Democracy Without Politics in EU Citizen Participation: From European Demoi to Decolonial Multitude 9783031385827, 9783031385834

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Passive Revolutions and the Future of the EU: Democratic Theorising and the ‘Decolonial Multitude’
1 Introduction
2 Gramsci’s Passive Revolution: From the Italian Risorgimento to Sortition-Based ‘Descriptive Representation’ in the EU
3 A Politically Engaged Conceptual, Normative and Empirical Perspective: Democratic Theorising and the ‘Decolonial Multitude’
4 Challenging the “coloniality of power” in mainstream conceptions of ‘citizen participation’: decolonising the ‘we’ in democracy
5 Summary of the Book Through the Articulation of the Different Chapters
Bibliography
2 From European Demoi to the Decolonial Multitude: Democratising the EU’s Political Imaginary
1 EU Democracy, Decolonisation and the Agonistic Public Sphere
1.1 Democratic Legitimacy in the EU: The Opportunity of Politicisation to Bring Agonism
2 Multitude Over Peoplehood: The Tension Between Sovereignty and Democracy
2.1 The ‘Decolonial Multitude’ as the ‘We’ of Democracy
2.2 Decolonial Multitude vs Sovereignty: A Non-Contractualist Conception of EU Democracy
2.3 The ‘Decolonial Multitude’ in the EU: Democratising Traditional Notions of ‘Representation’ Through Mediation
2.4 Articulating the Decolonial Multitude in Opposition to Existing Material Structures and Coloniality
3 Why the Decolonial Multitude Now? New Intergovernmentalism and Populism in the EU
3.1 Democracy, Sovereignty and ‘the People’ in the EU: The Revolution from Above of New Intergovernmentalism
3.2 The Decolonial Multitude as a Transnational and Pluralist Alternative to Populism
4 Conclusion: Stimulating Agonistic EU Politicisation Through a Decolonial Multitude Perspective
Bibliography
3 The Genealogy of the ‘Citizen Turn’ in the EU: The European Citizen Consultations, the Citizen Dialogues and the Antipolitical Imaginary
1 From the ‘Participatory’ to the ‘Citizen Turn’ in the European Union
2 The Relationship Between Deliberative and Agonistic Democracy: The Antipolitical Imaginary vs Mediation
3 From the EP agoras, Citizen Dialogues and the European Citizen Consultations (2008–2018) to the Conference on the Future of Europe (2019–2022)
4 ‘Citizenism’ as an Alternative to an Agonistic European Public Sphere in the EU’s ‘Citizen Turn’
4.1 The Missing Micro–macro Link: EU ‘Citizen Participation’ as ‘Democracy Without Politics’
4.2 Disintermediation as Another Form of (Private) Mediation: The Social Construction of ‘Everyday People’ and the Commodification of Democracy
5 Conclusion: The ‘Citizen Turn’ Reinforces the Preexistent Depoliticised EU Political Dynamics
Bibliography
4 Democracy Without Politics in the Conference on the Future of Europe: The Political Architecture, Process and Recommendations
1 Introduction: An Interpretivist Approach to the CoFoE
2 The Conference on the Future of Europe: A Response to a Legitimacy Gap
3 The Political Architecture of the Conference
3.1 The Multilingual Digital Platform
3.2 Decentralised Events and the  European and National Citizens' Panels
3.3 The CoFoE Plenary and the Working Groups
4 Democracy Without Politics in the CoFoE: The Missing Connection with Mediators and the Public Sphere
4.1 Civil Society and Trade Unions
4.2 National Parliaments and the Media
5 The CoFoE Proposals: A Consensual and Catch-All Wish List
6 Conclusion: The Reproduction of Democracy Without Politics in the CoFoE
Bibliography
5 Individualised Technodeliberation in the CoFoE European Citizens’ Panels: The Presence of the Absence of the European Demoi
1 Introduction: The European Citizens’ Panels in the CoFoE
2 Organisation of the European Citizens’ Panels
2.1 The Mediators of Disintermediation and Its Relation to the CoFoE Secretariat
2.2 Who is Taking Part in the European Citizens’ Panels? The Individualistic and Antipolitical Imaginary of ‘Everyday Citizens’
3 The Functioning of the European Citizens’ Panels
3.1 Agenda, Framing of the Panels and Information Background
3.2 Mechanics of the Panels
3.3 The Role of Facilitators (and Note-Takers): Technical and Political Challenges
3.4 The ‘Neutral’ Role of (Academic) Experts and Fact-Checkers
3.4.1 The (Improvised) Introduction of Fact-Checking
3.5 ‘Polluting’ the Citizen Deliberations? The CoFoE Secretariat’s Forceful Control Over ‘Undue Influence’
3.6 Recommendations and (Non)deliberative Voting: A Wish List Exercise
4 ‘Citizen Ambassadors’ in the Plenary
5 A Normative Critique of the European Citizen Panels: Isolated and Atomised Aggregation and an Individualised European Demoi
6 The Antipolitical Construction of the European Demoi in the European Citizens’ Panels
Bibliography
6 The Institutional ‘Success’ of the CoFoE via the ‘New Generation’ Citizen Panels: The European Commission Leads the Public-Private ‘Citizen Turn’
1 ‘Citizen Participation’ after the CoFoE
2 ‘Lessons Learnt’ and Follow-Up of EU Institutions to the CoFoE
3 The Public-Private Institutionalisation of ‘Citizen Participation’: Internal Advocacy to Embed Processes across the European Commission
4 Inter-institutional Competition to ‘Own’ Citizen Participation at the EU Level
4.1 The Clash Between Parliament and Commission to Lead EU ‘Citizen Participation’
4.2 The CoFoE Feedback Event and the Commission’s ‘Global Leadership’: Public Relations over Contestation in the Public Sphere
5 The ‘New Generation’ of European Citizens’ Panels Organised by the European Commission
5.1 The Corporate Framing of ‘Food Waste’ and ‘Virtual Worlds’
5.2 The Lack of a Public Sphere Perspective and the (Neo)liberal Ideology Embedded in European Citizens’ Panels
6 The Post-CoFoE Logic of ‘Citizen Participation’: Turning ‘Everyday Citizens’ into EU ‘Technocrats’ Within the Process, and ‘Ambassadors’ Outside of It
7 Conclusion: The Depoliticised ‘Citizen Participation’ Led by the European Commission and Its Underlying Ideology
Bibliography
7 “The Lost Art of Organising Solidarity”: Articulating the Decolonial Multitude in the EU (and Beyond)
1 A Politically Engaged Perspective: Theorising with and as Activists
2 The Decolonial Multitude Imaginary in Ongoing Transnational Struggles: Infrastructures of Dissent to Build a ‘Movement of Movements’
2.1 The Construction of Transnational Political Action by European Alternatives
3 “The Lost Art of Organising Solidarity”: Embracing the Differences but Also the Shared Purposes
3.1 The 2022 TransEuropa Festival: Decolonize! Decarbonize! Democratize!
3.2 The Transnational Workers’ Organizing Summit in Bremen
3.3 The Decolonial Multitude and the Case Against Class Reductionism: The Long Road to Decolonisation Within Social Movements
4 The Challenges to Articulate the Decolonial Multitude in the EU
4.1 Beyond the Social Forum and Project-based Cooperation: Building Transnational, Decolonial, Feminist and Democratic Movement Structures
5 Conclusion
Bibliography
8 The Contrast Between the EU’s Technocratic Conception of ‘Citizen Participation’ and the Democratic Pluralism of the Decolonial Multitude
1 The European Citizens' Panels and the ‘Passive Revolution’: The EU’s Technocratic ‘Citizen Turn’
2 Fostering the Intersectional Power of the Multitude: Reframing the Democracy Debate from a Decolonial Perspective
3 The Political Implications of the Decolonial Multitude: The EU as a Political Playing Field
3.1 Changing the Organisational Rules of the Game in the EU: Filling the Void with (Transnational) Mass Organisations
3.2 Embedding Democratic and Deliberative Innovations to Foster Mass Politics and a Transnational Agonistic Public Sphere
4 Contribution to the Literature, Shortcomings of the Book and Avenues for Future Political Action and Research
5 The Democratisation and Decolonisation of Academia: Shifting the Ideological Borders of European Studies
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN EUROPEAN POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY

Democracy Without Politics in EU Citizen Participation From European Demoi to Decolonial Multitude

Alvaro Oleart

Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology

Series Editors Carlo Ruzza, School of International Studies, University of Trento, Trento, Italy Hans-Jörg Trenz, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy

Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology addresses contemporary themes in the field of Political Sociology. Over recent years, attention has turned increasingly to processes of Europeanization and globalization and the social and political spaces that are opened by them. These processes comprise both institutional-constitutional change and new dynamics of social transnationalism. Europeanization and globalization are also about changing power relations as they affect people’s lives, social networks and forms of mobility. The Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology series addresses linkages between regulation, institution building and the full range of societal repercussions at local, regional, national, European and global level, and will sharpen understanding of changing patterns of attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups, the political use of new rights and opportunities by citizens, new conflict lines and coalitions, societal interactions and networking, and shifting loyalties and solidarity within and across the European space. We welcome proposals from across the spectrum of Political Sociology and Political Science, on dimensions of citizenship; political attitudes and values; political communication and public spheres; states, communities, governance structure and political institutions; forms of political participation; populism and the radical right; and democracy and democratization.

Alvaro Oleart

Democracy Without Politics in EU Citizen Participation From European Demoi to Decolonial Multitude

Alvaro Oleart Department of Political Science and Institute for European studies Université Libre de Bruxelles Brussels, Belgium

Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology ISBN 978-3-031-38582-7 ISBN 978-3-031-38583-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38583-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

The collective intelligence that emerged through the conversations with a multitude of friends and colleagues is what has made this book possible. I am grateful to everyone who I have crossed paths throughout this journey in Bremen, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Ghent, Madrid, Florence, Brussels, Paris, Strasbourg, Porto, Toulouse, Vienna, Prague or online. The process of writing this book and the institutional and activist spaces in which I am embedded have transformed my own subjectivity and positionality. While academic work can be an individual process, this book has been an enriching collective endeavour. The Conference on the Future of Europe and the new mechanisms of citizen participation in the EU may not significantly shape the future of European integration, but writing this book has certainly shaped my life. Words cannot do real justice to express my profound gratitude to so many people that have contributed to this adventure. This journey has shaped my own thinking and trajectory in making sense of European studies, and I am indebted to the many activists, friends and colleagues with whom I have shared time, stories and ideas. Many central ideas developed in this book are inspired by these discussions. In particular, the insightful exchanges and the political inspiration that emerged within Citizens Take Over Europe, European Alternatives and the EUROGLOT networks have been fundamental. It has been a learning (and unlearning) process of gaining further understanding of my own positionality, and pushing me to connect closer together my work as an academic with that v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

of an activist. As the popular feminist saying goes, ‘the personal is political’. The book’s publication is not the end of this process, but part of a broader collective reflection that hopefully contributes to building a more decolonial, democratic, equal and feminist society. This entails knowledge production processes that are sensitive to the material and epistemic inequalities. Only by engaging closely with activists and movements we will be able to (un)learn ‘Europe’ (and the world) through a decolonial lens, and advance a transformational democratic project that has the potential to bring about positive change in society. I am lucky to have grown as an academic alongside Luis Bouza and Ben Crum. They have encouraged me to pursue my own intellectual curiosity, and challenge certain aspects of mainstream European studies literature in both conceptual, empirical and normative ways. Luis and Ben have critically engaged with my work, and their careful reading and constructive feedback have heavily contributed to the improvement of the book, as well as their personal encouragement and kindness. Similarly, I thank François Foret for his unwavering support and enthusiastically welcoming me back to the ULB, where my professional academic career started. Thanks also to Ambra Finotello, Carlo Ruzza and Hans-Jörg Trenz for their repeated critical advice and backing from the beginning of the book project within the Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology series. The personal support and book endorsement by Vivien Schmidt, Niccolò Milanese and Jan Orbie also mean a lot to me, as their work has inspired much of my own and heavily contributed to constructing ideational tools to critically and constructively scrutinise European politics. Democracy and decolonisation are collective endeavours that require strong international solidarity networks. The support and joy brought about by many friends and colleagues with whom I have shared the participant observation and writing process have also inspired the book, and their feedback has dramatically improved its substance. Many thanks to Maarten de Groot, Perle Petit and Nicolás Palomo Hernández. I am also thankful to Juan Domingo Sánchez Estop and Virginia Rodríguez, who pushed me to be bold enough to engage more closely with political philosophy, and whose intellectual and emotional support was fundamental to kick-start this book. I am also grateful to Astrid Van Weyenberg, Niels Gheyle, Tom Theuns and Jorge Tuñón, as our joint work has been a source of inspiration. In fact, the notion of ‘democracy without politics’ was first developed in an article with Tom.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Many friends and colleagues have also given their time and energy to comment and discuss specific chapters, and the book has certainly improved thanks to them. Thanks to Antonio Salvador M. Alcazar III, Jan Pieter Beetz, Martin Deleixhe, Antoine Gaboriau, Elena García Guitián, Taru Haapala, Rasmus Mäemees, Szilvia Nagy, Juan Roch and Noah Schmitt. Furthermore, the many encounters throughout the CoFoE have influenced my thinking on it. Thanks to Aliénor Ballangé, Carsten Berg, Paul Blokker, Alessandra Cardaci, Andrey Demidov, Kalypso Nicolaidis, Constantin Schäfer and Daniela Vancic, among many others. I would also like to thank everyone who accepted to be interviewed, including civil society and trade union members, activists, citizen panel participants and organisers, elected representatives, EU officials and journalists, whose input has been precious. This book has not only improved thanks to all these interactions, but in fact has ended up being something substantially different. The shortcomings of the book are my own responsibility. Institutionally, I’d like to thank Maastricht University’s Studio Europa Maastricht for supporting me throughout the first year of writing this book, and was central to my institutional involvement in the Conference on the Future of Europe. I am also grateful for the support of the Belgian French-speaking National Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.FNRS), and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (especially my colleagues at the Cevipol and the Institute for European Studies) for welcoming me again as a postdoctoral researcher in 2022. Last, and most importantly, I am grateful to my family and friends for putting up with me during this time, filled with many joyful moments, but also a challenging personal journey. Thanks to Mom, Dad, Nad’ka, Ilie, Boris, Fran, Dani and Hasan.

Contents

1

2

Passive Revolutions and the Future of the EU: Democratic Theorising and the ‘Decolonial Multitude’ 1 Introduction 2 Gramsci’s Passive Revolution: From the Italian Risorgimento to Sortition-Based ‘Descriptive Representation’ in the EU 3 A Politically Engaged Conceptual, Normative and Empirical Perspective: Democratic Theorising and the ‘Decolonial Multitude’ 4 Challenging the “coloniality of power” in mainstream conceptions of ‘citizen participation’: decolonising the ‘we’ in democracy 5 Summary of the Book Through the Articulation of the Different Chapters Bibliography From European Demoi to the Decolonial Multitude: Democratising the EU’s Political Imaginary 1 EU Democracy, Decolonisation and the Agonistic Public Sphere 1.1 Democratic Legitimacy in the EU: The Opportunity of Politicisation to Bring Agonism 2 Multitude Over Peoplehood: The Tension Between Sovereignty and Democracy

1 1

3

10

16 19 22 25 25 28 30 ix

x

CONTENTS

2.1 2.2

The ‘Decolonial Multitude’ as the ‘We’ of Democracy Decolonial Multitude vs Sovereignty: A Non-Contractualist Conception of EU Democracy 2.3 The ‘Decolonial Multitude’ in the EU: Democratising Traditional Notions of ‘Representation’ Through Mediation 2.4 Articulating the Decolonial Multitude in Opposition to Existing Material Structures and Coloniality 3 Why the Decolonial Multitude Now? New Intergovernmentalism and Populism in the EU 3.1 Democracy, Sovereignty and ‘the People’ in the EU: The Revolution from Above of New Intergovernmentalism 3.2 The Decolonial Multitude as a Transnational and Pluralist Alternative to Populism 4 Conclusion: Stimulating Agonistic EU Politicisation Through a Decolonial Multitude Perspective Bibliography 3

The Genealogy of the ‘Citizen Turn’ in the EU: The European Citizen Consultations, the Citizen Dialogues and the Antipolitical Imaginary 1 From the ‘Participatory’ to the ‘Citizen Turn’ in the European Union 2 The Relationship Between Deliberative and Agonistic Democracy: The Antipolitical Imaginary vs Mediation 3 From the EP agoras, Citizen Dialogues and the European Citizen Consultations (2008–2018) to the Conference on the Future of Europe (2019–2022) 4 ‘Citizenism’ as an Alternative to an Agonistic European Public Sphere in the EU’s ‘Citizen Turn’ 4.1 The Missing Micro–macro Link: EU ‘Citizen Participation’ as ‘Democracy Without Politics’ 4.2 Disintermediation as Another Form of (Private) Mediation: The Social Construction of ‘Everyday People’ and the Commodification of Democracy 5 Conclusion: The ‘Citizen Turn’ Reinforces the Preexistent Depoliticised EU Political Dynamics Bibliography

33 38

44

48 52

53 56 59 61

69 69 73

75 79 79

82 85 88

CONTENTS

4

5

Democracy Without Politics in the Conference on the Future of Europe: The Political Architecture, Process and Recommendations 1 Introduction: An Interpretivist Approach to the CoFoE 2 The Conference on the Future of Europe: A Response to a Legitimacy Gap 3 The Political Architecture of the Conference 3.1 The Multilingual Digital Platform 3.2 Decentralised Events and the European and National Citizens’ Panels 3.3 The CoFoE Plenary and the Working Groups 4 Democracy Without Politics in the CoFoE: The Missing Connection with Mediators and the Public Sphere 4.1 Civil Society and Trade Unions 4.2 National Parliaments and the Media 5 The CoFoE Proposals: A Consensual and Catch-All Wish List 6 Conclusion: The Reproduction of Democracy Without Politics in the CoFoE Bibliography Individualised Technodeliberation in the CoFoE European Citizens’ Panels: The Presence of the Absence of the European Demoi 1 Introduction: The European Citizens’ Panels in the CoFoE 2 Organisation of the European Citizens’ Panels 2.1 The Mediators of Disintermediation and Its Relation to the CoFoE Secretariat 2.2 Who is Taking Part in the European Citizens’ Panels? The Individualistic and Antipolitical Imaginary of ‘Everyday Citizens’ 3 The Functioning of the European Citizens’ Panels 3.1 Agenda, Framing of the Panels and Information Background 3.2 Mechanics of the Panels 3.3 The Role of Facilitators (and Note-Takers): Technical and Political Challenges 3.4 The ‘Neutral’ Role of (Academic) Experts and Fact-Checkers

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93 93 95 97 98 101 103 106 106 111 113 117 118

121 121 123 123

125 127 127 131 139 142

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CONTENTS

3.5

‘Polluting’ the Citizen Deliberations? The CoFoE Secretariat’s Forceful Control Over ‘Undue Influence’ 3.6 Recommendations and (Non)deliberative Voting: A Wish List Exercise 4 ‘Citizen Ambassadors’ in the Plenary 5 A Normative Critique of the European Citizen Panels: Isolated and Atomised Aggregation and an Individualised European Demoi 6 The Antipolitical Construction of the European Demoi in the European Citizens’ Panels Bibliography 6

The Institutional ‘Success’ of the CoFoE via the ‘New Generation’ Citizen Panels: The European Commission Leads the Public-Private ‘Citizen Turn’ 1 ‘Citizen Participation’ after the CoFoE 2 ‘Lessons Learnt’ and Follow-Up of EU Institutions to the CoFoE 3 The Public-Private Institutionalisation of ‘Citizen Participation’: Internal Advocacy to Embed Processes across the European Commission 4 Inter-institutional Competition to ‘Own’ Citizen Participation at the EU Level 4.1 The Clash Between Parliament and Commission to Lead EU ‘Citizen Participation’ 4.2 The CoFoE Feedback Event and the Commission’s ‘Global Leadership’: Public Relations over Contestation in the Public Sphere 5 The ‘New Generation’ of European Citizens’ Panels Organised by the European Commission 5.1 The Corporate Framing of ‘Food Waste’ and ‘Virtual Worlds’ 5.2 The Lack of a Public Sphere Perspective and the (Neo)liberal Ideology Embedded in European Citizens’ Panels 6 The Post-CoFoE Logic of ‘Citizen Participation’: Turning ‘Everyday Citizens’ into EU ‘Technocrats’ Within the Process, and ‘Ambassadors’ Outside of It

149 152 154

158 160 161

163 163 164

169 172 172

175 178 182

189

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Conclusion: The Depoliticised ‘Citizen Participation’ Led by the European Commission and Its Underlying Ideology Bibliography

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7

7

8

“The Lost Art of Organising Solidarity”: Articulating the Decolonial Multitude in the EU (and Beyond) 1 A Politically Engaged Perspective: Theorising with and as Activists 2 The Decolonial Multitude Imaginary in Ongoing Transnational Struggles: Infrastructures of Dissent to Build a ‘Movement of Movements’ 2.1 The Construction of Transnational Political Action by European Alternatives 3 “The Lost Art of Organising Solidarity”: Embracing the Differences but Also the Shared Purposes 3.1 The 2022 TransEuropa Festival: Decolonize! Decarbonize! Democratize! 3.2 The Transnational Workers’ Organizing Summit in Bremen 3.3 The Decolonial Multitude and the Case Against Class Reductionism: The Long Road to Decolonisation Within Social Movements 4 The Challenges to Articulate the Decolonial Multitude in the EU 4.1 Beyond the Social Forum and Project-based Cooperation: Building Transnational, Decolonial, Feminist and Democratic Movement Structures 5 Conclusion Bibliography The Contrast Between the EU’s Technocratic Conception of ‘Citizen Participation’ and the Democratic Pluralism of the Decolonial Multitude 1 The European Citizens’ Panels and the ‘Passive Revolution’: The EU’s Technocratic ‘Citizen Turn’ 2 Fostering the Intersectional Power of the Multitude: Reframing the Democracy Debate from a Decolonial Perspective

199 200 205 205

209 212 215 215 217

220 224

227 230 232

235 235

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3

The Political Implications of the Decolonial Multitude: The EU as a Political Playing Field 3.1 Changing the Organisational Rules of the Game in the EU: Filling the Void with (Transnational) Mass Organisations 3.2 Embedding Democratic and Deliberative Innovations to Foster Mass Politics and a Transnational Agonistic Public Sphere 4 Contribution to the Literature, Shortcomings of the Book and Avenues for Future Political Action and Research 5 The Democratisation and Decolonisation of Academia: Shifting the Ideological Borders of European Studies Bibliography Index

245

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251 256 259 261 265

List of Figures

Chapter 5 Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Breakdown of Session 2 of the ECPs (Source CoFoE [2022: 16]) Breakdown of Session 3 of the ECPs (Source CoFoE [2022: 17])

133 134

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List of Tables

Chapter 4 Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

Members of the CoFoE plenary by institution List of the seven CoFoE plenary sessions and the dates in which they took place Selected final proposals from the CoFoE

104 105 114

Chapter 5 Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4 Table 5

Dates of the three sessions of the four ECPs of the CoFoE Agenda of Session 1 of Panel 2 Background of the experts during the first session of the four CoFoE European citizen panels Background of the experts during the second session of the four CoFoE European citizen panels Background of the experts during the third session of the four CoFoE European citizen panels

122 132 143 144 144

Chapter 6 Table 1

Dates of the three sessions of the three ‘new generation’ of European Citizens’ panels

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CHAPTER 1

Passive Revolutions and the Future of the EU: Democratic Theorising and the ‘Decolonial Multitude’

1

Introduction

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce, Marx argued in ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’. When Garibaldi’s ‘Redshirts’ were threatening the Italian peninsula states’ aristocracy in Italy’s post-1848 revolutionary scenario, there was a politically skilled move by the dominant aristocratic groups to unify Italy politically through a coalition between Garibaldi and the then King of Sardinia, and later first king of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II. The outcome of such an arrangement was the foundation of the Italian Kingdom in 1861. This is well represented in the Italian town of Fiesole, in the outskirts of Florence,1 where a statue commemorates the encounter between Garibaldi and Vittorio Emmanuelle II on 26 October 1860 in Teano (Campania, Southern Italy), shortly before the latter became officially King of Italy in March 1861. After such meeting, the leader of the ‘Redshirts’ supported Vittorio Emanuele II as king of a unified Italy that would extend from the Alps 1 Florence also partially defines the conceptual and historical perspective upon which this book departs from. Intellectually, much of the book departs from Florentine Niccolò Machiavelli, who put forward the concept of the ‘multitude’. Furthermore, the European University Institute’s Badia Fiesolana hosted one of the key events of the Conference on the Future of Europe, the final session of the European citizen panel on EU Democracy.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Oleart, Democracy Without Politics in EU Citizen Participation, Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38583-4_1

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A. OLEART

all the way down to Sicily, providing the new Italian kingdom with its symbolic revolutionary capital and popular legitimacy. Giuseppe di Lampedusa best conceptualised this process in his novel ‘Il Gattopardo’. Focused on the Italian aristocracy, Lampedusa describes how Prince of Salina’s nephew, Tancredi Falconieri, warned his uncle that “if we want things to stay as they are, everything has to change”. After Garibaldi’s military and popular success, the support given to the new Italian kingdom only reinforced the existing power structures (in which the Italian aristocracy remained untouched), but added a layer of democratic legitimacy. A passive revolution was underway. How is the Italian unification process related to the recent ‘citizen participation’ processes organised by the European Union? In short, while there is an increasingly dominant discourse around ‘citizen participation’ accompanied by ‘innovative’ political practices, this process is not matched with an actual democratisation. In consequence, there is a risk that new forms of sortition-based representation ultimately might operate as a passive revolution. This dynamic is best illustrated by the inclusion of a ‘descriptive representation’ of the ‘European people(s)’ in the CoFoE (and beyond) that cuts the traditional intermediation of civil society actors by establishing a more ‘direct’, ‘pure’ and ‘unfiltered’ relation with EU citizens through the European citizen panels. In this legitimation process, the already dominant (depoliticised) dynamics of the EU have been reinforced, yet with a shifting claim for a citizens-centred legitimacy. The book advances a critical analysis of the ongoing ‘citizen participation’ innovations in the EU, and strives to open up ideational avenues for the democratisation of the EU. Additionally, the book provides an agonistic alternative to ‘the people’ as the ‘we’ of democracy in the EU, which is based on the idea of the ‘decolonial multitude’, an account that detaches ‘sovereignty’ from democracy in the EU. This dual message is precisely what the cover image of the book illustrates: a European Union flag with a lock. The Conference on the Future of Europe was designed and implemented in a way that primarily reproduced the already hegemonic dynamics conceived as ‘democracy without politics’ through ‘innovative citizen participation’ processes. In doing so, it largely made invisible the postcolonial material and ideological structures upon which the EU is built and sidelined activist organisations, while appearing to ‘open up’ to ‘everyday citizens’. This type of sortition-based processes,

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PASSIVE REVOLUTIONS AND THE FUTURE OF THE EU …

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conceived recently by Landemore (2020) as a new “paradigm of democracy”, reflects more continuity than change in its understanding of democracy and representation in the EU context. In this way, the book argues that the EU is ‘locking in’ the status quo by creating new mechanisms that fail to meaningfully accommodate agonistic conflict and a decolonial multitude perspective. At the same time, the book puts forward conceptual tools to imagine how to open the lock and democratise the EU from a transnational democracy and decolonial perspective. More concretely, the book addresses two research questions. First, how does the dominant understanding(s) of the demo(i)cratic subject in the EU, and of democracy more broadly, shape the EU’s democratic innovations on ‘citizen participation’? Second, what are the politically and normatively preferable alternatives, both in terms of the conceptualisation of the democratic subject in the EU and in the ensuing political practices? These two research questions will allow to both develop a theory-driven alternative to the traditional understanding of demo(i)cracy in the EU context based on the idea of the ‘decolonial multitude’, as well as an empirical application of the way in which the different understandings of EU democracy are reflected in concrete political practices. Thus, the book puts forward a diagnosis of current debates on EU democratic legitimacy as well as proposing an alternative.

2 Gramsci’s Passive Revolution: From the Italian Risorgimento to Sortition-Based ‘Descriptive Representation’ in the EU Bringing a parallel between the post-1848 revolutionary moment in Europe with the post-2008 context, the book’s argument builds on Antonio Gramsci’s interpretation of the Italian Risorgimento and unification during the second half of the nineteenth century, which he interpreted as a ‘passive revolution’. This term is originally coined by the Neapolitan conservative thinker Vincenzo Cuoco in his 1799 Saggio storico sulla Rivoluzione di Napoli. Resignified and given a negative meaning by Gramsci, a passive revolution is a top-down process by which a political system appears to change by shifting its democratic legitimacy claims, while maintaining intact its existing power structures. In doing so, the passive revolution only reinforces and preserves the preexistent power dynamics, yet with a renewed sense of democratic legitimacy. This is best

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represented by Gramsci when describing the Italian unification during the early 1860s, in which an elite-driven ‘revolution without a revolution’ took place to form the Italian kingdom, bringing together the different kingdoms within the Italian peninsula but without questioning the deeper power structures of the Italian peninsula aristocracies. While Gramsci uses the term “passive revolution” in a variety of contexts with slightly different meanings, the primary usage is to contrast the passive transformation of bourgeois society in nineteenth-century Italy with the active revolutionary process of the bourgeoisie in France post-1789. Whereas the French case is seen by Gramsci as an authentic revolution guided by diverse social forces, the Italian case was a ‘nonchange’, insofar it meant elites disrupted the institutions only to enable an alternative social arrangement that preserved their own position in it. Thus, while there are multiple interpretations of the meaning of a ‘passive revolution’, the book conceives it as a way “to capture how a revolutionary form of political transformation is pressed into a conservative project of restoration while lacking a radical national–popular ‘Jacobin’ moment” (Morton, 2010: 317). More concretely, a passive revolution is a transformation of the political and institutional structures that preserves the preexisting power relations, yet with a renewed sense of popular legitimacy.2 This process requires the social skill of elite actors to manoeuvre in such a way that there is an appearance of change, given that the legitimacy of the new structure largely depends on it. Facing winds of change, political elites have agency to shape the way in which such change takes place. As described by Gramsci, a ‘passive revolution’ is a moderate transformation of the political system in order to maintain the structural foundations of such system. In Gramsci’s own words: Indeed one might say that the entire State life of Italy from 1848 onwards has been characterised by transformism—in other words by the formation of an ever more extensive ruling class, within the framework established by the Moderates after 1848 and the collapse of the neo-Guelph and federalist utopias.3 The formation of this class involved the gradual but continuous 2 Italian fascism was also interpreted by Gramsci as a ‘passive revolution’, in the sense that there was an ‘appearance of change’, yet the fundamental power structures that organised society remained in place. However, the use of this concept in this book is specifically targeted to the Italian Risorgimento historical context. 3 Neo-Guelphism was an Italian catholic movement during the nineteenth century that aimed at uniting Italy under the leadership of the Papacy. The Italian federalists were

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absorption, achieved by methods which varied in their effectiveness, of the active elements produced by allied groups— and even of those which came from antagonistic groups and seemed irreconcilably hostile. In this sense political leadership became merely an aspect of the function of domination—in as much as the absorption of the enemies’ élite means their decapitation, and annihilation often for a very long time. It seems clear from the policies of the Moderates that there can, and indeed must, be hegemonic activity even before the rise to power, and that one should not count only on the material force which power gives in order to exercise an effective leadership. It was precisely the brilliant solution of these problems which made the Risorgimento possible, in the form in which it was achieved (and with its limitations)—as “revolution” without a “revolution”, or as “passive revolution” to use an expression of Cuoco’s in a slightly different sense from that which Cuoco intended. (in Hoare & Nowell-Smith, 1999: 214–215)

The concept of the ‘passive revolution’ is particularly useful when the focus is situated on the agency of powerful political actors in relation to an increasingly dissatisfied population. While structures remain an important factor, agency and structure are in constant interaction. As argued by Thomas, a passive revolution had not been necessitated by this economic structure or inscribed in modernity as its telos. Rather, its successful imposition had involved conscious, political choices: on the one hand, the choice of the ruling classes to develop strategies to disaggregate those working classes and confine them to an economic-corporative level within the existing society; on the other, the political choices of the subaltern classes that had resulted in a failure to elaborate their own hegemonic apparatuses capable of resisting the absorptive logic of the passive revolution. (Thomas, 2006: 74–75)

Gramsci used the ‘passive revolution’ framework to make sense of the Italian Risorgimento, and this book will argue that new notions of ‘representation’ via minipublics may represent a ‘passive revolution’. This newly emerging logic of ‘descriptive representation’ replaces mass politics with minipublics, and has recently been integrated by some entrepreneurs in favour of a decentralised unification, in opposition to the centralisation advocated by actors such as Garibaldi or Mazzini on the popular front, and Cavour and the Kingdom of Sardinia on the monarchical side.

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within the EU in the recent Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE). The historical parallelism between Italy’s Risorgimento and the CoFoE has also an important transnational component. Garibaldi’s Redshirts operated in the post-1848 revolutionary context (a crucial factor in Gramsci’s eyes), in which revolutionary groups throughout England, Prussia, France, Italy and Spain were increasingly pressuring their respective regimes to open up democratically, questioning their legitimacy. In this complicated context for the different European kingdoms and regimes, the interaction between Garibaldi and Vittorio Emmanuele II would most likely have a transnational effect beyond the Italian peninsula. Back then, there was an already rising transnational flow of ideas, as the well-known 1848 Communist Manifesto illustrates, in which Marx and Engels argue that ‘a spectre is haunting Europe’ and where they appealed to ‘workers of the world, unite’. The 1848 revolutions that exploded throughout Europe had a deep and lasting impact on the way in which the respective regimes understood that there were revolutionary ideational seeds increasingly spreading transnationally. In this context, different regimes reacted by tackling those groups and ideas. The 1848 revolutions were transnational in essence, and the evolution of such processes in one country had an influence in other countries. Starting in Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany and the UK all saw sparkles of workers uniting to fight the undemocratic regimes in which they were living and reclaiming an improvement to their living standards. Similarly, in 2008, the global financial crisis facilitated that groups across the world revolted against a system that was systemically biased towards the wealthy at the expense of the majority—in the words of Occupy, ‘we are the 99%’. The revolt was initially strong in the United States (New York), but soon protest movements emerged in the next months and years in other countries: the Icelandic financial crisis protests in 2009–2011, the Arab Spring between 2010 and 2012 in Libya, Syria, Egypt or Tunisia or the Indignados movement in Spain in 2011. These movements strongly referenced each other (Castells, 2015). In 2011, the 15-M movement in Plaza Catalunya (Barcelona) referred constantly to Tahrir Square (where the Egypt revolution was based), Iceland (where bankers were put in jail after the crisis), Puerta del Sol (main square in Madrid, where the 15-M movement was based) and Liberty Square (the New York City square where Occupy Wall Street was based). This globalisation of social movements made each movement stronger, as a renewed

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transnational solidarity emerges out of these interactions. The transnational cycle of movements continued (albeit with a different emphasis) a few years later with #MeToo, #FridaysForFuture or #BlackLivesMatter. Thus, the historical parallel operates between the period of Italy between 1848 and its 1861 unification, and the European Union between 2008 and 2021–2022 with the Conference on the Future of Europe. Obviously, the historical parallel has its flaws, given that the current European society and political system(s) are very different.4 Crucially, passive revolutions play a pivotal role in the reproduction of the status quo. The stability and continuity of the system, and the inequalities that exist in it, are largely dependent on the success of passive revolutions. In a globalised capitalist society in which colonial material structures remain strong, and in which white supremacy and sexism are continuously present, discontent is inherently going to surface. It is precisely when discontent emerges that the inequalities that are naturalised (such as those based on class, gender or race) in the system are challenged and come to the fore that people at the top need to manoeuvre, and realise that “if they want things to stay as they are, everything has to change”. The way in which discontent is channelled and contained depends on the capacity of economic and political elites to integrate some elements from it, while marginalising the radical voices that aim for a redistribution of power in society. In other words, the system needs passive revolutions to protect itself. The historical comparison is helpful to undertake a Gramscian reading of current developments in the EU, mainly focused on the CoFoE but also beyond it. The broader point that the book outlines is that in a postrevolutionary transnational context (1848–2008), in which transnational social movements are unable to fundamentally change things while on the offensive, political elites can manoeuvre to keep future movements at bay through a ‘revolution without a revolution’ or a ‘passive revolution’. In the case of the EU, the ‘passive revolution’ relates first to the ‘revolution from above’ led by the ‘new intergovernmentalist’ turn throughout the 2010s (Bickerton et al., 2015), which combined a strengthening of neoliberal governmentality with a reinforcement of executive actors 4 A word of caution is needed in this sense. This is not the book of a historian: it does not aim to tell the story of Europe from 1848 until 2022. The book rather attempts to bring forward a historical parallel that helps to make sense of current developments in the EU. The book’s focus is thus on making sense of the present and future of the EU.

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in what has been conceived as ‘intergovernmentality’ (Bouza García & Oleart, 2023). This process was most visible during the Eurozone crisis, described in detail by Vivien Schmidt (2020), in which EU institutions deployed technocratic arguments to push austerity policies and address its crisis of legitimacy, in spite of the strong anti-austerity movements that emerged across Europe (Flesher Fominaya & Cox, 2013). The book5 focuses on the attempt by EU institutions to ‘soften’ its technocratic political image by appearing to be ‘citizen-friendly’ and open to integrate ‘everyday citizens’ in its policy-making. To be sure, political elites in the EU are not a coherent and unified block and certainly there are divergences among them. In fact, the CoFoE might be conceived as the result of a series of contingencies that brought together actors with different (and in some cases contradictory) agendas. The shift towards a ‘citizen’ approach appears a fragile equilibrium that while driven by political entrepreneurs mostly within the Commission and in member states such as France, other actors could also get on board. What all EU actors involved agreed upon is that bringing mass mobilisation to transnational politics was not a necessary step towards the democratisation of the EU. This represents a rather narrow understanding of ‘citizen’ political agency. The Conference on the Future of Europe might appear as a relatively irrelevant political process that has not meaningfully impacted European integration, and is unlikely to do so in the future. However, its relevance is rooted on the broader pattern of which the Conference is part of, which is conceptualised in the book as the EU’s ‘citizen turn’. The adoption of citizen assemblies or panels within the EU can be interpreted as an attempt to integrate some elements from contestatory movements, while strengthening the status quo. More concretely, the ‘citizen turn’ breaks away from the ‘participatory turn’ described by Saurugger (2010) by trying to construct a ‘direct’ relation between EU institutions and EU citizens through experimental exercises such as the European citizen panels within the CoFoE and beyond. The EU is

5 A two phases approach to the understanding of a ‘passive revolution’ has been

recently mobilised by Villacañas (2022). Through a Machiavellian-Gramscian framework, he describes the way in which Franco consolidated its ruling position in Spain after the Spanish civil war, primarily deploying repression, violence and mass murder in the first phase, whereas emphasising “coercive consent” towards the Spanish population in the second.

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increasingly absorbing the less politically dangerous dimensions of movements (such as sortition-based ‘citizen participation’ mechanisms), while sidelining the more contentious and activist ones that would require a more fundamental questioning of political and societal power structures. In a quest for relegitimising the European project but in a depoliticised way (what is defined in the book as ‘democracy without politics’), this process fits with the agreement between Garibaldi and Vittorio Emmanuele II that facilitated the top-down unification of Italy under the leadership of the latter as king of Italy. The source of legitimacy of the political project changed, but the existing power structures remain unchanged. In this way, the understanding of the ‘citizen turn’ of the EU as an attempted passive revolution facilitates a break away from EU studies’ neofunctionalist and postfunctionalist accounts towards a rather constructivist and historical materialist account of European integration. In the same way that the Italian aristocracy absorbed the least revolutionary elements of Garibaldi’s movement (the unification of Italy), the EU is increasingly absorbing the least revolutionary elements of the contestation of the status quo from the 2008 cycle of social movement mobilisation, and shaped them in the least politically threatening way. This refers mainly to the disintermediation of politics via deliberation (‘they do not represent us’, the Indignados Spanish protesters claimed, while organising assemblies in occupied public squares) applied through depoliticised minipublics (the citizen panels in the CoFoE); and the embrace of digital “technopolitics”. On this latter point, the CoFoE used the digital platform of ‘Decidim’, created in Barcelona in 2016 by a group of activists coming from the 2011 Indignados movement. Decidim defines itself as a “technopolitical project”, whose role is to provide participatory digital platforms for institutions. However, as Chapters 4 and 5 will describe in detail, this transfer from a physical to a digital space that is broadly detached from the public sphere has a depoliticising effect, insofar individualises political participation and does not stimulate public debate beyond the bubble in which it operates. The absorption of these elements, while excluding the more radical aspects of the 2008 social movement cycle (such as the corporate capture of political institutions, calls for international solidarity or the lack of agonistic conflict between mainstream political parties in the EU), is an important reminder that “the linkages between democracy and deliberation are contingent rather than necessary” (He & Warren, 2011, 270). As not all forms of ‘citizen deliberation’ have a democratising potential, we should be weary

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about these processes, insofar they are likely to be instrumentalised by institutions in its search for legitimacy, without actually improving the quality of democracy, the debate in the public sphere nor question existing power relations. While the initial tone may lead the reader to think that the book has been written from a cynical perspective, this is not the case. Rather, this book departs from hope, a valuable and necessary trait in order to act politically towards the further democratisation of the political structures that organise society. Hope requires, first, a critical analysis of the way in which society and its underlying structures function, and only beginning from such an analysis can one find a path on how to improve it for the better. This book follows this logic: it first analyses how EU institutions (mis)diagnosed the structural problems with European democracy, and suggests an alternative way forward to meaningfully address the underlying deeper democratic issues.

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A Politically Engaged Conceptual, Normative and Empirical Perspective: Democratic Theorising and the ‘Decolonial Multitude’

Beginning with a politically engaged conceptual and empirical perspective, the book aims at devising conceptual tools to imagine the democratisation of the EU in a broader process towards transnational democracy and a decolonial political horizon. In spite of the obvious transnational political dimension of the EU, too often in European studies6 the traditional categories related to democracy, such as ‘sovereignty’ or ‘the people’, have been accepted as conceptual building blocks. As Chapter 2 will develop, these categories have been shaped in such a way as to make them fit with the EU. Sovereignty has been conceptually revised as to mean something that can be ‘shared’ across levels of government, and the idea of ‘European sovereignty’ has gained traction. Similarly, ‘the people’ has been constructed as a notion that may describe not only the ‘national people’

6 The field of European studies encompasses not only the research on the evolution of EU institutions, but also the broader societal processes related to European integration from diverse perspectives, such as sociology, cultural studies or history.

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but also the ‘European people’, and EU democracy has been also imagined as a plural entanglement of ‘European peoples’ as a ‘demoicracy’ (Nicolaïdis, 2013). These are all valuable conceptual innovations, yet a both materialist and constructivist perspective may embark us on a different path. Sovereignty and ‘the people’ are not ‘natural’ categories that simply describe reality. They are socially constructed artefacts that incorporate normative assessments, and that contribute to legitimising certain political structures and protecting the position of certain social groups over others. In contrast, the book begins with a problematisation of both concepts (‘sovereignty’ and ‘the people’) and the resignification of ‘democracy’, which is particularly fitting in light of the acceleration of ongoing globalisation processes. The idea of the ‘people’ and ‘sovereignty’ has an inherent problematic aspect that essentialises the relation between the ‘nation’ and ‘democracy’, even when theorised in a non-conservative way (see Spector, 2021). The framework of the ‘decolonial multitude’ is put forward as an alternative to sovereignty and ‘the people’, operating as a class-based political imaginary that is more inclusive of different sensitivities and able to encompass a critique of the global capitalist and postcolonial material structures that are in place. Furthermore, the ‘decolonial multitude’ is a better fit to the political imaginaries upon which activists construct their own understandings of democracy, the meaning of which is often drawn from the political context in the Global North (see Brooks et al., 2020). In addition to its decolonial dimension, the multitude also allows us to imagine a more intertwined political world in which transnational coalitions of actors are more easily constructed, and that also fits better the current material reality of a globalised world in general, and the European Union in particular. The concept is broadly inspired by Hardt and Negri’s (2004) work, yet incorporates a strong emphasis on the idea of ‘mediation’ and decolonisation. Chapter 2 will further develop the idea of the ‘decolonial multitude’ as an alternative conception of the main democratising subject, in contrast to ‘the people’, in the EU context, and Chapter 7 will attempt to provide an empirical and alive illustration of it. The added value of combining a political theory with a political sociology approach in this book is that it allows the concept of the ‘decolonial multitude’ to come alive, illustrating the sort of coalitions and political practices that might lead to its articulation in the EU context. In doing so, this approach facilitates the uncovering of certain (un)democratic

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dimensions of European integration that traditional approaches sideline. Far from being a “descriptive” and only “empirical” approach, the book aims to reconceptualise the understanding of the subject of democracy in the EU, problematise concepts such as “the people” or “sovereignty” in the EU context, introduce a Gramscian reading of current EU political dynamics, and doing so through an empirical analysis of the Conference on the Future of Europe and other transnational, decolonial and activist democratic alternatives. This endeavour follows the idea of democratising democracy (Koelble & Lipuma, 2008) and democratic theorising (Asenbaum, 2022), in that there is an important democratic theory component that has been developed through (transnational) activism, in such a way that a political sociology and political theory perspective are aligned and complement each other. ‘Democracy’ is a signifier that has different meanings in different political contexts, and innovations in its practices (such as citizens’ assemblies) are rooted in particular ways of experiencing and conceiving democracy. A decolonial approach, however, leads us towards an interpretivist perspective that does not build democratic theory from the top-down, but instead is developed alongside activists and social movements, while in interaction with existing political institutions. The book thus aims to also contribute to the idea that academic theorising should be democratised. I am thus both an observer and an actor in the processes that will be described in the empirical chapters, and in turn these processes help us to make sense of broader political patterns. Given the inherently radical democratic element present in the concept of the ‘decolonial multitude’, it is of particular relevance that the political theory built upon it is itself constructed democratically. The methodology, an interaction between grounded theory, participant observation and semi-structured interviews anchored in an interpretivist outlook, is a good fit for this perspective. Grounded theory begins with the idea that one ought to be grounded in the empirical field in order to develop theories that make sense of it (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007). The book has been developed through a constant dialogue and feedback loop between the literature engagement and the fieldwork. Undertaking research on a political object in movement, such as the CoFoE and the European citizens’ panels, has its challenges, but overall it is useful to describe and theorise the political dynamics from the inside.

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To be sure, this theoretical-normative point of departure is not novel, as James Bohman (1999) already criticised critical theory for the elitist and ‘enlightened’ perspective with which it engaged with its objects of study. There is a rich and emerging literature that encourages researchers to undertake “collaborative theorizing” with movements (Gobby, 2019) or “activist theorising” (Cox & Nilsen, 2007), and it is particularly relevant when beginning with a decolonial perspective of the existing postcolonial material structures that shape society and in the EU context. There have long been criticisms towards the remaining coloniality of mainstream academic research (Bhambra, 2007; Bhambra et al., 2018; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999), which explains the emphasis of many researchers in engaging more closely with underrepresented communities when conducting research (Mignolo, 2021). Grounded theory has great potential in this sense, “because of its commitment to critical, open-ended inquiry, can be a decolonizing tool for Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars alike” (Denzin, 2007: 456). In other words, democratic theory must “democratise its own practice towards more self-reflective and open forms of theory development” (Hammond, 2018: 789) in order to construct “an alternative democratic theory from the views, contributions, and experiences of those historically on the margins of society as well as those with whom they stand in solidarity” (Brettschneider, 2007: 10). Ultimately, academics are not outside of politics. Much to the contrary, academic work legitimises particular ways of conceiving democracy, also in the EU context. This is particularly relevant when making sense of European studies, as there is a long history of academics in the field contributing to political, policy and public debates on issues related to democracy in the EU. Furthermore, academic institutions such as the European University Institute (EUI) or the College of Europe are central spaces of socialisation of future EU-related workers—for instance, in EU institutions, businesses or civil society. Problematically, however, European studies literature is mostly produced and developed by academics from the Global North and in institutions from the Global North (this book is no exception). This raises normative questions about the political direction of this literature, which in many ways reproduces in epistemic terms the structural inequalities of our society (Mignolo, 2002). If academics in general, and European studies in particular, are mostly coming from a rather privileged class background and the Global North, it is unsurprising that perspectives from the Global Souths tend to

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be sidelined. The positionality of academics reinforces the dominant ideological streams in the literature and is a major stumbling block for the democratisation of democratic theory. The empirical chapters and concluding chapter will provide details about the specific ways in which the participatory perspective was undertaken and how it shaped the theory building, but generally the attempt has been to contribute to the call to “democratize theorizing about democracy” (Fleuß, 2021: 165). In doing so, the goal is to contribute to the democratisation and decolonisation of democratic theory (Banerjee, 2021; Singh, 2019) in the EU context. The postcolonial perspective on the EU is an endeavour that is gaining traction, for instance in relation to EU trade policy, where a postcolonial and decolonial critique has emerged in the last years (Orbie, 2021; Orbie et al., 2023), but when it comes to EU democracy the literature remains largely focused on EU institutions and legalistic arguments. This is especially the case in relation to democratic backsliding, a debate in which recently a paper criticised not only the ‘democracy without politics’ perspective of the European Commission, but also the ‘political science without politics’ perspective that often the literature has provided when discussing EU democracy and the ‘rule of law crisis’ (see Oleart & Theuns, 2022). Rather than conceiving this book as ‘objective’ or ‘neutral’, it is based on an activist conception of political philosophy and academic work. How to make sense of political reality in order to facilitate international solidarity is thus a central question. Such perspective has the epistemological advantage of being politically anchored, and thus does not aim uniquely to describe political reality, but also contribute to changing it. In doing so, the book fosters emancipatory democratic horizons. Inspired by Machiavelli, Gramsci argued in The Modern Prince that it is absurd to think of a purely “objective” foresight. The person who has foresight in reality has a “program” that he wants to see triumph, and foresight is precisely an element of this triumph (…) only to the extent to which the objective aspect of foresight is connected with a program, does this aspect acquire objectivity: (1) because only passion sharpens the intellect and co-operates in making intuition clearer; (2) because since reality is the result of the application of human will to the society of things (of the worker to the machine), to put aside every voluntary element and calculate only the intervention of other wills as an objective element in the general game is to mutilate reality itself. Only those who strongly want to do it

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identify the necessary elements for the realization of their will. (Gramsci, 2021: 153)

The reader may notice a slight mismatch between the political theory ambitions of the book and the empirical analysis, focused on the Conference on the Future of Europe, the European Commission citizens’ panels and the prefigurative political practices of ongoing social movements in the EU. This is because the book is written from the perspective of foresight: the European citizens’ panels by themselves do not constitute a ‘passive revolution’, but the increasing popularity of minipublics and ‘descriptive representation’ via sortition as a replacement to mass politics may become one. The book can, therefore, be seen as an innovative and politically aware attempt to not only critically analyse ongoing dynamics in the EU, but also envision a transnational, decolonial and democratic horizon for the EU and beyond, developed itself in close interaction with activists, social movements as well as institutions. This is an unfinished process, and as such the book poses some questions that is unable to answer in full. In this way, the book calls to elaborate both theory and empirical analysis with a closer link to activism. The CoFoE is an ideal political object of study in this regard, as there has been an interaction between the institutional events organised by the EU and independent and rather activist-oriented initiatives, such as the 2022 TransEuropa Festival (an important part of the fieldwork conducted), the motto of which was a good match with the perspective outlined in this section: “Decolonise, Decarbonise, Democratise”. My relation to (transnational) social movements is thus crucial when building a theory of transnational democracy, which makes the book the outcome of activist research (Choudry, 2015) in a theory building project. Historically, it is social movements and activists that have been the main democratising actors, and thus if transnational democracy is to emerge, it will be primarily thanks to them.

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4

Challenging the “coloniality of power” in mainstream conceptions of ‘citizen participation’: decolonising the ‘we’ in democracy The scholar-activist perspective outlined above emphasises that a relevant task of democratic theory is to be sensitive to the interaction between material and epistemic inequalities. In this sense, Aníbal Quijano developed the notion of “coloniality of power”, which has since been mobilised by numerous decolonial scholars. Maldonado-Torres (2007: 243) defined it as the “long-standing patterns of power that emerged as a result of colonialism, but that define culture, labour, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administration”. While colonialism materialised in the subjugation of some (primarily European) countries over others, the horizon of political independence is insufficient to reverse the postcolonial power relations and practices. Political theory, particularly in the EU context, requires us to be conscious about our own positionality and the material relations in which we are situated. It is for this reason that knowledge production processes in EU democratic theory and European studies more broadly ought to be more closely linked to the movements that are fighting for a more equal, feminist, democratic and decolonial society. This perspective leads us to ask: Who is ‘we’ in EU democracy? Arguably, the ‘we’ that has been constructed at the European level (both the demos and demoi versions) in the EU context tends to reproduce the “coloniality of power”. ‘We’, the ‘Europeans’, are ‘civilised’ and hold ‘European values’ (among which we find democracy) that are not necessarily ‘shared’ with ‘non-European’ countries. Unsurprisingly, the ‘non-European’ countries that ‘share the same values’ are often from the Global North: United States, Canada or Australia. The story that we tell about ourselves (and who is ‘us’) facilitates particular ways of establishing bonds of solidarity, and also operates as a way to exclude ‘others’. Looking at democracy in the EU through a decolonial lens entails opening the European studies literature to knowledge produced from and by the Global Souths in all its plurality. Following Sabaratnam (2017: 7), decolonial research’s goal “must be to reject the assumed ways in which global humanity is intellectually ordered into a hierarchy of ‘advanced’ and ‘backward’ groups, along lines produced by historic systems of colonial exploitation and dispossession”.

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Terminology is here crucial. Inspired by Alcazar III (2023), the Global Souths (a slightly revised term compared to Alcazar III’s global souths ) is the preferred terminology to emphasise the plurality of political spaces that often encompass the notion of the ‘Global South’, itself constructed as a less offensive imaginary than the ‘third’ or ‘developing’ world. The plurality of the Global Souths (in capital rather than lower case letters, to emphasise both specificity with plurality) is also helpful to conceive the diverse knowledge production developed by, from and with the Global Souths, and is entirely in sync with the spirit of the decolonial multitude: embracing differences and the shared purposes by forging ties of solidarity. Similarly, it could have been the ‘transnational’ multitude, but the transnational is not necessarily decolonial, whereas the decolonial (from a multitude perspective) is necessarily transnational, as ‘class’ is not anchored within nation-states. Furthermore, the decolonial multitude operates as an alternative to European demoi—the decolonial replacing the ‘European’ and the ‘multitude’ as an alternative to the notion of ‘demoi’. The spirit of the decolonial multitude is thus inherently linked to conceive EU democracy in a wider context, and oriented towards building coalitions with actors from the Global Souths. The close relationship and interaction between colonialism and capitalism is central for the conceptualisation of the ‘decolonial multitude’. Whereas the ‘multitude’ addresses the global capitalist structures, the ‘decolonial’ emphasises the remaining colonial relations that still today structure the world. Thus, the evolution of capitalism cannot be properly understood without an analysis of colonialism and the coloniality of power. The decolonial multitude is a conceptual attempt to make sense of the political imaginary of those actors cooperating intersectionally across different but related struggles. To define the borders of the ‘people’ is always a political battle that is in constant negotiation: Who should be included within the political community? The imaginary of the ‘decolonial multitude’ is a political attempt to reconceptualise the ways in which we make sense of EU democracy, and democracy more broadly. There is an evident tension between the horizon of dismantling the existing capitalist-colonial system and taking advantage of the institutional opportunities within the EU. Navigating this tension skilfully will in large part shape the possibilities for success. Redefining our understanding of ‘democracy’ and opening the epistemic borders of the EU’s political community is a necessary step towards collective action processes able to meaningfully shape and democratise the political and material structures of our society.

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The notion of ‘decoloniality’ enables “to ethically prioritise situated and embodied knowledges from the Global Souths whose historical presence is often elided” (Alcazar III et al., 2023: 188). This entails taking the agency from the Global Souths seriously, given that the hierarchical relationship is consolidated by an imaginary that situates ‘underdeveloped’ countries as ‘unable’ to develop by themselves. The Eurocentric conception of democracy in the EU context explains that sortition mechanisms, such as citizen assemblies, are understood as a democratising force. It primarily reinforces the notion that democracy is about processes and institutions, rather than about conflict and emancipation from oppressive material structures. The Athenian ‘origins’ of ‘democracy’ ought to be challenged not only in light of its reliance of slavery and the sidelining of women from political life, but also on the rich egalitarian experiences of societies beyond ‘Europe’ (see Graeber & Wengrow, 2021). It follows that a decolonial epistemology reframes the democracy debate in such a way that it questions the existing political arrangements and facilitates processes of international solidarity, whereby we conceive the emancipation of subaltern classes in the Global North as inherently intertwined with the emancipation of subaltern classes in the Global Souths. The notion of the ‘subaltern’, put forward by Gramsci, has inspired much of ’subaltern studies’ (see Prakash, 1994), and is aligned with an activist and decolonial approach to research. In this way, the book contributes to the already wide literature on deliberative democracy and ‘citizen participation’ in the EU context from a critical perspective. However, the book should not be read as a criticism of citizen participation or citizens’ assemblies. Much to the contrary, citizen participation and assemblies could have a place in modern democratic systems. However, these processes ought to not only be designed well in terms of their internal methodology, but, most importantly, in the way in which they are embedded within the democratic system as a whole. Otherwise, there is a risk, pointed out by scholars (see Baiochi & Ganuza, 2014), that they may serve as a communication exercise to communicate the importance of ‘reaching out’ to (a small group of) citizens, yet without connecting to the public sphere and encouraging a broader political engagement or ‘empowerment’. These exercises should not disentangle democracy from mass politics, nor be treated as ‘experiments’, but get integrated in a way that there is a constant political interaction and dialectical relationship with existing institutions and political actors. In other words, citizen participation mechanisms should not

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be conceived as a marketing exercise to increase the legitimacy of a polity without being structurally connected to the public sphere, in such a way that there are discursive and material tools to question and reshape the existing power structures. Rather than intending to propose a concrete set of best practices, the book aims to show how a different way of conceiving the political subject in the EU—the decolonial multitude as an alternative to the national or European ‘people(s)’—leads to a substantially different engagement between citizens, political parties, civil society and political institutions. In this way, the activist organising processes described in Chapter 7 reflect a normatively more desirable way of conceiving ‘citizen participation’. Ongoing activist movements already share a multitude-like perspective in terms of who constitutes conceptually and sociologically the political subject in EU democracy. The book argues that the EU is a promising terrain of struggle for the decolonial multitude insofar it already has institutions that operate on a beyond the nation-state basis. This does not mean that EU institutions are perfect nor that they are the ‘natural’ fit for democracy beyond the nation-state. On the contrary, the EU represents a pragmatic opportunity to enhance a vision of democracy beyond the nation-state in spite of its colonial past and present. The struggle to democratise the EU ought to connect with broader struggles by building bridges and connections beyond the EU in an attempt to articulate a ‘movement of movements’ that is both transnational and decolonial.

