positive appraisal of the programme, however, does not suggest that KALAHI was experienced similarly in all affected communities. As in the case of

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Local Development Councils, the process and impact of community-level deliberations are uneven. World Bank economists Julien Labonne and Robert S. Chase find that projects that get selected after deliberations “match the preferences of those households in the middle quartiles of village asset distribution.” And, as expected, households that take an active role in community activities tend to have their preferences represented in proposals put forward by the community (Labonne and Chase, 2009, 220). As these programmes do not follow the logic of random selection or civic lottery applied in deliberative mini-publics, they are not immune from the worry that “the usual suspects” are the ones that show up and exert influence over collective decision-making (see He, 2019). Others extend this critique and call for public deliberation that unpacks the reasons for the dominance of participatory and citizen empowerment-focused development programmes. Ben Reid (2011) considers KALAHI as a strategy to depoliticise poverty as a structural issue. It is not an accident that the programme took off in the Arroyo administration whose legitimacy was constantly put into question given the extra-parliamentary manner in which she secured power. Promoting citizen empowerment, one could argue, masks elite power as progressive politics which appeases Arroyo’s civil society allies. It also absolves the regime’s power grab from the populist rule of Joseph Estrada by promoting a good governance agenda palatable to institutions like the World Bank and the US State Department. Meanwhile, Nilan G. Yu warns against “inspiring stories of personal change and success,” as documented in KALAHI’s annual reports and case studies (Yu, 2013: 29). These stories, he argues, perpetuate a distorted narrative that places the burden of solving social problems to neglected communities, instead of assigning blame and seeking justice from political inequalities that perpetuate poverty. These criticisms, among others, underscore the importance of maintaining a critical public sphere that can problematise dominant anti-poverty discourses (see Kusaka, 2017). Local Development Councils and KALAHI are two of several institutional examples demonstrating the prospects of deliberative democracy in the Philippines. They are also illustrations of the constraints deliberative institutional design faces when overlayed with realities of elite democracy. The purpose of this section is neither to romanticise nor discredit deliberative institutions but to identify the spaces where deliberative politics takes root, how these spaces are compromised, and, hopefully, provoke reflection for reform.

Habits of Deliberation Outside formal spaces of governance, deliberative democracy comes alive in the public sphere where free circulation of contesting discourses takes place. The Philippines is renowned to have one of the highest densities of NGOs in the world, who are reputed for being dynamic, strong, and organised (Aldaba, 2002). From a deliberative democracy standpoint, civil society organisations in the Philippines play a dual role in cultivating habits of public deliberation. First, they produce

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discourses of accountability that challenge the state’s abuse of power. Even during Duterte’s illiberal regime, civil society organisations could claim success holding the state accountable for its violent anti-narcotics campaign. A broad alliance of political, religious, and youth organisations drew attention to the brutal murder of Kian Delos Santos, which prompted a shift in discourse on the drug war, albeit temporarily. Kian was a 17-year-old student taken by police officers from his home on the guise of a drug raid. Caught on CCTV cameras is footage of police officers dragging the boy into a dark alley near a pigsty, shooting him at close range, twice in the head and once in the back. Civil society organisations mobilised to call for a senate inquiry to hold the Philippine National Police accountable. They also staged a sorrowful protest during Kian’s funeral. By combining arguments on human rights and the affective dimension of killing a young boy whose last words were “please stop, I have an exam tomorrow,” civil society groups were successful in demanding policy reforms and putting police officers behind bars. Even the tough talking president who promised police immunity in violent anti-drug operations shifted his tone and declared the incident as one that is “not in the performance of duty” (Subingsubing and Ramos, 2018). Second, civil society organisations cultivate habits of deliberation by articulating a range of contesting views using different discursive strategies. The institutions discussed in the previous section are examples of civil society organisations coconstructing democratic innovations by invoking ideals of liberal and participatory democracy that gained currency in anti-dictatorship movements. Beyond institutional design, civil society organisations enrich public deliberation by crystallising fragmented views on complex issues using frames that resonate to decision-makers and the wider society. Public deliberation on the Reproductive Health Bill is one example of how civil society groups clarified the terms of a divisive and complicated debate. A frame analysis finds that liberal and conservative positions on family planning, sex education, responsible parenthood, and women’s rights were “faithfully reflected in news coverage” (David, Fille, Legara, Atun and Monterola 2017: 1263). Despite the popularity of the bill – over 75 per cent of Filipinos supported it – the views of the Roman Catholic Church and conservative organisations were still well-represented in news stories and televised debates. This example, among others, demonstrates the vitality of public deliberation as far as giving space to a range of contesting discourses is concerned (see Curato, 2013). It goes without saying that the media plays a primary role in facilitating the circulation of contesting discourses in the deliberative system (see Maia, 2012). How Philippine media performs this role is shaped by its chequered history of freedom and control. The Marcos dictatorship imposed “the sternest and most systematic controls in history” based on decrees and secret orders, as well as “unspoken but real threats of arrest, closure, banning, firing and even death.” Emerging from this dark period is the emergence of “heroic journalism” and “alternative press” which built capacities not only for investigative journalism but also a flourishing commentary culture necessary for a robust public sphere (Fernandez, 1989: 342). One, however, must be careful in uncritically celebrating the Philippines’ vibrant and

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free press. The return of constitutional guarantee on press freedom in 1987 also marked the return of elite ownership of media companies. Media dynasties of broadcasting like the Lopezes and the Gozons portray themselves as “patrons of national cultural life” that support foundations and charities connected to their media organisations (Pertierra, 2019: 141). Indeed, the performance of cacique democracy in the Philippines is not exclusive to political elites. Media elites too cultivate “family-like relations that produce loyalty among viewers” which, in turn, can mobilise audiences to political communities who can shape electoral and political outcomes (Pertierra, 2019: 142). This, coupled with pressures for journalists to engage in sensational reporting to meet the demands of a competitive market, places media integrity on the spotlight. No less than President Duterte called out the media in his public address for their corrupt practices (“presstitutes”), bias in reporting, and foreign influence. These attacks are not inconsequential. Four years into Duterte’s term, ABS-CBN, the Philippines’ largest news and entertainment network, was shut down after the congress decided not to renew its franchise. Rappler, a young online news organisation known for its reportage on the drug war and exposé on state-sponsored troll armies, is facing multiple cases of libel and tax evasion. All these are unfolding in a country that for decades has been considered a hotspot for unsolved journalist killings comparable to Syria, Somalia and Iraq (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2019). The vulnerability of the public sphere is not limited to journalists, but also to ordinary citizens, whom today, are confronted by overt and indirect threats for engaging in democratic contestation. Central to Duterte’s rise to power and regime maintenance are troll armies that systematically amplify discourses that defend state policy (see Ong and Cabañes, 2018). These troll armies have varied consequences for the public sphere. They increase the cost of putting forward a view that goes against the state. There have been many examples of ordinary citizens who have received death and rape threats for criticising Duterte’s drug war, while others receive a subpoena for criticising the government’s COVID-19 response (Conde, 2020). Troll armies also distort public discourse by hijacking trending topics on Twitter to manufacture the virality or traction of a particular discourse. Trolls, for example, co-ordinated to make a hashtag trend that body shames a young celebrity who joined a protest against ABSCBN’s shutdown. Body shaming might seem like a juvenile tactic, but this is part of the repertoire of bullying that make example of influencers who speak up against the Duterte regime. The consequences of these co-ordinated attacks are also not insignificant. Humiliation not only cost celebrities and influencers their reputation and their careers, it also sends a chilling effect to those who wish to take part in putting forward critical discourses that hold the state accountable. Finally, paid trolls also amplify “fake news” and hate speech from the President and his allies, thereby compromising opinion-formation and deliberation’s truth-tracking functions. Disseminating false information about journalists, activists, and political opposition serves to delegitimise critical voices, which further widens the scope for the administration to consolidate power. This, together with other tactics that curtail press freedom and civil rights in the Philippines pose clear threats to prospects of public deliberation (Coronel, 2020).

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What do these observations about habits of deliberation tell us about the character of deliberative democracy in the Philippines today? Three lessons can be gleaned from this section. First, this section emphasised the uneven trajectory of deliberation in the public sphere. Regimes of control and freedom shape how media institutions and civil society organisations formulate and disseminate a range of contesting discourses. This section underscored the vibrant, diverse and consequential voices in the public sphere, while recognising that these deliberations unfold within the backdrop of cacique democracy and an increasingly illiberal regime. Second, this section demonstrated the importance of paying attention to micropolitical tactics that both deepen and subvert deliberative politics. From using an affective repertoire of protest to demand reforms in Duterte’s drug war to shaming and bullying strategies directed at young influencers online, these are reminders that the quality of deliberative democracy is hinged on micropolitical practices that shape citizens’ experiences of public deliberation. While the previous section focused on the formal institutions of deliberation, this section focused on the democratic spaces in the “wild public sphere,” which, in deliberative theory is considered the space for new discourses to emerge. Finally, this section hopes to posit possibilities for reform. It is important to be cognisant of the historical and structural constraints for deliberative democracy to flourish in the Philippines, but is equally important to sharpen our senses when determining promising spaces for deliberative politics. Discussions about Philippine democracy can be enriched by shifting from a deficit-oriented vocabulary to one that spells out democratic aspirations and accompanying political projects that can realise these goals. Emerging counter-disinformation tactics, for example, are worth monitoring, as Filipinos seek to defend the integrity of the public sphere.

Conclusion: A Time for Monsters? In 2016 Antonio Gramsci’s commentary on the great interregnum once again became germane as observers seeking to make sense of the so-called year of voting dangerously. “The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born: now is the time for monsters” (Gramsci, 1971: 275–76). The COVID-19 pandemic further underscored the precarious character of the liberal international order, with the Philippines at the forefront of these transformations. However, as Milan Babic astutely points out, while there have been many diagnoses about the slow death of liberal democracy and increasing speculation about what is to come, there is little discussion about what takes place in between the death of the old and birth of the new world order (Babic, 2020). It is with this framing that I end my discussion about deliberative democracy in the Philippines. At the core of deliberative politics is the ideal of self-government, where citizens become authors of collective decisions that affect their lives (Lafont, 2019). In this chapter, I demonstrated how deliberative democracy flourished in periods of uncertainty – from revolutionary movements against colonialism to post-colonial nation-building to anti-dictatorship campaigns to civil society-driven democratic innovations after the People Power Revolution.

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The deliberative credentials of these historical moments are far from perfect. They are often thwarted by enduring structures of power that perpetuate elite rule. Nevertheless, these political moments are reminders that deliberative democracy is a political project that finds resonance in critical historical junctures when citizens assert their capacity for self-government and build on the imperfect achievements of heroes, pencil-pushing bureaucrats, and ordinary citizens who have come before them. The Philippines once again is at a crossroads. It is ready to fight its monsters.

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Porio, E. 2017. Citizen Participation and Decentralization in the Philippines. In Citizenship and Democratization in Southeast Asia, edited by W. Berenschot, H.S. Nordholt, and L. Bakker, pp. 31–50. Leiden: Brill. Quimpo, N. 2008. Contested Democracy and the Left in the Philippines after Marcos. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rafael, Vicente. L. 2016. Motherless tongues: the insurgency of language amid wars of translation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. 2020. Robredo, Jesse Manalastas: Honoring greatness of spirit and transformative leadership in Asia. Rmaward.Asia. Available at: www.rmawa rd.asia/awardees/robredo-jesse-manalastas. Ramos, Krixia S. and Mariejo S. Ramos. 2018. Kian’s case: Litmus test for Duterte drug war. INQUIRER.Net. 28 November 2018. Accessed 5 December 2020. Available at: https:// newsinfo.inquirer.net/1057818/kians-case-litmus-test-for-duterte-drug-war. Reid, Ben. 2011. “Securitising Participation in the Philippines: KALAHI and Communitydriven Development.” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 41(1): 47–74. Rodan, Garry. 2018. Participation without democracy: Containing conflict in Southeast Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Sanyal, Paromita and Vijayendra Rao. 2018. Oral Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shatkin, Gavin. 2000. “Obstacles to Empowerment: Local Politics and Civil Society in Metropolitan Manila, the Philippines.” Urban Studies, 37(12): 2357–2375. Sidel, John T. 1999. Capital, coercion and crime: bossism in the Philippines. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Simangan, Dahlia. 2017. “Is the Philippine “War on Drugs” an Act of Genocide?” Journal of Genocide Research, 20(1): 68–89. Subingsubing, K. and M.S. Ramos. 2018. “Kian’s case: Litmus test for Duterte drug war.” Inquirer.net. 28 November 2018. Available at: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1057818/kia ns-case-litmus-test-for-duterte-drug-war. Accessed 29 March 2021. Tadem, T.S.E. 2019. “The Middle-class-led Left Movement in Civil Society’s Role in the Philippines’ Democratization Process.”, pp. 81–101 in Hsiao, H.H.M. (ed.) Middle Class, Civil Society and Democracy in Asia. Routledge Contemporary Asia Series. New York, NY: Routledge. Teehankee, Julio C. and Cleo Anne A. Calimbahin. 2019. “Mapping the Philippines’ Defective Democracy.” Asian Affairs: An American Review, 47(2): 97–125. Thompson, Mark R. 2016. “Bloodied Democracy: Duterte and the Death of Liberal Reformism in the Philippines.” Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs. 35(3): 39–68. Tiglao-Torres, Amaryliss. 2011. “Enriching Resources for the Poor: Lessons from the Philippines.” Asian Social Work and Policy Review, 5(3): 198–217. Ugarriza, Juan E. and Didier Caluwaerts. 2015. Democratic deliberation in deeply divided societies : from conflict to common ground. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Wolters, Oliver W. 1999. History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives. Singapore: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. Wurfel, David. 2003. “Civil Society and Democratization in the Philippines.” In Growth and Governance in Asia edited by Yoichiro Sato, pp. 215–224. Honolulu, HI: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. Yu, Nilan G. 2013. “The role of social work in Philippine poverty-reduction programs: ideology, policy, and the profession.” Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development, 23(1): 24–34.

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9 DEMOCRACY AND DELIBERATIVE POLLING IN POLICYMAKING IN JAPAN Yasunori Sone

Introduction In Japan, the establishment of a political system that values public deliberation goes back more than 150 years. Japan built the basics of the political system in 1890s and experienced the “Taisho democracy” in the 1910s–1920s. After Taisho democracy, Japan faced a democratic failure as a result of militarism in the 1930s and 1940s. After the World War Two, re-democratisation was proceeding, but deliberative democracy was not deeply rooted. Participatory democracy theory was introduced, but implementation was limited to local politics. Methods like public hearing and public comment were adopted, but there was a problem of self-selection. It took a long time to shift from participatory democracy to deliberative democracy, primarily through the introduction of Deliberative Polling. There have now been seven official Deliberative Polls conducted in Japan, including two on national issues. Deliberative Polling plays an important role as it provides empirical data and public opinion in policymaking process. The Deliberative Poll conducted in Japan on “Environment and Nuclear Energy” policymaking in August 2012 was the first time that a Deliberative Poll was held on a national issue prior to decision. This chapter reviews the process that led to the introduction of Deliberative Polls into Japan and some of the lessons from my involvement in the design and implementation of the Deliberative Polls, and analysis of alternatives. I compare and examine public consultation methods, namely public hearing, public comment, Deliberative Polling and ordinary public opinion polls. By comparing these various methods, and the role of parliament, it becomes clear which part of the policymaking process in Japan should use a Deliberative Poll, and the role of policyorientated Deliberative Polling. In particular, Deliberative Polling is recommended to be applied to constitutional reform and the referendum process. DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-9

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A Brief History of Japanese Democracy Japan is the first non-Western, non-Christian democratic country and the first example of a democracy with a market economy outside the Greco-Roman Western civilisation. On 14 March 1868 the Emperor Meiji declared that “Deliberative assemblies shall be widely established and all matters decided by public discussion” (First clause of ‘The Charter Oath of Five Articles’1). However, this was not the beginning of deliberative democracy in Japan, but an establishment of a formal political system. The Constitution was promulgated on 11 February 1889, the first general election was held on 1 July 1890, and the first Imperial Diet (parliament) session was convened on 25 November 1890. Japan, like Germany and Italy, was late to initiate the process of democratisation. It was focused on nation-building, and so the establishment of a central government and bureaucracy was prioritised. In other words, the political system, which is the basic element of democracy, the constitution, the election, and the parliament were introduced. Elections and parliament naturally gave birth to political parties. The development of interest groups occurred later. Opinions are divided as to whether or not the national construction of this Meiji era was a democratic construction. Perhaps, historically, the impact on society from the transformation of civilisation at the end of the Edo period (1868) was greater. At that time, bringing an end to Western European colonisation and modernisation were the priority issues. The slogan “wealthy country, strong soldiers” was also a manifestation. From another point of view, the Meiji era political system was a solution to the problem that many countries in the world still face – maintaining cultural identity in the face of the globalisation of Western European civilisation. This question was still relevant when we began our work on deliberative democracy. In the context of the modernisation of this era, a representative democracy with a constitutional monarchy was built. A German rather than a British type was adopted. At the time, it seemed that party politics would take root, but the “Taisho democracy” did not last long. Japan experienced a democratic setback, which Huntington called “the First reverse wave” (Huntington, 1991, 18). As in Germany and Italy, democracy was in a crisis, but in Japan, it was a frustration caused by militarism, not Nazism or fascism. After World War Two, democratisation began to progress again. A new constitution (although prepared by a US-based occupation force) was enacted and the general election law that had previously been in place was reinstated and extended to women. However, there were criticisms of representative democracy in Japan, just like there were in many other countries. Direct democracy, which was understood to apply at the small community level, had emerged as a concept to counter indirect representative democracy. Local administrations had tried to develop public consultation mechanisms such as a municipal administration monitor and ombudsman.

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Participation and Deliberative Democracy in Japan In local politics in Japan, participation was sought in a steadily increasing manner, and there was an attempt to continue it on a sustainable basis. As per the general trend described by Carole Pateman (2012), the revival of the participatory democracy theory in Japan occurred with the introduction of the theory of deliberative democracy. However, it is necessary to separate the philosophical deliberative democracy (centred mostly on the introduction of Habermas) from the empirical analysis of deliberative democracy (Tamura, 2008). Until now, the methods of participation used in the policymaking process were municipal administration monitors, public hearings, public comments, etc., but all have adopted self-selected methods. The problem is that their legitimacy has been questioned because these methods are self-selected. They could not overcome the problems of political participation, however, on the administrative side, it was convenient to incorporate their outcomes as a reference opinion. Implementation of Deliberative Polling on the other hand, brings about a fully fledged discussion. Just as there can be fast food and slow food, so there is also a method difference between kinds of polls. In public opinion polls, there are times when we ask quite complicated questions. But adding a brief explanation to the question leads to the risk of it becoming a guided question. Complex questions should be answered after reading or listening to more detailed information or discussing it. Deliberative Polling corresponds to a survey item which can be said to be slow food, not fast food. Since 2012 Deliberative Polling was adopted and implemented as part of government policymaking. In this paper, I discuss deliberative democracy in Japan and will focus on the Deliberative Polling and how the method should be used in the policymaking process, among others. Deliberative democracy is not about the manner of discussion but about the policymaking process. It requires knowledge of the political system and the constituent processes.

Cultural and Comparative Approach? Whether the quality or effectiveness of Deliberative Polling depends on political culture is a question that comes up when talking in the context of Asia. When I would implement Deliberative Polling in Japan, I was often asked by newspaper reporters, “Since the Japanese are shy, deliberation may not be possible.” Certainly, some cultural differences can be recognised, but the differences can be absorbed by the Deliberative Polling method. Even if there are a lot of shy participants and silence continues, moderators are trained to cope with it. In other words, Deliberative Polling can be implemented in any environment as long as the environment is sufficiently prepared and trained moderators are available. Its standardisation can withstand any culture − it is the management that implements Deliberative Polling that is more important. Translations of ‘deliberation’ is ‘審議’ or ‘熟議’, and Deliberative Polling is translated as ‘討論型世論調査’ in Japan. In Korea, ‘公論調査’ is often used as a translation of Deliberative Polling. In China, ‘协商’ is often used for deliberation,

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but ‘协商’ seem to be in line with 人民政治协商会议 (the People’s Political and Co-operative Council). This is an interesting example of the same single word being used differently even in similar Confucian cultural traditions. In the context of Asia, the comparative research perspective is more important. For example, China and Taiwan, North Korea and South Korea are comparable. The differences that should be controlled in a comparison are the systems − the political system, the economic system, etc. – rather than culture. But it is better still to clarify the relationship between power and Deliberative Polling rather than talking about this kind of comparison in general. Power is synonymous with discussion of the political system itself − whether Deliberative Polling can be incorporated into the political system is the same as asking whether it can handle something related to power. Indeed, we are facing a serious situation − “The participatory governance institutions currently functioning under one-party rule operate as structural anomalies within an endogenous system: the authoritarian state seems to be adopting deliberative institutions to legitimize its decision-making” (Tang, Tamura and He, 2018). In addition, the declining birth rate and aging population are rapidly advancing in East Asia in general. But are these phenomena arising from the Asian cultural background? In other words, it was long ago that a Confucian and feudal husband’s failure to help with household chores lowered the status of women and caused a declining birth rate. However, declining birth rates in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, etc. are progressing with extremely high correlation to the improvement of female education, especially as they receive higher education and become more career-oriented. Hence raising the cost of education per child would be a more effective policy to counter the declining birth rate, though not necessarily desirable. So, it can be said that it is more productive to replace political culture with political system and Confucian cultural tradition with a comparative concept such as female educational level.2

History of Japanese Deliberative Poll Background The Deliberative Polling method was first introduced to Japan more than 25 years ago. Immediately after the first Deliberative Poll was carried out in England, in 1994, an introductory article appeared in a Japanese newspaper (Asahi Shimbun, 6 August 1994). But it was another 15 years before the first Deliberative Poll in Japan was carried out (December 2009). Since that first poll, and from 2009 to 2014, there were seven official Deliberative Polls (excluding one online Deliberative Poll). We conducted Deliberative Polls at the pace of once a year, such that Deliberative Polling in Japan is among the most frequently carried out in the world. Furthermore, in 2010 Keio University established the Center for Deliberative Poll as a formal research institution until the end of March 2018. An overview of the seven Deliberative Polls and their key features is provided in Table 9.1 and discussed below.

Mail survey 3,000 voters living in Fujisawa city

Mail survey 3,000 voters living in Fujisawa city

Mail survey 3,000 Japanese citizens (voters), collaborated with Asahi Shimbun

Current situation of Fujisawa city and future policy issues Current situation of Fujisawa city and future policy issues How the public pension system should be

Public Pension System in Japan: A Generational Choice

Choice of Fujisawa’s Long Term City Planning

Future of Fujisawa: One day Deliberative Poll

Mail survey 3,000 in Kanagawa prefecture (in fact, voters living in Yokohama City)

Future of the Doshu-system

Committee of Kanagawa Prefectural Research Center, and Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tatsuro Sakano. Fujisawa City Planning Division and Keio University Deliberative Poll Study Group+ Fujisawa City Planning Division and Keio University Deliberative Poll Study Group+ Keio University Center for Deliberative Poll

Deliberative Poll on Doshu-system (Federated Regional System)

Public opinion poll

Topic

Organiser

Title

TABLE 9.1 Seven Deliberative Polls in Japan

127 people

161 people

258 people

152 people

Forum participants

28-29 May 2011 (SaturdaySunday)

28 August 2010 (Saturday)

30 January 2010 (Saturday)

5 December 2009 (Saturday)

Forum date

Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus (Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture) Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus (Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture) Keio University Mita Campus (Minato-ku, Tokyo)

Kanagawa Prefecture Local Government Research Center (Yokohama, Kanagawa)

Forum venue

None (as it was purely academic research)

It was referred to the new Longterm plan of Fujisawa city

It was referred to the new Longterm plan of Fujisawa city

The Governor referred the report, but there was no further development

Impact on policymaking

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nationwide adult 10,689 household telephone survey of (RDD method), number of respondents is 6,849 people Sapporo citizens over the age of 18 Mail survey 3,000 people, number of respondents 1,368

Government's "Energy and Environmental Choice" (dependence on nuclear power in 2030) About Snow Measures in Sapporo City

Sapporo City and Keio University Center for Deliberative Poll

Snow and our Civic life

205 people

285 people

151 people

Forum participants

15 March 2014 (Saturday)

3-4 August 2012 (SaturdaySunday)

5 November 2011 (Saturday)

Forum date

Sapporo City Gender Equality Center (Sapporo City)

Keio University Mita Campus (Minato-ku, Tokyo)

Hokkaido University Higher Education Promotion Organization (Hokkaido Sapporo City)

Forum venue

It was referred to the government to formulate the "Innovative Energy and Environmental Strategy"** Sapporo city adopted the Recommendation for Snow Measures in Sapporo City.

None (as it was purely academic research)*

Impact on policymaking

+ The predecessor of Keio University Center for Deliberative Poll * Funded by the National Institute of Japan Society for the Promotion of Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research; ** Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, (Promotion of National Discussion for the Formulation of Innovative Energy and Environmental Strategy). Sources: Sone, 2011; 2012; 2012a; 2012b; 2012c; 2014; 2014a; Sone et al., 2013.

Deliberative Poll on Energy and Environment

Mail survey 3,000 voters living in Sapporo City

Blanket BSE inspection in Hokkaido

Deliberative Poll executive committee on BSE problem Hokkaido University Communication in Science & Technology Education and Research Programme Executive committee of Deliberative Poll on energy and environmental choices

Deliberative poll on BSE problem (Let's talk about it, food safety and security)"

Public opinion poll

Topic

Organiser

Title

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Japanese Deliberative Polling tends to be policy-oriented – this is one of its characteristics. Governors and Mayors were interested in local government Deliberative Polling. We also conducted two national level Deliberative Polls − one funded by a National Research Grant, and the latter by the government. The Deliberative Poll on Energy and Environment was, according to James Fishkin (2012, 2), “the first Deliberative Poll anywhere in the world that was commissioned by a government to get input on a subject of national importance before a national decision.”

