‘Democratic renewal’ is key challenge in bumper year of elections worldwide
Human Rights
Around two billion people are eligible to vote this year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their opinions will be taken into account by the governments they elect. Amid concern over growing authoritarianism, repression and misinformation, the UN is promoting forms of governance that are inclusive, and accountable.
In this bumper election year of over 60 elections, around a quarter of the entire world population are taking part in polls but, whilst democracy remains overwhelmingly popular, many people feel that their voices are not being heard, even if they live in historically democratic countries.
Initiatives such as citizen’s assemblies, some of which are supported by the UN, are seen by some as a way of giving more people direct involvement in the democratic process, and empowering communities in the process.
UN News brought together two experts to discuss the power of citizen’s assemblies, and the role of the UN in democratic governance: Sarah Lister, the Head of Governance at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and Iain Walker, the CEO of newDemocracy, which has organized several citizen’s assemblies.
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UN News: To what extent can, and should, the UN, which is made up of sovereign Member States, get involved in democracy?
Sarah Lister: Well, democracy is a core value of the UN, and we've long advocated for governance systems that promote values and principles of greater participation, equality, security and human development. That doesn't mean that we impose any particular system on member states or say that any particular system is right.
Member States are sovereign, and we support them to have the capacity to run governance processes in the way that best suit them. But obviously, we do also provide support for democratic institutions and inclusive, peaceful and credible elections.
That can be anything from procuring ballot boxes, to advising national authorities around issues of misinformation, to supporting civil society organizations around literacy - civic literacy. So, a wide range of activities, including supporting, in some places, women's organizations or other national stakeholders.
This year we supported the Pakistan elections in a number of ways; in South Africa we supported on voter education, electoral conflict management, combating disinformation and misinformation; we are also supporting the forthcoming Mozambique elections.
But in the last two and a half years, we've actually supported some 47 elections in 38 countries. So, the range of countries and regions where we work is, is very wide.
Citizens in Fortaleza, Brazil, take part in a UN-supported citizen’s assembly.
UN News: How do citizen’s assemblies work and why are they important?
We argue that one of the hardest constraints on anyone in elected office is uninformed public opinion. It's really tough to show leadership when your job hangs on a popularity contest of, say, 100,000 people who may not have been paying a lot of attention.
We make an analogy with the criminal justice system. If someone gets arrested, there isn’t a phone poll of 1,000 people to see if they’re innocent or guilty. Instead, a random selection of people are exposed to diverse and contested information, and given time to reach common ground.
So, if a parliament wants citizens to give them a sense of direction on a question, you bring together a representative group of people, real people in day jobs from all walks of life, to find common ground and say, here are a range of things that are okay with us, now that we've had a chance to think.
It’s about bringing together rich and poor, old and young, different ethnic backgrounds…not to say, these are all our different individual views, but this is what we can agree to.
And that should then empower those in elected office.
UN News: Can citizen’s assemblies, and other forms or deliberative democracy, be an antidote to polarization?
Sarah Lister: I think we are in need of democratic renewal in many ways, in many societies, and it's really important that people are given more opportunities for their voices to be heard, for their opinions to be taken into account.
Recent surveys have said that two out of three people say that they don't think that their voices are heard in political systems. And I think that's one of the reasons that we see in many places a so-called backlash against democracy.
So, citizen’s assemblies, citizen juries, are one way to complement formal processes of representative democracy. There are other ways as well, and all of them are predicated on a a range of democratic institutions that need to be in place in society for them to function: there needs to be open civic space and civic literacy amongst people.
Part of what we're doing at UNDP is to broaden the conversation beyond that of just elections and saying, what do societies need to have in place, and what are the institutions and processes for democratic principles to be at play?
Villagers in Salima District, Malawi, take part in a UN-supported citizen’s assembly. (file)
UN News: But when people take part in initiatives such as citizen’s assemblies, and leave feeling empowered, is there follow through at a higher level of governance?
Iain Walker: In each of our initiatives funded by a UN Democracy Fund grant – in Brazil, North Macedonia and Malawi - people got to work on a hard local problem, and it got fixed. For example, it was regional and municipal waste in northern Brazil, COVID policy in North Macedonia and the use of community development funds in Malawi.
And you start to show leaders, particularly in political office, that this is a helpful, useful mechanism, as opposed to the cliché of community engagement, which is self-selected groups of people yelling at them.
Years later, the organizations involved are still going out and doing projects in the field, in these and other countries. I hope we get the chance to go into ten more.