5 Summary of the Book Through the Articulation of the Different Chapters After this introductory chapter, the book’s second chapter will make the case to intellectually transition from the idea of a European demos (or demoi) towards a ‘decolonial multitude’ perspective when conceiving the subject of democracy in the EU context. This argument will be connected to the academic discussion surrounding the EU’s democratic legitimacy in combination with the increasing politicisation of the EU. I argue that the academic discussion surrounding the EU’s democratic legitimacy deficit has often missed the important emphasis on the role of conflict and agonism, as well as capitalism and colonialism, elements that are relevant to the idea of the ‘decolonial multitude’. The third chapter will present the political construction and genealogy of the ‘citizen’ turn (Oleart, 2023) in the European Union and the

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CoFoE. This turn breaks away from the ‘participatory turn’ described by Saurugger (2010) in that it decouples ‘citizen participation’ from civil society and the idea of a European public sphere, both in discursive terms and in the ensuing political practices. The chapter departs from the shift by the European Commission post-Brexit in order to describe the citizen dialogues and the European Citizen Consultations (ECCs) as a prelude to the CoFoE. While there are innovative elements, the chapter argues that the ‘citizen turn’ does not meaningfully contribute to the emergence of an agonistic European public sphere, as it follows an alternative legitimacy logic that fundamentally deviates from the traditional conceptualisation of the public sphere. The chapter concludes by suggesting that the disintermediation of European politics is coherent with the preexistent depoliticised EU political dynamics of ‘democracy without politics’. The fourth chapter will analyse the CoFoE’s political architecture, the way in which it unfolded and its recommendations, as well as the institutional discourse around it and the power relations that shaped it. It will argue that, behind the rhetoric mobilised by EU institutions of the CoFoE as an ‘experiment in transnational democracy’ that gives a voice to ‘European citizens’ through its strong and unprecedented involvement, the CoFoE represented more ‘business as usual’ than a meaningful break with the established EU policy-making. The chapter will also outline how the CoFoE structurally excluded organised civil society and trade unions in an attempt to ‘disintermediate’ the relation between EU institutions and EU citizens. The fifth chapter will zoom in on the most innovative aspect of the CoFoE, namely the European citizen panels. Four panels of 200 randomly selected citizens (800 citizens in total) were organised in order to deliberate on four thematic clusters of EU policy and make recommendations to the CoFoE plenary. Relatedly, the sixth chapter addresses the aftermath of the CoFoE: What was the tangible outcome of the CoFoE? Did it advance the cause of EU democracy? In addition, the chapter will describe the ‘new generation’ European citizens’ panels on food waste, virtual worlds and learning mobility organised by the European Commission. Ultimately, this type of ‘citizen participation’ appears to be an attempt to change something, yet maintain the existing power structures, which connects closely to the idea of the passive revolution developed in this chapter. The seventh chapter will look at alternative ways of organising ‘citizen participation’, illustrating how the decolonial multitude might look

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like in practice in the EU context. Is the ‘decolonial multitude’ the political imaginary upon which transnational social movements construct their own identity? The chapter, on the basis of participant observation of transnational activist spaces in prefigurative politics as well as semi-structured interviews, offers a window of hope in terms of the way in which they contrast with the EU’s mechanisms of (individualised and depoliticised) ‘citizen participation’. The dialectics between institutional and non-institutional spaces is, therefore, an innovative perspective to analyse top-down and bottom-up approaches to citizen and civil society participation, and provides an insightful angle to illustrate the ‘decolonial multitude’ as the ‘we’ of democracy. It also proposes an activist and movement-oriented notion of representation that challenges both its electoral conceptualisation and the ‘descriptive representation’ of minipublics. The chapter draws on the internal tensions within movements in order to devise the challenges to materialise the ‘decolonial multitude’ imaginary as a transnational political coalition. The primary challenges relate to transversal and intersectional solidarity, remaining coloniality, and construction of permanent political structures. Finally, the chapter concludes with potential ways forward to address those challenges anchored in the ongoing practices of transnational activists. Last, the concluding chapter begins with the initial parallelism between Gramsci’s Italian Risorgimento reading and ongoing EU ‘citizen participation’ dynamics, and reflects upon how the Conference reinforced the already existing EU power dynamics, while at the same time proposing ways to democratise transnational ‘citizen participation’. The conclusion argues that the multitude’s original conception requires a revision from the organisational point of view, as it will not emerge spontaneously, and how it may look in the EU context based on the empirical cases analysed in the previous chapters. The chapter ends with the contribution to the literature, shortcomings of the book and avenues for future research, as well as a reflection on the importance of shifting the ideological borders of European studies academic discourse, and why the book is designed to provide conceptual tools to not only make sense of the current state of affairs of the EU, but also transform it.

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Cox, L., & Nilsen, A. G. (2007). Social movements research and the ‘movement of movements’: Studying resistance to neoliberal globalisation. Sociology Compass, 1(2), 424–442. Denzin, N. (2007). Grounded theory and the politics of interpretation. In A. Bryant & K. Charmaz (Eds.), The sage handbook of grounded theory (pp. 472– 492). Sage. Flesher Fominaya, C., & Cox, L. (Eds.). (2013). Understanding European movements: New social movements, global justice struggles, anti-austerity protest. Routledge. Fleuß, D. (2021). Radical proceduralism: Democracy from philosophical principles to political institutions. Emerald. Goldkuhl, G., & Cronholm, S. (2010). Adding theoretical grounding to grounded theory: Toward multi-grounded theory. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 9(2), 187–205. Gobby, J. (2019). More powerful together: Collaborative theorizing with social movements about decolonizing and decarbonizing Canada. McGill University. Graeber, D. & Wengrow, D. (2021). The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity. Penguin. Gramsci, A. ([1957] 2021). The modern prince and other writings. Foreign Languages Press. Hammond, M. (2018). Deliberative democracy as a critical theory. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 22(7), 787–808. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2004). Multitude: War and democracy in the age of empire. Penguin. He, B., & Warren, M. E. (2011). Authoritarian deliberation: The deliberative turn in Chinese political development. Perspectives on Politics, 9(2), 269–289. Hoare, Q., & Nowell-Smith, G. (1999). Selections from prison notebooks. Lawrence & Wishart. Koelble, T. A., & Lipuma, E. (2008). Democratizing democracy: A postcolonial critique of conventional approaches to the ‘measurement of democracy.’ Democratisation, 15(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/135103407 01768075 Landemore, H. (2020). Open democracy: Reinventing popular rule for the twentyfirst century. Princeton University Press. Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On the coloniality of being: Contribution to the development of a concept. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 240–270. Mignolo, W. (2002). The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 101(1), 57–96. Mignolo, W. (2021). The politics of decolonial investigations. Duke University Press. Morton, A. D. (2010). The continuum of passive revolution. Capital & Class, 34(3), 315–342.

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Nicolaïdis, K. (2013). European demoicracy and its crisis. Journal of Common Market Studies, 51(2), 351–369. Oleart, A. (2023). The political construction of the ‘citizen turn’ in the EU: Disintermediation and depoliticisation in the Conference on the Future of Europe. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 1–15. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/14782804.2023.2177837 Oleart, A., & Theuns, T. (2022). ‘Democracy without politics’ in the European Commission’s response to democratic backsliding: From technocratic legalism to democratic pluralism. Journal of Common Market Studies. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/jcms.13411 Orbie, J. (2021). The graduation of EU development studies: Towards a postcolonial turn? Global Affairs, 7 (4), 597–613. Orbie, J., Alcazar, A. S. M., III., Bougrea, A., Nagy, S., Oleart, A., Paz, J. C., Sebhatu, R. W., Williams, T. G., & Wodzka, I. (2023). Decolonizing rather than decentring ‘Europe.’ European Foreign Affairs Review, 28(1), 1–8. Prakash, G. (1994). Subaltern studies as postcolonial criticism. The American Historical Review, 99(5), 1475–1490. Sabaratnam, M. (2017). Decolonising intervention: International statebuilding in Mozambique. Rowman & Littlefield. Saurugger, S. (2010). The social construction of the participatory turn: The emergence of a norm in the European Union. European Journal of Political Research, 49(4), 471–495. Schmidt, V. A. (2020). Europe’s crisis of legitimacy: Governing by rules and ruling by numbers in the eurozone. Oxford University Press. Singh, J. (2019). Decolonizing radical democracy. Contemporary. Political Theory, 18(3), 331–356. Spector, C. (2021). No demos?. Souveraineté et démocratie à l’épreuve de l’Europe. Éditions Seuil. Thomas, P. (2006). Modernity as “passive revolution”: Gramsci and the Fundamental Concepts of Historical Materialism. Journal of the Canadian Historical Association/revue De La Société Historique Du Canada, 17 (2), 61–78. Tuhiwai Smith, L. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books/University of Otago Press. Villacañas, J. L. (2022). La Revolución Pasiva de Franco. HarperCollins Hibérica.

CHAPTER 2

From European Demoi to the Decolonial Multitude: Democratising the EU’s Political Imaginary

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EU Democracy, Decolonisation and the Agonistic Public Sphere

The globalisation of governance through supranational or international institutions has raised questions on the public sphere’s relationship with democratic legitimacy. Prominent authors (Calhoun, 1992; Habermas, 1989) have long argued that the increasing importance of political institutions beyond the nation-state requires, from a deliberative democracy point of view, a public sphere beyond the nation-state, in such a way that there are mechanisms to influence those institutions’ policy and decisionmaking. However, most of the literature remains state-centric, attempting to match the ‘administrative power’ of public authorities with a public sphere able to generate the necessary ‘communicative power’ to shape those decisions. In this context, this chapter connects the discussions surrounding the EU’s democratic deficit due to the lack of a European public sphere with broader questions regarding the relationship of democracy with capitalism and colonial legacies. While I have developed a both deliberative and agonistic perspective of a European public sphere in a previous book (see Oleart, 2021), the democratic legitimacy theoretical framework in this book is focused primarily on agonism and its relation to the ‘we’ of EU democracy.

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Crucially, Mouffe has made the case for situating conflict at the centre of democracy, arguing the following: [b]elief in the possibility of a universal rational consensus has put democratic thinking on the wrong track. Instead of trying to design the institutions which, through supposedly ‘impartial’ procedures, would reconcile all conflicting interests and values, the task for democratic theorists and politicians should be to envisage the creation of a vibrant ‘agonistic’ public sphere of contestation where different hegemonic political projects can be confronted. (Mouffe, 2005: 3)

Mouffe sees agonistic democratic debate as an inherently conflictual battle between rivals, rather than between enemies (which Mouffe understands as ‘antagonism’), implying a binary logic of inclusion–exclusion between an ‘us’ and a ‘them’, although both recognise the other’s legitimate existence. ‘Agonistic’ democracy is, therefore, a political system based on conflict rather than on consensus. Mouffe rejects the emphasis that some deliberative democracy scholars have put on rationality, consensus and deliberation, because, for her, it neglects the conflictual dimension inherent to politics. Both Habermas and Mouffe are pluralists but, as pointed out by Mouffe, “for them (Habermas and its followers), pluralism goes without antagonism” (Carpentier & Cammaerts, 2006: 972). Plural does not only mean that there are different views, but that they are in conflict with each other, and cannot be reconciled (see also Herman, 2017). Democracy, however, cannot be based only on conflict, but rather on a particular way of channelling conflict, which Mouffe (2013: XII) labels ‘agonism’: “a central task of democratic politics is to provide the institutions which will permit conflicts to take an ‘agonistic’ form, where the opponents are not enemies but adversaries among whom exists a conflictual consensus”. The essential difference between antagonistic and agonistic conflict is that, in the latter, the opponents recognise each other as legitimate participants of the same polity, while remaining adversaries. Following Mouffe, a democratic polity requires more than a ‘public sphere’ of rational deliberation and discussion. Namely, it requires the outline of different political choices between fundamentally different alternatives, such as challenging the current neoliberal hegemony. This is coherent with deliberative democracy theorists such as Chambers (1995), who argues that the discursive interaction about political issues is a

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democratic goal in itself, because it makes people more aware of what others think and improves their own reasoning given that they have to defend their positions in the public sphere. In fact, as Blondiaux argues (2008), conflict enhances deliberation, in that it encourages greater actor participation. Therefore, for an agonistic European public sphere to emerge is not only necessary to have a plurality of views vis-à-vis EU issues, but to have fundamentally opposing points of view that cannot be reconciled, in such a way that there is no sense that ‘there is no alternative’. In fact, conflict can revitalise deliberative democracy and discussions over the ‘democratic deficit’ of the EU. In the words of Trenz and Eder, “criticising the democratic deficit means initiating the process of democratising the EU” (Trenz & Eder, 2004: 7). In a democratic society, pacification should not be about repressing conflict, but channelling conflict in a legitimate manner (Carpentier & Cammaerts, 2006: 973). Blocking agonistic debate might actually have negative consequences for public debate, opening the door to an antagonistic form of conflict. The link between agonistic democracy and decolonisation is not evident, given that Mouffe arguably follows a rather Eurocentric conception of democracy, largely focused on discourse and detached from material structures. This partially explains her move away from Marxist categories such as ‘class’. In consequence, agonistic democracy has more difficulties to encompass colonial legacies, material relations and ongoing class struggle. Instead, a historical materialist perspective requires us to focus on the relationship between the symbolic and the material. As structural inequalities and class warfare are not national phenomena, but stem from global dynamics, democracy can only emerge through the understanding that the struggle of subaltern classes in the Global North is inherently related to that of subaltern classes in the Global Souths. Thus, the articulation of international solidarity is a precondition for EU democracy: a real democracy cannot be built on the basis of capitalist and colonial exploitation. This requires us to move beyond a ‘national’ understanding of democracy, all the more relevant in a context of imperialist wars (such as the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine) and climate emergency. Furthermore, a decolonial understanding of democracy entails confronting the “foundational historical myths in social theory and discourse about Europe itself” (Sabaratnam, 2011: 787), without which we are conceptually trapped in the geopolitics

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of capitalism, oriented towards the competition between empires rather than transnational democratisation through international solidarity. Beginning with this agonistic and decolonial perspective, the chapter develops a political theory framework that challenges the mainstream accounts of democracy in the EU and its relation to the longstanding idea of its political subject, the ‘demos’ or ‘the people (s)’ (demoi). The chapter develops an agonistic alternative to ‘the people’ as the political subject of democracy in the EU, based on the idea of the ‘decolonial multitude’. The transition from ‘the people’ to the ‘decolonial multitude’ requires us to rethink the ‘we’ of democracy in the EU (and beyond), and fundamentally detaches democracy from sovereignty, as well as the idea of ‘demoicracy’, in order to integrate the (capitalist) material structures within which democratic polities operate. This account may serve as a useful framework to understand the normatively problematic dynamics that have been developed throughout the 2010s and ‘new intergovernmentalism’, and might be conceived as a pluralist alternative to (left-wing) populism. 1.1

Democratic Legitimacy in the EU: The Opportunity of Politicisation to Bring Agonism

There is an academic consensus when understanding the European integration process until the 1990s as an elite-driven process (Hooghe & Marks, 2009), where political elites advanced EU integration with the general public’s ‘permissive consensus’. The implication of the ‘permissive consensus’ vis-à-vis the EU implies a general lack of popular participation, given the limited range of actors participating in the process and its strong intergovernmental component. The ‘permissive consensus’ responds to a logic of depoliticisation, a concept that has become important in the political science literature since the 2000s. Burnham portrayed depoliticisation as a process by which political decisions are presented as if they are unquestionable, removing “the political character of decision-making” (Burnham, 2001: 128). Buller and Flinders (2005) further developed the concept, understanding depoliticisation as arena shifting, a mechanism by which political responsibility is moved away from ‘politics’, as the process by which a political decision is presented as unchallengeable, technical and/or apolitical, presenting political decisions as if there is no alternative, as merely ‘administrative’ decisions (Hay & Rosamond, 2002). Depoliticisation is here defined as the absence of political conflict in a political

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process in the public sphere. Instead, politicisation is defined as “making collectively binding decisions a matter or and object of public discussion” (Zürn et al., 2012: 74; see also Haapala & Oleart, 2022). Vivien Schmidt (2013) has conceptualised the democratic legitimacy of a polity separating three different types: input, throughput and output. These three dimensions are inspired in Lincoln’s popular quote of a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. Input legitimacy refers to the EU’s responsiveness to the concerns of its citizens (government of the people). Output legitimacy refers to the effectiveness of the policies undertaken by the EU and the well-being produced by them (government for the people). And throughput legitimacy refers to the transparency, accountability and quality of the governance processes of the decision and policy-making process (government by or with the people). As the traditional legitimising concepts, input and output have an interrelationship where more output performance could potentially make up for less political input. The EU has traditionally relied on its output legitimacy (Scharpf, 1999) (along with a bit of throughput legitimacy), largely disregarding input legitimacy. Schmidt (2013) defined the EU’s policy-making process as ‘policy without politics’, precisely for its outputoriented legitimacy. ‘Politics’ is situated in the input part of the legitimacy equation. Therefore, by ignoring the popular aspect of legitimisation, the EU’s policy-making process is being emptied of ‘politics’ (the input), left alone with (generally technocratic) processes (the throughput) ‘policies’ (the output). The advent of EU politicisation throughout the 2010s has not only questioned the output legitimacy, but also made evident the input deficit. While attempts have been made by EU institutions to bridge the input legitimacy gap, such as the establishment of the Spitzenkandidaten in the EU elections, the gap between mainstream political debates, which are overwhelmingly located at the national level, and EU policy discussions remains. However, EU politicisation provides opportunities precisely to bring together heated political debates with the often technical and depoliticised EU-related discussions. Thus, the increasing politicisation of the EU has the democratic potential to normalise agonistic conflict and lead towards an ‘empowering dissensus’ for EU integration (Bouza & Oleart, 2018). This perspective matches well with a changing perspective on who ought to be conceptualised as the subject of EU democracy, from the ‘demos’ or ‘demoi’ towards the decolonial multitude. This transition challenges traditional accounts of EU studies and shifts the emphasis of

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legitimacy towards the input side, situating agonistic conflict and resistance to oppressive material structures as essential components for the democratisation of the EU. So far, however, rather than embracing politicisation and encourage further input legitimacy in the EU policy-making, EU institutions have focused towards throughput legitimacy. As it will be described in the following chapters, the European citizen panels in the context of the Conference on the Future of Europe may represent a way to enhance throughput legitimacy in what is perceived ‘good governance’ practices. This way of ‘involving’ citizens may be conceived as a way of making policy-making more ‘efficient’ for public policies, rather than democratise it (de la Porte & Nanz, 2004). This aspect, which is closely related to a particularly depoliticised conception of the ‘people’, will be further developed in Chapter 3. This chapter now turns to an alternative conception of the ‘we’ of democracy, oriented towards the EU context.

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Multitude Over Peoplehood: The Tension Between Sovereignty and Democracy

Traditional accounts of EU democracy have long debated whether there is a ‘European people’ upon which a more democratic and federal union might be legitimised, or instead on denying the existence of a ‘European people’ due to the existence of ‘national peoples’. The latter perspective legitimises a more intergovernmental union. A sort of middle ground is found by authors that emphasise the importance of ‘demoicracy’, in an attempt to reconcile the pluralism that exists within the EU with democratic European integration: Demoicracy consists of the ‘peoples’ of the EU. Historically, demoicracy emerges as a response to the frustrating binary debate in the context of the Convention on the Future of Europe (2001–2003). Kalypso Nicolaïdis proposed to conceive the EU as a demoicratic project, breaking apart the dichotomy between federalists and intergovernmentalists by emphasising that the EU is a union of both citizens and states. Demoicracy represented a ‘third way’ that begins with the idea that EU democracy should combine transnational elements while also taking into account the national specificities of the respective national ‘peoples’—even though some authors have rightfully questioned whether demoicracy indeed represents a ‘third way’ or instead repackages preexisting notions of the nation-state (see Palomo Hernández, 2022;

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Ronzoni, 2016). Nicolaïdis’ point is that the EU should be conceived in a plural way, without requiring a unified ‘European demos’, but rather an ‘entanglement’ of the plural ‘demoi’. This way of looking at the demos legitimises a more decentralised EU governance that maintains an important role for national governments, combined with certain supranational elements. Thus, transnational politics are already present in the demoicratic account, sketching an understanding that is neither nation-state centric nor federal aggregative. As argued by Nicolaidis and Viehoff (2017: 594), “a demoicratic view reads European citizenship as a transnational right of inclusion in each other’s polity which mitigates the territorial boundedness of the latter without abolishing the member states’ capacity to maintain their regulatory, juridical and welfare state boundaries”. While not necessarily resonant in national public spheres (Beetz, 2015), the demoicratic ideal of a combination of intergovernmental and supranational components remains dominant in the current EU institutional structure, and is illustrated by the EU’s motto of ‘united in diversity’. The innovation of demoicracy as a conceptual framework lies in its perceived capacity to transcend the two traditional accounts of the (lack of a) European ‘demos’. First, a number of authors have argued that the ‘people’ preexists the state, and thus only nation-states are legitimate. This constitutes a rather nationalist and sovereignist reading (see Smith, 1992), and it follows that the non-existence of a ‘European people’ makes democracy at the European level impossible. While not as explicit, another set of authors have pursued a similar line of argument in what constitutes an intergovernmental reading of the EU (Bellamy, 2013), assuming that ‘the people’ exist as a subject primarily at the national level, and conceiving nation-states as the main locus of democracy. Second, authors such as Habermas have suggested from a post-national perspective that a European demos may emerge out of the construction of a common polity. Thus, political institutions may preexist the European ‘demos’, given that the ‘people’ is not inherently an ethnic concept—it follows that a top-down European Constitution (such as the one brought down in 2005) could have the effect over time of ‘constructing’ a European people. There is also a constructivist thesis of ‘the people’, defended by Deleixhe (2020) or Ballangé (2022), who argue that it is through transnational political action that the European ‘people’ may constitute itself.

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This constructivist perspective aims at resignifying the traditional understanding of the demos in European studies in more conflictual and plural terms following Jacques Rancière. Rather than the outcome of an institutional design such as a European Constitution, it is a common struggle that has the potential to constitute a European demos. In this way, it is possible to imagine ‘the people’ in a plural and conflictual/agonistic way. As Lise Esther Herman writes: ‘The People is neither static nor monolithic. Plurality, contradiction and change characterise any free political community: the People debates, judges, changes its mind, and holds its leaders accountable’ (Herman, 2019). Indeed, there is a normatively strong argument in support of the notion of ‘popular sovereignty’ as the essence of democratic rule, also applied to the EU context. Popular sovereignty relies on a “bond of collectivity” that limits who is part of ‘the people’ and who is not (White, 2011), and it is this bond that provides legitimacy to the polity. As Beetz and Rossi (2017: 28) argue, popular sovereignty “prescribes that rulers should remain responsive to the values of the subjects, which can include but is not limited to the protection of their rights”. However, the borders of the ‘we’ are always subject to contestation. As Näsström (2007: 629) has argued, “peoplehood always is born out of a combination of coercive force and persuasive storytelling”, and thus our conceptions of ‘the people’ are a ‘political invention’ (Morgan, 1989), and the definition of the frontiers of the ‘people’ is always a political struggle. The demoicratic position is not a contractualist in the strictest sense, yet the commitment to ‘popular sovereignty’ on a sociological reading still poses normative questions. If the ‘constituent power(s)’ (the political autonomy of “the people” to shape the constitution, in contrast to ‘constituted powers’, those actors that have been given power on the basis of the formally agreed constitutional arrangements) within the EU remains largely anchored at the national level, then “national constituent powers can bring about a supranational constituent power” (Patberg, 2020: 216), in what would constitute a pouvoir constituant mixte (Habermas, 2017). This would entail a close intertwining not only between intergovernmental and supranational components, but also a mix of ‘popular sovereignties’, both national and European. The decolonial multitude perspective does not challenge the ‘popular’, but decouples it from ‘national sovereignty’, in order to make sense of a more intertwined and transnational political reality (on the relationship between the multitude and constituent power, see Negri, 1997).

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The ‘Decolonial Multitude’ as the ‘We’ of Democracy

The theoretical endeavour to transcend the traditional categories of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘the people(s)’ is inspired by the contribution made over 20 years ago by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, yet applied specifically to the EU context and combining it with a decolonial perspective. Replacing the ‘people’ by the ‘multitude’ implies that there is no need for a unified ‘people’ or ‘peoples’ to democratise the European Union: what is necessary is the empowering of the decolonial multitude. The transition from ‘the people’ to the ‘multitude’ involves a move away from the traditional contractualist understanding of the relationship between the political subject and the state towards an agonistic and constructivist conception of democracy based on pluralism and (transnational and decolonial) power relations that integrates the (capitalist) material structures within which democratic polities operate. Furthermore, such perspective is able to incorporate the historical and current role that colonialism has played, and still does, in constructing the very notion of ‘European demo(i)cracy’. What I am suggesting is that the decolonial multitude should be conceived as the ‘constituent power’ not only of the EU, but of transnational democracy more broadly. This requires a much more dynamic relation between the ‘constituent power’ (decolonial multitude1 ) and the ‘constituted powers’ (EU, international and national political institutions) than traditional contractualist accounts of democracy. In order to make the case for the multitude in the EU context, it is necessary to first examine the concept of the ‘people’, which is closely associated to the social contract. The “people” may be defined by its boundaries or by its ‘other’ (Carl Schmitt), but in most cases appears as a political subject through ‘representation’ conceived as ‘delegation’.2 In

1 Patberg (2020: 126) also develops the “anti-juridical conception of destituent power”, which “is said to require not an abolishment of institutions followed by a new founding, but a withdrawal from sovereignty and law”. In these terms, the notion of the decolonial multitude could be situated at the intersection between “destituent” and “constituent” power. The role of destituent power is to ensure that “the mere possibility of insurrection constitutes a threat that exerts disciplining effects on the ruling elites” (Möller, 2018: 51). 2 A full-fledged state of the art on the question of representation is beyond the scope of the book, hence why Pitkin’s (1967) distinction of representation views (formalistic, descriptive, symbolic and substantive) is not developed.

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spite of some differences, John Locke and Rousseau tend to be aligned with Thomas Hobbes when arguing that a social contract is needed in order to reach peace in society: the “people” do not exist before the social contract. The social contract is what creates and unifies “the people” through its representation (see Berns & Carré, 2013), conceived mostly following the logic of delegation. The state is the ultimate result: the state is “the people”, as Hobbes would illustrate with his ‘The King is the People’. The social contract legitimises that someone will represent the population through the state of law (both in absolutism and liberalism). Nevertheless, on what grounds is law legitimised? The social contract. Therefore, the social contract may be seen as self-referential in that it is legitimised on its own grounds. Even though the mode of governance is different, the pillars of liberalism and absolutism from the perspective of the social contract have things in common. Interestingly, Hobbes departs from the idea of the ‘multitude’, present in Machiavelli, to describe its ‘people’ and its relation to the necessary ‘unity’ that a state ought to embody. Hobbes sees society as populated by individuals, and is terrified with the idea that social groups can organise and coalesce around specific political ideas that challenge ‘peace’. In his eyes, that would bring ‘chaos’. The disorder and the impossibility of ‘unity’ in the ‘multitude’ are what drives Hobbes to build a notion of the ‘people’: A multitude of men are made ‘one’ person when they are by one man or one person represented, so that it be done with the consent of every one of that multitude in particular. For it is the ‘unity’ of the representer, not the ‘unity’ of the represented, that taketh the person ‘one’. And it is the representer that bearers the person, and but one person; and ‘unity’ cannot otherwise be understood in multitude. (quoted in Runciman, 2021: 23)

In this way, the transition from the multitude towards ‘the people’ involves the unification of the political subject in a way that disorder is combatted, and the internal conflict (for instance, class struggle) is downplayed within it. Hobbes’ version of ‘the people’ is certainly an undemocratic one that differs from later accounts, yet shares a contractualist perspective between ‘the people’ and the (nation-)state (see Lavaert & Moreau, 2021). This contractualist vision of democracy is fought by the historical materialist tradition, which establishes a close relation between the material

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and the ideational, postulating that ideas are anchored in particular social realities. As portrayed by Hobbes in the Leviathan, the social contract offers protection in exchange of obedience. But protection from what? Protection of the effects that are produced by the social contract, which creates a supposed ‘state of nature’ that fuels uncertainty—either by an authoritarian ‘sovereign’ or by a liberal democratic state legitimised on the grounds that ‘the people’ is represented (see Brown, 2009). This approach is based on the premise that the “people” only exist as long as something (the state) or someone (the sovereign) ‘represents’ the “people”. The ‘people’ is a concept that historically is closely related to nation-states, and that is inherently linked to the idea of ‘(national) sovereignty’. In contrast, the materialist vision of society, inspired by thinkers such as Machiavelli, Spinoza or Marx, challenges this view by questioning the foundations of the social contract. As Claude Lefort put it, “for Machiavelli democracy cannot be defined by the sovereignty of the people; conflict is the beginning, and the people are the force of progress” (Rosanvallon, 2012: 9). Machiavelli suggests that any democratic social and political change comes from the multitude. Relatedly, Hardt and Negri (2004: 79) take it further to suggest that ‘the people’ as represented in the institutions is a form of usurpation that operates primarily as a legitimising device of established authorities. Hardt and Negri describe the ‘multitude’ as an alternative to the ‘people’ that is not limited by national boundaries, and that acknowledges the inextricable link between people from across the world in an already globalised capitalist society. Global capitalism is organised through a global-transnational rule that “divides and rules”, succeeding in ‘breaking solidarities’ (see Anderl, 2022). The multitude operates in a way that is able to bridge different but complementary strands of materialism, such as that of Marxism, decolonisation and feminism. The ‘multitude’ does not follow a contractualist logic, and thus is not inherently tied to a state nor a particular (national) community, but is instead oriented towards the articulation of a networked counter-power: We should distinguish the multitude at a conceptual level from other notions of social subjects, such as the people, the masses, and the working class. The population is characterised by all kinds of differences, but the people reduces that diversity to a unity and makes of the population a single identity: “the people” is one. The multitude, in contrast, is many. The multitude is composed of innumerable internal differences that can

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never be reduced to a unity or a single identity - different cultures, races, ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations; different forms of labor; different ways of living; different views of the world; and different desires. The multitude is a multiplicity of all these singular differences. (Hardt & Negri, 2004: XIII–XIV)

The plural conceptualisation of the multitude is particularly suitable for a polity such as the EU. The decolonial multitude may be conceived as a network of actors that cooperate beyond borders through transnational coalitions, as they share political concerns and proposals that are not necessarily connected to nation-states and that address the material structures in which it operates from a transformational perspective. The EU is a particularly fitting political ground to integrate decolonisation within the multitude paradigm given the ‘core’ position that Europe has historically occupied, and continues to occupy, in the world system (Wallerstein, 1974). Furthermore, capitalism cannot be properly understood without its relation to colonialism. The ‘global coloniality’ is a dimension that is largely missing in Hardt and Negri’s multitude, as has been pointed out previously (Amin, 2005; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013b)—hence the emphasis on the decolonial multitude. The perspective developed in this chapter, and throughout this book, attempts to challenge Eurocentric viewpoints by bringing together structural critiques of both capitalism and colonialism (the two of which are inherently related) coherent with a “decolonial world systems theory” (Andreotti, 2011). Eurocentrism, “the knowledge form of modernity/coloniality—a hegemonic representation and mode of knowing that claims universality for itself, ‘derived from Europe’s position as center” (Escobar, 2004: 217), remains dominant among theories of democracy: It is no longer possible, or at least it is not unproblematic, to ‘‘think’’ from the canon of Western philosophy, even when part of the canon is critical of modernity. To do so means to reproduce the blind epistemic ethnocentrism that makes difficult, if not impossible, any political philosophy of inclusion. (Mignolo, 2002: 66)

The advantage of the ‘decolonial multitude’ as a concept is that it allows to transcend the statist and Eurocentric perspectives when imagining democracy, and thus avoids the replication of the national statist thinking at the EU level. The multitude illustrates the materialist tradition that, on the one hand, pays attention to the structural systems of

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oppression and inequality, while at the same time building an ideational framework to contest them. The field of literary studies, also that focused on ‘Europe’ (van Amelsvoort, 2019; van der Waal, 2019), provides an excellent example of how a materialist perspective views the interaction between the physical structures that organise society and the ways in which we can make sense of those structures in order to dismantle them. As argued by Neyrat (2020: 8), “language can enable literature to contest the dominant world—the world of the victors—and to shape the possibility of a voice for the voiceless”. Democratic theory is constructed on the basis of the particular historical configuration in which we find ourselves. It follows that global capitalism and its embedded class struggle, as well as colonialism and remaining coloniality, are crucial factors. Class transcends the boundaries of the nation-state, and thus democracy ought to both transnationalise and decolonise. This is not to say that the multitude as a political imaginary does not have its own tensions. It is not a given that the diverse group of actors that find themselves in the margins of the political system will almost ‘naturally’ cooperate and work together smoothly. Different actors tend to have different perspectives, not only in terms of substance but also in terms of the way in which they operate (on the conflicts within the ‘commons’, see Dell’Angelo, 2013). The process of smoothing things over is not automatic but requires the strategic agency of these actors to work together. As Deleixhe (2018: 73) points out, Even in a hypothetically egalitarian commons, the democratic co-decision on governance of social issues would encounter obstacles and generate heated debates that would divide the community (or network) of commoners and generate conflicts. (…) overlooking the role of conflict in the governance of the commons would amount to denying (or covering up) some of its structural internal divisions in a way that would be unacceptable for any committed radical democrat.

For this reason, it is necessary to situate vibrant agonistic conflict as a central dimension of the decolonial multitude, while also fostering agonistic dynamics vis-à-vis the dominant power structures. The decolonial multitude’s conceptual framework is thus largely inspired by Hardt and Negri, yet it also has slightly different emphasis. The distinction in terms of emphasis is threefold: first, the role of organisations (as it will be developed later, with the idea of representation as mediation);

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second, the importance of agonistic conflict both within the multitude and outside; and third, the coupling of the multitude with the decolonisation literature. Indeed, the radical inclusion of very diverse groups of actors requires conflict-regulation mechanisms that channel these differences democratically. There is a constant tension between consensus and conflict, but conflict developed in an agonistic way within the decolonial multitude can encourage a diverse group of actors to come together constructively and organise collective action. The capacity to withstand tension is in this sense a central characteristic of multitudehood. 2.2

Decolonial Multitude vs Sovereignty: A Non-Contractualist Conception of EU Democracy

Before we move on to how the decolonial multitude would look in practice and the role of mediation, it is necessary to make a short detour to clarify the relationship between democracy and sovereignty. Several authors have made the claim that democracy is inherently linked to the nation-state (e.g. Manent, 2013), as it can only emerge within a particular cultural identity that can then become also a political identity. This reflects the traditional understanding of democracy: connecting the idea of the ‘sovereign’ with the idea of the (national) ‘people’. It is the (national) ‘people’ who act as a ‘sovereign’ actor by electing its ‘representatives’. National sovereignty has been at the centre of traditional accounts of democracy and remains the dominant constitutional form. In fact, in most constitutions of democratic states (and also in non-democratic ones), the term ‘sovereignty’ appears as inherently linked to ‘the people’. For instance, in the Spanish constitution’s second paragraph of article 1, it is stated the following: National sovereignty resides in the Spanish people, from whom the powers of the State emanate. To be sure, political philosophers such as Céline Spector (2021) or Jürgen Habermas (2012) have argued against the essentialisation of the link between democracy and the nation-state, decoupling democracy and the nation-state and suggest that sovereignty is something that can be shared. Yet, even these accounts still maintain the traditional concepts of the people and sovereignty. Thus, while there is a criticism towards the traditional nation-state oriented understanding of sovereignty, at the same time they claim the idea of (shared) sovereignty and the ‘people’. There is an extensive literature on cosmopolitan democracy (e.g. Archibugi, 2004), and, most interestingly, an attempt to ‘deterritorialise’

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democracy at the global level (Held et al., 1999). This rich literature is rather successful in addressing questions related to democratic governance beyond the nation-state, conceiving global democracy as a series of overlapping political entities that ought to be more closely intertwined between one another. Yet, at the same time, this literature tends to maintain the traditional (national) political boundaries in what could be conceived a sort of global demoicratic perspective, and is unable to address the inequalities stemming from colonialism. In the EU context, the decolonial multitude framework operates against what Bhambra (2016) conceived as ‘neocolonial cosmopolitan Europe’. The ‘unity in diversity’ motto of the EU illustrates some of the pitfalls of such cosmopolitan Europe, as it mainly references the ‘diversity’ between EU member states and sidelines the communities that ‘Europe’ has historically subjugated through colonialism. European cosmopolitanism has a hard time in acknowledging and integrating within its narratives the fact that the European project was driven by imperial states and with an important colonial component. Addressing the cosmopolitan Europe caveats entails a reopening of the borders of who ought to be considered within the democratic subject, the ‘we’ of democracy (Benhabib, 2004). The theoretical thesis defended here is that sovereignty and ‘the people’ are not only unhelpful concepts to make sense of democracy in the EU and beyond, but that they are actively undemocratic concepts in the current context. We can have democracy or sovereignty, but not both. Sovereignty is often conceived as pre-political, naturalising the ‘nation’ as the ‘natural’ space of politics. Much to the contrary, sovereignty is a political construction. As such, rather than a precondition for politics, sovereignty is an outcome. An alternative way of looking at democracy shapes the possibilities of constructing internal bonds of political action among the multitude. In other words, whereas ‘the people’ requires solidarity between out-groups, the multitude requires intersectionality (see Carastathis, 2014; Crenshaw, 1989), a concept coming from Black feminist scholars that aims at connecting different types of systemic discrimination at play in society—be that gender, race, class or sexuality. As bell hooks (2000: 9) argued, “any movement to resist the co-optation of feminist struggle must begin by introducing a different feminist perspective—a new theory—one that is not informed by the ideology of liberal individualism”. The logic of the decolonial multitude follows the Black feminist intersectionality perspective, as it is “articulated by internal bonds of solidarity and intersection among struggles, each

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recognizing that the others are ‘a chapter of their own social and political history’. That is its mode of articulation, its mode of assembly” (Hardt & Negri, 2019). In this regard, Angela Davis has consistently argued that feminist and decolonial activist movements should focus on the intersections across movements, conceiving different political struggles as part of a wider struggle: Black feminism emerged as a theoretical and practical effort demonstrating that race, gender, and class are inseparable in the social worlds we inhabit. At the time of its emergence, Black women were frequently asked to choose whether the Black movement or the women’s movement was most important. The response was that this was the wrong question. The more appropriate question was how to understand the intersections and interconnections between the two movements. We are still faced with the challenge of understanding the complex ways race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, and ability are intertwined—but also how we move beyond these categories to understand the interrelationships of ideas and processes that seem to be separate and unrelated. (Davis, 2016: 3–4)

The idea of sovereignty operates against democracy, insofar it tends to naturalise certain (national) boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, and makes it difficult to conceive of the different struggles as inherently intertwined and related to one another in an intersectional way. This is not to say that multi-level democracy should not to exist, but to assume that there are different levels of democracy, that each level is a political construction, and that the boundaries and the levels are subject to constant change and inherently linked. ‘Sovereignty’ is inherently linked to the idea of ‘the people’, since it is ‘the people’ who tends to be ‘sovereign’. Even when sovereignty is conceived as being ‘shared’ (see Beetz, 2019; Innerarity, 2016; Spector, 2021), it remains problematic insofar it revises the conservative understanding of ‘sovereignty’ but broadly keeps in place the traditional contractualist framework of democracy and its close relation to the nation-state. Against this background, which emphasises the relation between the ‘people’, the subject of democracy, and the ‘state’, the bureaucratic machine that is able to ‘enforce’ democracy, it is not necessary to build a polity in order to construct a political subject. A non-state centric perspective allows us to imagine a ‘we’ that transcends traditional boundaries and is not tied to the state. Thus, while the book is mostly oriented to the EU context, the ambition of the decolonial multitude framework is broader.

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The advocacy for the ‘sharing’ of sovereignty is particularly salient politically during the last few years in the context of the EU, as several political actors, such as French President Emmanuel Macron or Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, have regularly introduced the idea of ‘European sovereignty’ (see Bouza García & Oleart, 2022). The resignification of sovereignty as something that can be shared and applied particularly to the EU level is in many ways the reproduction of the traditional democracy and nation-state relation and upgrade it to the European level—even though the way in which ‘European sovereignty’ is invoked in political discourse tends to be a rather traditional understanding of sovereignty, rather than a ‘shared’ conception. It is thus no surprise that the defenders of this view often look at the United States as an example of successful federalism—thus the idea of a ‘Hamiltonian’ moment for EU integration is often evoked (see Oleart & Gheyle, 2022). In addition to the inherently problematic dimension of ‘European sovereignty’, it is mostly mobilised in the context of foreign policy,3 as a sort of ‘geopoliticisation’ of the EU (Meunier & Nicolaïdis, 2019). Evoking ‘European sovereignty’ in this geopolitical context constructs the EU political community in opposition to “systemic rivals” such as China or Russia. This narrative of ‘European sovereignty’ focuses its communitybuilding effort on defining Europe as an entity defined by its internal cohesion in contrast to a changing world, where Europe is losing its weight in global geopolitics. The ‘people of the EU’ exist as an entity in contrast to out-groups, mainly that of Russia or China. Therefore, ‘European sovereignty’ emphasises the necessity to act with one single voice in the global stage in order to increase its influence. In some way, ‘European sovereignty’ responds to Henry Kissinger’s famous remark: “Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?” In this way, it is unclear how the revised notion of sovereignty as ‘shared’ or ‘European’ links to traditional notions of sovereignty and the social contract. Who is legitimising the ‘European sovereign’: national governments, national peoples (demoi) or a unified European people? And through which channels? Thus, ‘European sovereignty’ largely misses a coherent theory of government beyond the traditional cleavage between supranationalists and intergovernmentalists. Furthermore, ‘European sovereignty’ often leads to the securitisation of democracy in the EU, as democracy is framed as being threatened from 3 Appeals to ‘European sovereignty’ have only increased since the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022.

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the ‘outside’. This is best represented by EU High Representative Josep Borrell, who, on the occasion of the inauguration of the pilot programme of the European Diplomatic Academy in the College of Europe on 13 October 2022, said the following: “Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. (…) The rest of the world (…) is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden” (EEAS, 2022). This narrative tends to equate ‘European sovereignty’ with the strengthening of border security, a colonial logic that is perpetuated by the understanding of migrants and refugees as either a ‘security threat’ or ‘human capital’ to replace Europe’s ageing population. This highlights the close interaction between colonialism and capitalism, and how ‘European sovereignty’ may serve to reproduce this logic. That said, lately there have been attempts to not only reconceptualise the scale of sovereignty, but also distinguish different types of sovereignty. For instance, a recent project has emphasised the distinction between popular and parliamentary sovereignty (Brack et al., 2019), and later deepened its analysis by distinguishing between the foundational, the institutional and the territorial components of sovereignty in the EU context (Bickerton et al., 2022). Thus, while this section has outlined the limits of the concept of sovereignty and particularly its relation to democracy, there are things that may be lost by replacing the framework of sovereignty with that of the multitude. This is mainly the case regarding the ‘popular’ aspect of sovereignty, which historically has ignited most democratic theory. In sovereignty there is an inherent tension between its vertical or top-down authority and its horizontal or bottom-up legitimacy among ‘the people’. It is this horizontal or ‘popular’ aspect of sovereignty that has a democratic potential, yet it is precisely limited by its (national) boundedness and the vertical aspect of sovereignty. In consequence, while sovereignty is not a monolithic concept as it can be constructed in different ways, the multitude is a better suited conceptual framework to conceive of democracy, especially in the EU context. The multitude-centred conceptualisation of democracy, and applied to the EU, requires a fundamental break with these preceding conceptions of democracy and its relation to sovereignty. In the multitude-oriented understanding of democracy, there is no ‘sovereign’. Instead, it emphasises that people across the world are inherently linked to each other and ought to connect their shared struggles. The climate emergency is an obvious case of the intertwinement of the common fate of actors

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across the globe: the political actions taken to protect or destroy the Amazon have a direct impact on the well-being of people across the world. Thus, policies in regard to the Amazon are not ‘domestic politics’ of Brazil, but require the involvement and coordination of the multitude. An equally obvious case is the Covid-19 global pandemic: the policies of nation-states were not ‘domestic politics’. The ontology of the multitude facilitates overcoming the idea of ‘sovereignty’ and the naturalisation of in and out-groups that are based on socially constructed territorial boundaries. The replacement of the paradigm of the ‘people’ by the ‘multitude’ involves an anti-sovereign conception of democracy: the multitude cannot be sovereign, nor it aims to be. The multitude should exercise collective power in the context of a globalised capitalism without the necessity of a sovereign to which power is delegated. The attempt to reconceptualise the subject of democracy as the ‘decolonial multitude’ rather than the traditional demos or demoi sovereignty-based perspective follows the intellectual tradition that moves beyond “methodological nationalism” (Wimmer & Glick Schiller, 2002). The ‘decolonial multitude’ frame blurs the lines between ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ politics in a way that facilitates a transnational and decolonial understanding of democracy. As has been argued by Erin Pineda in the context of the US civil rights movement and its links to anti-colonial struggles (such as the case of India and the Gandhi-led non-violent anti-colonial movement), The anticolonial frame was not a theoretical construct devised and imposed entirely by movement leaders from above, but a live context that connected the domestic grassroots to related fields of action across a world constructed through this action. This context shaped the way that many activists talked about nonviolence and disobedience, the way they imagined a universe of global struggle—and located their own place within it. They were situated in and active producers of an imaginary that linked the two as individual pieces of a larger conflict over the fate of white supremacy in all its forms. (Pineda, 2022: 29–30)

The need to rethink democracy is also based on current challenges, climate emergency being the ultimate illustration of the difficulties to hold accountable multinational corporations. While some of these companies have a large share of responsibility, it is actors in the Global

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Souths that suffer most from it. This stems from an analysis of the capitalist and postcolonial material structures that are driving these challenges. As a more plural framework, the multitude allows to meaningfully resignify democracy in a way that connects political theory with the material reality in which we live in. Critics may argue that the rejection of the sovereignty framework in favour of a multitude-centred perspective on democracy situates too much trust on the spontaneous capacity of citizens to organise constructively and collectively, as the constitution of a “negative” multitude (Spector, 2007: 41) is easier to construct than a ‘constructive’ one. This is an important point that helps us to imagine the constitution of the ‘decolonial multitude’ not in spontaneous terms, but instead through the calibrated cooperation of decolonial networks and organisations via mediation and strong collective organisations and institutions (Klein, 2022). The ‘decolonial multitude’ is not equivalent to “the masses”: it is a political construction that constitutes itself as a political subject through the autonomous organisation of a wide range of actors. The multitude does not preexist its common struggle: it is precisely the struggle that (con-)forms the ‘decolonial’ multitude. The relational dynamism of the multitude enables it to act together because of its internal conflictuality rather than in spite of it, maintaining agonistic dynamics also within it. The framework of the ‘decolonial multitude’ thus allows us to reimagine democracy in a radically non-teleological way: emancipation is not the ‘natural destiny’ of historical progress. Democracy is only a possible horizon, among others. The decolonial multitude may be the political imaginary through which actors from different fields and struggles channel their energy and collective intelligence in order to devise such emancipatory horizon. 2.3

The ‘Decolonial Multitude’ in the EU: Democratising Traditional Notions of ‘Representation’ Through Mediation

The ‘decolonial multitude’ disentangles the idea of democracy and the nation, between sovereignty and democracy. Recognising the mutual interdependencies—and the inherent global inequalities stemming from colonialism—that countries across the world have, and EU member states among themselves in particular, is a precondition to operate democratically and transnationally, in order to avoid a clash between ‘national

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interests’ of ‘sovereign states’. Now, what is the relation between the decolonial multitude and representation? The decolonial multitude is at odds with the traditional political logic of representation conceived as ‘delegation’. As Bourdieu (1984: 49) observed, “there is a sort of antinomy inherent in politics which stems from the fact that individuals—and all the more so the more deprived they are—cannot constitute themselves (or be constituted) as a group, as a force capable of making itself heard and of speaking and of being listened to, than by dispossessing itself in favor of a spokesperson”. Traditional notions of representation operate as the ‘presence of an absence’, the illusion of inclusion via exclusive practices that limit who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’. While elections are often perceived as the cornerstone of democracy, the history of political representation through the ballot box is less straightforward (see Manin, 1997: ch.5), as the very idea of ‘censitary suffrage’ illustrates, as well as the various women’s movements for voting rights. As insightfully pointed out by Crook (2015: 63) in his analysis of the 1848 French elections, “the advent of mass elections should not be automatically equated with the establishment of democracy”. In fact, in his history of universal suffrage in France, Pierre Rosanvallon (1999: 12) argues that electoral political equality “marks the definitive entry into the world of individuals. (…) It can only be formulated within the framework of an atomistic and abstract vision of the formation of social bonds. Political equality, in other words, is only conceivable from the perspective of radical individualism”. Rosanvallon goes on to distinguish ‘mediation’ from ‘immediacy’: while the former emphasises the role of intermediary institutions situated in-between the representatives and the represented, the notion of immediacy aims at “reducing the weight of all intermediary organs (…) in principle the affirmation of an ideal of fusion between the people and their representatives” (Rosanvallon, 1999: 177), a view he attributes to French Jacobins Robespierre and Saint-Just. However, what notion of representation might have an emancipatory potential in the current context? The decolonial multitude perspective does not challenge the notion of representation as a whole, but rather particular ways of conceiving representation that are anchored in ‘delegating’ power from mass politics to small settings. As a democratic political imaginary, the decolonial multitude maintains a permanent door open for new actors to join the (transnational) struggle. In line with Rosanvallon, rather than following the logic of delegation, we may imagine the multitude as a process of mediation. Traditionally, political representation has

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subordinated the represented to the representatives. The logic of mediation requires inverting this relationship, making mediators the actors through which socialisation with politics becomes more widespread. The decolonial multitude disputes also new notions of representation via minipublics, reclaiming instead a movement-oriented understanding of representation that is more dynamic, fluid and oriented towards the public sphere and mass politics, and need not oppose representative to participatory democracy (García Guitián, 2017). This process leads to questions regarding the conditions under which representation happens under capitalism and liberal democracy. The critique of delegation from the perspective of the multitude should not be understood as a critique of collective organisation and representation. On the contrary, the critique of delegation begins with the democratisation of existing organisations, in such a way that those actors operating as channels vis-à-vis EU institutions are mediators rather than ‘delegates’. The role of mediation in the EU context differs from delegation in that it plays a double role: first, mediator organisations ought to be a space of political socialisation with EU politics, an open door for people not previously socialised with EU politics in a way that people realise that their political problems are inherently intertwined with that of others across the EU and beyond; second, they ought to channel that energy vis-à-vis EU institutions. Mediation requires an interaction between the national and the EU level, encouraging both horizontal connections (e.g. between Italian and German trade unions) and vertical ones (e.g. between national and EU civil society). This mediating role of organisations is what in previous articles has been conceptualised as ‘multi-positional actors’ (Oleart & Bouza, 2018). The mediating role of these organisations (including parties, trade unions, civil society organisations, social movements) is crucial, since at the moment most people tend to be socialised through national politics, and it is thus necessary the entrepreneurship of these mediator organisations. Now, which actors require mediation? Intermediation is required for those actors that are structurally marginalised from politics in general, and EU politics in particular. Hence why the multitude is anchored in a materialist understanding of ongoing global capitalism. For instance, bankers have a structurally powerful position that sees their ideas circulating in the mainstream media (e.g. via the Financial Times), through political parties that tend to be sympathetic to their points of view and through organisations that play a relevant role both in terms of policy

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and the public sphere (e.g. the think tank Bruegel in the case of the EU). This does not mean that the participation of bankers in democracy is illegitimate, but rather that their political weight is much bigger than it should, insofar it outweighs other communities that hold a structurally less prominent political position. This perspective paves the way for an intersectional outlook for politics, in which mediation contributes to bring together the systemically discriminated groups (based on class, gender or race). As argued by Stuart Hall (1986: 14), “the ‘unity’ of classes is necessarily complex and has to be produced—constructed, created—as a result of specific economic, political, and ideological practices. It can never be taken as automatic or ‘given’”. The emergence of the decolonial multitude requires the agency of mediators able to bridge different political spaces and subjectivities to construct a more powerful and intersectional ‘we’. The multitude does not reduce political conflict in society as uniquely a matter of ‘class’, but is instead an intersectional concept that integrates different subjectivities as also part of class politics (see McCarthy & Desan, 2023). The history of (anti)colonialism is illustrative in this sense. While colonialism materialised in the subjugation of some (primarily European) countries over others, the horizon of political independence was insufficient to reverse the postcolonial power relations and practices (Mwaura, 2005). Mediation requires the mediation of actors to bridge across different political struggles intersectionally. Recently, Obamamoye (2023: 14) has shown how a neo-Gramscian and postcolonial (re)engagement can be helpful to make sense of why “some subaltern social groups consent to the hegemonic order while others dissent”. The response largely follows Fanon’s (1963: 203) view that “If you really wish your country to avoid regression, or at best halts and uncertainties, a rapid step must be taken from national consciousness to political and social consciousness”. A both decolonial and Gramscian perspective encourages us to broaden the different struggles of subaltern groups in a way that they can be on the one hand integrated within each other while maintaining a certain specificity (see Persaud, 2016). This process necessarily requires mediators that articulate coherently struggles (e.g. decolonial, feminist, anti-capitalist) that otherwise might operate in parallel and reinforce what capitalism does best: divide subaltern political and social groups. Thus, the political empowerment of vulnerable social groups requires intermediation through collective organisation. It is naïve to imagine that

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a factory worker or a refugee fleeing from war as an individual can have as much political weight as a banker that has the relational, cultural, economic and symbolic capital to meaningfully participate and shape (EU) politics. That is why the decolonial multitude is a class concept: the starting point is a historical materialist one that takes into account the existing material and symbolic inequality that exists in society. Collective organisation is thus a precondition for the decolonial multitude: it is not a union of individuals (although evidently liberal rights for individuals are included), but a network of collective actors. The history of trade unions is interesting when distinguishing between mediation and delegation: whereas unions have often been conceptualised as representing workers vis-à-vis management, they have often turned out to operate in concert with, rather than against, management. Mediation is, therefore, opposed to organisational centralisation and requires a more permanent structure of socialisation in transnational politics, enabling the production of subjectivities that are able to imagine democracy beyond the nation-state. For instance, the World Social Forums may not have been permanent structures of socialisation with transnational politics, but the actors present working together in these transnational contexts encouraged people to reorient their political thinking. The socialisation in transnational activist spaces led many of them towards the recognition of the continuity of struggles across diverse spaces, and a joint political past, present and future. We may see mediators as those actors that animate and encourage reaching a tipping point through which the national political lens through which most political actors see the political world are flipped towards recognising the mutual interdependencies and operate politically in a transnational way. This process leads to new forms of conceiving representation. This is not to disqualify actors that primarily identify locally and insist on its rootedness, but rather to conceive of their ‘local’ struggles as part of a wider transnational political space. 2.4

Articulating the Decolonial Multitude in Opposition to Existing Material Structures and Coloniality

While the multitude might be seen as a constructive force operating against a particular policy or institution (such the 1999 Seattle protests against the WTO), it is less obvious how the decolonial multitude can be articulated in a positive direction. In this way, the chapter may be read more as a critique of sovereignty and traditional notions of representation

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than actually providing a constitutive conception of what the multitude is. How does the multitude contribute to expanding the public healthcare and education system, or collect taxes? Multitude democracy is mostly a theory of transnational politics rather than a theory of government, yet this section is an attempt to provide some initial answers, in this case applied specifically to the EU context, on how to move democratically forward without the centrality of the notions of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘the people’. The decolonial multitude is a class concept that takes into account economic, cultural and political inequalities in our globalised and interdependent society. In this way, its appeal is not only that it knows no borders as the political subject of democracy, but also in its mechanic, modes of operation and normative guarantees. Institutionally, a multitude perspective does not necessarily lead to full replacement of current established forms of government. Rather, it aims to connect them to facilitate class-based agonistic conflict, in such a way that tears down the walls of national political spaces by encouraging transnational coalitions. The added value of the decolonial multitude is that it incorporates in its analysis the capitalist and postcolonial material structures that are operating against democracy globally, and in the EU in particular (for a left-wing case against the EU, see Lapavitsas, 2018). Institutionally, the decolonial multitude opens up questions about the dismantling of current institutions, as they tend to reproduce structural inequalities. However, it may also be compatible with existing structures, yet aiming to reform the way in which they function, operating ‘in the corridors and in the streets’ (Parks, 2015) through a configuration of insider and outsider actors. For instance, self-identified demoicrats such as Beetz and Rossi (2017) have introduced the notion of “demoicratic popular sovereignty” to propose a higher level of EU integration that is, however, held accountable by both the European Parliament and national parliaments, bridging EU with national politics ‘democratically’. There is no doubt that national parliaments should play a more prominent role in EU accountability (Crum & Oleart, 2022), and there is evidence that they have been spaces of ‘transnational representation’ in the EU (see Kinski & Crum, 2020; Kinski, 2021), but this will not suffice to address the capitalist material structures operating against democracy, both nationally and transnationally. Democracy is about ideas, but it is also about material structures, and ignoring the role of global capitalism impedes a serious assessment of ongoing EU democracy debates. For instance, transnational

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economic elites already have global spaces of coordination, such as the yearly World Economic Forum in Davos. Lately, as the next chapter will describe in detail, the EU has turned towards deliberative minipublics, which perform a ‘new’ representative function—in this case it is ‘descriptive representation’ rather than the ‘political representation’ that comes via elections. While the ‘descriptive representation’ of minipublics might be seen as ‘innovative’ and ‘radical’, in practice it operates as a way to disentangle democracy from mass politics. Thus, a multitude perspective does not deny the relevance of existing institutions, as one can support the existence of parties in parliaments (or citizen assemblies) without adopting all its assumptions. The emphasis is on strengthening and fostering agonistic politicisation in every way that is possible through the public sphere, attempting to institutionalise class-based democratic conflict, and in doing so facilitate the opening of national political borders in order to normalise transnational coalitions. This perspective aims to counter the hollowing out of existing political parties (Mair, 2013) by emphasising the relevance of mass membership organisations. These organisations, such as political parties or trade unions, do not all necessarily have to be transnational, but at least be closely embedded in transnational networks that facilitate constructing common visions and that see themselves as part of the same transnational political struggle. In this way, there are ways to reconcile political representation (through political parties) with a mediation perspective that emphasises the role of social movements and the public sphere. Arguably, this is too abstract of a constitutive conception of what the decolonial multitude, but it begins with storytelling plus transnational collective organisation and a decolonial political horizon. Major democratic achievements of ‘popular sovereignty’ are public healthcare and education systems, which arguably have been facilitated by the notion of collective power that has been harnessed within the nation-state. Some authors may argue indeed that we should expand such perspective in order to transnationalise popular sovereignty. However, the transnational empowering of social groups that are structurally excluded is unlikely to be brought about by a paradigm that has often kept these groups outside the boundaries of the political community. The ‘sovereignist’ paradigm upon which such gains have been made limits the capacity to extend the reach beyond the nation-state, and we ought to remember that European colonialism was central to the development of welfare states (Bhambra & Holmwood, 2018; Lauesen, 2021; Shilliam, 2018) and of European

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integration more broadly. In fact, as Hansen and Jonsson (2014a: 31; see also Hansen & Jonsson, 2014b) have argued in their book Eurafrica: The untold history of European integration and colonialism, the “unification of Europe and a unified European effort to colonize Africa were two processes that presupposed one another. Africa could be developed only by Europe, and Europe could develop its fullest potential only through Africa”. As Rodney’s influential 1972 book How Europe underdeveloped Africa argued, European imperialism was a core structural factor that impeded the political progress of Africa. This is central to understand European integration, given that, even if not all EU member states have a history of colonialism, the “lack of colonies on the part of any capitalist nation was not a barrier to enjoying the fruits of exploiting the colonial and semi-colonial world, which was the backyard of metropolitan capitalism” (Rodney, 2012: 190). European colonialism is a global phenomenon that transcended the Atlantic, and that still today is reproduced in different ways, such as through economic relations and trade agreements (for instance, see Nessel, 2021 on EU-Indonesia relations). Paradoxically, at the same time, ideologically European integration has operated as a collective ‘colonial oblivion’ (see Proto, 2020), whereby the colonial history of its member states is not only erased, but also allows them to redeem themselves from it and reset its history. As argued by Sierp (2020: 688), “European efforts for transnational historical remembrance have focused almost exclusively on the Holocaust and National Socialism as well as Stalinism. The EU remains curiously quiet about the memories of imperialism and colonialism”. Even when discussing racism within the EU, rarely it is discussed in the context of global European colonialism. This explains why the EU is often conceived as a post-imperial ‘peace project’ (on the EU’s ‘new narrative’, see Bouza García, 2017). However, postcolonial legacies remain today in place, as “colonialism never left Europe unaffected and is still part of European reality” (Kinnvall, 2016: 153), where institutional racism continues to racialise communities and core-periphery relations between the EU and most of the rest of the world (Africa in particular) continue to be reproduced. The decolonial multitude perspective hopefully contributes to deepen and advance the “decolonial project for Europe” proposed by Bhambra (2022), which begins with acknowledging the (capitalist) material structures inherited from colonialism. This discussion is particularly relevant insofar an often forgotten aspect of European integration literature is colonialism, as recent research has

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revealed (see Brown, 2022; Garavini, 2021; Pasture, 2018). Addressing this caveat is important not only to analyse the specific colonial history of some individual member states, but also European integration as a whole. As Hansen (2002: 495) has argued, “the multitude of structures, conceptions and legacies that are bound up with European colonialism and imperialism not only have a bearing on the individual member states and the various historical and contemporary discourses on Europe and European identity, but that they also weigh heavily on the project of European integration in its own right”. Ongoing colonial relations are not only visible through the state relations between the Global North and the Global Souths, but also through ideational and epistemic aspects that are well captured by the idea of coloniality (Lugones, 2007; NdlovuGatsheni, 2013a; Quijano, 2000). Decolonisation is thus not only necessary in material terms, but also in introducing it in political theory, and the concept of the multitude allows for such decolonial theoretical innovation. There is much to learn about the emergence of democracy within nation-states, since it largely emerged out of the contestation of social movements and trade unions demanding more social and political rights. However, the democratisation of transnational political institutions will require multitude-like movements and organisations to mobilise across borders with a democracy beyond the nation-state perspective and a strong decolonial understanding of the material structures (Said, 1986). The multitude thus has to be also politically ‘invented’, both through ‘persuasive storytelling’ and transnational collective organisation and decolonial solidarity.