Why was the implementation of Deliberative Polling in Japan delayed? The first Deliberative Poll was implemented in Kanagawa Prefecture on the “Doshu-system (Federated Regional System) in December 2009. Why was this initial Deliberative Poll so significantly delayed? It is not that Japanese researchers and media had not recognised importance of Deliberative Polling. As already mentioned, the Deliberative Polling method was introduced to Japan shortly after the first experiment in May 1994. The Deliberative Poll on the theme of “crime” in the UK was the first in the world. A reporter, Shinichi Yoshida3 (1994), who was in the United States at that time, covered it as a “Grand Experiment in Great Britain.” I was very interested in this article and soon after Yoshida returned to Japan and in the following year, I met him, was given documents and videos and analysed the Deliberative Polling method. After that, we immediately approached broadcasting stations and newspaper companies and started examining the possibility of a Deliberative Poll in Japan. However, our fund-raising was not enough to realise it. I met Professor Fishkin at the American Political Science Association annual meeting in September 1998, and in addition to communicating the current situation of Japan and promising research co-operation, the foot stepping condition continued for many years. Every time I met afterwards, I was asked how the progress in Japan was and I was also inspired by the theme. The main reason behind the delayed schedule was that the initial thinking was to have a nationwide Deliberative Poll over two or three days, as was the case in the UK and the United States. The biggest bottleneck was the need to secure a budget for that. I negotiated with a wide variety of research funding institutions, government agencies, mass media etc., with many potential sources, but the estimated budget was too large to be realised. Simply put, if we recruited 300 people from all over the country and held a forum, it would have cost tens of millions of yen in accommodation, transportation, meals and incentive expenses. As it could not be covered with the research funding of ordinary social science schemes, we applied for a research grant in the science and technology scheme, but we missed out in the final stage. In addition, in order to study the method and management, including logistic, our team observed the Deliberative Poll on Aboriginal Reconciliation in Australia in February 2001, and on “America’s Role in the World” in Philadelphia in January 2003. For the latter, I advised a staff member from Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK,

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to broadcast the Deliberative Poll in Japan. NHK live-streamed the US public broadcaster’s programme and later produced and broadcasted its own programme on the Deliberative Poll. But the cost remained prohibitive. The situation changed suddenly when we recognised it was possible to conduct Deliberative Polling in a way that is local and over one day only. If we scaled down national to local, the total cost might be one-tenth or so. So, in December 2009 in Kanagawa Prefecture we held a one-day Deliberative Poll on the “Doshusystem (Federated Regional System)” and in January 2010, “Future of Fujisawa: One day Deliberative Poll” was carried out. I participated as a moderator of the plenary session and a member of supervision committee in the case of Kanagawa Prefecture. In the case of Kanagawa Prefecture Governor Shigefumi Matsuzawa was quite positive, because the Deliberative Polling theme was his pet idea. In Fujisawa city, Mayor Yasunori Ebine had decided to use Deliberative Polling for policymaking. At that time, I was the chairperson of the Advisory Council on Long-term City Planning. In May 2011 we used “Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research” funds to do a nationwide Deliberative Poll on “Public Pension System in Japan: A Generational Choice” at Keio University, over two nights and three days. In August 2012, as part of the government’s policy decision-making process, the “Deliberative Poll on Energy and Environment” was held at Keio University. Other Deliberative Polls were on BSE, at Hokkaido University in autumn 2011, and on “Snow and Civic Life” at Sapporo City in March 2014. Keio University’s Center for Deliberative Poll was involved in implementation for five of the seven Deliberative Polls. In the other two cases, Keio University Center for Deliberative Poll committed indirectly in Kanagawa Prefecture and in the Hokkaido University on BSE. Key characteristics of each Deliberative Poll are summarised in Table 9.1.

Characteristics and lessons from Deliberative Polls in Japan As mentioned, I visited Australia (2001) and Philadelphia (2003) to observe the Deliberative Polls there: how the operation is done, focusing on logistics, and how organisers handled problems. However, there is a big difference between observing a Deliberative Poll, and actually conducting one. The operation of Deliberative Poll consists of a manual part and a part where know-how is accumulated as experience. One particular challenge is participant recruitment. In normal social sciences, a large sample of public opinion polls is one of the costliest examples of research funding. However, the structure of the basic framework is not so complicated. In the case of Deliberative Polling, the opinion poll is just the entrance. For example, in a survey of 3,000 people, if 2,000 respond, how many of them will participate in the Deliberative Polling forum? After receiving the response to the first poll, we invite the respondents to participate in the Deliberative Polling forum. This participation rate is very low in Japan in the international comparison. Normally, with 3,000 samples, the response rate is 50–70 per cent, of which 10 per cent to 20 per cent show willingness to participate (this is

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only an expectation). In the case of the Energy and Environment Deliberative Poll, using random digit dialing, few people expressed their intention to participate, and in the end, the number of initial polls was increased to 10,689 (6,849 respondents), and barely 300 participants were secured. The most important part of a Deliberative Poll is to ensure that the participants of the forum are decided and participate in the forum on the day of the event. This is the so-called logistics part, but there are things that a travel agency does, such as arranging tickets for transportation, arranging accommodations, meals, beverages in the meeting rooms, and paying honorariums. For the safety of the venue, you need to hire security professionals. Sometimes it is necessary to contact the police in advance. A maximum of 161 people have been employed, including part-time jobs, in the case of Energy and Environment Deliberative Poll. The preparation of balanced briefing materials is also important. In some cases, preparations are started far in advance and in other cases, only after receiving a request for a Deliberative Poll. In the case of the Deliberative Poll on Energy and Environment, preparations were underway for six months, but assuming a different topic, namely the restart of nuclear power plants in the prefecture level. Aspects can also be docked with other teams and put together. In the process of creating the questionnaire, an English translation was also exchanged with the Stanford University Center for Deliberative Democracy by e-mail. Stakeholders, who might otherwise wish to participate in a Deliberative Polling forum (but should not) can input into the Deliberative Polling process by expressing their opinions in the process of creating this briefing document and in the pros and cons list. Small groups usually consist of 15 participants, in a calm and safe environment. There should be at least one moderator in the group and one recording assistant. Moderators will have received a manual in advance, but they will be trained for half a day to a day before the forum is held. We often do simulations with a stress test. Usually, Stanford’s Fishkin and Alice Siu also advise on the training. For the plenary session, in addition to a moderator, three to five reliable expert panelists are required on every topic. In other words, if we have three topics to deliberate, a combination of small group discussion (90 minutes) and plenary session (90 minutes) will be repeated three times. Of course, it does not end in one day. Press conferences should be held in advance for topics that are of interest to the mass media. After the event, when announcing the results, it is also necessary to hold a press conference, not just a memorandum for press releases. In the case of energy, the potential change in government policy was of great interest, with 26 companies and 104 reporters registering at the peak time, including newspapers, television stations and news agencies. What we did not expect was Japan’s largest news agency doing an exit poll, using ten reporters, with 80 participants when all the events were over. Their exit poll was reported the next day. The data announcement itself also becomes news. For example, the results of the Energy and Environment Deliberative Poll were broadcast on NHK nationwide news at 12:00, 19:00, 21:00 and 23:00 on the same day.

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Political and Analytical aspects of Deliberative Polls in Japan The Deliberative Poll on energy and environmental choices has been described as the first Deliberative Poll that was officially adopted in the policy decision process. Deliberative Polling itself is closely related to public policy. Indeed, one of Fishkin’s (2018, 14) four criteria for popular control is “impact,” that is “the people’s choices need to have an effect on decisions (such as who governs or what policies get enacted).” However, there are few other examples of Deliberative Polling having been adopted in the official policy decision process in Japan. In particular, in the case of important policy issues that are being considered by national government, there are high walls. The ordinary policymaking process has already been developed, and so adding Deliberative Polling into the process could require a change in the system itself. It might be easier to consider Deliberative Polling as a kind of opinion poll. However, ordinary policies cannot be decided by a public opinion poll. The Deliberative Poll on energy and environmental choices was adopted as one of three methods of public consultation, even though it was in the context of a national issue. Deliberative Polling was chosen for the following reasons. First, the administration was the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the DPJ sought to review the whole energy policy and declared that it would hold public consultations. In the early stages, it held public hearings and public comments, but it sought a third method. As a candidate, Deliberative Polling was recommended by committee members at various councils. Bureaucrats in the Cabinet Office also examined various methods, and their recommendation was Deliberative Polling (Sone, 2014). So overall, the government used three methods for public consultation, plus there were conventional public opinion polls undertaken by the media and the government. The four methods are identified in Figure 9.1 and mapped according to the two most important yardsticks: random sampling and deliberation. Deliberative Polling is most similar to a public opinion poll. In fact, as the first stage of Deliberative Polling involves such a poll, it is quite natural that there is a resemblance. However, Deliberative Polling differs greatly from a regular survey because it includes a deliberative component, or forum, and can address more complicated questions and issues. When doing an opinion poll on a complex question there is a trade-off between providing more explanation and making it into a leading question. Deliberative Polling can resolve this tension because the information or explanation provided as part of Deliberative Polling must be balanced and independently reviewed, and there is more scope (time) to build participants understanding of an issue. Another key difference is that in normal public opinion polls, there is no discussion between samples − the process of ‘learn, think, talk’ is not included. Deliberative Polling involves getting detailed information, investigating and talking about the issue and reaching your own conclusion. In a sense, such a method entails an ideal citizen role that the public should play. But in practice, the general

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FIGURE 9.1

Random sampling and deliberation

public is busy with work and daily life and cannot be deeply involved in various matters. If a randomly selected sample can instead deliberate, and demonstrate a change in opinion, you can assume it will be as if Japanese citizens or voters’ attitudes and opinions are changing. You can watch the “learn, think, talk” process in the microcosm of that society. A Deliberative Poll is not made up of people who raised their hands or responded to a public hearing. Participation only from interested or engaged citizens cannot construct a microcosm of a society. However, even if the sampling of 1,000 people is a microcosm of a society, it is difficult to make a forum to bring those people together and to discuss. In the case of a Deliberative Poll, there are often about 200 to 400 participants, but this number is closely related to the problems of venues and the budget that manages it. The trade-off between this number and statistical significance is an important part of Deliberative Polling. Further, the process must be standardised, to avoid questions of political bias and to enable comparability. A Deliberative Polling process should be exactly the same

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whether it is requested by an organisation that is in favour of nuclear power generation, for example, or an organisation that is totally opposed. However, Deliberative Polling cannot escape from partisan politics entirely. Although the scientific method is unrelated to politics, there is a risk that the choice of the method will be recognised as the method preferred by a party. What should be considered as a power issue is the possibility that Deliberative Polling might be used by an authoritarian regime to legitimise its authority.

Policymaking process The parliamentary system in Japan also has similarities to a Deliberative Poll. For one, it embeds a place and time to talk. There is a premise that “deliberation,” “discussion” and “contemplation” naturally takes place. However, as institutionalisation progresses, talks become ritualised and formalised, and questions and answers also become pre-prepared. The fun of brainstorming disappears, and “voting” becomes the centre of the process, rather than the policy discussion. In addition, legislative amendment prospects and the partisan aspect of dialogue sometimes collide. The problem of how to return a parliament to a place of “talking” is one way to reference the method of Deliberative Polling and its place in the policymaking process. The first characteristic of the policymaking process in Japan is the parliamentary cabinet system. It is highly likely that bills submitted by cabinets will pass. In the case of Japan, in particular, the ruling party will make a decision and impose strong party discipline on each party member. So when a bill is submitted to the Diet, it is generally passed easily (although usually by about 80 per cent instead of 100 per cent). In order to influence the policy, one must approach each ministry or the ruling party that submits the bill in advance − this is the main battlefield for policymaking. In other words, the Diet is a place for voting, and the substance of the matter is only important before it is considered by the Diet. So if Deliberative Polling is to be utilised for policy decisions, it is necessary to ask where and how to use it. The policymaking process is long, and it can take many years from the original idea to a policy passing the Diet and becoming a law. Once a bill is submitted to the Diet, the degree of completion is high, and there is little room for amendment. This is one premise of partisan politics; hence it is necessary to assemble the role of deliberation in the Diet to overcome this tendency. I will argue this issue again in the following section on Parliament and Deliberative Polling. In the case of Japanese politics, the original cabinet bill is drafted in each government office. In the process, experts and stakeholders are involved in various councils and often recommend a proposal to the Minister. Of course, each government office is in close contact with the ruling party, but it is important to participate in the discussions at the council level if you want to influence the original bill. Even in the case of the national issue of energy and the environment, Deliberative Polling and other forms of public consultation were located under each

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council. My recommendation is that Deliberative Polling, or variations, be used in two ways, given the current policymaking process. One is that the council runs the Deliberative Poll and adds the results to the recommendation. The other is that Deliberative Polling substitutes for the council and its recommendation on a certain issue. In other words, instead of experts, randomly selected citizens read the equivalent documents of the council, discuss them and make a report. Of course, for that purpose, briefing documents, moderators and so on are required, just like ordinary Deliberative Polls. But if Deliberative Polls have a legal status; they can be placed within the council stage of the policymaking process. The purpose of deliberation in such cases might be to narrow the choices, or to choose one from multiple alternatives. Randomly chosen citizens do not have the same legitimacy as elected members. However, the council’s experts are the same as the citizens in that they have not gone through the election baptism. It is possible to locate the Deliberative Polling within the Diet deliberation process, but since their roles are different, it is necessary to align them.

Parliament: deliberations and partisan politics Many people (also sometimes politicians) believe deliberation in parliament is the same as the deliberation in a Deliberative Poll. Deliberation has the daily connotation “to talk and discuss with all thoroughly” (according to Shin Meikai, a popular Japanese dictionary). James Madison, who drafted the American Constitution, might have thought about parliaments in that way, but it is not like this in practice. The current assembly has a partisan political premise with a strong ideology. It never discusses the bill from a completely blank state, and it can be said that compromise can be established only at secret meetings outside the parliament. A joint committee of the two Houses does not function in Japan. It might be better to say that parliament is like a courtroom consisting of defendants and prosecutors. Therefore, it is often said that parliamentary reform is necessary, but I would like to discuss what we can do by making full use of the experience in Deliberative Polling. In the case of the Japanese Diet, questioning is the basis of interaction, not dialogue. The Diet is the prototype of this type of approach, whereby the members ask and the Minister who submitted the bill responds. There is a long tradition in the history of politics with this method of question and answer. Indeed, the Socratic method basically consists of questioning and answering. However, in the Diet, the answer will constrain the government afterwards, so they wish to be prepared and precise. For that purpose, the officials of each ministry will work to prepare the answer until the morning, and in the early morning, a briefing for the minister is common. The rule is that a question must be submitted two business days before, but in reality, it is often submitted the previous night. Such an approach is more common in Japan than in comparable systems, like the UK, because in Japan bureaucrats are often in the office until midnight and able to prepare answers.

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The purpose of the deliberation in the Diet is usually not to revise the bill or to make compromises, but rather to express one’s position towards the people, especially towards the next election. In particular, in front of a television camera, a concession is reflected as a manifestation of weakness, making it difficult to make a compromise. And, in conjunction with the characteristics of parliament that are likely to cause partisan conflicts during the legislative process, as we have already seen, parliamentary debate has become far removed from “deliberation.” The reality of parliament reform, however, will be controversial along the following key lines: 1.

2. 3. 4.

5.

Whether it is possible to transfer discussions within the party, such as the Policy Division in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that has functioned as a forum for discussing substantial matters, to the Diet. Whether it is intended to change the character of the Diet from questioning to discussion. Whether to make compromise easier using subcommittees and secret committees, etc. Whether the current party discipline (party members’ obligation to vote according to decisions made by the party) might be changed at the end of the deliberation by the Diet committee, or; Whether the government intends to make the modification more flexible from the cabinet side.

For these reasons, changes will be rejected as like the "Diet that cannot find an exit” from the LDP’s Diet Affairs Committee, and from bureaucrats who will have given an “explanation” to MPs. Many thought that if the Diet becomes a place of substantial decision-making, the time and energy spent on that measure will be enormous. The fact that bureaucrats play a lobbyist role to persuade ruling party politicians to pass the bill differs significantly from the practice of prohibiting bureaucratic-politician contact in British politics. It turns out then that considerable ingenuity is needed to prepare conditions for the Diet reform. Despite the past 30 years of political reforms, parliamentary reforms and ruling party reforms remain to be done. Furthermore, in order to make use of the experience of Deliberative Polling in the Diet reform, it is necessary to change the idea or method. It needs to be prepared and made suitable to be used for both system reform on representation, and for change in the process of real policymaking.

The Prospect: Referendum on Constitutional Amendment One of the most significant contemporary political issues in Japan is constitutional amendment. In particular, the recently retired former Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, had a strong will to amend the Constitution, and it is a key policy of the LDP party. Procedures for constitutional amendments are detailed in Article 96, “(1)

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Amendments to this Constitution shall be initiated by the Diet, through a concurring vote of two-thirds or more there is a subordinate to the people for ratification, which shall require the affirmative vote of a majority of all votes cast thereon, at a special referendum or at such an election as the Diet shall specify.” The Japanese constitutional amendment is a representative example of an ideological confrontation between the Prime Minister’s party, the LDP, and opposition parties. In fact, since the 1950s constitutional reform has been advocated by the LDP, but other parties have been opposed. As at early 2021 the LDP and Komeito coalition government now has nearly two-thirds seats in both the House of Representatives (LDP 278, Komeito 29: 307/465) and the House of Councillors (LDP 114, Komeito 28: 142/242), meaning that it is possible to pass the Diet if it is embraced by another parliamentary group. However, the Diet’s Constitutional Review Board met only once in the 2020 regular Diet session. Mostly, the opposition parties that did not want to change the constitution try to avoid holding this constitutional examination committee for as long as possible in order to delay the reform process. But the biggest hurdle of the constitutional amendment is said to be a national referendum. The ruling party does not think that a referendum will pass easily as the public is ambivalent. It predicts that forcing the parliament to pass an amendment bill will negatively affect the referendum. The importance of the referendum part of the process is well recognised in Japan, because of the failure of the Renzi government to revise the Constitution in Italy and the British government’s Brexit issue. There is a high possibility that similar populism will emerge if a referendum is done without adequate preparation. The Conservative Party in the UK was thought to be the furthest from populism, but it behaved like the UK Independence Party (UKIP). The campaign bus that had the message “We send the EU 350 million pounds a week” written on the sides became a symbol of the Brexit. However, the figure turned out to be false. We can imagine the message came from UKIP’s Nigel Farage, but it was used by the Conservative Party’s Boris Johnson. The role of the media in this is therefore critical. However, it is more often interested in advertising revenue and so might not be discerning. Yet the most important issue to be addressed, is not to how to avoid post-truth information, but how to keep a calm environment to discuss. There is the Act on Procedures for Amendment of the Constitution of Japan, which provides for loose regulations on campaigning, for instance, the broadcasting of commercials relating to the referendum and constitutional revision is banned during the 14-day period leading up to the national referendum, but there are no regulations concerning advertising prior to that period. If there is a Deliberative Poll in the referendum process, it is necessary to consider what the possibilities are. One is to carry out a Deliberative Poll on the same theme as the referendum, as has been done in Australia. It is extremely difficult, however, for the Japanese Constitutional Review Board to officially conduct a Deliberative Poll on the same theme as a referendum, although it would avoid

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duplication. Of course, private media could do the same, but they would be treated as regular polls. A second possibility is to use Deliberative Polling to narrow down the referendum alternatives, as has been the case in Mongolia. But in Japan, this is the job of the Constitutional Review Board. Third, Deliberative Polling could be used to find out in advance what kind of environment the referendum should be held in. Finally, rather than bringing Deliberative Polling in to avoid populism, Deliberative Polling can be used for the system revision by referencing the Deliberative Polling method as part of the referendum process. However, this will take time and need new legislation, so preparations will have to be made far in advance. But perhaps the biggest issue is how can we introduce the experience cultivated in Deliberative Polling (especially the calm environment in which participants can hold cool discussions) into the conflicting and heated situation of an actual referendum. I recommend that Deliberative Polling be done for the referendum. Whether it is legislated or not, Deliberative Polling should be done independently by media organisations or other non-government institutions, as this will at least avoid populism and promote information-sharing.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have shown how Deliberative Polling plays a role in policy decisions and how to bring standardisation to the 'talk' process, which inevitably leads to variability, and we have been able to provide reliable data for comparison between Deliberative Polling experiments. An analysis of the current policymaking process is indispensable for considering where to use Deliberative Polling in the policymaking process. Room should be made for Deliberative Polling within the policymaking process in Japan, even if this requires system change. Deliberative Polling can accommodate different cultures and the question of its suitability to policymaking relates to the political system and not the culture. It is possible to find out the direction or kind of reforms needed, based on the experience of using Deliberative Polling in the current policymaking process. For one, the experience of Deliberative Polling could be used to guide reform of the Diet, though this would be met with much resistance and need considerable ground work. More urgently, Deliberative Polling should be used as part of the referendum process for constitutional change. We know that Deliberative Polling can manage or ease partisan conflict in its arrangement of options in the briefing documents in a way that respects the positions of the parties and that this can inhibit dialogue and compromise. However, at least the claims of both parties are clarified, and the differences are presented to the public. For this, the media needs to be a responsible actor and support a calm environment for discussion and avoid facilitating a posttruth or populist agenda. It has been said that Japan’s Deliberative Polling is policy-oriented, but in the real political context, there is no party that strongly promotes it. The former DPJ is no longer a unified party and is now divided into two opposition parties. The LDP takes the position that Deliberative Polling is a DPJ method. Shigefumi Matsuzawa,

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the governor of Kanagawa Prefecture, who conducted the Deliberative Poll on the Doshu system, is no longer the governor, but a member of the small parliamentary group of the House of Councillors. The former Mayor of Fujisawa, which conducted two Deliberative Polls, Yasunori Ebine, was unable to win re-election and is no longer a politician. Currently he is a representative of a think tank. Another issue is what kind of theme Deliberative Polling should cover. There are many candidates, but it is difficult to find a theme that must be addressed with a Deliberative Poll. For example, the television producer argues that it is possible to create a sufficiently objective and neutral programme without using Deliberative Polling method when creating a television programme. Often, when I get inquiries from local leaders about wanting to do Deliberative Polling, I always confirm two things. First, is there a positive reason for using Deliberative Polling methods? For example, if you can carry out a telephone poll, there is no reason to perform Deliberative Polling. Therefore, whether or not it is a heavy theme is one criterion. Another thing to check is, if the conclusion that came out of the Deliberative Polling is different from what the leader thinks, is it ready to accept that conclusion? If the results of the Deliberative Polling, which involves a significant budget and a large number of people, are neglected, it will be criticised. Deliberation is necessary in the age of polarisation, but it is not an easy task. Deliberation should not be limited to the Diet; it should be widely studied, considered and spoken by wider Japanese population. That is the spirit of the declaration of First Clause of The Charter Oath: “Deliberative assemblies shall be widely established and all matters decided by public discussion.”

Notes 1 Item 1, The Charter Oath of Five Articles, 1868. 2 About forty years ago, we published a book Unanimous and Majority Rule (M. Riko, S. Mori and Y. Sone, 1980, Manjo-icchi To Tasu-ketu, Nikkei Shinsho, Tokyo). This is a counterargument using the historical and institutional comparative method against the cultural approach which strongly emphasise on “Japan is unique culture as a consensus society.” The cultural approach can elicit positive arguments, but it can also make counterarguments easily. In particular, concluding that the society is unique requires demonstrating and showing examples in many other countries never have that aspect. Therefore, this book was the starting point of the departure from the cultural approach, so I will not touch upon the cultural approach here. 3 Shinichi Yoshida later became the editor of the Asahi Shimbun and became the president of TV Asahi. He has been awarded the Japanese Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association Award (equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize) twice.

References Center for Deliberative Poll, Keio University, Tokyo. Available at: http://keiodp.sfc.keio.ac.jp. Fishkin, James S. 2009. When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fishkin, James S. 2012. “Advisory committee report.” In Government official report (in Japanese). Accessed 20 February 2019. Available: www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/npu/kokumingiron/dp/ 120822_03.pdf.

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Fishkin, James S. 2018. Democracy When People are thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Pateman, Carole. 2012. “Participatory Democracy Revisited.” Perspectives on Politics, 10(1): 7–19. Sone, Yasunori. 2007. “Possibility of Deliberative Poll” in Hashimoto, Akikazu, ed., 21st Century Paradigm Shift. Tokyo: Toji Shobo. Sone, Yasunori. 2011. “Deliberative poll with attitude change Kanagawa Prefecture, reports from Fujisawa.” Journalism, 248: 36–43. Sone, Yasunori (ed.). 2012. “Energy and Environment DP Survey Official Report” (in Japanese) Accessed 8 August 2019. Available at: www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/npu/kokumingiron/dp/120827_01.pdf. Sone, Yasunori. 2012a. “Popular will of deliberation, which moved to zero,” Asahi Shimbun, 8 December 2012:15. Sone Yasunori. 2012b. “What from Deliberative Poll was visible.” Tokyo-Jin, 317 (November):116–122. Sone, Yasunori. 2012c. (interview with Yoshito Sengoku) “Deliberation and the will of the people”, Mainichi Shimbun, 20 February 2012. Sone Yasunori. 2014.”Nuclear Energy Policy and the National Deliberative Poll,” Public Policy Studies, 14 (December): 37–50. Available at: http://sonelab.sfc.keio.ac.jp/Sone_Nuclear%20Energy%20Policy_2016.pdf., https://cdd.stanford.edu/mm/2016/05/sonepps-nuclear-policy.pdf. Sone, Yasunori (ed.). 2014a. “Snow and our civic life” survey report, August 2014. Accessed 20 September 2020. Available at: www.city.sapporo.jp/somu/shiminnokoe/dp/documents/ houkokusyo_all.pdf. Sone, Yasunori, Noboru Yanase, H. Uekihara and K. Shimada. 2013. Manabu, kangaeru, hanashiau, toron gata yoron chose (Learn, Think, Talk: Deliberative Poll). Tokyo: Sotokoto Shinsho. Takao, Yasuo. 1998. “Participatory Democracy in Japan’s Decentralization Drive.” Asian Survey, 38(10): 950–967. Tamura, Tatsuki. 2008. Jukugi no Riyuu, (Reasons for Deliberation: Democratic Theory in Reflexive and Divided Societies). Tokyo: Keiso-shobo. Tang, Beibei, Tetsuki Tamura, and Baogang He. 2018. “Deliberative Democracy in East Asia.” in The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy, edited by Andre Bächtiger, John S. Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge and Mark Warren. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 791–803. Yoshida, Shinichi. 1994. “Collective thinking” (Politics and Media United States)”, Asahi Shimbun, 6 August 1994.

