The deliberative public servants: key actors in the institutionalization of democratic innovations in Belgium?
(2020) 9th edition of the Conference “Belgium : State of the Federation” — Location: Ghent (Virtual) (17.December.2020)
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- Since the mid-1990s, deliberative arrangements involving citizens in public decision-making have been multiplying at all levels of power. This phenomenon, described as a 'deliberative imperative' (Blondiaux & Sintomer, 2002), has led some civil servants to be entrusted with the implementation of these mechanisms. The Weberian figure of the civil servant has been overturned in his relations with citizens by this implementation of deliberative democracy, adding to the missions of civil servants the construction and the implementation - including the facilitation - of these mechanisms. Already the guardians of the neutral management of these mechanisms, civil servants must also ensure their accessibility and proper implementation. How do civil servants experience this injunction to deliberate? The objective of this paper is to explore the role of civil servants in deliberative processes and the changes that these processes bring about in the way they conceive of their role. We explore this issue through semi-directed interviews with civil servants from the parliament of the Brussels region (Belgium) involved in the organisation of a mini-public in October 2018, but also with elected representatives, policy advisors, practitioners and participation experts who worked with these civil servants in the construction and implementation of this mini-public. This deliberative mechanism, organised at the initiative of the president of the parliament Charles Picqué (socialist party), brought together forty citizens drawn by lot to debate the cross-cutting issue of mobility in a major capital. A group of experts made up of academics, practitioners of deliberation, elected representatives and civil servants was set up to design the system. A thematic analysis carried out on the basis of these various interviews shed light on the role of civil servants in these schemes. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the role of civil servants in the administration of deliberative processes in Belgium.
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Bottin, J. (2020). The deliberative public servants: key actors in the institutionalization of democratic innovations in Belgium? 9th edition of the Conference “Belgium : State of the Federation”, Ghent (Virtual). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/214489