3 Why the Decolonial Multitude Now? New Intergovernmentalism and Populism in the EU Political theory is always developed in particular historical circumstances, as there is a constant dialectical interaction between the political context and the way in which we attempt to make sense of reality. Demoicracy is a case in point, a concept developed during the Convention on the Future of Europe of the early 2000s, where some actors interpreted that it was necessary to find a political theory frame that broke the binary federalist vs sovereignist positions, creating a plural space for compromise. Similarly, the multitude (re)emerged as a political concept throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as a way to make sense of ongoing capitalist globalisation processes. In this sense, the unfolding of political events

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throughout the 2010s and the early 2020s, with, on the one hand, the emergence of ‘new intergovernmentalism’ and, on the other, different types of populism, makes the decolonial multitude a particularly suitable conceptual framework in the current EU context. 3.1

Democracy, Sovereignty and ‘the People’ in the EU: The Revolution from Above of New Intergovernmentalism

The way in which we define democracy, sovereignty and the ‘people’ has important implications for the legitimacy of the EU and its policy and decision-making. I have argued that the multitude offers a conceptually and normatively more appealing avenue for democracy in the EU than previous paradigms that closely relate sovereignty and democracy. Following Hardt and Negri, sovereignty excludes the possibility of democracy, and it is thus only when going beyond the traditional framework that democracy becomes possible. Even when there is an attempt to revise the naturalisation of the democracy-nation connection, the paradigm contributes to normalise the link between the national imaginary and democracy. The disentangling of democracy and (national) sovereignty is an important theoretical project in the EU context, as it allows to imagine a different way in which EU institutions relate to EU member states and, more importantly, to the multitude. This is particularly important given the political developments that we have witnessed in the EU throughout the 2010 decade, in which institutional power relations have heavily favoured national governments at the expense of parliaments and non-executive actors more broadly. Even though member state governments and the European Council have always been in the driving seat of EU integration (with certain transformations and nuances over time), there has been a strengthening of intergovernmental fora. Theorized through analytical frameworks such as ‘new intergovernmentalism’ (Bickerton et al., 2015), the key argument is that the intergovernmental component of the EU has been strengthened through crisis (Fabbrini, 2016). Arguably, there is more EU integration but ‘less federation’ (Genschel & Jachtenfuchs, 2016), or ‘integration without supranationalisation’ (Fabbrini & Puetter, 2016). This framework entails a strengthening of national governments, and in which parliaments and other non-executive actors and institutions have been broadly sidelined. The set of crises that have happened since 2010 (financial crisis,

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Eurozone crisis, so-called ‘refugee crisis’, Brexit, Covid-19, Russian invasion of Ukraine) have also strengthened these dynamics as they have been interpreted as requiring a leadership and urgency (see Kreuder-Sonnen & White, 2022, on the “transnational politics of emergency”) that seemingly only national governments could bring. In this changed landscape, it is hence first and foremost in intergovernmental processes that power and authority in the EU resides. Obviously, such a changing role has repercussions for other institutions. Even if the European Commission has also been strengthened (Bauer, 2014), the epicentre of EU decision-making remains within executive actors, and there is a limited role for the European Parliament (see Crum, 2023 on the structural limit to its ability to expand its powers in the context of the Spitzenkandidaten) or national parliaments. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the preceding context to the ‘new intergovernmentalism’ turn, Étienne Balibar (2011, 23 November), put forward the idea of a ‘revolution from above’ in 2011: invented by Bismarck, designates a change to the structure of the material constitution, in which the balance of power between society and state, economics and politics, results in a preventive strategy on the part of the ruling classes. Is this not what is happening with the neutralisation of parliamentary democracy, the European Union’s institutionalisation of budgetary and fiscal controls and the sacralisation of banking interests in the name of neoliberal orthodoxy?

Balibar’s ‘revolution from above’ refers to the turn whereby intergovernmental processes drive European integration with little parliamentary accountability, and thus in the process non-executive actors are sidelined at both the EU and national level (see Crum, 2013). To a large extent, neoliberal governmentality is not only not imposed on the member states by the EU, but in fact tends to arise from them (hence the idea of ‘intergovernmentality’, see Bouza García & Oleart, 2023). New intergovernmentalism and Balibar’s ‘revolution from above’ are legitimated precisely by appeals to sovereignty and (national) democracy, as governments of EU member states have a ‘mandate’ by the (national) ‘people(s)’ to operate at the EU level. By not only disentangling democracy and (national) sovereignty, but in fact deconstructing sovereignty altogether and replacing it with the multitude, the picture of democracy in the EU is very different. Not only the new intergovernmentalism that has emerged

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throughout the 2010s in the EU lacks a parliamentary basis of democratic legitimacy, but we ought to imagine a different way of structuring political conflict in the EU, in a way that is more based on the construction of transnational coalitions of actors rather than on the bargaining between national executive elites on the basis of the ‘national interest’ of EU member states. The global pandemic Covid-19 has illustrated the mutual interdependency that people from across the world have: the public health of people in Africa is inextricably linked to people in the EU.4 And even more obviously, the public health in one EU member state is linked to that in the others. However, in spite of this close intertwining, particularly in the case of the EU, the response has been mostly led by national governments with little involvement of non-executive actors. For instance, even the ‘Hamiltonian’ moment for the EU, as some commentators defined the NextGenEU Covid-19 recovery fund, arguably took place following the new intergovernmentalist route. While it included a strengthening of supranational power via the European Commission, who was key in the vaccine procurement process as well as the NextGenEU recovery fund, non-executive actors, such as the EP or national parliaments remained largely sidelined. As argued by Oleart and Gheyle (2022) when studying the media representation of NextGenEU, this intergovernmental emphasis complicates transnational coalition-making and strains the input legitimacy of the EU as it focuses on national executives, who are presented as the ‘gladiators’ deliberating, discussing, and entering into conflict about their (shared or different) national interests, in the main European arena: the European Council. The centrality of the idea of the ‘national interest’ and ‘sovereignty’ facilitates that the key players are portrayed to be executive actors.

4 In spite of this, the global rollout of vaccines has been obstructed by nation-states from the Global North.

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3.2

The Decolonial Multitude as a Transnational and Pluralist Alternative to Populism

Partially a response to this ‘revolution from above’ at the EU level, throughout the 2010s we have witnessed the emergence of many leftwing populist actors5 that have managed to gather significant support in Europe: Podemos in Spain, Bloco de Esquerda in Portugal, Corbyn’s Labour Party in the UK, Mélénchon in France or Syriza in Greece, to name a few. What all these actors have in common is an intellectual underpinning of its own political practice as being ‘populist’, defining populism as “an appeal to ‘the people’ against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of the society. […] They involve some kind of revolt against the established structure of power in the name of the people” (Canovan, 1999: 3). In some cases, the foundation of the named parties has even been explicitly theorised as ‘populist’, as it is the case of Podemos, in which its own founders are theoreticians of it. This applies most prominently to Íñigo Errejón, Podemos ’ campaign manager for the 2014 EU elections, who has worked academically specifically on populism and has published a book alongside one of the main populist theoreticians, Chantal Mouffe, entitled ‘Podemos: In the name of the people’ (Errejón & Mouffe, 2016), in which the idea of transcending the left–right divide to overcome the traditional political categories was central to build a political coalition that comprised ‘the people’ against the ‘elite’. The case of Podemos illustrates a wider trend, also reflected in Mélenchon in France and the Portuguese Bloco de Esquerda, in which the ‘people’ is considered the main subject of democracy, opposed to a self-serving ‘elite’. In addition to the considerations of the relationship between populism and (national) democracy in EU member states during the last decade (see Crum & Oleart, 2023), there is a more fundamental concern about the relationship between the populist ‘people’ and (transnational) democracy. Populism scholars have long argued that “unlike the ‘people’ of the extreme right, the ‘people’ of the left is usually a plural, future-oriented, inclusionary and active subject unbound

5 Evidently, the rise of right-wing populist parties cannot be ignored. However, these actors straightforwardly attempt to reinforce ‘national sovereignty’ through an explicit nationalist discourse. The purpose of the section is thus oriented towards techno and left-wing populism.

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by ethnic, racial, sexual, gender or other restrictions” (Katsambekis & Stavrakakis, 2014: 135). While this is certainly the case, the decade of 2010s in the EU has also highlighted the limits in terms of pluralism, inclusiveness and capacity to act from a beyond the nation-state logic of populist actors, including left-wing ones. This is particularly evident when observing the sort of discourse advocated in regard to the EU, where these actors have tended to situate themselves in ‘sovereignist’ positions. The rise and fall of left-wing populism might be somewhat connected to the rise of a different political project that is different from both traditional parties and left-wing populism in that it fully disintermediates the relationship between citizens and political leaders: the ‘technopopulism’ of Emmanuel Macron. This latter political project is based on technocratic appeals to ‘competence’ combined with an abstract appeal to ‘the people’ without the intermediation of political parties or other actors, such as trade unions or civil society. Technopopulism as a political logic competes with traditional left–right dynamics, “whereby candidates for office compete primarily in terms of rival claims to embody the ‘people’ as a whole and to possess the necessary competence for translating its will into policy” (Bickerton & Invernizzi Accetti, 2021: 2). Emmanuel Macron’s ‘party’ has its own personal initials (‘En Marche’) and has not developed a coherent traditional party structure, instead relying on the French Presidentialist system to build a top-down organisation. Macron’s disintermediation is also visible in its political practices, such as the European Citizens’ Consultations (Chapter 3 will address this subject in detail) and the response to the Gilets Jaunes, Le Grand Débat and the Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat. In these exercises, Macron’s legitimacy strategy shifted towards abstract appeals to ‘citizens’ rather than engaging with existing intermediary actors, such as trade unions, civil society organisations or other parties. It is precisely in the French context that, shortly after the 2022 Presidential election, on 20 May 2022, a group of civil society members published a letter entitled “No democratic renewal is possible without civil society”. In it, civil society members reclaimed their role as “intermediary bodies” that play an important role in organising citizens collectively, which is an explicit reference to Macron’s disintermediated way of engaging with ‘citizens’ (see L’Obs, 2022). In this way, the analytical framework of the multitude can also be a useful alternative to the ‘people’, particularly when taking stock of the 2010s left-wing populism experiences as well as technopopulist ones, as the limits of populism seem to be related to the conceptualisation

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of the ‘people’. Franzé (2017) studied the evolution of Podemos in its first two years of existence (2014–2015), which he conceptualized as a transition from ‘antagonism’ to ‘agonism’, terms borrowed from Mouffe (2013). Yet, if we begin with a transnational democracy perspective, the ‘people’ of Podemos (and more broadly of left-wing populist parties) remains a very nationally anchored, which is coherent with the adoption of sovereignist position in the EU. There have been attempts to build ‘transnational populism’, such as in the case of Yannis Varoufakis’ DiEM 25 (see De Cleen et al., 2020), but it encounters similar problems: ‘the people’, even when imagined in the EU, remains a reductionist vision of the subject of democracy that prioritises a traditional notion of representation (of a national or EU limited constituency) over mediation. This vision also encourages a top-down organisational structure. The multitude facilitates a transition towards more collective forms of leadership, rather than top-down processes—the cases of Pablo Iglesias, Emmanuel Macron, Yannis Varoufakis and Jean-Luc Mélénchon illustrating how ‘new’ leaders reproduce many of the elements that are central to the system, such as the verticality of party organisation or men as ‘strong leaders’. Disentangling democracy from sovereignty is also an interesting historical project, insofar there have been several democratic communities constructed without a state or a sovereign (see Graeber & Wengrow, 2021). For instance, an interesting example of collective leadership is that of the Nambikwara studied by Lévi Strauss (1948), a community that appointed a set of ‘chiefs’ during the dry season, but dissolved those vertical structures once the more abundant season (due to their use of horticulture) would emerge. There are ways to construct decolonial multitude-like organisations that avoid the centralisation of power internally and are built as effective transnational counter-powers. This involves not only confronting political institutions and governments, but also the transnational private centres of power that have driven capitalism, multinational corporations, as well as the postcolonial material structures that remain in place today. Thus, with the recent experiences of left-wing populism in which movements largely inspired by Laclau and Mouffe’s conception of populism (with a strong ‘people’ component to it), it is useful to reflect upon what the transition from demos (or demoi) to the decolonial multitude would mean in terms of organisation and discourse. The decolonial multitude moves away from the individualisation of society (the case of Macron’s disintermediated ‘technopopulism’), as well as the unification

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of the ‘will of the people’ in left-wing populism, in order to build more democratic organisations that contribute to democratising democracy (see Chapter 7).

4 Conclusion: Stimulating Agonistic EU Politicisation Through a Decolonial Multitude Perspective The increasing politicisation of the EU has posed questions about the democratic legitimacy of European integration. Politicisation has brought challenges to the normative assessment of the EU, and the chapter has argued that agonistic conflict may in fact reinvigorate EU democracy by expanding European debates. In turn, agonistic conflict may be facilitated through a different way of conceiving the political subject of democracy in the EU context. So far, accounts related to the political subject of EU democracy have mobilised the traditional framework of ‘the people’ and sovereignty, be it through the conception of a national ‘demos’ that legitimises intergovernmentalism, a European one that legitimises federalism, a third way that breaks the binary through demoicracy, or a constructivist vision of how ‘the people’ of the EU will build itself. In contrast to these visions, the framework of the ‘decolonial multitude’ decouples ‘sovereignty’ from democracy in the EU, and replaces the traditional political logic of ‘delegation’ by that of ‘mediation’ as a path forward by which the multitude may emerge in the EU. As Chapter 3 will develop, the recent sortition-based democratic innovations in the EU context reflect more continuity than change in the EU’s understanding of democracy. In fact, recent literature on sortition-based representation (see Landemore, 2020) is not really a new “paradigm of democracy” but rather a way to include new mechanisms (such as deliberative minipublics) within a traditional understanding of representation that sidelines a decolonial and materialist analysis. A decolonial multitude perspective begins with a non-state centric historical materialist analysis of the capitalist material structures upon which existing polities such as the EU are constructed. So far most European studies literature, including in political theory, have (over)emphasised the role of formal EU institutions, paying less attention to the structural capitalist and postcolonial structures and the social movements that contest them. The normative framework of the

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decolonial multitude emphasises the democratic need for mediating mass organisations that encourage transnational class-based and decolonial agonistic conflict. This does not necessarily entail the erasure of existing political structures and organisations (e.g. political parties, trade unions, civil society organisations), mostly based at the national level. Instead, the framework of the decolonial multitude primarily focuses on linking them closer together both transversally (across different issues, from labour rights and trade unions to migrants’ rights, gender equality or environmental issues) and transnationally (across national borders, bringing activists from the Global North and the Global Souths together through a decolonial perspective). This process situates the alienation and exploitation caused by material structures at the heart of any attempt to democratise the EU, and combines the transnational resistance to global capitalism with the movements aiming to dismantle colonial structures— two processes that are closely linked to one another. Real commitment to democratic values requires fostering vibrant agonistic contestation in the EU, and the realisation that the European project was built upon the colonial dispossession of millions of people around the world. Democracy becomes possible by realising that the ‘we’ should include collective action across both the Global North and the Global Souths. The agonistic alternative to ‘the people’ of the decolonial multitude is a particularly suitable conceptual framework in the current historical context, after the unfolding of political events throughout the 2010s and the early 2020s, with, on the one hand, the emergence of ‘new intergovernmentalism’ and, on the other, different types of populism. The multitude may thus be seen as an alternative to both the ‘new intergovernmentalism’ that emerged since the Eurozone crisis with a strong emphasis on ‘national sovereignty’, as well as (left-wing and techno) populism. The decolonial multitude’s advantage as a conceptual framework vis-à-vis ‘the people’ or ‘the peoples’ is its wider flexibility and adaptability required for transnational democracy, and is also helpful in bringing about an intersectional perspective to it. The distinction made between ‘the people’ and the decolonial multitude in the EU context will be useful in the ensuing chapters in order to recognise the underlying philosophy and democratic imaginary behind the organisation of the European citizen panels in the Conference on the Future of Europe, and differentiate it from its (transnational) democratic alternatives led by activists.

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CHAPTER 3

The Genealogy of the ‘Citizen Turn’ in the EU: The European Citizen Consultations, the Citizen Dialogues and the Antipolitical Imaginary

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From the ‘Participatory’ to the ‘Citizen Turn’ in the European Union1

Much has been written about the lack of popular participation in the European project and the normative questions in terms of the democratic legitimacy that arise from it (e.g. Kohler-Koch & Rittberger, 2007). In response to it, the EU has developed since the early 2000s an important emphasis on the participation of citizens, civil society and on the construction of a European public sphere, which initially is conceived as part of the same process. The emergence of ‘participatory democracy’ as a ‘norm’ throughout the 1990s and the 2000s in the EU (Saurugger, 2010) influenced not only the mainstream narratives of ‘participation’ in the EU, but also its practices. Whereas the EU’s initial architecture was mostly a corporatist one, throughout the 2000s a neopluralist arrangement became

1 The chapter is derived in part from an article published in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies (date of publication, copyright Taylor and Francis), available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/147 82804.2023.2177837.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Oleart, Democracy Without Politics in EU Citizen Participation, Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38583-4_3

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increasingly dominant, a set of Brussels-based network of European civil society actors were established and developed. The ‘participatory turn’ of the EU conceptualised by Saurugger (2010) emphasises the existing gap between EU institutions and European citizens, and attempted to bridge it by encouraging debate through the participation of European ‘civil society’ actors. An example of this strategy is the Plan D: Democracy, Dialogue, Debate of 2005 and the White Paper on a European Communication Policy of 2006, in which there is a growing discursive importance on ‘closing the gap’ between EU institutions and ‘citizens’. This paved the way to the emergence of many more European civil society actors, many of which became institutionalised and professionalised lobby organisations based in Brussels. EU institutions thus saw civil society actors as a sort of mediators between EU institutions and citizens, being an important bridge between them as intermediary organisations that contribute to expand the debate beyond the Brussels bubble and contribute to the emergence of a European public sphere, while also shaping EU policies. However, the emergence of a Brusselsbased network of European civil society actors did not necessarily facilitate the linkage between national and EU politics nor with ‘citizens’, since these set of actors adapted and professionalised to the rather technical and depoliticised EU policy-making process. The strong technocratic role of the Brussels-based organisations has meant that European civil society has mostly contributed to reinforce the ‘field of Eurocracy’ (Georgakakis & Rowell, 2013) rather than expanding European debates onto national ones. This has led towards rather depoliticised EU political dynamics, in which activist groups tend to be excluded given that a system of ‘elite pluralism’ (Eising, 2009) among strongly institutionalised actors (Greenwood, 2011) is in place. The depoliticisation of the policy-making process is based on structurally excluding contentious actors, which encourages a very technical (as opposed to ‘politicised’) process where actors must adapt to the Commission’s framing of issues (Klüver et al., 2015). Interest group participation in the EU is then highly technical and professionalised. The highly depoliticised and institutionalised EU policy-making encourages a bias towards insider and professionalised actors (Binderkrantz et al., 2022). In Brussels, the majority of these are business actors and have a financial advantage vis-à-vis civil society actors in the EU lobbying game. The European Commission has attempted to

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correct the inequality among interest groups by providing funding for Brussels-based EU umbrella Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that represent other NGOs national level (Sánchez Salgado, 2014). By doing so, the Commission is a crucial donor supporting the existence of many Brussels-based NGOs. This has been interpreted as a way for the Commission to have civil society ‘partners’ (Kohler-Koch, 2010; Kutay, 2012), rather than bottom-up contestatory organisations that challenge its agenda. The failure to establish a linkage between EU institutions and citizens at large through the Europeanisation of civil society is at the core of the ‘citizen turn’ in terms of political practices by the EU. While there were earlier attempts to build this ‘direct’ relation between EU institutions and EU citizens, such as with the establishment of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) (that however requires the engagement of strong organisations; see Bouza García, 2015; Oleart & Bouza, 2018), the key year of this process is 2016, with the Brexit referendum that ended up with a victory for the ‘leave’ campaign. The loss of the ‘remain’ camp and the rather passive attitude of EU institutions in the referendum triggered a reflection upon the future of Europe and the role of civil society and citizens more broadly in it. In response to Brexit, the Juncker Commission (2014–2019) published the White Paper on the Future of Europe in 2017. Beyond the specific content of the five scenarios outlined, the White Paper is innovative in the way in which it conceives the relation between EU institutions, citizens and civil society. A first indication is the total absence of references to ‘civil society’ throughout the document (there is only one reference and it is situated in the foreword, not in the actual document), whereas ‘citizens’ are mentioned 20 times. The references to ‘citizens’ may not be seen as that innovative considering that in earlier documents there are already references to ‘closing the gap’ between EU institutions and EU citizens, such as the above-mentioned Plan D and White Paper on Communication, except that in the White Paper on the Future of Europe there is also an innovation at the level of concrete political practices through an attempt to reach citizens ‘directly’. Thus, until recently, the legitimacy strategies of the EU were oriented towards the strengthening of civil society organisations at the European level with the longer term view of the emergence of a European public sphere. The idea was that civil society would counter-balance the strength of business organisations that are well represented in Brussels and that

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lobby regularly the EU, and contribute to expanding the political debate beyond the Brussels bubble. Ultimately, the hope was that the European public sphere would progressively develop. However, with the exception of a few concrete cases, no European public sphere has emerged, and the legitimacy gap has remained. In response to this situation, the EU has shifted its legitimacy claim more oriented towards ‘citizens’ in what can be conceptualised as a process of ‘disintermediation’, in which traditional mediators are washed away and left aside, prioritising small-scale ‘democratic experiments’ with ‘everyday citizens’. There is a risk of presenting the CoFoE and the European citizens’ panels as a much more unified and consensual process than its construction ever was. To be sure, the European citizens’ panels are not the supreme embodiment of the EU’s vision of democracy. In fact, as Chapters 4, 5 and 6 will empirically detail, inter-institutional political disagreements and compromises were at the core of the development of the ‘citizen turn’. However, the development of the citizen panels reflects the mainstream depoliticised and consensus-oriented conception of democracy in the EU in general, and the European Commission in particular (see Chapter 6). The chapter first develops the theoretical relation between deliberative democracy and democratic innovations, and the tension with an agonistic public sphere perspective. Next, it analyses the evolution of citizen participation mechanisms in the EU since 2016, and how these practices are related to the (non)emergence of a European public sphere. The following sections will describe the citizen dialogues and the European Citizen Consultations (ECCs), exercises that preceded the Conference on the Future of Europe (the Conference will be described in detail in Chapters 4 and 5), the main processes that illustrate this ‘citizen turn’ in the way in which EU institutions conceive of its relation with EU citizens. The chapter continues with the institutionalisation of citizen participation within the European Commission, and concludes with a wider reflection of what the citizen turn means for EU democracy, and why the disintermediation of European politics is coherent with the preexistent depoliticised EU political dynamics of ‘democracy without politics’.

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The Relationship Between Deliberative and Agonistic Democracy: The Antipolitical Imaginary vs Mediation

The depoliticised understanding of democracy that remains dominant in the EU can be a good match to some experimental approaches to deliberative democracy, particularly those focused on minipublics. James Fishkin (2009), one of the most influential academic-practitioners in the field of deliberative democracy in minipublics, popularised a version of democracy characterised by a strong sense of depoliticisation by disentangling democracy from mass politics. From this perspective, democracy is not viewed from a public sphere systemic perspective, but the public sphere can instead be replaced by small spaces in which ‘ordinary citizens’ randomly selected are encouraged to deliberate: “The idea behind minipublics is using sortition to create a microcosm of the citizenry: A group that has the same features and the same diversity as the citizenry, but on a smaller scale” (Sintomer, 2023: 205). Thus, minipublics closely resemble the traditional ‘delegation’ logic when thinking about ‘representation’, rather than emphasising a more dynamic and movementoriented conception as illustrated by the notion of ‘mediation’ developed in Chapter 2. Given that sortition-based deliberative exercises can be set up in diverse ways, Abbas and Sintomer proposed a typology of political imaginaries upon which sortition-based deliberative democracy citizen assemblies may be constructed and organised. One of imaginaries is that of ‘antipolitical democracy’, which “reivindicates the power of the people free from political elites and consequently from domination and conflict” (Abbas & Sintomer, 2021: 40). In its anti-political version, deliberative democracy in minipublics has an outright rejection of political parties or ‘political elites’ as they are seen are an obstacle for ‘the people’ to reach a consensus on what the general interest is, and citizen assemblies offer a space in which democratically healthier dynamics can be fostered. Thus, the antipolitical imaginary tends to reject ‘intermediary’ actors and sees sortition-based spaces as a way to get the ‘real’ people’s voice. Here we see a resignification of traditional notions of representation via elections: sortition is more ‘representative’ of ‘the people’ than the MPs that are elected to ‘represent’ the ‘people’ in elections. The antipolitical imaginary of deliberative democracy is opposed to the ‘systemic turn’ of the deliberative democracy literature, focused on

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‘deliberative systems’ (Parkinson & Mansbridge, 2012) rather than on the specific procedures and methods that improve deliberation within a minipublic. It is, therefore, not evident that sortition-based minipublics actually have the potential to ‘democratise democracy’ (see Talpin, 2019). Following the deliberative system approach, “no single forum, however ideally constructed, can possess deliberative capacity sufficient to legitimate most of the decisions and policies that democracies adopt” (Mansbridge et al, 2012: 1), and thus a public sphere approach is necessary even when organising democratic innovations. Applied to the EU context, agonistic democracy would be encouraged through the Europeanisation of public spheres via conflict (e.g. Koopmans & Statham, 2010; Oleart, 2021) and taking into account activist civil society, bringing EU debates beyond the Brussels bubble, which implies a move away from the EU’s depoliticised policy-making and conception of democracy. This latter view is coherent with conceiving deliberative democracy as a “normative political theory that strives to make an impact on the real world” (see Hammond, 2019: 803). The agonistic democracy perspective described in Chapter 2 and the systemic turn of the deliberative democracy literature is closely aligned in regard to the meaningful role that mediators should play. The intertwining between European politics and relevant spaces of the national public spheres, such as national parliaments, the media or civil society, requires mediators that are able to construct bridges across the different spaces. Clearly, taking into account that public spheres in the EU remain nationally anchored, currently EU-level civil society organisations, as well as Europarties, are not structured in a way that facilitates the fostering of agonistic dynamics, as there are only a few actors that are able to operate as ‘multi-positional actors’ (Oleart & Bouza, 2018). But, even though the existing political architecture of the EU does not encourage actors to prioritise European issues in the national public spheres (see Pittoors & Gheyle, 2022), that is what an agonistic perspective should strive for. It is, therefore, only through mediation that it will be possible to overcome the ‘opposition deficit’ of the EU (Rauh & De Wilde, 2018). This process bridges the politicised national politics with the often depoliticised EU dynamics (Schmidt, 2019) towards building a transnational political space, a European public sphere. In this way, a systemic deliberation perspective can be a good match to the agonistic and multitude-oriented democracy outlined in Chapter 2: agonism requires mediation. It is, however, opposed to the antipolitical imaginary with

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which some sortition-based political exercises are organised, in which there is a rejection of intermediary actors. This latter perspective, which will be conceived as a process of ‘disintermediation’, is largely the imaginary with which the EU’s ‘citizen turn’ has been constructed, as the following sections will argue.

3 From the EP agoras, Citizen Dialogues and the European Citizen Consultations (2008–2018) to the Conference on the Future of Europe (2019–2022) The idea of involving citizens directly was played upon since the mid2000s. Between 2006 and 2007, the first-ever Pan-EU deliberative poll was organised, coordinated by the French think tank ‘Notre Europe’ (currently named the Institute Jacques Delors) (see Institut Delors, n.d.). The European Parliament organised a series of ‘agoras’ during the late 2000s and early 2010s, a series of two-day events in which a diverse group of citizens, which included civil society actors, discussed specific issues (see Talpin & Monnoyer-Smith, 2016). In parallel, the European Commission funded the EuroPolis project (2008–2010), a “deliberative polity-making project” that experimented with “what would happen if EU citizens became substantially more informed about EU institutional arrangements, decision-making processes, and policy issues, as well as more aware of the policy preferences of other EU citizens” (European Commission, n.d.). The EuroPolis project followed the ‘deliberative polling’ philosophy (see Isernia & Fishkin, 2014; Isernia et al., 2016), largely advanced by the above-mentioned political scientist James Fishkin. In this way, both the EP agoras and the EuroPolis project were largely experimental processes that had rather new conceptualisation of the relationship between EU institutions and EU citizens, as well as ‘citizen participation’, but received little follow-up and were not institutionalised. In this sense, one of the key persons in the introduction of citizen participation mechanisms within the European Commission, Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, suggested the following: It is a pity that sometimes in the Commission there is not a lot of institutional memory: sometimes some really interesting experience is made, but is then forgotten. For example, after the ‘No’ in the referendum in France and The Netherlands, there was the Plan D. Commissioner Wallström was leading it at the time. And amazing experiments were done during that

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moment, and I myself was involved in ‘Tomorrow’s Europe’, which was the deliberative polling that we had launched at the Jacques Delors Institute, which was called ‘Notre Europe’ at the time. And we did it and it was amazing. (…) there was a team that was created in Brussels to do that. So there was that, which was the first multilingual deliberation in a way. And then independently, you had a few interesting other things as well, but there was not really a follow-up to that, in terms of the citizens’ engagement format that we had been using. And then there were the citizen dialogues that were launched by Commissioner Reding, who I think had in mind at the time the Obama “town-hall meeting” style. The terms of reference that we received was a room with citizens, a few hours of Commissioners, a direct dialogue, TV... At the time, the focus was more on the dialogue (creating greater proximity between a Commissioner and citizens) than on specific follow up, even though reports were published. The promise was sometimes a little bit oversold, but it was a nice format to try. (Interview with Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, March 2023).

Indeed, the institutionalisation of this perspective was led by the European Commission in 2012, when the Commission developed the ‘citizen dialogues’. The ‘citizen dialogues’ were developed ahead of the 2013 ‘European Year of the Citizens’, which commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty. Initially conceived and developed by Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media (2004–2010) and Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship (2010– 2014), as a communication exercise to reproduce the idea that the EU was ‘closing the gap’ with its citizens, they were expanded upon the arrival of Juncker as Commission President in 2014. The citizen dialogues mostly consisted in a questions and answers format in different cities across the EU, with at least one representative from the European Commission (e.g. a Commissioner or Head of the Commission representation in the member state in question). The citizen dialogues progressively evolved from a small-scale communication exercise during the last years of the Barroso Commission (2012–2014) towards becoming a permanent feature of the Commission’s outreach work with a substantial increase of events (see Hierlemann et al., 2022). Furthermore, when the Commission was working on the 2017 White Paper on the Future of Europe, the citizen dialogues morphed from not only spreading what the Commission is doing but also getting feedback on it. And then they evolved towards a more general discussion about the future of Europe, getting citizens’ ideas about what the priorities in the future should be.

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Within the citizens’ dialogues format, there was already some experimentation and in some cases the EU national representations, such as in France, worked with consultancies related to participatory and deliberative democracy: (during the initial stages of the citizens’ dialogues) At the time I was working in France (at the European Commission representation in France), and there we tried to do some things beyond the terms of reference. We worked with a service provider, like those we have now (e.g. the consultancy Missions Publiques). Now we’re more into participatory and deliberative democracy. And we basically did two different things. First, we thought, if we just fill the room, it will always be filled by the same type of people i.e. those who are already convinced, either pro or anti-European (the “indifferent” and also vulnerable people have always been the harder to reach). So to try to go beyond the “usual suspects”, we did two things before the dialogue. We spent the whole week with a tent in public places, asking people to come and visit, with the idea that if people don’t come to Europe, you should go to them. And then we partnered with some organisations who work with vulnerable people, people living in precarious situations, so that they try to mobilize them to come. So, already there, we tried to build up on the citizens’ dialogues. And for some of them we also had preparatory workshops, to prepare the people so that it is a real dialogue and not just the Commissioner telling them what s/he does. So, the citizens’ dialogues had different versions. And then I think, here I wasn’t yet in the unit (on the citizens’ dialogues within DG COMM), but the unit also evolved towards testing new formats such as panels of randomly selected citizens. (Interview with Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, March 2023)

The citizens’ dialogues in this way ideationally facilitated the organisation of the European Citizen Consultations (ECCs).2 However, while the citizen dialogues remain active and ongoing, the ECCs were a oneoff exercise in which a number of events across the EU were organised and put together in the common framework of the ECCs. Shortly after being elected President of France in May 2017, Emmanuel Macron gave a speech on the Future of Europe at the Sorbonne on 26 September 2017, in which he called for involving citizens in the debate about the future 2 EU institutions did not agree on a common title for this exercise, but following the European Policy Centre and particularly Butcher and Pronckuté (2019), they will be also named in this chapter as European Citizens’ Consultations.

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of Europe. Macron’s proposal was followed up by the ECCs, carried out throughout 2018. In this way, there is a dialectic between the evolution of participatory democracy at the level of member states as well as at the EU level. With an important influence of Ireland’s experiences with citizens’ assemblies (see Farrell et al., 2019), and Macron’s push also at the national level to respond to the yellow vests movement (Ehs & Mokre, 2021), the ECCs were part of a wider trend towards ‘listening to citizens directly’ without intermediaries. The ECCs were conceived as an innovation in comparison to previous exercises at the EU level, providing a space in which citizens could participate in European democracy and the future of European integration. Unlike the citizen dialogues and public consultations, the ECCs were organised by the member states in partnership with national and local organisations, with the idea that the results of the ECCs would be reported to the European Council. While this represented a novelty, member states were given flexibility in terms of how they were carried out, and in consequence they followed very different procedures (Stratulat & Butcher, 2018). The lack of common processes and concrete goals made the consultations mainly a symbolic mechanism, and its biggest innovation was to situate on the national agenda the future of Europe debate (Butcher & Pronckute, ˙ 2019), and to do so in a disintermediated way from a ‘citizen’ perspective. The ECCs were not followed by any concrete changes, and the main formal outcome of it was the 13–14 December 2018 European Council summit conclusions, which included a vague hint towards following them up with another process: “The European Council welcomes the holding of Citizens’ Dialogues and Citizens’ Consultations, which was an unprecedented opportunity to engage with European citizens and which could serve as an inspiration for further consultations and dialogues”. The chronology of the ECCs is interesting, as its ending and concrete outcome took place six months before the May 2019 EU elections, well before the electoral campaign started, which indicates precisely a logic of depoliticisation: there was an unwillingness by EU institutions to politicise the ECCs via the EU elections. The understanding of the citizens’ dialogues and the ECCs is relevant to make sense of the genealogy of the relationship of EU institutions visà-vis ‘citizens’. Initiated in an experimental way, the citizen dialogues were progressively institutionalised, to the extent that under Juncker it became a widespread practice, and it was integrated into the culture of how the

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Commissioners worked. Later on, this ‘citizen exercise’ was expanded with the ECCs, both of which having in common the idea of building a direct relation between EU institutions and citizens from a largely depoliticised perspective, sidelining a (European) public sphere perspective of engaging with traditional mediators. A year after the December 2018 European Council, during the fall of 2019, the idea of the Conference on the Future of Europe would emerge. As the Council of the EU would explicitly argue, the “Conference should build on the successful holding of citizens’ dialogues and consultations over the past two years and foresee a broad debate with citizens in the course of the process” (Council of the EU, 2022: 4). In this way, the introduction of ‘direct citizen participation’ and sortition-based citizen assemblies in the EU speaks more to certain political cultures. In terms of nationality, the previous experiences in Ireland and France appear particularly relevant. Furthermore, the emphasis on consensus and ‘rational’ deliberation in minipublics is largely a good match to the traditionally depoliticised conception of democracy that is hegemonic in the EU.

4 ‘Citizenism’ as an Alternative to an Agonistic European Public Sphere in the EU’s ‘Citizen Turn’ 4.1

The Missing Micro–macro Link: EU ‘Citizen Participation’ as ‘Democracy Without Politics’

For several decades, there has been an increasing literature on citizen participation via experimental methods, mostly based on deliberation. This literature is interesting (e.g. Smith, 2003), yet overwhelmingly tends to put its focus on the methodology and how to make deliberation better among the small group of ‘descriptively representative’ participants, but there tends to be less focus on how these methods link up with the broader public sphere. It is precisely this micro–macro link that is relevant for EU democracy, and why the ‘citizen turn’ in EU policy-making has an important experimental component that remains problematic. Discussing the role of minipublics (such as the citizen panels of the CoFoE that will be described in detail in Chapter 5), Olsen and Trenz (2016: 663) argued that

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the claim for democratic legitimacy of a deliberative mini-public relies on processes of political mediation and public contestation where sufficient degrees of publicity can be generated through which the private (and often experimental) space of small-scale deliberation (the micro) can be meaningfully related to the public spaces of mass democracy (the macro).

It is precisely this link between the ‘democratic innovation’ of the different exercises with the EU power structures that pose problems from a normative perspective. The missing micro-macro link of much of the literature on deliberative minipublics has led Cristina Lafont to conceive them as a ‘democratic shortcut’ that requires ‘blind deference’ from the citizenry at large vis-à-vis the randomly selected participants. In Lafont’s (2020: 111) words, “the expectation of blind deference that underlies the micro-deliberative shortcut is incompatible with the democratic ideal of self-government. Empowering the few is hardly ever a way of empowering the many”. The micro–macro link is central insofar the experimental methods might be seen as a purely communicative effort to reproduce the idea that EU institutions are ‘closing the gap’ with EU citizens, without actually meaningfully doing so, or at least not doing so from a public sphere perspective. This logic of ‘democratic experimentalism’ that focuses primarily on ‘new’ methods rather than on the way in which they interact with existing political institutions and mediators may in fact reinforce the preexisting dynamics of the depoliticised EU policy-making. Baiocchi and Ganuza (2014) describe how participatory budgeting has travelled across the world, yet often from a largely depoliticised perspective rather than the much more activist-oriented with which it started in Latin America. By the mid-2000s participatory budgeting had become embedded in ‘good governance’ practices as encouraged by the World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz (2005–2007), as mechanisms “that enable a government to deliver services to its people efficiently”—thus justified in a technocratic way. The lack of a direct and explicit relation between these experimental processes (the citizen dialogues, the ECCs and later the CoFoE, as the next chapters will illustrate) and the broader public sphere limits its capacity to meaningfully shape the EU. It is central to embed the participatory mechanisms in a broader political field of action and interact with existing intermediary actors that play an influential role in the European public spheres, which is mostly missing. Additionally, processes such as the citizen dialogues, the ECCs or CoFoE explicitly exclude activist

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civil society and political actors, precisely those that have the symbolic, political, financial and communicative capital to politicise EU issues and expand the debate beyond the Brussels bubble. The different components of the citizen turn discussed in this chapter have in common a perspective of both disintermediation and depoliticisation, in a way in which they feed each other. Disintermediation leads towards micro-experiments, such as the citizen panels in the CoFoE, in which the emphasis on deliberation among a small group of randomly selected citizens leads to rather consensual discussions nourished by ‘neutral’ experts. Thus, a relevant question is what is the underlying conception of democracy that EU institutions have when setting up these processes? Notably, it tends to be a highly depoliticised one, coherent with the conceptualisation of ‘democracy without politics’ put forward in a recent article (Oleart & Theuns, 2022). The distinction between Schmidt’s ‘policy without politics’ and the proposal of this article of ‘democracy without politics’ is that there is no actual policy (or, rather, very limited) coming out of these exercises, but instead an effort to communicate that EU institutions are democratising its relation to EU citizens, yet following a depoliticised approach to democracy—hence ‘without politics’. While exercises such as the ECCs or CoFoE are conceived as ‘experiments’, they remain highly coherent with the traditionally depoliticised EU policy-making and the traditional understanding of ‘democracy’ of EU institutions. The political advantage of mobilising these initiatives is the appeal to ‘citizens’ as opposed to the traditional corporatist approach towards ‘stakeholders’. However, this framework is an attempt to ride the wave of EU politicisation through ‘citizen deliberation’, but without actually questioning the existing power structures or democratising the European public sphere. Therefore, the ‘citizen turn’ breaks away from the ‘participatory turn’ insofar it decouples ‘citizen participation’ from the idea of the European public sphere. In doing so, it tends to reinforce the preexistent depoliticised EU political dynamics. This need not apply to the idea of citizen assemblies by themselves, as it is certainly possible to imagine citizen assemblies organised in a democratic way in which they feed the (European) public spheres from an agonistic perspective (Dean, 2018) and integrate mediators in their design. Yet taking into account the underlying (depoliticised and disintermediated) philosophy (see also Oleart, 2023) with which the EU’s ‘citizen turn’ has been constructed, EU political actors (and particularly the European Commission) seem to increasingly be turning towards

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minipublics and ‘citizens’ as a sort of replacement to the European public sphere in terms of legitimacy. This attempt misses a systemic view of deliberation, which is the basis of Habermas’ public sphere theory. In the EU’s ‘citizen turn’, there seems to be an interest to look for ‘average citizens’ that should not be mediated by political intermediary bodies, and the emphasis and focus is on depoliticising the process of deliberation in order to avoid the ‘bias’ or ‘partisanship’ that political mediators may introduce. As the CoFoE illustrates, through these mechanisms the goal is to generate ‘fact-based’ and ‘neutral’ deliberation that ‘represents’ the views of ‘everyday citizens’. In this way, much of the focus is put on the fairness of the micro process, and only later it is attempted to make a connection with the macro-level. The logical outcome of this is the depoliticisation of the process, discouraging (agonistic) conflict and the involvement of a wide range of actors, cutting the feedback loop between the micro and the macro. 4.2

Disintermediation as Another Form of (Private) Mediation: The Social Construction of ‘Everyday People’ and the Commodification of Democracy

As mediators are the actors that are key in bridging the different spaces that compose the public spheres, their sidelining throughout CoFoE raises empirical and normative questions. This is especially the case since the legitimation narrative of the citizen dialogues, the ECCs and the CoFoE was precisely based on disintermediation. The logic is that by reaching out ‘directly’ to citizens, the EU is reducing the distance between the ‘Eurobubble’ and ‘average citizens’. However, this ‘disintermediation’ is instead another form of (private) mediation, that fits with the broader trend towards the privatisation of the state during the last decades. Rather than witnessing a ‘reduction’ of the state, even in the context of building infrastructure of democratic political participation, we are seeing a ‘bigger’ state in terms of spending, yet a ‘privatised’ one focused on delivering ‘services’ to citizens. As convincingly argued by Cordelli (2020: 6), the approach of considering the state and public authorities as a technocratic ‘provider’ of services “fails to understand privatization for what it is: a broader transformation of the mode of governing and of the identity of government, rather than a particular policy”.

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For instance, the European citizens’ panels in the context of the CoFoE (which will be described in detail in Chapter 5) were organised by four private consultancies, the leading of which was the French Missions Publiques, which has a long experience in organising these sort of exercises, including ‘Le Grand Débat’ and the ‘Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat’, both of which took place in France in 2019. In an institutional post by Missions Publiques (2022) in response to a growing debate in France related to the “private consulting firms” (such as themselves) on the conduction of public policies, they expanded on their philosophy to defend their own involvement in such citizen processes. They emphasise the importance of ‘neutrality’ and the avoidance of ‘partisan’ dynamics, which partially reveals the depoliticised underpinning principles with which they see deliberation. If only the ‘right’ deliberative methods are put forward, we can hear the voice of ‘everyday people’. However, rather than witnessing an actual disintermediation of the political debate, what is happening is that there are new forms of mediation emerging, in this case through the appearance of a ‘participatory democracy market’ (Mazeaud & Nonjon, 2018; see also Lee, 2014) of deliberative democracy entrepreneurs that are ‘selling’ a new form of mediation to EU institutions. This redefinition of mediation at the EU level is done, however, on the (discursive) grounds of disintermediation. The depoliticising perspective of this type of mediation has been met with much enthusiasm not only by practitioners and in the recent academic literature (e.g. Landemore, 2020; Sintomer, 2023), but also by international organisations such as the OECD. For instance, Claudia Chwalisz, the former Innovative Citizen Participation Lead at the OECD, published an article entitled “A Movement That’s Quietly Reshaping Democracy For The Better”, championing citizens’ assemblies as “the democratic spaces for everyday people”, and opposing them to the “inward-looking logic of political parties”, which have “perverse incentives that are preventing action, exacerbating polarization and fueling distrust” (Chwalisz, 2022). Chwalisz’s title’s article suggests that democracy can be reshaped for the better “quietly”, which is a good illustration of the largely depoliticised philosophy behind this perspective, often informed by (neoliberal) ‘good governance’ practices (Demmers et al., 2004). And what is perhaps most problematic of this perspective is the outright rejection of intermediary actors, that are seen as self-serving and ‘partisan’, in contrast to an imagined group of ‘everyday citizens’.

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Recently, the Financial Times Martin Wolf (2023) has also championed citizens assemblies on the basis that they are “more representative” than elected politicians, as well as processes that can downplay the role of algorithms on social media. Similarly, The Guardian published a ‘radical thinking’ article entitled ‘Citizens’ assemblies: are they the future of democracy?’. In it, Eva Talmadge (2022, emphasis added) championed ‘everyday people’ via random selection in the following way as a way to ‘revive’ democracy: “Instead of leaving the decision-making up to elected officials, citizens’ assemblies can offer a special interests-free alternative to politics as we know it”. The paradox of “special interests-free” citizen assemblies organised by private consultancies illustrates some of the contradictions embedded in these processes, and the role of private actors in legitimising the public policies of public authorities. In fact, the emergence of these processes may lead to the commodification of democracy, whereby democratic innovations rely on private companies whose business model is based on the idea that their expertise can bring the voices and representation of ‘everyday people’ to institutions. The concept of ‘everyday people’, which is built in opposition to the ‘elites’, is itself problematic insofar it connects with the antipolitical imaginary. Citizen assemblies are meant to position “ordinary citizens, rather than elected elites, at the center of political institutions” (Landemore, 2020: 218). This mechanism has also been more recently at play in the context of the German citizens’ dialogue on national security organised by one of the deliberative consortium partners, iFok, in which Annalena Baerbock, the German Foreign Minister, called the randomly selected participants “experts of everyday life” (Bürgerrat, 2022, 21 July). The contraposition between ‘politicians’ and ‘experts of everyday life’ performs the role of reinforcing the antipolitical imaginary, naturalising this distinction. The concept of “everyday people” connects to a certain extent to the role of “lay people” in the context of innovative deliberative techniques within the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK: Like the wise fool of mythology lay people’s innocence and naiveté are considered useful by professionals, managers and health service commentators. Knowledgeable individuals are considered unrepresentative of other lay people. In particular, activist members of voluntary lay groups are liable to be regarded as unrepresentative (atypical) and, therefore, unable to represent (voice) the views of their peers. There is little understanding

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that activists are found in all groups (Hogg & Williamson, 2001: 4; see also Parkison, 2004)

Thus, the disintermediated ‘citizen turn’ in the EU may be understood as the political attempt to build a new source of legitimacy that represents the alternative to the traditional conception of the European public sphere, replacing European civil society and the European public sphere with ‘neutral’ minipublics such as the European citizens’ panels in the CoFoE that touched directly only a few hundred citizens and whose resonance did not go beyond the Brussels bubble. Moving away from mass politics via minipublics is likely to limit the possibilities of democratising the public sphere (Chambers, 2009), and providing policymaking competences is not going to improve its democratic legitimacy (see Lafont, 2015). The insulation of the EU’s democratic innovations described in this chapter highlights that not all forms of deliberation have a democratising potential, as this rather minimalistic conception of democracy illustrates. In fact, the romanticisation of “everyday people” that are mediated by deliberative democracy consultants might have negative implications for agonistic and deliberative democracy in the EU, since it situates the political debate outside of the public sphere, depoliticises political processes and reinforces the consensus-oriented understanding of EU democracy (Crespy, 2014).

5 Conclusion: The ‘Citizen Turn’ Reinforces the Preexistent Depoliticised EU Political Dynamics The process by which EU institutions have shifted towards disintermediation, conceived in this chapter as the ‘citizen turn’ of the EU, has crystallised post-Brexit through the (expansion of the) citizen dialogues, the ECCs and the CoFoE (and particularly the European citizens’ panels that took place within it). EU institutions, and the Commission in particular, increasingly agree to involve ‘everyday citizens’ in EU-related discussions as much as possible, yet from a largely depoliticised and disintermediated perspective that structurally excludes activist actors. Thus, this ‘citizen turn’ has problematic implications in terms of bypassing EU mediators that might be helpful precisely in involving citizens in the process, yet from a more politicised and multitude-like perspective. The participatory turn produced knowledge and expertise, but little legitimacy

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beyond the Brussels bubble, and the ‘citizen turn’ is an attempt to address this gap. However, in the ‘citizen turn’, participation is conceived as an end in itself, rather than as a way to transform social reality. The more ‘citizen participation’ is accepted as a ‘norm’ in what is a generally positive development of EU politics, the more institutions are likely to ‘compete’ to take part in the process. Initially, the CoFoE was also meant to be led by the EP - yet in the end it was co-led by 3 EU institutions, even though in practice the Commission was the driving actor, operating as a sort of broker between EP and Council. The Commission’s own conception of a ‘technical’ body rather than a political one (Oleart & Theuns, 2022) is a good fit to the anti-political imaginary with which the Conference was organised and which is likely to be reproduced in further experimental exercises of the sort. Thus, the Commission is in a process of appropriating the capital that is collected via ‘citizen participation’, as Chapter 6 will further expand. However, ‘citizen participation’ is also of interest to other EU institutions, primarily the European Parliament, as some MEPs see it as a way to complement their EU-elections mandate. In fact, within the European Parliament a group of MEPs attempted to launch a pilot project on citizen panels, but the Commission refused to provide the budget for it. This reflects that the Commission’s attempt to monopolise and ‘own’ citizen participation in the EU, as well as the depoliticised perspective with which the Commission sees ‘citizen participation’: the Commission does not want ‘politics’/partisan actors to ‘contaminate’ the ‘citizen participation’ exercises as that would break the anti-political imaginary upon which it is constructed. The protectiveness of the European Commission in regard to ‘citizen participation’ through the ‘citizen turn’ can, therefore, be seen as an expansion of executive empowerment with a different layer or type of (input) legitimacy. Analysing the Commission’s European Capitals of Culture programme’s participatory mechanisms, Nagy (2018: 243) asks a question that relates closely to the ‘citizen turn’: “is participation a ‘veil’ to hide the symptoms of the democratic deficit?”. The EU can innovate through all sort of ‘new’ participatory methods, but insofar the depoliticised understanding of democracy remains in place, no technical expertise will meaningfully contribute to the EU’s democratisation. The lack of a public sphere perspective in the ‘citizen turn’ is reproducing the already hegemonic depoliticised dynamics, but through different means. Here there is a paradox by which, on the one hand, EU institutions are encouraging ‘everyday citizens’ to participate actively

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in shaping the future of Europe, yet at the same time are hindering its capacity to do so by individualising participation. There is an evident tension between the language of ‘citizen participation’ and the individualisation of such process via disintermediation, insofar the capacity to ‘participate’ is precisely shaped by how citizens can politically team up in ideologically (more or less) coherent organisations and coalitions. The individualisation of participation neglects the structural and material inequalities that exist in society by constructing an artificial setting of individual ‘equality’. Yet inequalities are not ‘individual’. Furthermore, the very notion of ‘citizen’ has an exclusionary effect, as it fails to include migrants and refugees that are not EU citizens, even if they may be living in the EU (accordingly, in the CoFoE’s citizen panels all participants were EU citizens). Thus, there seems to be a diagnosis in the EU, and in the Commission more specifically, that there were failures in the ‘participatory turn’ that have led towards the citizen turn. While the participatory turn provided legitimacy from a throughput perspective, providing expertise and knowledge; it did not meaningfully contribute to construct a European public sphere and input legitimacy. The ‘citizen turn’ emphasises that the key actors to safeguard EU democracy are individual EU citizens, rather than collective organisations. To be sure, this chapter is certainly not making an argument against ‘citizen participation’, but against a particular type of (depoliticised) participation that simply reproduces depoliticised dynamics through ‘innovative’ mechanisms. Citizen assemblies can very well complement existing institutional settings and enhance both the democratic input and encouraging the involvement of citizens and organisations that are not often socialised with EU politics. However, insofar debates surrounding EU democracy focus mostly on ‘innovative methods’ and different ways to engage in depoliticised ‘debates’, the fundamentally unequal power structures in society will remain untouched. In the CoFoE, EU institutions seemed to situate the descriptive representation of ‘citizens’ (referring to the 800 randomly selected citizens of the European citizens’ panels as well as those participating in the national citizens’ panels) in competition with civil society and other intermediary actors. The next empirical chapters will describe in detail the perspective of civil society actors in this process, who were mostly conceived by EU institutions as ‘disseminators’ of the CoFoE rather than important mediators that could provide actual input into the policy and political discussions. Additionally,

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they were not only excluded from providing input to the European citizens’ panels, but also played a marginal role in the plenary, and were in fact discouraged from even sharing their perspectives with the ‘citizen ambassadors’. Collective organisations that allow citizens to come together in a particular ideological direction are crucial to encourage an agonistic debate in which conflict not only exists, but is structured in a politicised way that facilitates a wider political involvement of a wide range of actors. Sidelining collective actors from ‘participatory’ processes operates as a way to undermine organised power and, in turn, our ability to reshape power relations in order to transform society. The missing link between EU politics and important mediators encourages a perception of a public relations mechanism to communicate the attempt to ‘close the gap’ between EU institutions and citizens, rather than to provide a political opportunity to actually shape the EU. Thus, the EU’s ‘citizen turn’ misses a systemic view of deliberative democracy and relies on the notion of ‘descriptive representation’. Additionally, the discourse and political practice based on the ‘disintermediation’ between EU institutions and EU citizens is not matched with an actual disintermediation of the political debate. Rather, what is happening is that there are new forms of mediation emerging, in this case through the appearance of deliberative democracy entrepreneurs, such as private consultancies whose expertise is the organisation of ‘citizen participation’. This is not to say that citizens’ assemblies are inherently a depoliticising and disintermediating tool, but rather that the underlying philosophy with which the EU is deploying them poses fundamental problems and misses a (European) public sphere perspective. The next chapters will describe in an empirical way the way in which the CoFoE was organised, zooming in particularly on the European citizens’ panels.

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CHAPTER 4

Democracy Without Politics in the Conference on the Future of Europe: The Political Architecture, Process and Recommendations

1

Introduction: An Interpretivist Approach to the CoFoE

The book falls under an interpretivist methodological perspective. The political, historical and social context in which the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) has taken place is central, hence the strong historical and ideological component to the idea of the ‘citizen turn’ presented in Chapter 3. The methodological choice has been made on the basis that interpretivism “is well suited to studying deliberative democracy because: it can capture the perspectives of participants in the deliberative process; and it is sensitive to the contextual and contingent nature of such processes” (Ercan et al., 2017: 4). Therefore, the empirical perspective focuses on the construction of meaning throughout the CoFoE, rather than on rigid measurement, and the data is generated in relation to the context from which it is taken. Interpretivist research design approaches (see Schwartz-Shea & Yanow, 2012) have been previously deployed to understand the way in which participants of deliberative processes have conceived the process (Talpin, 2012), and it is a perspective that is gaining ground within the deliberative democracy academic field.

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A public sphere requires that the different spaces and components that belong to it are connected, and it is the relation between them that shapes the democratic legitimacy of a polity. A challenge for deliberative systems is to establish democratic connections between its different components, and it is precisely in those dynamics that an agonistic, deliberative and democratic public sphere can be fostered. It will be thus a central dimension to understand the way in which the different spaces of the European public spheres relate to each other in the specific case of the CoFoE. The role of theoretically and normatively informed empirical research is to “help in the refinement of deliberative democratic theory, making it more sensitive to real-world constraints and opportunities” (Dryzek, 2007: 240). In turn, this perspective is a good match to the idea developed in Chapter 1 of a dynamic relation between political theory and empirical work, in such a way that empirical research is grounded in normative political theory in a constant back-and-forth. There are certainly methodological challenges to such an interpretivist and normatively committed position (Font et al., 2012), yet addressing an empirical object such as the CoFoE in such a normative, empirical and dialogical perspective (Martineau & Squires, 2012) certainly brings an added value. The chapter analyses the CoFoE process and governance structure as well as the institutional discourse around it through a combination of participant observation, document analysis and semi-structured interviews. Thus, it includes purely factual information with observations made throughout the CoFoE, semi-structured interviews and an analysis of the official CoFoE reports, mainly the final report and the multilingual digital platform report. I observed first hand the three sessions of the European citizen panel 2 (EU democracy, values, rights, rule of law and security) and panel 4 (EU in the world and migration), which took place in Strasbourg, online, Florence and Maastricht, as well as all the CoFoE plenary sessions in Strasbourg (mostly online, but also in-person the session on 25–26 March 2022), and conducted semi-structured interviews with randomly selected participants, organisers and moderators of the panels, journalists, members of the CoFoE Secretariat, and members of the CoFoE plenary sessions, including civil society representatives, parliamentarians and trade unionists. I also participated as an activist in the civil society coalition Citizens Take Over Europe (CTOE), which played an important role in making proposals to improve the process vis-à-vis EU institutions. Last, during my time as postdoctoral researcher

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at Studio Europa Maastricht (SEM) and Maastricht University, I played a role in the organisation1 of the third session of the European Citizens’ panel 4 on ‘EU in the world and migration’, given that SEM was co-organiser of that session in Maastricht alongside with the European Institute of Public Administration. I, therefore, had different hats throughout the CoFoE: as an activist within CTOE, as a scholar and (partially) as an organiser. This disclosure is relevant insofar my own political engagement in the context of the Conference (and beyond) and the academic research developed in this book has been closely connected through a feedback loop. I thus do not pretend that the empirical chapters are an ‘objective’ description of the Conference, but are instead an interpretivist analysis of it that is shaped by my positionality.