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10 DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY IN SOUTH KOREA Four Deliberative Polling Experiments Jieun Park

Introduction There are two major turning points in the development of democracy in South Korea. The first was the democratisation of South Korea in 1987, followed by the emergence of civic groups, which laid the foundation for the development of civil society (Im, 2011, 134; Kim, 1996; Solinger, 2001). The second is a political event that achieved a peaceful regime change through a presidential impeachment and early election in 2017. It resulted from some 10 million people participating in the so-called “candlelight vigils” in response to criticism of the former president’s performance in state affairs. The experience of 2017 has brought renewed calls for citizens to participate in politics. In his inaugural address, the newly elected President Moon Jae-in also stressed the need to ask the people’s opinions in crucial policies. The distinguishing policy decision of the first year in office was to implement a Deliberative Polling on ShinGori nuclear power reactors no. 5 and no. 6. The continued operation of the nuclear power reactors was in conflict with the denuclearisation policy that the president had put forward when he was a candidate. It was the first attempt in the history of South Korea to delegate the President’s authority and fully accept the decision of a Deliberative Poll. Therefore, deliberative democracy in South Korea is characterised as institutionalised political participation; it is supposed to be a compromise between representative and direct democracy (Y. Lee, 2018, 189). Before Deliberative Polling on the Shin-Gori nuclear reactors in 2017, there had already been three other nationwide Deliberative Polls in South Korea over the past two decades. This chapter uses these four nationwide Deliberative Polls as cases. I examine the features, significance, limitations and potential of deliberative democracy in Korea. Recently, there has been a move to promote the National Public Deliberation Committee as a permanent deliberation body (Chang et al., DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-10

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2018; En, 2017, Jeong, 2018, 120). Therefore, this chapter examines the effectiveness of the Deliberative Polls by applying existing evaluation criteria to the four cases. In the conclusion, I explore the emerging debate on the Public Deliberation Committee in South Korea as the main form of institutionalised deliberation.

Deliberative Polling in South Korea – Case Selection and Evaluation Criteria Deliberative Polling in South Korea, mainly conducted by the central government, has two characteristics. The first is to establish a public sphere where citizens can freely deliberate on pending social conflict issues and communicate with the people, politicians and the government. When the government first introduced Deliberative Polling in 2005, it was presented as one method of managing conflicts, appearing in several white papers, including the Presidential Commission 2005, Taskforce on Public Deliberation 2008, The Public Deliberation Committee 2018.1 The second characteristic is that deliberation in South Korea is intended to mobilise civic participation within the institutional framework that the government has developed to secure social legitimacy and social acceptability (Public Deliberation Committee, 2018, 40). Also, because Deliberative Polling needs large budgets, the government has little choice but to place great importance on the effectiveness of the result. Therefore, consideration needs to be given to how much public space will be secured and to what extent the government’s role will be limited (Sanders, 1997; Young, 2000). In this chapter, four Deliberative Polls have been selected as cases: Deliberative Polling on real estate policy in 2005 (named as the first nationwide Deliberative Poll in South Korea); on unification in 2011; on spent nuclear fuel in 2013; and on the Shin-Gori nuclear reactors no. 5 and no. 6 in 2017. These Deliberative Polls were selected, as they have affected policy and were conducted on national issues. South Korea still has a policy development model that spreads from central to provincial areas. The evaluation criteria are based on the principles2 and conditions3 for quality deliberation as defined by the various academic papers studied so far (Chae 2017; Choi 2018; En 2017; Fishkin 2009, 34; Gutmann and Thompson 1996; Jeong 2018; Kim 2018b; Kim 2019, 40–41) and described in Table 10.1. The evaluation criteria largely can be divided into pre-, during and post-Deliberative Polling process. In other words, design is a matter of how precise a survey method is, and management is a matter of how well the Deliberative Polling is conducted (Yonhapnews, 2017).

Case 1: Real Estate Policy Reform (2005) Real estate is both a means of housing and a means of investment in South Korea, meaning that there are conflicts of interest depending on regional and economic positions. On 17 June 2005 President Roh Moo-hyun announced in his cabinet

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TABLE 10.1 Evaluation Criteria

Criteria

Contents

Pre-DP

Issue and Adequacy

During the DP

Neutrality Representativeness Deliberation Transparency

Post-DP

Receptivity

1. Influences all participants or community 2. Understandable and evaluable 3. A subject of social conflict that need to be solved through deliberation Minimal intervention by government Random sampling, scale of representation Sufficient information and opportunity for discussion 1. Easy to access relevant information 2. Results of Deliberative Polling released to the public Results reflected in public policy

meeting that his government would announce real estate policies by the end of August. Roh instructed that the process of policymaking should be disclosed to the public, and that Deliberative Polling be conducted to fulfil policies on public participation and consensus (Ministry of Finance and Economy, 2005, 8).

Organisation and Operations An advisory committee was formed to secure objectivity and fairness before the Deliberative Polling. Three of the advisers were professors of advertising and public relations, administration, and economics. The selection of participants was based on the population of the Seoul metropolitan area, which had the most direct and sensitive interests, and the number of samples was allocated proportionally by region, gender, and age. The reason given for this was that the Deliberative Polling should be conducted on people with a high understanding of public policy (Ministry of Finance and Economy, 2005, 21). The influence of real estate in the Seoul metropolitan area tends to spread to other regions because half of the population lives in the Seoul metropolitan area. A four-phase random selection process was undertaken, with 511 people selected to participate in the first survey. After completing the first survey, the participants were given discussion materials with pros and cons of real estate policies. The pros and cons (opinions) of the real estate policy were listed in equal proportion to ensure there was no bias. They were divided into three groups based on their attitude to the extent of government. The extremes were excluded because it was claimed that, even if they participated in the debate, they were less likely to change their positions and would thus play a role in instigating other participants to behave similarly (Ministry of Finance and Economy, 2005, 28). Of the 511 participants in the first survey, for personal reasons, a total of 486 respondents finished the second survey, but there was no change in the distribution of 511 respondents and 486 respondents. Ultimately, the final number of participants at the site was 47, which

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is about one-tenth less than the primary survey; the remaining members participated in the second survey after watching the recorded video on the deliberation day.

Results The deliberation day, held on 20 August, included three hours of free group discussion in the morning. Before the group discussion, participants answered a questionnaire on real estate taxation, the expansion of housing supply and public rental housing issues, so that discussions would be more focused.4 In the afternoon, a full discussion and a second survey were conducted. After the Deliberative Polling, the government, ruling party and the working group of real estate policy held meetings to discuss in depth the government’s response. The result of the Deliberative Poll was published in a press release on 30 August and was reported in the media with the announcement of the new real estate policy on 31 August (Choi, 2005). TABLE 10.2 Trends of opinion changes by discussion category

Discussion category

Primary survey (%)

Second survey (%)

Degree of change

Tax system

70.4

62.6

-7.8*

74.1

70.8

-3.3

59.7

64.4

4.7

84.2

84.8

0.6

15.0 23.5 13.4

25.3** 20.0 9.7

10.3 -3.5 -3.7

47.3 0.8

44.9 0.2

-2.5 -0.6

Preference in real estate policy

Decrease imposition criteria for comprehensive real estate tax from 900 billion won to 600 billion won Increase in capital gains tax rates when more than two housings in one household Abolish upper limit and expand housing holding tax for multiple housing or expensive housing owners Reduce tax for one housing of one householder Transparency in transactions Curb real estate speculation Expand supply of mediumand large-size of housing Public housing expansion Other

* While there has been no change in priority in other categories in the tax reform sector, this sector has fallen relatively significantly. This means that as a result of the deliberation, the importance of tax systems limited to some wealthy people in tax reform has dropped. ** Transparency in transactions, which ranked third in the first round of real estate reform priorities, has changed since the second survey.

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Evaluation and Limits The white paper of this Deliberative Polling has a subtitle, “A new paradigm for collecting public opinion.” At that time, the Roh administration was encouraging citizens to participate in various policymaking processes. In other words, the Deliberative Polling was not an active expression from the bottom-up, but rather a top-down force driven by the president. Are such issues appropriate subjects for public deliberation? Questions about the relative importance of policy directions or changes in taxation methods are not an easy choice for ordinary citizens. There is an eye-catching part in the white paper on the group discussion. After the group discussion, participants still “did not understand much about the specific tax items and the tax system” (Ministry of Finance and Economy, 2005, 34, 60). There was also a limit to the procedural validity. The sample groups were limited to residents of Seoul and the metropolitan area because they were sensitive to real estate prices. The fairness of the process is also questionable, as less than 10 per cent (47) of the final 486 survey participants participated in the discussion. For example, from 55.6 per cent to 67.9 per cent of the respondents said that they should pay a comprehensive real estate tax if they own a high-priced house, but the number of participants in the debate sharply increased from 49.0 per cent to 85.2 per cent. That is, there was a difference of preference between 47 respondents who participated directly in the deliberation day and those who responded after watching the video of the deliberation day without participation on the day. Immediately following the announcement of real estate policies in 2005, media framed them as a “tax bomb” and continuously attacked the new policies. The real estate market also fluctuated. In time, the result of the Deliberative Polling was completely forgotten, as there was a drastic reduction of the policy in 2008, a de facto cancellation and a transfer of political power to a conservative administration. The government’s strong support for the Deliberative Polling and the consideration of neutrality with advisory committees, transparency and acceptability of results shows the value of Deliberative Polling. However, the procedural validity of the representation problems, and the fact that real estate policies have been constantly attacked by the media and have eventually become nominal with the change of government, shows that the impact of Deliberative Polling remains marginal.

Case 2: A Road to One Korea (2011) Since the division of the Korean peninsular into North and South Korea, the discourse on reunification has continued to emerge towards ending the security instability of inter-Korean confrontation. In 2011 the Korea Broadcasting System aired a programme called “KBS Special: Unification Grand Plan, Two Views on North Korea.” It was the first programme in South Korea to cover the public sentiment on unification. In particular, episode two of the programme aired the

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Deliberative Poll that sought an interface between conservatives and progressives. However, the Deliberative Polling of unification by the public broadcaster KBS can be seen as an attempt to reflect a series of government policies. The president at that time, Lee Myung-bak, suggested “peace, economic, nationality, three elements of community” in his congratulatory speech for Liberation Day, 15 August 2010. It was also the same period when the Ministry of Unification implemented a project on public discussion of unification preparations. The project aimed to increase social consensus about unification preparation by promoting discussions among the public and had similar purposes to Deliberative Polling (Ministry of Unification, 2012, 42–43).

Organisation and Operations The significant feature of the Deliberative Polling was that it was conducted jointly by KBS broadcasters, the Institute for Unification and Peace at Seoul National University (IPUS), the Department of Communication at Seoul National University and the Center for Deliberative Democracy (CDD), Stanford University.5 The IPUS and the Department of Communication formed a preparatory committee on Deliberative Polling. The process was organised jointly with the CDD, and the discussion materials were prepared by the IPUS and distributed in advance. Participants were selected in the Seoul metropolitan area, and divided by gender, age and region, according to the ratio of the population of the National Statistical Office. Among them, 193 people who wished to participate were selected and two days of Deliberative Polling was conducted in Gyeonggi. After a brief orientation, the primary survey was completed, and the participants were divided into 17 groups. Within the Deliberative Polling, topics were divided into three sections: Kaesong Industrial Complex and Mt Geumgang tour, the North Korean nuclear issue and unification policies.

Results As shown in Table 10.3, the majority opinion was that the inter-Korean exchange and co-operation projects, the Kaesong Industrial Complex project and the Mt Geumgang tour, should be expanded.

Features and limits The media’s involvement is significant, given the purpose of the investigation and its public relations. While the previous real estate policy reform of 2005 was undermined by media framing, this Deliberative Polling has had a more positive effect on the public. Given that deliberation is a gathering of various citizens’ opinions for public policy decisions, it might be necessary for the media to be given an important role in creating a forum for public deliberation (Kim, 2004, 126). In this respect, the media’s presence as part of Deliberative Polling would at least ensure

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TABLE 10.3 Changing trends during primary and second survey

Item Kaesong Industrial Complex project Mt Geumgang tour Unification

Primary survey (%)

Second survey (%)

Degree of change

Reduction Neutral Expansion

29.5 21.2 45.6

7.7 14.0 77.7*

-21.8 -7.2 32.1

Reduction Neutral Expansion Unnecessary Neutral Necessary

28.4 17.6 50.3 12.5 14.5 71.6

15.5 20.7 62.7 3.7 4.1 91.2**

-12.9 3.1 12.4 -8.8 -10.4 19.6

* All three items showed significant changes before and after the deliberation. Among them, the biggest change was the idea of expanding the Kaesong Industrial Complex project. Participants, who were in a reduced or neutral position, revised their opinions to expand after the deliberation. ** The increase in the number of opinions needed for issues on unification to 91.2 per cent after the deliberation indicates that it might be possible to reach consensus beyond the participants' political background and income levels, etc.

that the discussions can be extended to the public, while procedural fairness would be secured by a preparatory committee and through the participation of the CDD. Although South Korea experienced armed confrontation between the two Koreas in Yeonpyeong Island on 23 November 2010, the participants’ view of the importance of inter-Korean co-operation was strengthened during Deliberative Polling. In particular, the rate at which respondents said that unification between the two Koreas is necessary increased dramatically, from 71.6 per cent to 91.2 per cent. This indicates that an agreement could be reached through deliberation. However, despite being the key public service media in South Korea, the media-organised Deliberative Poll had limits, as it did not reach specific policy decisions. There had already been polls conducted by the Ministry of Unification and the KBS annual survey of national unification consciousness. The Deliberative Poll failed to establish an organic relationship with them and ended up with a oneoff event. Moreover, it was difficult to attain the results owing to sudden political changes, such as the death of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in December 2011. However, it is meaningful that, at the least, Deliberative Polling allows us to see the process of forming public opinion (J. Lee, 2017, 40; Fishkin, 2009).

Case 3: Spent Nuclear Fuel (2013) South Korea has had 25 nuclear power plants since the first nuclear power plant became operational in 1978. However, over the past 40 years, the only candidate for nuclear waste storage faced fierce resistance from local residents and environmental groups, accumulating only the experience of conflict (Lee, 2014).

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In this series of processes, the government confirmed in 2004 that “national consensus” was needed first for spent nuclear fuel storage facilities. In August 2006 the Energy Industry Committee affiliated to the Sustainable Development Committee formed a research team called the Management System and Public Deliberation on Spent Nuclear Fuel. It conducted fact-based discussions and analysis of overseas cases, determining pros and cons among academia, anti-nuclear scholars and civic groups. In 2008 the government set up a taskforce team of public deliberation on spent nuclear fuel to minimise social conflicts. In 2013 President Park Geun-hye chose the selection of spent nuclear fuel treatment sites as a matter of state affairs (Y. Lee, 2017).

Organisation and Operations The Park administration established a temporary public deliberation committee on a spent nuclear fuel treatment site. Relevant statutes, including Notices on the Establishment and Support of the Public Deliberation Committee on Spent Nuclear Fuel, were prepared to prescribe that the public deliberation committee would be independent of the government and take a neutral and objective position. When the public deliberation committee was launched, it laid out the five basic principles for public deliberation. The first is responsibility, to consider generational equity and to bear moral responsibility for the consequences. The second is transparency, to fully disclose the progress of public deliberation and related data to the public and eliminates obstacles to access information. The third is deliberation, to mean that participants should participate in learning and discussion with a willingness to draw consensus public opinion, think deeply and discuss it sufficiently. The fourth is integration; it should consider the perspectives of various fields, such as humanities and social and legal system aspects, along with technical engineering aspects in the course of the discussion. The fifth is regression, to be able to discuss it again when a significant problem is found, even if during the discussion or after a decision has been made. These five principles can serve as important criteria for the public deliberation process, as well as evaluation of the results. In fact, the committee was already facing internal and external criticism that there was no significant public opinion or concrete results from the process of public deliberation that lasted for the first year. The public deliberation committee confirmed that it would conduct a Deliberative Poll for a fully fledged public opinion investigation in January 2015. Korea Research, a professional polling agency, selected 2,321 men and women aged 19 or older and selected 200 of them as participants in the Deliberative Poll. Finally, the public deliberation committee conducted a Deliberative Poll with 175 people for two days in March 2015.

Results The Deliberative Polling was divided into three main topics: first, the construction of spent nuclear fuel management facilities and support for operating areas; second, evaluation criteria for the provision of spent nuclear fuel management measures;

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and third, storage of spent nuclear fuel, on-site distribution and off-site intensive methods. Results are summarised in Tables 10.4 and 10.5.

Evaluation and Limits Spent nuclear fuel seems like an appropriate topic for a Deliberative Poll. It is a case in which the benefits and losses are clearly divided. The topic can be linked not only to residents but also to the energy policies affecting the entire country, while how to deal with spent nuclear fuel is a challenge that has not been decided for the past 40 years or so. However, the Deliberative Polling evaluation concluded that this discussion was difficult for participants to understand as it was too specialised for items such as on-site or off-site storage facilities (Lee, 2016, Y. Lee, 2017, 174).6 Also, although the Public Deliberation Committee sought independence from the government, neutrality was continuously raised. Two members who were selected on behalf of environmental groups raised concerns about the neutrality of the chairperson of the committee and the composition of the committee, and subsequently withdrew from the committee (Y. Lee, 2017; Yun, 2018). The Deliberative Polling was relatively well formed with the participation of experts such as Robert Luskin, who sought to establish some procedural fairness (The Public Deliberation Committee, 2015b). In terms of transparency, however, the result was not disclosed for three months after the completion of the Deliberative Poll. Some criticised the government for delaying the announcement owing to TABLE 10.4 Changing trends by discussion category

Discussion category On-site storage of spent nuclear fuel

Off-site intensive storage of spent nuclear fuel management facility Preference to onsite or off-site

Disagree Neutral Agree No comment Disagree Neutral Agree No comment On-site In combination of On and Off-site Off-site No comment

Primary survey (%)

Second survey (%)

Degree of change

6.3 24.0 66.3 3.4 37.1 30.9 28.6 3.4 41.1 29.1

15.0 17.9 66.5 0.6 31.8 25.4 42.2 0.6 33.5* 32.4

8.7 -6.1 0.2 -2.8 -5.3 -5.5 13.6 -2.8 -7.6 3.3

22.9 6.9

32.9** 1.2

10.0 -5.7

* On-site storage was preferred for individual questions. ** However, in the choosing of on-site, off-site, and in combination of on and off-site, the response rate was almost the same. Even after the second survey, it shows that the opinions of the participants did not reach an agreement.

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TABLE 10.5 Changing trends in tax-raising for spent nuclear fuel storage facility

Paying tax in areas where spent nuclear fuel is stored

5-10 per cent additional charge over current electricity bill to pay for spent nuclear fuel storage

Disagree Neutral Agree No comment Disagree Neutral Agree No comment

Primary survey (%)

Second survey (%)

Degree of change

14.9 22.9 59.4 2.9 32.6 32.6 32.6 2.3

7.5 23.1 68.2* 1.2 13.3 24.9 61.3* 0.6

-7.4 0.2 8.8 -1.7 -19.3 -7.7 28.7** -1.7

* Positive opinions were raised about the tax injection around nuclear fuel storage facilities. The agreement reached by more than half means that some consensus was reached on tax increases, which is a sensitive issue for participants. ** After the second survey, the opinions on the tax increase shifted significantly to the opinion on the agreement. This is almost the same number that was omitted from the figures for other items.

political pressure, while others questioned whether it was a mere academic research survey. Finally, the public deliberation committee ended its activities and submitted 10 recommendations (The Public Deliberation Committee, 2015a). The recommendations did not include the key discussion on the issue of in-plant/out-site storage of wastes. Also, even the recommendations faced strong opposition in the process of pre-announcement of legislation on the implementation plan and legislation to select sites and support the bid areas. Eventually, the Moon Jae-in administration in 2017 decided to review the spent nuclear fuel policy and in 2019 set out the Committee of Reviewing Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Policy.7 Despite the launch of the neutral public deliberation committee, internal discord was serious enough to be revealed from the day of the launching ceremony. The deliberation process, including the Deliberative Polling, was perceived by committee members to be disingenuous and pro-government in that it only focused rhetorically on public participation, but in substance had a greater effect on public exclusion (Y. Lee, 2017, 180).

Case 4. Shin-Gori Nuclear Reactors No. 5 and No. 6 in 2017 The Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 in neighbouring Japan prompted widespread negative public opinion about nuclear power plants in South Korea. In 2016 the biggest earthquake recorded in South Korea, measured at 5.8 on the Richter scale, with its epicentre in Gyeongju, a region near nuclear power plants, amplified anxiety over nuclear facilities. Accordingly, the main political parties’ candidates for the presidential election in 2017 promised anti-nuclear plant policies,

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including stopping construction of the Shin-Gori no. 5 and no. 6 nuclear reactors. However, there is a dilemma between carrying out pledges immediately after the election, and the sunk costs, which have already reached about 30 per cent of construction of Shin-Gori no. 5 and no. 6, hitting the local economy. On 19 June 2017, about a month after his election as president, Moon said that he would make the decision by drawing a social consensus on the issue of suspending the construction of Shin-Gori no. 5 and no. 6 nuclear power plants. Afterwards, it was decided to form another public deliberation committee, this time called the Public Deliberation Committee on Sin-Gori Nuclear Reactors No. 5 and No. 6, and to collect public opinion through Deliberative Polling. As seen in the case of spent nuclear fuel, the issue of the construction of nuclear power plants encompassed a confrontational and value-laden choice between national energy policy and environmental safety. Deliberative Polling also focussed on the tough choice between construction or suspension. President Moon had delegated his political power to Deliberative Polling, and if it failed to reach an agreement, the Moon administration could have faced a political crisis. Therefore, the Public Deliberation Committee on Shin-Gori No. 5 and No. 6 started by setting critical standards for evaluation, namely fairness, neutrality, objectivity and transparency. Within the committee, legal, investigation, deliberation and communication divisions were established, and a verification committee was established to ensure fairness.

Organisation and Operations Given that the results of the Deliberative Polling directly affected policy decisions, the representativeness, deliberation and public communication aspects of the process were strengthened. First, 20,000 people were selected as a result of the first survey through random stratification sampling. Among them, a group of 500 participants was selected again, stratified into 30 cells, including gender, age and the position on construction of the nuclear plants. Second, a total of four surveys were conducted to enhance deliberation (see Table 10.6). Usually, Deliberative Polling has primary and second surveys. This was a political issue that could affect future support for state affairs, as this issue was of high national interest. Therefore, it was necessary to ensure maximum deliberation and representativeness to increase the acceptability of the results. Thus, an unprecedented assessment of understanding of nuclear power plant-related knowledge was made through additional surveys, such as the second survey one month before the deliberation day and the third survey just before the deliberation day (The Public Deliberation Committee, 2018, 253). In addition, this enhanced knowledge acquisition raised interest in issues and consequently contributed to the positive assessment of the overall public deliberation for participants (Hankyoreh, 2017; Shim, 2018, 213). Third, communication to the public included media reports, six public deliberations, four television debates and future generation discussions.

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TABLE 10.6 Features of the four stages of Deliberative Polling on Shin-Gori Nuclear

Reactors No. 5 and No. 6 Date

Purpose

Number of participants

Primary survey Second survey

25 Aug.−9 Sept. 2017 16 Sept. 2017

20,006

Third survey

13 Oct. 2017

Final survey

15 Oct. 2017

Basic data for identifying, selecting and securing representation of citizen participation groups Prior to the start of orientation day Checking the level of awareness of civic groups before and after deliberation, comparative data before and after the deliberation process Check learning effects such as data collection and eLearning, identify individual characteristics of civic groups and start a comprehensive discussion After completing all the schedules of the general discussion. Extracting the final results and evaluating the overall process of public debate

478

471

471

Results According to the results of the Deliberative Polling, 57.2 per cent of respondents wanted the construction resumed, and 39.4 per cent preferred that construction be suspended. In particular, the first survey showed that there was not a significant difference between support for the suspension or for the resumption of construction

FIGURE 10.1 Opinions for and against the resumption of construction Notes: The questionnaire of the second survey was not about the choice of suspension or resumption, but about the background knowledge of making decisions, the media that affected making decisions, and the verification of knowledge on nuclear power plants or energy policy as a whole. Therefore, the second survey is not included here.

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(7 per cent), but the fourth survey showed that many respondents had reversed their opinion. In response, the government accepted the results without question, and the construction of the Shin-Gori no. 5 and no. 6 power plants resumed.

Evaluation and Limits The Shin-Gori Deliberative Polling ended without much resistance. One reason for this was the maintenance of neutrality of the Public Deliberation Committee. The chairman actively stated in several press interviews that he would do his best to maintain neutrality, set up a separate verification committee, and made efforts not to engage in the design of Deliberative Polling (The Public Deliberation Committee, 2017). The second reason was the active attitude of the representative participants. Deliberative Polling, which was introduced when the president made a new choice of empowerment after the new government took office, has drawn keen public attention. The Public Deliberation Committee also took great care to ensure adequate compensation for the participants. Third, the acceptability of the results was very satisfactory. Already, 93.1 per cent of the respondents answered that the Deliberative Polling was fair, and 90.4 per cent of participants replied that they would accept the result if the results were different from those of their choice. The acceptance of ordinary citizens who did not participate in the deliberation was also high. According to a citizen poll after the result, 63.6 per cent of the respondents agreed with the result (C. Lee, 2018, 16). However, there was criticism regarding the form of representation. Because the Public Deliberation Committee membership was selected from the entire population with mechanical neutrality, the voices of the future generation, on whom it will have a relatively long-term impact, or residents near nuclear power plants, were not represented in any significant way (Y. Lee, 2018; Yun, 2018).

Comprehensive Evaluation The four Deliberative Polls were analysed based on the evaluation criteria in Table 10.1, from which several key findings and lessons can be identified. First, Deliberative Polling in South Korea has been used to resolve long-standing social conflicts issues such as real estate, unification, and nuclear power plants. However, it is not easy to exchange sufficient opinions if the questions are too technical, even though they could cover universal issues that concern the entire nation. Therefore, the discussion of value issues, such as how to overcome the prejudice against the expansion of public housing and what aspects of housing and investment in real estate should be considered, are more appropriate than discussing overly professional taxation arrangements. The discussion on spent nuclear fuel in 2013 was also too technical, and the Deliberative Polling in 2017 on nuclear power plants reached an agreement and was successfully reflected in the policy. Second, the organisation that introduces Deliberative Polling, which has been mainly government, requires very strict neutrality. As in the case of spent nuclear

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fuel in 2013, criticism of neutrality from the beginning has turned away the local people and issue-takers in question and is therefore fatal in terms of acceptability. Finally, Deliberative Polls, especially those introduced by the government, are aimed at informing policies. A Deliberative Poll is likely to receive a poor evaluation if the results are not accepted by the policymaker.

Conclusion South Korea actively introduced deliberative democracy as a part of its approach to conflict management since 2005, when Deliberative Polling was initially rolled out into the central government’s policy decision-making process (The Public Deliberation Committee, 2018; The Presidential Commission, 2005). Another major feature of the development of Deliberative Polling in South Korea is the establishment of public deliberation committees, whose purpose was to enhance neutrality and increase expertise in the process of public deliberation. Also, immediately after the success of Shin-Gori Deliberative Polling, several public deliberation committees organised Deliberative Polling on various public issues, including the reform of the entrance exam for university, the introduction of forprofit hospitals and the site for the new airport. However, such a flurry of appearances has also been accompanied by growing suspicions about hasty process, missions and manipulation. Since 2017 the need for Deliberative Polling on public policy has slightly fallen in polls, to 29 per cent in 2019 and 26 per cent in 2020. However, 57 per cent of the respondents agreed to legalise the Public Deliberation Committee (Hankook Research, 2020, 9). In recent decades, four members of the National Assembly have separately proposed a bill to legislate the National Public Deliberation Committee. The four proposed bills are slightly different in terms of the legal status of the Public Deliberation Committee, the organisation’s composition and the subject of public debate, but all present the Public Deliberation Committee as a standing body that independently carries out public deliberation work related to the resolution of public conflicts (Chang, 2018; En, 2017; Korea Institute of Public Administration, 2018). If the National Public Deliberation Commission exists as a permanent body, it will not only be able to gather broad public opinions from the initial stage of policymaking, but also ensure the independence of the Committee in terms of legislation and also ensure the expertise of the proceedings of the deliberative polling, such as training moderators and facilitators. However, will the permanent establishment of a standing public deliberation committee be effective in practicing deliberative democracy such as through Deliberative Polling? In an interview with a deliberative democracy researcher in South Korea, I was given the response that “If there is an organisation like this, won’t it become an additional power organ?” In real life, elites and middle-class or upper-class citizens can more often afford the time and money to participate (Y. Lee, 2018, 190; Fishkin and Luskin, 2005). Therefore, if a standing public deliberation

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committee is introduced, it would have to decide who is able to set up agenda, who can participate, and who is the final authority (Choi, 2018; Kim, 2018a, 368). In conclusion, Deliberative Polling in South Korea has been more scientific and extensive than in other Asian countries. It has now developed to the stage of discussing the establishment of a permanent organisation of the National Public Deliberation Committee for Deliberative Polling. The background of this development reflects the increasing willingness of citizens to participate in national public issues and is based on the idea that social conflicts can be resolved through social solidarity between the government and citizens. Of course, there are still questions about how the existing parliamentary system and the organisation of the Public Deliberation Committee can be balanced (Park, 2012, 21). Thus, the success from the Deliberative Polling on Shin-Gori in 2017 shows that deliberative democracy in South Korea is ready to develop to the next stage.

Notes 1 The government actively used the concept of public opinion about the President, especially during the Roh Moo-hyun administration (2003–08), and an advisory organ directly subordinated to The Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development introduced the concept of deliberation in the public arena. 2 Reason-giving, open accessibility, the output of decision-making and the dynamics of the ongoing discussion process (Gutmann and Thompson, 1996). 3 Information, substantive balance, practical balance of various opinions, universal representation, conscientiousness and equal consideration (Fishkin, 2009, 34). 4 In the questionnaire, each item was checked for most important, nearly important, average, largely not important, not important, no comment. In this table, the figures are sums of most important and nearly important. 5 With Prof. Fishkin’s advice, members of CDD participated as moderators’ training and supervising the Deliberative Polling. As there is no white paper on this Deliberative Polling, some description of the Deliberative Polling refers to data from the Center for Deliberative Democracy and KBS documentaries. 6 One supervisor of the managing team affiliated to the Public Deliberation Committee was interviewed and said: “Everyone said spent nuclear fuel is a serious problem, but it seemed lots of people do not understand spent nuclear fuel itself. Ironically our purpose is to communicate with people who know nothing of…After all, our activity was not to provide to choose but to promote spent nuclear fuel word itself.” 7 A committee was established in May 2019 to deliberate on policies for managing spent nuclear fuel in order to gather opinions on the management of spent nuclear fuel under Article 6.2 of the Radioactive Waste Management Act. The key topics discussed in the spent nuclear fuel deliberation in 2013 are being discussed from the ground up. Website of the Committee of Reviewing Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Policy: www.hlwpolicy.go. kr/hlwp/index.do.

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Nuclear No.5 and 6. Accessed 20 November 2020. Available at: http://kaif.or.kr/? c=nws&s=9_2&bbsid=nws9_2&gbn=viewok&ix=25035. The Public Deliberation Committee on Spent Nuclear Fuel. 2015a. Deliberation on Spent Nuclear Fuel, Records of 609 Days. Accessed 20 November 2020. Available at: www. hlwpolicy.go.kr/hlwp/board/view.do?menu_idx=14&manage_idx=102&board_idx= 1313413&viewPage=2&search_type=title%2Bcontent. The Public Deliberation Committee on Spent Nuclear Fuel. 2015b. Recommendation on Spent Nuclear Fuel Management. Accessed 8 April 2019. Available at: www.hlwpolicy. go.kr/hlwp/board/view.do?menu_idx=14&manage_idx=102&board_idx=1313412& viewPage=3&search_type=title%2Bcontent. Yonhapnews. 2017. “Kim Ji-hyung Chairperson: ‘It’s not about the winner or the loser’.” Accessed 8 April 2019. Available at: www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20170824136951001. Young, Iris Marion. 2000. Inclusion and democracy, Oxford political theory. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Yun, Sun-Jin. 2018. “Issues and Challenges for the Resolution of Social Conflicts Surrounding Nuclear Energy Policy: Focusing on the Evaluation of Public Discourse on Shingori 5 and 6.” Economy and Society, 6: 49–98.

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11 DELIBERATIVE POLLING ON THE AMENDMENT OF THE PRESS LAW AND THE AUDIO-VISUAL BROADCASTING ACT IN MACAO Angus Cheong, James S. Fishkin and Alice Siu

Introduction Politics and Public Consultation in Macao Like Hong Kong, Macao is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China. The policy of “one country, two systems” stipulated in the Basic Law has been exercised since the handover of Macao to China in 1999 and is to remain in effect for 50 years. The Macao SAR is directly under the authority of the central government of the People’s Republic of China, which controls the foreign affairs and defence of Macao but otherwise grants the region “a high degree of authority” (The 8th National People’s Congress, 1993). The Macao SAR is governed by the Chief Executive of Macao, who is appointed by the People’s Republic of China’s central government after selection by an election committee, whose members are nominated by corporate bodies in the local community every five years (Law no. 3/2004, of 5 April). The Chief Executive has strong policymaking and executive powers similar to those of a president. The Legislative Assembly, a 33-member body comprising 14 directly elected members, 12 indirectly elected members representing functional constituencies and seven members appointed by the Chief Executive, is responsible for general law-making, including taxation, the passing of the budget and socioeconomic legislation (Legislative Assembly of the Macao SAR, 2020). Generally speaking, a large proportion of the members support the SAR government and the Chief Executive’s governance, while the minority of the members, who are directly elected by the citizens, sometimes functions as the opposing party. The opposing views are generally claimed to be representing the democratic voices and pressure forces. In such a political situation where there are both opposing and supporting parties, public consultation1 is often used as a means to solicit views and opinions from DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-11

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the general public when the government wishes to start the process of formulating policies, laws and regulations. In Macao, the methods of doing public consultation are varied. In addition to simply notifying the public, the process is conducted using many methods including seminars, online and telephone surveys, focus groups and deliberative discussions, in order that the public can understand the information better, interact with the government and even take part in the decision process. As the social media is becoming more and more popular, web-mining − a means of collecting opinions online − is another supplemental way of carrying out a public consultation. There have been more and more public consultations taking place in Macao. Between 2011 and 2019 a total of 83 public consultation projects were carried out by the Macao SAR government, on an average of more than nine per year (Macao SAR Government Portal, 2020). To regulate the standard of the public consultation process, the Macao SAR government launched the normative instructions of the public policy consultation in 2011 (Law no. 224/2011, of August 15). In theory, the use of the mixed method and the enforcement of the instructions should be able to better reflect the opinions of the public. Unfortunately, however, the quality of the consultation, the transparency of the consultation, the pre-set position on the consultation issue held by the government and the credibility of the consultation results have been criticised. According to our experience, given the comparatively small population of about 640,000 residents in Macao in 2012, when there are too many consultations, the public will become tired and eventually fed up with the consultations. This reaction from the public will therefore lead to a decrease in the effectiveness of the consultations and a search for a better approach to public consultation, namely the deployment of the Deliberative Polling methodology. Deliberative Polling was developed by Prof. James Fishkin from Stanford University in 1988 as an attempt to use public opinion research in a new and constructive way. Unlike traditional opinion polls, the Deliberative Polling process reveals the conclusions that the public would reach if people had the opportunity to become more informed and more engaged by the issues (Fishkin, 1991). In this case, Deliberative Polling was used in Macao to address the issues of media regulation. The Deliberative Polling project was the first of its kind in Macao. The adoption of this method aims to achieve the representativeness of the participating respondents, to enhance participants’ understanding of the issue under discussion, and to facilitate in-depth discussions among participants. Participants selected by scientific sampling are surveyed both at the beginning and at the end of the Deliberative Polling process. The key of this method is equality, which means each citizen has an equal opportunity [emphasis added] of being selected, thus forming a microcosm of the population (Fishkin and Luskin, 2005). Public opinion is formed after studying of related information and careful weighing of arguments, in order to be more informed about the facts and considering possible approaches to the issues – thinking about the pros, cons, and trade-offs (Westwood and Sood, 2010). Informed decisions are the key features that differentiate Deliberative Polling from other traditional public consultation mechanisms.

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Deliberative Polling on the Amendment of the Press Law and Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act In 2011 the eRS research team, together with the Center for Deliberative Democracy of the Stanford University, was entrusted by the Macao SAR Government to conduct a Deliberative Polling on the amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual and Broadcasting Law. The study allowed the interviewees to get a comprehensive understanding of the issue before they carried out their discussions openly, so that they could discuss with full knowledge of the topic and express their opinions. The two laws have been in place in Macao for more than twenty years. The Press Law of Macao was enacted in 1990 (Law no. 7/90/M, of 6 August). This law regulates the exercise of freedom of the press, the right to information and the activity of journalistic, editorial and news organisations. The Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act of Macao was enacted in 1989 (Law no. 8/89/M, of 4 September). The law establishes the legal regime for radio and television broadcasting. However, some of the articles in the laws are still being debated and have not yet been enforced. The laws have advantages and disadvantages. Controversial topics of concern to the public2 include the Press Council and related issues, Broadcasting Council and related issues, regulation over the internet and related issues, journalists’ code of ethics, evaluation of media organisations, the government and press freedom. In order to balance the points of view from various stakeholders, consisting of the government, media market, general public and media professionals, it was necessary to conduct a comprehensive public opinion consultation before moving forward with any decisions. With this Deliberative Polling event, the research team aimed to reflect an informed public opinion, as well as the views from the media, which would be considered in the next stage of the amendment of two laws.

Research Methods and Implementation The Surveys and the Deliberative Polling Procedures in Macao In general, the Deliberative Polling procedure was divided into three major stages: (1) Initial stage: telephone interview surveys (T1) prior to the Deliberation-Day; (2) Middle stage: compilation and distribution of “balanced briefing information”; (3) Final stage: Deliberation-Day discussion and the Deliberation-Day questionnaire surveys (T2, T3): 1) Initial stage (T1): A telephone survey of randomly-selected Chinese-speaking and Portuguese-speaking Macao residents aged 18 or above, who were randomly selected from the Macao telephone directory, was conducted between October and November 2011. A total of 2,036 respondents were successfully interviewed. In addition, a survey of 118 randomly selected individuals from a list of 373 Macao

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media professionals was conducted online and via fax in November 2011. A total of 67 valid questionnaires were received. 2) Middle stage: “Balanced Briefing Information” with descriptions of Macao media ecology, experiences from other countries and regions, and different angles of argument about the hypothetical approaches for the amendment of the two laws mainly involving issues regarding whether or not to establish the Press Council and the Broadcasting Council; how to establish the councils; whether and how to draft the Journalists’ Code of Ethics; and whether regulations of the Internet should be incorporated into the Press Law, has been compiled in three language versions: Chinese, English and Portuguese, and was mailed or otherwise delivered to all public and professional participants who had promised to attend the DeliberationDay. 3) Final stage: On 4 December 2011, the Deliberative Polling on the amendment of the Press Law and Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act was held in Macao. DeliberationDay discussions lasted one whole day, discussions were led by trained moderators and each group was asked to settle on questions to be raised during the large-group discussions to the expert committee, which included well-known scholars, seasoned media workers, and Macao government officials; small and large group discussions were conducted around the theme of the Deliberative Polling project. Two questionnaire surveys (arrival and exit, T2, T3) were conducted on Deliberation-Day on all public group and professional group participants. The questionnaire design was kept identical to the initial survey for comparison purposes. Table 11.1 shows respondents’ statistic for T1 (telephone interviews), as well as T2 and T3 survey (Deliberation-Day participants). The public participants arriving at the site on the Deliberation-Day were first asked to complete the second questionnaire (arrival survey, T2). This was followed by two sessions of group discussions and plenary sessions. Upon completion of all the discussions and question and answer sessions on Deliberation-Day, participants were asked to fill out the third questionnaire (exit survey, T3) before departure. The professional group deliberative discussions were conducted in a similar way as those for the general public groups. Although the valid sample was relatively small, the research process strictly followed the standard practice. Therefore, the Deliberative Polling results of the professional group are fully representative of all participants. TABLE 11.1 Respondent statistics for Deliberative Polling on media laws in Macao

Group type

Telephone interviewees

DP Day participants

Attendance (%)

Valid questionnaires (DP group)

Public group Professional group

2,036 67

320 30

277 (86.6%) 29 (96.7%)

275 27

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Tracking of Feedback from Public Participants Two Days after Deliberation-Day: On 5 and 6 December 2011 (two days after Deliberation-Day) the research team made an effort to locate public and professional group participants and group discussion moderators and ask for their comments about the public and media professional group discussions in the form of telephone interview. The team successfully tracked 201 public group respondents, nine professional group participants and 11 group discussion moderators, accounting for response rates of 72.6 per cent, 31 per cent and 50 per cent respectively.

The Survey Questionnaire The survey questionnaires the research team used for the three surveys are basically kept in line within the same framework which mainly consists of attitude/policy, empirical premises, political efficacy, knowledge, media use (in T1), interest in politics/public affairs and media access (in T2 and T3). The details of the framework (subject and measured concepts) are illustrated as follow3:












Attitude/Policy: (1) attitude toward the amendment of the two laws; (2) evaluation on Macao journalists’ behaviour; (3) importance rating for press freedom, protection of journalists, coverage of privacy; (4) need license for launching new newspaper, radio, and television stations; (5) whether to establish a Press Council and a Broadcasting Council (eight and six approaches respectively); (6) the effectiveness of various approaches for the Press Council and the Broadcasting Council to protect journalists’ rights (eight and six approaches respectively); (7) composition of a Press Council; (8) responsibilities of a Press Council and A Broadcasting Council; (9) whether to draft the Journalists’ Code of Ethics (three approaches); (10) importance of Internet usage and regulation; (11) internet regulation (4 approaches); and (12) evaluation on freedom of speech on different countries/regions. Empirical Premises: (1) empirical projections of the consequences of forming a government department dedicated to media regulation; (2) empirical projections of the consequences of a journalist self-regulatory body; (3) knowledge about news common sense, Macao media’s current situation; and (4) importance evaluation on social equality, economic and cultural issues. Political Efficacy: (1) political efficacy; (2) trust/satisfaction on Media/ Government; and (3) responsibilities of media and government. Knowledge: knowledge about Macao current events, social situation. Media use: habits of using newspaper, television, radio, Internet. Interest in politics/public affairs: interest in politics/public affairs on different countries/regions. Media access: frequency of accessing the media through various approaches.

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Data Analyses and Results This section presents the results of the quantitative surveys, gives an overall description of variables used in the three surveys, looks at attitude change and differences between groups of participants/perceivers regarding the core issues, explains the survey results and presents selected qualitative contents of Deliberation-Day discussion, as well as feedback and evaluations from Deliberative Polling participants.

Representativeness of the Deliberative Polling Sample A goodness-of-fit test was performed on the match between the survey sample and the population (eligible Macao residents) from which the sample was drawn. Results showed no statistically significant differences across gender and age (p >.05). We compared the three groups of “all respondents”4 in the telephone survey, “nonDeliberative Polling public group” and “Deliberative Polling public group” across five variables: gender, average age, education, neighbourhood, average length of residence and life satisfaction. No statistically significant differences were detected (p >.05). In addition, no significant differences were found among the three sample groups in terms of issues related to the amendment of the two laws, various approaches for the establishment of the Press Council and the Broadcasting Council, and freedom of speech on the Internet (p >.05). Analysis results indicated that findings from the Deliberation-Day participants are generalisable to the corresponding population, i.e., Macao residents aged 18 or above. For illustration purpose, we only provide the results from the public group in the following sections.

Attitude of the “Deliberative Polling Public Group” toward the Amendment of the Two Laws With regard to whether the Press Law (mean values: 6.41, 6.63 and 7.12) and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act (mean values: 6.45, 6.82 and 7.32) are in need of amendment, the mean averages from all three surveys increased progressively in the direction of amendment (scaling from 0 to 10). What is more, differences between values in T1 and T3 were statistically significant. Looking at the specific proportions, one can see the percentage of respondents approving the amendment of the Press Law climbed from 57.2 in T1 to 67.4 in T3. The same figures for the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act rose from 61.1 to 71.4, registering an increase rate over 10 percentage points in both cases. In summary, the proportion of respondents who believed that the two laws should be amended is high. These changes are illustrated in Figure 11.1. For the Press Law: After deliberation, the mean score for the item measuring the importance of “protection of social freedom and equality (worldview/value systems)” reached 7.25; the mean value was higher, 7.74, for those who paid close attention to public affairs; and 7.68 for people 55 years or older, which was higher than other social groups.

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FIGURE 11.1 Whether the two laws should be amended Notes: Questions in this block are index questions measured from 0 to 10, where 0 means “completely unnecessary,” 5 means “half/half,” and 10 means “extremely necessary.” The percentage shown here represents the proportion of those who scored between 6 and 10 in the total. The figure shows the mean response.

For the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act: After deliberation, the mean score for the item measuring the importance of “protecting job security and financial safety (worldview/value systems)” was 7.59; the mean values were 7.27 and 7.79, respectively, for respondents clustered by medium and close attention to public affairs; 8.34 for heavy users of traditional media; and 8.36 for housewives who supported the amendment, which was higher than other social groups. In summary, within various social participant/perceiver and demographic subsamples: the majority of people in the subgroups scored 6 or higher on the amendment approval scales for the two laws, which was slightly above the mid-point. It was also found that prior to deliberation, political efficacy5 and media/government approval rate were significantly related to scores on measurement of need for amendment for the two laws; after deliberation, media participation was significantly related to measurement of need for amendment for the two laws.

Attitude of the “Deliberative Polling Public Group” toward the Two Councils Press Council approaches Eight approaches were prepared to ask the participants for their rating (see Figure 11.2 notes for description of each approach). It was found that the three approaches involving public representatives (Approach 2, Approach 7 and Approach 8) received higher

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FIGURE 11.2 Press Council approaches (0-10 points) Notes: Questions in this block are index questions measured from 0 to 10, where 0 means “strongly disagree,” 5 means “exactly in the middle,” and 10 means “strongly agree.” Approach 1: The government assumes the main regulatory role with the participation of journalist representatives. Approach 2: Journalists themselves assume the main regulatory role with the participation of government and public (reader) representatives. Approach 3: Journalists themselves assume the main regulatory role with the participation of government representatives. Approach 4: Journalists themselves assume the main regulatory role without the involvement of the government. Approach 5: The Journalist Association sets up the Press Council to carry out self-regulation. Approach 6: Journalists engage in selfregulation independently without setting up any regulatory authority. Approach 7: Journalists form their own regulatory authority with the participation of public (reader) representatives. Approach 8: Journalists form their own regulatory authority with the participation of public (reader) and the judicial judge r representatives.

approval ratings than other approaches across all three surveys. After deliberation, approval rates for Approach 7 where the media industry assumes the main regulatory role and the public a subsidiary role and Approach 8 that involves the additional participation of judiciary judges, increased. Conversely, the approval rating for Approach 2 that involves representatives from the government dropped. The changes in approval ratings for each approach is displayed in Figure 11.2. A significance test found that the mean averages of approval ratings for the three approaches (2, 7 and 8) were significantly different before deliberation (T2) (p .05). A factor analysis was performed to divide the eight approaches for the Press Council into three types: “industry self-regulation”, “regulation with government involvement” and “industry and public joint regulation”6. Ratings on the three types of approaches by various social participants/ perceivers and people in different demographic groups are summarised below:

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Industry self-regulation: Average scores for most of the sub-group respondents were smaller than 5, generally at or below the mid-point. After deliberation, ratings by students went up (6.62). Regulation with government involvement: Average scores for most of the sub-group respondents were above 5 but below 6, staying around the midlevel on the whole. After deliberation, ratings improved for the following groups: people who strongly agreed with the statement “the government cares about public opinion (political efficacy)” (6.04), people who scored low on current affairs knowledge (6.45), heavy users of traditional media (6.24), women (5.91) and housewives (6.24). Industry and public joint regulation: Average scores for most of the subgroup respondents were above 6, slightly above the mid-point. And the figures are higher for T3 than T2. After deliberation, ratings improved for the following groups: respondents who scored high on the scale measuring the importance of “protecting tradition and local cultural heritage (worldview/value systems)” (6.86), respondents who were in strong agreement with the statement about the importance of “protecting job security and financial safety (worldview/value systems)” (6.96), respondents who agreed with the statement about the importance of “tolerance of people with different viewpoints (political efficacy)” (6.98), heavy users of traditional media (8.11), respondents who strongly agreed with the statement “the government cares about public opinion (political efficacy)” (7.01), women (6.99), people in the 35–54 age bracket (7.37), people whose education level was at or below primary school (7.69) and people whose length of residence in Macao was between 26 and 50 years (7.01).

In terms of the Press Council’s ability to safeguard the rights of media workers, respondents were in favour of the “industry leadership, public participation” model after deliberation. The single most powerful predictor7 for approvals of the three types of approaches (i.e., industry self-regulation, government involvement, industry-public joint regulation) was “respondents’ assessment of whether various approaches could effectively safeguard the rights of the media workers” both before and after deliberation. Compared with those in T2, figures showed signs of increment in T3. Results of data analyses from the three surveys indicated that respondents in the public group gave high scores to the Press Council’s function to “safeguard journalists’ rights in news coverage” (8.48, 8.85 and 8.73) and “to safeguard media professionalism” (8.48, 9.19 and 8.79).

Broadcasting Council approaches Six potential approaches to the regulation of the broadcast industry were prepared for the Deliberative Polling (see descriptions in notes for Figure 11.3). It was found that Approaches 5 and 6 that involve public participation received the highest ratings. The ratings went even higher after deliberation. The significance test results showed that

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FIGURE 11.3 Broadcasting Council Approaches (0-10 points) Notes: Questions in this block are index questions measured from 0 to 10, where 0 means “strongly disagree,” 5 means “exactly in the middle,” and 10 means “strongly agree.” Approach 1: Establishing the Broadcasting Council in accordance with the law. Membership is comprised of officials designated by the government, media workers, and public figures of high credibility. Approach 2: The broadcast industry assumes the main regulatory role with the participation of government representatives. Approach 3: The broadcast industry assumes the main regulatory role without the involvement of the government. Approach 4: The broadcast industry engages in self-regulation independently without setting up any regulatory authority. Approach 5: The broadcast industry forms its own regulatory authority with the participation of public (listener or viewer) representatives. Approach 6: The broadcast industry forms its own regulatory authority with the participation of public (listener or viewer) and the judiciary judge representatives.

approval ratings for Approach 5 and Approach 6 stayed more or less the same before (T2) and after deliberation (T3) (t = -0.398, p =.691; t = 0.542, p =.588). A factor analysis was performed to group the six approaches into three types: “industry self-regulation”, “regulation with government involvement” and “public-industry joint regulation”8. Ratings on the three types of approaches by various social participants/ perceivers and people in different demographic groups are summarised below: Industry self-regulation: Average scores for most of the sub-group respondents were smaller than 5, generally at or below the mid-point. After deliberation, ratings went up for heavy users of traditional media (5.68), people in the 35–54 age group (4.96), students (6.14) and those who reported fifty/fifty on the life satisfaction scale (4.87). Regulation with government involvement: Average scores for most of the sub-group respondents were above 5 but below 6, staying around the mid-level on the whole. After deliberation, ratings improved for the following groups: people

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who strongly agreed with the statement “the government cares about public opinion (political efficacy)” (6.22), people who scored low on current affairs knowledge (6.31), people who paid close attention to public affairs in various places (5.90) and housewives (6.45). Industry and public joint regulation: Average scores for most of the sub-group respondents were above 5.5, slightly above the mid-point, and the figures are higher for T3 than T2. After deliberation, ratings improved for the following groups: respondents who scored high on the scale measuring the importance of “protecting tradition and local cultural heritage (worldview/value systems)” (6.87), light users of traditional media (7.92), people in the 35–54 age bracket (7.35), and people whose education level was at or below primary school (7.69). In terms of the Broadcasting Council’s ability to safeguard the rights of media workers, respondents were in favour of the “industry leadership, public participation” model after deliberation. The single most powerful predictor9 for approvals of the three types of approaches (i.e., industry self-regulation, government involvement, industrypublic joint regulation) was “respondents’ assessment of whether various approaches could effectively safeguard the rights of the media workers” both before and after deliberation. Compared with those in T2, figures showed signs of increment in T3. In summary, respondents were in favour of the “industry leadership, public participation” model in which the launch of the new council is not subject to the confines of the current laws and regulations. Regression analyses converged on the finding that whether various approaches could effectively safeguard the rights of media journalists was the most important basis for respondents to decide whether or not to support an approach, both for the press council and for the broadcasting council.