2 The Conference on the Future of Europe: A Response to a Legitimacy Gap The end of the ‘permissive consensus’ due to the advent of EU politicisation (see Haapala & Oleart, 2022) has challenged the ‘status quo’ and increased the legitimacy gap: EU institutions feel the heat and are encouraged to respond to this increased attention. One of the ways in which the EU attempted to fill this legitimacy gap was through the Spitzenkandidaten, which increased the leverage of the European Parliament (EP) in the negotiations to decide who will be leading the European Commission. After the successful introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten system in 2014, in which the EPP-nominated Jean-Claude Juncker was selected by the European Council and later elected by the European Parliament, the 2019 Spitzenkandidaten process was sidelined. The two leading candidates, Manfred Weber and Frans Timmermans, did not have the necessary political support in the European Council, which highlights the structural EU inter-institutional tensions, primarily between the Council and the Parliament (see Crum, 2023). Ultimately, national

1 However, the organising work of the third session of panel 4, on 11–13 February

2022, by SEM and the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) dealt primarily with the logistics of it. That said, we did have an influence over the ‘experts’ that were invited during that session, even though, as it will be explained in detail in Chapter 5, the experts during the third sessions could only make written contributions that would be filtered by the organisers before being read in the working groups by the moderators.

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leaders decided to nominate for the European Commission presidency Ursula von der Leyen, at the time German defence minister and member of the centre-right German party CDU. Initially pitched by French President Emmanuel Macron, who had already championed the idea of listening ‘directly’ to citizens through Le Grand Débat and the Citizens Convention for Climate in early 2019 at the national level, European Commission President candidate Von der Leyen proposed the CoFoE to the European Parliament in order to gain political support for the parliamentary approval of her Commission in November 2019. Her candidacy as Commission President was under question from the European Parliament’s perspective because she was not one of the Spitzenkandidaten. Thus, the Conference on the Future of Europe emerged out of the overall legitimacy gap enlarged by EU politicisation, a gap that increased with the Spitzenkandidaten process, in which none of the candidates were nominated by the European Council as next European Commission President. Von der Leyen initially framed the CoFoE as a two-year participatory democracy exercise that would give recommendations by ‘citizens’ about what the future of Europe should be. In her speech as President-elect of the European Commission, Von der Leyen suggested that the CoFoE “should be inclusive for all institutions and citizens and the European Parliament should have a leading role” (European Commission, 2019). After many months of negotiations between the European Commission, Council and Parliament, the three EU institutions signed on 10 March 2021 the Joint Declaration on the Conference on the Future of Europe, which, entitled ‘Engaging with citizens for democracy’, stated the following: We will seize the opportunity to underpin the democratic legitimacy and functioning of the European project as well as to uphold the EU citizens support for our common goals and values, by giving them further opportunities to express themselves. (…) The Conference on the Future of Europe is a citizens-focused, bottom-up exercise for Europeans to have their say on what they expect from the European Union. It will give citizens a greater role in shaping the Union’s future policies and ambitions, improving its resilience. (European Commission, 2021, 1–2, emphasis added)

On 9 May 2021, in Europe Day, with a one year delay caused by the outbreak of Covid-19 but also by the lack of agreement among EU institutions on the governance of the CoFoE, EU leaders launched it, an

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attempt by EU institutions to reach out beyond its usual suspects by situating ‘citizens at the centre’. However, as the next sections will detail, the Conference soon became a terrain of inter-institutional struggle between the three main EU institutions. Each of them saw an opportunity with it: the Council as a small price to pay for having their candidate, Ursula Von der Leyen, as Commission President; the Commission as part of a broader process of innovation in ‘citizen participation’; and the Parliament as a renewed way to increase its own competences, including the waving of unanimity in the Council and the legislative initiative.

3

The Political Architecture of the Conference

The Conference, which was cut short to a one-year exercise, was planned as an initiative aimed at organising a dialogue between EU institutions and European citizens in order to set both medium and long-term priorities for the European project. The CoFoE was politically led by a joint presidency and an executive board led by the three main EU institutions (European Commission, Council and Parliament), and organisationally by a Common Secretariat that comprised representatives from all three institutions. As we will later see in the next chapter, the co-leadership of the Conference brought with it a high level of fragmentation that complicated the decision-making of the citizen panels. As argued by Patberg (Forthcoming), the CoFoE’s overall “eclectic structure of democratic inclusion contributed to preventing any dynamic that could have resulted in challenges to the constituted powers’ dominant position”. The governance of the CoFoE was highly fragmented not only in terms of a joint Secretariat and executive board that were both composed by members of the three main EU institutions, but also within each of the three institutions. Within the Commission, it was mainly Commissioner Dubravka Šuica who was leading the efforts, with Commissioner Vˇera Jourová also partially involved, and other Commissioners, such as Maroš Šefˇcoviˇc or HRVP Josep Borrell participating in particular moments of the Conference. However, Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen only contributed to the Conference in the inaugural and closing events, and the State of the Union of September 2021 was marked by a single reference to the Conference. While Von der Leyen initially put forward the idea of the CoFoE to the European Parliament, she was broadly absent

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of throughout it. Similarly, the Council was generally the least active institution of the three, but still some members were more active than others. Last, the European Parliament suffered from similar caveats, as only a small number of MEPs were active throughout the Conference. Out of the 108 MEPs that were part of the plenary, only a handful of them actively participated beyond their formally mandatory obligations. In terms of arenas, the CoFoE leadership divided the initiative in four main spaces: the digital platform, decentralised events, the European citizens’ panels (and national panels) and the Conference plenary. 3.1

The Multilingual Digital Platform

The multilingual digital platform was the space in which any citizen could put forward their proposals, and it was meant to facilitate deliberation between citizens from different countries. Driven by the European Commission’s DG COMM, the platform represented an interesting innovation for EU institutions,2 as it integrated an automatic e-translation tool within the participatory open source platform Decidim. This platform has an interesting political history, driven by the reclaiming of ‘technopolitics’ and a strong activist culture. Based in Barcelona and heavily supported by the left-wing local government (see Gaboriau, 2023), three of Decidim’s founders made the diagnosis that “technopolitics has allowed a rupture with the organizational and communicative culture of the old left. Digital culture (…) entails the generation of postideological and post-identity political practices” (Monterde et al., 2013: 26). The optimistic perspective on ‘technopolitics’ is combined with the sidelining of intermediary actors.3 In Decidim’s own White Paper, technology is perceived as a key element that will facilitate the democratisation of society: “From the political or the scientific to the public sphere, ICTs and ICT-based practices allow the circulation of information and knowledge (a form of de-intermediation from traditional authorities and gatekeepers)” (Barandiaran et al., 2018: 14). This ‘disintermediated’ way 2 In fact, the multilingual digital platform was nominated for the European Ombudsman award for Good Administration 2023. 3 Interestingly, Monterde et al. (2013) also mobilise the notion of the ‘multitude’ inspired by Hardt and Negri, even though the way in which they develop it is largely as an aggregation of individual demands, rather than the class-based notion discussed at length in Chapter 2.

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of conceiving political participation travelled to the CoFoE multilingual digital platform, which is described in the following way: The digital platform is the hub of the Conference: it is your way to get involved and speak up at the Conference. Here you can share your thoughts on Europe and the changes which need to happen, see what others have to say, find events near you, organise your own event and follow the progress and the outcome of the Conference. (Conference on the Future of Europe, 2021)

The excerpt illustrates how organisers seem to be addressing an individualised public, hence the references on how “you can share your thoughts on Europe” or “find events near you”. This way of conceiving the Conference, as a process of “listening” to (individual) “citizens” poses fundamental problems from a public sphere perspective and does not meaningfully contribute to fostering agonistic and deliberative dynamics. Additionally, while the CoFoE platform reports do not provide specific data on who submitted proposals, the fact that an overwhelming majority of platform participants have tertiary education (a total of 42% out of the 58% that responded to the question) seems to indicate that the platform was ultimately dominated by usual suspects of the Brussels bubble (CoFoE, 2022a: 19). Furthermore, in contrast to the platform of the French Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat, there was no specific entry point for collective actors such as civil society organisations, and all contributions were mixed together. Overall, it remained unclear how the multilingual digital platform was articulated with the other dimensions of the CoFoE. In addition to the unfriendly character of the platform, the inaccurate (mostly automatic) translation and regular tech bugs, the purpose of the platform was never clarified. This was reinforced by the way in which the platform was designed, since it did not make any distinction between the users that proposed different policy recommendations. In this sense, Elisa Lironi, the Programme Director for European Democracy at ECAS and also one of the members of the plenary working group on ‘digital transformation’, commented the following: there was a lack of clarity on the process itself. I mean, it just felt very random (…) that you would just write whatever you want about this topic (…) But I think that it [the digital platform] was always intended

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as a secondary element. So the real elements, which were the citizens’ panel, were just perfectly fine. But there was no clarity and transparency of the process. So how these contributions in the platform would feed into the process in general was never clear. The working group [in the CoFoE plenary] I was in, they did take it into consideration, but they weren’t obliged. (…) There should have been a clear methodology since the beginning on how the contributions were going to be examined how the contributions were going to be then taken into consideration (…) One thing on the multi lingual digital platform, for example, is that there could have been a space for civil society. So instead of mixing everyone’s contributions, one thing that we were proposing was that there could have been a space for citizens, and then there could have been a space if you’re a representative of the civil society. Then, state your organisation, who you are, and give the civil society’s perspective on that specific topic. That could have fed into the working groups. I think that if the multilingual platform would have had also one specific channel for civil society, that could have been also an interesting way to outline policy positions. (Interview with Elisa Lironi, June 2022)

The multilingual digital platform made a distinction between ‘ideas’ and ‘events’, but there was also lack of clarity about the type of events that could be introduced, and there was a post-event reporting mechanism that was fundamentally flawed as it failed to connect with the substance of the proposals. This resulted mostly in organised interest groups such as trade unions, civil society and other invested stakeholders in pushing specific agendas, but with no meaningful debate and connection to the public sphere. Additionally, while the platform had a way to ‘endorse’ proposals and operate as a space of ‘debate’, in practice this was far from being the case. Furthermore, the platform was meant to partially feed the European citizens’ panels. While it ultimately played a role in introducing some ideas—organisers argued that they had synthesised the platform contributions as part of the input—the process and the criteria to decide which ideas from the platform were introduced within citizens’ panels or the plenary working groups was never clarified. The multilingual digital platform was in this way an initial entry point for the Conference, but at the same time it was unclear how it would connect to the other spaces that constituted the architecture of the Conference. The CoFoE Secretariat argued that the input from the platform was used as an initial input for the European citizens’ panels and was also considered and partially discussed in the CoFoE plenary sessions

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and the nine working groups operating in them. However, there was no systematic process for connecting the platform with the other spaces of the CoFoE. 3.2 Decentralised Events and the European and National Citizens’ Panels Second, the CoFoE encouraged the self-organisation of events related to the future of Europe. As of 20 April 2022, there had been 6.465 events and 652,532 event participants reported in the Conference platform (CoFoE, 2022a: 13). Paradoxically, these events were precisely those organised by mediators such as civil society organisations, yet they were not integrated substantively into the plenary. These events were meant to foster debate on the Conference and were conceived as ‘public outreach’ rather than an attempt to meaningfully integrate ideas into the plenary (on the national and regional participation on the CoFoE, see Abels, 2023). Several civil society initiatives were funded by EU institutions in the context of the Conference on the Future of Europe to organise these events. These initiatives were mostly oriented towards encouraging people to participate in the Conference via the events and the digital platform. One of them was the #STANDFORSOMETHING campaign, funded by the European Parliament and undertaken in partnership with the European Youth Card Association (EYCA). The campaign aimed to encourage “young people to take a stand and voice their views on the issues that matter to them” (Stand For Something, n.d.). In an interview, Julien Tate-Smith, project officer at the EYCA and closely involved in the #STANDFORSOMETHING campaign, described the barriers for civil society in the context of the Conference. Rather than substantively contributing to the Conference debate, EU institutions expected civil society to inform the wider public about the process: There was no structured way in which the efforts of civil society could put forward their input (after organising events). We were told to put it on the Conference platform, but it [got] mixed up with lots of other ideas, and there is no guarantee that an idea in the platform would enter the debate, even though the platform was meant to feed the citizen panels and the plenaries. (…) There was very little transparency. The Conference didn’t do much outreach. There was a real lack of media attention. All

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the people we spoke [to] throughout our project had no idea what the Conference was. The sort of project we had was a great way to compensate the lack of media attention, but it would have been good if it was thought about it [beforehand]. Rather than collecting ideas, it seemed we were informing people about what the EU is doing. A role that we could play is to basically get people more excited about it, because it felt like there was lack of interest [in the CoFoE]. One of the things that, in hindsight, would have been better is to know better where we were going, what is going to happen at the end after all the efforts? Even if our role is to get people excited, people get excited for a reason, and it wasn’t always easy to respond to that. Especially with the volunteers we worked [with] for a year. And to keep the energy going for a long time there needs to be a reason, even in terms of policy or in terms of the process: will the Conference change something in terms of citizen participation? There was no guarantee but also no indication that this was happening. (Interview with Julien TateSmith, May 2022)

In parallel, the European citizens’ panels (and also the national citizens’ panels,4 which were organised by the member states but had to follow a particular criteria set by CoFoE in order to be officially considered as such) were the most innovative aspect of CoFoE. A set of four panels, the methodology of which was constructed by four private subcontractors (in constant cooperation with the CoFoE Secretariat), that touched upon different policy areas in which 200 randomly selected citizens (per panel) from across EU member states deliberated and made recommendations about the public policies the EU could take. Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul expanded on the relationship between the national and the EU panels: It’s related to the extent that there is, as the OECD called it in their 2020 report, the “deliberative wave”, I think it is there. And so it’s going to happen at all level where public policies are made. (…) The link is very much about sharing experiences, expertise. The experts involved usually have had experiences at different levels and we share the knowledge. (…) It is true that during the Conference on the Future of Europe, we could have tried to work a bit more on the links between national and European panels. It is true that in this case the connection was made only during the Plenary, where the European and national panels sent their proposals separately. But, as far as I am concerned, I didn’t mind so much 4 Six EU member states organised national citizens’ panels that followed the CoFoE criteria: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Lithuania and the Netherlands.

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that they evolved in parallel. A lot of people had this idea that it should be first national and then European. But I’m not sure it’s actually representative of what European democracies are, because for me, they are the two together—national and European—and not one superseding the other. Because you are a European citizen, if you are a national citizen. And the EU is based on a double legitimacy: one coming directly from the citizens and one from the Member States. I thought it was quite interesting, actually, that there was a European process going on at the same time as a national and that all of this came together at the end. (Interview with Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, March 2023)

Chapter 5 will be uniquely dedicated to the European citizen panels and explain their functioning. The ECPs, as well as the inclusion of ‘citizen ambassadors’ in the plenary, were the biggest innovation of the EU in the context of the CoFoE, as Zuzanna Nowak, one of the facilitators of the CoFoE citizen panels and also a practitioner, suggested: a lot of democratic innovation is experimental. So these early experiments, even if they are on some accounts, failed, or unsuccessful, are still a very useful learning experience (…) Five years ago, if somebody would have told me that this would happen, I wouldn’t believe it. So it’s good that we are in a place where this is no longer unattainable (Interview with Zuzanna Nowak, October 2022)

3.3

The CoFoE Plenary and the Working Groups

The most important pillar of CoFoE was the Conference plenary, composed mainly by MEPs, Council representatives, the European Commission and MPs from national parliaments; but also by ambassadors from the European and national citizens’ panels, as well as members of civil society, social partners and regional authorities (see Table 1). The plenary was the main decision-making institutional actor of CoFoE, as it was the space where all the input gathered through the three spaces described above was discussed and deliberated upon. The plenary was itself divided in 9 ‘Working Groups’, each of which was dedicated to a different policy area/cluster. The working groups covered were the following: Climate change and the environment; Health; A stronger economy, social justice and jobs; EU in the world; Values and rights, rule of law, security; Digital transformation; European democracy; Migration; and Education, Culture, Youth, Sport.

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Table 1

Members of the CoFoE plenary by institution

Institution

Number of plenary members

European Parliament National MPs Council European Commission Citizen ambassadors (EU + National + EYF) Committee of the Regions European Economic and Social Committee Elected regional authorities Elected local authorities Social Partners Civil Society Total

108 108 54 3 80 + 27 + 1 18 18 6 6 12 8 449

Source CoFoE (n.d.)

The working groups were composed by members from all the different actors that compose the plenary. Thus, the CoFoE plenary was a rather unique space in which competing ways of ‘representing’ citizens were interacting with one another. Ultimately, after several debates and negotiations, each of the working groups delivered a concrete set of recommendations to the wider plenary. As for the voting, there were four institutional components that are required to formally vote (European Parliament, European Commission, national parliaments and the Council), yet there was also a ‘citizen component’, formed by the ‘citizen ambassadors’ of the European and national citizens’ panel, that gave support to the final report, even if it was not formally binding. The substance of the political discussion was mostly debated in the working groups; the central spaces in which the plenary proposals were drafted, edited and voted upon. Overall, there were seven plenary sessions. The first plenary session was primarily an introductory one. The second, third and fourth were oriented towards discussing the state of play of citizens’ recommendations and the recommendations put forward in the multilingual digital platform. The fifth, sixth and final sessions were focused on negotiating the plenary proposals within each of the different working groups, combined with plenary sessions where the proposals were put forward and discussed. Thus, the plenary format progressively evolved towards a more thematic focus (Table 2).

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Table 2 List of the seven CoFoE plenary sessions and the dates in which they took place

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Sessions

Dates

Inaugural plenary Second plenary Third plenary Fourth plenary Fifth plenary Sixth plenary Final plenary

19 June, 2021 22–23 October, 2021 21–22 January, 2022 11–12 March, 2022 25–26 March, 2022 8–9 April, 2022 29–30 April, 2022

The evolution of the way in which the plenary sessions were organised reflects how the CoFoE suffered from a constant improvisation and a ‘learn-by-doing’ approach. The second plenary session (22–23 October 2021), which included in its input a report drafted in the context of the 8–9 October, 2022, European Youth Event (EYE), was the first one that counted with ‘citizen ambassadors’ (who had completed the first of the three European citizens’ panels sessions). This plenary session was highly problematic and confusing. Speakers, including ‘citizen ambassadors’, were given slots of one, one and a half or two minutes to speak, and the interventions were not thematically focused: a speaker would raise an issue related to the environment, followed by an intervention on migration. There may be policy links between the environment and migration, but this second plenary did not allow for space for a debate, and instead was largely a thread of individual monologues with little interaction between them and only a few limited questions were allowed. This static and oral format was largely explained on the basis that ‘citizen ambassadors’ were not allowed to provide any written statement by the CoFoE Secretariat. This plenary session caused strong disappointment from the perspective of the citizens’ ambassadors, which would lead towards a change in the way in which plenaries were organised and structured. The policy-oriented working groups were a particularly mysterious political processes. Each working group had a ‘chair’, whose task was to gather and order the input from the members of the group. However, it was never clear how the chair was selected (there were chairs from the Council, Commission and the European Parliament), and in some cases they even had rotating chairs. Thus, while the process of the working groups was more thematically targeted, the functioning of the working groups was not always coherent, given that each chair put

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forward different ‘rules’ and methods for their working group. In this way, the mechanics of each working group differed widely, and the inclusion of recommendations took place in a largely untransparent process. The extremes were the working group on European democracy, chaired by MEP Manfred Weber, which was highly contentious not only because of the topic but also because of the lack of clarity on which participants would be able to provide input5 ; and the working group on health, chaired by European Commissioner Maroš Šefˇcoviˇc, in which all participants were included from the beginning and that was rather consensual.

4 Democracy Without Politics in the CoFoE: The Missing Connection with Mediators and the Public Sphere 4.1

Civil Society and Trade Unions

Civil society organisations were initially not embedded within the Conference plenary. As the initial call for joining a civil society coalition stated, “it is not clear how European civil society organisations will be involved in a structured manner” (Civil Society Europe, 2021, 15 January). In consequence, an important number of EU civil society actors put forward the ‘Civil Society Convention’, which aimed at providing input into the Conference plenary (Civil Society Europe, 2021, February). This civil society coalition was facilitated by the initial exclusion of civil society by EU institutions. Once the Civil Society Convention was set in place, the CoFoE leadership invited a limited number of representatives of civil society to the plenary—although based on the interviews, there were not even enough representatives to actually cover all working groups. Thus, civil society organisations and trade unions were involved in the CoFoE plenary, but in a limited way.

5 At one point, a representative from the Council suggested in the European democ-

racy working group that only the recommendations coming from the ECPs should be included, in order to fend off proposals coming from representatives of the European Parliament. This example illustrates how some actors, in this case the Council, attempted to instrumentalise the role of citizen ambassadors in their inter-institutional struggle with the EP.

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Throughout the CoFoE there was a total absence of politicisation of the process, as most of the European citizens’ panels and events related to the CoFoE received little attention from national political parties, civil society or trade unions, both at the national and EU level. In fact, throughout the Conference plenary sessions there were repeated complaints in the public interventions of civil society and trade union representatives on the basis of their lack of involvement. In a public interview, Alexandrina Najmowicz, the Secretary General of the European Civic Forum and a member of the CoFoE plenary, argued the following in regard to the role of civil society: This lack of recognition has become even more visible and problematic when it comes to the Conference on the Future of Europe, its decisionmaking process and its functioning. The intergovernmental conference preparing the constitutional treaty in 2000 involved European networks of civil society organizations through a Civil Society Forum, and representatives of the latter were regularly invited to the conference. Twenty years later, the role of intermediary civic organizations has taken a back seat, as the EU plans to engage in a deliberative exercise by addressing European citizens directly and individually. This exercise is necessary, but it must not be limited to institutional populism and public relations, which will ultimately lead to an inevitable increase in mistrust of European and national institutions. (European Civic Forum, 2022)

The perspective described by Najmowicz was widely shared across civil society, as there was a general sense among organisations that the CoFoE Common Secretariat understood civil society’s role as ‘promoters’ of the CoFoE (for similar findings, see Curtin, 2022). Carlotta Besozzi, the coordinator of Civil Society Europe, described the perception of the interaction between EU institutions and civil society in the context of the CoFoE: In their mind [CoFoE Secretariat] civil society was there to do the promotion [of the CoFoE]. And you can see it also if you look right back at the Joint Declaration. They speak about civil society, but basically about promoting and organising events that amplify its reach. So we are there sort of working for the institutions in a way. But if there is not a place for us, what is the motivation to involve our members? They have to feel involved, members have to know that their proposals are taken into account. But for them [the CoFoE Secretariat], it was mostly about organising events

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to bring as many citizens as possible. Let people know that the conference exists, that was the interest. Civil Society is set up and run by citizens and people to make our society better and find solutions to challenges such as poverty, health or climate change. They should have an important part in the discussions on the future of Europe. (Interview with Carlotta Besozzi, June 2022)

The lack of structured involvement and the minor role given to civil society in the CoFoE plenary raised also normative questions. One dimension was related to the amount of plenary positions given to civil society, most of which were given to European Movement International (EMI), as well as a reserved position for the European Youth Forum (EYF): Youth was represented by the European Youth Forum in the plenary of CoFoE, which is great, it is very good to have a person that is there to speak on behalf of youth. But it is a very favoured position for one organisation. And there are hundreds of youth organisations working on Europe, also at the national level, that do not necessarily feel represented by this one person that is there. (Interview with Julien Tate-Smith, May 2022)

There were also practical implications related to those organisations involved in the plenary: “since we were not planned to be part of the Conference, and we forced our way through managing to be part of the plenary, everything was at our own cost” (Interview with Carlotta Besozzi, June 2022). Federico Terreni, from the European Movement International (EMI), an organisation that was privileged enough to get three out of the eight civil society positions in the plenary, argued the following: Civil society was massively underrepresented, not only in terms of numbers but also in terms of diversity (…) We also had to do a huge lobbying operation to ensure our seats. We had a lot of talks, we mobilised our network, our contacts with the EP that did a fantastic job. If we talk about involving citizens, how can you not talk about civil society? (Interview with Federico Terreni, October 2022)

To be sure, the position of civil society organisations was generally supportive of citizen participation and innovative mechanisms such as the citizen panels, yet there was a perception that such participation is more

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meaningful if integrated in a common process where civil society also plays an important role. There is however some tension between professionalised civil society organisations and citizen assemblies. Some NGOs are sceptical of direct citizen participation because they think they have the necessary expertise that ‘ordinary citizens’ might not have. This is a good illustration of how the social, political capital hegemonic in EU field is also absorbed by some NGOs. This perspective, however, sidelines that politics is not about ‘knowing better’, but instead about what political purpose knowledge is oriented towards. The case of the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) is interesting, insofar given the nature of their mission they are often in touch directly with citizens. Elisa Lironi expanded on her views regarding the link between civil society and citizen participation: I had some discussions with some representatives of civil society, in which they told me that they should have had this much more prominent role [in the citizen panels within the CoFoE]. And I have the feeling sometimes that when I speak to other civil society colleagues that they feel threatened by the fact that these channels of participation between citizens and representatives actually exist. (…) [citizen assemblies] I think it is a very good way to actually have participatory democracy. And I actually think that these channels should really exist (…) if we look at the consultation processes of the Commission, the reality is that you usually get the usual Brussels bubble stakeholders participating. These consultations are just way too technical, and too specific for citizens to even participate. So you end up always with the same sort of bubble of experts. (…) [the CoFoE] was always intended, I think, for citizens. And that was the whole argument of not having civil society in the beginning, we had to really fight for it. And we only managed because we were part of the (Civil Society) Convention. If we didn’t have the coalition, we would have been much weaker (…) we did a rotation system, because we didn’t have enough seats to be in the working groups, as well. So this case was a good example of civil society for once working together, because we don’t always work together. So it’s clear, the Convention really served its purpose. (Interview Elisa Lironi, June 2022)

Lorenzo Repetti, Senior Advisor at the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), was involved in the CoFoE plenary from the trade union side and developed a similar vision than that of organised civil society at

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the EU level, combining an openness towards ‘new’ processes of citizen participation with strengthening its own role: participatory democracy mechanisms must not undermine the role of social partners. With regard to the role of the social partners, let’s say the involvement was quite weak at the beginning. Having pushed a lot, we were still able to be present in key fora and decision-makingmoments of the Conference and to influence the process. At the end, we are quite satisfied with the Conference conclusions. Of course, we don’t agree with 100% of them, there are some conclusions we do not agree with. But in general, we feel that the Conference conclusions really paved the way for a better and more social future of Europe. It is important that the follow-up to the Conference respects and reinforces the role of trade unions and social partners. Trade unions are the way in which you empower working people. There is a risk that new participatory democracy processes might end up undermining the role of trade unions. This risk must be avoided. This would be also contrary to the conclusions of the CoFoE. In fact, the CoFoE conclusions called for strengthening the role of social partners and organised civil society. So you can’t take just to pick and choose upon the Conference conclusions on the basis of your political agenda. (Interview with Lorenzo Repetti, July 2022)

Such views are well-known by the European Commission, who, in spite of the way in which the CoFoE was planned and organised, is open to develop a closer relationship between future panels and civil society. Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul suggested that this is the part where I really would like to progress to make that synergy with the world of organised civil society, because I think it’s very sad that some of them see that as a “competitor”, because I think there is space for everyone, we really need everyone to keep our democracies fit for the future. I was thinking at some stage, maybe also to involve them (civil society) in a kind of group that accompany the panels, but it is a reflection to pursue (Interview with Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, March 2023)

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However, as Chapter 6 develops in detail, the post-CoFoE citizen panels largely repeated the patterns outlined in this chapter, and the philosophy of disintermediation and depoliticisation remained dominant. 4.2

National Parliaments and the Media

National parliamentarians formed one of the four ‘components’ of the plenary, yet they were only involved at a late stage and its involvement was unstructured, insofar it was individual MPs, and mostly those linked to the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs (COSAC) that were involved rather than national parliaments as such. In this way, national parliaments, a central space of the national public spheres and representative democracy, were generally disconnected from the CoFoE. A disputed dimension in this process was the way in which the different ‘components’ were linked. The plenary members of the national parliaments formed a component whose members were rarely engaged or coordinated from the beginning. In consequence, when the working groups were debating and negotiating the different proposals, at least in the European democracy working group, they were repeatedly asked to provide a unified position of the CoFoE. This was not agreed beforehand given the lack of a coherent articulation and joint position-making, which posed problems for the way in which each working group would construct a consensus. According to one of the plenary members active in this European democracy WG from the side of national parliamentarians, Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, a member of the Dutch Senate from the Dutch Socialist Party, rather than seeing it as a kind of quasi convention where the different components sort of have to form a consensus or vote on whatever proposals, [instead] it was very unclear how this consensus would actually have to be constructed. Because the national parliamentarians had different views, and they did not meet a lot of times separately (…) so you have to decide what you think as the National Parliament component. But then there wasn’t a process organised for which we could decide this. This has been frustrating in the process. There was a a final meeting of the National parliament component at the end of April [2022], when the proposals were supposed to be finalised, and then moved on to the plenary, and the French presidency of the component of the national parliaments wanted to have a consensus amongst all the components. And this related to all the working group reports and recommendations, which we got like

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a week in advance or a few days, so it was already a bit crazy that we were supposed to read all of them. But it was clear that there wasn’t a consensus, and especially some proposals from the democracy working group were controversial. There was a discussion of several hours on this (…) [while accepting the formal support for the final report] that did not necessarily represent a complete consensus on the part of all national parliamentarians represented, and some had quite fundamental objections to some parts or some proposals. And also some did not necessarily see themselves as having a mandate to either approve or disapprove these proposals (…) then in the end, there was agreement that we did not have a consensus, but that we wanted to put the citizens proposals forward to the plenary as a kind of sort of result of the conference, not necessarily indicating that this was all endorsed by everyone (Interview Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, June 2022)

The parliamentary dimension of the CoFoE is beyond the scope of the book, but it is evident nonetheless that the CoFoE did not trigger salient debates across national parliaments, and that most of the national parliamentarians involved were linked to COSAC. The lack of politicisation of the CoFoE in national parliaments is linked to the lack of media attention given to it. Other than a few articles in Euractiv, Politico and other EUmedia outlets, the CoFoE did not foster the Europeanisation of public spheres. This limited the reach of CoFoE-related discussions and impeded its politicisation. Obviously, there is a rich literature on the fragmentation of European media across national public spheres (e.g. Conrad & Oleart, 2020; Koopmans & Statham, 2010; Trenz, 2004), yet it appears that the CoFoE neglected this perspective (see also Michailidou & Trenz, 2022). Idafe Martín Pérez, a Brussels-based correspondent of Clarín, expanded on why the media did not cover the CoFoE: The Conference on the Future of Europe, contrary to what happened two decades earlier with the Conference that gave birth to the ill-fated European Constitution, was a non-journalistic event. On that occasion it was about achieving something concrete that was also seen as progress in European integration. Instead, the Conference on the Future of Europe was, at least in the eyes of the media, a more theoretical exercise by laying the foundations for future reforms. The media, and especially the correspondents in Brussels, were also distanced from this Conference because the political parties and national governments played a minor role in it. If their involvement had been more important, the journalists would have paid more attention to it, because we follow the political world. EU institutions tried to sell us that this was an essential Conference for the future

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of the European Union. Perhaps in one or two decades the Conference will be the basis of important EU reforms, but at the time they were nothing more than a theoretical debate. And the media does not know how to play theory. (Interview with Idafe Martín Pérez, April 2023)

5 The CoFoE Proposals: A Consensual and Catch-All Wish List The CoFoE formally ended with a set of 49 proposals endorsed by the plenary and all components, all of which are available in the ‘Report on the Final Outcome’ of the CoFoE (2022b). The recommendations were developed and negotiated within the 9 working groups, and each of them was constructed upon three dimensions: proposal, objective and measures. The ‘proposal’ indicates the main subject matter, the objective indicates the goals of the recommendation and the measures include the specific ways in which those objectives are to be accomplished and how the subject matter is addressed (each recommendation includes multiple measures related to it). A selected set of examples are included below in Table 3. When it comes to the substance of the recommendations that came out of the CoFoE plenary, most of them are rather broad, and tend to align with the ongoing work of EU institutions. The recommendations broadly aligned with a centrist and proEuropean vision. They include things such as the protection of biodiversity and the environment (proposals 1 and 2); the enhancement of European energy security through energy independence and renewed investment in green energy (3); provide affordable public transport as a means to promote green infrastructure (4); reinforce the healthcare system (8) and provide equal access for all (10); transition towards a “sustainable and resilient growth model” (11) and enhance the EU’s competitiveness (12 and 35); improve the inclusivity of labour markets (13 and 14); increase the tax capacity of the EU and its member states (16); reduce the dependency of the EU vis-à-vis foreign actors in strategic sectors (17 and 18); strengthen the environmental and ethical dimensions of EU trade and investment policy (19 and 20); improve the EU’s capacity to take decisions, especially in Foreign and Security Policy (shifting from unanimity to qualified majority in the Council), and promote dialogue and a rules-based order globally (21, 23 and 24);

Proposal

Citizens information, participation and youth

Democracy and elections

36

38

Increase citizens’ participation and youth involvement in the democracy at the European Union level to develop a ‘full civic experience’ for Europeans, ensure that their voice is heard also in between elections, and that the participation is effective. That is why the most appropriate form of participation should be considered for each topic, for example, by: Strengthen European democracy by bolstering its foundations, boosting participation in European Parliament elections, fostering transnational debate on European issues and ensuring a strong link between citizens and their elected representatives, in particular by:

Objective

Selected final proposals from the CoFoE

N

Table 3

3. Amending EU electoral law to harmonise electoral conditions (voting age, election date, requirements for electoral districts, candidates, political parties and their financing) for the European Parliament elections, as well as moving towards voting for Union-wide lists, or ‘transnational lists’ (…)

7. Holding Citizens’ assemblies periodically, on the basis of legally binding EU law (…); 102 participation and prior involvement of citizens and civil society is an important basis for political decisions to be taken by elected representatives

(Selected) Measures

114 A. OLEART

Irregular migration

42

Strengthen the EU’s role in tackling all forms of irregular migration and strengthen the protection of the European Union’s external borders, while respecting human rights:

Objective

Source Own elaboration with text from CoFoE (2022b)

Proposal

N 2. Ensuring the protection of all external borders, by improving transparency and accountability of Frontex and by strengthening its role (recommendation 8 and WG debate) and adapting EU legislation to further address the present challenges of irregular migration, such as human smuggling, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, hybrid attacks by countries instrumentalising migrants and violation of human rights

(Selected) Measures

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A. OLEART

improve the EU’s transparency (22) and make the EU more understandable (37); systematically uphold the rule of Law across all member states (25); guarantee data protection and counter cybersecurity threats (26, 28, 33 and 34); tackle disinformation by promoting media independence and pluralism (27); harmonise and improve the socio-economic quality of life of EU citizens (29); provide equal access to the internet (31) and digital literacy (32); increase EU citizen participation (36 and 37); boost participation in EU elections, including the possibility by the European Parliament to trigger an EU-wide referendum or the transnational lists (38); strengthen the EU’s role in ‘legal’ migration (41) and also in tackling ‘irregular’ migration (42 and 43) and asylum (44 and 45); establish by 2025 an inclusive European Education Area (46); improve the EU’s role in addressing the needs of young people (47); promote a culture of pan-European exchange (48); or strengthen the EU’s role in promoting sport and a healthy lifestyle (49) (see the proposals in full in CoFoE, 2022: 42–91). Overall, the list of recommendations appears as a catch-all wish list that includes proposals in almost every available policy area (from sports or education to climate change or foreign policy). It therefore mostly fails to address the tensions within the proposals and the trade-offs that might exist. Migration is a case in point. Proposal 42 (included in table 3) seeks to protect the EU’s “external borders, while respecting human rights” through, among other measures, strengthen the role of Frontex, an EU agency that, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW, 2021), has “failed to safeguard people against serious human rights violations at the EU’s external borders”. In this way, the politicised and conflictual ‘politics’ relating to different policy areas was sidelined. The inherent political tensions across the different recommendations were largely addressed via consensual negotiation. That said, the specific outcome of the final proposals is generally better than the process that led to them, as this chapter as well as Chapter 5 illustrate. What is interesting however is not only what is present in the recommendations, but also what is missing in them. Most likely as a consequence of sidelining activist groups from the CoFoE, the recommendations are for instance lacking a gender mainstreaming. As the report of Viktoria Olczak (2022: 14) within the feminist think tank Gender 5+ argued, “there has been no specific effort to mainstream gender issues in the Conference”. However, while there is no specific proposal on gender equality, there are different proposals that include a gender dimension,

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such as that on EU competitiveness (12), inclusive labour markets (13), fiscal policy (16), digital literacy (32) or sport (49). The lack of a feminist and decolonial agenda (as evidenced by the migration proposals) within the CoFoE proposals is not entirely surprising given the contestation of gender equality by right-wing populist parties (Kantola & Lombardo, 2021), and the systemic racism and the normative whiteness (Kantola et al., 2023) within the European Parliament, and primarily indicates that contestatory and activist perspectives on the ongoing work of EU institutions were mostly sidelined. Even though the European Parliament adopted a resolution in June 2022 calling on the European Council to initiate a process to amend the EU Treaties, the main institutional and policy follow-up of the CoFoE to these set of recommendations was process-related: the integration of ‘citizen participation’ via citizens’ panels in the EU Commission policymaking. The Commission claimed in October 2022 that much of its 2023 work programme was inspired by the Conference, yet this responds primarily to the fact that most recommendations are in line with the previously established policy agenda, and that those recommendations that envisioned Treaty change were sidelined. Chapter 6 will further develop on the institutional ‘success’ of the Conference and its policy follow-up.

6 Conclusion: The Reproduction of Democracy Without Politics in the CoFoE The Conference on the Future of Europe was born out of a perceived legitimacy gap following the sidelining of the Spitzenkandidaten after the 2019 EU elections. The Conference soon became a terrain of interinstitutional struggle between the three main EU institutions, who did not agree on the purpose of it nor on the specific ways to go forward. Each EU institutional actor involved in the CoFoE had a particular way of looking at it, and the framework was abstract enough for each institution to see what they wanted to see. In consequence, the compromise was an ambiguous catch-all process that covered almost every policy area and that had a tendency to sideline activist actors and reproduce already hegemonic ideas in the EU. The political architecture of the CoFoE can thus be seen as an attempt to ride the wave of EU politicisation through ‘citizen deliberation’, but without actually questioning the existing power structures nor democratising the European public sphere. The final outcome of 49 proposals illustrates the rather consensual and all-inclusive wish list

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from which EU institutions, and the European Commission in particular, could conveniently cherry pick in their follow-up; a dimension that will be expanded in Chapter 6. Thus, on the one hand there was an attempt to take EU politics and the debate on the future of Europe beyond its usual suspects, putting ‘citizens at the centre’. However, the structural sidelining of mediators in the political architecture of the Conference that could have the capacity to politicise the debates strengthened the technocratic dimension of the discussion. While parties, civil society organisations and trade unions were involved in the CoFoE plenary, they did so in a limited way (disintermediation) and with no meaningful connection to the broader public sphere (depoliticisation). In practice, the idea that democracy can operate ‘without politics’ (Oleart & Theuns, 2022) through a set of ‘neutral’ mechanisms such as the citizens’ panels mostly functions as a way to reproduce the status quo. The next chapter will address specifically the way in which the European citizens’ panels were organised, which encapsulates much of the underlying philosophy with which EU institutions conceive of its relations to ‘citizens’.

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Conference on the Future of Europe. (n.d.). Conference plenary. https:// futureu.europa.eu/en/pages/plenary?format=html&locale=en. Accessed 3 January 2023. Conrad, M., & Oleart, A. (2020). Framing TTIP in the wake of the Greenpeace leaks: Agonistic and deliberative perspectives on frame resonance and communicative power. Journal of European Integration, 42(4), 527–545. Crum, B. (2023). Why the European Parliament lost the Spitzenkandidatenprocess. Journal of European Public Policy, 30(2), 193–213. Curtin, A. (2022). Re-evaluating the role of civil society organisations in the EU’s multi-level system: A case study on the Conference on the Future of Europe (MA Thesis 2021–22). College of Europe. Dryzek, J. S. (2007). Theory, evidence and the tasks of deliberation. In S. W. Rosenberg (Ed.), Deliberation, participation and democracy: Can the people govern? (pp. 237–250). Palgrave Macmillan. Ercan, S. A., Hendriks, C. M., & Boswell, J. (2017). Studying public deliberation after the systemic turn: The crucial role for interpretive research. Policy & Politics. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/383506/1/POLICYPOL-D-14-00098_R3. pdf. Accessed 3 January 2023. European Civic Forum. (2022, February 17). Missions Publiques interviews Alexandrina Najmowicz: “To rehabilitate European democracy, we must build on the bonds that bring us together”. https://civic-forum.eu/campaign/futureof-europe/missions-publiques-interview European Commission. (2019). Speech by President-elect von der Leyen in the European Parliament Plenary on the occasion of the presentation of her College of Commissioners and their programme. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/ presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_19_6408. Accessed 10 February 2022. European Commission. (2021). Joint declaration on the Conference on the Future of Europe. https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/en_-_ joint_declaration_on_the_conference_on_the_future_of_europe.pdf. Accessed 10 February 2022. Font, J., Della, P. D., & Sintomer, Y. (2012). Methodological challenges in participation research. Revista Internacional De Sociología, 70(2), 9–18. Gaboriau, A. (2023). The digitalization of citizen participation in Barcelona: Remodeling the integration of the associations, Paper presented in the ECPR Joint Sessions, Toulouse. Haapala, T., & Oleart, Á. (2022). Tracing the politicisation of the EU . Palgrave. Human Rights Watch. (2021). Frontex failing to protect people at EU borders. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/06/23/frontex-failing-pro tect-people-eu-borders. Accessed 5 January 2023. Kantola, J., Elomäki, A., Gaweda, B., Miller, C., Ahrens, P., & Berthet, V. (2023). “It’s Like Shouting to a Brick Wall”: Normative Whiteness and

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Racism in the European Parliament. American Political Science Review, 117 (1), 184–199. Kantola, J., & Lombardo, E. (2021). Strategies of right populists in opposing gender equality in a polarized European Parliament. International Political Science Review, 42(5), 565–579. Koopmans, R., & Statham, P. (Eds.). (2010). The making of a European public sphere: Media discourse and political contention. Cambridge University Press. Martineau, W., & Squires, J. (2012). Addressing the ‘dismal disconnection’: Normative theory, empirical inquiry and dialogic research. Political Studies, 60(3), 523–538. Michailidou, A., & Trenz, H. -J. (2022). The future of Europe debate needs the intermediary power of journalism. https://blogs.eui.eu/transnational-dem ocracy/the-future-of-europe-debate-needs-the-intermediary-power-of-journa lism/. Accessed 25 January 2023. Monterde, A., Rodríguez, A., & Peña-López, I. (2013). La Reinvención de la democracia en la sociedad red. Neutralidad de la Red, ética hacker, cultura digital, crisis institucional y nueva institucionalidad (IN3 Working Paper Series). https://tecnopolitica.net/sites/default/files/1774-6278-4-PB. pdf. Accessed 12 May 2023. Olczak, V. (2022). Gender equality and the future of Europe: From the conference on the future of Europe to a feminist Europe. Gender 5+. Oleart, A. (2023). The political construction of the ‘citizen turn’ in the EU: Disintermediation and depoliticisation in the Conference on the Future of Europe. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 1–15. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/14782804.2023.2177837 Oleart, A., & Theuns, T. (2022). ‘Democracy without politics’ in the European Commission’s response to democratic backsliding: From technocratic legalism to democratic pluralism. Journal of Common Market Studies. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/jcms.13411 Patberg, M. (Forthcoming). Farewell to constituent power? The conference on the future of Europe, citizens’ assemblies, and the democratic minimum. Schwartz-Shea, P., & Yanow, D. (2012). Interpretive research design: Concepts and processes. Routledge. Stand For Something (n.d.). #STANDFORSOMETHING—A Youth-led campaign to promote participation in the Conference on the Future of Europe. https://istandfor.eu/blog/campaign-launch. Accessed 22 May 2023. Talpin, J. (2012). What can ethnography bring to the study of deliberative democracy? Revista Internacional De Sociología, 70(2), 143–163. Trenz, H. J. (2004). Media coverage on European governance: Exploring the European public sphere in national quality newspapers. European Journal of Communication, 19(3), 291–319.

CHAPTER 5

Individualised Technodeliberation in the CoFoE European Citizens’ Panels: The Presence of the Absence of the European Demoi

1

Introduction: The European Citizens’ Panels in the CoFoE

While the main decision-making space of the CoFoE was the plenary, the space where the Secretariat put most of its focus throughout the Conference were the European citizen panels (ECPs). The previous chapter has explained the way in which the panels were embedded within the politically complex architecture of the Conference, and this chapter zooms in on the specific way in which the panels were organised. The inclusion of the ECPs is certainly an innovation in comparison with previous consultatory mechanisms in the EU. The main idea of the four citizen panels was to compose a group of 200 EU citizens per panel that would be ‘descriptively representative’ of the ‘European people’—or rather, the ‘European demoi’—and make recommendations. The CoFoE Secretariat divided the four European citizens’ panels in the following policy clusters: Panel 1: Stronger economy, social justice & jobs/youth, sport, culture and education/digital transformation Panel 2: EU democracy, values, rights, rule of law, security Panel 3: Climate change, environment, health © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Oleart, Democracy Without Politics in EU Citizen Participation, Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38583-4_5

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Panel 4: EU in the world, migration All ECPs had three 3-day sessions (Friday, Saturday and Sunday): the first one in Strasbourg at the European Parliament in September–October 2021, the second online in November 2021 and the third one in a different host city between December 2021 and February 2022 (panel 1 ended in Dublin, panel 2 in Florence, panel 3 in Warsaw and panel 4 in Maastricht). The selection of the host cities during their third session was meant to bring some additional legitimacy to the deliberative exercise. Dublin is the capital city in which deliberative democracy and minipublics has been fostered during the past 10 years, and the Irish host institution Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) is an established and well-recognised think tank. Similarly, the College of Europe (CoE) in Warsaw and the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence are leading universities when it comes to MA students (CoE) and PhD researchers (EUI) in European studies. Additionally, Warsaw as a city has an important symbolism considering the recent clashes between the Polish government and EU institutions due to democratic backsliding, and Florence plays an important intellectual and political role considering its rich historical legacy. Last, regarding the two host institutions for the final session of panel 4, Studio Europa Maastricht, a centre of expertise and debate on Europe partially funded by Maastricht University, and the European Institute for Public Administration (EIPA) is a leading institution for EU civil servants, and Maastricht as a city has a close symbolic to European integration, particularly in 2022 as it was the year that commemorated 30 years of the Maastricht Treaty (Table 1). The organisation of the panels was justified on the basis of a strong ‘citizens-centred’ discourse, and the panels themselves functioned with a mostly autonomous logic vis-à-vis existing political institutions, including Table 1

Panel Panel Panel Panel

1 2 3 4

Dates of the three sessions of the four ECPs of the CoFoE Session 1 (Strasbourg)

Session 2 (online)

Session 3 (host city)

17–19 September 2021 24–26 September 2021 1–3 October 2021 15–17 October 2021

5–7 November 2021 12–14 November 2021 19–21 November 2021 26–28 November 2021

25–27 February 2022 10–12 December 2021 7–9 January 2022 11–13 February 2022

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parliaments (both EU and national) as well as other political spaces, such as the media or civil society. The insulation of the panels was a conscious choice made by the Secretariat, which heavily influenced the way in which the discussions took place. Even before the Conference started, de Búrca (2020: 145) predicted that There is every reason to doubt the willingness of EU institutions and of Member State governments to establish a citizens’ assembly intended to have real influence. Such ‘civil society’ consultations as there have been at the EU level have almost always been carefully managed, choreographed, and controlled by the Commission, and directed towards goals and policies already specified by the EU.

This chapter will examine in detail the way in which the ECPs functioned, and tends to confirm this prediction. The chapter combines data from participant observation, discourse analysis and semi-structured interviews with participants, facilitators, organisers and the CoFoE Secretariat.

2

Organisation of the European Citizens’ Panels 2.1

The Mediators of Disintermediation and Its Relation to the CoFoE Secretariat

There is an emergent market of consultancies of deliberative democracy that ‘sell’ their expertise to public authorities in terms of citizen participation and deliberation. Among these organisations, we find Missions Publiques, the consortium leader in charge of organising the ECPs, as well as the three deliberative consultancies: the Danish Board of Technology (Denmark), ifok (Germany) and Deliberativa (Spain). This group of actors have a long experience in organising deliberative exercises; for instance, Missions Publiques organised the French Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat. However, while this group of actors drove the construction of the methodology with which the ECPs were organised, there was a constant back-and-forth with the CoFoE Secretariat. This group of consultancies have built expertise through the organisation of similar deliberative exercises at the national level, yet they had less experience at the EU level. This emphasises that they were meant to play the role of ‘experts’ in organising deliberation, rather than on EU politics. The CoFoE Secretariat was in the driving seat of the different dimensions of the ECPs, and the deliberative consortium was in charge

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of the implementation. In practice, the consortium would make proposals to the CoFoE Secretariat and they would jointly deliberate on whether to go forward with a proposal or not. This was itself complicated by the fact that the Secretariat was deeply divided between the three institutions, mostly between the European Parliament and the Council, while the Commission would often play a ‘broker’ role to advance the process. The European Parliament was initially promised a leading role in the Conference, and they had to reluctantly accept the compromise to colead it alongside the Commission and Council. Additionally, the ECPs were organised in a way that complicated the involvement of the Parliament, and in some ways put forward a legitimacy competition between the ECPs’ participants who were “descriptively representative” of EU citizens and MEPs who conceive themselves as “politically representative” of EU citizens. It is for this reason that the Parliament did not necessarily see the ECPs in a highly positive way, and there was some reluctance on the ECPs by Parliament officials and MEPs. The Council was even more sceptical of the ECPs, but for a different reason: the possibility of making recommendations that would question the ‘status quo’, which is currently favourable to intergovernmental dynamics. Some Commission officials, in contrast, were among the main proponents of the ECPs. Overall, there was no agreement among EU institutions on what ‘citizen participation’ should be about. The internal divisions within the CoFoE Secretariat would complicate the work of the deliberative consortium and limit the possibilities to facilitate democratic deliberation. Based on interviews with both members of the Secretariat and the consortium, the Secretariat’s constant disagreements and incapacity to make common decisions would delay the implementation of the ECPs. These disagreements were important in terms of the input that participants would receive, such as the selection of experts, or the information and political background provided to participants ahead of the panels. In fact, members of the deliberative consortium intervened to facilitate deliberation and reach a consensus within the Common Secretariat, because they kept on meeting but were unable to reach specific agreements that would help to move forward the citizen panels. This reflects well the muddling through basis upon which the Conference was organised, primarily due to the conflict between members of the European Parliament and the Council. Every small part of the process was perceived as a big compromise by each institution, and every expert intervention could potentially break the very fragile balance they

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had found, possibly leading to a crisis. This explains the inter-institutional agreement around the ‘neutrality’ of experts and facilitators, as well as the repeated concerns over ‘undue influence’ that will be discussed later in the chapter. Additionally, the organisation of the citizen panels contrasts with the established way of constructing citizen assemblies. Typically, there is a plural committee composed by diverse non-governmental actors (business organisations, civil society organisations, trade unions) that oversees the exercise and assigns the experts to make sure there is ideological pluralism in the input received by the participants. The committee is usually appointed by political parties, who conform the executive board and determine which plural interest groups ought to participate. The idea of conforming a board for each of the four panels was floated by the deliberative consortium, but it was rejected by the Common Secretariat, who saw it as a way to influence the substance of the discussions in an ‘undue’ way. This case continued to indicate the constant power plays within the Secretariat (among the three EU institutions) and between the Secretariat and the deliberative consortium, as the former would conceive the latter as ‘service providers’. Overall, these dynamics would lead to a repeated improvisation over the format of the panels and the input provided in them. 2.2

Who is Taking Part in the European Citizens’ Panels? The Individualistic and Antipolitical Imaginary of ‘Everyday Citizens’

When it comes to the specific participants of the panels, they were selected by Kantar Public, a private data analytics company that is also in charge of the Eurobarometer. According to the CoFoE final report (CoFoE, 2022: 15), the ECP participants were selected during the summer of 2021 on the basis of lottery (primarily through random telephone calling) and with the intention of putting together four panel groups that would encompass the EU’s diversity in terms of gender, age, geographic origin (nationality as well as urban/rural), socio-economic background and level of education. The selection of the participants for the citizen panels follows a ‘descriptively representative’ logic, with an attempt to slightly over-represent young people. In each of the four panels of 200 participants, there was at least one female and one male citizen per member state; a third of each panel was composed of young people (age 16–24).

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There was an emphasis on young people, and a special link between this youth group and the European Youth Event (EYE) was created, since the two processes overlapped in October 2021. Following similar criteria, 20 representatives to the CoFoE plenary as ‘citizen ambassadors’ from each European citizens’ panel were selected randomly among those that put forward their candidacy during the first session of each of the panels. The selection of panel participants had certain controversies, insofar several of them reported that they were not called directly, but that someone they knew (such as a family member or a friend) had received the initial call, and they had passed on the invitation to them. This is understandable, given that when the recruiting organisation contacted the participants, many of them said they thought they were being ‘fooled’ and that it was a ‘scam’. Faced with this criticism by several observers, the CoFoE organisers responded that it may be true in certain exceptions, but the persons that participated in the panels via these processes still fit the profile of representativeness based on the criteria outlined. Other observers argued that the fact that the selection did not take into account ideology (e.g. pro-European vs Eurosceptic) contributed to construct a broadly pro-European group of participants, even though interviews with them have indicated that they were rather ‘indifferent’ to the EU (see Bailly, 2023). The general sense of the panel participants was one of overrepresentation of people with university degrees, white and of higher socio-economic level. This was not done on purpose by the organisers, but rather the logical consequence of accidental filters that shaped the type of participants that would agree to join the ECPs, which in turn has had the outcome of lacking diversity. In an interview, David, one of the panel 4 participants, suggested the following: “I think there was quite a bit of diversity in terms of age, […]. And in terms of socioeconomic profile I think there was not much variety. […] in the end, all the people I spoke to had university studies” (Interview with David, May 2022). This was particularly striking in ECP 4 (EU in the world and migration), where many conversations were centred about migrants but without migrants, and only a handful of racialised people. Therefore, the ECPs were characterised by a considerable lack of diversity as the dominant profile of the participants was a middle to upper-class (white) EU citizens with university studies. However, beyond the specific individual characteristics of the panel participants, what is most relevant is the position in which the randomly

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selected participants were situated. The discussed sidelining of mediators in Chapter 4 indicates a rather individualised understanding of participation, with an underlying antipolitical imaginary, on who the ‘ideal’ participants were and from which perspective they would be speaking. In a briefing provided by the CoFoE organisers to the ‘experts’, the European citizen panels’ goals were framed in the following way: This process does not intend to simply collect citizens’ opinions but to make them participate in shaping the future of the European project. What are the issues or problems that affect them the most? What specific measures should the European Union put in place to facilitate their life projects ? (emphasis added)

This phrasing is interesting insofar it emphasises the individualistic implication of the ‘citizen turn’ described in Chapter 3. This is visible in the framing of the objective of the citizen panels, describing it as a way to find the EU’s “measures” that could “facilitate their (citizens’ panels participants) life projects?” While this is not a public document, it is relevant from the perspective of the individualistic philosophy with which the panels were conceived by the organisers. This relates more to EU institutions than to the deliberative consortium, as several members of the deliberative consortium were actually critical of the framing of the panels, given their broad focus (panel 1 encompassed such different policy areas as economy, youth, sport, culture and education/digital transformation) and the lack of a dilemma driving the deliberations.

3 The Functioning of the European Citizens’ Panels 3.1

Agenda, Framing of the Panels and Information Background

The construction of the panels’ agenda was a crucial political decision that shaped the way in which deliberation would take place. While the justification for such an open agenda was to avoid framing the content of the discussions, it heavily influenced the quality of the deliberation. The deliberative consortium was highly aware of the challenges that were brought about by the large agenda, and advised the CoFoE executive board and Common Secretariat that it would be difficult to undertake such task. However, after the initial negotiation of the size, openness of the agenda

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and its policy clustering, the deliberative consortium tried to make the best out of the political choices made by the CoFoE leadership. Looking back on the way in which the panels’ agenda and framing were designed, Yago Bermejo, the co-director of Deliberativa, one of the members of the deliberative consortium, argued: This first process had a very important impact in that the institutions lost their fear of the process, and it is this fear that often prevents the institutions from raising real dilemmas as issues to be discussed in the citizens’ assemblies. Ideally, we could have improved the framing of the process: What are the dilemmas to be discussed, how do you frame the discussion. Deliberation is about identifying dilemmas that involve moral and value choices. Once you have identified these dilemmas, you devote time to addressing them. This could have been done in a better way, but it is not a big deal given all the other steps that were taken. For example, instead of talking about everything, as has been done, I would have proposed that the question of unanimity (in the Council), which we know is a dilemma, be dealt with in one of the panels to which we will devote the necessary time. With 3 weekends we will deal with it properly. In the same way, I would have preferred to choose a number of other dilemmas and devote the time to them. We could have addressed these dilemmas with deliberative quality. (Interview with Yago Bermejo, May 2022)

The main political choice regarding the panels is the agenda, as everything follows from it. In spite of the warnings given by the subcontractors to the CoFoE Secretariat about the difficulties of organising quality deliberation on a policy agenda that is too broad, the CoFoE leadership insisted in fitting in all policy clusters mentioned in the previous section. The result was an overloaded agenda that was too large to be addressed in three three-day sessions—many participants complained about the lack of time for the deliberation, something that was beyond the control of the deliberative consortium. This was described by Zuzanna Nowak, one of the facilitators of panel 4 but also a practitioner that leads and designs deliberative processes in the Center for Blue Democracy: when the consortium organisations first reached out to me about facilitating, my first big ‘wow, that’s a shocker’ was the topics. Given my entire experience with citizens assemblies, those topics immediately struck me as horrifically broad (…) There’s so much to unpack when you look at them, each of those separately could have been like 20 different assemblies on

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smaller aspects of them. (…) I don’t want to say that broad topics necessarily lead to a bad assembly. But I do say that there has to be a match between the assembly timeline and the topic that it is dealing with. (…) And in the case of this conference, they dedicated the three weekends for a topic that has like a 1000 different topics in it. This was entirely unrealistic (…) deliberation takes time, learning takes time. In the amount of time that those citizens had, they could barely skim the surface of those topics. Even when you subdivided them, because part of the design was to then split into streams, and have separate experts per each stream. But even when you do that, you’re still only touching the surface. (…) the topics were not really topics, they were more like themes, and from my perspective it created a big design problem, because the entire design follows the premise of the topic. So if you get the topic wrong, designing the process becomes really hard. And I really sympathise with the consortium organisations, who were tasked with this, because it’s really, really hard to design the process well, when you’re working with a topic like that. I honestly would not like to be in their shoes, because it’s an impossible task (…) the assembly topic, in my opinion, should be framed as a question, that’s the first thing. Additionally, it should have a clear problem statement. So there should be a clear question, and then the objective of the panel is to answer that question with a series of recommendations. And it can be an open-ended question. Actually, most of the time, it is an open ended question. It’s not a yes or no question, so that Assembly Members can produce a series of recommendations. But it should be a question with a clearly stated problem statement, so that everybody understands: what is the root of the issue that we’re trying to solve here? (Interview with Zuzanna Nowak, October 2022)

As for the information background, European citizen panels used typical methods for deliberative minipublics, providing background information ahead of the panel and thematic. However, due to the constant negotiation of the process between the different members of the Common Secretariat, the compromise was to provide very little information background to participants for the panels. As Jerónimo Sánchez Blanco, one of the participants of panel 2 and a former Spanish Member of Parliament, explained in an interview, I was invited a year ago, in the month of June [2021], and they did not tell me about the content that was going to be discussed. What’s more, they even dissuaded me from preparing anything, that I didn’t have to look for material. In fact, I didn’t know which panel I would take part in

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until September [2021], a week before traveling to Strasbourg. (Interview with Jerónimo Sánchez Blanco, May 2022)

The lack of information background provided to the participants was justified from a deliberative minipublic perspective as a way to ensure the ‘equality’ of the participants. Additionally, from a practical point of view, it was difficult to provide much information background as all of it would have to be (1) agreed by the Common Secretariat and the deliberative consortium and (2) translated in all EU languages. This information deficit from the start made the start of the deliberative process very slow and increased the weight and relevance of the input provided by the experts. Additionally, as one of the panel participants said in an interview, “it is very difficult to discuss potential proposals to democratise the European Union without a basic knowledge of how the EU institutions work at the moment”. The ECPs also suffered from a broad framing of the topics under discussion. Consciously, the CoFoE Secretariat avoided framing the policy cluster topics included in each of the panels in a concrete way, leaving them instead wide open. Thus, there was no ‘dilemma’ upon which the deliberation was constructed. This was justified on the basis that in this way the participants could set the agenda themselves, yet in fact this can also be considered a way of framing, as Jessy Bailly has convincingly argued: The broad framing chosen is not a non-framing: the broader the framing, the more general the citizens’ demands are and indeed the more politically inoffensive they are. EU organisers preferred the expression of general recommendations, which the institutions will be able to reappropriate according to their interests. This limits the political risk of having measures that are too precise and not easily adaptable to the interests of the institutions. (Bailly, 2023, 31–32)

It was however not only information about the substance of the thematic substance of the discussions that participants were missing; it was also about the objectives of the Conference, which were portrayed and received in an ambiguous way. Most of the participants interviewed acknowledged being ‘confused’ throughout the first and second sessions of the panels about their role and the overall objective of the panels.