FIGURE 11.4 Whether to regulate the internet (0-10 points) Note: Questions in this block are index questions measured from 0 to 10, where 0 means “completely unimportant,” 5 means “exactly in the middle,” and 10 means “completely important.”

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Regulation over the Internet Four approaches were prepared in relation to the regulation of the internet (see Figure 11.4). The majority of respondents experienced an attitude change through deliberation, from supporting Approach 1 (“Setting up a Press Council that has jurisdiction over Internet regulation”) to supporting Approach 3 (“Regulating the Internet but not under the supervision of the Press Law or any kind of press council”). Specifically, on the four approaches related to the regulation of the Internet (T2 and T3):



T2 results: Approach 1 received the highest importance rating (6.27, 55.5 per cent). T3 results: Approach 3 received the highest importance rating (6.24, 57.9 per cent). The following changes were observed between T2 (before deliberation) and T3 (after deliberation): (i) the percentage of respondents considering Approach 3 (“Regulating the Internet but not under supervision of the Press Law or any kind of press council”) to be important increased from 49.2 per cent to 57.9 per cent; (ii) the percentage of respondents considering Approach 2 (“Including Internet regulation into the Press Law”) to be important declined substantially, from 50.0 per cent to 39.4 per cent; and (iii) the percentage of respondents considering Approach 4 (“Making the Internet completely free without regulation from the Press Law or any kind of press council”) to be important inched up from 31.8 per cent to 33.7 per cent.

Group Discussions In the morning of Deliberation-Day, small-group discussions revolved around the theme of amendment of the “Press Law (Press Council)” and “Journalists Code of Ethics”. The discussions were led by trained moderators and each group was asked to settle on two finalised questions to be raised during the large-group discussions to the expert committee; in the afternoon, small and large group discussions were conducted around the “Internet regulation and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act (Broadcasting Council).” The expert committee included well-known scholars, seasoned media workers, and Macao government officials to offer expert opinion from different sectors. The most salient point from group discussions was press freedom, participants in general didn’t want the amendment of the two laws or the interventions of Macao government to limit press freedom or have any negative impact. Table 11.2 shows some of the key examples from a variety of the group discussions.

Feedback from Deliberative Polling Participants On 5 and 6 December 2011, two days after the Deliberation-Day, the research team contacted participants from both the general public group and the professional group using telephone interview to gather feedback on the Deliberative Polling project. A total of 388 phone calls were made and successfully interviews

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TABLE 11.2 Selected qualitative text on group discussions

Whether the Press Law needs amendment Affirmative opinion Some regulation is necessary. For example, a weekly magazine in Hong Kong printed a lot of bad things for profit. Sales of the magazine would shoot up every time it printed something sensational. It was done just for profit. Eventually the Hong Kong government had to intervene. If there is a strict law to regulate the media, such cases would be less; things wouldn’t have gone so far. Use law to protect the freedom of speech. It is highly important to maintain a good image, telling the world that there is freedom of speech in Macao.

Negative opinion Macao is a relatively peaceful place … the current Law is good for Macao residents … I believe local papers and TV stations receive financial support from the government and are more or less influenced by the government. Some opinions may be barred, if we amend the Law. The issue is whether a Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act and a Press Law should be made. I think even if such laws are not issued, media practice rigorous self-censorship. To an extent, the self-censorship can be more stringent than government rules. The government sets a standard, but media workers are afraid to make mistakes and would choose to be on the conservative to avoid doing anything wrong.

Whether a Press Council needs to be set up Affirmative opinion Negative opinion If every dispute has to be settled through the Nothing major has happened to court, it would take forever to obtain the prochange anything. We still have the tection…You cannot obtain protection from the freedom of speech and the press. At court…setting up the (Press) Council can help us present, there is no need to set up such solve these problems. a council. With a Press Council, journalists would be I believe journalists are professionals supervised as they may do something bad or and know what they are doing. There wrong…In the past, Macao had no democracy; is no need whatsoever to form such a now it has democracy…Residents need the Council. media to upgrade themselves, news is very important. The Macao TV station used to be very conservative. Whether the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act needs amendment Affirmative opinion Negative opinion Some affairs may be covered up, some may I hope the status quo will be mainfind no legal reference, and some are not tained. The legislation was mentioned in the interest of the majority of the people 21 years ago and nothing has at the grassroots level. Honestly, if the happened. government considers the interest of media workers and citizens in general, a law should be drafted. (Continued)

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Deliberative Polling in Macao 185 TABLE 11.2 (Cont.)

Whether the Press Law needs amendment There is not much controversy regarding the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act…TeleDifusão de Macao is licensed by the government. Since the government issued the license, why is it not regulating it? But according to the current AudioVisual Broadcasting Act, issuing the license means legal regulation. It is a franchise and a franchise company should be placed under the supervision and regulation of a government department. Whether a Broadcasting Council needs to be Affirmative opinion If it helps. Once they break the rule, the chairman of the Broadcasting Council will be criticised. If the criticism is good, I think a Council would be of help.

Legislation will definitely set up an obstruction. It will obstruct, for sure.

set up Negative opinion At present, broadcast programmes and advertisements are in line with regulations. There is no big problem now and the degree of freedom is appropriate. If a Council is set up, maybe every project has to be approved before airing. That would undermine the effect of the programmes. The purpose of having such a Council is to lend Adding more rules about broadcasting support to people’s freedom of speech. will only let TeleDifusão de Macao S. A. collapse earlier. The station already enforces strict self-censorship.

TABLE 11.3 Post-Deliberative Polling evaluations

Public group evaluation ratings

Professional group evaluation ratings

Mean rating on a scale from 0–10 Whole process Participants’ small group discussion with moderators Conversation with other participants outside small group discussion Large-group discussions to the expert committee

7.61 7.85 7.17

6.77 7.00 7.31

7.97

7.23

* 0 represents the least valuable and 10 the most valuable.

held with 201 general public group participants, nine professional group participants and 11 moderators. Statistical results show that the majority of both the public and professional group considered the whole process of Deliberative Polling was valuable (public: 74.1 per cent; professional: 61.5 per cent). Regarding discussion with other participants, the public group considered that the section of “participants’ small group discussion with moderators” was more valuable (79.2 per cent), while professional group consider that

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“conversation with other participants outside small group discussion” was more valuable (80.8 per cent); in regarding discussion with experts, both public and professional group have their majority to consider that the section of “large-group discussions to the expert committee” was valuable (public: 79.5 per cent; professional: 76.9 per cent). Mean ratings of various segments by each group type is provided in Table 11.3.

The Result and Functions of the Deliberative Polling Taken all the analyses results together, the Deliberative Polling project conducted in Macao offers the following insights and suggestions with regard to the amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act: First, as to the establishment of the Press Council and Broadcasting Council, the majority of opinions were in favour of the approach with “industry leadership, public participation and the absence of regulation of existing laws.” At the time, relevant stipulations in both the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act were some distance away from the mainstream public opinions. Therefore, the analysis report recommended that the relevant government departments should seriously consider deletion or amendment of the stipulations of the two laws. In addition, whether or not “journalists’ rights are safeguarded” was the single most important principle on the basis of which representatives of Macao evaluated the two councils. Therefore, the analysis report suggested that in the future efforts should be made to amend the two councils and related matters once journalists were ensured the protection of their rights. After the completion of the Deliberative Polling project on the two laws, the officials of the Macao SAR government announced publicly that they would amend the Press Law based on the principle of “reduction only, no addition on the stipulations” in accordance with the recommendations of the Deliberative Polling report on 19 September 2012. A year later, the Macao SAR government conducted the second phase of the public consultation on the Press Law with the professionals from different media outlets and the report was released to the public in April 2014 . In general, the report results still followed the principle of “reduction only, no addition on the stipulations”, which was in line with the recommendations of the Deliberative Polling report. A corresponding report was submitted to the Chief Executive of Macao SAR for further review and follow-up legislative actions. The Macao SAR government had announced in 2010 that it would start the amendment procedures of the Press Law, and by 2014 the consultation and amendment work, which lasted for five years on the Press Law, had officially come to an end. The follow-up work of the amendment procedures of the Press Law shows that the main amendment ideas were in accordance to the research conclusions of the Deliberative Polling, which also shows the impact of the Macao Deliberative Polling project on the process of the policy formulation. Moreover, data analyses have shown that the gathering has also served several other important social functions. First, it has awakened the sleeping members of the public who paid little or no attention to public issues, augmented their sense of

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citizenship and deepened their understanding of the issue. Second, it promoted social communication by organising people who hold very different views together to discuss and debate public issues in a face-to-face manner with experts and officials. Public representatives reported good feelings afterwards and they also reported increased sense of political efficacy. Finally, it facilitated the transparency for public sentiment expressions. Respondents gave highly positive evaluations to the overall operation of the polling in the end of the event. By having external observers and mass media workers to directly observe the activities, the Deliberative Polling has shown to participants the extent to which the government respected public opinion and the transparency of the process of policy formulation.

Conclusion The Deliberative Polling on the amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act was the first of its kind in the Macao and Hong Kong special administrative regions of China. Apart from the revelation of thoughtful opinions expressed by a sample of 277 randomly selected representatives of Macao society, the Deliberative Polling has served several social functions of increasing citizens’ awareness, promoting social communication and facilitating transparency. A few major implications are worth highlighting from the research findings. First, research shows that participants have increased concern in protecting freedom of expression, which is reflected in having the concern on safeguarding the right of media workers as the single most powerful predictor for approvals of various approaches in both press council and broadcasting council. Second, the increased priority on the independence from direct government involvement, which is reflected in the preference of the “industry leadership, public participation” model for both press council and the broadcasting council. Third, government appears to have largely accepted the voice of the people as expressed in the Deliberative Polling research project, which is reflected in the announcement to the public that they would adopt the principle of “reduction only, no addition on the stipulations” on 19 September 2012, in line with the recommendations of the Deliberative Polling report. Nevertheless, as the Deliberative Polling project was the first of its kind in Macao, the introduction of the research method faced some challenges: the sensitivity of the Press Law, misunderstanding of the procedures of Deliberative Polling as scientific research methodology, and the low level of trust towards the government public consultation practices that have been conducted over the years. Although some public stereotypes consider the consultation practice as raising the voice for government, the introduction of the Deliberative Polling method has generated much inquiries and criticisms by some professionals in the media related field in Macao society. There has not been any further Deliberative Polling conducted in Macao since then. Nonetheless, the prospect for deliberative democracy in Macao is subject to the nature of the issue involved, the literacy of Deliberative Polling and the benefits that it brings to the society in the long run. The case that we illustrated in this paper will be the starting point.

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Notes 1 See also Law no. 224/2011, of 15 August, regarding regulation of the standard of the public consultation process in Macao. 2 Reference news reports are available on the website of Stanford University: Center for Deliberative Democracy (2011). 3 Questions and corresponding measurement items are available in section 5 of the Appendix document on survey questionnaire in the online published final report submitted to the government titled “Macao Deliberative Polling on the Amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act” (e-Research Solutions, 2012, 522–572). 4 “All respondents” = “Non-DP public group” + “DP public group” DP=Deliberative Polling 5 Political efficacy is an academic concept typically used to refer to whether individuals accept the view that political and social conditions can be changed and whether individuals themselves can foster such changes through their own efforts. In short, it refers to the extent to which individuals believe in their own impact on politics. 6 “industry self-regulation” (Factor 1) includes approach 4,5,6; “regulation with government involvement” (Factor 2) includes approach 1,2,3; and “industry and public joint regulation” includes approach 7,8, for detail of the factor loading please refer to the online Appendix I “Factor analysis of survey questionnaire” or Section 3.2.1 in the online published final report submitted to the government titled “Macao Deliberative Polling on the “Amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act” (e-Research Solutions, 2012, 103–107). 7 Several multiple regressions have been conducted, for detail please refer to the Online Appendix II “Whether a Press Council should be established” or Section 3.4.2 in the published final report submitted to the government titled “Macao Deliberative Polling on the Amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act” (e-Research Solutions, 2012, 183–190). 8 “Industry self-regulation” (Factor 1) includes approach 3,4; “regulation with government involvement” (Factor 2) includes approach 1,2; and “industry and public joint regulation” includes approach 5,6. For details of the factor loading, please refer to section 3.2.1 “Factor analysis of survey questionnaire” in the online published final report submitted to the government titled “Macao Deliberative Polling on the Amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act” (e-Research Solutions, 2012, 103–107). 9 Several multiple regressions have been conducted. For more details, please refer to online Appendix II “Whether to establish a Broadcasting Council” or Section 3.4.3 in the published final report submitted to the government titled “Macao Deliberative Polling on the Amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act” (e-Research Solutions, 2012, 191–197).

References Bohman, James and William Rehg. 1997. Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press. e-Research Solutions. 2012. Macao Deliberative Polling on the “Amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act”: Final Report. Accessed 31 August 2012. Available at: http://dpmacau.e-research-solutions.com/en/sites/default/files/DP%20Report_E_Full.pdf. Fishkin, James S. 1991. Democracy and deliberation: New directions for democratic reform. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Fishkin, James S. and Robert C Luskin. 2005. “Experimenting with a Democratic Ideal: Deliberative Polling and Public Opinion.” Acta Politica, (40): 284–298. Government Information Bureau of the Macao SAR. 2014. Summary report on the consultation of the amendment of Press Law of Macao SAR. April 2014. Accessed 15 May

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2014. Macao Special Administrative Region Government Portal, Macao. Available at: www.gov.mo/zh-hant/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/01/2013.05-%E7%B8%BD% E7%B5%90%E5%A0%B1%E5%91%8A.pdf. Legislative Assembly of the Macao SAR. 2020. Introduction to the Legislative Assembly. Legislative Assembly of the Macao SAR, Macao. Accessed 20 November 2020. Available at: www.al.gov.mo/zh/introduction. Luskin, Robert C., James S. Fishkin and Roger Jowell. 2002. “Considered Opinions: Deliberative Polling in Britain.” British Journal of Political Science, 3(32): 455–487. Macao SAR Government Portal. 2020. Published summary report of Macao SAR policy consultation projects. Accessed 30 July 2020. Macao Special Administrative Region Government Portal, Macao. Available at: www.gov.mo/zh-hant/about-government/policyconsultation/policy-consultation-list/?category_id=&entity_id=&consultation_year=&report_ published=1. Stanford Center for Deliberative Democracy. 2011. Deliberative Polling® on the Press Law in Macao. Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford, California. Accessed 20 November 2020. Available at: https://cdd.stanford.edu/2011/deliberative-polling-on-thepress-law-in-macao. The 8th National People’s Congress. 1993. Basic Law of the Macao SAR of the People’s Republic of China. Government Printing Bureau of Macao SAR, Macao. Accessed 20 November 2020. Available at: https://bo.io.gov.mo/bo/i/1999/leibasica/index_cn.asp. Westwood, Sean J. and Guarav Sood. 2010. Assessing Quality of Deliberation and Its Consequence: Evidence From Deliberative Polling. Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Singapore, 2010.

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12 MONGOLIA Piloting Elements of a Deliberative System James S. Fishkin and Alice Siu

Introduction The revival of deliberative democracy in recent years has focused mostly on the theory and practice of deliberative mini-publics recruited via random sampling. But there has also been some attention to the possibility of deliberation among other key actors– members of the mass public outside of those chosen in the random samples and policy elites (usually elected representatives). How might these be connected? Is there some way of putting them together in a “deliberative system” (Mansbridge et al., 2012; Fishkin, 2018)? Thus far, the account of such systems has discussed varying sites for deliberation without a systematic plan for how they relate to each other to produce a deliberative input into collective decisions. Discussions in one site might have no connection to those in another. There are varying degrees of deliberative quality in various venues and among various groups. The advantage of a deliberative microcosm or mini-public is that, when properly convened and conducted, it can represent what the public would think under good conditions. It starts out as representative of existing public opinion and then it engages the issues under good conditions for deliberation. Its final considered judgements then purport to answer a hypothetical: what would the people really think under good conditions for thinking about the issue? Those resulting considered judgements can then become an input to the policy process with clear recommendations for action. This is what the people think, on reflection, and in light of the best information available. However, this kind of deliberative process only engages those drawn in the random sample. If others are engaged in discussions beyond the sample, in local meetings or online, in one format or another, those groups might come to different conclusions because they lack the representativeness of a well-selected mini-public or because there is not so much thought and reflection (and good information) in a convening DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-12

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that is less well organised. As Mansbridge notes, “everyday talk” might well have some deliberative elements (Mansbridge, 1999), but it can be expected to have less overall deliberative quality than a well-constructed mini-public. In particular, it lacks the explicit weighing of alternatives with arguments for and against, that distinguish a more structured deliberation. In other cases, the problem might not be the quality of the deliberation but rather its representativeness. The population that is mobilised to deliberate is unrepresentative and so speaks for a specific sub-group of the whole. If so, then how are its conclusions to be weighed against those from other sub-populations? This is an unsolved problem in the still-developing literature on deliberative systems. In addition, in our ordinary lives, most citizens are bombarded with messages intended to persuade, not to enlighten. In the context of competitive democracy, competing parties want to win elections or achieve policy goals, more than they want to win the argument on the substance of the issues. The aspirations for deliberative systems usually situate deliberative elements within an on-going competitive democracy where the bulk of the mass public is not deliberating, where self-selected sub-groups engage in “enclave deliberation” (Sunstein, 2009), where elected representatives and policy elites might have little incentive or ability to deliberate whenever the issue might lead them to depart from party discipline and where deliberative microcosms are sufficiently disconnected from any real decision processes that their conclusions can easily be ignored. Even if some political actors or groups are deliberating in such a system, it seems unlikely for the deliberative elements to directly affect the outcome. If so, then it is clear that deliberative processes are having at most a minor role in collective self-rule. However, a notable practical development in Mongolia, now passed into law and successfully used, suggests how various deliberative elements might be connected so as to contribute to thoughtful collective decisions. Before we turn to the Mongolian case, let us spell out a few criteria for popular control. In this paper we defend the view that a deliberative system should permit the deliberative process to contribute in significant ways to popular control. What would that mean? The theoretical question is: What would it mean for the members of the mass public actually to have a significant role in ruling themselves? Consider these four criteria for popular control: Inclusion: all adult citizens should be provided with an equal opportunity to participate. Choice: the alternatives for public decision need to be significantly different and realistically available. Deliberation: the people need to be effectively motivated to think about the reasons for and against competing alternatives in a context where they can get good information. Impact: the people’s choices need to have an effect on decisions (such as who governs or what policies get enacted). These criteria are elaborated elsewhere. (Fishkin, 2018) While each of these criteria might seem modest, taken together, they are quite demanding, if not utopian. Can we approach their realisation together in a

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competitive democracy? Surprisingly, recent developments in Mongolia present a hopeful picture of possibilities. In our view the pioneering efforts in Mongolia to institutionalise deliberative democracy offer some clues and initially successful tests, of ways in which this might be done. Mongolia has, in effect, piloted some viable elements of a future deliberative system.

Mongolia Mongolia has a distinctive parliamentary democracy and a private property market system. It is a developing country situated between two giants − China and Russia − with entirely different political systems. It is also the site of a unique democratic reform − the institutionalisation of Deliberative Polling both as a legal requirement in the constitutional amendment process and as a reform of local democracy. This paper briefly summarises two projects that connected to this unique development − the Deliberative Poll at Ulaanbaatar Capital City in December 2015 and the national Deliberative Poll on amending the constitution, which was held in April 2017. The success of the first project helped lay the groundwork in parliament for the passage of a “Law on Deliberative Polling” which provided the legal basis for the second. The deliberations of the people in the second Deliberative Poll led to deliberations in Parliament about a constitutional amendment, which finally passed on 14 November 2019 by the Parliament by more than the required two-thirds threshold and became law in December 2019. The path to reform is always unpredictable, but in this case, it was greatly facilitated by leaders in the country who were attracted to the vision of instituting deliberative democracy. Initially the leadership was with Mayor Bat-Ul of Ulaanbataar and soon it passed to M.P Zandanshatar, a former Foreign Minister who became Speaker of the Parliament during the process. M.P. Zandanshatar continues to be the leading figure in implementing deliberative democracy in the country. Representing different parties, they co-operated together as Co-Chairs of the Advisory Committee for Deliberative Polling. Once elected to Speaker of the Parliament, M.P. Zandanshatar helped bring about the legislation that required Deliberative Polling and then in implementing it at the national level with the deliberations on proposed constitutional amendments. The two projects pilot elements of a Deliberative System because they sequence the following steps: 1) widespread public deliberation, in an agenda setting stage feeding into 2) elite deliberations of a balanced advisory committee, setting up 3) the balanced deliberations of a representative sample whose conclusions are then aggregated and reported to 4) relevant decision-makers in the government: either the Mayor of Ulaanbaatar in the citywide project or the Parliament in the national constitutional project. Public deliberation (for agenda setting)!advisory committee!Deliberative Poll!Government decision-makers

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The over-arching question is whether these elements are combined in such a way that they satisfy our four criteria for collective self-rule. Does the “system” satisfy inclusion? Does it offer choice? Does it embody deliberation on the choices offered? Does the process have impact on policymaking? This standard, of satisfying the four criteria, has more specific implications than the Mansbridge et al. (2012) standard of whether the connections are “too tight” or “too loose.” Those are certainly issues. “Too tight” refers to the possibility that a decision or priority at one point that is suspect can be imposed everywhere else. Mansbridge et al. offer the example of the court decision (Korematzu v. United States 1944) that imposed the internment of Japanese Americans in World War Two. It was too tightly connected to ultimate policy and became unavoidable. “Too loose” refers to whether the conclusions of the deliberation are just ignored and do not carry over into actual policy. Our standard is slightly different. The deliberations of the people need to be inclusive. One method of inclusion we have employed is stratified random sampling so that all citizens, in effect, have an equal chance of being involved in the deliberations. A second method allows those who are motivated to offer input to do so on the agenda in public meetings. Such participation is admittedly self-selected but it might be useful in indicating arguments and perspectives that were not otherwise included. So the contributions of self-selected groups must never be taken as representative, but they might offer useful additional perspectives that would otherwise be left out. These two work best in combination in a deliberative system − inclusion through participation and inclusion through random sampling. Both were employed in the Mongolian projects. Second, there is choice. Are the deliberations about meaningful alternatives that present a choice. Or are they essentially the same? Exercising a choice between nearly identical alternatives would not contribute to meaningful collective self-rule. Third, deliberation requires that those participating are able to weigh reasons for and against the alternatives that are at issue in the choices. This deliberation can be enriched by inclusion in that different elements of the population might see different reasons to bring to the discussions. Finally, impact is whether or not the conclusions of the deliberation have impact on the final decisions that are made. Is it all just talk or do the deliberations have an effect? These criteria are in some ways connected with Parkinson’s idea that “deliberation must be plugged in at both ends” with the narratives and concerns of ordinary citizens at the beginning and with an impact on decisions at the end (Parkinson, 2018, p. 436). We endorse this idea but offer more specific democratic criteria for evaluating the operation of the deliberative system as a whole. These are criteria which the Mongolian developments exemplify, in pilot form in the projects described here.

Ulaanbaatar Deliberative Poll On 12–13 December 2015 a stratified random sample of the residents of the Ulaanbaatar Capital City Region gathered for two days of deliberation about major infrastructure projects proposed in the city’s master plan. This was the first Deliberative Poll1 held in Mongolia. Prior to the project there had been several years of public meetings

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around the city to solicit suggestions about infrastructure projects that should go into the master plan. Many of those proposals were developed into detailed projects. Fourteen of them would also require substantial borrowing in order to be financed. The agenda for the weekend of deliberation was to choose between or rate all 14 of those substantial investments. The deliberative process consisted of small group discussions and questions from participants posed to experts during plenary sessions that explored arguments for and against each of the 14 projects. Who Participated? An initial household survey was conducted with a stratified random sample of 1,502 residents. They were selected after random selection of households and random selection of participants within those households. All areas of the city were covered including both apartment and ger areas.2 Some 400 of the survey respondents who had indicated a willingness to participate in the deliberation event were randomly selected to receive invitations. The goal was for invitations to yield at least 300 participants that would fully participate in the Deliberative Poll, and in the end 317 residents completed both days of the deliberation. Using the extensive initial household survey that was administered before the invitation was extended, the 317 who fully participated can be compared in both their attitudes and demographics with the remaining 1,185 who only took the initial survey (referred to henceforth as non-participants). In demographics there were very few significant differences between participants and non-participants. In gender, education, age, employment status, marital status and income, there were no significant differences. In terms of the type of dwelling, slightly more residents who lived in ger dwellings (tentlike structures, also known as yurts) and in communal buildings attended the deliberation, and there were slightly fewer long-time residents (of more than 11 years) who attended. In terms of policy attitudes expressed in the initial household survey with respect to the 14 proposed projects, there were only slight differences between the 317 participants and the 1,185 non-participants. Based on the excellent work of the survey firm that led the sampling, the Mongolian Marketing Consulting Group (MMCG), the project succeeded in gathering a microcosm of the residents of Ulaanbaatar for a weekend’s deliberation together in one place − the Government Palace. What happened? Several days before the deliberation, the participants were provided with written briefing materials providing information on all the projects for deliberation. When the participating residents arrived, they were randomly assigned to small groups of about fifteen in which they discussed the projects in depth. Moderators helped deliberators go through discussions of all fourteen projects according to the agenda presented in the briefing materials. Moderators were trained not to give any hint of their own opinions. Their role was to facilitate an equal, mutually respectful discussion of the pros and cons of the various proposals. The small group deliberations culminated on agreement about key questions that were directed to panels of experts in the plenary sessions. The two-day process alternated small group discussions and plenary sessions until all fourteen projects were discussed. At the end of the two days, the participants took a version of the same questionnaire they had responded to on first contact during the household surveying process. The results, before and after deliberation, can be found in Table 12.1.

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TABLE 12.1 Opinion changes in means and percentages

Question

T1

Sig.

-0.07

.003***

13.3

16.1

2.8

Middle %

21.3

28.4

7.1

6-10 desirable %

65.4

55.5

-9.9

0.9 3.8

0.67

T2-T1

a. Ulaanbaatar Metro A metro line, mostly underground, that has 14 stops running from Tolgoit to Amgalan with stops downtown along Peace Avenue. 0-4 undesirable %

b. Tuul River Water Dam 0-4 undesirable %

0.74

T2

0.77 9.15

-0.12 5.35

Middle %

11.4

16.7

5.32

6-10 desirable %

84.8

74.1

-10.7

c. Tuul Highway A highway along the Tuul river that will allow traffic to bypass the downtown area of the city. 0-4 undesirable %

0.74

10.8

0.74

13

-0

23.3

13.9

-9.33

6-10 desirable %

65.9

73.1

7.19

0.84

0.88

0.04

7.01

2.52

-4.49

6.62

-3.89

Middle %

10.5

6-10 desirable %

82.5

0.89

10.5

1.26

-9.28

Middle %

17.6

8.52

-9.05

6-10 desirable %

71.9

90.2

0.92

0.92

3.15

1.26

.018**

8.38

e. Nailakh Construction, Industrial and Technology Park A new industrial park for companies manufacturing construction materials in Nailakh Khoroo 3. 0-4 undesirable %

f. Eco Park and 2 Waste Recycling Facilities at Existing Landfills Having recycling companies and companies making products using recycled materials around a complex connected to two major landfill sites. 0-4 undesirable %

0.76

90.9

0.912

2.14

Middle % d. Light industrial park in Emeelt Area Moving factories processing skins and leather out from the center of Ulaanbaatar to a newly built, modern facility located in Khaan-Uul Khoroo 13 and Songino Khairkhan Khoroo 20. 0-4 undesirable %

.000***

0.127

.000***

18.33 0.002

0.862

-1.89 (Continued)

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196 Deliberative Democracy in Asia TABLE 12.1 (Cont.)

Question Middle % 6-10 desirable %

T1 3.15 93.7

4.42 94.3

0.62

Middle %

21.1

15.8

-5.28

6-10 desirable %

66.9

77.5

10.64

6-10 desirable % i. Demolish and Rebuild Old buildings in Baga Toiruu Area Modernize the downtown area of Ulaanbaatar by removing some old and unsafe buildings and replacing them with newer developments. 0-4 undesirable %

6.65

0.054

0.84

-0.04

3.49

4.1

0.61

9.21

12 83.9

0.79

0.79

8.57

6.01

2.78 0.006

12

-3.84

6-10 desirable %

75.6

82

6.4

j. Mongol Naadam Complex Building – Indoor/ Outdoor Sports Facilities Build stadiums and tourist facilities to host the Naadam events and other sporting events. 0-4 undesirable %

12.6

11.4

-1.26

Middle %

15.1

18.3

3.16

6-10 desirable %

72.2

70.3

k. Eco-Corridor Invest in reforestation and infrastructure to protect traditional migration routes of indigenous animal species. 0-4 undesirable %

0.8

9.21

0.64

0.753

-2.56

15.9

0.74

.018**

-3.39

Middle %

0.76

.005***

-5.36

0.87

87.3

Sig.

1.27

12

Middle %

0.76

T2-T1

g. Freight and Logistics Center in Western Ulaanbaatar Building the infrastructure needed for a logistics center to transfer goods efficiently from trains to trucks for distribution around Ulaanbaatar. 0-4 undesirable %

h. Improved Insulation for Apartment Buildings Co-fund with residents efforts to upgrade the insulation in up to 1,077 prefabricated panel apartment buildings in Ulaanbaatar. 0-4 undesirable %

0.71

T2

-0.02

0.406

-1.9 -0.15

20.6

11.36

Middle %

14

24.1

10.08

6-10 desirable %

76.8

55.4

-21.4

.000***

(Continued)

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Mongolia 197 TABLE 12.1 (Cont.)

Question

T1

T2

T2-T1

Sig. .091*

l. Tuul and Selbe River Protection and Conversation Invest in water treatment technology pilots, small embankments and dams, a water study station, and efforts to dredge the river as well as landscaping projects to improve the overall atmosphere along the river. 0-4 undesirable %

0.95

0.94

-0.02

1.26

0.95

-0.31

Middle %

2.52

4.1

1.58

6-10 desirable %

96.2

95

-1.27

m. UB Gasification Project Invest in infrastructure needed to store and distribute petroleum gas for use in Ulaanbaatar homes. 0-4 undesirable %

19.3

13.3

Middle %

19.6

20.9

1.28

6-10 desirable %

61.1

65.8

4.72

0.66

0.69

0.025

-6

n. Improved heating for school and kindergartens Invest in upgrading insulation of 42 school and 50 kindergarten buildings and improving technology and system of the heating. 0-4 undesirable %

0.94

0.95

0.63

0.32

-0.31

Middle %

2.52

1.89

-0.63

6-10 desirable %

96.9

97.8

0.301

0.006

0.527

0.94

All 14 proposed projects were rated on the same scale before and after deliberation. Hence the final results provide a ranking of priorities from 0 (extremely undesirable) to 1 (extremely desirable) with.5 being exactly in the middle. Citizen opinions, both before and after the event, indicate that all the proposals were thought to be desirable. No proposed project had a rating less that 0.644 after deliberation. This is not surprising since each project reflected years of work developing concepts and implementation plans, and all projects would help solve important public problems. However, there were significant changes post-deliberation. Support for eight of the fourteen proposals changed significantly, five going down and three going up in support. Figure 12.1 provides a ranking of the top projects in order after the citizens had weighed all the arguments and gotten their questions answered. The notations in parenthesis show the ranking for each project before deliberation. Projects that showed a statistically significant increase in support are marked in dashed lines, while projects that showed a statistically significant decrease in support are marked in dotted lines. More details about the proposals and the changes of opinion are available elsewhere (Fishkin 2018). In this chapter, we want to highlight how the project illustrated the

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198 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

FIGURE 12.1

Proposals before and after deliberation

elements in a deliberative system from initial public hearings for agenda setting, to elite deliberation about the proposals in an advisory committee to the deliberations of a stratified random sample to an input for policy. After the deliberations, the city publicly announced that the priorities have been included in the Action Plan for the City Master Plan. The 14 projects discussed during the poll by the citizens were included in the Action Plan according to the prioritised order emerging from the Deliberative Polling. These prioritised lists within the Action Plan were approved by Government Resolution #174 of 2016. As a document that was adopted by Parliament, the Master Plan is a legally binding document that lays out plans that are to be implemented jointly by the citizens and residents of the city as well as all levels of city organisations. Many of the projects were soon realised, including the top priority for adequate heating in the schools throughout the city.

First National Deliberative Poll and the Law on Deliberative Polling Following on the success of the citywide project a national “Law on Deliberative Polling” was passed by the Parliament and came into law in February 2017. This law laid out requirements for the non-partisan and professional application of Deliberative Polling, the formation and authority of an Advisory Committee, the use of a professional survey research organisation, the standards for the number of

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Mongolia 199

people in the sample and the number who would need to participate. The law also laid out standards for local, regional and national projects and, most importantly, required Deliberative Polling on constitutional issues before a constitutional amendment could be considered by parliament. In April 2017 the first national Deliberative Poll for the revision of the constitution was held, in conformity with the new law. In preparation for the Deliberative Poll, there were thousands of meetings throughout the country to propose possible topics for constitutional amendments. The Advisory Committee created an agenda of issues in response to this widespread public engagement. The research team created questions and briefing materials. The sample was recruited by the National Statistical Office, the NSO, which does the Census. The NSO randomly selected households from randomly selected geographical areas (or strata) and then randomly selected an adult in each of those households to be interviewed. In effect, each adult citizen in the country had an equal random chance of being selected. 1,568 households were randomly selected within geographical areas so as to cover the entire country. A strict scientific process was followed to randomly select people within the selected households. Tablets with GPS kept track of the interviewers and their progress in completing the field work. An impressive 96 per cent of the people selected, completed the initial interview (1,515 out of 1,568). In conformity with the law on Deliberative Polling, more than half of those who completed the interview were invited. Out of the 785 who were invited, 669 came to Ulaanbaatar and completed the entire weekend of deliberations. This is an extraordinarily high rate of participation (85 per cent = 669 out of 785). The NSO Report3 has more data on representativeness.

What the Public Concluded The six proposed constitutional amendments generated eighteen questions about specific aspects of the proposals. Ten of those 18 questions (55 per cent), changed significantly. It is worth discussing both the significant changes and the proposals that were rated most highly at the end, regardless of change. The highest rated proposals withstood all the criticisms and still came out at the top of the list. They can be considered the people’s considered judgements about what should be done. Let us start with the opinion changes and then look at the top rated proposals. Support for two of the most ambitious proposals dropped dramatically with deliberation. The proposal for “Creating a Parliament with two chambers: a people’s representative body (People’s Great Khural) and legislative body (State Baga Khural)” went from 61 per cent to 30 per cent − a drop of 31 points. With deliberation, the public became more sceptical that “a second chamber would provide effective oversight of the lower house of Parliament.” Agreement with this idea dropped from 70 per cent to 38 per cent. More specifically, there was increased agreement with the criticism that “both chambers would be controlled

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200 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

by the same political parties, thereby not providing proper oversight.” Those agreeing with this proposition rose from 43 per cent to 56.6 per cent There was also a significant increase, from 48 per cent to 57 per cent in those who agreed that “adding a second chamber would create too many politicians.” A second major drop in support occurred with the proposal for an indirectly rather than directly elected President for only a single six year term. There were two components to this proposal, the change in the term and indirect election. Support for “Electing the President for a single six-year term, without re-election” dropped from 61.5 per cent to 41 per cent with deliberation. Support for “Electing the president for a single six year term by an expanded plenary session of the Parliament that includes Parliament members and the Citizen’s Representative Councils of aimags and the capital city” started at 36 per cent and ended at 33 per cent (not a significant drop but showing a low level of support after deliberation.) There was a significant drop in support for one of the arguments in favour of indirect election: “If the President is indirectly elected by the Parliament and the Citizens Representative Councils, then he/she will be someone acceptable to all sides and above political fray.” Agreement with this conclusion dropped from 55 per cent to 38 per cent. However, there was strong agreement before and after with one of the key arguments in favour of direct rather than indirect election: “If the President is directly elected s/he can better speak for the interests of all people” (84 per cent before, 80 per cent afterwards − no significant change). By contrast, the deliberators supported an amendment that would increase the power of the Prime Minister: “Granting the Prime Minister the authority to appoint and dismiss the members of his/her Cabinet.” This proposal increased significantly from 57 per cent to 73 per cent. Deliberators agreed that “If the Prime Minister cannot even appoint the members of his/her own Cabinet then s/he lacks the authority to get anything done.” A total of 68 per cent agreed before and 66 per cent afterwards (not a significant drop). There was also strong support for strengthening an independent judiciary and for transparency in decision-making. The Parliament deliberated extensively about these results and eventually passed a constitutional amendment by the two-thirds vote required for passage. Perhaps most notably, the two proposals that were most strongly supported by one of the major parties or the other were both filtered out from the amendment by the Deliberative Poll. The ruling Mongolian People’s Party had pressed for the indirect election of the president. This garnered little support in the Deliberative Poll. The main opposition Democratic Party had favoured (or many of its members had favoured) the proposal for a Second Chamber. This dropped out of the amendment discussions after the Deliberative Poll. Instead, the amendment included provisions such as those for strengthening the powers of the prime minister and the independence of the judiciary. In sum the Deliberative Poll had impact on the eventual amendment but some of its impact was in eliminating strongly advocated proposals from final consideration.

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Mongolia 201

TABLE 12.2 Mongolia National Deliberative Poll on Constitutional Amendment: Opinion

changes by means and percentages − selected results Question

T1

202: Granting the Prime Minister the authority to appoint and dismiss the members of his/her Cabinet (0 = strongly oppose, 10 = strongly support) 0 to 4

24.4

13.5

5

13.3

13.3

6 to 10

62.3

73.2

Don’t know

(12.1)

(2.1)

205: Electing the President for a single sixyear term, without reelection 0 to 4

0.641

T2

0.640

0.782

0.473

30.6

46.6

7.9

12.1

6 to 10

61.5

41.3

Don’t know

(2.1)

(0.4)

5

206: Electing the president for a single sixyear term by an expanded plenary session of the Parliament that includes Parliament members and the Citizen’s Representative Councils of aimags and the capital city 0 to 4

0.390

0.381

53.8

55.8

6.4

10.0

6 to 10

39.8

34.2

Don’t know

(6.3)

(1.8)

5

215: Creating a Parliament with two chambers: a people's representative body (People's Great Khural) and legislative body (State Baga Khural) 0 to 4

0.627

26.3

59.9

5

10.2

7.8

6 to 10

63.5

32.3

Don’t know

(12.6)

(1.0)

0.713

0.358

218: Expanding membership of the General Judicial Council responsible for ensuring the autonomy of the judiciary 0 to 4

0.772

15.8

12.6

5

12.6

14.9

6 to 10

71.6

72.5

t2-t1 (diff)

Sig.

0.141

0.000

-0.167

0.000

-0.009

0.670

-0.270

0.000

0.059

0.002

(Continued)

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202 Deliberative Democracy in Asia TABLE 12.2 (Cont.)

Question

T1

T2

Don’t know

(15.1)

(5.8)

219: Creating more clear procedures and principles for appointment of judges and chief justice 0 to 4

0.881

4.2

5.7

5

6.6

11.1

6 to 10

89.2

83.2

Don’t know

(14.1)

(3.9)

223: If the Prime Minister cannot even appoint the members of his/her own Cabinet then s/he lacks the authority to get anything done 0 to 4

12.6

13.6

5

15.5

19.1

6 to 10

71.9

67.3

Don’t know

(11.5)

(2.7)

225: A second chamber would provide effective oversight of the lower house of Parliament 0 to 4

0.755

0.864

0.7115

0.7401

0.4349

20.5

48.7

7.4

10.6

6 to 10

72.1

40.7

Don’t know

(8.5)

(3.9)

5

226: Adding a second chamber would create too many politicians 0 to 4

31.2

28.1

5

15.8

14.1

6 to 10

53.0

57.8

Don’t know

(8.8)

(2.2)

230: Some people think that, with two chambers of Parliament, the larger chamber would provide a check on the smaller chamber. Suppose these people are at 1, on a 1 to 7 scale. Other that having two chambers people think that just make it harder to make decisions and make government less efficient. Suppose these people at 7. 1 to 7

0.5697

0.574

39.2

0.6346

0.7027

t2-t1 (diff)

Sig.

-0.017

0.186

-0.015

0.393

-0.277

0.000

0.065

0.002

0.129

0.000

27.2 (Continued)

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Mongolia 203 TABLE 12.2 (Cont.)

Question

T1

T2

4

13.6

10.9

5 to 7

47.2

61.9

Don’t know

(9.0)

(2.4)

231: Some people think that, with two chambers of Parliament, the larger chamber would provide a check on the smaller chamber. Suppose these people are at 1, on a 1 to 7 scale. Other people think that both chambers would be controlled by the same political parties, thereby not providing proper oversight. Suppose these people at 7. 1 to 7

0.5975

0.6887

47.8

24.5

9.3

16.6

5 to 7

42.9

58.9

Don’t know

(5.1)

(5.4)

4

t2-t1 (diff)

Sig.

0.091

0.000

After the completion of the constitutional amendment process, the Speaker of the Parliament, M.P. Zandanshatar offered this “personal reflection” in a letter to the Center for Deliberative Democracy (19 February 2020): The thoughtful opinions shared by citizens during the DP [Deliberative Poll] were fundamental to the constitutional revision process. Indeed we made citizen participation and listening a fundamental part of the amendment process and we used a range of consultative mechanisms. Parliamentarians had hearings and meetings with citizens around the country, and we received tens of thousands of comments and suggestions. Compared with all the other consultation mechanisms used, the DP produced the most informed and carefully considered opinions, while also providing a vast amount of data (quantitative but also qualitative through the transcripts) that those working on the amendments could consult, analyse and refer back to. The details of the amendment were refined and adjusted during the process and with vigorous debate from a range of expert and political contributions, but the principles laid out through the DP came through the process and can be seen clearly in the final product.4 There is no better summary of a “deliberative system” where the public provide initial input to members of the Parliament and the Advisory Committee, where those considerations yield an agenda for constitutional reform that is deliberated on by a representative sample and those deliberations feed into the Parliament’s formal consideration of an amendment, which they pass by the required super-majority.

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204 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

Parliament had its own deliberations and negotiations but took seriously the results of the Deliberative Poll. We can picture it as: Public agenda setting in meetings of citizens!Deliberations by the Advisory Committee!Deliberations by random sample!recommendations to Government (Parliament in this case)!final decision by Parliament by a two-thirds vote. Since the Law on Deliberative Polling has codified these elements both for local government and at the national level further iterations should be expected. But the experience so far pilots elements of an on-going deliberative system. If the occasions for its use at all levels can be multiplied then citizen expectations about how their governments will consult them could lead to a virtuous circle of deliberative empowerment.

Notes 1 Deliberative Polling is a trademark of James S. Fishkin. The trademark is used for quality control and to support research at the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University. 2 MMCG describes the sampling for the initial survey as follows: “we selected 150 khesegs (sections) of 8 districts from total 1,168 khesegs (sections) of 152 khoroos of nine districts of Ulaanbaatar city using stratified random sampling. Stratification was based on type of dwelling in khesegs: ger area khesegs and apartment area khesegs. Then we selected 1,500 households using the household lists and the mapping. From the selected households we selected 1,500 survey respondents from household members who were aged 18 years old and above by Kish Grid method.” 3 The NSO Report is available at https://cdd.stanford.edu/mm/2017/08/NSO_1_ REPORT-OF-THE-FIRST-DELIBERATIVE-POLLING-Revised.pdf. 4 Letter from Chairman Great Hural (Speaker of the Parliament) available at https://cdd.sta nford.edu/mm/2020/02/mongolia-letter.pdf.

References Fishkin, James S. 2018. Democracy When the People Are Thinking: Revitalizing Our Politics Through Public Deliberation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mansbridge, Jane. 1999. “Everyday talk in the deliberative system.” In Deliberative Politics: Essays on Democracy and Disagreement, edited by Stephen Macedo, pp. 211–240. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Mansbridge, Jane, James Bohman, Simone Chambers, Thomas Christiano, Archon Fung, John Parkinson, Dennis Thompson and Mark E. Warren. 2012. “A systemic approach to deliberative democracy.” In Deliberative Systems: Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale, edited by John Parkinson and Jane Mansbridge, pp. 1–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parkinson, John. 2018. “Deliberative Systems.” In The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy, edited by Andre Bachtiger, John S. Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge and Mark E. Warren, pp. 432–446. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sunstein, Cass. 2009. Going to extremes. How like minds unite and divide. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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13 CONCLUSION Comparative Questions About Deliberative Democracy in Asia Mark E. Warren

The theory of deliberative democracy originated in the West, as an evolving set of ideas and practices initially articulated by the political theories of Habermas and Rawls, while building on progressive political cultures and practices focused on deepening democracy and improving collective decision-making (Bachtiger et. al., 2018). But while much of the theory of deliberative democracy is Western, the origins of deliberative practices and politics are much more widespread, nowhere more so than in Asia. These chapters introduce deliberative democracy as it has been developing in China, Mongolia, Singapore, Macau, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal and India. While each is focused on a country, they open the discourse and study of deliberative democracy to comparative work of the kind necessary if ideals and virtues of deliberation democracy are to continue to globalise, reflect and respond to local cultures and traditions, and to integrate with a variety of political systems. The ideals of deliberative democracy are nicely articulated in these chapters: to the degree that polities are democratic and deliberative, they are likely to benefit from more legitimacy, better political decisions, and greater political capacities to deliver collective goods than do political systems that are less deliberative and less democratic. In this conclusion, I take up the comparative challenges suggested by these chapters. I do so by framing a number of questions that span cultural and institutional contexts, while keeping in view the normative stakes of comparison, namely, political systems that are better rather than worse, measured against the ideals of deliberative democracy. The questions are these. First, can deliberative democracy build on indigenous practices of deliberation? Do consensus-oriented cultures suppress or support deliberation? Can long-standing deliberative cultures substitute for liberal-democratic rights and protections? Second, alternatively, can deliberation help to bridge deep divisions within societies, especially those cleaved by ethnic divides? Third, what is the relationship between electoral democracy and DOI: 10.4324/9781003102441-13

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206 Deliberative Democracy in Asia

deliberative democracy? In what contexts does electoral competition and representation tend to support or undermine deliberative processes? Do good deliberative processes require democratic empowerments such as elections and rights to speak and organise? Or can they develop, even as forms of resistance, when protections are weak or absent? Fourth, can we identify deliberative democracy within the administrative parts of government in contrast to the elected parts, particularly those front-line functions that are often citizens’ most important interactions with government? Fifth, what are we to make of deliberative processes that occur within authoritarian contexts? Is it possible for governments to develop responsive and deliberative government solely through issue and policy constrained “governance” − as, apparently, the Chinese and Singaporean regimes are trying to do? Can deliberative democratic ideals be fully absorbed into governance, sidestepping democracy at the regime level, especially electoral democracy? Finally, and closely related, what differences do the political systems within which deliberative processes are embedded make for their successes or failures? These are not the only questions that a comparative understanding deliberative democracy should ask, but they will be central to a comparative and increasingly globalised approach to deliberative democracy.

Indigenous Resources for Deliberative Politics Deliberative cultures are neither new, nor inventions of the West (Sass and Dryzek, 2014). He and Breen note that deliberative cultures in Asia are among the strongest in the world. Datta dates deliberative practices in India to the fifth century BCE, while Antlöv and Wetterberg comment that Musrenbang meetings in Indonesia build on long-standing deliberative traditions. The political cultures in China, Japan and South Korea draw on ancient Confucian traditions and practices of deliberation, including, for example, the ideal of kentan − sincere heart-to-heart talk. Sani notes that all three of Malaysia’s main ethnic groups, Malays, Indian, and Chinese, value the patience and respect necessary for good deliberation. In particular, the regions of Southeast Asia place a high cultural value on musyawarah (consultation) and muafakat (consensus), which should be understand as enabling with the ideal of gotong-royong (mutual co-operation). The dominant ethnic groups Nepal, Breen suggests, have traditional consensus cultures, which can often support deliberative approaches to political conflict. Finally, Curato notes that not only does the Philippines have deliberative traditions rooted in pre-colonial forms of governance, but these traditions were theorised by revolutionary thinkers during late nineteenth-century anti-colonial struggles. In all of these cases, deliberative cultures are older than colonial systems and modern nation-states, whether more authoritarian or more democratic in structure. In some cases, deliberative ideals and practices counted as resistance to Western colonialism; in others, they have become the basis for reinventing participatory, consultative, and deliberative institutions within modern nation-states. Indeed, it is likely that most cultures have deliberative capacities and knowledge, probably because solving problems and conflicts through deliberative influence is more

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Conclusion 207

productive and less costly than alternative approaches, including coercion, economic inducements, or through traditions that might not be sufficiently flexible for emerging problems, especially in changing contexts. Many of these were suppressed by the concentrations of power that came with modern nation-state formation and colonial conquest. Why is it important to identify these capacities? If deliberative democracy is to spread, it must build on practices that are familiar to people, even if they are not dominant in their political systems. Even approaches originated in the West, such as the Deliberative Polling events described in many of these chapters, are likely to be adopted because they resonate with the deliberative ideals of local cultures. This said, in most places including Asia, deliberative cultures and knowhow are often suppressed by other kinds of influence, including caste cultures, modern nationstate formation, colonial legacies, authoritarian political systems, and/or competitive electoral systems that heavily weight strategic communication, or absorb patronage-based politics. The lessons we should probably draw are twofold. First, in Asia, like most places in the world, despite widespread knowledge of how to approach conflicts through deliberative practices, the political potentials of deliberative cultures remain largely untapped. These circumstances present important opportunities to arrange political systems so as to capture the potentials of deliberative cultures. Second, although deliberative know-how may be widespread, deliberative influence requires protection from other kinds of influence, which is why democratic contexts, with their widely distributed rights and empowerments, are necessary to translate deliberative cultures into deliberative politics. Deliberative cultures are not in short supply in Asia, but democratic political systems are relatively new where they have taken root (Japan and South Korea), evolving (India, Malaysia, Mongolia and Indonesia), delicate or compromised by authoritarian elements (Macau and Nepal), backsliding (Philippines) and mostly missing in Singapore and China. And, as Breen notes with respect to Nepal and Sone with respect to Japan, deliberative cultures can run up against consensus cultures, which value harmony over conflict, including deliberative conflict. This kind of cultural limitation can be overcome with careful design and facilitation, as, for example, with the Deliberative Polls discussed by Sone, Park, Cheong, Fishkin and Sui.