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Mechanics of the Panels

The four European citizens’ panels (ECPs) organised in the context of the CoFoE followed the same logic and process. The three sessions were oriented towards the following goals: Session 1: Definition of the agenda within the policy areas of the ECP: process of prioritising the issues and policy areas to be debated (streams) Session 2: Beginning with the streams constructed in session 1, there is a thematic deepening towards building ‘orientations’ Session 3: Transition from the orientations towards concrete recommendations and voting The first session of the panels was oriented towards providing participants with knowledge on the policy area in question, with plenary interventions by the experts combined with subgroups of 12–14 participants. For practical purposes and the availability of interpreters, such subgroups had linguistic limitations of including up to five languages. The plenary sessions were guided by two main facilitators, and each of the subgroups had a different facilitator—in the third session, an additional ‘note-taker’ was added to support the subgroup facilitators. In terms of the structure of the sessions, they constantly combined plenary discussions with subgroups (for a detailed description of the way in which the panels unfolded, see also CoFoE, 2022: 15–22). For instance, during the first session in all the panels, the organisers included within the subgroups the exercise of drawing how participants envisioned ‘Europe’ in 2050. This was an interesting exercise, but it contributed to constructing a first session that was perceived as being too general, and in addition it would never be picked up again. In this sense, one of the facilitators of the CoFoE citizens’ panels reflected upon this experience I can see the nice thing of doing it [the envisioning of ‘Europe’ in 2050 exercise], but then you should somehow pick up on it later… it felt more like ticking a box and entertaining the citizen. I would have liked more reflection on these visions and more time. If things were to be done well, we would have had much more time for discussion to discuss these visions, and then see whether there was a common ground between these visions, to make sure that this step is not separate from the others. But in principle I like the idea of asking them to think long-term, so that they understand that their recommendations are meant to be long-term not just a quick fix. (Interview with facilitator, March 2022)

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The tension between more general debates and more specific ones was particularly acute in the ECPs, given that organisers had to address very big policy clusters in only three weekends. This time constraints contrasts for instance with the French Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat, which lasted seven weekends. This would become a recurring criticism by participants, that they did not have the necessary time to deliberate and address the issues that would pop up in the deliberations as a consequence of the time constraints: In my humble opinion it is not just by telling facilitators to be neutral that the outcome of the discussion is good. Citizens were not given enough time to prepare, they were not given the right information to understand the discussion. This is highly critical. (…) Citizens were moved from one group to another. They already have little time, little knowledge and you ask them to work on different topics? No way. To me, this, in addition to the expert input they got, sometimes led to a superficial, too neutral and

Table 2

Agenda of Session 1 of Panel 2

Time

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

9 h–9.35 h

Discussion in subgroups

9.35 h–10.45 h

Discussion in subgroups

11–12 h

Expert input in plenary

12–13 h

Lunch

Introduction of clustering of streams in plenary Discussion on the streams within subgroups Discussion and approval of streams in plenary Drawing of ‘citizen ambassadors’ + feedback

13 h–14 h

Expert input in plenary Subgroup discussion with experts Prioritisation of topics within subgroups

14 h–16 h

Welcome plenary

16.30 h–18 h

Envisioning Europe in subgroups

Source Own elaboration, based on the agenda circulated by the CoFoE organisers

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even wrong outcome of the discussion. Facilitators by definition are facilitating, it is not up to them to bring the content. (…) to me the problem was time, knowledge, information given, expert input, changing groups and topics that made the discussion not high-quality and depoliticised. (Interview with facilitator, March 2022)

As an illustration of the interaction between the different dimensions of the panels, Table 2, Figs. 1 and 2 explain how sessions 2 and 3 were organised in each of the three days that the sessions lasted. The agenda of session 1 outlined in Table 2 illustrates the interaction between plenary discussions and conversations within the subgroups of 12–14 participants. A particularity of session 1 was its conclusion, since it included the drawing by lot of 20 (out of the 200) participants to become ‘citizen ambassadors’ and represent the panel recommendations in the CoFoE plenary.

Fig. 1 Breakdown of Session 2 of the ECPs1 (Source CoFoE [2022: 16])

1 “PDF ISBN 978-92-824-8748-8; doi: 10.2860/637445 QC-05-22-131-EN-N; Print ISBN 978-92-824-8663-4; doi: 10.2860/87208 QC-05-22-131-EN-C © European Union, 2022 Reuse is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.” (for PALGRAVE).

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Fig. 2 Breakdown of Session 3 of the ECPs (Source CoFoE [2022: 17])

Considering that session 2 took place on an online basis, the typical plenary sessions were also combined with ‘stream plenaries’, as participants were assigned to one specific ‘stream’ constructed in session 1, as well as ‘substreams’, which dived even deeper on a particular dimension of the policy area. Unlike in session 1, where experts provided input to the full plenary, in session 2 the experts provided input to the ‘stream plenaries’. Proposals from the multilingual digital platform were integrated in sessions 1 and 2 as part of the input provided to the participants, even though the criteria for this inclusion was not made clear, and the connection between the ECPs and the digital platform remained rather loose. Session 3 was oriented towards finalising the recommendations of each of the panels. Unlike the two previous sessions, experts were not allowed to provide input, in spite of the fact that the organisers invited several of them in person. The particularity of the third session was also the construction of a new space, the ‘Open Forum’. This concept required an important degree of physical space, as all the ‘orientations’ that were constructed and collected at the end of session 2 were outlined, and the 200 participants were guided to individually prioritise them through

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putting colourful stickers in their preferred orientations. This was critical, given that participants were limited in their capacity to communicate with each other due to language constraints. As all the poster recommendations were written in English, and participants did not have the possibility of interpretation, this meant that the ‘Open Forum’ was an individual aggregative exercise that in most cases was taken by participants as an additional break. The ‘Open Forum’ had a crucial influence over the final outcome, given that the orientations with higher number of stickers were prioritised and were the basis for the final recommendations. Thus, the ‘Open Forum’ was unable to perform the intended function. In terms of the specific way in which the subgroups within the ECPs unfolded, I could distinguish between three types of conversations: ‘sharing of experiences’, ‘individual opinion giving’ or ‘technical deliberation’. First, the cultural diversity inherent to all groups evolved towards interesting conversations about their own life experiences, heavily shaped by their background and where participants genuinely learnt from each other. The second type is a non-debate, in which the conversation misses the dialogical interaction between the participants. In this case, participants merely gave their opinions (in some cases on non-related subjects), but fail to establish a pattern or a cleavage within the group. This is not a particularly technical process, rather the contrary: participants merely express something that comes to their mind at that point. Based on the participant observation, this pattern can partially be explained on the basis that participants did not sufficiently go through a ‘learning phase’ before starting the deliberation. The third, the ‘technical deliberation’, involves a dialectical interaction, yet mainly focuses on how best to express an already agreed upon political point, which relates mostly to the third session of each of the panels, where they ‘negotiated’ the phrasing of the group’s recommendations. This marks a trend that will help to make sense of the idea of ‘technodeliberation’,2 by which deliberation is organised in a strongly technocratic way that impeded the fostering of democratic

2 Ernesto Ganuza came up with the concept of ‘technodeliberation’ in a private conversation, I thank him for the support and the reflection upon the way in which deliberation was conceived in the context of the ECPs.

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political deliberation.3 Only occasionally a dilemma-led type of deliberation emerged within the subgroups, largely due to the broad framing of the policy clusters. There were many interesting examples that reflected many of these caveats. One of them was related to the lack of an information or learning phase, which caused that the participants with more knowledge of the EU would be better equipped for the discussion, and in some cases create imbalances in the deliberation. Zuzanna Nowak commented on this aspect, given that in her group there was a particular situation in which one of the participants was a law professor, and had a tendency towards dominating the discussion: We don’t want anybody to feel silenced or belittled, we want it to be a safe space and a brave space. But at the same time, when you invite a cross section of society into the room, it is a natural consequence that you will have some people in the room that are more knowledgeable on the subject, or have more experience with the subject or have more to offer on the subject. And that’s also okay, because part of deliberation is people learning from each other, not just from the experts. (…) In this specific case, I think it was rather detrimental, but not in a sense that it was the fault of the law professor, but rather the lack of skills training and a proper learning phase. As a result, some of the participants were missing a lot of basic knowledge on some of the issues to debate. And in a way, that pushed him to feel kind of responsible for explaining some of these elements to the other participants. And I think the outcome of that was, at least from what I saw in my group, that some of the people would speak a little bit less precisely because they would feel somewhat intimidated by one of the fellow participants (like the law professor) (…) So there’s the skills training phase, which was completely missing from this process, because there was no time for it. Then there is the learning phase. And then there is the deliberative phase. And in the case of the Conference, the learning phase and the deliberative phase were sort of happening in parallel and intertwined. They were not consecutive, it was not a linear process. I think that confused the participants a lot, they were going into deliberation, and then they were listening to some expert presentations, and then there was more deliberation. And then there were the streams with the experts, and

3 The ‘techno’ mostly refers to the technocratic way of conceiving deliberation, but there is also a ‘technopolitics’ element in it, as much of the deliberation relied on the use of technology. The multilingual digital platform, the Excel sheets within the subgroups or the second online session all were reliant on technology.

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then deliberation again. So I think it was a little chaotic. (Interview with Zuzanna Nowak, October 2022)

The strict methodological definition of the patterns of deliberation in the citizens’ panels made it very difficult for participants to challenge those rules and the established framework. The deliberation was organised in a way that made it complicated to challenge the systemic structures. Instead, it mostly reinforced them with an added layer of ‘citizen’ legitimacy. Political participation in general generates linkages between people and performs an important socialising factor. A positive element throughout the panels is the general collegiality between participants, fostered by the facilitators. The positive energy facilitated the deliberation and the exchange of views, including when there was a disagreement. As María, one of the participants of panel 4, said in an interview (May 2022), “there wasn’t a perspective of ‘you’re saying this because you’re dumb, or because you have no idea’, no, it was like ‘ok, I know that’s what you think would be best, but I think this is what I think would be best.’” However, deliberation was hampered by the fragmentation with which it was organised, as most of it took place within the 12–14 people subgroups rather than in the plenary. Each subgroup discussed a specific issue, which made the subgroup the space where most of the deliberation took place. During the third session, it was also each subgroup which worked on drafting specific recommendations, without the input of the other members of the panel. There were two mechanisms to keep other subgroups up to date on the subgroup discussions. First, in the plenary sessions of the 200 participants. In practice, this did not materialise as most of the plenary sessions were dedicated to practical instructions rather than on actual deliberation. This was also discussed by participants, one of which argued that “the plenary was already saying yes or saying no, the plenary sessions were nothing more than a matter of procedure, not to debate again”. The second mechanism was organised during the second day of the third session (see Fig. 2), in which there was a structured exchange between subgroups, as a representative of each subgroup would go to other subgroups to explain their recommendations and get feedback on them. However, this was also limited, as not all members of the citizen panel were able to participate. Additionally, out of the groups that were able to comment on the other subgroups’ proposals, it was rather difficult because they had

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not participated of the debate surrounding the substance of the recommendations. This was in spite of the fact that several participants were eager to contribute to the debate in other subgroups, but the recommendations were mostly constructed in silos, partially as a consequence of the large policy scope that each panel addressed. Regarding the feedback mechanism organised in the context of the third session of the panels, Zuzanna Nowak argued the following: I’m glad that it was there. But it was probably not enough. At the end of the day, those citizens still had to go to the plenary hall and vote on recommendations that they hadn’t had a chance to deliberate at all. And maybe they’d had a chance to talk about them briefly if they happened to be the feedback envoy for that group. But it wasn’t an exchange of everybody with everybody. Even though I’m very proud of the work that I did with my participants, and the recommendations they produced, I would not be surprised if, for example, participants from other groups didn’t feel comfortable voting on them, because they were not in the room during the conception and development. They were not there, they didn’t have a chance to discuss this, they didn’t have a chance to deliberate it, so they might simply not understand it (which is not the same as being against it) (Interview with Zuzanna Nowak, October 2022)

The linkages within political groups tend to be much stronger when political participation is on the one hand organised in a way that allows for spontaneity, and on the other if it is embedded in existing political conflicts and collective action processes. To operate as if existing cleavages in society do not exist harms not only the credibility of the deliberation, but the process itself. The illusion under which the citizen panels took place—deliberating as if existing political cleavages do not exist—does not make them disappear; it simply hides them under the rug. The lack of a micro–macro link and the sidelining of mediators complicated the inclusion of the political aspect in the deliberations. In this way, the participant observation throughout the panels revealed poor deliberative quality. Panel participants did not engage with tradeoffs nor with opposing arguments, instead focusing on making a ‘wish list’. Thus, the dynamic was more of making separate points rather than confronting arguments. The third and last session, in which the recommendations would be finalised and voted, was perceived throughout the observation as being too legalistic, in that discussions were more focused on the phrasing of the recommendations rather than on its substance.

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This feeling was also mentioned by several participants interviewed. The specificity of the debates on the recommendations contributed to depoliticising the deliberation and limiting it to the subgroups. The more concrete the debate is (e.g. deliberation over the wording of a recommendation), the more difficult it is to maintain the big picture in mind (e.g. addressing climate emergency or wealth inequality), because the focus is less on the substance than on the form. 3.3

The Role of Facilitators (and Note-Takers): Technical and Political Challenges

Throughout the citizen panels, the facilitators of the small groups were purposively deployed in a way in which they would avoid any sort of ideological ‘bias’, which in most cases led to select people that were not ‘experts’ on the discussion that was taking place. The idea is that if the facilitators would be highly knowledgeable on the topic of discussion; they would have ‘undue influence’ on the ‘citizens’. In a handbook distributed by the CoFoE Secretariat, within the rules for Note-Taking and Securing Output, there are a set of guidelines to “minimize biases” that includes “Avoid personal interpretations and judgements”, “No personal additions to the content” or “Neutral and value-free reproduction of content”. Yago Bermejo explained the facilitators’ choice, while also pointing out some caveats: Ideally, facilitators are on the same level as the participants. The more you know, the better you are positioned. In general, it is not recommended that facilitators know about the topic. They should not know, or know the same as the participants. In some sessions the participants knew more than the facilitators - this should not happen. Facilitators should go through the same cognitive process as the participants. They need to listen to the experts, get the same input as the participants. (Interview with Yago Bermejo, May 2022)

This broadly matches well the role that facilitators took throughout the citizen panels and already hints towards much of what hindered the plural debate in the subgroups. The first element was the lack of margin of manoeuvre of facilitators:

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Facilitators were told not to intrude the content at any time, even if we may know about it. Personally, I didn’t find this problematic. Of course there were moments where I had to repeat some of the citizens’ proposals to foster discussion, because we had time constraints. And then, it is impossible to not enter into the content. As a facilitator it was really important that they would understand I was a third party that I was not from the selected pool of citizens. As such, I was not entitled to enter into the content. Of course, I am also a citizen, but in that context that was not my role, I had a professional role that was different. To me, I have to say that it is important that moderators were neutral, because otherwise if they were pushing their own political agenda, the result would be biased. We were not there to influence the discussion according to our own personal values and political views. This was the citizens’ role. However, I think there was a problem with the selection of facilitators, because there was an application but no interview process. To me, there should have been a clearer facilitator selection process (Interview with facilitator, March 2022)

This indicates that the facilitators’ role was to ‘facilitate’ political discussions in a way that is not “partisan or manipulative” and reveals part of the underlying philosophy of the panels. The dynamics are likely to have been very different if the context in which the participants were situated would have been different, for instance, by beginning with a particular dilemma in which there were a handful of available options, rather than having to create those recommendations themselves, and in which facilitators could have framed the debate in a pro/con perspective. When asked about the debates within the deliberative consortium about the facilitators’ ‘neutral’ role, and whether facilitators ought to be knowledgeable or not about the subject of discussion, one of the facilitators argued the following: It would have been better to have facilitators that knew about how the EU works. If people are professional they can make the distinction between their own knowledge and their role as facilitators, and I don’t think we need to be worried that because people know about the topic they will influence the process, I think that is too infantilising and gives facilitators little credit. (Interview with facilitator, March 2022)

The fact that there was an important degree of inequality between the facilitators (having some that were very knowledgeable on the EU, while others were not) facilitated that widely different dynamics were developed in different subgroups. The organisers of the panels attempted to correct it by undertaking extensive facilitators’ briefings and making sure that

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each facilitator would have support, and there was one person in charge of following the deliberation (from the organisers’ room, following the transcripts of the discussions through multiple screens) of three subgroups. In turn, the person undertaking the facilitation support could reach out ‘live’ to one of the facilitators and give him/her guidance on the substance or the format of the discussion. Facilitators were also facing technical challenges stemming from the multilingual nature of the deliberation. Interpretation was ensured both in the plenaries and in the subgroups, where participants were encouraged to speak in their native language, even though some spoke in English. However, while the technical aspect of interpretation functioned more or less smoothly, it shaped the way in which the conversations unfolded. For instance, in the subgroups, the facilitator was not only moderating the discussion, but also writing on an Excel spreadsheet with automated translation in the five languages that were included in it. During the first session, this task was overwhelming for facilitators as they were expected to heavily multi-task, and during the third and final session of each of the panels, all facilitators received the support of a ‘note-taker’. In this sense, Zuzanna Nowak expanded on how the multilingual deliberation affected the quality of the discussion and its alternative: When there isn’t this language constraint, we can do so many things: we can draw on flip charts, we use post it notes, we arrange the post it notes on the walls, we do table discussions where people move across different tables. So this really was extreme in terms of the quality of deliberation, it was not fun for the participants, it was strenuous for everybody involved, it was, at times really boring for them, and difficult to process. So I think that to support better deliberation, we need better tools to accommodate the multi language thing. And we need tools that allow people to move and not be chained to the microphone that is at their table. Because it seems like a small thing. But it actually is a huge, huge deal that it could be so much better if people could walk around (Interview with Zuzanna Nowak, October 2022)

Ultimately, the deliberative dynamics of the subgroups were far from ideal, as the facilitators were forced to constantly intervene—yet in a ‘neutral’ way—and they were closely watched by the Common Secretariat. An illustrative example took place in panel 2, one of the most relevant for the Common Secretariat as it dealt with the issue of ‘European democracy’. Particularly within the subgroup of ‘EU decision-making’,

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the organisers improvised by changing the facilitator in the third session (the most important as it led to the concrete recommendations) in order to ensure a more knowledgeable person would facilitate the discussions. This was triggered by a mistake made by the initial facilitator, who summarised a fact-checking answer with ‘European Council’ instead of ‘Council of the EU’, something that was pointed out by one of the participants, who happened to be a professor of constitutional law. The Common Secretariat was highly attentive to these sort of elements, as they closely monitored subgroups in general, but especially this one on EU decision-making. This anecdote illustrates several of the dynamics discussed: the facilitators are initially conceived as ‘neutral’ and given very little margin of intervention, yet it becomes apparent that their role and knowledge is crucial to foster quality deliberation. The Common Secretariat’s monitoring and strict control of the discussions harmed the process, insofar it gave too little information and contrasting views for participants to have a more agonistic debate. This leads us to the next element of the panels, the experts and fact-checkers, neither of which was allowed to intervene directly in the discussion during the third session, in spite of having experts physically in the room, a dimension that was also central to the facilitators’ range of action: I would have welcomed to have experts in the room all the time so the group could rely on their expertsise, if needed or in case of doubts. But there was also another general issue on the selection of experts, which was not transparent and biased towards pro-EU views only. I would have liked to have more than one expert and one view per topic to bring different nuances and opinions, pros and cons. (Interview with facilitator, March 2022)

3.4

The ‘Neutral’ Role of (Academic) Experts and Fact-Checkers

There was a crucial role for experts in providing input for the panels, shaping the conversations that citizens have in respect to the policy areas at stake. Interestingly, the experts were positioned by the organisers as ‘neutral’ actors that could share their expertise, rather than placing them as actors that could share contradictory views. The interaction between the citizens and the experts is an important aspect of the Conference on the Future of Europe that reflects the underlying philosophy upon which

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the Conference in general, and the citizen panels in particular, has been constructed. The definition of which ‘experts’ are considered to be ‘neutral’ was evidently contested within the Common Secretariat, as each institution attempted to invite ‘experts’ more favourable to their political positions. This created wide delays in the invitation of experts, as most of them reported being invited on a very short notice—in many cases only a few days before their intervention. One of the experts, Professor Johanna Kantola, suggested that “it felt kind of rushed, in the sense that I was given very little information up to the last minute”—and was explicitly asked to provide ‘neutral’ input. There was no clear criteria for the selection of ‘experts’, which led to widely divergent type of input, even though the type of ‘expert’ was largely dominated by academics, who make up more than half of the total number of ‘experts’ (see Tables 3, 4 and 5). That said, it is not only relevant to analyse the overall balance of experts throughout the different panels but when do the experts play a role and which role is it. The experts that really made a difference in the process were the ones present in the first session, and partially those in the second session, given that in the third session they were not even allowed to talk (they could respond to questions from the participants in a written way, and the CoFoE Secretariat would send the response after checking it). In the first session, the experts were given ample time in the plenary to make their views heard, as they were given 5–10 minutes presentation in the plenary session in front of all 200 panel participants, as well as responding to some questions both in the plenary as well as in some subgroups related to the specific policy area of the expert in question. In the second session, the experts provided input to the specific ‘stream’ in which they were contributing. Table 3 Background of the experts during the first session of the four CoFoE European citizen panels

Session 1 Academia Think tanks Former EU officials Others Total

15 4 4 3 27

Source Own elaboration, based on the official CoFoE reports

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Table 4 Background of the experts during the second session of the four CoFoE European citizen panels

Academia Think tanks Civil society EU officials Former EU officials Private sector National governments/authorities Trade Unions Total

Panel 1

Panel 2

Panel 3

Panel 4

All Panels

10 9 8 1 0 1 1 1 31

31 3 2 0 1 0 1 0 38

11 3 9 1 1 2 0 0 28

16 7 2 3 1 0 0 0 29

68 22 21 5 3 3 2 1 126

Source Own elaboration, based on the session 2 official reports of each of the four panels

Table 5 Background of the experts during the third session of the four CoFoE European citizen panels

Academia Think tanks Civil society EU officials Former EU officials Private sector National governments/authorities Trade Unions Total

Panel 1

Panel 2

Panel 3

Panel 4

All Panels

7 3 4 4 0 1 2 2 23

10 4 0 1 1 0 0 0 16

6 3 4 2 1 1 0 0 17

15 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 20

38 13 9 8 2 2 2 2 76

Source Own elaboration, based on the session 3 official reports of each of the four panels

The primary understanding of ‘experts’ as ‘academics’ highlights the emphasis on ‘neutrality’. Evidently, academics have a degree of expertise that is useful in feeding a political discussion, yet that ‘expertise’ is not ‘neutral’. In addition, the conditions under which they were asked to provide such input were highly problematic, including the lack of clarity about the practicalities of the process and a constant search for a supposed ‘neutrality’. Social sciences have a crucial role to play in political debates, and academics should remain critical actors not only in

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contributing to the institutional processes, but also in criticising them when the process is not democratically plural. Pretending that academics can provide ‘neutral’ input furthers the depoliticisation of the citizen panels, hindering political pluralism at the micro-level, and also complicates the connection of the panel with the broader public sphere. There is certainly a space for academics to participate in providing input, but the framing of the citizen panel deliberation would heavily benefit from a more contradictory-oriented discussion, in which ideological differences are highlighted and emphasised. In order to do so, it would be necessary to narrow down the citizen towards a key dilemma to address in which a few options would be put forward and debated. This is in fact common when organising minipublics, but the wideness of the CoFoE panels made this process difficult. If participants would ask experts or fact-checkers whether the EU is undertaking policy action on a particular area, the answer almost always will be ‘yes’, but with certain nuances. Not spelling out those nuances and alternative policy options in order to stick to the ‘neutrality’ frame contributed to further depoliticising the process. The ‘neutral’ positioning of the experts operated as a way to neutralise political conflict. It is in how issues are interpreted and framed that the organisers made a huge difference. Instead of presenting participants with a particular dilemma(s) that have different political positions by different sets of actors, the appearance of neutrality muddled the debate by not distinguishing different political options. Furthermore, the very notion of ‘expert’ created an aura of authority that made it difficult for participants to challenge the views presented by ‘neutral experts’. Such ‘neutrality’, however, was navigated skilfully by some experts, such as Johanna Kantola, Politics Professor at the University of Helsinki that was invited to be an expert in the first session of panel 2 on EU democracy, values, rights, rule of law and security. Johanna Kantola used graphs and statistics in her plenary presentation to navigate the ‘neutrality’ of her intervention, while acknowledging the importance of putting forward a normative vision: when I write a journal article, I never pretend to be a positivist or like, a person who is totally objective. I think this is the whole point of feminist theory, that you’re on the side of equality. So, in that way, I didn’t struggle too much with that, because I thought that I was there normatively to defend the values of equality, democracy and human rights. So if some people don’t see it as neutral, it’s fine. Because it’s a value question. It

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was a citizens’ panel on values. So it wasn’t such a big pain for me. But obviously, as someone who studies the situation in contemporary Europe, I was also very aware of the dynamics that there might be among the citizens, which may explain the use of statistics and like some other ways of also just kind of neutrally giving information. In some ways, the statistics allow you to appear a bit more neutral in order to sort of put forward a more normative perspective. (Interview with Johanna Kantola, July 2022)

Regarding the criteria for the expert selection was always a black box. It appears that the CoFoE Secretariat constructed a list of potential experts, and it was up to the three co-chairs of the CoFoE to ‘approve’ who the ‘experts’ were for the different panels. This gave incentives to the co-chairs to select ‘experts’ that were more favourable to the political positions of their respective institutions. Thus, the selection of ‘experts’ became a behind the scenes battleground between EU institutions to set the ‘neutral’ terms of the topic in question. On this issue, Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, member of the Common Secretariat of the CoFoE on the Commission side, explained the logic behind such decisions: There is this assumption that good deliberation happens when you have two people discussing and that these experts have opposite ideas. And this is what makes the expert input valuable. But is it really the only way we can stir good deliberations? In a way, it is a bit like, although we know we are trying to go beyond the parliamentary party based confrontational model promoting a facilitated peaceful dialogue between citizens, when it comes to bringing experts’ input, this would be our only reference. And I’m not sure that all subjects in all situations permit that. First of all, for the Conference on the Future of Europe, what kind of opposition would you have organised on topics that were so broad? It can be very difficult. And with the governance we had, how would you pick the opposite views? So, for me, what we did was the only thing we could do: identify people and brief them that we would want to get the state of play and not their personal views. And something that was overlooked is the fact that in the Conference each institution picked experts with very different views. In fact, this brought some diversity by itself. (…) So at the end, I think it was quite balanced, given the very vast topics that we had. (Interview with Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, March 2023)

Against this background, Zuzanna Nowak suggested that it was a mistake to frame the experts as ‘neutral’ and suggested instead to foster a more contradictory and plural debate:

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we [the Center for Blue Democracy] never tell assembly members that experts are neutral. Because experts are not neutral. And that’s a good thing, it’s not a bad thing. The very reason we want them to come and speak to the assembly members is because they have years of professional experience or academic expertise in a subject, which has led them to have certain attitudes or opinions, which are extremely valid. (…) they can still present studies, facts, statistics, whatever. But that in itself is not the biggest value that we’re getting out of the presence of experts in the room. That stuff can be looked up on Wikipedia and put in an information pamphlet by the coordinators, this is not why we want the experts to be there. We want to hear their personal expertise, and actually in our model, experts can submit proposals for recommendations. And they can give the participants their justification for why they think this is the way to go. That’s a good thing, because we should, as a society also learn to rely on experts. (…) I really think that the way that expertise happened was, number one, extremely untransparent (I have no idea how those experts were selected, and I couldn’t find that information anywhere). Number two, there wasn’t really a wide range of perspectives offered and I don’t think anybody really made the effort to have different views represented (Interview with Zuzanna Nowak, October 2022)

3.4.1 The (Improvised) Introduction of Fact-Checking Throughout the first session, several observers and staff members witnessed that some deliberations within the working groups were based on a number of incorrect facts. For this reason, during the second session of the panels, the Common Secretariat and the consortium added the role of ‘fact-checkers’, the purpose of which was to correct factual mistakes in an ‘unbiased’ way. The ‘fact-checkers’ were not ‘experts’, although during the third session their roles would overlap. Additionally, observers were asked during the third session to themselves operate as ‘fact-checkers’ and report potentially wrong facts that would inform the subgroup debates. Additionally, observers (such as myself) were asked to also monitor for incorrect facts via email, in a way that observers were also ad hoc factcheckers. This is contradictory to the guidelines given to observers: on the one hand, we were meant to maintain a distance, but on the other we were asked to inform the organisers if we perceived there were some ‘wrong’ facts. The way in which fact-checking in the second and especially third session was the following. Given that the third session’s objective was to end with a very specific set of recommendations, the Common Secretariat

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constructed a process that, in their view, would ensure that the expert and fact-checking input was prepared in a ‘neutral’ way that would prevent ‘undue influence’ over the participants. For that reason, while having experts and observers in the room (in addition to a team of supervisors following each subgroup deliberation), the way in which the responses to participants’ questions and the fact-checking would be provided in a written way to a centralised “knowledge and information corner”, which was run by the Common Secretariat coordination team. They centralised all requests for information and fact-checking and sent them to the experts, who would reply to them in a written way. In order to ensure the accuracy and neutrality of the response, the Common Secretariat would check it and send it to the facilitator of the subgroup in question, who would then share the response to the participants. In this way, even if experts would be physically present in the room, they would have to reply to questions in a written way to a centralised “knowledge and information corner”, who would then check the response and send it to the facilitator. While the idea of the Common Secretariat is that these rules would maintain the integrity of the panels’ deliberations, in practice, the specific way in which it worked was harmful for the process. This is due to the fact that the responses came too late—in some cases the responses never arrived— as the information did not arrive when the participants were discussing the issue, and by the time it came they had moved on to another issue. Perle Petit, an observer in panel 3 (Climate change, environment, health), was explicitly asked by the Common Secretariat to make factchecking requests, and recounted: On top of the time that it took for the fact-checking requests to come back, not all requests were answered. In the subgroup I was in during the third session, I sent in several requests to the Common Secretariat. Of the three, which concerned explaining to citizens that EU legislation already existed on the topics that they were discussing, only the first request received a reply that a fact-check would be conducted and additional information would be provided to the group. However, the corresponding fact-check never came and my other two requests weren’t answered. Not having this information meant that the citizens wasted a lot of time discussing things that already exist in the EU, which I was able to find out were already in place from quick internet searches on the topics. This issue of gaps in the information provided to citizens happened throughout the subgroup discussions, partially because the topics they were covering were so broad.

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But having had no replies to the requests I had already sent in disincentivised me from sending in additional requests – though this would have greatly improved the quality of the discussions and of the final recommendations that the subgroup ended up producing. (Interview with Perle Petit, May 2023)

More broadly, the fundamental problem of the input provided by the experts and the fact-checking is that there was no difference made between factual information (e.g. the European Commission has the legislative initiative in the EU) with arguments in favour or against particular proposals (e.g. the European Parliament should have the right to initiative because it is the only directly elected EU institution and the most democratic one). While the former is an uncontested fact, the second is a political statement that could well be argued in favour or against. Arguably, the role of fact-checkers is to focus on the former, whereas a plural range of experts could have provided the latter. However, in framing the experts’ input as ‘neutral’ the organisers blended facts with political arguments. This could have been avoided by a more diverse political choice of ‘experts’ that would have ensured more opposite and contradictory debates and that would have fostered a higher quality of deliberation both in the plenary sessions and in the subgroups. Overall, both the expert input and the fact-checking processes reinforced the depoliticised underlying philosophy of deliberation. First, the expert input is framed as ‘neutral’ and sidelines more normatively desirable alternatives to the relationship between experts in a deliberative democracy setting, such as contradictory debates in which experts would hold conflicting positions. Second, the fact-checking revealed power games between different members of the Common Secretariat, who would prioritise their inter-institutional struggles between them over the quality of the deliberation, as well as connecting it to the broader public sphere. These elements were both impactful and democratically harmful in terms of their influence over the recommendations. 3.5

‘Polluting’ the Citizen Deliberations? The CoFoE Secretariat’s Forceful Control Over ‘Undue Influence’

One particular anecdote helps to understand the vision that the CoFoE Secretariat had of the process. The incident took place in Maastricht

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during the third session of panel 4 on EU in the world and migration (11–13 February 2022). Arjan van der Waal (who kindly agreed for the report to be included in the book), a member of the civil society organisation European Democracy Lab and who was accredited as an observer, reported the following incident to the Common Secretariat in the subgroup on decision-making and EU foreign policy: 1. Interference by Secretariat staff What happened: It was the observable delay in responses to the subgroup’s requests for input and factchecking that caused the subgroup’s difficulty to discuss certain issues and formulate recommendations. Around 11am, the facilitator responded by asking the Citizens whether, in the absence of timely input from the factchecking system, they wanted to solicit expertise from the Observers present in the room. The Citizens agreed with this step and the facilitator put the question to the Observers. At that moment, the Secretariat staff member in the room interfered by forbidding my fellow Observer, member of an organisation that provided expert input on the topic under deliberation before, to respond to the facilitators’ question. My take is that Secretariat staff was unduly interfering and overruling the facilitator who was seeking to address a flaw in the Citizens’ deliberation process. My concern: Secretariat staff overruled the Citizens’ request, prioritising their own, strict interpretation of ‘the rules’ above facilitation in the spirit of the Panel. In the absence of factcheck and input, the subgroup concluded that no recommendation could be made on the topic under deliberation. This should [not] be [the] intention nor [the] result of the Secretariat’s action. The pressure under which the Secretariat works should be channelled so as not to jeopardise the purpose of the Citizens’ Panel. 2. Undue behaviour Secretariat staff towards observer What happened: while I exchanged with my fellow Observer about the facilitator’s request, the Secretariat staffer then turned to me. She instructed me to stop exchanging with my fellow Observer. When I explained my view of the request from the facilitator, the Secretariat staffer went on to threaten that I would be reported, then insisted on taking a photo from my observer badge (which I

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facilitated) and then threatened that I would be removed from the room if I ‘interfered again’. Her male colleague then joined, also threatened me with removal, and responded to my explanation that it was his Secretariat colleague who had interfered with the proceeding, by accusing me of aggressing him; a perception that seemed both the world upside down and mutual to me. He then threatened to have me removed from the premises. We continued the exchange outside the room and the staffers’ supervisor arrived. The latter eventually guided me to the room where the factchecking requests were received and the process was explained. My take on this incident is that Secretariat’s staffers behaviour in the sub-group room was misplaced and unnecessarily escalating and intimidating. My concern is that the above constitutes inappropriate behaviour towards Observers who did not (!) interfere with the proceeding, but rather responded to a legitimate request from the facilitator. Observers are key for an experimental conference, serving collective learning, transparency and legitimacy. Observers deserve a befitting treatment. The report was met with defensiveness by the Common Secretariat. While acknowledging that the incident indeed occurred, the Common Secretariat responded by arguing that it was important to ensure the integrity of the process and avoid “undue influence”. In this way, the Common Secretariat not only dismissed the fact that the fact-checking process was too slow to be useful for the participant deliberations, but also ignored the threatening behaviour towards an observer. The reference to the “undue influence” of the observer attempting to resolve a doubt posed by the participants is illustrative of how the Secretariat conceived of the deliberative process: a bubble in which participants ought to be ‘protected’ from the ‘pollution’ coming from the ‘outside’. This was a noticeable permanent aspect throughout the citizen panels, where the Conference Secretariat had close attention to every single input that participants would receive, and which explains, for instance, the lack of political and policy background provided prior to the panels. However, in reality, if there was any ‘pollution’ in the citizen panel deliberations, it was not coming from the experts, observers or civil society, but from the

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Common Secretariat’s narrow focus on controlling what they considered to be ‘undue influence’. 3.6

Recommendations and (Non)deliberative Voting: A Wish List Exercise

The output of the panels was a set of recommendations that had to be approved by more than 70% of the participants of each of the four panels. As previously discussed, the recommendations were constructed by subgroups of 8–12 participants that operated in parallel during the third session of the panels. The result was that not only some of the recommendations were not touched upon by many participants, but some recommendations could be conceived as being in contradiction with each other. The small groups in which all recommendations were made led to discussions that revolved strongly on the wording of the recommendations, as there was an overwhelming feeling among citizens that if the recommendations were not formulated in a concrete and technical way they would not be impactful and not listened by ‘politicians’. As one panel participant put it, the process of drafting the recommendations “has been like giving birth”. On the one hand, citizens are invited as non-experts to provide a general guideline about certain political issues, on the other they are expected to come up and deliver concrete and technical recommendations as if they were experts. This frame is not coincidental, as there always was a lack of clarity about the way in which the recommendations would interact with other political actors in the plenary and the later institutional follow-up. Furthermore, given the lack of boundaries, some groups ended up working on areas that are not an EU competence.4 This ambiguity over the expectations of the ECP recommendations fomented technical (“how best to frame our recommendation?”) rather than political discussion (“why is this recommendation good or bad, what are the tradeoffs?”), in what what can be labelled as ‘wish lists’. In addition, the fact that participants had to kick-start the recommendations from zero was pointed out as a problematic aspect of the exercise:

4 The problem was not necessarily that they discussed policy areas that were not of EU competence, but rather the ambiguity with which the organisers framed the panels.

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this is actually an extremely overwhelming task to ask someone to do, who has no prior experience in developing recommendations from a blank sheet of paper. And this is what the citizens were doing (…) In our [Center for Blue Democracy] assembly model, the way we do it is we collect proposals for recommendations from the society at large, civil society actors (like NGOs and so on), and from experts. So basically we have an open call for proposals of recommendations. And then this pool basically serves as a starting point for the assembly members, though they are still entirely empowered to formulate their own recommendations. But at least they have some material to work with when they’re just starting off (Interview with Zuzanna Nowak, October 2022)

When doing ‘wish lists’ it is likely that there are recommendations that are incompatible with each other, or instead with rather vague proposals that are not specific enough because trade-offs and quality deliberation has not been addressed. An interesting example is the recommendation regarding the requirement of ‘unanimity’ in the Council for certain policy areas, including foreign policy, in which the citizens’ panel recommendation was that it should be “reassessed”. Furthermore, the fact that subgroups constructed the recommendations in parallel raised questions. As Yago Bermejo argued: It is not accurate to say that you have a representative body of 200 citizens to assess an important issue and then the issue is discussed by 11 of them and the others just vote after reading it in 4 minutes. You need all participants to deliberate on all relevant issues (and find agreement) if you want to maintain the representativeness of the whole panel on these issues. (Interview with Yago Bermejo, May 2022)

There would have been several alternatives to the wish list exercise undertaken by the subgroups and the non-deliberative way with which the voting was organised. First, it is clear that more plenary deliberation among citizens could have improved the quality of the discussion and enhanced the political aspect of the recommendations. Thus, an alternative could have been to devote more time to collectively discuss a smaller number of recommendations as a panel in plenary sessions, rather than constructing the recommendations in the smaller groups and then uniquely putting them to a vote without much discussion. But more fundamentally, beginning with a specific ‘dilemma’ and having specific options would have dramatically facilitated the process, and it would have

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contributed to conceive participants in a less individualised way, as part of a broader configuration of political actors, rather than as technical experts that draft very detailed recommendations.

4

‘Citizen Ambassadors’ in the Plenary

The integration of panel participants to the plenary was the biggest innovation of the Conference. Out of the 200 participants of each of the four European citizen panels, 20 of them were selected randomly (although they would have to agree to put forward their candidacies during the first session of each of the panels) to operate as ‘citizen ambassadors’, performing a representative function of their respective panels in the plenary sessions. The group of ambassadors was gender balanced and from specific age groups (random selection with specific criteria). The ‘citizen ambassadors’ operated within the ‘citizen component’ of the CoFoE plenary, which was confirmed by the 80 ECP ambassadors in addition to the ‘citizen ambassadors’ from the national citizen panels. While the ambassadors were initially scheduled to participate in 3 plenary sessions, the additional plenary sessions meant that much more time were demanded from them than initially intended when the ambassadors put forward their candidacies. An initial caveat of integrating ‘citizen ambassadors’ within the plenary is that it disconnected them from the panels they were meant to ‘represent’. Thus, out of the panel participants interviewed that did not operate as ‘citizen ambassadors’, all of them but one, who happened to be a retired university professor (thus with time as well as the political and cultural capital), mentioned that they were unable to follow the plenary deliberations and there was no meaningful attempt to maintain the connection between panel participants and the ‘citizen ambassadors’. Thus, the ECP ambassadors became a slightly ‘elite’ group that developed autonomous dynamics with the CoFoE Secretariat and the organisers, an interaction that was often shielded from the observers. The term assigned to this group of participants, ‘citizen ambassadors’, performs an antipolitical role insofar they were operating alongside MEPs, who conceive of themselves as citizens’ representatives. As an MEP commented, the term caused confusion since it encouraged a clash of legitimacy between elected and non-elected ‘representatives’. It also reinforced the feeling within the group of ‘citizen ambassadors’ that they were the ‘real’ representatives of ‘the people’, rather than politicians in

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a typically antipolitical imaginary fashion. That said, ultimately ‘citizen ambassadors’ worked relatively well with MEPs, civil society groups and trade union representatives. In line with this, Civil Society Europe, the main coordinating organisation of civil society organisations in Brussels, published an evaluation of the CoFoE in which they reclaimed their role by calling on “the adoption of a roadmap to strengthen participatory and deliberative democracy that includes all-round consultation of civil society and citizens in a process that should be open and participative” (Civil Society Europe, 2022). Thus, civil society did not see panel participants as ‘competitors’, but rather as collaborators with whom it is possible to find common ground. The contrast between the politicians-free citizen panels and the participation in the plenary of the ‘citizen ambassadors’ as ‘equals’ was a challenging process. The mixed public coexisting with politicians that are not used to the codes of deliberation developed within the citizens’ panels created a sort of ‘culture clash’, whereby the ‘citizen ambassadors’ had to adapt to the codes established by the chairs of each of the plenary working groups. Members of the deliberative consortium suggested to train the working group chairs in deliberation, but this did not fly. Ultimately, the ‘citizen ambassadors’ had to operate as skilful politicians in order to make sure that their recommendations would make it into the final proposals, building coalitions with like-minded civil society actors, fellow members of the working group and negotiating with the chairs. The complexity of the situation facilitated that the more confident ambassadors who were also fluent in English could adapt, but generally it was difficult for them to access the political discussions in a genuine way. Arguably, ‘citizen ambassadors’ were quite successful and were able to adapt, even though the CoFoE Common Secretariat actively attempted to shield them from non-plenary members. This was confirmed by my own involvement in the plenary session of 25–26 March 2022. As a member of the civil society group Citizens Take Over Europe (CTOE), and alongside two CTOE colleagues, we were told by a member of the Common Secretariat that we should abstain from ‘influencing’ the citizen ambassadors, as if it would be illegitimate for civil society actors to exchange perspectives with them. Maarten de Groot, a fellow CTOE colleague and decolonial activist that attended the last four CoFoE plenary sessions as an observer, recounted receiving additional warnings about the position of observers: “I was informed during one Plenary session and reminded afterwards via email that our role as observers is limited to being able to

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follow the Conference work for research or transparency purposes, and that it is not meant for ‘advocacy or engagement activities’” (Interview with Maarten de Groot, March 2023). This highlights the constant thoughts over ‘undue influence’ that the Common Secretariat had and the antipolitical imaginary with which ‘citizen ambassadors’ were brought in and integrated in the plenary. The interaction between civil society actors and MEPs, MPs, Council or Commission representatives is completely normalised as part of regular EU politics, yet there was an attempt by the Common Secretariat to keep the ‘citizen ambassadors’ ‘pure’. This perspective was broadly shared with other civil society actors, such as Federico Terreni from the European Movement International, who also had difficulties to reach out to citizen ambassadors: What we felt, or I felt, during the Conference is that, and this is a shared view, it was very hard to build alliances. If you look at the schedule of citizens, it was impossible to meet them (in Strasbourg in the plenary). The only moments we managed to meet with them was for lunch or dinner. And then another thing is that we got this booklet in the third or fourth plenary session with all the names [of the citizens’ ambassadors and the other plenary members], but it was too late and it was badly updated - wrong emails, some people were not there… This made things more difficult, more time consuming. (Interview with Federico Terreni, October 2022)

In spite of these difficulties, ultimately the cooperation between the citizen ambassadors and organised civil society and trade unions worked relatively well and was broadly politically aligned. In this sense, Lorenzo Repetti, Senior Advisor at ETUC, argued the following: in the cases I observed, the cooperation worked quite well. We felt that the proposals and the priorities of these randomly chosen citizens were very much in line with what we also wanted to achieve. And also our priorities were normally supported by the citizens. As a trade union movement, when we express a voice in the plenary, we represent millions of workers around Europe. I think at the end, in the conference, it worked quite well from a pragmatic point of view, in the sense that a lot of proposals were positive from our point of view. It also proves that there is a progressive momentum and the progressive majorities that emerge when you put together different

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actors, regardless of the limits of the processes. (Interview with Lorenzo Repetti, July 2022)

In terms of the specific functioning of the plenary, ‘citizen ambassadors’ were guided by the deliberative consortium members. However, the lack of coherence in the chairing of the working groups (described in Chapter 4) complicated their integration in the groups, as each chair gathered and discussed the input provided by its members (among which the ‘citizen ambassadors’) in a different way. Therefore, all members of the working groups, including ‘citizen ambassadors’, had to adapt to the particularities of their specific working groups, which poses normative questions in terms of the coherence and equality across the working groups. The antipolitical imaginary was strengthened by the marketing surrounding the participation of the ‘citizen ambassadors’ in the plenary session. Much of the European citizen panels were surrounded around a discourse on the ‘historical’ nature of this exercise, a sort of democratic revolution that for the first time situates citizens at the centre, thereby ‘closing the gap’ between EU citizens and EU institutions. This type of legitimation narrative is based on disintermediation. The logic is that by reaching out ‘directly’ to citizens; the EU is reducing the distance between the ‘Eurobubble’ and ‘average/everyday citizens’. This, however, reproduces the simplistic idea that this disconnection is fundamental and that mediators (trade unions, civil society and political parties…) are thus unnecessary. This delegitimises institutions and mediators that play an important role in the political debate. There are multiple implications from this process. The first is that this discourse situates in competition the ‘citizen ambassadors’ coming from the ECPs and traditional mediators. An obvious illustration of this happened in the Democracy Working Group in which ‘citizen ambassadors’ suggested that their proposals should be the only basis of discussion (representatives from the Council were quick to support this idea, as it would shield MEPs from making proposals such as introducing the competence of legislative initiative to the EP), arguing that “this is the only time we have the opportunity to provide input in our lives”, leaving aside traditional political actors. The ECP ‘citizen ambassadors’ that believe and mobilise this sort of discourse are primarily reproducing the narrative that EU institutions have been using to legitimise the CoFoE and the citizen panels.

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Ultimately, out of the 179 policy recommendations made by the citizen panels, many of them were picked up not only in the working groups but actually in the plenary session and were included as part of the approved report. In that sense, arguably “the citizens’ voice has been heard”. Yet in reality the voice that has been heard is that of the three leading EU institutions, as the citizen panels have mostly reproduced their ideas and proposals, as described in chapter 4 and will be picked up in chapter 6 on the CoFoE follow-up.

5

A Normative Critique of the European Citizen Panels: Isolated and Atomised Aggregation and an Individualised European Demoi

Beyond all the methodological questions discussed, the ECPs were problematic in the way in which EU institutions conceived of ‘citizens’, its relation to them and ‘citizen participation’ more broadly. As illustrated throughout the chapter, the underlying conception of ‘participation’ that institutions have when setting up the panels tends to be a highly depoliticised and disintermediated one. The deliberative bubble in which participants were set encouraged its isolation from ongoing political dynamics in other relevant spaces of the public sphere (e.g. national parliaments, the media, social movements) and the amount and size of the policy clusters to address made it impossible to foster democratic and quality collective deliberation. In the end, the sense was more of an exercise of aggregation of preferences, which fits well with the idea of a ‘wish list’ described earlier in the chapter, which contrasts with a collective democratic deliberation dynamics in which trade-offs are taken into account as well as a micro–macro link. It is an aggregative logic because participants were broadly asked to provide mostly their ‘individual’ input, as opposed to begin with a concrete dilemma to which the citizens aimed to find a collective answer for. There is no shortage of complications related to situating randomly selected citizens from across the EU together in a room to deliberate about the future of Europe, including language diversity or the (lack of) knowledge related to the EU. Interestingly, however, the technical issue of the lack of a common language was resolved efficiently through interpretation and arguably was one of the least problematic elements in the process.

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The depoliticised way in which the Citizen Panels took place encapsulates how the ‘European people’ is attempted to be ‘descriptively represented’ in a very limited way. The two hundred randomly selected citizens are meant to ‘represent’ the wider ‘European people(s)’, and it is precisely this ‘descriptive representation’ that gives legitimacy to the exercise. It is this presence of the absence of the European people what confers legitimacy, and the reason why EU leaders in the Conference defined the outcome of the citizens’ panel as the ‘citizens voice’. The design situated the participants in an insulated setting that is broadly disconnected from the social and political environment in which they are socialised. Their involvement in the Conference is designed to be conceived as separate from the ongoing political dynamics. A more democratic citizen assembly would develop in a way that connects the social life of participants with the political setting in which they are meant to deliberate (see also Pérez Montañés, 2022). The ‘neutrality’ frame of the panels was in fact a veil of the Common Secretariat’s influence in the way in which the substance of the panels was discussed. Through the selection of experts that were akin to their own institutional views yet framed as ‘neutral’, the exclusion of political mediators, the obsession with ‘protecting’ the participants from ‘undue’ influence and the legalistic understanding of deliberation, all elements contributed to depoliticising the process. To be sure, the critique is not that the citizen panels were not ‘neutral’ enough, but instead that ‘neutrality’ is an unattainable objective and we ought to problematise such claims. The panels were organised in a rather exclusive and insulated way that did not engage with ongoing political dynamics and suffered from a missing micro–macro connection. The panels were designed to be insulated from the broader public sphere and failed to connect the substance of the discussions with other meaningful spaces, such as national parliaments or the media. Thus, the European citizen panels followed the dominant technocratic ethos of EU policymaking, which explains why there were no political debates or context presented to participants, and why ‘experts’ were continuously asked for a fictional ‘neutrality’ that they themselves did not believe in. The imaginary upon which the ‘European people(s)’ is represented (via delegation) by ‘everyday citizens’ has the effect of individualising politics and disentangling democracy from mass politics. The disaggregation of the ‘people’ into ‘citizens’ facilitates a focus on the ‘individual’, as opposed to situating individuals within existing collective social and political cleavages. Additionally, ‘citizens’ by definition only include those

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individuals that have the citizenship of an EU member state, thus sidelining people affected by EU public policies even if not formally ‘EU citizens’. In this way, the ECPs tend to reproduce a very particular vision of the ‘everyday citizen’ in a democracy; a highly individualised one that is detached from collective action and social movements. This conception of the ‘citizen’ is central to critically analyse how the EU conceives of the demos or demoi, which follows a rather minimalist view of democracy. The EU appears to be looking for ‘ordinary citizens’ that should not be mediated by ‘elites’, and the emphasis and focus is on depoliticising the process of deliberation in order to avoid the ‘bias’ that political mediators may introduce. Through these mechanisms the idea is to generate ‘fact-based’ deliberation, based on ‘good’ information that focuses on micro conditions in a bubble-like setting. In the process, the ECPs created an artificial process disconnected from mediators and the public sphere. Against this background, it is necessary to reclaim a further connection between democratic innovations and the emerging transnational political field, a dimension developed in Chapters 7 And 8.

6

The Antipolitical Construction of the European Demoi in the European Citizens’ Panels

While the European citizen panels have been described as a way to ‘represent’ the ‘voice’ of European citizens in a direct and disintermediated way, the chapter has described the specific ways in which the citizen panels were organised. The panel dynamics and structure of deliberation were facilitated that the political aspect of the discussions would be downplayed, and therefore, deliberations sidelined potential systemic change proposals, something that is common in citizen assemblies (Mellier & Wilson, 2020). Furthermore, by design, there was no interaction between the different levels and spaces of deliberation. How to scale up minipublics to mass politics is a recurring issue of citizen assemblies, and a key element in this process is the involvement of mediators that have the capacity to put forward issues in the public sphere. Additionally, the functioning of the panels forced participants to adapt to the codes of EU institutions, rather than the other way around. This was particularly evident in the plenary session, where EU institutions’ representatives

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chaired the different working groups, and panel ambassadors had to heavily learn and operate with the EU institutions’ codes. From a broader perspective, framing the panels as “neutral” allowed them to deny their own institutional power to shape the substance of the panels. It is therefore the very conception of the panels that poses problems and perverts the logic of ‘citizen participation’ by translating it into a technocratic process. There is a sense of positivist principle in the organisation of the European citizen panels, following a ‘Habermasian’ perspective but in a minimalist way that closely resembles the depoliticised ideas of James Fishkin’s deliberative polling and that breaks away from the ‘deliberative system turn’ of the recent literature. It is in this way that the ‘European people’ were present in terms of the representative logic with which the panels were constructed, yet they were absent insofar the minimalist articulation of the different elements of the panels resembled the antipolitical imaginary described in Chapter 3. Therefore, the ‘European people’ were ‘descriptively represented’ by the 200 participants in each panel, yet the mechanisms fostered the antipolitical illusion that they were ‘beyond politics’. The emphasis on ‘neutrality’, ‘lack of bias’, the absence of political mediators and more generally depoliticisation meant that ideological conflict was downplayed and largely neutralised. The ECPs were a fascinating innovation by the EU in terms of citizen participation and deliberative democracy. However, a careful observation throughout the panels uncovered how the EU pre-existent depoliticised dynamics have been reproduced onto another mechanism. The innovation is thus relative: the underlying philosophy of ‘democracy without politics’ remained dominant.

Bibliography Bailly, J. (2023). The democratic quality of European Citizens’ panels (CEVIPOL Working Papers. 2023/1 (N° 1), pp. 2–35). https://www.cairn.info/revuecevipol-working-papers-2023-1-page-2.htm. Accessed 17 February 2023. Civil society Europe. (2022). Civil Dialogue in the EU—What’s next? Published on 12 December 2022. https://civilsocietyeurope.eu/civil-dialogue-in-theeu-whats-next/. Accessed 13 December 2022. Conference on the Future of Europe. (2022). Conference on the Future of Europe: Report on the final outcome. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/resources/ library/media/20220509RES29121/20220509RES29121.pdf. Accessed 25 July 2022.

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De Búrca, G. (2020). Reinvigorating democracy in the European Union: Lessons from Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly? In U. Belavusau & A. Gliszczynska-Grabias ´ (Eds.), Constitutionalism under stress: Essays in Honour of Wojciech Sadurski (pp. 127–148). Oxford University Press. Mellier, C., & Wilson, R. (2020). Getting climate citizens’ assemblies right. Carnegie Europe. https://carnegieeurope.eu/2020/11/05/getting-climatecitizens-assemblies-right-pub-83133. Accessed 4 August 2022. Pérez Montañés, G. (2022). Una oportunidad perdida para el marxismo clásico: Sorteo y democracia. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

CHAPTER 6

The Institutional ‘Success’ of the CoFoE via the ‘New Generation’ Citizen Panels: The European Commission Leads the Public-Private ‘Citizen Turn’

1

‘Citizen Participation’ after the CoFoE

The European Commission defined the Conference on the Future of Europe as “the biggest European participatory democracy exercise ever” (European Commission, 2022a). Interestingly, however, the most relevant outcome of the Conference is not one of policy substance, but one of process. The Conference has served as a way to mainstream the inclusion of citizen assemblies in EU policy-making, something that EU institutions were rather reluctant in the past. Instead, ‘citizen participation’ postCoFoE is currently in the EU bubble equivalent of ‘citizen assemblies’, and the idea of introducing citizens’ panels has been largely successful within the Commission, which has undertaken a big leap in this regard. The chapter describes how the post-CoFoE process has been marked by an attempt from EU institutions in general, but the EU Commission in particular, to not only ‘sell’ that the Conference was a ‘success’, but also reshape the public policy consultation processes. This involves an inter-institutional struggle taking place primarily between the European Parliament and the Commission, given the latter’s attempt to monopolise ‘citizen participation’ in the EU from a disintermediated perspective.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Oleart, Democracy Without Politics in EU Citizen Participation, Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38583-4_6

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Based on a document and discourse analysis of official documents and responses by EU institutions, as well as participant observation and semistructured interviews, the chapter develops the ‘lessons learnt’ and institutional follow-up to the CoFoE. Third, it describes the public-private institutionalisation of ‘citizen’ participation in the European Commission. Fourth, the chapter focuses on the EU inter-institutional struggle to ‘own’ citizen participation, with a particular emphasis on the Commission’s, 2023 work programme. Fifth, it analyses the first panel of the new generation of citizen panels on food waste, virtual worlds and learning mobility, which arguably is the most tangible outcome of the CoFoE. Next, the chapter argues that the ‘new generation’ citizen panels tend to turn ‘everyday citizens’ into EU ‘technocrats’ within the process, and aim to make them ‘ambassadors’ outside of it. The conclusion brings the different elements together, arguing that this type of citizen participation is not ideology-free, and that it mostly reproduces the ideology mobilised by the organising institution, the Commission.