Deliberative Politics in Divided Societies In contrast to the relatively homogeneous historically Confucian countries, several of the chapters in this volume focus on deliberative politics in ethnically divided societies: Nepal (Breen), Malaysia (Sani), Singapore (Rodan) and India (Datta). While ethnic cleavages are not addressed by the chapters on Singapore and India, Nepal is an especially interesting case in that a long (seven year), relatively messy but extensive process of public deliberation produced enough public opinion shift to push elite compromise on a new federal system that, remarkably, cross-cuts regionalised ethnic cleavages. In this case, deliberative influence probably required public opinion development sufficient to dampen the strategic motivations of elites,

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while providing political cover for compromises on provincial boundaries. In contrast to a common view that deliberative processes can be successful only when issues are relatively insignificant, the peaceful transformation of Nepal from a unitary to a federal state, and that it was pushed along by deliberative penetration of public opinion is quite remarkable. In the case of Malaysia, ethnic cleavages have been managed by elite deliberation − enabled, perhaps, by longstanding deliberative cultures, combined with the strategic costs of conflict. Both cases, however, cut against a common criticism of deliberative democracy: that it depends on relatively homogeneous culture, including language, for deliberative influence to work. In these cases, it is probably the moral qualities of deliberation that build bridges. Just because of difference, the deliberative processes do the work of recognition, apart from the substance or topic of deliberation. This idea is built into the speech act theory that is so important to the Habermasian strains of deliberative democratic theory, and central to the political ethics championed by Rawls: if I want to influence you through what I say, I need to recognise you as a being who can be influenced by argument. I have already recognised you. It is likely, however, that these kinds of influences build on political backgrounds of strategic and potentially costly stalemates that, in effect, motivate people − especially political elites − to see deliberation as the best, or sometimes the only, way forward. A related issue has to do with the extent to which deliberative politics can travel to historically illiberal societies, given that both the theory and practice tends to be associated with liberal, rights-based political cultures and institutions. The theoretical logic is straightforward: for deliberation to have influence, individuals must have both standing to deliberate − rights to speak, associate, represent causes, contest, etc. − and protection from forms of power that can swamp deliberative influence, including protections for minorities. Is it possible, however, that ethics embedded within deliberative cultures can substitute for these kinds of liberal rights? Possibly: both rights cultures and deliberative cultures have common roots in social recognitions and respect for persons. Deliberative cultures enable people to look one another in the eye, and recognise that identities, religions, ethnicities and other commonly stubborn sources of conflict are essential to personhood, and are thus deserving of recognition and respect. These cultures, which are well established in most Asian countries, might very well function as indigenous resources that support deliberation, even in the absence of the codified and actionable rights that are basic to Western liberal-democracies. The chapters in this volume on ethnically divided societies are suggestive of this possibility, one that should be developed in a comparative approach to deliberative democracy.

Democratic Empowerments and Deliberative Influence The chapters in this volume mostly assume, rightly, that “democracy” and “deliberation” belong together. Deliberative influence is only as effective as those empowered to participate in deliberative processes, which is why deliberative politics should be complemented by democracy (He and Warren, 2011). Democracy

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is comprised, among other things, by the empowerments that enable participation in deliberative processes, directly or through representation. In all developed democratic systems, empowerments include rights to vote, speak, organise, petition, and related power and status qualities that provide seats at the table, and voice in public spheres, if not directly, through representatives who are accountable to those for whom they speak or decide. Deliberative influence depends upon choice: participants must be able to choose to accept or reject an argument. Choice depends not only upon the powers and protections afforded by democratic institutions, but upon balances of power, or countervailing powers, enabled by democratic equalities, strong civil societies, or other historical circumstances (as Curato notes with respect to deliberatively successful local development councils in the Philippines; see also McKay and Warren, 2018). Political agents cannot have amassed so much power (status, money, coercive capacities, etc.) that non-deliberative influences trump deliberative ones. This is why “democracy” implies distributed equalities among the powers that comprise citizenship status. The importance of the democracy to deliberative politics is twofold, particularly for the imperfectly democratic or non-democratic regimes considered in this volume (He and Warren, 2011). First, not just any claim to deliberate or consult will count as “deliberative democracy.” Indeed, absent empowerments, it will often be hard to tell whether collective decisions reflect deliberative influence at all. The presumption should always be that, absent democratic empowerments, “deliberation” is difficult to identify and to understand as authentic. Absent democracy, deliberative events, consultations, etc., might be on display, but even within these processes, it will be unclear what kinds of influence are doing the political work. Indeed, as Rodan argues with respect to Singapore and Curato with respect to KAHAHI (community-driven development programs), “deliberative” events might be used strategically by a regime to undermine democratic organisation. Second, by understanding “democracy” generically, we can avoid identifying “democracy” with elections − important both because democratic empowerments always involve more than the right to vote (as long recognised by democratic theorists: Dahl, 1999; Warren, 2017). On the one hand, electoral democracies can exhibit democratic deficiencies. On the other hand, regimes that lack democratic elections (e.g. China and Singapore), may have other kinds of empowerments that could serve as the functional equivalents of (say) voting (He and Warren, 2011). I return to these issues below. The chapters in this volume support this theoretical connection between good deliberative politics and democracy. There seems to be a close connection between competitive elections and deliberation. The connection is not a direct one − indeed, as is widely recognised, competitive elections tend to motivate strategic uses of speech and rarely generate high quality deliberation. And in many of the countries discussed in this volume − the Philippines, for example − electoral democracy is highly imperfect, absorbing older forms of patronage politics so that elections function primarily to manage elite competition. What elections can and

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sometimes do achieve, however, is attentiveness by political elites to constituents, probably in two ways. First, and most obviously, votes are little bits of power that enable voice, because they provide strategic reasons for elected representatives to ask constituents what they want. He, Huang, and Wu report that there is a close relationship in China between well-functioning village elections and deliberative events. Likewise, Datta finds that in India, competitive elections make the Panchayat Raj more sensitive to public goods, while reserved seats for women, minorities and lower castes affect the composition of public goods. Variations in electoral accountability in Panchayat Raj systems seem to correlate with variation in the deliberative qualities of the Gram Sahbas. Sani focuses on the importance of the 12th, 13th and 14th general elections in Malaysia − transitional elections that removed the consociational ruling alliance (the Barisan Nasional) from power, and which were instrumental in opening elite deliberation to public deliberation more generally. What these chapters tend to suggest is that better electoral representation helps to drive better deliberative processes, largely because elected political elites will do better if they find ways of understanding and responding to their constituents. But it is also worth noting that questions of representation within deliberative processes are also important to better and deeper democracy. It is here that the examples of Deliberative Polling are especially important, described in the chapters on Japan, Mongolia, South Korea and Macau. Open deliberative processes are important to maximise participation. But self-selection into these processes will usually mirror social power inequalities of gender/sex, class, race and ethnicity, and any other cleavages within society, as Fishkin and Sui note in their chapter. A key democratic advantage of deliberative mini-publics is that they are demographically representative, as the chapters describing Deliberative Polling note. I return to the discussion of Deliberative Polling below, but it is important that it provides a form of democratic representation that other voting, open forums, and representation through civil society organisations do not. A democratic challenge will be to figure out how to protect and relate both kinds of representation within political systems, a question that Fishkin and Sui address with respect to Mongolia. Democratic freedoms are important in indirect ways: they enable civil society organisation and public deliberation, which are closely related just because civil society organisations are conduits for countervailing powers that underwrite voice. Sani notes that the electoral openings in Malaysia, although not yet approaching a “deliberative democracy,” nonetheless provided opportunities for traditional deliberative resources to penetrate broader publics, in part through civil society organisations, and in part through increasing uses of social media incentivised by electoral openings. Antlöv and Wetterberg emphasise the importance of civil society organisation for empowering “social accountability,” which helps set agendas and motivates local deliberative politics in Indonesia. Datta likewise notes the Gram Sahbas take on more deliberative qualities when civil society organisations are present. These observations are important but not surprising: civil society organisation underwrites voice in all polities that have protections for association and speech.

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But even in polities where protections are weak, civil society organisations can push back against state suppression of these spaces. The Philippines is an important case in point. Curato notes that the high density of civil society organisations in the Philippines both established spaces for public deliberation and public accountability under Marcos and gained ground after Marcos in the 1987 Constitution, which guarantees rights of participation. Growing in strength in the post-Marcos era, civil society organisations in the Philippines continue to push back against the current strongman regime of Duterte, despite the dangers. Comparatively, these cases highlight the absence of civil society in China and suggest that a key difference between more authoritarian and more democratic contexts is not so much the presence of elections in themselves (Gandhi and Lust-Okar, 2009), but whether civil society organizations have the strength, organisation, and density to protect and expand deliberative spaces. The civil society question should draw attention to another key feature of democracy: public spheres, supported by dense civil societies, are spaces within which agendas are argued and deliberated (Dahl, 1999, chapter 4; Habermas, 1996, chapter 8). Thus, even if deliberative politics is present in authoritarian contexts, it is unlikely to count as democratic if governments retain control of the agenda by suppressing or forbidding civil society organisations and the publicly driven contestation and deliberation they enable. This is a key reason for paying close attention to Park’s criteria for judging the democratic qualities of Deliberative Polling events in South Korea, given their elite-driven qualities. They include “neutrality” − minimal intervention by government − in addition to the appropriateness of the issue for deliberation, adequacy of preparations, representativeness, deliberativeness, transparency, and linkages to public decision-making. Fishkin and Sui suggest a more abbreviated but still comprehensive set of criteria: deliberative institutions deepen democracy if they expand equal inclusions, provide or reflect real choices, support and motivate deliberative reason-giving and have impacts on collective decisions. These criteria help us to keep in view the question as to whether agenda-setting is responsive to publics not controlled by governments − a question that applies in particular to Deliberative Polling and similar kinds of mini-publics, where the organisational requirements require that political elites organise events, including setting agendas, as I describe in the next section. Ideally, in a democracy, government-sponsored or -organised deliberative and representative events/sites should have agendas that are responsive to broader public deliberations, supported by strong civil societies and the protections that empower them.

Deliberative Democracy and “Governance” A key advantage of using a generic conception of democracy − whether Park’s, Fishkin and Sui’s, Dahl’s or another set of criteria (e.g. Dahl, 1999; Warren, 2017; Smith, 2009; Fishkin, 2018) is that, important though electoral democracy is, many of the important innovations in deliberative democracy are occurring on the administrative, service-focused parts of government (Warren, 2014). “Democracy”

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in government service provision is important, not least because most citizens have contact with their governments through services, while the barriers to upgrading poorly functioning democracies are often located in local patronage networks. In their chapter on Indonesia, Antlöv and Wetterberg note the democratising effects of “social accountability” for basic service provision at the village level in Indonesia, functioning as the empowerments necessary for public deliberation to work. Social accountability, as Antlöv and Wetterberg develop the concept, comprises transparency, co-production of decisions and service delivery, compliance involving oversight of policies and performance, as well as civil society organisation that can contest government actions. Added together, these dimensions of social accountability generate citizen empowerments far beyond voting − and these empowerments help to ensure that citizen voices, including the deliberative interactions in village Musrenbang meetings, translate into responsive government. Social accountability aims directly at the patronage-based politics that so often undermines electoral responsiveness in relatively new electoral democracies, deepening democracy in just those places that most impact citizens. Curato notes similar effects of Local Development Councils in the Philippines, while noting that their democratising effects vary widely by locale. A focus on citizen empowerment and deliberation is likewise central to Datta’s discussion of India’s Gram Sahbas − village level deliberative assemblies. Gram Sahbas perform very unevenly, from providing spaces where citizens can demand accountability, usually with respect to basic services, to sites of patronage and electioneering, to simply not being convened, in spite of legal requirements. Datta suggests that the differences between those Gram Sahbas that are relatively successful and those that are not are traceable to citizen empowerments, from functioning local elections, to organisation of pressure groups, basic literacy, and systems for including women and lower castes. In their chapter on village-level deliberative democracy in China, He, Huang and Wu also note the importance of village elections for motivating officials to organise deliberative events at the village level. The logic in these cases is straightforward: village level officials seeking election and re-election have discovered, not surprisingly, that they will be more successful if they can understand what villagers want with respect to services delivered at the village level. An important method is to hold deliberative or consultative events. In short, village elections seem to drive deliberative politics, consistent with the general expectation that democratic empowerments underwrite deliberative politics. Deliberative Polling events usually exhibit a somewhat different pattern owing to their design (Fishkin, 2010). Most of the Deliberative Polling events described in this volume (see the chapters by Fishkin and Siu [Mongolia], Sone [Japan], Park [South Korea] and Cheong et al. [Macau]) involve discrete policy issues: nuclear power, snow removal, public pensions, tax policy and press regulations. A couple of the Korean events described here involve constitutional issues such as federalism and Korean unification, while Sone (Japan) suggests that Deliberative Polling is most effective and important for constitutional issues and preceding referendums (as with other kinds of deliberative minipublics, including the British Columbia and

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Ontario Citizens’ Assemblies, Fournier et al., 2011, and the Oregon Citizens Initiative Review, Gastil and Knobloch, 2019). In all cases, Deliberative Polls are “invited spaces” in contrast to the open spaces of public spheres, open public hearings, public advocacy and the like. By design, Deliberative Polls must be invited spaces (and thus closed), as one of their key claims to “democracy” is that they are demographically representative of a relevant population (Fishkin, 2018; Fishkin and Siu, in this volume). A key advantage of the Deliberative Polling design is that its representative and deliberative qualities can allow governments to lead on issues that are that are divisive, obscure (issues for which public opinion is not solidified), or where politicians have conflicts of interest (as with many constitutional issues). Because of its organizational and financial requirements, Deliberative Polling depends upon some kind of institutional sponsorship in partnership with Stanford’s Center for Deliberative Democracy − often governments, but sometimes academics with research interests in democratic innovations. For the same reasons, issues must usually be defined discretely enough to deliver results. Deliberative Polling thus makes most sense in countries with administrative states capable of both organising and responding to results. And because they are closed events, they could be easiest to organise where public demand for participation is low, and public advocacy groups are willing to stand aside. Where these conditions do not exist, it is important to consider complementary forms of participation and advocacy, as Fishkin and Siu suggest with respect to the integration of Deliberative Polling into the Mongolian political system. Usually, however, processes such as Deliberative Polling should be understood as institutional innovations that deepens democracy in well-functioning electoral democracies, but through the “governance” rather than electoral side of government. This said, these are limitations of institutional practicality rather than principle, as Deliberative Polls can be used to complement other processes with the right timing and sponsorship (Fishkin et al., 2020).

Deliberation in Authoritarianism Contexts Perhaps surprisingly, not all experiments in deliberative politics, Deliberative Polling included, occur within democratic contexts. Three of the chapters in this volume − those focused on China, Singapore and Macau − examine deliberative politics within authoritarian regimes (although citizens of Macau, as a Chinese Special Administrative Region, enjoy more freedoms than do most Chinese citizens, at least for the time being), or strongman regimes (the Philippines). And, as Antlöv and Wetterberg note with respect to Indonesia, Musrenbang meetings (annual planning processes that begin at the village level and culminates in a national Musrenbang that sets development priorities) originated under authoritarianism. Why would authoritarian governments use these kinds of deliberative processes (He and Warren, 2011)? As often noted, relative to the developed democracies, authoritarian regimes tend to be politically brittle, as they tend to lack information about discontents, and have few mechanisms for reflexive self-correction.

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Democracies function not only to select political elites and hold them accountable, but to convey public agenda-setting into decision-making bodies such as legislatures and generally to signal problems and discontents. Deliberative politics can often improve these political functions of electoral democracies. Can deliberative politics do the same for authoritarian regimes? These cases suggest that deliberative processes can be used strategically to replace some of the functions of democracy, and to increase the responsiveness and resilience of non-democratic regimes. They can so, as Rodan notes with respect to Singapore, by using deliberative and participatory methods to channel, fragment, and co-opt discontent. Authoritarian regimes strictly control the scope of deliberative processes, limiting them to specific policy issues, and to specific levels of government. To varying degrees, these regimes suppress non-governmental organisation, so there is no civil society proper. Public discussion of issues may be allowed and sometimes even encouraged, but usually within narrow limits, often specified arbitrarily, a strategy common in authoritarian regimes as uncertainty encourages citizens to self-censor. Singapore exhibits a soft authoritarianism, allowing some discontent to be expressed through electoral competition. China is developing an increasingly comprehensive surveillance state that suppresses political competition, controls non-governmental organisations and censors public discussion, and yet continues to develop deliberative political mechanisms. These two cases are comparable in political strategy: deliberative and consultative processes can be used to respond to political demands before they result in organised opposition, producing, in effect, a smarter, more flexible, more responsive, and more resilient kind of authoritarianism − effects that Rodan terms “compassionate meritocracy” and and Singapore leaders term “political paternalism” and that apply equally well to China. Disturbingly for deliberative democrats, governance-constrained and focused deliberative politics without democracy is probably helping to reinvent authoritarianism (He and Warren, 2011). These developments also suggest related question: through deliberative mechanisms, is it possible to absorb all democratic ideals and functions into “governance”? This is, in effect, the bet that China, and to a lesser degree Singapore is placing. The bet depends, largely, on whether the ideals and aspirations that people tend to associate with democracy can be satisfied by a party-state that suppresses political contestation. It is likely that people in these counties are not attached to democratic processes − say, competitive elections − as much as they are to the dimensions of well-being that tend to be associated with democratic regimes: Can I live a full, self-determining life, given collective interdependence and vulnerability? Can I avoid arbitrary exercises of power that undermine my life-chances? Can my children live a life free of deprivation? And, can these kinds of effects be achieved by authoritarian means? China has, of course, placed a heavy bet that they can, beginning with economic development. Not by accident, most of the countries that rank highly in human development as captured by the UN Human Development Index are developed democracies (see also Dahl, 1999, chapter 5). China ranked 85th in the world (as at 2019), despite several decades of remarkable economic growth that has pulled half a billion of its citizens out of dire poverty.

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Singapore, however, ranks 11th − far above the United States (17th) and above most European countries. Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China, ranked fourth in 2019! It is unclear how the current authoritarian crackdown by the Chinese party-state will affect Human Development Index rankings − but it is very clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is betting that human development, powered mostly by economic development, will trump democracy, even in Hong Kong. And the case of Singapore suggests that careful channelling, fragmentation, and segmentation of political contestation through deliberative governance channels can provide the means for doing so, as Rodan argues. However, it is likely that China and Singapore are on divergent paths, with Singapore continuing to reform in democratic directions, while China is increasingly authoritarian, suggesting that the CCP is either uncertain that deliberative governance might fully substitute for democracy, or − more probably and in contrast to Singapore − that the Xi Jinping regime never viewed such a possibility as a viable strategy.

Deliberative Processes and Political/Policy Systems Taken together, these questions and considerations suggest a set of overarching comparative questions: Where can and should deliberative politics be integrated with encompassing political systems? Where can they have the most impact? What are elite incentives to use them? The chapters in this volume are suggestive (see especially Fishkin and Siu in this volume), although none takes a political systems approach that would enable generalisable comparative answers (see for example the approach suggested by Warren, 2017). One generalisation that emerges from these chapters, however, is that the political functions and effects of deliberative processes depend upon their encompassing political systems. Thus, for example, functioning electoral systems tend to support deliberative processes, particularly when combined with strong civil societies, at least in these Asian cases. Although we do not yet have sufficient evidence, it might be that elected representatives in societies with deeply rooted consensus cultures are more likely to support deliberative processes as part of constituency development and feedback. But it is also possible that deliberative processes can be co-opted into electioneering and patronage politics. Datta’s discussion of the highly variable Gram Sahba performance within Indian Gram Panchayat systems suggests both possibilities. Park’s evaluation of Deliberative Polling in South Korea suggests that the democratic quality these processes depends on some amount of insulation from the strategic goals of government and elections, as do Fishkin and Siu with respect to Deliberative Polling in Mongolia. But these observations suggest a somewhat tense relationship between electoral and government strategies and deliberative processes: political elites need incentives to organise deliberative processes, but their integrity requires enough insulation from strategic political influences for deliberation to exert its influence, and for these processes to function as democratic empowerments. Within authoritarian systems, as noted above, the systems logic is different: political elites apparently value deliberative processes for the information they provide, and for the appearance (and often reality) of responsiveness. What they seek to avoid are processes

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that become unbounded or uncontrolled or threaten to provide venues for political organisations outside of the party-state. In sum, this volume provides not just an entry into deliberative democracy in Asia, but also essential material for formulating the questions that will define comparative approaches to deliberative democracy going forward. These include at least the following. First, can deliberative democracy build upon local and indigenous practices of deliberation, particularly those with deeply rooted consensus cultures? Second, can deliberative approaches help to bridge longstanding religious and ethnic cleavages that have stunted political and economic development in too many places, not just in Asia, but in many other places as well? Third, to what extent do other democratic institutions, such as free and fair election and rights-protected spaces for civil society advocacy, support the deliberative dimensions of political systems? Fourth, to what extent can deliberative democracy be governance-driven, particularly by the administrative parts of government that citizens most commonly experience? Fifth, to what extent can deliberative politics be used by authoritarian governments to increase their resilience and legitimacy? If authoritarian governments can use deliberative means to increase their responsiveness and performance, can they avoid democratisation? Finally, and closely related, what differences do encompassing political systems make for the contributions of deliberative politics to democratisation and good governance? Can we move beyond the current “deliberative systems” approach (Parkinson and Mansbridge, 2012) to think about deliberative politics in political systems more generally, particularly with respect to their broader democratic contributions and functions? These questions − and questions very much like them − are not specific to deliberative politics in Asia, but the Asian cases help us to expand their reach. To the extent that we can begin to answer them, we will also be developing a comparative approach to deliberative democracy.

References Bächtiger, Andre, John Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge and Mark E. Warren. 2018. “Deliberative Democracy: An Introduction.” In the Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy. Edited by Andre Bächtiger, John Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge and Mark E. Warren. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–31. Dahl, Robert. 1999. On Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Fishkin, James S. 2018. Democracy When the People Are Thinking P: Revitalizing Our Politics Through Public Deliberation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fishkin, James S., Alice Siu, Larry Diamond and Norman Bradburn. 2020. “Is Deliberation an Antidote to Extreme Partisan Polarization? Reflections on America in One Room.” Paper presented to the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting. Fishkin, James S., Baogang He, Robert C. Luskin and Alice Siu. 2010. “Deliberative Democracy in an Unlikely Place: Deliberative Polling in China.” British Journal of Political Science, 40(2): 435–448. Fournier, Patrick, Henk Van der Kolk, R. Kenneth Carty, André Blais and Jonathan Rose. 2011. When Citizens Decide: Lessons from Citizen Assemblies on Electoral Reform. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Gastil, John and Katherine Knobloch. 2019. Hope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back into Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gandhi, Jennifer and Ellen Lust-Okar. 2009. “Elections under Authoritarianism.” Annual Review of Political Science, 12: 403–422. Habermas, Jürgen. 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. He, Baogang and Mark E. Warren. 2011. Authoritarian Deliberation: The Deliberative Turn in Chinese Political Development. Perspectives on Politics, 9(2): 269–289. McKay, Spencer and Mark E. Warren. 2018. “Democratizing Governance Through Countervailing Power.” In Handbook on Participatory Governance. Edited by Hubert Heinelt. Cheltenham and Camberley: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, pp. 77-93. Parkinson, John and Jane Mansbridge, eds. 2012. Deliberative Systems: Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sass, Jensen and John S. Dryzek. 2014. “Deliberative Cultures.” Political Theory, 42(1): 3–25. Smith, Graham. 2009. Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warren, Mark E. 2014. “Governance-Driven Democratization.” In Practices of Freedom: Democracy, Conflict and Participation in Decentred Governance. Edited by Steven Griggs, Aletta Norval and Hendrik Wagenaar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 38–59. Warren, Mark E. 2017. “A Problem-Based Approach to Democratic Theory.” American Political Science Review, 111(1): 39–53.

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INDEX

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi 89 accountability 39, 49, 130; actors 106; formal 42; light touch 43; social 41–44, 45–48, 50–51, 210–211, 212 aggregative electoral democracy 5 Amendment of the Press Law and Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act Deliberative Poll, Macao 174–187; background 174; Broadcasting Council approaches 180–182, 181; data analyses and results 177–183, 178, 179, 181, 182, 184–185, 185–186; Deliberation-Day 175; Deliberative Polling Public Group attitudes 177–178, 178; evaluation 185–186, 185; group discussions 183, 184–185; insights 186–187; internet regulation 182, 183; participant feedback 183, 185–186; political situation 172– 173; Press Council approaches 178–180; procedure 174–176; questionnaire 175, 176; representativeness 177; research methods and implementation 174–176; respondent statistics 175; result 186–187; social functions 187; surveys 174–175 Anderson, Benedict 121 Antlöv, Hans 13, 39–40, 206, 210, 212, 213 argument, power of 111 Asia, democracy in 4–6, 12, 205 Australia 142, 143 authoritarian contexts, deliberative politics 215–216 authoritarian deliberation 4, 16–17, 36, 217 authoritarian developmentalism 108

authoritarianism contexts, deliberative politics 213–215 (merge with authoritarian contexts above) authority 89 Babic, Milan 132 Bächtiger, André 2, 123 Balvantrao Committee Report 57 Bello, Walden 121 BERSIH 2.0 94 Bhattacharya, M. 59 Bhim Rawal 76 Bhusal, Thanesh 72 Bianyu Village, China, deliberative democracy experiment 28, 31–32, 31 bias 146–147 Big Data 96 Bolivia 57 Breen, Michael 7, 13, 117, 206, 207 briefing materials 11, 32, 144, 174–5, 194Brinkerhoff, Derick W. 42 British Columbia 212–213 Bunn Nagara 91 Calimbahin, Cleo Anne A. 121 Cambodia 4, 5 capitalism 105 capitalist development 103, 104, 116, 117 Case, William 89 Caste system 7, 9, 63, 65, 71–72, 207 caucuses 74–75 Chandhoke, Neera 50 Cheong, Angus 15

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China 22, 214; 2005 National Survey 21, 22; all-villagers’ assemblies 20; authoritarian deliberation 4; Bianyu Village deliberative democracy experiment 28, 31–32, 31; CCP control 9; civil society absence 211; consultative authoritarianism 21; data 21; Deliberative Polling 9–10, 11–12, 32–35; deliberative traditions 7, 206; democratic appraisal system 24–25; democratic measures 19; Guangming Village Deliberative Polling 32–35; Guidelines on Procedures and Rules for Public Hearings” 20; harmonious society 19; Human Development Index ranking 214–215; introduction of deliberative methods 4; methodology 21; one matter, one discussion system 20; resistance to democratisation 5; rightful resistance movement 19; traditional practice 34; village autonomy 34; village cadres 28; village council system 20; Village Council System 23; village deliberation 9, 12–13, 19–36; village deliberation index 23; village deliberation institutions 20; village deliberation measurement 22–25, 24, 25; village deliberation regularisation and frequency 22, 22; village democracy index 36; village elections 19, 25, 210, 212; Villager Committees 19 Chinese Communist Party 9, 11–12, 215 choice 191, 193 citizen-centred motivation 44 citizen empowerment 212 citizen engagement 13 citizen forums 39–40 citizen participation, spaces for 42–43 Citizen’s Assemblies 3 civic engagement 49 civic participation 155 civil society and civil society organisations 42–43, 45, 49, 99; discursive strategies 130; empowerment 9; importance of 210–211; Malaysia 93–94; and the media 94; the Philippines 126, 129–130 Claudio, Lisandro 124 client-centred motivation 44 collective action 104 community capacity 41 community-driven development programmes 128–129 community spirit 91 compassion 116 competitive democracy 191 compliance 42, 49

confrontation 42 Confucian culture 7, 91, 139, 206 consensus 7–8, 50, 72, 81, 89, 91–92, 206 consensus politics 90 consociationalism 14, 87–90, 90 constitutional amendment 11, 57, 64, 149–150, 192, 199, 200 constitutionalism, deliberative 2–3, 70–71, 82–83 constitution-making 3, 13, 70–83; consensus 72; decision-making 72–73; in divided societies 73; evaluation 78–80; feedback 79; local level dialogues 79, 82; participatory processes 70, 72, 73–75, 78–80, 81–82; stages 73 consultative authoritarianism 21 consultative ideologies 103, 106 consultative representation 103 co-production 42, 49 Cornwall, Andrea 42–43 COVID-19 pandemic 132 cultural limitation 207 Curato, Nicole 6, 8, 14, 206, 209, 211, 212 Daim Zainuddin 98 Datta, Prabhat Kumar 13, 206, 210, 212 decentralisation 43, 46–47, 127 decision-making 2, 3, 5, 23, 72–73, 211; collective 2, 132, 205; people’s importance 97 deliberation: definition 2, 21; and democracy 209–210; enclave 191; purpose 148; sites for 190 deliberative capacity 6–7 deliberative constitutionalism 2–3, 70–71, 82–83 deliberative councils 97–99 deliberative democracy 5–6, 205, 209, 211–213 deliberative democracy theory 2–4, 12, 208 deliberative governance 36, 211–213 deliberative habits 129–132 deliberative influence 208–211 deliberativeness 2 deliberative politics: authoritarian contexts 215–216; authoritarianism contexts 213–215; in divided societies 207–208; integration 215–216 Deliberative Polling 3, 6, 9–10, 72–73, 81, 82, 207, 212–213; assessment criteria 33; briefing materials 32, 144; characteristics 143–144; China 9–10, 11–12, 32–35; comparative approach 139; criteria 15; cultural approach 138–139; democratic contribution 118; evaluation 117–118,

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166–167, 185–186, 185; evaluation and limits 157, 159–160, 162–163, 166; evaluation criteria 155, 156; funding 143; group discussions 183, 184–185; group of experts 11; Guangming Village, China 32–35; implementation 138; inclusive 118; introduction of Deliberative Polling 136; Japan 10, 14, 117, 136–152; legal status 148; legitimacy 10–11; logistics 144; Macao 10, 15, 172–187; media presence 159–160; methods 145–146; Mongolia 10, 11, 15, 190–204, 210, 213, 215; Myanmar 117; opinion changes 157, 159, 160, 162, 162, 163, 165–166, 165, 195–197, 197, 199–200, 201–203; organisation and operations 156–157, 159, 161, 164, 165; outcomes 34–35; participant feedback 183, 185–186; participants 146, 194; participant selection 156, 159, 161, 164, 190, 199; participation rate 143–144, 156–157, 159, 161, 199, 210; and partisan politics 148–149, 151; piloting 190–204; and the policy making process 147–148; procedural validity 158; procedure 174–176; Public Deliberation Committee 166; public participation 138, 145–147, 146; questionnaire 175, 176; Real Estate Policy Reform case study 155–158, 157; Referendum on Constitutional Amendment, Japan 149–151; representativeness 177, 190–191; research methods and implementation 174–176; respondent statistics 175; A Road to One Korea case study 158–160, 160; role of political parties 11–12; Shin-Gori Nuclear Reactors No. 5 and No. 6 case study 154, 163–166, 165, 165, 167, 168; social foundations 105; social functions 186–187, 187; South Korea 10, 14–15, 154–168, 211, 215; Spent Nuclear Fuel case study 160–163, 162, 163, 166–167; spread of 10; stages 33; standardisation 146–147; surveys 174–175; themes 152 deliberative quality 190 deliberative system: inclusion 193, 194; Mongolia 190–204; National Deliberative Poll on Constitutional Amendment 199–200, 201–203, 203–204; piloting 190; representativeness 190–191; research agenda 3–4; steps 192–193; Ulaanbaatar Deliberative Poll 193–194, 195–197, 197–198, 198 deliberative theory 123, 132 deliberative traditions 6–8, 91–92, 99, 206

deliberative turn, the 2, 49 demand-side approach 42–43 democracy 207, 208–209; aggregative electoral 5; competitive 191; conceptions of 4–6; crisis of 5; deepening 4, 44–48, 49; and deliberation 209–210; deliberative 5–6; direct 137; majoritarian electoral 5; Malaysia 88–89; cacique 121; oral 7; participatory 5–6; village 7 democratic appraisal system 24–25 democratic capacity 104 democratic communication 123 democratic competition 41 (delete?) democratic contribution 118 democratic deficit 50, 121–122, 126 democratic empowerments 208–211, 215 democratic freedoms 210–211 democratic renewal 55 democratic stagnation 38–39 democratic theory 2–3, 7, 49, 72, 208 democratisation 81, 88, 125, 137, 154 development programmes, community-driven 128–129 devolution 40 Dialogue Sessions 113 direct democracy 137 discourse change 79–80 discursive representatives 112 discursive strategies 130 disinformation 6 dispute resolution and settlement 91 divided societies 3; constitution-making in 73; deliberative politics in 207–208; democratisation 81 Diwakar Committee 57 dominance 49 Drake, Anna 73 Dryzek, John 2, 3, 6, 21, 33, 73, 82, 89, 99–100 Duterte, Rodrigo 120, 121–122, 131 Ebine, Yasunori 152 e-consultation 112–113 elections 28, 209–210; Indonesia 38; Malaysia, General Election, 2018 87–88, 92–93, 94, 95; and political trust 28; village 19, 25 electoral representation 210 electronic platforms 112–113 Elstub, Daniel 5 empowerment 9, 23, 40, 41, 44, 49–50, 65 enclave deliberation 191 engagement 46, 49 equality 173, 209 equal opportunity 173

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Estrada, Joseph 129 everyday talk 191 exclusion 72 Facebook 114, 115 facilitators 41, 44–45 fake news 6, 131 federalism 75–77, 78–79, 79–80, 117 feedback 79, 183, 185–186 Fishkin, James S. 3, 10, 15, 32, 46, 49, 72–73, 73, 142, 144, 173, 191, 210, 211, 213, 215 Fossati, Diego 38 Foster, Andrew 61–62 Fox, Jonathan 43, 50 freedom 210–211 Fukushima nuclear accident 163 funding 63 Gandhi, Mahatma 7, 54, 56, 57 Germany 137 Ghatak, Maitreesh and Maitreya Ghatak 59 globalisation 108 Gnanasagaran, Angaindrankumar 98 Goh Chok Tong 110 governance 36, 211–213 Gram Panchayat 54 Gram Panchayat Development Plan, India 63 Gram Sabhas, India 7, 13, 54–65, 64, 215; attendance 60–61; attendance of women 60, 62, 64; background 54–57; benefits 61–62; citizen empowerment 212; constraints 65; definition 57; deliberative qualities 210; and democratic renewal 55; first generation 57; frequency of meetings 60; functions 54–55, 58, 62; funding 63; Gram Panchayat Development Plan 63; improving effectiveness 63–64; Karnataka 57; Kerala 58, 62, 65; lack of interest in 59; leaders 59; legal strength 60; Madhya Pradesh 60; membership 54; origins 54, 56–57; participation 59; under PESA 59–60; political parties involvement 63–64; quotas 58; Scheduled Areas 59–60; second generation 57–58; size 58; spread of 58; uniqueness 59; Uttar Pradesh 57, 58; West Bengal 55, 58, 58–59, 61; workings 60–62 Gramsci, Antonio 132 group discussions 183 Guangming Village, China, Deliberative Polling 32–35 Guidelines on Procedures and Rules for Public Hearings, China 20

Habermas, Jurgen 2, 6–7, 94, 208 Havel, Vaclav 120 healthcare 43–44 He, Baogang 4, 12–13, 20, 117, 206, 210, 212 Hong Kong 215 Hsu, Szu-chien 28 Huang, Zhenhua 12–13 Human Development Index 214–215 Huntington, Samuel P. 137 Ibrahim, Anwar 91 implementation failures 44 inclusion 81, 191, 193, 194 Indera Mahkota Parliamentary Consultative Council, Malaysia 97 India 4, 57, 207; British rule 56; caste system 7, 63; citizen empowerment 212; Constitution 54, 56–57; crisis of democracy 5; deliberative traditions 7, 206; democratic renewal 55; Directive Principle of State Policy 57; Fourteenth Finance Commission 63; Gram Sabhas 7, 13, 54–65, 210, 212, 215; history of village deliberation 55–57; Karnataka 57; Kerala 58, 62, 65; Madhya Pradesh 60; Monatgue-Chelsford reforms 56; Panchayati Raj system 54; Panchayats 9; Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) 1996 59–60, 61–62; political education 55; Royal Commission on Decentralization 56; sabhas 55–56; Scheduled Areas 59–60; Uttar Pradesh 56, 57, 58; village deliberation 9, 13, 54–65; West Bengal 55, 58, 58–59, 61, 64; women 60, 62, 64 indigenous resources, building on 206–207 Indonesia: citizen engagement 13; citizen forums 39–40; civil society 42–43, 45; community capacity 41; Constitution 57–58, 64; decentralisation 43; deepening deliberative democracy 44–48; deliberative traditions 8; democratic competition 41; democratic stagnation 38–39; democratization 38; devolution 40; elections 38; healthcare 43–44; implementation 40–41; implementation failures 44; local-level forums and practices 39–40; mediated citizenship 48–49; Ministry of Home Affairs 46, 47; Ministry of Villages 41; Musrenbang meetings 39, 213; Musrenbang Plus events 46; National Development Planning Agency 46; National Program for Community Empowerment (PNPM)

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40, 40–41, 51n1; social accountability 41–44, 45–48, 50–51, 212; state-society relations 45; technocratic turn 45; Village Assembly 40, 44–45; village deliberation 9, 13, 38–51; Village Law 40, 40–41, 44–45 informal communicative realm 100 Instagram 114 Institute of Local Self-Government and Responsible Citizenship 60 Institute of Rural Studies in Central China Normal University 21 Institute of Social Sciences 60–61 internet, the 95; regulation 182, 183 Italy 137 Japan: Constitutional Review Board 150–151; deliberative democracy 138; Deliberative Polling 10, 12, 14, 117, 136–152; Deliberative Polling implementation delay 142–143; Deliberative Polls 136, 139, 140–141, 142–143, 145–147; deliberative traditions 7, 206; democratic history 137; Diet 147, 148, 148–149, 150, 151; direct democracy 137; Fukushima nuclear accident 163; introduction of Deliberative Polling 139; lessons 143–144; parliamentary reform 149, 151; partisan politics 148–149, 151; policy making 136–152; policy making process 147–148; public participation 138, 145–147, 146; Referendum on Constitutional Amendment 149–151; Taisho democracy 136 Jinjin, Wu 12–13 Johnson, Boris 150 Journal of Public Deliberation (journal) 46, 48 KALAHI-CIDSS 128–129 Kawanaka, Takeshi 127 Keio University, Centre for Deliberative Poll 139 Kerala, India 58, 62, 65 Kong, Hoi 3 Korea, deliberative traditions 7 Lafont, Christina 6 Law on Deliberative Polling, Mongolia 15, 192, 198–199, 204 Lee Kuan Yew 108 Lee, Y. 167 legal status, Deliberative Polling 148 legal strength 60 legitimacy 82

Levy, Ron 3 Lewis, Blane D. 48–49 liberal pluralist approaches 105 Lieten, G.K. 59 Lim Beng Soon 91 Liow, Joseph Chin Yong 91 literacy 62 L.M.Singhvi Committee 57 Local Development Councils, the Philippines 125–128, 129 Luskin, R. 162 Mabini, Apolinario 123 Macao: Amendment of the Press Law and Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act Deliberative Poll 174–187; Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act 174, 178, 178, 183, 186; Deliberative Polling 10, 15, 172–187; Law no. 224/2011 173; political efficacy 176, 178, 180, 182, 187; political situation 172, 213; Press Law 174, 177, 178, 183, 186, 187; public consultation 173; questionnaire 176; representativeness 177; result 186–187 McCulloch, Allison 73 Ma, Deyong 28 Madhya Pradesh, India 60 Madison, James 148 Maine, Henry 56 majoritarian electoral democracy 5 Malaysia: society 93–94, 99; Committee on Institutional Reforms 98–99; communities 87; consociationalism 14, 87–90, 90; Council of Eminent Persons 97–98; deliberative councils 97–99; deliberative traditions 8, 91–92, 99, 206; democracy 88–89; democratisation 88; elections 210; Electoral Commission 94; electoral system 88; Elite Deliberation 88–90; ethnic cleavages 207, 208; ethnic politics 99; executive authority 89; General Election, 2018 4, 87–88, 92–93, 94, 95; Indera Mahkota Parliamentary Consultative Council 97; media 94, 95–96; middle class 93–94; particularist ideologies 107; public participation 9, 13–14, 87–100; race riots 87; Reformasi (Reform) movement period 93; shift to public deliberation 90–96; Temerloh Parliamentary Consultative Council (TPCC) 96–97; transformation of power 92–93; two-coalition system 92–93 Mansbridge, Jane 3, 191, 193 marginalisation 49 Matsuzawa, Shigefumi 151–152

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May, Glenn Anthony 123–124 media 80, 95–96, 130–131; and civil society 94; role 150 mediated citizenship 48–49 meetings, frequency of 60 Melgar, Teresa 127 micro political performances 122, 132 military-backed regimes 4 mini-publics 2, 190, 211, 212–213 Ministry of Community Development, Singapore 112 Ministry of Home Affairs, Indonesia 46, 47 mode of participation (MOP) 14, 103–118; analysis 104; definition 104; framework 104–107; institutional focus 105; nominated members of parliament (NMPs) 109, 110–112; non-democratic ideologies 106; Our Singapore Conversation 109, 114–116; and power relations 105; REACH 109, 112–114; Singapore 107–118 moderators 183, 194 modernisation 7 Mongolia: Advisory Committee for Deliberative Polling 192; background 192–193; Deliberative Polling 10, 11, 15, 190–204, 210, 213, 215; deliberative system 190–204; Law on Constitutional Amendment Procedure 10; Law on Deliberative Polling 15, 192, 198–199, 204; National Deliberative Poll on Constitutional Amendment 199–200, 201–203, 203–204; participation 193, 194; Ulaanbaatar Deliberative Poll 192, 193–194, 195–197, 197–198, 198 Mongolian Marketing Consulting Group 194 Mongolian People’s Party 11, 200 Myanmar 4; crisis of democracy 5; Deliberative Polling 117; deliberative traditions 7; federalism 117 Naga, the Philippines 127 Najib Razak 90, 95 Narayan, Jayaprakash 56–57 National Council of Applied Economic Research 60 National Development Planning Agency, Indonesia 46 National Program for Community Empowerment (PNPM), Indonesia 40, 40–41, 51n1 National Public Deliberation Committee for Deliberative Polling, Singapore 12

National Public Deliberation Committee, South Korea 154 National Survey, 2005, China 21, 22 nation building 124–125, 132 Nepal: background 71–72; comprehensive peace agreement 73; consensus 72; Constituent Assembly 11, 72, 73–75, 78–79, 82; Constitution agreed 78; constitution-making 13, 70–83; decisionmaking 72–73; deliberative traditions 7, 7–8; democratisation 7–8; division of powers 76; ethnic cleavages 207–208; exclusion 72; federalism 75–77, 78–79, 79–80; federalism debate 13, 70, 75; feedback 79; interim constitution (2007) 73–74; local level dialogues 79, 82; participatory processes 70, 72, 73–75, 78–80, 81–82; political and social structures 71–72; province model 77, 78, 80, 82; public participation 9; Second Constituent Assembly 77–78, 80, 82; State Restructuring Commission 77; transformation 70; Village Development Councils 57 neutrality, maintenance of 166, 166–167 nominated members of parliament (NMPs), Singapore 109, 110–112 non-governmental organisations 93, 125, 126, 129 North Korea 160 Odonkhuu, Munkhsaikhan 11 Ontario 213 opinion changes 157, 159, 160, 165–166, 165, 195–197, 197, 199–200, 201–203 oral democracy 7 Our Singapore Conversation 109, 114–116 Panchayati Raj system, India 54 Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) 1996, India 59–60, 61–62 Parkinson, John 2, 123, 193 Park, Jieun 14–15, 211, 215 Parthasarathy, Ramya 65 participant feedback 183, 185–186 participants 146, 194; selection 156, 159, 161, 164, 190, 199 participation rate 143–144, 156–157, 159, 161, 175, 199, 210 participatory budgeting 106 participatory constitution-making 70–71, 73–74, 80–82 participatory democracy 5–6 Participatory Research in Asia 61 particularist ideologies 107

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Pateman, Carole 106, 138 patronage 50, 126, 128, 212, 215 peace-building practice 73 PEMANTAU 94 People’s Campaign in Kerala 65 Philippines, the 4, 209; anti-colonial struggles 123–124; civil society 126, 129–130, 211; community-driven development programmes 128–129; Constitution, 1987 125; deliberative democracy trajectory 14, 120–133; deliberative habits 129–132; deliberative institutions 125–129; deliberative traditions 123–125, 206; democracy 209–210; democratic aspirations 122–123; democratic deficit 121–122, 126; Local Development Councils 125–128, 129, 212; Local Government Code 125, 125–126, 127; media 130–131; micro political performances 122, 132; People Power Revolution 120, 121; public participation 9 polarisation 3 Policy Feedback Groups 113 policy making 136–152; Deliberative Polls 139, 140–141, 142–143; and partisan politics 148–149, 151; process 147–148; public participation 138, 158; Referendum on Constitutional Amendment, Japan 149–151; South Korea 154–168 political bosses 121–122 political economy 104, 105, 116 political education 55 political efficacy 176, 178, 180, 182, 187, 188n5 political parties, role in Deliberative Polling 11–12, 63–64 political trust 28 popular control: conditions for 49; criteria for 191–192 populism 9, 106, 150, 150–151 power relations 105 powers, division of 76 power structure 9 Prasad, Sachchinand 60 press conferences 144 problem-solving 106–107 procedural validity 158 public consultations 75 public deliberation 4; shift to 90–96 public opinion 173 public participation: consociationalism 87–90; consultative MOPs 107–110; Deliberative Polling 145–147, 146;

increase in 1; Japan 138; Malaysia 9, 13–14, 87–100; mode of participation (MOP) framework 104–107; Nepal 9; nominated members of parliament (NMPs) 110–112; Our Singapore Conversation 114–116; policy making 138, 158; REACH 112–114; Singapore 9, 14, 103–118 public policy choices 110 public spheres 211 Pudhu Vaazhvu Project 62, 65 questionnaire, Amendment of the Press Law and Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act Deliberative Poll, Macao 175, 176 Quimpo, Nathan 122 Rao, Vijayendra 7, 65 rationality 104, 106–107, 111 Rawls, John 2, 208 Reaching Everyone @ Home for Active Citizenry (REACH), Singapore 109, 112–114 Real Estate Policy Reform case study, South Korea 155–158, 157 reason, power of 2 referenda 150–151 Reflections of Our Singapore Conversation: What Future Do We Want? How do We Get There? (OSC Committee) 115 Reid, Ben 129 representation 81; consultative 103; consultative ideologies 106–107; ideologies of 105–107; multiple forms of 106; non-democratic ideologies 106; particularist ideologies 107; populist ideologies 106 representativeness 177, 190–191 respect 73, 89 responsiveness 44, 46–47, 49 rightful resistance movement, China 19 rights cultures 208 Road to One Korea case study, A South Korea 158–160, 160 Robredo, Jesse 127 Rodan, Garry 12, 19, 126, 214, 215 Rosenzweig, Mark 61–62 roundtables 28, 31 sabhas, India 55–56 Saifuddin Abdullah 96–97 Sambodho, Johanes Prio 41, 45 Sani, Mohd Azizuddin Mohd 14, 206, 210 Sanyal, Paromita 7 Sass, Jensen 6

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Schatten Coelho, Vera 42–43 segmental autonomy 89 self-government 132 Sen, Amartya 6 sequenced 13, 73, 81, 82, 192 service delivery 41–42, 43, 49 service improvements 48–49 Shen, Qianfei 19 Shin-Gori Nuclear Reactors No. 5 and No. 6 deliberative poll, South Korea 154, 163–166, 165, 165, 167, 168 Sidel, John 121–122 Singapore 4, 12, 207, 214, 215; authoritarian developmentalism 108; Constitution 110; consultative MOPs 107–110; democratic shortcomings 116; Dialogue Sessions 113; election, 2015 116; election, 2020 116; Feedback Unit 109, 112–114; growth rates 109; industrial restructuring 109; Maintenance of Parents Bill, 1994 110; minister 110; Ministry of Community Development 112; mode of participation (MOP) 14, 107–118; nominated members of parliament (NMPs) 109, 110–112; OSC 109–110; Our Singapore Conversation 109, 114–116; People’s Action Party (PAP) 108, 109, 109–110, 110–111, 113–114, 115–116; Policy Feedback Groups 113; power relations 105; public participation 9, 14, 103–118; Reaching Everyone @ Home for Active Citizenry (REACH) 109, 112–114; social disruption 108–109 Siu, Alice 15, 32, 144, 210, 211, 213, 215 social accountability 41–44, 45–48, 49, 50–51, 210–211, 212 social functions 186–187, 187 social media 6, 95, 96, 114, 115 social recognitions 208 Sone, Yasunori 14, 117 South Korea: civic participation 155; Deliberative Polling 10, 14–15, 154–168, 211, 215; deliberative traditions 206; democratisation 154; inter-Korean co-operation 160; National Public Deliberation Commission 167; National Public Deliberation Committee 154; presidential election 2017 154; Public Deliberation Committee 162, 163, 164, 167, 168; Real Estate Policy Reform case study 155–158, 157; A Road to One Korea case study 158–160, 160; ShinGori Nuclear Reactors No. 5 and No. 6 deliberative poll 154, 163–166, 165, 165,

167; Spent Nuclear Fuel case study 160–163, 162, 163, 166–167 sovereignty 73 speech act theory 208 Spent Nuclear Fuel case study, South Korea 160–163, 162, 163, 166–167 Sri Lanka 4, 7 standardisation 146–147 standardisation 151 Stanford University Center for Deliberative Democracy 144 State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China 20 state-society relations 42–43, 45, 49 Sunstein, Cass S. 73, 77, 78 surveys 174–175 Tagore, Rabindranath 56 Tanzania 57 technocracy 5 technocratic politico-bureaucrats 108 technocratic turn 45 Teehankee, Julio C. 121 Temerloh Parliamentary Consultative Council (TPCC), Malaysia 96–97 Thailand 4, 5 Tibet 12 Tiglao-Torres, Amaryliss 128 Tong, Dezhi 20 transparency 42, 49, 161, 187 troll armies 131 Truex, Rory 21 trust 73; building 49; political 28 Tsai, Lilly 19 Tun Abdul Razak 88–89 Twitter 114 Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Deliberative Polling 10 United Kingdom 142, 148, 149; Brexit referendum 150 United Nation Development Programme 75 United States of America 142, 143, 215 Uttar Pradesh, India 56, 57, 58 village autonomy 34 village cadres 28 village deliberation 8–9; China 9, 12–13, 19–36; conditions for effective 36; democratic appraisal system 24–25; determinants 25–28, 26–27, 29–30; empowered 23; frequency 22, 22; India 9, 13, 54–65; indicators 23, 24; Indonesia 9, 13, 38–51; measurement 22–25, 24,

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25; participation 23–24, 24; quality 31–32; regularisation 22, 22 village democracy 7 village elections 19, 25 Village Law, Indonesia 40, 40–41, 44–45

women: India 60, 62, 64; mobilisation 64; representation 9 Wong, James 93 World Bank 51n1 Wurfel, David 126

Warren, Mark 4, 15 Webster, Neil 59 Welsh, Bridget 92 Wenling, China 20 West Bengal, India 58, 58–59, 61, 64 Wetterberg, Anna 13, 42, 206, 210, 212, 213 Widodo, Joko 38

Xu, Yong 19 Yudhoyono, Susilo Bambang 38 Yu, Nilan G. 129 Zahid, Ahmad 95 Zandanshatar, M.P. 203