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‘Lessons Learnt’ and Follow-Up of EU Institutions to the CoFoE

What lessons and takeaways did EU institutions take from the CoFoE experience? The immediate takeaway was the development of a new generation of citizen panels by the European Commission. In fact, Von der Leyen announced during the closing ceremony of CoFoE, on 9 May 2022, that “the Citizens’ panels have proven that this form of democracy works. It should become part of the way we make policy. I will propose to give Citizens Panels the time and resources to make recommendations before we present certain key legislative proposals”. The fact that the citizens’ panels will be set up “before we present certain key legislative proposals” is a first indication that by the time the ‘citizens’ will start the deliberation; the policy proposals will be already more or less constructed, which is likely to reduce the political space to propose alternatives. Section 5 in this chapter will address specifically the ‘new generation’ of European citizens’ panels. While the new citizen panels may lead to think that this is a radical change from traditional EU policy-making, in fact there is an overall coherence with the generally depoliticised EU political dynamics. This sort of political innovation does very little to expand the range of actors involved in EU politics, since the premise is precisely to engage

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a small group of ‘descriptively representative’ citizens in a deliberative and consensus-oriented way. For instance, the official final report of the Conference states that it has registered 53,530 participants in the online platform and counted 721,487 participants in 6,661 events (Conference on the Future of Europe, 2022). Considering that these numbers do not even reach the level of a successful ECI (1 million signatures), it can hardly be argued that the CoFoE has been a success from a public sphere perspective. This, however, did not stop EU institutions from framing the CoFoE as a ‘success’. I attended several post-CoFoE events organised from a ‘lessons learnt’ perspective.1 The first one was an evaluation meeting with observers organised by the CoFoE Secretariat at the European Commission premises, although most fellow observers joined online— only one other fellow observer and myself were present in-person. The event was illuminating, insofar it set the tone and argumentation with which EU institutions, and the EU Commission in particular, would defend and champion how the CoFoE took place during the next months. The discussion began with some opening remarks by a member of the Secretariat in which the CoFoE was understood to have been “a success”. In this way, “success” was the main frame under which the exchange with academic and practitioner observers took place, and which represents their own technocratic understanding of ‘success’: it is a success because, in spite of the inter-institutional struggles, the Common Secretariat managed to make it happen. In fact, some members of the Common Secretariat would occasionally define the Conference as a “miracle” that worked “against all expectations” given the repeated disagreements between the three EU institutions. In all the post-CoFoE events organised from a ‘lessons learnt’ perspective, methodological questions came to the fore (e.g. how the participants were selected, what was the role of the ‘neutral’ experts…), but two main issues kept coming up. First, the lack of organised civil society involvement—disintermediation. Second, the lack of ‘visibility’ of the CoFoE with the wider public—depoliticisation. EU

1 However, within EU institutions there is a lack of accountability regarding the reflec-

tion and evaluation of the CoFoE. In fact, the Democratic Society (Demsoc), the official evaluator of the CoFoE, delivered its report during the second semester of 2022. By September 2023, the official report by Demsoc was not yet publicly published. In the meantime, the first set of ‘new generation’ European citizens’ panels was organised by the Commission.

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institutions generally agreed on the diagnosis on those two accounts, but they had a tendency to be defensive on them. As it has been argued in Chapter 3, both issues are closely related to each other. Regarding the lack of civil society involvement, a member of the CoFoE Common Secretariat argued in several instances that “civil society was sceptical [of the European citizen panels of CoFoE] because they thought that they represent citizens”. The implicit point is that civil society does not ‘represent’ citizens in the way that citizen panel participants actually do. While certain civil society actors were certainly sceptical of these processes, it was not without reason: it was the CoFoE leadership, which included the three main EU institutions, who decided to sideline civil society actors. In a public meeting organised by civil society that counted with officials from the three main EU institutions in October 2022 to take stock of the CoFoE, several civil society actors made this point. They were met with defensiveness on the side of all three EU institutions, with a member that played a relevant role during the CoFoE as part of the Council side arguing that they wanted to maintain the “purity” of the citizens. There is a sense in this idea that EU institutions treat citizen participants as a sort of customer service: ‘listening’ to individual demands while avoiding a more structural approach that involves collective organisations. Second, the question of ‘visibility’ dominated much of the ‘lessons learnt’ discussions, given the absence of public debate on the future of Europe beyond the usual suspects. While acknowledging the lack of resonance, organisers of the CoFoE often blamed ‘the media’. For instance, one of the organisers argued that “the media does not understand the magic of deliberation. It’s like a miracle, but it does not go out of the room”. The discussion went as far as to suggest that a television series in ‘Arte’ or ‘Netflix’ would help to capture the dynamics and thus make it more understandable for the broader public. However, the lack of resonance is the logical consequence of not integrating the set of mediating actors (parties, trade unions and civil society organisations) that conform the infrastructure of the public sphere. Relatedly, it was suggested by a member of the Secretariat that the media was not only “lazy” when failing to adequately cover the Conference and the panels, but also that “human” stories could have attracted a broad public interest, hinting that the media could have given a wider platform to individual citizens participating in the panels. This not only goes against the protection of privacy of the participants in a mini public, but situates the media as a space of public

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relations for the Conference rather than a space of (agonistic) contestation that can feed the substance being discussed in it. This illustrates how some actors within EU institutions conceive ‘citizen participation’: as a way to improve the political reputation of the EU. The Commission perceived that most of the CoFoE proposals were in line with what they were already doing. Hence, the ‘problem’ might be less one of ‘substance’ than of ‘communication’. The idea that the Commission does not “communicate” well is relatively consensual (see Rauh, 2022), but it can also be deployed as an argument that distracts from substantive criticism and debate over its policies and its processes. In fact, arguably the lack of ‘visibility’ is a result of the disintermediated and depoliticised design (Oleart, 2023). A better “comms strategy” is not the same as conceiving citizen participation as another vector of encouraging a European public sphere. Even if EU institutions would make a strong investment on publicity via social media and traditional media, an increase in the visibility of the process would not imply a higher level of democratisation of the EU. Ultimately, it is not only about ‘visibility’ or ‘comms strategies’, but about mass politics and the public sphere. Thus, while EU institutions complained about the lack of ‘visibility’ and awareness, it is a logical consequence of the technocratic design and depoliticised conception of ‘citizen participation’—an exercise of ‘democracy without politics’. To be sure, there has been some meaningful follow-up to the CoFoE. Most notably, on 9 June 2022, only one month after the CoFoE official conclusion, the European Parliament adopted a plenary resolution that called on the European Council to kick off an open process to amend the EU Treaties, in accordance with article 48. The EP’s ambitious resolution included the right of legislative initiative for the EP, the abolition of veto powers in the Council and the strengthening of the European Pillar of Social Rights, among other things (EP, 2022). However, the same day of the closing CoFoE ceremony, on 9 May 2022, a group of 13 member state governments2 had published a non-paper stating that “Treaty change has never been a purpose of the Conference”. Even though a group of 6 member states3 responded four days later, on 13

2 Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden. 3 Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.

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May 2022, with another non-paper stressing that they were “in principle open” to consider Treaty change, it appears evident that at the moment a Convention is not on the table. In this way, the CoFoE follow-up has been (also) characterised by intra (in the Council between different member states) and inter-institutional struggles (primarily between the Council and the EP). Lorenzo Repetti, a representative of ETUC, suggested the following: we feel that the conference conclusions were very positive (…) the real battle is on the follow up of the conference, and to make sure that the conference conclusions are adequately followed up by the European institutions. And what we see is that the parliament is taking this quite seriously but, unfortunately, the Commission and the Council follow-up is quite weak and insufficient, focusing really on what was already already in the pipeline, rather than on the necessary changes and new initiatives, and also on Treaty changes. (Interview with Lorenzo Repetti, ETUC, July 2022)

Thus, the CoFoE has been a ‘success’ from the institutional standpoint, insofar there are ongoing mechanisms to increasingly embed citizen panels in the Commission’s policy-making. However, ‘success’ can be defined in multiple ways given that the CoFoE Secretariat did not situate a set of normative goals developed to assess and evaluate it beforehand. Instead, it is the institutions task to ‘translate’ the ‘citizen voices’ into something meaningful. This ambiguity of purpose when undertaking such exercises facilitates its cooptation. ‘Success’ is defined ex-post, and institutions are likely to use the most convenient definition of ‘success’. For instance, if ‘success’ would be defined in terms of the increase of salience and quality of public discourse on European politics in the public sphere, the CoFoE should be considered a failure. However, conveniently, the European Commission is defining ‘success’ as specific policy follow-up and the integration of citizen panels in its policy-making in what constitutes a cherry-picked and mainly technocratic definition of ‘success’. The next sections will further develop this perspective by analysing the specific ways in which the EU (and particularly the Commission) is following up on the CoFoE, as well as the underlying ideology that is being reproduced in these processes.

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The Public-Private Institutionalisation of ‘Citizen Participation’: Internal Advocacy to Embed Processes across the European Commission

The ‘citizen turn’ is also in the process of institutionalisation. The European Commission announced on 6 October 2021 the launch of a “new centre for designing policies with citizens, for citizens”, the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy, integrated within the Joint Research Centre (JRC). This centre is meant to enrich the EU knowledge base on participatory and deliberative practices, provide guidance for researchers and policy-makers, build capacity on methodologies, develop spaces for citizen engagement and experiment with new methodologies. The centre plays an important symbolic and political role insofar it implies the institutionalisation of the ‘expertise’ on ‘participatory and deliberative democracy’. The centre’s main goal that “is that every policy file departs with the question of how can we engage citizens in this policy”. The new centre and the quick organisation of the ‘new generation’ of European citizens’ panels can be conceived as a way to use the CoFoE ‘momentum’ to advocate internally for ‘citizen participation’ processes to be embedded across as many DGs as possible within the Commission (for similar findings, see Demidov et al., 2023: 7). As most Commission officials did not take part of the CoFoE, transferring ‘participatory’ knowledge and enthusiasm was perceived as a priority. The idea is to socialise EU civil servants with participatory processes in order to convince them that such mechanisms increase the efficiency and quality of legislation, and contribute to an evidence-based policy-making. Ultimately, the hope is that this will trigger a ‘culture change’ within the Commission. This is an interesting development insofar it implies the institutionalisation of the ‘expertise’ on ‘participatory and deliberative democracy’ post-CoFoE and hints that further democratic innovations from a ‘citizen-centred’ perspective are likely to emerge in the EU’s near future and largely driven by the European Commission. In fact, Commission President Von der Leyen announced that the “Citizens’ Panels that were central to the Conference will now become a regular feature of our democratic life” (European Commission, 2022a) during her 2022 State of the Union address. In this way, the European Commission seems to be in

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a process of complementing public consultations and other stakeholderled approaches with ‘direct’ citizen participation experiments—a sort of extension of stakeholder consultations. While the participatory turn provided legitimacy from a throughput perspective, providing expertise and knowledge, it did not meaningfully contribute to construct a European public sphere and input legitimacy beyond the Brussels bubble. In other words, the participatory turn produced knowledge and expertise to EU institutions and the European Commission in particular, but little input legitimacy. The citizen panels can be seen as the outcome of this diagnosis by policy-makers, replacing the ‘public sphere’ with a ‘minipublic’ that is supposed to ‘represent European citizens’. Relatedly, inspired by the CoFoE digital platform, the Commission plans to construct an online participatory ‘one stop shop’ that would build on the already existing ‘Have Your Say’ that will encompass the different instruments through which citizens can influence the Commission’s policy-making: public consultations, the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) and the new citizen engagement mechanisms (such as the citizens’ panels). The Centre on participatory and deliberative democracy was the main organiser of the 4th Public Participation and Deliberative Democracy Festival, organised as a hybrid event on 20–21 October 2022. I attended the Festival in-person at the building of the JRC in Brussels. One of the main topics of discussion was the Conference on the Future of Europe, and many actors involved in the CoFoE were present. One of the initial panels of the Festival was the “lessons learnt and next steps” of CoFoE, moderated by Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul (deputy head of Unit DG Communication and member of CoFoE Secretariat) and featuring Colin Scicluna (Head of Cabinet of Vice-President Šuica), Pia Ahrenkilde (DirectorGeneral of DG Communication), Nicolas and Valentina (both participants of the CoFoE citizen panels). The panel was broadly positive towards the CoFoE, and Pia Ahrenkilde, defined it as a ‘quantum leap’ of the EU in relation to citizen participation, yet stressing that many initiatives were previously taken in that direction (in line with Chapter 3). However, Nicolas raised the issue of ‘visibility’ and ‘communication’, arguing that people in his country (the Czech Republic) with whom he was in touch had not heard of the CoFoE at all. Confronted with this critique, Pia Ahrenkilde acknowledged that “communication, that was a challenge. We have to be better at promoting, communicate differently. We have to work not only with the media but also with influencers”. The panel

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illustrates the way in which citizen participation is conceived by the European Commission. Driven by DG Communication, the main focus is on the micro-level (the citizen panel) and the connection to the macro-level (feeding a pan-European debate) is done primarily through a public relations perspective. Thus, no feedback loop between the micro and the macro is envisaged, hence the focus on “working with influencers”. Additionally, the Festival also served as a space of lobbying by the consultancies that are aiming to win contracts as organisers of the EU’s ‘citizen participation’ exercises. An illustrative example was a demonstration organised by Missions Publiques in which they presented a set of virtual reality glasses through which ‘citizen deliberation’ would take place.4 This process can be viewed as the externalisation of citizen participation through private consultancies. The European Commission is opening opportunities for a set of new private actors in search of public contracts, and new consultancies of ‘citizen participation’ seem to be emerging. This type of public-private partnerships are nothing new (see Vauchez & France, 2021 for the case of France), but pose normative questions. Reflecting on this trend and in relation to the civil society role in the context of the CoFoE, Elisa Lironi, the Programme Director for European Democracy at ECAS argued the following: I also had some discussions with some civil society in the (Civil Society) Convention, because they were telling me there’s no role for civil society. But my answer to them was like, in reality, the conference in the future of Europe was never meant for civil society. It was always meant for citizens’ direct participation, which I don’t find at all a problem (…) what I regret is that civil society was not consulted, for example, in the process methodology. I think that civil society, in some ways is better than, for example, private consultancies, who are doing it for profit, while civil society really believes in making things work as its own mission. And we’ve done so many of these participatory democracy activities in the past. (Interview with Elisa Lironi, June 2022)

4 A few months later, the European Commission organised a citizen panel on ‘virtual worlds’ led by Missions Publiques.

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4 4.1

Inter-institutional Competition to ‘Own’ Citizen Participation at the EU Level The Clash Between Parliament and Commission to Lead EU ‘Citizen Participation’

The emergence of ‘citizen participation’ as a key dimension of EU democracy leads to a fundamental inter-institutional question: which institution(s) should be driving these processes? There are multiple ways of how citizen assemblies may be embedded in policy-making, and they can be related to the executive (governments) or legislative (parliaments) spaces. At the EU level this is more complicated, since there is no such thing as an EU ‘government’, and the parliament has less powers than most parliaments, such as missing the right to initiate legislation. However, as it happened throughout the CoFoE, the competition between EU actors to ‘own’ citizen participation at the EU level has increased its salience. Shortly after the end of the CoFoE, led by a Secretariat composed of officials from the three main EU institutions, MEP Domènec Ruiz Devesa attempted to launch a pilot project on citizen panels. Entitled the ‘Big Tent’ fora, this pilot project aimed at identifying the EU’s potential strategic priorities ahead of the 2024 European elections, in such a way that a set of key challenges and priorities are identified for the next EU political and policy-making cycle (2024–2029). In practice, the pilot project’s proposal was to bring together around 200–300 participants, a combination of sortition-based selection and a diverse group of elected representatives. Such complementarity between the participatory and representative democracy perspectives would be also complemented by the development of synergies with existing political spaces of the multilevel EU polity. The ‘Big Tent’ fora would be led by a chair that is co-designated by the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission, and a final report would summarise the process and the recommendations made. Eventually, the project would evolve towards a yearly exercise held in different European cities in order to set the priorities for the next year. Broadly, the ‘Big Tent’ fora project would largely follow the basis of the CoFoE in terms of fostering the cooperation between the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission, and combining random selection with elected representatives.

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However, the Commission denied the possibility of providing the budget for such a project on the grounds that its content was already covered by initiatives led by them. This reflects the emerging competition between EU institutions to ‘own’ citizen participation in the EU, as well as the depoliticised perspective with which the Commission sees ‘citizen participation’. It appears the Commission does not want ‘political’ actors involved, as it would break the anti-political imaginary upon which it is constructed. An EP official involved in the CoFoE as part of a political group argued in an interview (January 2023) that “I guess that the Commission sees citizens’ participation as a way to maybe gain a little bit of leverage vis-à-vis the Parliament, because it feels like the Commission is missing that sense of legitimacy”. To be sure, within the EP there is not a wide consensus on the role of citizens’ assemblies, as several MEPs opposed the idea of integrating citizens’ ambassadors in the CoFoE plenary sessions, and some of its members were actively advocating against the idea of citizens’ panels. For instance, Rainer Wieland, Vice-President of the EP and member of the German centre-right party CDU, argued the following: “I recommend you perform five different random assembly processes in the same country on the same topic and I ensure you will receive five different results. You will always get the result depending on who is organizing them and who chooses the experts, participants etc.” (quoted in Berg, 2022: 4). Nonetheless, the CoFoE has contributed to normalise the idea of citizens’ panels within the EP. In fact, the EP adopted the report “Parliamentarism, European citizenship and democracy” with a broad parliamentary majority in September 2023. The resolution included “the institutionalisation of representative deliberative participation processes based on the model of the CoFE’s European Citizens Panels” (European Parliament, 2023). However, while the EP is approving reports on citizen participation, the Commission is already organising them. Thus, increasingly, in the EU context ‘citizen participation’ is attached to the idea of sortition-based exercises. The more this type of ‘citizen participation’ is accepted as a generally positive development of EU politics, the more institutions are likely to compete to take part in the process. Initially the CoFoE was meant to be led by the EP—yet in the end it was co-led by 3 EU institutions. However, the post-CoFoE process has been overwhelmingly led by the European Commission. In practical terms, the challenges in the context of the CoFoE were closely related to the fact that the three EU institutions had to continuously agree on a way

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forward. In this sense, the organisation of the citizen panels by the executive institution, the Commission, certainly has practical advantages. This is particularly important for the deliberative consortium; a set of organisations that can discuss and negotiate uniquely with one institution rather than with three, each of which has its own views in terms of the way in which they would like citizen panels to be set up. However, as the ‘new generation’ citizen panels have already demonstrated, the Commission’s understanding of citizen participation is heavily technocratic and has little interest in politicising the panels in order to expand the public debate and contribute to the Europeanisation of public spheres. The monopolisation of ‘citizen participation’ understood as ‘citizen panels’ by the European Commission fits with its own understanding of being a ‘non-political’ institution (Oleart & Theuns, 2022) that drafts ‘policies’ but is not involved in ‘politics’ (Schmidt, 2019). In this way, the anti-political imaginary of ‘citizen participation’ is reinforced, while the Commission attempts to appropriate the legitimacy capital that is collected via ‘citizen participation’. An interesting example of this process is the European Commission’s 2023 work programme, which strongly included the Conference on the Future of Europe as part of its justification. In fact, one of the main points in the programme is “Putting citizens at the heart of European democracy”. Throughout the 14 page document, there is one single reference to ‘civil society’ in contrast to 15 references to ‘citizens’ (European Commission, 2022b). Additionally, there is a conscious attempt by the European Commission to frame its work programme of 2023 as a ‘response’ to the CoFoE, both in terms of its policies as well as its practices. In successive public events, European Commission officials claimed that most of its 2023 work programme is coming from the CoFoE final report (which mostly indicates that the majority of policy issues were already on the Commission’s table beforehand), and quickly kicked off a new generation of citizen panels, focused on food waste, virtual worlds and learning mobility. The speed with which the new generation of panels has emerged poses question as to the (lack of) reflection of EU institutions in relation to the CoFoE. Only six months after the CoFoE had finished, the first citizen panel on food waste started. Additionally, the choice of the policy topic for the new generation of citizen panels was not only untransparent, but also confusing. In several public events during September 2022, European Commission officials announced that the three topics would be food

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waste, mental health5 and virtual worlds. However, eventually the topic of mental health (explicitly mentioned by Von der Leyen in the 2022 State of the Union address) was replaced by ‘learning mobility’ during the presentation of the 2023 work programme. The process of bureaucratisation of ‘citizen participation’ and the quick timing with which it is integrated at the EU level by the European Commissions complicates the possibility of (re)thinking and reflecting upon the citizen panels. 4.2

The CoFoE Feedback Event and the Commission’s ‘Global Leadership’: Public Relations over Contestation in the Public Sphere

“I spent many years of my professional career as Commission spokesman. One thing for me is very clear. It is good policy that leads to good communication. Never good communication can be a substitute for bad policy”. With these words, Margaritis Schinas, European Commission VP, concluded the CoFoE feedback event on Friday 2 December 2022. Inadvertently, Schinas’ words are helpful to make sense of the way in which EU institutions organised this final event. Throughout the CoFoE feedback event there was a sense of solemnity6 that appeared to be a mismatch from the perceived relevance of the Conference for the future of EU integration given by EU institutions themselves: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, initially scheduled to participate, pulled out of the event, although three Commission Vice-Presidents participated: Dubravka Šuica, Maroš Šefˇcoviˇc and Margaritis Schinas. As for the Council representative, rather than the Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala (the Czech Republic was holding the Council Presidency at the time), it was the Czech Minister of EU Affairs, Mikuláš Bek, who represented the institution. The only top official that participated in the feedback event was Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, although her presence was brief: Metsola participated in the opening of the event during the morning and later it was 5 In fact, mental health was specifically mentioned in von der Leyen’s 2022 State of the Union ((European Commission, 2022c: 18), even though it eventually disappeared. 6 The spirit was similar to the closing event of the CoFoE on 9 May 2022, where a group of interpretive dancers performed in the EP. This exercise illustrates the energy of the CoFoE, anchored in a performative and depoliticised understanding of ‘democracy’, conceptualised as ‘democracy without politics’.

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a rolling group of MEPs that participated, led by Guy Verhofstadt, who intervened in the plenary sessions of both the morning and afternoon. Overall the feedback event was primarily a one-sided event in which representatives of EU institutions attempted to convince European citizen panel participants and other CoFoE plenary members that they have already taken into account most of the recommendations that came out of the CoFoE. In this process, however, the deep conflicts that were present throughout the CoFoE, primarily between the European Parliament and the Council, became public. Whereas the European Parliament, and particularly Guy Verhofstadt, emphasised that it was important to kick off a Convention that would potentially revise the Treaties, the Council, represented by Mikuláš Bek, argued that this is not the right ‘timing’ for such a process—there are too many “crises”. Bek, emphasising that he does not speak for himself but instead as the representative of the 27 EU member states, suggested that there was no consensus in the Council to launch a Convention. In this way, the outcome of the CoFoE and the feedback event mirrored in many ways how the process and governance of the Conference was put forward. A similar observation was made by Perle Petit (2022): A cacophony of institutional voices and confusingly vague messages about what has or will come of citizens’ input can further alienate people from their European leaders, defeating the purpose of the entire exercise. EU institutions must quickly internalise these lessons if the upcoming panels envisioned by the Commissions are to add any value to the EU’s democratic governance reform effort.

The main focus of the institutions when attempting to sell that they have taken into account the discussions of the CoFoE was twofold. First, the ‘policy follow up’, representatives from the Commission repeated that 80% of their 2023 work programme was based on the CoFoE. Second, the new generation of panels was also framed as a direct outcome of the CoFoE. Hence, the EU institutions were responsive to the CoFoE both in terms of policy and processes of citizen participation. On the first account, as Colin Scicluna (chief of staff to Commissioner Dubravka Šuica) had emphasised in previous public events, Commissioner Šuica argued that the Commission had been so responsive to the CoFoE outcome that only two days after the official concluding event (9 May 2022); on 11 May 2022, the Commission had launched “a European

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strategy for a better internet for kids (BIK+)”. This proposal was, in the eyes of the Commission, closely aligned with one of the CoFoE recommendations. This is an example of cherry-picking the most convenient proposals that were aligned with what they were planning beforehand and making an ex-post connection. Thus, while this line of argument oriented in a ‘policy responsive’ perspective may seem impressive—putting forward an official Commission policy only two days (!) after the delivery of the recommendations—the overwhelming emphasis of the feedback on ‘policy follow up’ obscures the lacunae of the process. The fact that many of the CoFoE recommendations were broadly aligned with what the Commission was doing indicates that there was not much space for counter-hegemonic ideas and actors in the process. The European Commission is also attempting to situate itself as one of the leading actors in fostering citizens’ assemblies globally. Ahead of the second Summit for Democracy, which took place on 29–30 March 2023, the Cohort on Deliberative Democracy and Citizens’ Assemblies integrated in the summit was launched on 17 January 2023. During the launch, one of the flagship speakers was European Commission VP Dubravka Šuica, who argued that “I am very proud that we are the first executive body anywhere in the world to have introduced these methods to our mainstream work. Leading by doing” (European Commission, 2023a). Overall, this type of ‘citizen participation’, illustrated by the feedback event, is not particularly threatening to EU institutions and the status quo. An anecdote during the concluding session of the CoFoE feedback event on Friday 2 December 2022 is illustrative. After the citizen participants made a series of questions to representatives of the three EU institutions, the organisers of the event introduced a parenthesis in which the three officials would symbolically deliver a “certificate of participation” to three citizen participants. The symbolic “thank you for your participation” can be seen as a way of infantilising ‘citizen participation’, in which EU institutions position themselves in the dominant position and see ‘citizens’ as a way to ‘spread the message’ of what the EU is doing. Hence, ‘citizen participation’ is viewed to a certain extent as a public relations exercise that leaves little room for contestation.

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5 The ‘New Generation’ of European Citizens’ Panels Organised by the European Commission The new generation of citizen panels post-CoFoE is led by the European Commission, who attempted to ‘embed’ participatory democracy within their our own policy-making, following the methodology of the CoFoE’s citizen panels.7 I observed the three panels, dedicated to the narrower topics of ‘food waste’, ‘virtual worlds’ and ‘learning mobility’ (Table 1). How were the topics of the first ‘new generation’ panels selected? Based on conversations with actors involved in the organisation of the panels, the topics were pragmatically chosen on the basis of (1) the handful of ongoing policy dossiers that were advanced enough to integrate input from a panel and (2) topics that were not perceived as controversial.8 Furthermore, the policy dossiers had to be located within DGs that were open to this type of processes, and thus internal advocacy to promote ‘citizen participation’ across the Commission was an important factor. Thus, pragmatism was at the core of the decision to hold the panels so quickly after the end of the CoFoE. There was a sense, within the European Table 1 Dates of the three sessions of the three ‘new generation’ of European Citizens’ panels Topic of the panel

Session 1 (Brussels)

Session 2 (online)

Session 3 (Brussels)

Food waste

16–18 December 2022 24–26 February 2023 3–5 March 2023

20–22 January 2023

10–12 February 2023 21–23 April 2023 28–30 April 2023

Virtual worlds Learning mobility

10–12 March 2023 24–26 March 2023

7 The fact that session 2 was organised online is an illustration of the copy-paste dynamics. During the CoFoE ECPs, there were legal difficulties to organise sessions in-person due to the national regulations put in place to counter the Covid-19 pandemic. Pragmatically, this resulted in organising the second session online. By the time, the ‘new generation’ ECPs were organised; the legal impediments were no longer there. However, the Commission replicated the same model. 8 This applies mostly to the topics of ‘food waste’ and ‘learning mobility’. The ‘virtual worlds’ panel was also pushed by Missions Publiques, who had previous experience on working on the topic of internet governance and was particularly keen on this subject.

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Commission, that if this step was not taken quickly, the momentum for integrating citizen participation might be lost, and the new President of the Commission in 2024 might not be supportive of citizen panels. Given the political sensitivities that might arise by the time of the 2024 elections, as well as the ongoing policy files, Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul explained the process: For the first choices [of topics for the citizens’ panels], since there was not yet a process into place, the decisions were done a bit in a rush. (...) In all cases of course, this was done through a dialogue with the DGs, but now we want to transform this, anticipating more and talking with the DGs earlier to see if there is one specific proposal that would be very adapted to this kind of format and check the timeline. We are entering a phase where this might be difficult because this is an election year, meaning there will be less legislative proposals. But now we have put an interservice group in place and we will be in a position to better anticipate. On whether we could/should pick more “difficult” topic, why not? It will be a combination of factors leading to the decisions (interest of the topic, timing, engagement of the policy DG, etc.). But let’s not forget that the Commission defends the European interest. So normally the culture is more to try to bring consensus. So again the confrontational model based on party/ideological divides may not be the best reference, but I don’t know, let’s see how it evolves. (Interview with Gaëtane RicardNihoul, March 2023)

In terms of the organisation of the ‘new generation’ panels, to a large extent reproduced the European citizen panels’ model described in Chapter 5: three weekends, the first and third taking place in person in Brussels and the second online; a mostly deductive logic from a more informative first session towards specific recommendations; experts playing a prominent role in the first session, fact-checkers available during the smaller working groups. However, there were a number of differences. First, the number of citizens slightly changed, from 200 to a reduced 150 participants.9 Interestingly, there was an important difference in the virtual worlds panel, as it included also a Ukrainian citizen. Since the panel started on 24 February 2023, exactly a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Commission invited a group of five Ukrainian women to 9 In the end, the ‘food waste’, ‘virtual worlds’ and ‘learning mobility’ panels had 142, 143 and 144 participants, respectively.

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participate during the first day of the panel to talk about their personal experiences. The organisers invited all five women to be participants in the panel, although only one of them accepted. The inclusion of a Ukrainian woman (who resided in France) in the panel was meant as a powerful political message—Ukraine is also part of the EU family—and she was also chosen during the final session as the spokesperson of the group in which she participated to present the group recommendations. However, it also raised some political and methodological questions. In addition to the fact that she was not sampled through random selection, if citizens from beyond the EU are to be invited, why not also citizens from other EU candidate countries? Why not refugees coming from the north of Africa or the Middle East? Furthermore, if the panels are going to be more explicitly politically constructed, why not ensure a more economically and racially diverse panel,10 considering the low representation of low-income and racialised social groups? Second, unlike in the CoFoE, the citizen panel set up a ‘knowledge committee’ that would be in charge of coordinating the input provided to the participants, including the selection of experts. However, a backdrop of this way of functioning is that the ‘knowledge committee’ was set up by the Commission itself. This means that the same executive institution that is running the policy and the panel is also deciding who ought to provide input—most notably, the ‘information kit’, a short document that summarised the issue under discussion. Additionally, the very idea of a ‘knowledge’ committee, rather than a political one, hints towards a bureacratisation of the exercise. Accordingly, in the food waste panel’s ‘knowledge committee’ there were no partisan actors, and was composed by a European Commission representative from DG SANTE, two academics, a French government representative from the ministry of agriculture and a member of the European Food Information Council (EUFIC), a “consumer-oriented non-profit organisation”. Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul expanded on the logic behind the construction of the ‘knowledge committee’ in the post-CoFoE panels: 10 While a full-fledged sociology of panel participants is beyond the scope of the book, there are indications that the panels attracted people with close links to the subjects of discussion. For instance, in the CoFoE panel on ‘democracy’, one of the panelists was Jerónimo Sánchez Blanco, a former Spanish MP during the first post-Francois legislature. Similarly, in the ‘virtual worlds’ panel, during a subgroup discussion one of the participants had a long experience in working for tech companies and claimed to have been “involved in the creation of the internet”.

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there is a logic and a long discussion behind the knowledge Committee, which was partly a discussion between me and the deliberation team. Now we are telling people, “this is embedded in policy-making”. So what does it mean? It means that the policy DGs have to use this to write the proposal, so they have to feel that they own this. So this is a factor that needs to be taken into account. So when there was this discussion about whether the knowledge committee should include someone from the Commission, my take on that is, yes, it should, because there is knowledge inside the Commission. And this knowledge has a value, not more than the knowledge of the external experts of course but not less either. (…) The fact that the Commission is involved is a good thing for me, it shouldn’t be seen as “they (Commission) are trying to influence the process”. No. They are entering a dialogue with citizens who have completely fresh and different views. (…) I really would like that we find a model that is considered sufficiently solid in terms of methodology in which we don’t, of course, give the impression that we’re taking the citizens in the direction we want, but at the same time, give a space for the Commission so that finally it has an impact on policy-making. It’s a very fine line there but we should be able to find some balance. (Interview with Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, March 2023)

However, in practice, the knowledge committee set up by the Commission and the overall organisation of the panels reinforced the Commission’s technocratic dynamics rather than challenging them. Furthermore, the mandate of the committee in terms of their control over the panels and their tasks were never clarified, and the power sharing arrangement between the Commission, the knowledge committee and the deliberative consortium remained blurry. The main difference in the first new generation panel with the CoFoE citizen panels was the scope of the substance of the discussions: whereas the citizen panels in the CoFoE were very wide in scope, the thematic focus of the panels was narrower. Nicolás Palomo Hernández, who was part of the staff as a note-taker in the virtual worlds panel, emphasised the closely guided and managerial process that left little margin of manoeuvre to challenge the pre-existing political views and technocratic codes of the Commission: The managerial approach is very present in the organisation [of the panels]: the overall impression is that there is a “checklist” with a series of requirements to be fulfilled and that there is a brutal command to present concrete results to the Commission. The perception is that the recommendations are very much

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on track from the beginning and that they are very much in line with the work that the Commission is already doing. Everything was very scripted from the start: there was little room for spontaneity. There was a lot of discussion and debate in the working groups during the first two sessions that is neither channelled nor translated into concrete recommendations. The transition from values [session 1] to action points [session 2] and to concrete recommendations [session 3] is very much rushed. The organisers put a lot of pressure on the citizens to come up with concrete recommendations. Each working group is assigned a specific topic on which they are meant to develop one or two recommendations. Often, participants in the working groups are not particularly interested in the topic they have been assigned to. The feedback between the groups was insufficient. Citizens are not aware of most groups’ recommendations until the day they are approved. In consequence, some of them are very similar or even identical.11 In the final plenary citizens can ask questions about the recommendations, but are encouraged not to give their opinion on them. (Interview with Nicolás Palomo Hernández, April 2023, emphasis added)

5.1

The Corporate Framing of ‘Food Waste’ and ‘Virtual Worlds’

During the first day of the food waste panel, the 150 participants took part in a plenary session in which the representatives from the European Commission presented the task of the citizen panel as well as the topic. The citizen panel as a whole was jointly organised by DG COMM (responsible for citizen engagement) and DG SANTE (responsible for the specific policy initiative under discussion). Accordingly, the panel was first introduced by Pia Ahrenkilde, the Director-General DG COMM, followed by a pre-recorded video by Dubravca Šuica, Commissioner of Democracy and in charge of the CoFoE, and Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety. Then, Gaétane Ricard-Nihoul explained the EU policy-making process and how the panel was a direct follow-up from the European citizen panels of the CoFoE. Last in the introductory session, the policy scope for which the citizen panel was called was presented by Anne-Laure Gassin, Deputy Director-General of DG SANTE. Gassin outlined the work that the Commission has undertaken at EU level on food waste and the state of the timing of the process, 11 Commission officials expressed that this was in fact a positive development, given that it would confirm that the panel is representative because they are reaching the same conclusions in different groups.

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given that the Commission had already undertaken two public consultations on the issue and was waiting for the publication of the impact assessment. Gassin assured the participants that the recommendations of the citizen panel would be published in the policy file and would be taken into account when drafting the final version of the proposal. The second and last part of the first day of the first session was the most crucial, and it also differed from the CoFoE citizen panels. It was a ‘debate’ among ‘stakeholders’ in the policy file; a selection of people that was made by the ‘knowledge committee’. The ‘debate’, organised as a series of five minutes ‘mini-lectures’, was overwhelmingly dominated by an individualistic and consumerist logic when discussing food waste. Out of the six persons providing input to the debate, one represented Copa Cogeca (representing farmers), another large food distributors (Colruyt), a member of the French Ministry of Agriculture, an academic (Toine Timmermans) and three NGOs. However, two of the three ‘NGOs’ present in the debate, coming from European Food Information Council (EUFIC) and the European Food banks federation (two organisations that have close links to the private sector), suggested to participants to do ‘shopping lists’ when going to the grocery store and ‘volunteer for food banks’. The remaining NGO representative came from the International Food Waste Coalition. The interesting aspect was not only who was present, but also who was absent. A month prior to the start of the food waste citizen panel, in November 2022, a coalition of 48 NGOs put forward a joint statement on the specific policy file of food waste, calling for legally binding targets from farm to fork (Feedback EU, 2022). When asked about this, organisers argued that there were two persons that cancelled last minute, one from a manufacturing company and another from WWF; an organisation that had signed the mentioned statement. The absence of a systemic perspective on food waste (one that would avoid taking an individualist viewpoint) is highly problematic, since that dramatically reduced political pluralism. The framing of the debate strongly encouraged discussion related to how individually citizens can make a difference. When ending the first of three sessions of the panel, the moderators recommended the participants three things, all of which were shown on screen. First, to write down a ‘food waste diary’, noting down the food thrown away, how much of it, why and how to avoid it next time. Second, to make a weekly meal plan. Third, to make a grocery list when going to the store. The message is

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clear: food waste is about individual choices made by consumers. Participants’ task appears to be mostly to acknowledge their own individual role in the wasting food—corporate actors would not have better framed the issue for their own private interests. In accordance with the CoFoE European citizens’ panels, the second session of the food waste panel was primarily focused in deliberations within 12 working groups, each of which focused on one of the three ‘topic blocks’. The three topic blocks, themselves constructed on the basis of the deliberations undertaken during the first session, were the following: (1) “Cooperation in the food value chain: From farm to fork”, (2) “Food business initiatives” and (3) “Supporting consumer behavioural change”. Interestingly, the three topic blocks resemble very closely the three range of actions included in the Inception Impact Assessment that the European Commission ran in October 2021 (see European Commission, n.d.), which indicates that the substance of the panel was largely in accordance with the way in which the Commission framed it and was planning to legislate on it. One of the participants described in an interview the experience throughout the food waste panel and explained the perceived (lack of) guidance provided by the organisation, given that, on the one hand, the exercise is left wide open, while on the other hand it is narrowed down without much transparency about the way in which this process was done. Kirsty argued that one of my main frustrations is that we’re not being told clearly what our role is in advance of each session. And for me that that means that we’re not working efficiently. I couldn’t believe how much useless repetition there was. Everyone was coming up with the idea of an app. Citizens using apps, I mean, come on, these exist already. And I just got really frustrated because we were given no guidance in advance about the parameters of what we are meant to be doing. By trying to figure out what would be possible for the EU to do in practice, we were putting our own handcuffs on, basically. So we kind of self limited in my group. And I think all of the groups probably did this. That meant that rather than widening things up, we narrowed them down. I don’t feel, as a participant, that I’ve got the whole picture. So I don’t know how much of this is part of the design, or how much of it is self imposed, or how much is linked to the moderator in each group. (Interview with Kirsty, January 2023)

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As it was the case during the second session of the CoFoE panels, the online dimension did not help to foster political debate. In the words of Rasmus, another participant of the food waste panel, in this online format, you really don’t have the energy to intervene, you also don’t have the social cues that can signal to another person that we should move on. So it was it was much, much harder. There were some people monopolising the scene more. And then perhaps it also correlated with with this kind of discussion about the wording or phrasing instead of more political issues, which indeed, I felt like there was lack of as well. (…) I think it’s also the fact that the second time around [the online session], well, it wasn’t even really the time to get political anymore because the direction we were taking was path dependent from the first session. I think there was definitely not zero space [to contest ideas or bring new ones]. But yes, the online format made it more difficult. (Interview with Rasmus, January 2023)

The third session of the food waste panel had several innovations in regard to the CoFoE panels, even though the underlying philosophy was the same. On Friday (10 February 2023), the participants took part of a plenary session with three experts, two of which had been very active throughout the panel, Toine Timmermans and Maïwenn L’Hoir. The third one, Anja de Cunto, from Eurocities (and also a member of the EU expert group for the legislative framework of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy), provided participants with several examples of what cities are doing to prevent food waste. Several participants complained about not hearing from Anja de Cunto earlier, as they would have liked to have known beforehand the examples she mentioned. The three speakers gave their views on the ideas built by the participants during the first two sessions, after which there was space for a short back-and-forth, where several participants not only asked questions, but also criticised the process. One of the participants suggested that the panel should be looking more at the systemic level rather than focusing uniquely at the individual level; and another intervention suggested that the panel omitted the ongoing power relations in the food value chain, namely the role of retailers. After this first plenary session, the participants gathered in three sub-plenaries, each dedicated to a different ‘topic block’. The Saturday of the final session resembled the CoFoE panels, with a tight focus within each of the 12 working groups to develop and finalise two recommendations. Unlike in the CoFoE, in this case there

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were experts that were available for questions during this last phase, but the experts were closely aligned with the overall ‘individual responsibility’ framing of the panel and mainly reinforced it. Katelijne, one of the food waste panel participants, suggested that the substance of the specific recommendations was heavily guided by the experts: the selection of the experts determined the outcome. When we (the citizens) think freely and were allowed to brainstorm, then very interesting ideas emerged. However, when we had to move on to concrete ideas, we ended up with things that are already known. It would have been better to dig deeper into the ideas from the brainstorming, explore these ideas further and follow through on them, supplement them with knowledge, etc. It would bring us closer to systemic solutions. (Interview with Katelijne, February 2023)

Furthermore, the Commission situated participants in the role of drafting legislative recommendations and reproduced particularly technocratic codes, whose self-perceived job is to find a consensus-oriented wording of the recommendations, rather than intervening politically.12 A specific illustration of this process took place in the working group I observed during the last session. The group was discussing, under the umbrella of topic block 2, a recommendation about the reporting of food waste by companies, and the potential consequences of such reporting. When discussing the possibility of ‘sanctioning’ or ‘punishing’ companies that fail to accurately report their food waste, one of the participants argued that these words seemed too aggressive for companies, and instead suggested to use the phrasing ‘corrective measures’. Such wording was included in recommendation 14 (‘Transparency on food waste for visibility and action’), which included that “The EU should do a best-practice evaluation of the different Member States about their existing reporting structures and incentives as well as corrective measures”. Similar examples were found in the virtual worlds panel, where a group debated whether to use the term “must” or “should”, and another group labelled its recommendations (number 16 of the panel) the “Virtual Worlds Act on 12 During the third session, it was impossible to put on the table new issues. In the subgroup on “Labour markets in the European Virtual Worlds”, I witnessed how a participant attempted to put forward the idea of a Basic Income to address some of the imbalances created by new technology. The intervention was ignored by the group, as if it never had happened.

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Education and Awareness Raising” and the “My Data Is Not Your Data Act”—the citizens consciously attempted to mimic the Commission’s labelling of its policies. In the learning mobility, there was a discussion on whether to use ‘ERASMUS+’ or ‘ERASMUS PLUS’, given that the former visually downplays the ‘plus’. Unsurprisingly, the 23 recommendations that came out of the food waste panel (all of them had more positive than negative votes, and hence all were passed) broadly aligned with the individualist perspective with which it was framed. Most of the recommendations dealt with raising awareness among consumers, collecting better data across the food value chain and ‘incentivising’ companies to waste less food (see all the recommendations in European Commission, 2023b). There is in this way a mismatch between the exercise of the citizen panel and the policy-making or public sphere purpose goals. Whereas the crucial dilemma that the European Commission was facing is whether to include the whole food value chain in the food waste targets, or narrow it down to specific segments of the chain, the panel barely discussed the food waste ‘targets’. Questioned about this, Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul suggested the following: It was a good proposal. It is obviously a great subject. But the scope of the legislative proposal was in reality quite narrow (setting targets) and the preparatory process was already quite advanced. So we discussed, and we made the choice of not focusing only on the proposal, and framing the question with a wider scope, simply to be honest with the citizens, because the Impact Assessment was already launched. (…) So it was a matter of honesty and transparency: the panel then focused on the proposal but also on actions for the implementation phase. So it was also interesting and definitely worth doing but in the future, we will be trying to organise the panel at an earlier stage of the process. (Interview with Gaëtane RicardNihoul, March 2023)

Coherently, the virtual worlds panel was also framed in a largely procorporate way. During the first day of the first session, the Commission set up a floor in the Charlemagne building in which private consultancies with expertise in virtual reality showed participants how these tools (such as a pair of goggles through which one can immerse itself in virtual reality) work. It is evidently necessary to ensure that deliberation is well informed and people experience virtual reality before deliberating about it, yet there was a strong sense of a ‘business fair’ such as the Mobile World Congress in this case, and actors that contest technology

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companies were not present. For instance, one could have imagined a practical illustration (also with the goggles) of how virtual reality can be used to manipulate reality in the context of elections, thereby undermining democracy. Participants were also introduced to Sara Lisa Vogl, an artist that appeared in her virtual reality avatar. Her contribution was oriented towards an understanding of the Metaverse as a space where the problems and discrimination encountered in the ‘physical’ world can be overcome. In the Metaverse, people can be truly ‘equal’. This perspective, however, mostly operated as a way to depoliticise the discussion from an ‘escapist’ viewpoint, perceiving the Metaverse as a parallel universe in which conflicts (such as class struggle, racism or sexism) do not exist, while these spaces are built by the same dominant actors within the ‘real’ world (e.g. the global corporation Facebook-Meta). Furthermore, during the second session, the organisers did not only invite as a speaker Eric Marchiol, Vice-President of the Groupe Renault, but also played in the virtual plenary session a 3-minute video ad entitled ‘Discover Renault Group’s industrial Metaverse’ produced by Renault itself. This is not entirely surprising, given that recent literature has shown the “ideational business power” in the EU context: big tech corporations are perceived by EU institutions as ‘partners’ because their profit-seeking enterprise is not conceived as being in contradiction with public policy goals (see Obendiek & Seidl, 2023). To be sure, there were some critical voices, such as Fabien Benetou, member of the ‘knowledge committee’ and a consultant for the European Parliament Innovation lab WebXR, who called attention for the potential for monopoly and the business model of the companies investing in virtual reality; or Elisa Lironi, Programme Director for European Democracy at the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) and Matthias Kettemann, professor at the University of Innsbruck, both of whom posed questions as to whether the Metaverse can contribute to society in a democratic way, and warning that the actors that are setting the rules currently are private companies rather than public authorities. Furthermore, on the first day of the third session (21 April 2023), there was a subplenary discussion with a contradictory debate on two issues related to virtual reality: (1) whether digital identity should ensure the possibility of anonymity and (2) whether the economic model of the metaverse should be centralised or instead allow for multiple entities to create their own virtual reality world. This debate came however too late in the process, and the “action points” with which the third session started (constructed

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on the basis of the notes taken by the note-takers during the second session discussions) were already constructed beforehand. Much like the food waste panel, the 23 recommendations on virtual worlds were closely aligned with the action points and the broader views of the Commission and did not challenge its corporate and largely favourable position towards the Metaverse. In fact, the most common element included in the recommendations were calls for virtual worlds’ regulation to be “shaped by informed collaboration between public authorities, private entities, and civil society” (recommendation 20, see European Commission, 2023d) as well as educational and awareness actions. There was a difference in terms of the voting, as the participants in the virtual worlds panel voted on a Likert scale of 1–6, with all of the recommendations receiving a positive average above 4. In June 2023, the Commission published a public communication on the issue broadly in line with the citizens’ panel recommendations—rather than an illustration of how the Commission has responded to the panel, it reflects that the panel mostly reproduced the Commission’s views on the topic. The third session of the ‘learning mobility’ panel was also largely characterised by the capture of the process by the Commission. The participants complained about the transition between the discussions in session 2 towards the ‘recommendations’ in session 3. While the topic itself lent itself towards a rather depoliticised discussion—it is difficult to imagine participants opposing an expansion of ‘learning mobility’ in the EU—the organisation of the panel reinforced it and made it very difficult for participants to introduce on the agenda a broader perspective that might have linked issues arising from systemic inequalities. The recommendations ultimately mostly touched on (1) providing better funding and training (e.g. via language courses) for learning mobility programmes and (2) enhancing the ‘communication strategy’ to ensure that citizens have the necessary information about the possibilities they have. 5.2

The Lack of a Public Sphere Perspective and the (Neo)liberal Ideology Embedded in European Citizens’ Panels

Similarly to the CoFoE, the ‘new generation’ panels barely had any resonance in the public sphere. While it certainly didn’t help that the last day of the food waste panel first session coincided with the final of the Men’s Football World Cup (18 December 2022), this reflects design choices made by the organisers. The same political pluralism and

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conflictual politics that was absent in the CoFoE’s citizen panels through ‘neutral’ experts was also missing through a ‘stakeholder’ discussion that was overwhelmingly dominated by corporate actors and a pro-business and individualistic approach in the case of food waste. Mediators such as political parties (both at national and EU level) or activist political groups were broadly absent from the process. In turn, the feedback loop between the micro and the macro was not established, and the citizen panel did not feed a broader debate on food waste, nor it was nourished by an ongoing public sphere debate on the issue. Similar caveats were found in the virtual worlds and learning mobility panels. The Commission’s focus on improving its ‘comms strategy’ and its public relations orientation in regard to the panels was materialised in the Commission-funded ‘press trip’ of a group of 45 journalists and influencers (who were mostly specialised with the substance of the topics—EU correspondents generally did not cover the panels) to the third session of the virtual worlds and learning mobility citizen panels. This trip was organised by GOPACom, a communications agency that defines itself as “a leading insight partner for the European Institutions”, and whose expertise is helping “to deliver crafted communication solutions to our clients” (GopaCom, n.d.). Observers were not informed about the ‘press briefing’ at the end of the panels, and the briefing was not included in the panel’s programme, but it was ultimately possible to observe it. The journalists that were part of this group reported that they were provided by the organisation with the Twitter hashtags and the Instagram filter for the panel, and were encouraged to talk about it. However, it appears that social media posts using the hashtag were primarily published by Commission officials and had very little resonance. Much of the final recommendations’ focus in the food waste and virtual worlds panels go in line with a market-friendly perspective that places most responsibility in individuals’ action rather than on corporate actors. This fits the broader argument of the book that the EU is adopting the least transformational demands from social movements (such as ‘direct’ citizen participation via European citizen panels) without questioning the existing power structures. This allows the European Commission to claim a new source of legitimacy through its ‘direct’ relation to ‘everyday citizens’, yet widely coherent with its own (neo)liberal underlying ideology. The dynamics constructed within the food waste working groups largely resembled the CoFoE citizens’ panels. On Sunday 22 January at

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noon, during the final day of the second session, the different groups came together and a member of each of the 12 working groups put forward the proposals of their group. An interesting illustration of the neoliberal framing of the topic was one of the proposals (which did not make it to the final recommendation): to organise a campaign on food waste with (Cristiano) Ronaldo, with the idea of raising awareness and attempting to change individual behaviour, placing most of the responsibility of food waste on individual consumers. As Rasmus made sense of Ronaldo’s campaign recommendation, “I didn’t even find it all that odd that everyone sort of came to that results, because it sort of seems natural. (…) it was largely due to this framing, I think that was done in the first session” (Interview with Rasmus, January 2023). Relatedly, one of the most popular recommendations was an app that would collect data about food waste and facilitate connecting the consumers with retailers that are likely to waste food. However, as Kirsty suggested, this leaves out of the picture the possibility of structural changes and made it very difficult to zoom out of technocratic dynamics: The problem here is that the way in which the topic is framed lends itself to kind of technocratic discussion. I think the way that the debate or the discussion was framed right at the beginning, was crucial. I mean, we had this glossy brochure, and I felt like this framed things for us, you know, with the pretty pictures and the 55% being due to households. To me, the data collection has to be linked, it has to be imposed on, for example, retailers. And there has to be some kind of acknowledgement that the goal of retailers is to do the opposite to what we’re trying to do, their goal is to sell us more stuff, including more food, which will lead to more waste. And when they tell us that, ‘you know, 50% of food waste is in the home’, that’s because, obviously, people are buying too much or the wrong things. It’s not that we’re not making a shopping list. The frustrating thing is that the framing of it with that pie chart [in the information dossier, the ‘knowledge committee’ included a pie chart that showed how most of the food waste is created by ‘households’], where you can see visually that consumers are the ones who are responsible, was that there was no attempt to put that in context in terms of why consumers might be responsible. And it’s the reason that’s bothering me, and the fact that we’re not tackling that [the causes or drivers of food waste at household level] at all. An app won’t tackle that. And the way that the working group discussions were framed, you couldn’t challenge it, because they’ve divided everything up into these little recommendations that you’re then to give feedback on. But you can’t do big picture. You can’t. It’s all broken down into these chunks that if

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you don’t put them together won’t lead to any major structural changes. I mean, I felt a little bit like this was “citizen washing” or something, you know, like, I felt like this is just like a gloss to put over their final product. (Interview with Kirsty, January 2023)

The post-CoFoE panels have thus illustrated how new forms of ‘citizen participation’ can be mobilised in a way that they reinforce neoliberal ideas. Berglund and Bailey (2022) discuss the different strategic and ideological approaches taken within the UK climate movement, approached from a critical political economy. They highlight that the different strategic differences reflect alternative stances towards capitalism. One of the groups discussed is Extinction Rebellion (XR) UK; a group that has vehemently called for citizens’ assemblies as a key part of addressing climate change. They argue that such perspective rests upon a broadly liberal stance towards contemporary capitalism (…) This approach is largely silent on the question of existing power relations or private property rights and ownership, and seeks a system of political decision-making that is insulated from economic power relations. Taken together, this speaks to the liberal belief that the separation between the ‘political’ and the ‘economic’ is both possible and desirable, and it elevates the role of scientific expertise and (individual) human reason. (Berglund & Bailey, 2022: 5–6)

A key dimension in this process is the chronological aspect, given that the first set of ‘new generation’ panels were organised at a stage in which the Commission policy proposals or were already advanced (especially for the food waste panel), and hence, the underlying ideological foundations were mostly anchored. A recent discussion paper published by the European Policy Centre (see Greubel, 2022) situates this issue at the centre by arguing that citizens’ participation exercises ought to be organised as early as possible in the policy cycle. Similarly, Elisa Lironi explained that ECAS had previously made a proposal in that direction: At ECAS, we proposed, for example, a crowdsourcing platform, a channel that instead of being in that last stage of a policy cycle would be situated at the beginning. So if you want to revise a legislation, for example, on agriculture, you don’t put citizens in the last step, you actually put them in the beginning (…) And there, the citizens maybe without technical

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knowledge can already tell the Commission the direction that they should be having. (Interview with Elisa Lironi, June 2022)

All in all, the core problem of the European citizen panels, both in the context of the CoFoE as well as the ‘new generation’ ones, is not a technical one, but the underlying political philosophy with which they were organised. The ‘how’ question mobilised for some of the ‘new generation’ citizen panels (‘how can individuals reduce their food waste?’) implies that participants already assume what the goal is beforehand. It follows that the conversation is mostly reduced on how to get there, rather than political, moral and normative questions about the desirability of different goals and the trade-offs that may exist.13 Additionally, there appears to be little learning from the CoFoE panels to the ‘new generation’ ones. A few days after the food waste panel concluded, on 15 February 2023, the civil society network Citizens Take Over Europe released a statement (to which I contributed) that criticised the food waste panel on the grounds that it had very similar backdrops in comparison with the CoFoE panels (CTOE, 2023). Introducing a public sphere perspective and integrating mediators is a crucial aspect towards the democratisation of these mechanisms, fostering an agonistic and politicised debate on EU-related issues. This, however, goes against the technocratic way in which ‘citizen participation’ is conceived by EU actors, and particularly the European Commission.

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The Post-CoFoE Logic of ‘Citizen Participation’: Turning ‘Everyday Citizens’ into EU ‘Technocrats’ Within the Process, and ‘Ambassadors’ Outside of It The concept of ‘everyday’ or ‘ordinary’ citizens is central to the organisation of the European citizen panels. However, in practice, the format in which participants are situated has the effect of turning them instead into ‘technocrats’ within the process, and it is expected of them that they will become EU ‘ambassadors’ outside of it. Participants of the panels are

13 This framing of the exercise also leads to the frustration of participants, who do not feel they have the technical knowledge to best implement the stated goal.

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forced to adopt the technocratic codes of EU institutions, and particularly those of the European Commission in the ‘new generation’ panels. This process does the opposite of what is expected of the panels, which is to provide a ‘fresh’ perspective on political issues in order to nourish substantively policy-making. At the citizen panel level, this has the direct effect of empowering those participants that speak better English (because the ‘official’ version of the recommendations is drafted in English, even though later it is translated to the other languages) and that have the symbolic and cultural capital to adapt to those codes (in general, highly educated professionals14 ). Meanwhile, those participants whose English is not that good and that have more difficulties in adapting to technocratic codes are disempowered, and tend to switch off (especially during the third session). This fosters a type of inequality that is closely associated with ‘class’: participants coming from wealthy families and middle or upper-class background are more likely to speak good English, to have white-collar jobs and to have been socialised with political institutions before. In practice, with the exception of working groups with very good moderators, the outcome of the recommendations drafted during the last session of both the CoFoE panels as well as the food waste panel had a tendency to be dominated by these policy-savvy participants, particularly in a depoliticised context in which the panels are insulated from the public sphere. In parallel to this dynamic, there is a sense that EU institutions are attempting to turn participants of the citizen panels as ‘ambassadors’ outside of the exercise. During the plenary session of the last day of the third session on the citizen panel on food waste, when one participant argued that the event lacked visibility among the broader public, one of the main moderators suggested that “it’s up to you to reach out to your local media”. Similarly, Colin Scicluna, head of cabinet of Commissioner Dubravka Šuica, concluded the food waste panel in the plenary by thanking the participants and suggesting that they can now be “ambassadors, taking this experience with you and projecting it in your daily lives. You will be getting a certificate and you will be able to show that you actually participated”. In this way, EU institutions appear to be using 14 In the third session of the ‘learning mobility’ of one of the working groups, a Greek English teacher operated literally as a proofreader of the group’s recommendations, correcting grammar mistakes but also introducing certain nuances that could be politically interpreted slightly differently to the initial formulation.

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citizen panels to turn what they consider to be ‘everyday citizens’ into EU ‘technocrats’ within the process, and ‘ambassadors’ outside of it. In fact, throughout the citizens’ panels there was an explicit call for citizens to publish things related to the panels on their social media accounts, suggesting specific hashtags for twitter (even though the tweets were primarily coming from Commission officials) and even created an Instagram filter. This tends to indicate the ‘ambassador’ and public relations logic with which the panels were organised.15 Thus, while there were certain ‘lessons learnt’ from the CoFoE, primarily the narrowing down of the topic, as well as technical ones, such as including experts in the final drafting of the recommendation during the third sessions. However, such evolution is reinforcing the technocratic imaginary with which EU ‘citizen participation’ is conceived. In fact, the ‘new generation’ panels arguably allowed for less space for critical thinking than the CoFoE panels, given the narrow policy focus and the influence of corporate actors in the process. Given the corporatefriendly way in which the Commission framed the issue of food waste and virtual worlds, and the lack of a public sphere perspective, such processes are likely to be coopted and support what the European Commission is already doing, rather than providing a counter-point. In doing so, it can further reinforce technocratic EU policy-making—‘policy without politics’—rather than contribute to expanding EU debates beyond the Brussels bubble—policy with politics. The perspective of emphasising the policy-relevance of the panels was expanded upon by Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, on the underlying philosophy with which the Commission is organising the panels: I’m a bit surprised that the deliberative experts consider that the only way to advance policy through a deliberative process is through opposition. So in reality, they want to reproduce in citizens’ assemblies, that are supposed to work by consensus, with a more peaceful dialogue with respect for each other, a very confrontational model. I really like the expression that Antoine [Vergne, member of Missions Publiques and one of the main moderators of the panel on ‘virtual worlds’] used when talking 15 In the case of the food waste panel, the Commission attempted to leverage the European citizens’ panel recommendations in its inter-institutional negotiations with the Council, given that the policy file was in a deadlock. This illustrates how the legitimacy brought about through citizens’ panels may be instrumentalised in the context of conflicts between EU institutions.

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of the panels of the ‘bonheur démocratique’ [‘democratic happiness’ or ‘democratic joyfulness’]. I really like that expression, because panels are democracy at its best. It’s people listening to each other, the diversity actually enriching the conversation, trying to understand the other point of view, trying to progress and finally find compromise and a collective solution. So I’m a bit surprised that the only reference experts have when it comes to bringing knowledge to the citizens seems to be the confrontational model. And they often imagine that this confrontation could be embodied by two political parties or two antagonistic interest representatives. (…) I am not saying it’s bad, by definition, parties are also a key element of democracy and so are interest representatives, and sometimes perhaps it would be appropriate to do that, but sometimes not. (…) The trade off there is between implementing the best theoretical model or thinking, “Okay, what would fit now in this situation that we have, so that the panels produce something good, with added value for policy-making”. (…) Because at the end of the day, this is what we want to do: to be impactful on policy-making. So we need to think of what it means to challenge maybe some of the assumptions that we have to see how they fit into the case where deliberative processes are embedded in the policy-making process. And on the other end, also accept that there are constraints. What is important is to define the red lines, but there needs to be a bit flexibility and adaptability, because otherwise it’s not going to happen inside the policy-making process. (Interview with Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul, March 2023)

The European Commission as an institution has difficulties to introduce mechanisms of ‘citizen participation’ within its policy-making process, given that the dominant codes are mostly technocratic. Furthermore, some Commission officials see the panels as an additional task on top of their existing responsibilities. It is therefore unsurprising that, when implementing such different processes, the Commission reproduces its own institutional self-understanding as a ‘non-political’ institution that operates mostly through consensus. The emphasis on ‘embedding’ citizen participation within the consensus-oriented policy-making process of the Commission complicates the possibility of putting forward a more confrontational approach that links up to existing political conflicts and involves relevant mediators. In turn, such process fails to connect the citizens’ panels with the broader public sphere and depoliticises political participation. Thus, the food waste citizen panel complemented the impact assessment and open public consultation undertaken by the Commission before the panel by bringing another ‘stakeholder’: ‘everyday

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citizens’. However, this is a political construction from the outside that primarily reinforces the views of the Commission rather than challenge them. That said, there were interesting innovations in the way in which the latter panels were organised. For instance, the ‘virtual worlds’ panel followed a more inductive process whereby the participants were asked during the first session to come up with their understanding and experience with ‘virtual worlds’, their ideas regarding a possible ‘dystopia’ and ‘utopia’ in relation to virtual worlds, as well as putting forward questions they have on the topic. The members of the ‘knowledge committee’ only gave their views on Sunday (26 February 2023) of the first session in response to the participants’ questions and did so in combination with the ‘response’ to those questions by an improvisation theatre crew, who performed on the plenary stage at the Charlemagne building of the European Commission. This is a creative move by the organisers, but in practice it reinforced the understanding of these processes as part of the ‘public engagement industry’, entertaining the participants while sidelining the possibility of agonistic debate. Additionally, the improvisation theatre crew of four persons performed in French, and thus the majority of the participants listened to the performance through the interpretation, undertaken at each step by one person. Thus, it was not only hard to follow the performance via the translation (the English interpreters were also performing to distinguish who was talking—to this day I remember the voice of the interpreter imitating a small girl and saying ‘daddy, daddy’), but also failed to link up with the broader political conversation about the topic in question. Relatedly, the second online session of the virtual worlds panel introduced the innovation by which each participant was given the option of creating their own avatar16 within a virtual world scenario17 of the European Commission (it looked as a futuristic version of the computer game ‘The Sims’). Panel participants were given virtual reality goggles for this session in an exercise of ‘technopolitics’. However, the optimistic 16 The most successful dimension of the virtual reality session appears to have been the virtual reality photobooth, where participants would take pictures between them with their respective avatars. 17 This is not the first experience of EU institutions with virtual reality. In November 2022, the Commission threw an expensive party in the metaverse targeted to TikTok and Instagram users that, allegedly, was only attended by a few people (Fiedler, 2023).

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and innovative use of technology only reinforced ‘technodeliberative’ dynamics. Virtual reality operates mostly as a realistic illusion, and deliberation in that setting also operated as an illusion of democracy. This also reinforces the notion that the ‘client’ of the deliberative democracy consultancies organising these exercises is not only the European Commission, but also the panel participants. The learning mobility panel also had innovations and arguably was closer to the ‘virtual worlds’ panel than the one on food waste, in that it largely also followed an inductive process. Participants were asked during the second day of the first session to recreate an imagined ‘persona’ that represented a wider societal group that may face difficulties to access learning mobility—including the generation of a highly realistic visual profile through Artificial Intelligence. Overall, however, there was a strong performative energy to the panels, illustrated by the attempt, during the last day of the learning mobility panel, of singing together the ‘Ode to Joy’, each participant in their own language in what would constitute a “beautiful European cacophony”. One of the main moderators on stage played the ukulele and led the singing in a rather anticlimactic moment, characterised more by the sense of entertaining the participants than actually fostering democratic and participatory dynamics. Last, faced with the question from several panel participants of “whom do we represent?” in the post-CoFoE panels, the organisers discussed in a staff meeting that they should reply that participants represent “themselves”. However, if that is the case, not only the “descriptive representation” logic of the panel breaks down, but much more emphasis ought to be placed in the connection with the public sphere. We can then witness a lot of experimentation in terms of the methods and techniques mobilised within the citizens’ panels,18 but none of it is addressing the underlying depoliticised and disintermediated philosophy with which they are conceived. A pro-con debate with a clash of contrasting political views, a public sphere perspective, the involvement of a wide range of mediators or a closer linkage with other political institutions from a deliberative system viewpoint, are still missing. In this way, the introduction of creative spaces (such as the improvisation theatre) does not open up the 18 Including some discursive ones. During the CoFoE panels, the organisers came up with the term ‘streams’ to channel the work undertaken in session 1 to direct the participants’ work in session 2. Against this background, in the post-CoFoE panels they used different terms, such as ‘topic blocks’ or ‘themes’.

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possibility of contradictory debate nor connects to the public sphere and primarily tends to reinforce the Commission’s technocratic understanding of ‘citizen participation’, but with a ‘creative face’.

7

Conclusion: The Depoliticised ‘Citizen Participation’ Led by the European Commission and Its Underlying Ideology

The main follow-up of the CoFoE has been the legitimisation and mainstreaming of sortition-based ‘citizen participation’ within the European Commission. A key question in this regard is to what extent these processes have an ideology embedded in them. Based on the evidence from the CoFoE as well as on the first set of new generation of citizen panels, this type of ‘citizen participation’ has had the tendency to reproduce the ideas of the institution that frames the exercise, in this case the European Commission. Thus, this type of participation is not ideologyfree. On the contrary, it has a heavy neoliberal ideological bias that fits with the actors driving these processes, illustrated by Emmanuel Macron and the public-private partnerships. The emergence of a number of consultancies that have the expertise in organising minipublic deliberation processes facilitate the appearance of ‘neutral’ citizen participation. Ultimately, the European Commission is driving a version of the ‘citizen turn’ that has a strong neoliberal ideology embedded in it, and a highly bureaucratic understanding of legitimacy and ‘participation’. A key question in this regard is: Are these processes enhancing the quality of EU democracy? Not in a meaningful way from an agonistic public sphere perspective. Furthermore, the individualisation of ‘citizen participation’ disentangles democracy from mass politics and undermines the ability to exert collective power through mass membership organisations. The Commission mostly appears to conceive of participation processes as communication exercises—hence why DG Communication is the primary driver of ‘citizen participation’ within the Commission. Interestingly, the European citizens’ panels appear to have more support among the Commission administration (and particularly among civil servants within DG COMM) than the political representatives, as Commission President Von der Leyen and the Commissioners have not invested much political capital on it. The latest set of panels might be seen as the continuation of the neoliberal ‘good governance’ paradigm through other means.

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As argued by Shore (2011: 287), “far from laying the grounds for a more inclusive, participatory and democratic political order, the Commission’s model to governance represents a form of neoliberal governmentality that is actually undermining democratic government and promoting a politics of exclusion”. Furthermore, in inter-institutional terms, the Commission appears to be reconstructing its own legitimacy beyond technocratic grounds through ‘descriptive representation’. Given that the Commission is unable to compete on electoral grounds with the EP (legitimised through EU elections) or the Council (legitimised through national elections), this new type of ‘representation’ operates in their view as a fertile ground to strengthen its own democratic legitimacy. In turn, a growing industry of ‘deliberative democracy’ consultancies is emerging, as there is an increasing amount of ‘citizen participation’ projects funded by public authorities (and also by some private actors). While the Commission is currently appealing more often to ‘citizens’, there is not much change in terms of actual input, given that citizen panels operate as a sort of complement to the traditional ‘public consultations’ but with a stronger external communication perspective. The citizen panels, as organised in the context of the CoFoE as well as the ‘new generation’ panels organised by the Commission, do not question existing power relations, but instead understand participation as a ‘focus group’ and tend to reproduce already dominant ideas within EU institutions. The constant highlighting of the ‘quality’ of the proposals of the Conference implies an understanding of ‘citizen participation’ as a way to improve the ‘efficiency’ of EU policy-making. Such perspective is in stark contrast with the way in which social movements undertake ‘democratic innovations’, as Chapter 7 develops.

Bibliography Berg, C. (2022). Citizens’ panels show the way ahead for transnational democracy. Berggruen Institute. https://www.berggruen.org/work/the-future-of-dem ocracy/citizens-panels-show-the-way-ahead-for-transnational-democracy/. Accessed 24 April 2023. Berglund, O., & Bailey, D. J. (2022). Whose system, what change? A critical political economy approach to the UK climate movement. Environmental Politics, 1–21.

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Braun, E., & Momtaz, R. (2021, January 6). Use of consultancies for vaccine rollout sparks controversy in France. Politico. https://www.politico.eu/article/ french-government-defends-mckinsey-coronavirus-vaccine-rollout/. Accessed 29 January 2021. Citizens Take Over Europe. (2023). Statement on the European Citizens’ Panels. https://citizenstakeover.eu/blog/statement-on-the-european-cit izens-panels/. Accessed 17 February 2023. Conference on the Future of Europe. (2022, May 9). Report on the final https://futureu.europa.eu/rails/active_storage/blobs/redirect/ outcome. eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaHBBN1UzQVE9PSIsImV4cCI6b nVsbCwicHVyIjoiYmxvYl9pZCJ9fQ==--a8e0633a7b60d869ec3b2142f1ac7f d16743eb4b/Book_CoFE_Final_Report_EN_full.pdf. Consulted on 20 July 2022. Demidov, A., Greubel, J., & Petit, P. (2023). Assessing the European Citizens’ Panels: Greater ambition needed. EU Democracy Reform Observatory. https://epc.eu/en/Publications/Assessing-the-European-Citizens-Pan els-Greater-ambition-needed~5355fc. Accessed 15 September 2023. European Commission. (n.d.). Food waste—Reduction targets. https://ec.eur opa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13223-Foodwaste-reduction-targets_en. Accessed 24 February 2023. European Commission. (2022a, July 23). 5 things to know about how Europeans are shaping the future of the EU . https://europeancommission.medium.com/ how-europeans-are-shaping-the-future-of-the-eu-bbb13faaf395. Accessed 1 August 2022. European Commission. (2022b, October 18). Commission 2023 Programme. https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/cwp_2023.pdf. Accessed 18 October 2022. European Commission. (2022c). State of the union address 2022. https://stateof-the-union.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2022-09/SOTEU_2022_Address_ EN.pdf. Accessed 24 April 2023. European Commission. (2023a). Vice-President Suica delivers a speech, via videoconference, for the launch of the Deliberative Democracy Cohort of the Summit for Democracy. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/ 2019-2024/suica/announcements/vice-president-suica-delivers-speech-vid eoconference-launch-deliberative-democracy-cohort-summit_en. Accessed 19 January 2023. European Commission. (2023b, February 12). European citizens’ panel on food waste final recommendations. https://commission.europa.eu/system/ files/2023-02/Food%20waste%20panel%20-%20Citizens%27%20recommenda tions_0.pdf. Accessed 13 February 2023.

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European Commission. (2023c). European citizens’ panel on virtual worlds: Final recommendations. https://citizens.ec.europa.eu/system/files/202304/Final%20recommendations%20Virtual%20Worlds%202.pdf. Accessed 27 April 2023. European Parliament. (2022). Parliament activates process to change EU Treaties. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220603I PR32122/parliament-activates-process-to-change-eu-treaties. Accessed 12 January 2023. European Parliament. (2023). Parliamentarism, European citizenship and democracy. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2023-0330_ EN.pdf. Accessed 22 September 2023. Feedback EU. (2022). Statement on EU legally binding targets to reduce food waste. https://feedbackglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Sta tement-on-EU-legally-binding-targets-to-reduce-food-waste-Nov-2022.pdf. Accessed 19 December 2022. Fiedler, T. (2023, November 30). EU throws party in e387K metaverse—And hardly anyone turns up. Politico. https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-threwe387k-meta-gala-nobody-came-big-tech/. Accessed 13 March 2023. GopaCom. (n.d.). https://gopacom.eu. Accessed 24 April 2023. Greubel, J. (2022). A new generation of European Citizens’ Panels—Making citizens’ voices a regular part of policymaking. European Policy Centre. https:// www.epc.eu/content/PDF/2022/NewGen_DP_v4_final.pdf. Accessed 11 January 2023. Lee, C. (2014). Do it yourself democracy. The rise of the public engagement industry. Oxford University Press. Obendiek, A. S., & Seidl, T. (2023). The (false) promise of solutionism: Ideational business power and the construction of epistemic authority in digital security governance. Journal of European Public Policy, 1–25. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2023.2172060 Oleart, A. (2023). The political construction of the ‘citizen turn’ in the EU: Disintermediation and depoliticisation in the Conference on the Future of Europe. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 1–15. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/14782804.2023.2177837 Oleart, A., & Theuns, T. (2022). ‘Democracy without politics’ in the European Commission’s response to democratic backsliding: From technocratic legalism to democratic pluralism. Journal of Common Market Studies. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/jcms.13411 Petit, P. (2022, December 13). In EU citizens’ panels, the institutions must not leave citizens behind. European Policy Centre. https://epc.eu/en/Pub lications/In-EU-Citizens-Panels-the-EU-institutions-must-not-leave-citizensbe~4d3794. Accessed 13 December 2022.

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Rauh, C. (2022). Clear messages to the European public? The language of European Commission press releases 1985–2020. Journal of European Integration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2022.2134860 Schmidt, V. A. (2019). Politicization in the EU: Between national politics and EU political dynamics. Journal of European Public Policy, 26(7), 1018–1036. Shore, C. (2011). ‘European governance’ or governmentality? The European commission and the future of democratic government. European Law Journal, 17 (3), 287–303. Vauchez, A., & France, P. (2021). The Neoliberal Republic: Corporate lawyers, statecraft, and the making of public-private France. Cornell University Press.

CHAPTER 7

“The Lost Art of Organising Solidarity”: Articulating the Decolonial Multitude in the EU (and Beyond)

1

A Politically Engaged Perspective: Theorising with and as Activists

While much has been written on the idea of the ‘multitude’ within political theory, less emphasis has been placed on developing democratic theory and practice from below. Is the ‘decolonial multitude’ the democratic imaginary upon which transnational social movements construct their own identity? In other words, does the ‘decolonial multitude’ capture the way in which movements imagine (transnational) democracy, in contrast to the more traditional demos or demoi perspectives? And, if the multitude grasps indeed better the own democratic imaginary of transnational social movements, how does it look in practice? What is its sociological and political composition at the European and transnational level? Last, what are the challenges to articulate it? This chapter aims at addressing these questions through a dialectic between the political theory developed in Chapter 2 and the political practice of ongoing transnational social movements. This research perspective connects well with the idea of democratising democratic theory (see Chapter 1), given that much of what transnational social movements do is in fact theorise new forms of democracy (see Pineda, 2021). The idea is to facilitate a dialectic between political theory (both including

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that focused on the EU specifically as well as broader attempts to theorise transnational democracy) with the actual practices and imaginaries that are mobilised by social movement activists. In this way, the application of the decolonial multitude to EU studies in Chapter 2 is an effort to not only bring a different intellectual tradition to European studies political theory, but also to make sense of how ongoing social movement activists and organisations conceive of themselves. In this process, a key element is the structural material conditions in which they operate. European studies political theory is often (too) focused on an abstract conception of how (EU) institutions operate and tends to sideline the role of capitalism and (post)colonialism in facilitating (or constraining) the construction of political coalitions transnationally—however, with some notable exceptions (see, among others, Schmidt, 2002). The chapter will not develop in depth the different activist spaces in which I participated, but instead focus on the dynamics that were fuelled and the challenges that arise from them. Thus, the chapter focuses less on the specific cases than on what these ongoing activist spaces tell us about the idea of a decolonial multitude and transnational democracy. In terms of the specific spaces in which the chapter is based, first, the chapter reinterprets some of the participant observation and interviews undertaken in the context of the transnational Stop TTIP movement (see Oleart, 2021). This experience is relevant insofar trade policy has been at the forefront of alter-globalisation struggles since the 1999 protests in Seattle against the WTO ministerial meeting. Second, the chapter discusses the 2022 TransEuropa Festival, organised by European Alternatives, which took place from the 20 to the 25 of April 2022 in Porto, Portugal. The theme of this year’s festival was ‘Decolonize! Decarbonize! Democratize!’. The organised events within the TransEuropa Festival ranged from public conferences and citizen assemblies to musical performances, art exhibitions and workshops. Third, I participated in the intensive residential activist training ‘Strengthening the Ecology of Social Movements’ (22–30 October 2022). The training is constructed upon the diagnosis that “to challenge the interlocking systems of oppression we face we need to nurture interconnected movements and struggles” (ULEX, n.d.a). This training was co-organised by ULEX, the National University of Ireland Maynooth, the European Community Organising Network and European Alternatives, was attended by activists from across Europe and took place in Catalonia, about an hour away from Barcelona. Fourth, I participated

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in the Transnational Workers’ Organizing Summit (16–20 November 2022) organised by EA in Bremen. Activists from across Europe, with a particular emphasis on those based in Germany, gathered in Bremen to discuss ways to find common ground between environmental activists and trade union activists. Throughout all these spaces, participant observation was conducted to gain insights into the specific educational practices, collective learning process and movement building dynamics; the settings in which these occur and how activists learn from each other and find ways to connect struggles in order to contribute to the articulation of a ‘movement of movement’. While I undertook the observation throughout the European citizen panels of the Conference as an ‘observer’ (primarily due to the Common Secretariat instructions against ‘undue influence’), my involvement differed significantly in the context of the activists spaces outlined above. In this case, I was involved as an activist, rather than as an “external observer”. The goal of the participant observation in this case was to not only analyse the dynamics, but also to be part of them in a way that I operated both as an activist and a researcher. Thus, this chapter is not only ‘on’ transnational activists but also ‘with’ us/activists. Acknowledging my own positionality in the process is crucial for building trust with fellow activists as well as readers. My own subjectivity transformed in this process, which is also reflected in the substance of the book, given that I am part of the collective learning process that I describe, rather than an ‘outsider’. The aim is to take also a decolonial epistemological standpoint embedded in the research design, in such a way as to prioritise the voices and narratives of those communities that have been historically backgrounded (see Dieng, 2021; Dieng et al., 2023; Oleart & Van Weyenberg, 2019). By doing so, I have thoroughly engaged with activist communities and continue to participate in them in order to build a more structural and permanent space of transnational cooperation that can foster decolonial multitude-like dynamics. Thus, this chapter is anchored and rooted in ongoing discussions within transnational activist spaces and is distinct from typical social movement research, in that the latter is mostly oriented towards the tip of the iceberg: the successful mobilisations in the public sphere and its policy impact. However, a key role of movements is the construction of new knowledge via internal practices that can be considered a sort of ‘democratic innovation’, yet very different from the type of ‘innovations’ put forward by EU institutions. It is this work that allows for movements to

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develop a common identity and increase their capacity to work together through synergies and coalitions. This is what has been described as “prefigurative politics”, which refers to direct social action that develops and practices alternatives that embody the ends the movement is striving to realize in the wider society in the future (…). As self-directed action rather than opponent-oriented conflict, prefiguration is left out of most contentious politics approaches in the field (…) Prefiguration is crucial for pro-democracy movements that seek to align their internal practices with their political goals. (Flesher Fominaya, 2022: 85)

A caveat of the chapter is precisely that, in contrast to the European citizens’ panels, the focus is on prefigurative politics. Beyond the panEuropean Stop TTIP campaign, the spaces described in this chapter are not illustrations of mass politics, but rather of the previous steps that eventually may lead to mass collective action in a multitude-like fashion. In this sense, political parties are missing from the chapter, even though they are key actors in building transnational mass constituencies. The chapter focuses on the internal practices of transnational movements in the coalition-building phase in which actors from different political fields attempt to construct joint political collective action. The practices are thus not generalisable and do not offer a specific prospect of how these activities may take on a mass character. The actors that inhabit these spaces are not ‘representatives’ of the European ‘people(s)’, but rather operate as mediators that bring together activists from different fields as a precondition for coalition-building mass politics. In doing so, they contribute to shape the political imaginary of movements. While there are certain exceptions—for instance some activists refer to ‘indigenous sovereignty’ to reclaim the independence of indigenous communities from nationstates—, the notion of ‘sovereignty’ is absent in these spaces, mostly because it complicates the convergence of struggles across movements and borders. Political parties are occasionally part of these processes (such as in the case of the Stop TTIP campaign), but they tend to be peripheral actors to movements, as they often focus their energy in institutionalised spaces. Evidently, the decolonial multitude’s capacity of political action ultimately depends on the relation between institutional and non-institutional actors, even though the chapter is oriented to non-institutional spaces in which movements organise.

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Movements realise that, in order to bring about new ideas into the public sphere, it is also necessary to innovate in their political practices. This gives even more weight and relevance to study the internal practices of (transnational) social movements, rather than focusing uniquely on protest events. This chapter materialises this process by describing and analysing the ways in which transnational social movement activists in the European context conceive of democracy and its role in it (see also Blokker, 2022). This perspective is strongly rooted in a materialist tradition that is itself a much better fit for the ‘decolonial multitude’ rather than the traditional demos/demoi perspective. After this introduction, the chapter develops how activists within the movements conceive of themselves, and whether the framework of the ‘decolonial multitude’ developed in Chapter 2 is a fitting one. Third, the chapter draws on the internal tensions within movements in order to devise the challenges to materialise the multitude as a transnational political coalition. The primary challenges relate to transversal and intersectional solidarity, remaining coloniality, the agonistic channeling of tensions, and the construction of permanent political structures. The chapter concludes with potential ways forward to address those challenges anchored in the ongoing practices of transnational activists.

2

The Decolonial Multitude Imaginary in Ongoing Transnational Struggles: Infrastructures of Dissent to Build a ‘Movement of Movements’

The process of bringing together actors from different political spaces into a common movement requires the acknowledgement of mutual interdependencies. In turn, acknowledging them requires socially skilled actors that work precisely on building those bridges and convince a heterogeneous group of actors that they have common ground. The articulation of a ‘movement of movements’ is not an automatic process that mirrors global neoliberalism, but rather the outcome of practices of solidarity and activist organising (see Cox & Nilsen, 2007). A transnational field of action does not exist beforehand; it is constructed through the action of socially skilled organisations that make links between different political spheres and are able to construct a common epistemology. A

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crucial aspect of this process of construction of a common transnational action field is pedagogical. It is not self-evident why a diverse group of actors ought to operate within the same political umbrella; it requires a process of meaning-making that encourages these actors to work together. Crucially, the singularity of the diverse actors is not eliminated by becoming part of a broader political project or movement. Much to the contrary, the singularity is enhanced by connecting it with other causes. When feminist organisations create links with environmental or migrants’ rights organisations, the gender dimension is reinforced in those spaces, thus enhancing its singularity within a larger and heterogeneous movement. The emerging transnational social movements closely align with Hardt and Negri’s (2004: 211) understanding of this process: In political organization as in narration, there is a constant dialogue among diverse, singular subjects, a polyphonic composition of them, and a general enrichment of each through this common constitution. The multitude in movement is a kind of narration that produces new subjectivities and new languages.

At the EU level, however, most civil society actors are structurally linked to EU institutions and largely operate through technocratic codes. Brussels-based EU civil society is a rather artificial space of well organised and professionalised actors that claim to ‘represent’ national civil society, usually organised around single issue umbrella organisations. Even though ‘Europe’ has become an increasingly relevant target of action by a wide variety of social movement actors (Della Porta, 2007; Della Porta & Caiani, 2009; Imig & Tarrow, 2001; Marks & McAdam, 1996), transnational social movements are not widely present in the EU, as they are mostly located and organised at the local or national level. In spite of the structural disadvantage terrain that the EU is for social movements (Lahusen, 2004), this does not mean however that there have not been instances in which a transnational political coalition and social movement has emerged. A recent case is the Stop TTIP movement (see Oleart, 2021). The movement brought together a diverse group of actors that do not often operate politically together. While the scope of the policy dossier of TTIP comprised many issues, the construction of a transnational and trans-sectoral political coalition is by no means something that appeared ‘naturally’. Instead, socially skilled actors were able to build it through an

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open and inclusive process that created the conditions in which environmental and decolonial activists worked alongside political parties, trade unionists, as well as taxi drivers or lawyer organisations across different countries. Nick Dearden, the director of Global Justice Now and formerly a co-coordinator of the Stop TTIP campaign in the UK, summarised well in 2016 the meaning of the multitude in the context of Stop TTIP: you do not need to be the person who travels to Madrid or to other city, by being part of the TTIP movement you feel you are part of the same thing as some Germans, or French. You feel you are on the same side. So that is great, that gives people concrete expression of the stuff that we are all doing together. There is a huge feeling of a democratic black hole, both at the national and European level. This is very big in our societies at the moment. (Nick Dearden, cited in Oleart, 2021: 208)

The Stop TTIP movement was not a ‘European’ movement, insofar it heavily relied on previous anti-globalisation networks (Bouza & Oleart, 2018) in its struggle against corporate power, and incorporated a core transnational component, with particularly close relations with North and South American organisations. While they did not use the language of the multitude, they neither used the term of ‘sovereignty’. Their internal ways of functioning and the political logic with which they operated was reflective of a multitude-like understanding of democracy. However, the multitude-building processes are constrained by the lack of stable transnational organisations. There have been attempts to construct a European political subject in a top-down way, such as when European Alternatives, alongside Yanis Varoufakis and a diverse group of actors, founded DiEM 25 in 2016. While an appealing project, it is not enough to ‘name’ or ‘appeal’ to a European ‘demos’ to construct it. Instead, it is necessary to construct ‘infrastructures of dissent’, spaces that provide “a means to develop collective capacities for memory (reflection on past struggles), analysis (theoretical discussion and debate), communication (outside of official or commercial media channels) and taking action” (Sears, 2007). These spaces socialise activists with each other in order to facilitate collective action. It follows that academic research on social movements should be sensitive to these processes in order to capture how activists organise and build networks of solidarity that entail both formal and informal institutions (on women workers in Bangladesh, see Quayyum, 2019), and in doing so contribute to knowledge production ‘from below’.

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The articulation of a powerful transnational movement is much more than the aggregation of multiple actors. Instead, the combination of political sensitivities transforms the identity of movement actors to encompass their struggles within a broader one. It is precisely this perspective that leads much alter-European activism, which is not particularly rooted in the idea of ‘Europe’ or the ‘EU’. As argued by Scharenberg (2022: 85), “more important than a predefined understanding of Europe, then, is alter-European activists’ willingness to build coalitions and find ways of acting that transgress both the borders of struggles and the borders of nation-states”. 2.1

The Construction of Transnational Political Action by European Alternatives

Rather than aiming for the construction of new organisations, the decolonial multitude’s perspective focuses on the way in which cooperative dynamics across existing institutions can be fostered through ‘infrastructures of dissent’. A key element is the connection between the different levels of politics. The multitude reverses the traditional approach of connecting EU-level politics with national ones. Instead of bringing ‘national’ citizens to the EU level, it begins with a more dynamic understanding of political action in which bottom-up and top-down processes operate in parallel and may interact with each other. The mechanisms and processes by which this is possible are not evident, given that the professionalised codes that EU-level organisations mobilise differ substantially from grassroots organisers. Civil society and social movements are widely diverse, and this is particularly the case when gathering actors and organisations from different countries. The process of constructing a collective way of looking at transnational politics is certainly one of the most obvious challenges, which requires processes and mechanisms that contribute to articulate a common vision. Undertaking joint political action is the outcome of collective processes, not its starting point. This is a shared dimension across all the spaces that are built in an inclusive way: while finding ways of transnational, transversal and intersectional action is a goal, it is not taken for granted and requires solidarity-based agency. A central question guiding the work throughout this chapter is how transnational social movement activists work with activists in local settings in order to generate collective dynamics and shared forms of knowledge about European-level political processes that address a range of complex

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issues, such as economic precarity, immigration and climate change. One of the leading mediators in organising transnational social movements in the EU context is European Alternatives (EA). EA is a particularly fitting actor given that it has been involved in the three activist spaces that are discussed in the chapter in which I participated and is also a leading actor within the ‘Citizens Take Over Europe’ (CTOE) coalition that contributed to critically scrutinise the Conference on the Future of Europe. The political vision of EA since its founding in 2006 fits well with the concept of the (decolonial) multitude. As articulated by its co-founder and director, Niccolò Milanese, Our ambition is to return democracy in Europe and the capacity for civil society to act at European level. That means acting on whatever issue that participants of a movement care about. Then of course we participate in initiatives that deal with different topics, including issues such as social or tax justice. But the niche of our work is at a more abstract political level. It’s creating, empowering and facilitating transnational action. (Interview with Niccolò Milanese, February 2016)

Furthermore, in the book Citizens of nowhere: How Europe can be saved from itself , EA co-founders Marsili and Milanese (2018) argue that traditional notions of national citizenship are unable to match the increasing relevance of governance beyond the nation-state. Conceiving citizenship as a way to self-govern society, only some sort of transnational citizenship could ensure democratic political agency. Without this process, we will remain ‘citizens of nowhere’ ‘until we invent political forms of agency that are equal to the forces shaping our world’ (Marsili & Milanese, 2018: 4). In this way, the main goal of European Alternatives is to rethink the “social imaginary”, which refers to the way in which a political community is constructed (see Scharenberg, 2021). Considering the transnational character of EA’s activism, EA’s director, Niccolò Milanese (Interview in July 2022), argues that “there should be no definitive answer to the question of ‘who are we?’ [Instead] you always have to keep an open space at the table for the person who has not arrived yet. This could be someone who is not born yet. Or it could be someone who has not arrived yet”. This links closely to the idea of building from below a political community beyond the nation-state, and construct specific spaces that give a sense of what that may look like. EA’s goal is to operationalize this idea of rethinking the political community and adopting a more inclusive

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and transnational approach, operating as a broker, constructing bridges between grassroots activists and institutionalised actors. An interesting example is the Academy of Migrant Organising. EA’s aim is not to ‘teach’ migrants how to improve their situation, but instead to construct a platform where different groups, led by migrants, share experiences and learn from each other. EA’s Academy of Migrant Organising begins with the following question: “How can we use migrant organizing to unite for a future of solidarity and together strengthen frontline communities whose political struggles have been ignored and marginalised for far too long?” (European Alternatives, n.d.). Similarly, EA mobilises art as a powerful way to channel some of this energy and plays an important role in the attempt to bring movements together in an intersectional way. This perspective is illustrated by the initiative Room to Bloom, a feminist platform for ecological and postcolonial narratives of Europe. Room to Bloom brings together feminist artists with a migration background who create ecological and postcolonial narratives of Europe. By associating artists and creators who – too often – occupy a peripheral place in the world of arts and places who are considered to be geographically peripheral (Sicily, Ukraine, Poland, Greece), Room to Bloom aims at building a discourse on European Culture that is fully built on the experience and knowledge of the periphery and to bring it back to the centre. (European Alternatives, 2020)

More concretely, Room to Bloom contributes to energise a transnational network of artists that put forward “feminist and post-colonial narratives for a Transnational Europe” by training, assisting and supporting 100 artists. Influenced by Rancière’s (2009) reformulation of the relationship between art, politics and aesthetics, Ségolène Pruvot, Cultural Director of European Alternatives, described the way in which Room to Bloom is conceived: We have been running the project Room to Bloom with eco-feminists and feminists from migrant backgrounds. If you have a lot of people, it’s difficult to have the depth of exchange and listening. For instance, in that programme, we had a festival in November [2022]. That was very good. There were a lot of exchanges and it was very decolonial. But if you really want to go into the details of changing the way people can listen to each other, you need to be in small groups, that is why we launched

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a mentorship programme afterwards, with a very small group. But even then within feminism, you have a lot of different understandings of what it is to be feminist and building the points of synergy is not simple. And to be honest, we also had difficulties to really articulate the decolonial and the feminist approach, because it was much more complex than anticipated. When they happen, the moments of synergy are activating something that is irreplaceable (…) Feminist artists are sometimes outside of the world of art, particularly women that come from racial minorities. Making space for a diversity of artistic producers is essential. The way we conceive the role of art is to shake things in a way that reopens possibilities, new options. It doesn’t tell you what these possibilities are. It’s a space of bringing questions in different ways and engaging bodily other people in different ways. It is very different from any other forms of action in the sense that it mobilises emotions. Thinking artistically obliges you to make a step outside of your main area of comfort. (Interview with Ségolène Pruvot, April 2023)

3 “The Lost Art of Organising Solidarity”: Embracing the Differences but Also the Shared Purposes 3.1

The 2022 TransEuropa Festival: Decolonize! Decarbonize! Democratize!

In the context of the TransEuropa Festival, EA organised a citizen assembly in Valongo that aimed precisely at integrating actors and ideas that are often at the margins of European politics and political institutions more broadly. The “Portuguese Citizens’ Assembly” was framed as “part of the debate launched by the Conference on the Future of Europe” and also of the broader project ‘Assemblies of Solidarity’ (European Alternatives, n.d.b), consisting of similar gatherings in 10 EU member states. The Portuguese Assembly narrowed its focus to three communities: (1) the Roma Community, (2) the Afro-descendant Community and (3) Inmigrants and Refugees (I took part of the process as a participant of the latter group). The assembly aims to explore diversity, hospitality, equality, and fundamental rights in the European Union (…) intends to address the issue of guaranteeing rights on three levels: local, national, and European. (…) the goal is to understand what the European Union and the different national governments should

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do to protect these rights and promote integration without discrimination through incorporating the experience of local Portuguese communities into national and European policy, in a movement that is both bottom-up and top-down. (TransEuropa, 2022)

The Portuguese citizens’ assembly reversed the logic of the European citizens’ panels of the CoFoE, insofar it targeted specific communities rather than operate on the basis of ‘random selection’. For the most part, the assembly constructed a dynamic and encouraging space in which different proposals were put forward on how best to address structural racism and discrimination in Portugal and beyond. The assembly was mostly oriented by the three working groups (the Roma Community, the Afro-descendant Community and Inmigrants and Refugees), each of which was moderated by a member of that community. The dynamics throughout the assembly were highly constructive, and the fact that they were moderated by members of the respective communities facilitated that participants felt at ease. The discussions closely intertwined the personal experiences of us participants with concrete political and policy recommendations. Interestingly, one of the things that was questioned by several participants was the framing of the assembly, given the ‘Eurocentric’ perspective of ‘hospitality’: ‘we’ (white people) are the ones doing the ‘welcoming’ to ‘others’. Decolonisation is understood not only as a discursive framework, but also as the practice of dismantling colonial political structures. Georg Blokus, the Berlin hub director and head of organising education of EA, put forward the goal of EA’s educational and political processes: On the one hand, is the analytical capacity to understand how the world is, what is wrong about it, and how it should be organised in a different, better way, so it’s made by, with, and for the people. On the other, there is the practical knowledge about how we organise the hope, the joy, and the power – the capacity, the leadership, and the infrastructures needed – so people can actually do it. (Interview with Georg Blokus, May 2022)

However, the transnational activism has its limits and constraints. For instance, the fact that EA includes ‘European’ in its name can be perceived as a sign of Eurocentrism, excluding non-Europeans. This is particularly relevant considering that there was an explicit effort by EA organisers to involve the Afro-Portuguese community, who may not always feel

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included within the ‘European’ frame. This was also visible when undertaking one of the anti-racism activities of the TransEuropa Festival, where participants would discuss personal experiences related to racist discrimination, and where a transnational group whose common language is English, but some participants would speak in Portuguese due to the ‘colonial’ dimension of English in current days, while also acknowledging the ‘colonial’ dimension of the Portuguese language itself, especially for the Afro-Portuguese community. However, addressing the problematic ‘European’ history and critique it is part of EA’s identity, and is a crucial part of their understanding of transnationalism ‘from below’. Rather than encouraging a drive towards ‘placelessness’, EA attempts to critically rework the relations between places, problematising them and challenging the ideational foundations of ‘nation-states’ and operating with a vision that resembles the conception of the ‘decolonial multitude’. 3.2

The Transnational Workers’ Organizing Summit in Bremen

The Transnational Workers’ Organizing Summit (16–20 November 2022) organised in Bremen by EA began with the following questions: “How can we build a powerful transnational ecology of movements based on the local struggles and issues we face? And how can we ecologize our struggles in order to build the power which allows us to have control over our lives, workplaces, and futures, and to care for ourselves, our communities, and the planet as we would like to?” (European Alternatives, 8 November 2022). The aim of the events organised in the context of the summit, which included artistic performances, solidarity-construction trainings, a public action at the Amazon warehouse or a citizen assembly, is to generate a sense of collective purpose. In doing so, the summit spreads the possibility of building collective hope, against the idea that, no matter what we do, we are doomed to fail. Instead, exercises and processes are set up in such a way in order to realise that (1) our lives are interconnected and that (2) only by working together we will be able to change the way in which we live. If we are affected by each others’ lives, how can we converge and work together towards shared purposes? This is the central question upon which these type of events are constructed. Once clarified the purpose of the gathering, it is necessary to realise that each singularity has something to bring, but different actors have different types of ‘power’. In consequence, how can we use these capacities to mutually

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expand our possibilities? Ultimately, the goal is to embrace the differences but also the shared purposes. In Bremen, the targeted goal was to find ways to strengthen the ecological dimension of trade union activism, with many representatives from riders’ union organisations as well as climate activists. This is not only a based on an intersectional understanding of capitalism, but also on the pragmatic viewpoint of extending the bargaining table beyond employers and workers. This builds solidarity networks beyond the trade union network, and in doing so alters power relations to the benefit of both environmental activists and trade unionists. In this way, power is co-constructed through coalition-making processes. This is illustrated by one of the leading mottos of the summit: “Political power is relational power”. Now, while we all have intersectional aspects that relate to each others’ struggles, there are tensions that can only be resolved if they are addressed. Constructing spaces where conflict can be channelled constructively is a central task of organising. We don’t all have to work together in all movements, but it is necessary to at least know what the tensions are, and why actors are not working together. This can only be done by learning to deal with conflict, making visible the tensions that exist and address them. Fostering agonistic dynamics requires open spaces to channel dissent, in order for issues to be addressed and debated within social movements constructively. This emphasises that building movements is not simply the exercise of bringing together people with the same politics, but in fact construct broad spaces where subjectivities are shaped, which entails channeling difficult conversations. In the words of organisers Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba (2023), “if we cannot organize beyond the bounds of our comfort zones, we will never build movements large enough to combat the forces that would destroy us”. Jana Ahlers, Grassroots Education Manager of European Alternatives, was a key person in the organisation of the Bremen summit, particularly given her experience as coordinator of the People’s Summit for Climate Justice in the context of the 2021 Glasgow’s COP26. Jana Ahlers emphasised the important role of people operating as the “glue behind the scenes” to facilitate the articulation of an inclusive coalition of diverse actors: Coalition has really been my thing for eight years, something I’m quite nerdy about. I think that creating those spaces is incredibly powerful and doesn’t happen often enough. And I think the largest example of that is

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definitely the People’s Summit for Climate Justice, adjacent to the COP26 in Glasgow. We managed to not only involve very locally embedded groups, such as migrant groups, but also large scale NGO actors, which have a different political agenda [overall, over 200 civil society groups] (…) [Out of more than 200 sessions] There was not a single session that was by run by a single group, so every session was curated by our team to allow for cooperation between groups. Obviously, it’s much more work, but also has huge benefits. So we would create super interesting and difficult connection between movements and actors and NGOs to then run a session together. (Interview with Jana Ahlers, April 2023)

Coalition-building dynamics are not without challenges, as difficulties arise in terms of establishing democratic agency and relations of political equality between diverse actors. In particular, it is crucial to avoid creating hierarchical patterns of dependency that conceive situate some actors as ‘service providers’, mimicking to a large extent the relation that the European Commission establishes with the deliberative consortium when organising the citizen panels. A strong investment in ‘relational work’ that helps to skilfully navigate some of these patterns is needed, and the Bremen summit arguably managed: The ambition of full transversality means that you exclude somebody to include others. I think that is a challenge: where do you set the boundaries? (…) There are scenarios where you become like a service provider on the one hand, but on the other hand, that contradicts the idea of unconditional funding that we want to give out. But also it doesn’t work. It really doesn’t work. And then you end up booking the hotels and the flights, and everyday delivering cash and food, which is really not your function. I think there’s layers of relational work where it feels that in order to get a full scale egalitarian coalition, there’s like 30 dirty roads you need to take to get there. (…) Maybe the conclusion is that a coalition needs this intermediate actor that sort of takes off their hat [on behalf of the organisation they belong] for a moment for the sake of the Coalition for alliances. (…) [in the Bremen Summit] I think that there was an interesting curiosity from the different actors and very fruitful way of conceptualising the topic, which allowed basically for every actor to find their niche, but still feel challenged and be perceived as an expert in some way. This interaction is dynamic and evolves between actors, sometimes you were like a learner then you’re an expert. This requires humility, but I also think it reinforces listening. (Interview with Jana Ahlers, April 2023)

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The organisation and structuring of space plays a particularly important role in facilitating egalitarian relations across the different actors. The room in which most activities of the Bremen summit took place was carefully curated, and there was a combination between the curated big open room, with a public theatre and café, thus articulating different social environments. This has been a longstanding way of operating by European Alternatives: we’ve always tried to go from cafes, and artists spaces to more institutional spaces, like a university or a cultural centre. Some of them are more artistic and others are more socially oriented and political. So we’ve been trying to consciously navigate different spaces and open them up to this type of exchanges. (Interview with Ségolène Pruvot, April 2023)

Overall, coalition-building and the articulation of a diverse group of actors was successfully undertaken in the context of the Transnational Workers’ Organizing Summit. A further illustration of this is the Make Amazon Pay campaign, which illustrates the decolonial multitude-like type of political engagement: targeting a global corporation to build a transnational coalition that cuts across issues of workers’ rights, the environment, migration, racism or gender. In the specific context of the Transnational Workers’ Organizing Summit, a public action was organised with local trade unionists in order to raise awareness of the campaign vis-à-vis the workers of the Bremen Amazon warehouse. “The lost art of organising solidarity”, a phrase mobilised in the context of the summit, was in full swing in Bremen. 3.3 The Decolonial Multitude and the Case Against Class Reductionism: The Long Road to Decolonisation Within Social Movements The ULEX training began with the diagnosis that there is widespread fragmentation across social movements, and the difficulties to sustain large-scale national and transnational mobilisation. The training aims at building a learning community in which activists learn from fellow activists and the different movement’s struggles in which they are embedded, as well as finding ways to connect those movements closer together. In this way, the ULEX training was meant as a space of selfreflection in which movement activists come together to share experiences

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and learn from one other. The richness of the training came primarily through the diversity of the 60 activists participating in it. There were activists participating in Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future, Squat movements, trade unionists, LGBTQ+ movements, no border network activists, tenants’ unions and scholar-activists. The diversity of the participants made the space a place where different movements met. However, due to the fact that it was partially an EU-funded project, activists from the global souths were mostly missing, and within the EU only a few activists came from Central and Eastern European post-communist countries. The philosophy with which the ULEX training was organised was based on creating enabling conditions within movements. In other words, the quality of the relationships within the movement shapes to a great extent the way in which it operates and its capacity to act together. In consequence, the training space and the relationship between activists ought to “move at the speed of trust”, which cannot be taken for granted and instead has to be earnt. Ultimately, the goal is not to construct a single vision, but create “a world where many worlds fit”, as the Zapatistas argued. An interesting example of how this process was organised was an exercise in which (we) participants had to position ourselves across 3 axis: (1) change best happens from within the system, (2) from constructing alternatives outside the system or (3) via ruptural tactics. Once positioned each of us, the idea of the exercise is to first criticise each other by outlining what the problems of the opposing positions are, and later instead attempting to praise them. Such exercises contributed to activists comprehending better each other’s political positioning and thus build the basis for future cooperation. Throughout the 10 days there was much emphasis on the ‘politics of care’ via daily check-ins within small groups. However, the plenary activities in which all 60 of us participated were (initially) mostly dominated by the ULEX-led trainers in mostly a top-down and Eurocentric conception of education. The tension exploded during a session dedicated to transnational political action. The session was framed in a theoretical way to explain how transnational political action ‘from below’ is necessary to counter the transnationalism ‘from above’ led by global corporations. The session on transnationalism, conceived as “processes, strategies and practices that relate to how people, power and resources are distributed across borders”, was perceived by several activist participants as problematic. Even though there was an understanding that borders are a tool

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to keep people away from resources in order to reproduce systems of oppression, the fact that this perspective came through a theoretical explanation failed to prioritise the voices of racialised activists with first-hand experience in the violence of borders. In fact, if anything it was a sign of existing coloniality within social movements. Given the widespread feeling of discomfort after this session, several participants brought up the issue with the organisers—who were mostly white and came from the Global North. In response, organisers proposed a set of plenary sessions of ‘open spaces’, in which participants would propose their own sessions in a bottom-up way. Several activists proposed the ‘decolonisation of social movements’ as a central issue and most of the activists attended those sessions (including myself). Later on, in 2023, EA organised a set of discussions on ‘Decolonising Transnationalism’ led by activists with lived experiences that strengthened a logic of decoloniality, an important indication of collective learning. This episode illustrates how some activists have the sense that we ought to fight the system, yet at the same time are continuously confronted with obstacles that white men (such as myself) are not. It also emphasises that within movements we often reproduce the systems of oppression in which we have been socialised and that we are fighting to change. In this way, the specificities of certain struggles are not fully recognised and addressed. There is a remaining coloniality that is widely present within ‘progressive’ organisations and movements, which situates white activists in a position of privilege at the expense of activists that are attempting to conceive different struggles as inherently related to one another. When attempting to connect workers’ rights within a union with racism and discrimination, a trade unionist and activist in Belgium, who also participated in the ULEX Training, was confronted within the union with the idea that trade unions ought to focus on their ‘core business’ of workers’ rights, sidelining its connection to other struggles. The trade unionist suggested that much of the problem in building coalitions and connections across struggles lies in the gap that exists between (trade union) management and workers, the relevance of time and a mistaken understanding of how ‘power’ operates: I think first of all is a sense of trust. That’s sometimes the problem when you try to address an issue, and you want to have quick wins. You reach out and see: who can I work with? And then it’s quite instrumental. I think it’s mechanical, because you’re working on something and you want

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to have progress. But building relationships takes time. So I think that’s an important challenge, because you need the time to build up that trust. (…) there’s a big gap between the world of [trade union] management and the world of the workers. The management of the Union are the ones leading the national negotiations. And then you have a department that is organising actions. And there’s a lack of a link. So sometimes they negotiate. And while they’re talking, there’s no communication. (…) Historically, the [trade union] leaders they have to be negotiators and they didn’t really need the masses. So it’s not really from the bottom up. And now they find themselves in the last 15 years or so in a weaker position. Landscape has changed. During the last 15 years, we have had governments that have helped the employers and not the workers. So they issued laws that made it very hard for us. And you see that we were not fit enough to change these laws. What I try to do in my job is negotiate as a way to get something, but to have an agreement is not the only purpose. We want to organise the workers. Having management within the union that is negotiating politically without having a structural link with the movement… That’s absurd! If you want to get more power, it’s not at the negotiation table. I mean, you build power and then go to the negotiating table, and that’s something they are struggling with. (Interview with Belgian trade union activist, February 2023)

In this way, there is still a long road to connect struggles in a way in which they are inextricably linked to each other, as many actors within progressive organisations and movements still think that racism or sexism is a source of ‘distraction’ from their ‘core business’. This is a classic case of ‘class reductionism’, subordinating ‘class’ as the exploitation of labour over other forms of oppression, such as those based on gender or race. However, “a correct understanding of the relationships among capitalism, racism, and sexism only further highlights how central the struggle against each is to the struggle against any of the others” (Wills, 2018: 232). The very notion of ‘class’ is inextricably linked to all forms of oppression, rather than uniquely denoting a division between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—a division that nonetheless remains relevant. In other words, “class is not simply another ideology legitimating oppression; it denotes exploitative relations between people mediated by their relations to the means of production” (Gimenez, 2001: 24). A non-reductionist conception of ‘class’ requires movements to find ways of articulating different struggles as inherently intertwined. This entails the prioritisation of knowledges and voices from the Global

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Souths, as international solidarity is a necessary condition for the articulation of open and inclusive spaces. In doing so, movements mutually enhance each other’s capacities, constructing a multitude-like political imaginary that is more powerful than if struggles are conceived as operating separate to one another. As the renowned Black feminist Audre Lorde (2007: 138) argued, “there is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives”.

4 The Challenges to Articulate the Decolonial Multitude in the EU The diverse constitution of the decolonial multitude as a political imaginary does not only require the integration of those groups and the recognition of its multiplicity and singularity of each of the groups. It also requires maintaining agonistic dynamics within it. It requires counterpowers to maintain agonistic dynamics within the multitude. This is not only a matter of the principles upon which the decolonial multitude is constructed, but it is also central to its capacity of operating politically. The dominant divides that exist in society, such as those based on gender, class or race, are also reproduced within pro-democracy movements that challenge the system that is precisely based on those divisions. The reproduction of those dynamics within movements complicates the multitude’s capacity of including the different groups and forming a diverse coalition in the first place. Tensions are inevitably going to emerge, and the capacity to establish mechanisms that can channel these tensions is a factor that will influence the decolonial multitude’s effectiveness. There are different axes that are necessary to address. In the EU, first, the perspective of the decolonial multitude is challenging to existing political parties, trade unions and civil society organisations at the EU level that claim to ‘represent’ wider constituencies. This is the case of EU political groups in the European Parliament or the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). The usefulness of these organisations is founded upon a ‘delegation’ logic by which there is a chain of political representation: constituents (for EU political groups) and workers are represented at the national level by national political parties and trade unions, and these national parties and unions are represented at the EU level by EU political groups and ETUC. In this way, national parties and trade unions are not expected to act politically on a regular basis at the European level, channelling its involvement mostly via its EU political groups and ETUC.

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Instead, the multitude’s perspective requires us to alter this chain and imagine a more horizontal, inclusive and dynamic involvement of actors: national parties and trade unions ought to be involved directly in partnership with other parties and unions. Evidently, this does not mean that there is no room for EU political groups or ETUC—on the contrary, it requires ETUC-esque actors to take a more activist stance and coordinate national actors to put forward pan-European issues on national agendas. This direction might lead this set of actors to coalesce with movements. Crucially, this process does not entail the liquidation of the idea of ‘representation’, but rather to shape it in line with a more activist notion of it. In other words, ‘representation’ cannot only operate as a symbolic process detached from social relations. ‘Representation’ begins with political investment into prefigurative politics that bring together different struggles and facilitate mass politics. For trade unions, the TTIP context was an interesting case in point. Given the disagreements within the Social-Democrats and between trade unions (particularly some Northern European trade unions were rather sympathetic to the free trade logic), ETUC did not play the role of coordinating national trade unions against TTIP and primarily championed its own position vis-à-vis EU institutions. National trade unions coordinated autonomously against TTIP, and in some cases built strong political coalitions at the national level (see Rone, 2020), such as in the case of Germany (Gheyle & Rone, 2022), France, Spain or the UK (Oleart, 2021). There are big EU-level organisations, such as Greenpeace or Oxfam, that are so big globally that they often do not have much incentives to collaborate with other civil society organisations. This explains why they are often launching their own campaigns rather than operating through cooperative and diverse coalitions. Other actors, such as Transparency International, are socialised with institutions in a way that they are simply too far away from grassroots movements. This further complicates establishing a connection between social movements, institutionalised NGOs and trade unions and parliamentary actors (for the case of ACTA, see Crespy & Parks, 2017). There are two interesting examples of attempts to coordinate across organisations. The first one is located within the European Parliament, the Progressive Caucus, a space of building a more or less stable ‘progressive’ coalition between MEPs that belong to different EU political groups, namely the GUE-NGL, the Greens and the S&D. The second example is Civil Society Europe (CSE), a membership organisation that

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gathers 22 EU-level civil society organisations whose aim is “to facilitate and enable horizontal and vertical dialogue between European civil society organisations and policy-makers and help strengthening CSOs in their activities and relations with the institutions” (Civil Society Europe, n.d.). However, both the Progressive Caucus and CSE operate as spaces of coordination (the former among individual MEPs with similar political sensitivities within the EP; the latter among established Brussels-based NGOs), rather than as spaces for broader transnational political action. In that sense, they are both disconnected from social movements and grassroots organising. When it comes to emerging grassroots movements, however, there is on the one hand the lack of connection across multi-level politics, but also an important risk to reproduce the systemic inequalities structuring capitalist society with remaining colonialities. Fridays for Future or Extinction Rebellion (XR) are a good case in point for movements that have largely failed to adopt an intersectional perspective (on XR, see Bell & Bevan, 2021). In consequence, racialised and working-class people have been often alienated by these movement’s discourse and practices. It is not only about building an ‘inclusive’ movement, but about constructing a space that prioritises a decolonial understanding of different issues, such as climate change. A similar case in point is present when building transnational social movements in the EU, where activists from Central and Eastern Europe tend to be backgrounded. The dominant Eurocentric epistemologies remain also strong within social movements. The continuing coloniality that is still in place shapes activists’ imagination of what ‘progressive’ values are, largely disregarding the local struggles of the Global Souths, such as in Africa (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013a). The emphasis on a ‘decolonial turn’ for social movements and the hegemonic ‘global coloniality’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013b) is a gap in Hardt and Negri’s multitude and remains a central problematic for those actors building transnational political action. The diagnosis of these tensions is the starting point for socially skilled mediators that attempt to operate as multipositional actors (Oleart & Bouza, 2018) through the combination of different political registers, having the capacity to inhabit different spaces, both institutional and activist ones. They are crucial in acting as brokers who bring issues of local and national concern into the arena of EU politics as well as bringing European issues into the more grounded realms of social movement activity (Woll & Jacquot, 2010). European Alternatives is one of the

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leading multipositional actors in the European political arena, complementing grassroots engagement with local communities with EU-level professionalised activities oriented towards lobbying practices. In doing so, the goal is to address imbalances and pushback against the dominant dynamics in which actors, also activist ones, have been socialised. Some of these tensions played out in the context of the activist spaces in which I am embedded. Challenging systemic inequality dynamics in activist spaces is particularly relevant, given that when sexism or racism appears within presupposed ‘allies’; it breaks any possibility of building trust and solidarity dynamics. Fostering agonistic dynamics is a central dimension for the constitution of a decolonial multitude that is intersectional. 4.1

Beyond the Social Forum and Project-based Cooperation: Building Transnational, Decolonial, Feminist and Democratic Movement Structures

During the early 1970s, Jo Freeman reflected upon the reluctance to formalising structures of the feminist movement in her article ‘The tyranny of structurelessness’. Freeman argued that, on the basis of political pragmatism, rather than resisting the construction of formalised hierarchies, it was necessary to subject them to democratic accountability: The more unstructured a movement is, the less control it has over the directions in which it develops and the political actions in which it engages. This does not mean that its ideas do not spread. Given a certain amount of interest by the media and the appropriateness of social conditions, the ideas will still be diffused widely. But diffusion of ideas does not mean they are implemented; it only means they are talked about. Insofar as they can be applied individually they may be acted on; insofar as they require coordinated political power to be implemented, they will not be. (Freeman, n.d.)

The chapter has shown specific attempts to bring diverse groups together in a collective way: not as individuals but as actors that are grounded in particular social realities that interact with each other. This heavily contrasts with the type of ‘citizen participation’ described in the context of the Conference on the Future of Europe. However, these activist spaces remain today rather temporary, and often are based on specific projects or campaigns that are limited in time. Thus, a crucial challenge is to build

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permanent transnational movement structures that are built from a both decolonial, democratic and feminist perspective. Without such ‘infrastructures of dissent’, different movements are likely to operate in parallel instead of joining forces to strengthen each other through a ‘movement of movements’. There was a partial attempt of undertaking such task over twenty years ago through the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre in January 2001. This was a historic event that attempted to create a space for movements from across the world to meet and coordinate transnationally. The acceleration of capitalist globalisation and the transnational corporations driving it required a transnational coordinated response of ‘globalisation from below’. Many encounters and relationships were constructed through the Social Forum, which contributed to some extent in the successive connection of movements. However, the spaces constructed for movements to meet did not evolve into permanent spaces of cooperation that are both transversal (across different issues, from labour rights and trade unions to migrants’ rights or environmental issues) and transnational (across national borders, bringing activists from the Global North and Global Souths together through a decolonial perspective). The consequence is that some transversal and transnational movements emerge every few years, but eventually they dissipate. For this reason, it is an urgent task to build convivial spaces for movement infrastructure, where learning and unlearning processes are fostered. Only by creating and encouraging these spaces can different movements with different political cultures get to know each other and ultimately construct a joint political culture in which different movements fit. Given the important power imbalances within movements, as economically powerful organisations tend to dominate them, it is necessary to think of ways in which these spaces are democratised. There is a temptation from bigger organisations to operate on their own and only occasionally join other groups in a coalition that campaigns for a specific demand. The project-based understanding of cooperation structurally entrenches the position of power of bigger organisations, and also fuels distrust between them and grassroots activists. On the long term, focusing uniquely on project-based cooperation may actually harm movement solidarity because it emphasises the perceived ‘self-interest’ of organisations, as opposed to the articulation of a movement that may have short term concrete goals, but also a broader shared collective vision. If environmental organisations only cooperate on explicitly environmentally-related campaigns, it

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will nourish an instrumental conception of cooperation. Hence, tactical coalition-building in specific campaigns ought to be combined with broader discussions that encourage solidarity and movement-building in a decolonial multitude-like fashion. These prefigurative spaces need to be supported and treated with care—there are far too many activist organisers that have suffered from burnouts related to the difficulties of managing and coordinating a wide range of organisations.1 Evidently, different organisations have different priorities (workers’ rights for trade unions, women’s rights for feminist organisations, the environment for environmentalists, elections for political parties…), yet there is no contradiction between them, and they would politically enhance each other by mutually supporting one another in solidarity. Furthermore, they would be able to introduce these priorities in spaces that might otherwise not consider them as a priority. There is no magic formula for the successful articulation of a decolonial multitude-like movement. In fact, a managerial approach to configure coalitions would operate against the spirit of the multitude. But it is important to acknowledge that, in spite of the differences that organisations may have, we are part of a common journey in the struggle for democracy. A crucial source of inspiration in this sense can be drawn from the relationship between the United States civil rights movement and anticolonial struggles. Transnational linkages and horizons have long existed, and it is only by connecting those struggles that a meaningful democratic transformation can take place. Such a perspective allows us to break the naturalisation of the nation-state as the ‘natural’ space of democracy and enhance the transformational potential of movements. To be sure, this is not the task of one organisation alone. The challenge is to support local

1 Mental health struggles are particularly salient in activist communities. The motivation of activists is primarily oriented towards social and political change, and in most cases much of the work is, at best, poorly paid (in most cases it is not paid at all). Considering the economic precariousness, the difficulties to bring together a wide range of organisations and individuals, and internal conflicts that often arise, organisers whose responsibility is to coordinate activists are particularly prone to burnouts. Sustaining activist mobilisation requires a lot of emotional labour, but it is usually not well redistributed (with a heavy gender component) and tends to fall on a small group of organisers. Processes such as check-ins are now common and facilitate empathy, but solidarity and empathy is also fostered through structures—sharing funding and resources between organisations to facilitate the engagement in long-term movement solidarity would be a positive step forward.

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and national organisations as mass organisations to counter the decadeslong trend of hollowing out of trade unions and political parties (Mair, 2013), while at the same time constructing a space of permanent dialogue between movements across borders. This process does not entail erasing the differences between actors and movements, but requires a commitment to engage in relational thinking and withstand the tensions that might exist.

5

Conclusion

The chapter has described and analysed the way in which decolonial multitude-like movements are organising and mediating actors transnationally, on the basis of semi-structured interviews and participant observation of different movement activist spaces. In this way, I did not conceptualise activist groups as a sort of ‘focus group’, but instead reflected upon already ongoing processes in which I played an active role as an activist, since I am myself embedded in these transnational activist networks. While these spaces do not constitute the decolonial multitude as such, they are helpful to abstract from them a multitude-like political imaginary and a horizon of political change. The overarching argument focuses on the centrality of establishing bonds of intersectional solidarity, whereby the specificity of each other’s struggles paves the way for shared purposes. This political direction has the potential to break away from the individualisation of activism towards a ‘movement of movement’. In doing so, a common platform and a shared political identity can emerge. It is the common struggle that constitutes the decolonial multitude. Thus, rather than focusing on ‘protest events’, the chapter has emphasised the ‘prefigurative politics’ of movements and more fundamental questions about how and why different movements operate and what processes might contribute to bring different actors to work together. As put by Táíwò (2022: 121), “though we start from different levels of privilege or advantage, this journey is not a matter of figuring out who should bow to whom, but simply one of figuring out how to best join forces”. Theorising already ongoing processes helps to make sense of them—activists are already operating from a decolonial multitude perspective even if they do not label it as such. The book is not uniquely written for activists, but precisely attempts to connect institutional processes with activist ones. This is not an encouragement for transnational activists

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to uniquely mobilise on the basis of the political opportunity structures opened by institutions. Much to the contrary, movements ought to self-organise autonomously, yet they are in constant interaction with institutions. An interesting example is the fact that the Assemblies of Solidarity ran by EA appears as a response to the Conference on the Future of Europe and is in constant interaction with EU institutions, and both the TransEuropa Festival and the activist training were partially funded by EU programmes. Building a more supportive, decolonial, feminist, egalitarian and democratic society requires developing social and political movement structures—‘infrastructures of dissent’—in which there are counter-powers and a constant agonistic internal debate that not only ‘allows’ criticism, but also encourages it. Solidarity is not spontaneous, but is built through dynamics and democratic structures that facilitate spaces for dissensus. Thus, navigating difficult political tensions requires building internal dynamics within movements that foster solidarity and camaraderie rather than competition and individualism. The perspective developed throughout this chapter has thus focused on the importance of agency in articulating and constituting the decolonial multitude, which does not exist by default, but instead rather has to be constructed. As the historian E. P. Thompson (1963: 194) argued in the context of early nineteenthcentury England, “the working class made itself as much as it was made”. Similarly, the decolonial multitude ought to articulate itself as much as it is constructed by our current globalised capitalist and postcolonial society. In the process, new notions of representation that are able to encompass a more democratic and inclusive imaginary may emerge. More broadly, the chapter illustrates the stark contrast with the type of ‘citizen participation’ mechanisms that the EU (and the European Commission in particular) is increasingly envisaging. EU institutions can organise ‘democratic experiments’ via disintermediated and depoliticised mini-publics such as in the Conference on the Future of Europe, but without a broader reconfiguration of the way in which democracy is conceived and facilitating activist and agonistic conflict-oriented ways of engaging in EU politics, the EU (and beyond) is unlikely to be democratised. In order to foster transnational democracy, facilitating spaces where ongoing movements meet and find ways in which they can connect their shared struggles ought to be the main task of ‘citizen participation’ mechanisms. Revolutionary practices and subjectivities begin with a careful articulation of different actors and the “lost art of organising solidarity”.

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CHAPTER 8

The Contrast Between the EU’s Technocratic Conception of ‘Citizen Participation’ and the Democratic Pluralism of the Decolonial Multitude

1 The European Citizens’ Panels and the ‘Passive Revolution’: The EU’s Technocratic ‘Citizen Turn’ The book began with Marx’s quote that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce, and has made a historical parallelism between the Italian unification process during the 1860s and the increasing popularity of a new way of conceiving ‘representation’ via sortition-based minipublics. Both processes share a logic whereby political elites realised that the legitimacy of the status quo was in question, and new mechanisms had to be developed in order to ensure that the structural foundations of society would be reproduced. In the EU context, after the strong crisis of legitimacy (Schmidt, 2020) and politicisation (Haapala & Oleart, 2022) that the EU has gone throughout the 2010s, including the exit of one member state, the UK, new mechanisms beyond technocratic justifications have been introduced through ‘citizen participation’ innovations. The book has focused on the ‘passive revolution’ as a preventive strategy to make the possibility of an active revolution ‘unthinkable’ by incorporating certain elements from contestatory groups (through ‘innovative’ citizen participation processes),

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thus neutralising possible challenges. Considering the technocratic traditional understanding of the EU in the political imaginary, the EU’s citizen turn can be read as a process to soften its image and increasingly be perceived less of a bureaucratic ‘machine’ and more of a citizenfriendly democratic polity. The leading entrepreneur of this process is the European Commission.1 The dominant EU political actors conceived the Conference on the Future of Europe as a mechanism by which the EU could involve ‘citizens’ and thus increase the input legitimacy of the European project, without, however, mobilising the necessary political capital to situate on the table the possibility of making meaningful changes to the existing power structures. Ultimately, the infighting between EU institutions, the reluctance of member states to commit to the process, the lack of clarity in its organisation, the lack of a public sphere perspective and the small involvement of intermediary actors have made the Conference primarily a largely depoliticised ‘Brussels-bubble’ exercise of democracy without politics . Such concept, developed primarily in Chapter 3, can be interpreted as a contradiction in terms, an oxymora, given that the quality of democracy depends on the intensity of agonistic politics in the public sphere, and the depoliticisation of the EU policy and decision-making processes tends to primarily reproduce the status quo. However, the term democracy without politics represents well the EU’s own understanding of ‘citizen participation’. Any ‘democratic’ shift that ignores the structural economic, political and epistemic inequalities, as well as the postcolonial, patriarchal and capitalist material structures that exist (all of which are closely related to each other), and that fails to introduce debates in the public sphere, is unlikely to meaningfully democratise the EU. With the ‘citizen turn’, the EU is repackaging already existing political dynamics onto a new arena. The supposed ‘neutrality’ of the European citizen panels is primarily a way to reproduce the structurally uneven EU political playing field. Situating citizen panels as central to EU democracy in the way in which the European Commission is implementing them in the ‘new generation’

1 EU institutions are certainly not a monolith. It is important to emphasise that the ‘citizen turn’ is largely led by actors within the European Commission (and some DGs and Commissioners remain more open to such process than others), and that there is more reluctance to this type of political participation within the European Parliament and the Council.

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panels is likely to only further the hollowing out of the EU. The logic of ‘democracy without politics’ that prevailed throughout the Conference is illustrative of the overall technocratic conception that EU institutions, and the Commission in particular, tend to have of ‘democracy’ (Oleart & Theuns, 2022) and ‘citizen participation’. The ‘new’ mechanisms of participation have also facilitated the rise of private consultancies whose expertise is the organisation of deliberative democracy exercises. Democracy is mostly reduced to (new) public management (Connell et al., 2009) and the efficiency of public policy-making, sidelining agonistic alternatives and mass politics. This process is what is conceived as having the potential for a ‘passive revolution’, by which actors within the EU have attempted to relegitimise the polity by adopting ‘new’ methodologies that appear to have a ‘revolutionary’ potential, yet in fact are reproducing the dominant ideological framework. The introduction of participatory mechanisms in the EU is not in itself a positive development for European democracy. Political participation cannot be an end in itself, but rather a way to transform society. If these mechanisms are unable to not only feed EU policy and decision-making, but also encourage further participation by communities generally excluded from EU politics, they are unlikely to contribute to the democratisation of the EU. While giving the appearance that it is transforming its relationship to citizens, the EU’s citizen turn deactivates democratic subjects through the depoliticisation and individualisation of ‘politics’. EU institutions, and the European Commission in particular, are incorporating some elements from the 2010s social movements, such as the emphasis on assemblies, deliberation and ‘technopolitics’, and implementing them in a way that neutralises political conflict via its emphasis on consensus-seeking. The discourse surrounding the citizen panels organised by EU institutions analysed and discussed throughout the book emphasises the idealisation of the wiseness of (individualised) ‘everyday citizens’, the sidelining of activist organisations, and a process marked by a conceptualisation of democracy as not having ‘politics’. Some of the organisers have highlighted the important role of the panels in socialising citizens across the EU. While this is no doubt the case, it may be overstating the impact that it will have on the civic participation even of the participants on the long term. It is likely that the several hundred citizens involved in the European citizens’ panels will be more interested in

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EU politics following their participation, yet without a structural improvement of the channels through which citizens can play a role in EU politics, the citizens’ panels are likely to play primarily a performative role. This may apply as well to ‘citizen assemblies’ beyond the EU, as many of the climate assemblies organised during the last few years, and also the 2021 Global Assembly on the Climate and Ecological Crisis, appear to have similar caveats. This dynamic highlights the dangers of co-optation of ‘citizen participation’ by the institutions that are organising them. As Chapter 6 has developed in detail, the post-CoFoE ‘new generation’ panels are a good illustration of how these processes can reproduce the individualist and (neo)liberal ideology of the institution that constructs the process, in this case the European Commission. In doing so, it contributed to neutralising systemic critiques of the EU, while integrating longstanding demands of ‘citizen participation’ from social movements. Thus, the new intergovernmentalist ‘revolution from above’ throughout the 2010s has been accompanied with a ‘softer’ attempt to address this legitimacy crisis via ‘citizen participation’. Even though the EU’s ‘citizen turn’ is characterised by making ‘participation’ a ‘communication exercise’, in practice it has not been a particularly successful one so far. A passive revolution is successful when it succeeds in not simply appearing as a varnishing process, but also in enforcing a broader consent among actors that previously contested the EU. In this case, the EU’s citizen turn has not produced deeper transformations in the perceptions of the EU, mostly due to the lack of resonance in the public sphere. Arguably, the EU’s ‘citizen turn’ has failed on its own communicative terms, given the lack of awareness among EU citizens that these exercises in fact had taken place. Furthermore, politics is not only based on perceptions of reality and its imagined representation, but also on what Machiavelli conceived as the verità effettuale della cosa. Communication strategies have its limits. On the short term, they may produce positive effects, but if the material reality of society does not change, it is going to be difficult to convincingly argue that the EU is less ‘technocratic’ and more ‘democratic’ thanks to the ‘citizen participation’ mechanisms put in place. The EU remains a politically fragile polity suffering from the dominance of executive-led policy-making and a European public sphere deficit—neither of these dimensions is addressed by the inclusion of European citizens’ panels. However, the trend of highly coopted ‘citizen participation’ in the EU context (both at the EU level

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and at the national and regional levels) is likely to continue, as illustrated by ongoing climate assemblies or the 2023 French citizen convention on the end of life. While the book is not meant to be a historical one, it does attempt to connect current transnational movements struggling to democratise the institutions that are dominant in our society with previous struggles. With the advent of Garibaldi’s Redshirts in Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel ‘The Leopard’ set in the 1860s, Prince Fabrizio’s nephew, Tancredi, argued that “If we want things to stay as they are, everything has to change”. Thus, the ‘citizen turn’ changes the way in which EU institutions increasingly conceive of its relation with citizens, as an attempt to shift the basis of (input) legitimacy from intermediary actors towards ‘everyday citizens’. In doing so, actors within the EU are attempting to change something so that things remain unchanged, and executive institutions (rather than non-executive actors, such as parliaments, trade unions or civil society) continue being the most influential actors in EU policy and decision-making processes. This is visually represented by the cover of the book, a European Union flag with a lock. The Conference, and the ‘citizen turn’ more broadly, mostly ‘locked in’ the current status quo by reproducing the preexistent depoliticised dynamics yet with a different legitimacy discourse, based on a disintermediated appeal to ‘citizens’ and innovative political practices such as the citizen panels. This shift towards ‘citizens’ at large constitutes a relevant change in the EU’s conception of democratic legitimacy and participation. Eric Krebbers, a Dutch activist within Extinction Rebellion (XR), criticised the support that some XR groups have given to the idea of citizens’ assemblies, which he conceives as a “reformist pacifier”: The individualising effect of the drawing of lots that would start a citizens’ assembly ensures that the only forces that can bring about real change, the radical environmental movement and combative endangered communities, are sidelined in the debate. After all, the only strength the climate movement has lies in collective struggle, in collective resistance. And it is precisely in that collective resistance to the eco-destructive system that the best ideas for a different society, a more just society and an ecologically responsible economy are born. Through the liberal concept of “citizen”, on the other hand, XR refers to individuals who are basically on their own and therefore powerless against the state and the ruling order. (…) The hope now is that, like racism, the climate activists will also reject the citizens’ assemblies. Like racism, they too stand in the way of real change.

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When we chant “change the system” at demonstrations and blockades, we do not mean “add a glorified advisory committee to the parliamentary system”. We are not calling for yet another bureaucratic layer, a cushion, between the movement and those in power. (Krebbers, 2021)

Similarly, participatory democracy and decolonial activist Maarten de Groot has argued that the field of deliberative democracy often misses a materialist analysis of the system in which it operates: organisations working in the field of democratic innovation, and in particular those implementing political participation projects, frequently present themselves as ‘policy-neutral’ or ‘impartial’ vis-a-vis ‘debates’ on social justice. As a result, you will not see many of these organisations actively presenting themselves as anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, let alone anti-capitalist. This idea of ‘neutrality’ or ‘impartiality’ is not only flawed and misleading, in my view, the act of distancing oneself from social justice activism actively contributes to the divide and rule strategy that prevents fundamental change from happening. (de Groot, 2023)

The two excerpts illustrate the ongoing concerns from activists on the way in which citizen panels are integrated by policy-makers, and closely relates to the idea of a passive revolution. Citizen panels can be mobilised as a way to divide movements by adopting certain demands without putting at risk the possibility of meaningful political change. While problematising it both theoretically and empirically, the book has aimed to not only critically analyse the way in which EU ‘citizen participation’ has evolved, and how it is related to a systemic effort to channel the political discontent in order to reproduce the existing political inequalities. It has also proposed alternative conceptual tools to imagine the unlocking and democratisation of the EU from a decolonial and transnational democracy perspective. The book has narrated the specific ways in which the CoFoE and the European citizen panels were designed, and contrasted it with ongoing activist organisations and networks (Chapter 7). In doing so, the book has set up an alternative lens to look at the subject of democracy in Europe and beyond, the decolonial multitude, which begins with a different conception of democratic political participation. The contrast between the ‘decolonial multitude’ and the idea of the ‘people(s)’ is a conceptual nuance that allows for a normatively more desirable view of the ‘we’ of democracy, providing a movement-oriented notion of ‘representation’

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and an emancipatory political imaginary. Such perspective encourages us to focus on the activist organisations and movements that are targeting deeper rooted structures in European and global politics, and find ways to mutually enhance each other’s capacities and power both transnationally and transversally through a ‘movement of movements’. The contrast between the European citizens’ panels and the transnational activist spaces described is analogous to the conceptual distinction made in Chapter 2 between ‘delegation’ and ‘mediation’. The citizens’ panels attempted to ‘represent’ the European people(s) via sortition, thus bringing the voices of ‘everyday people’ to EU institutions. The European Commission in particular has attempted to ‘embed’ the panels in its policy-making process. On the contrary, decolonial multitude-like spaces described in Chapter 7 are meant to play a political socialising role (and mostly located within prefigurative politics), bringing together activists from different fields into a common political project. Thus, the notion of ‘representation’ mobilised in the context of the citizens’ panels in practice operates as an elite focus group, whereas transnational activists emphasise a movement-oriented understanding of representation that eventually leads to contestation in the public sphere and mass politics. The critique of the ‘descriptive representation’ of sortition-based minipublics should not equated with the reclaiming of traditional notions of electoral representation, but rather towards a more fluid, movement-oriented and dynamic activist understanding of it. Next, the concluding chapter develops why the concept of the multitude offers a democratic framework that can advance decolonial and transnational democracy. Third, it explains why this imaginary is particularly suitable for the EU, which is a promising playing field for the decolonial multitude if we focus on fostering mass membership organisations and embed democratic innovations to feed a transnational agonistic public sphere. Fourth, the chapter describes the contribution to the literature of the book, its shortcomings and possible avenues for future research. Last, the book ends with a reflection on the need to question and renegotiate the current ideological borders of European studies academic discourse, and the relationship between academia and politics.

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2 Fostering the Intersectional Power of the Multitude: Reframing the Democracy Debate from a Decolonial Perspective The book has focused on the EU, but its aspiration is in essence decolonial and internationalist. Given the strong intertwining of polities across the world, democracy can no longer be conceived uniquely from a perspective that maintains nation-states as the primary locus of democracy. The advantage of the ‘decolonial multitude’ as a political imaginary, in contrast to the ‘people’ or a ‘demos/demoi’ is that, given its autonomy from formal political institutions, it facilitates understanding the linkages of transnational coalitions and its close interaction with the material structures within which political actors operate. As argued by Hardt and Negri (2019: 68), “interpreting the primary structures of rule and exploitation in a global context is the key to recognizing and furthering the potential forces of revolt and liberation”. From an arguably Eurocentric perspective, the origin of democracy is often situated in ancient Athens, as even in etymological terms it seems that it is the obvious starting point. As Chakrabarty (1992: 1) argued, “insofar as the academic discourse of history—that is, ‘history’ as a discourse produced at the institutional site of the university—is concerned, ‘Europe’ remains the sovereign, theoretical subject of all histories”. This is closely connected to the recent emergence of sortitionbased proposals to renew democracy. In this sense, David van Reybrouck’s (2014) book ‘Against Elections’ was highly influential, the main idea being that sortition constructs a much more ‘representative’ group of people than the parliamentarians elected via elections. However, as David Graeber and David Wengrow have argued, we ought to challenge traditional assumptions of the history of humanity and the emergence of democratic politics. Building on the work of archaeologists and anthropologists, they raise a crucial question when analysing societies typically labelled as ‘egalitarian’ in the literature on the grounds that they were too ‘simple’ and/or too ‘poor’ to build anything: What if the sort of people we like to imagine as simple and innocent are free of rulers, governments, bureaucracies, ruling classes and the like, not because they are lacking in imagination, but because they’re actually more imaginative than we are? (Graeber & Wengrow, 2021: 73)

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In this way, different political arrangements—some more egalitarian, others more hierarchical—have existed in many more diverse ways than previously identified, and “the only consistent phenomenon is the very fact of alteration, and the consequent awareness of different social possibilities” (Graeber & Wengrow, 2021: 115). The widely different choices and social arrangements made throughout human history in terms of the way in which society is organised provide a breath of fresh air in how we conceive of democracy and its inherent pluralism. It also provides inspiration and creativity for the future. A key challenge in our times is to collectively construct political alternatives. The decolonial multitude has thus wider flexibility and adaptability to rethink transformational approaches in an intersectional way, in order to connect past and current struggles. It is this perspective of ‘history from below’, in combination with the decolonial multitude, that has the transformational conceptual strength to imagine a more transnational and democratic future: “History from below keeps alive the memory of struggles past, saying to those who fight for a different future, you are not alone. Your struggles have long histories, from which you can take practical knowledge and inspiration” (Rediker, 2022: 299). There is excellent ongoing work from this perspective, such as the uncovering of stories of transnational solidarity from the perspective of grassroots activists during the 1960s (see Maasri et al., 2022), which heavily shaped the political imaginary of how solidarity is conceptualised and practised. Similarly, evolving forms of transnational feminist solidarity emerged when activists encountered different forms of domination that are not only based on gender, but also in its intertwinement with race and class, as well as the context-dependent diverse ways in which domination occurs in capitalism (on Angela Davis encounter with the Egyptian feminist movement during the 1970s, see Salem, 2018). There are hidden continuities across movements. Even if they do not succeed in their policy demands, movements always leave a lasting mark. Much of it depends on its narrative and organisational capacity to tell a story about the movement and its past struggles, reflexively engage in political and strategic debates, and open up a space to challenge the status quo to shape power relations through collective action. The understanding of democracy as a system of equality that was ‘born’ in ‘Europe’ is particularly problematic, considering that ancient Athens ‘democracy’ was primarily based on male “labouring citizens” (see Wood, 2015), as women were sidelined from political life and the system

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relied on slavery. Thus, much of the political discussion relating to ‘participatory democracy’, and particularly regarding citizen assemblies and sortition-based initiatives, has been shaped by a rather depoliticised and Eurocentric conception of democracy that fails to take into account the material structures that cause strain on democracy. Interestingly, much of the work of ‘enlightenment’ thinkers of the eighteenth century is inspired by indigenous critiques of European empires’ governance structures. Most ‘Enlightenment’ thinkers, such as Montesquieu, Diderot or Chateaubriand, chose to develop ideas in their works from an ‘imagined outsider’ (Graeber & Wengrow, 2021: 58) perspective who was often a member of an indigenous American community. A key actor in this context is Kandiaronk, a significant leader during the second half of the seventeenth century of the Wendat, an Iroquoian Indigenous group of northeast North America that organised in an egalitarian (and arguably democratic) way. Kandiaronk often interacted and operated as a politician and diplomat in relation to colonial French actors, and reflected deeply upon how the Wendat related to the French state. Kandiaronk is quoted saying the following: I have spent 6 years reflecting on the state of European society and I still can’t think of a single way they act that’s not inhuman, and I genuinely think this can only be the case, as long as you stick to your distinctions of ‘mine’ and ‘thine’. I affirm that what you call money is the devil of devils; the tyrant of the French, the source of all evils; the bane of souls and slaughterhouse of the living. To imagine one can live in the country of money and preserve one’s soul is like imagining one could preserve one’s life at the bottom of a lake. Money is the father of luxury, lasciviousness, intrigues, trickery, lies, betrayal, insincerity, - of all the world’s worst behaviour. Fathers sell their children, husbands their wives, wives betray their husbands, brothers kill each other, friends are false, and all because of money. In the light of all this, tell me that we Wendat are not right in refusing to touch, or so much as to look at silver? (quoted in Graeber & Wengrow, 2021: 54)

The case of Kandiaronk illustrates the heavy Eurocentric and arguably colonial epistemic legacy of the way in which still today we conceive of democracy. The work of Edward Said (1978) is crucial in furthering the logic of decoloniality, connecting the material and epistemic injustices. For instance, the dismissiveness of non-Eurocentric democracies such as the Wendat might be conceived as an exercise in ‘Orientalism’. There

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is a longstanding tradition of decolonial democratic theory (see Temin, 2023), yet it is often sidelined. In fact, the EU has the ambition of ‘promoting democracy’ across the world, as if its parameters were the ‘model’ for other countries and regions to follow. There is a coherence between the attempts to internally ‘democratise’ the EU through exercises such as the citizens’ panels with the narrative of externally ‘promoting democracy’ (the latter conceived as the EU’s ‘Messiah Complex’ in Oleart and Theuns, Forthcoming). Politically, they are both Eurocentric exercises that appear to have the potential for a democratic transformation, yet in fact tend to reinforce the status quo and leave little space for contestatory movements to emerge. From this perspective, it is unsurprising that, in the 2022 State of the Union, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the ‘Defence of Democracy’ package, which emphasised the threats to democracy coming from ‘foreign entities’ and ‘covert foreign influenc’, contributing to the securitisation of democracy by orienting it towards foreign policy. This highlights the paradox that, while the EU is undertaking ‘democratic innovations’ through citizens’ panels and claiming to ‘promote democracy’ globally, it has been unable to reverse the democratic backsliding in member states such as Hungary and Poland. More than ever, reversing the gaze (Nicolaidis & Youngs, 2023) and the transition towards a ‘decolonial project for Europe’ (Bhambra, 2022) that goes beyond Eurocentric epistemic parameters of democracy ought to be a priority.

3 The Political Implications of the Decolonial Multitude: The EU as a Political Playing Field Given that the decolonial multitude is not necessarily linked inherently to a concrete territory, state, polity or ‘nation’, why does the EU matter as a terrain of political struggle? First, it is crucial to move away from the idea of recreating the nation-building exercise at the EU level. Instead, the EU ought to be reclaimed as a polity that in its very essence integrates a transnational dimension. Thus, unlike big corporations, which are able to move swiftly from one country to another, EU institutions are grounded and its architecture is suitable for a decolonial multitude-like perspective to emerge and operate within and beyond it. This explains why the EU might be a promising terrain of struggle for the decolonial multitude, as it already has institutions that operate on a beyond the nation-state level. However, the struggle of movements within the EU has to be

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closely linked to the broader struggles by establishing bonds of international solidarity and a ‘movement of movements’. This is not an easy task, and here the historical parallel with the Italian unification serves as a cautionary tale: the Italian aristocracy recognised their weakness and identified well what it is that they could give to Garibaldi’s Redshirts without losing its position of dominance. There is a risk of the EU’s ‘citizen turn’ being used as a way to (re)legitimise European integration without any substantial concession to movements. The role of a passive revolution is to neutralise the political strength of the multitude. Thus, by definition, it is fragile and vulnerable to the emergence of an articulated multitude that refuses to accept the status quo. A promising historical example can be found in the case of Haiti (Horne, 2015), which can be considered an ‘active revolution’. When black slaves revolted against the French colonisers in 1791, they not only fundamentally changed the power structures once they gained independence in 1804, but also constructed new ways of envisioning democracy in a way that can be closely associated to a decolonial multitude-like perspective that combines universality with specificity. They constructed new democratic political ideals based on its political practices. As argued by Getachew (2016: 823), I propose an alternative account of the universalism of the Haitian Revolution that begins with its specificity. Specificity entails attention to the particular political problems from which the revolution emerged and highlights how political practices themselves inaugurate ideals rather than merely realizing existing ideals. I argue that the problem of colonial slavery is better characterized as domination rather than exclusion and illustrate that this experience of injustice shaped the actions and ideals of the enslaved. An alternative vision of the universal emerges when we begin by reconstructing practices and ideals as responses to specific political conundrums. I argue that in wrestling with the domination of colonial slavery, Haitian revolutionaries revealed the limits of the rights of man and introduced another universalism linked to individual and collective autonomy. (…) Under the banner of a black Empire, the Haitian Revolution made this ideal transnational by offering a radical account of black citizenship that would be open to all who escaped from slavery and colonial rule. In doing so, Haitian revolutionaries envisioned a previously unimaginable world order in which both slavery and colonial rule would finally be transcended.

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The Haitian revolution is helpful to imagine a more fundamental critique of the EU that can advance a decolonial and democratic societal transformation. As an inherently multicultural, postcolonial and diverse polity, the EU is a political playing field that is in a privileged position to resignify the understanding of democracy that is linked to the ‘nation-state’ towards transnational and decolonial democracy. So far the EU has launched antitrust measures against some of the biggest multinational corporations (e.g. Apple or Google) which precisely represent the globalisation of capital. Financial flows and multinational corporations have globalised, yet democracy has not, nor our understanding of it. The framework of the decolonial multitude precisely allows to do just that: rethink how we conceive of democracy and detach it from the nation-state, and include in this process those actors that still today are affected by the ruling capitalist and colonial material structures upon which the EU is built. Establishing a connection between a Gramscian reading of ongoing ‘citizen participation’ politics, an internationalist perspective and decolonisation (see also Persaud, 2016; Obamamoye, 2023) has been one of the central goals of the book, as it facilitates the conception of the different political struggles as closely related to each other. The feminist, decolonial, anti-capitalist and environmentalist struggles are inherently linked to each other, even if politically they often operate in parallel. This emphasises the importance of constructing ‘infrastructures of dissent’ that encourage diverse actors to realise that, in spite of the specificities of their struggles, there is common ground to find shared purposes and a joint political horizon. The implications for this kind of conceptualisation of democracy are wide, as it requires further engagement across borders and breaking the ‘sovereignty’ argument: there is no ‘outside’. The book has an evident political goal as well: diagnosing the current legitimacy deficit while at the same time offering a democratic alternative based on changing the way of looking at the political subject in the EU context and beyond. In a context in which the EU continues to struggle to maintain its democratic legitimacy and the mainstream discussions remain anchored on intergovernmentalism vs supranationalism and ‘Brussels bubble’ discussions about the EU institutional power balance between the Commission, Parliament and Council, the book attempts to reframe this debate by placing greater emphasis on movements. Two things are crucial in this sense. On the one hand, it is necessary to change the organisational rules of the game in the EU in order to address the ‘hollowing out’ of mass membership political organisations. Second, as the book has empirically largely focused

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on the citizen panels within the CoFoE, it is necessary to embed democratic innovations of citizen participation in such a way that it contributes to foster a transnational agonistic public sphere. 3.1

Changing the Organisational Rules of the Game in the EU: Filling the Void with (Transnational) Mass Organisations

The ambiguity of the EU as a ‘sui generis’ polity has so far been exploited by the large amounts of corporate lobbyists that populate Brussels and have the social, political and economic capital to heavily influence European politics and policies. However, this ambiguity can also be exploited by the multitude. There is space for subversion insofar there is an interaction between institutional and non-institutional engagement. The EU as a political project has many democratic caveats, yet it remains a promising terrain for transnational democracy. Destroying the EU would only be counterproductive for harnessing the potential of the decolonial multitude. Nationalist critics of the EU often miss that the EU’s policy and decision-making processes are largely influenced by its member states. Dismantling the EU in order to regain ‘national sovereignty’ (in line with Brexit) would only reinforce those actors that are already powerful in the EU: national governments. A possible political strategy for the decolonial multitude begins with (1) engagement with the current rules of the game in the EU, participating as much as possible in the European institutional initiatives put forward, such as the CoFoE; and (2) self-organising beyond the institutional framework through the construction of spaces of transnational and decolonial struggle. In this way, a crucial battleground for the future of transnational democracy is the construction of mass membership organisations, in order to redress the hollowing out described by Peter Mair (2013). As insightfully pointed out by Anton Jäger (2022), “it seems that the lesson which has truly been learned from the ‘post-political’ era is that politics must be reintroduced into the public sphere. But without the re-emergence of mass organisation, this can only occur at a discursive level or within the prism of mediatic politics”. Social media facilitates the work of campaigners, and political actors such as Greta Thunberg emerge out of this environment, and is a good illustration of the problematic incentives that digital technology has introduced when organising collective action: a worldwide known political figure active in every relevant political space on issues related

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to climate change, yet lacking a mass membership organisation. Thunberg has unquestionably made a positive contribution in shaping the discourse related to climate change policy, and has inspired thousands of young people to become politically engaged. However, such engagement remains informal and is (mostly) unable to be channelled through permanent mass membership organisations. This is why any serious attempt to institutionalise a decolonial multitude perspective of democracy will require the adaptation of existing organisations towards transnational and decolonial political imaginaries. Spanish trade unions will need to think not only on how to connect the struggles of Spanish and German workers, but also on Indian, Nigerian or Chinese workers, as well as with feminist, anti-colonial or environmental activists. Conceiving the decolonial multitude as a decentralised and loose network will inherently run into contradictions in terms of its capacity to operate politically. The multitude is not a political party nor a trade union, but a political imaginary that can contribute to bring together a diverse network of social and political groups to operate politically beyond national borders. Such process will require strong mediating organisations. Solidarity is not primarily a ‘spontaneous’ dynamic, it requires to be fostered through structures that encourage it: the agency of mediators in bridging different political spaces makes a difference. The multitude as an imaginary requires transnational trade unions beyond the umbrella organisations based in Brussels, and mass transnational political parties beyond the existing European political groups. Capital has long understood these dynamics. During the past 40 years, there has been a sharp improvement in the effectiveness of multinational corporations to organise beyond national borders. In the EU, it is clear that corporations are well suited to dominate much of the policy and decision-making processes: in many ways, civil society and trade unions are playing by the technocratic rules that benefit corporate lobbyists in a largely depoliticised ‘policy without politics’ Brussels context. If the decolonial multitude is to have the capacity to operate politically, the goal has to be to change those rules via democratic, collective and mass membership organisations. Technocratic rules operate as a way to limit political horizons, transforming ‘politics’ in individual struggles rather than collective ones in an effort to break potential bonds of solidarity. Shifting the way we think about the political imaginary may facilitate creating new ways of thinking about politics and democracy.

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There are challenges to develop this process. For instance, the structure of work in the EU complicates the capacity of the decolonial multitude to self-organise through mass membership organisations. In a context where workers often have precarious temporary contracts, in some cases operate as ‘freelancers’ (e.g. Uber or Deliveroo workers; see Polkowska, 2019), and where migrant workers often face trade-offs when deciding to unionise (see Eleveld & Van Hooren, 2018 for the case of Undocumented Migrant Domestic Workers in the Netherlands), mass collective and transnational organisation requires flexibility at the level of both ideology and practices. Ideas require strong organisations: for progressive, decolonial and intersectional ideas to circulate and travel transnationally it is necessary that strong mass organisations are able to champion them in the public spheres. Today more than ever it is necessary to build on the historically rich Internationalist legacy that conceives of the oppression in the Global Souths as inherently related and intertwined with that in the Global North. Democracy can only emerge in a globalised context through a diagnosis that subaltern actors in the Global North and in formerly colonised countries need to work together against the oppression enforced by global material structures. Now, the construction of a renewed Internationalist ‘movement of movements’ requires building on the already existing organisations. It will not be enough to simply create a space and assume that people will join it, but instead it is necessary to enter into dialogue with existing political actors. There have been examples of attempting to build a transnational organisation from the top-down, such in the case of DiEM 25 in the EU context and the Progressive International globally, yet without the necessary anchoring in the already established organisations and movements it is unlikely for new Internationals to succeed. The construction of transnational mass organisations requires an understanding of the sensitivities of different spaces. It is not just about ‘connecting’ people, but about binding them in a common political project. The goal is the opposite of social media algorithms: the latter are meant to have a political-symbolic offer in which you feel identified and that the algorithms identify with you as an individual. The algorithms are constructed precisely to disarticulate potential networks of cooperation. Thus, people continue circulating in closed circles and limit the capacity to establish networks of solidarity. The decolonial multitude operates on the opposite basis: encouraging people

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that traditionally operate in parallel to work together by realising the linkages across different but shared struggles. The Social Forums discussed in Chapter 7 opened up a terrain in which some important things could grow, but new spaces are urgently required to foster transnational, decolonial, feminist and democratic movement structures able to articulate the multitude. Thus, while institutional reforms, such as a greater emphasis on the role of national parliaments in EU policy and decision-making is desirable (see Crum & Oleart, 2022), they alone are no silver bullet for the democratisation of the EU. In this sense, there has been much enthusiasm within the European Parliament for the development of ‘transnational lists’ for European elections. In practice, they would add an additional list of European MEP candidates for the electors: EU citizens would continue voting for their national candidates, but in addition they would also vote for a EU-constructed list, the head of which would be the Spitzenkandidaten. While transnational lists certainly go in the good direction to encourage the Europeanisation of parties, it is not going to make a big difference given that EU political groups are not mass parties. Arguably, that is why the Spitzenkandidaten failed in 2019: it is not anchored in mass politics. Constructing reforms uniquely ‘from above’, such as the Spitzenkandidaten, transnational lists or the European citizen panels, will not meaningfully contribute to make EU politics a question of mass politics. This requires both structure and agency. The EU’s political architecture reforms ought to prioritise a bigger role of national mediators in general (including political parties, trade unions, civil society actors). Encouraging mass politics at the EU level through collective organisations is a necessary step towards the democratisation of European politics, while also facilitating that movements establish broader alliances with actors beyond the EU through a decolonial political horizon. 3.2

Embedding Democratic and Deliberative Innovations to Foster Mass Politics and a Transnational Agonistic Public Sphere

Progressive ideas and movements have been travelling beyond national borders. Movements such as #MeToo, Fridays for Future or Black Lives Matter illustrate the increasingly transnational flow of politics. However, in a context in which transnational politics in the EU (and beyond) is more necessary than ever, the current institutional setup of the EU

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doesn’t favour channelling this democratic energy. In order to make society more feminist, decolonial, environmentalist, anti-racist and generally more equal and democratic, it is necessary to address social justice from a transnational perspective, not an intergovernmental one dominated by a national political prism. As the Covid-19 crisis and the climate emergency emphasise, countries across the globe, and EU member states in particular, are inextricably linked to one another. The politicaleconomic processes in one member state have a direct influence on other member states. As all EU member states are in the same political boat, and the time has come for national governments to open the cabins of international politics and bring non-executive actors into European and global political streams of discussions. Matching ‘policy’ with ‘politics’ will be accomplished by encouraging the formation of pan-European coalitions of progressive actors that oppose conservative or neoliberal coalitions. The mismatch between the increasingly transnational flow of progressive ideas in the EU and the rather intergovernmental EU institutional structure and dominant technocratic discourse is likely to cause further dissatisfaction if the EU is unable to address it. As the book has argued, the CoFoE was unable to address this mismatch. Now, how to meaningfully involve citizens in mass transnational politics? The criticism of the way in which the Conference on the Future of Europe took place in general, and the European citizen panels in particular, should not be taken as a criticism of the idea of ‘citizen participation’. On the contrary, the book has attempted to provide an alternative lens through which we conceive democratic participation in the EU—notably through a change in the political imaginary from the European ‘demoi’ towards the ‘decolonial multitude’. Deliberative exercises such as the citizen panels are worth exploring, but the conditions under which these exercises take place should be meaningful and well integrated into existing politics and foster agonistic dynamics. Creating an artificial depoliticised space where individualised ‘citizens’ are brought together as ‘equals’, ignoring the ongoing class struggle and the different ways in which systemic discrimination based on race, class, gender and/ or sexual orientation is taking place, is likely to result in a reproduction and reinforcement of the ‘status quo’. If deliberative democracy exercises are undertaken at the outskirts of EU political institutions as an ‘experiment’ instead of being well embedded in the political framework and the public sphere, it is unsurprising that it triggers little political attention from both political elites and the media. Involving ‘influencers’

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to provide ‘visibility’ to the process is not going to increase the legitimacy of the exercise. Technical or technological solutions on their own are also not going to contribute to the democratisation of the EU. Constructing a ‘virtual world’ where citizens through avatars deliberate can also contribute to depoliticise the debate and advance the (neoliberal) ideas of big corporations, as the ‘virtual worlds’ post-CoFoE panel illustrates. That said, there are many valuable contributions by colleagues working on deliberative democracy (see Curato et al., 2017 for a discussion on key findings on deliberative democracy research), and the book attempts to build on them. That is why the book is not meant to be a criticism of deliberative democracy in general, but rather of a particular minimalistic version of it. The depoliticised and consensus-oriented conception of ‘citizen participation’ is gaining ground, such as in the context of the climate assemblies, which have been criticised by Machin (2023: 17), who has argued that “if there is to be a genuine sustainability politics, then democrats should refrain from demanding consensus, quantifying agreement, and reducing political participation to deliberation” (Machin, 2023: 17). There is a risk that this tendency continues, particularly in the EU context, and deliberative democracy is conceived by EU institutions as a way to claim democratic legitimacy without actually questioning the structural power relations that are at play. The path forward for a systemic conception of deliberation in the EU requires the formation of transnational coalitions of actors across borders, with transnational ideological contestation as the main feature, and it can’t take place as an ‘experiment’ in a bubble that is isolated from actual existing politics and political institutions. As Curato and Böker (2016: 185) have argued, a systemic conception of deliberative democracy “underscores that mini-publics do not play a constitutive but rather an auxiliary role in deliberative democratisation”. In this way, we should focus on embedding democratic innovations into fostering an agonistic public sphere, connecting with relevant mediators. It is essential that new mechanisms begin with a solid micro-macro link, a connection that, as Chapter 3 has argued, is mostly missing in the EU’s ‘citizen turn’. There are alternatives to the EU’s depoliticised ‘citizen participation’ paradigm, as there may be ways to include democratic innovations in a way that is coherent with an agonistic democracy logic (see Dean et al., 2020). While there is a tension between making such exercises oriented towards political institutions or to the public sphere, the Irish citizen

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assemblies that meaningfully influenced the discourse on abortion and same-sex marriage in the public sphere provide a good example of how the micro-macro link may be established (Farrell et al., 2019). The ‘Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat’ in France had a similar connection between the micro and the macro, insofar the assembly contributed to expand the public sphere debate on climate change policy in France. This highlights that ‘policy responsiveness’ should not be the main indicator of ‘success’ of democratic innovations, but rather its embedding in the democratic system and the public sphere. This argument is in line with Cristina Lafont’s (2020: 105) conception of a ‘participatory’ conception of deliberative democracy. Rather than seeing minipublics and deliberation as a way to identify the ‘best’ possible public policies, it is oriented towards “enabling citizens to participate in a project of self-government”. With the void left by the hollowing out of mass membership organisations, there are temptations on the side of EU institutions to disintermediate the relation with European citizens in a claim for legitimacy. This temptation is misguided by a problematic conception of the ‘European demoi’, as it facilitates the deconfiguration of collective action processes. If instead of attempting to sample a ‘descriptively representative’ group of EU citizens via minipublics, the focus of the EU would turn towards a public sphere perspective with an emphasis on democratic pluralism and (agonistic) politicisation, the potential for EU democratisation would emerge. For democracy to be vibrant, processes of contestation in the public sphere and mass politics ought to include the confrontation of real alternative visions of society, and open transnational deliberation on these alternatives in healthy and politicised public spheres. Democracy is not a set of laws and practices, but instead a political response to political pluralism (Theuns, 2021). Democracy must nurture and foster this pluralism rather than constrain or ‘neutralise’ it. The perspective outlined throughout the book does not necessarily entail the abolition or replacement of existing institutions— although this may be an open question. The emphasis is on intertwining existing institutions in a way that a transnational agonistic public sphere is fostered. Unfortunately, some deliberative democracy recent initiatives, such as DemocracyNext, are oriented towards replacing existing “broken electoral politics” by ‘truly’ ‘representative’ democracy via sortition (see Giesen, 2023). While electoral politics has evident shortcomings, political parties remain important mediators that contribute to the socialisation of politics and channel collective demands through the public sphere.

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This is not to say that democratic innovations do not have a place in a hypothetical EU’s democratised political architecture, but rather that they should be embedded in such a way that they foster a transnational agonistic public sphere. If unable to undertake such task, the launch of deliberative mechanisms via minipublics is unlikely to contribute to the democratisation of the EU, and mostly operate as a citizen-washing exercise. Furthermore, the growing industry of deliberative democracy consultancies is not only funded by public authorities, but also by private investors (such as foundations or philanthropists), who see these exercises as a way to ’quietly’ improve democracy (see Chapter 3). When neoliberal ideas travelled to the mainstream throughout the 1980s, there were strong organisations behind that pushed them: private mass media funded by corporate actors, public relations consultancies of corporate lobbies or the emergence of a number of corporate think tanks. As Peter Hall has argued, the public sphere played a central role in reproducing and consolidating neoliberalism as a policy paradigm (Hall, 1993: 288). A central task of progressive politics today is thus to introduce the ideas that emerge within the decolonial multitude into mainstream discussions. As developed in Chapter 7, the construction of new knowledge via internal practices can be considered a sort of ‘democratic innovation’ (see Flesher Fominaya, 2022). It is this work that allows us to build a common identity and increase their capacity to work together through synergies and coalitions. Movements themselves understand that to bring about new ideas into the public sphere it is necessary to shape their political practices accordingly. Only through building, bolstering and innovating their own practices, transnational social movements empower themselves as a multitude-like political force. Shifting the political imaginary towards the decolonial multitude facilitates a conceptual perspective that conceives mediators as the infrastructure of the agonistic public sphere—as opposed to the depoliticised citizen panels organised in the context of the CoFoE. It is here that we can most clearly see the contrast between the EU’s technocratic ‘citizen participation’ approach and transnational activists’ democratic pluralism. Reclaiming an agonistic public sphere nourished by strong collective actors, itself organised in a multitude-like fashion, offers a promising way forward to develop democratic innovations that meaningfully contribute to democratise the EU. The empowering of these set of actors through the public spheres might contribute to an ‘empowering dissensus’ for European integration (Bouza & Oleart, 2018; Oleart, 2021).

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4 Contribution to the Literature, Shortcomings of the Book and Avenues for Future Political Action and Research The book has made conceptual, analytical, empirical and political contributions. At the conceptual and analytical level, the book’s main contribution is the introduction of the ‘decolonial multitude’ to the literature on European studies, as an alternative to the traditional notions of a European ‘demos’ or ‘demoi’. Such theoretical endeavour allows for an understanding of democracy detached from the nation-state, while integrating in the analysis the current (capitalist and postcolonial) material structures within which democratic polities operate. The conceptual distinction discerns between, on the one hand, the ‘representation as delegation’ logic of traditional accounts of democracy based on (national) ‘sovereignty’ and ‘the people’, and, on the other, the ‘mediation’ logic of a decolonial multitude account of democracy. If representation is to have an emancipatory potential, we need to rethink it and construct imaginaries that are able to connect mediating actors both transversally and transnationally. As a polity that inherently includes a transnational political dimension by design, the decolonial multitude is a particularly suitable political imaginary for EU democratisation. This perspective has strong normative and political implications, since we cannot separate theory from practice, and a transformation of the lens through which we analyse reality has political implications. Furthermore, as a non-state centric ‘we’, the decolonial multitude may be an appealing political theory concept beyond European studies. Empirically, it has also undertaken two main tasks. First, it has analysed the process of the CoFoE in detail, with a particular focus on the European Citizen Panels and the follow-up of EU institutions to the conclusions of the CoFoE and the ‘new generation’ of European citizen panels. This endeavour is particularly relevant in a context in which citizen panels/assemblies are growing in popularity among policy-makers in the EU, and also worldwide. While certainly ‘citizen participation’ has a democratising potential, the specific ways in which these mechanisms are deployed by EU institutions do not. The ‘citizen turn’ in the EU described in Chapter 3 suggests more continuity than change, and the increasing attention given by policy-makers to citizen assemblies/ panels can be interpreted as an attempt to incorporate the less politically dangerous dimensions of the social movements’ cycle started in 2008,

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while excluding the more activist and radical aspects. Therefore, the book may be a significant contribution in this field, considering that the issue at stake—the democratisation of the EU in the context of the CoFoE, and the growing trend of deliberative minipublics and citizen assemblies—is likely to increase in its public, political and scholarly attention. Second, it has empirically illustrated the demos-multitude distinction through a comparison of the intellectual conception of the European Citizen panels organised in the context of CoFoE and ongoing transnational activist processes. The decolonial multitude is a class-based concept that requires a careful articulation by skilful political actors towards the construction of a more inclusive political imaginary that enhances its emancipatory potential and societal representation. Chapter 7 has described several ongoing transnational activist initiatives that encapsulate this political vision, while also outlining the challenges to articulate it. This emphasises that it is not enough to contrast new notions of representation via minipublics with traditional political representation via elections, but it is necessary to also orient representation towards social movements, mass politics and the public sphere. Further research on the ways in which representation is claimed politically—through minipublics, parliaments, movements—as well as the imaginaries upon which such representation is constructed might be a fruitful line of future research. The political imaginary of the decolonial multitude might also be a useful concept to make sense of ongoing and future movements. There are, however, important shortcomings to the book. The historical parallelism provides interesting elements (transnational social movements, demands for a different way of organising society, reaction by political elites to appear to concede more than they actually do) in order to introduce the concepts of passive revolution and the decolonial multitude to European politics. In doing so, it connects past and present struggles, and indicates avenues for political action. Back in the 1860s, there was a tension between those actors that, like Garibaldi, focused its efforts on their national context, in contrast to those that prioritised an internationalist perspective. To be sure, this is not a question of ‘reform or revolution’, but rather what type of reform is desirable and whose struggles are included in it. However, there are many nuances that this broad historical parallelism is missing and that are beyond the scope of the book. The concept of the decolonial multitude also requires some refining. While arguing for a decolonial perspective to the multitude, the book mostly engages with mainstream European studies, most of which

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precisely omits much of the decolonisation literature. This can partially be explained on the basis that there are strong ideological barriers to mainstream the decolonisation of academic research in general, and European studies in particular. However, it is normatively desirable to engage more closely with it. In this sense, the Euroglot network within the South South movement, convened by Szilvia Nagy and Antonio Salvador Alcázar III, has been a crucial space of inspiration and critical thinking that has contributed to introduce the decolonial dimension into mainstream European studies. Relatedly, my involvement in the organisation of the Decolonial Europe Day on 9 May 2023, an attempt to subvert mainstream narratives about European integration, which tend to sideline the past and present of colonialism, and hence decolonial thinking and praxis, has also been part of bridging the academic-activist divide. The Decolonial Europe Day was led by a plural and multitude-like approach to decolonisation. The aim was to construct a space for exchange and coalition-building for individuals and collective actors that approach decolonisation in different ways yet as a common project, and ask them to submit a contribution that would respond to the question “What does it mean to decolonise Europe?” (see Faye-Rexhepi et al., 2023). Accordingly, the book has been anchored in a political commitment to decolonisation and democratisation within and beyond the EU. The distinction between concepts such as colonialism and coloniality is highly relevant for a flourishing critique of traditional European studies literature, yet often the positionality of academics complicates the inclusion of these perspectives into mainstream research. This is also my case. Even critical perspectives on European studies, from which my own research begins with, do not always introduce a decolonial dimension. Thus, in some ways, the book does not completely live up to its own attempt to provide a fully fledged coherent alternative to mainstream European studies, and a complete theory of decolonisation and decoloniality is beyond the scope of the book. However, hopefully the book has provided some conceptual tools upon which alternative understandings of democracy in the EU can continue to be constructed. In this way, fruitful avenues for further research might be related to critically engage with the increasing popularity of ‘citizen participation’ mechanisms put forward by institutions, in the EU and beyond; and the disentangling of democracy from the nation-state, particularly when adopting a decolonial perspective. In European studies, the move away from post-functionalism should take into account the contingency

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of existing power relations and pay more attention to those actors that are organising transnationally to challenge the ‘status quo’ from an internationalist and decolonial perspective.

5

The Democratisation and Decolonisation of Academia: Shifting the Ideological Borders of European Studies

The academic field of European studies has been historically dominated by a pro-European centrist consensus that appears to be ‘neutral’ and ‘non-political’. This has complicated the publication in mainstream journals of normatively more critical analyses of the European Union, as the borders of what is conceived to be ‘acceptable’ arguments and epistemologies have been, and continue to be, heavily policed. Thus, while there is room for renegotiating those borders, there is still much to do in terms of the democratisation and decolonisation of the academic field in general (Bhambra et al., 2018; Steinmetz, 2023), and European studies in particular. There is an emergent strand of literature that looks at European studies from a decolonial perspective (see Orbie et al., 2023), but much of mainstream academic scholarship remains cautious of assuming the normative and political role of our work, a necessary step to contribute to expanding political discourse and debate on the EU beyond specialised circles. There is an evident tension between academic work and activist spaces, as academic codes often make it an exclusive club that appears impenetrable. Thus, some academic colleagues may view this book as that of an ‘activist’ that is driven by ‘ideology’. They will be right: in the same way that mainstream European studies scholarship has primarily reinforced the ‘status quo’, the point of the book is not only to analyse the current state of affairs of the EU, but to provide conceptual tools to make sense of it and change it. This is not a new idea, yet remains important to stress it. We academics, and particularly in the social sciences, are political actors insofar we make arguments that, even if they are meant to be purely ‘descriptive’, have strong ideological and political implications. For academics in the social sciences, the question is not whether we stay out of ‘politics’ or operate as political activists. Instead, the key question is to which political purpose are we orienting our work?

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This perspective is theorised in the book through a scholar-activist understanding of academic work. This has involved a close engagement throughout the past two years with EU institutions, with whom I shared most of the criticisms of the process put forward in this book. This engagement has been crucial for the quality of the framework constructed, and the deeper understanding of the choices made by the CoFoE organisers has only enriched the analysis of the book. Additionally, in contrast to more institutional spaces, I have also been embedded in transnational activist spaces that are attempting to shape ‘Europe’, and the world more broadly, in a more democratic and decolonial direction. In these spaces, I engaged in discussions oriented towards the collective construction of transnational democracy as an activist, rather than as a ‘neutral’ observer. The formal and informal conversations in this journey have been a source of inspiration to the theory building exercise upon which the book is built. In this way, I positioned myself in-between different political spaces: both (EU) institutional and in activist spaces. It is from this multi-positional perspective that the theoretical and empirical chapters have been written. The strong critique developed in this book of the way in which the Conference on the Future of Europe was organised, as well as its follow-up and the ‘citizen turn’ more broadly, is built in a constructive way in order to contribute to the debate on the democratisation of the EU. The book thus has been based on a rather activist position in which my political sociology perspective has been stimulated by my political engagement, and has closely interacted with political theory in a feedback loop. Approaches like this one are often criticised by academics as too ‘political’ and ‘ideological’, critiques that often operate as a way to police the borders of ‘acceptable’ arguments to make in academic publications. Thus, on a political-philosophical note, this book also aims to reflect upon our own role as academics in contributing to a more democratic society. Standing in solidarity should replace the competition and individualism that the institutional structures of academia often foster. Against the background of much of the European studies literature that has conceived of criticisms of the EU as ‘Eurosceptic’, the book has attempted to put forward an internationalist critique of the EU through a Gramscian reading of ongoing European politics on ‘citizen participation’. In doing so, the book remains critical of the social structures in which we live, but also inquires for possibilities to democratise them further. The current ‘status quo’ in the EU is not the ‘natural’ order

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nor the ideal one. Rather, while we operate with the constraints of the particular context in which we find ourselves, there is room for democratic contestation. The book has aimed at doing just that: diagnosing the current state of the EU as illustrated by the CoFoE, put forward a normative critique and propose alternative ways forward. The political sociology of this book is theoretically informed, empirical and also normative and politically engaged. Questioning the boundaries and opening new avenues for research is critical to continue advancing the field and encourage creative and innovative work. The meaning we create through our work matters politically, insofar it provides tools to make sense of the world and devise alternative ways forward. This is not something that can materialise overnight. One of the mottos of the Mexican Zapatistas, and later of the Spanish Indignados movement, was “We go slow because we go far”. Activists across the globe are aware that any ‘revolutionary’ change will be slow and difficult, as it requires a careful articulation of different struggles into a common political endeavour. This book may be only one piece of a bigger puzzle to envision and reach a seemingly distant horizon, but hopefully contributes to shifting the ideological boundaries in the direction of transnational and decolonial democracy. After all, the joint construction of ideas and identities that are able to connect struggles is a precondition for movements to positively transform our society.

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Index

A Active revolution, 235, 246

B Bhambra, Gurminder K., 13, 50, 51, 245, 259

Activism, 15, 212, 213, 216, 218 Activist, 2, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 19, 21, 40, 60, 74, 80, 85, 94, 95, 98, 116, 117, 155, 190, 206–209, 211–214, 218, 220–222, 225–228, 230, 231, 237, 239–241, 243, 249, 255, 257, 259–261 Agonistic, 2, 3, 9, 20, 25–30, 32, 33, 37, 38, 44, 49, 50, 59, 60, 72, 74, 81, 82, 85, 88, 94, 99, 142, 167, 193, 197, 199, 218, 224, 227, 231, 236, 241, 248, 252–255 Agoras (of the EP), 75 Antipolitical imaginary, 73, 74, 84, 86, 127, 155–157, 161, 173, 174 Art, 33, 206, 214, 215

C Capital, 2, 48, 81, 86, 122, 154, 174, 194, 247–249 Capitalism, 19, 35–37, 43, 46, 47, 49, 58, 60, 192, 206, 218, 223, 243 Citizen ambassadors, 88, 103–106, 126, 132, 133, 154–157 Citizen assemblies, 8, 50, 73, 79, 81, 84, 87, 109, 125, 160, 163, 172, 206, 244, 254, 256, 257 Citizen dialogues, 20, 72, 76–78, 80, 82, 85 Citizen participation, 2, 9, 18, 20, 21, 72, 75, 79, 81, 86, 87, 97, 108–110, 116, 117, 123, 158, 161, 163, 164, 167, 170–177, 179, 190, 192, 193, 195, 196, 199, 200, 227, 231, 235–238,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Oleart, Democracy Without Politics in EU Citizen Participation, Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38583-4

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INDEX

240, 247, 248, 252, 253, 255, 256, 258, 260 Citizens Take Over Europe (CTOE), 94, 155, 193, 213 Citizen turn, 8, 9, 20, 71, 72, 75, 79, 81, 82, 85–88, 93, 127, 169, 199, 236–239, 246, 253, 256, 260 Civil society, 2, 19–21, 46, 57, 60, 69–71, 74, 75, 81, 85, 87, 94, 99–101, 103, 106–110, 114, 118, 123, 125, 150, 151, 155–157, 165, 166, 171, 174, 193, 210, 212, 224–226, 239, 249, 251 Coalition, 1, 11, 21, 36, 49, 50, 55, 56, 87, 94, 106, 155, 183, 206, 208–210, 213, 218, 220, 222, 224, 225, 242, 252, 253, 255 CoFoE Secretariat, 121, 123, 124, 128, 130, 139, 143, 146, 149, 154, 165, 168, 170 Colonialism, 19, 36, 37, 47, 50, 51, 258 Coloniality, 13, 21, 36, 52, 258 Commissioner, 76, 79, 97, 176, 194, 199 Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), 1, 2, 6–9, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60, 72, 79–83, 85–88, 93–113, 115–118, 121, 125–128, 131–134, 142, 143, 145, 146, 155, 157, 158, 163–168, 170–178, 180–185, 189, 190, 193–195, 199, 200, 213, 216, 227, 231, 236, 240, 248, 252, 255–257, 260, 261 Conflict, 3, 9, 19, 26–30, 34, 37, 38, 47, 49, 50, 55, 59, 60, 74, 82, 88, 124, 138, 145, 161, 176, 188, 195, 196, 218, 237 Constructivism, 48, 216, 260

Contestation, 9, 52, 117, 167, 177, 253 Corporate, 9, 184, 189, 190, 195, 211, 248, 249, 255 Council, 79, 95–98, 103–106, 113, 124, 153, 156, 166–168, 175, 176, 195, 200, 236, 247 Covid-19, 43, 55, 178 D Decolonial, 3, 11–15, 33, 40, 43, 44, 47, 52, 59, 60, 117, 155, 207, 211, 214, 215, 226, 228, 231, 240–242, 245, 247, 249–252, 257–261 Decolonial multitude, 2, 3, 11, 12, 19–21, 28, 29, 32, 33, 36–39, 43–51, 53, 58–60, 205–209, 212, 213, 217, 220, 224, 227, 230, 231, 240–243, 245–250, 252, 255–257 Decolonisation, 11, 14, 35, 36, 38, 52, 216, 222, 247, 258, 259 Deliberation, 9, 26, 27, 74, 76, 79, 81–83, 85, 98, 117, 123, 124, 127, 128, 130, 132, 135–139, 141, 142, 145, 147–151, 153–155, 158–160, 164, 166, 181, 184, 187, 198, 199, 237, 253, 254 Deliberative democracy, 18, 25–27, 72–74, 77, 83, 85, 88, 93, 122, 123, 149, 155, 161, 169, 170, 240, 252–254 Demo, 28 Democracy without politics, 2, 9, 14, 20, 72, 81, 161, 175, 236, 237 Democratic deficit, 27, 86 Democratic Innovation, 59, 72, 74, 80, 84, 85, 160, 169, 207, 241, 248, 253–255 Democratic pluralism, 254, 255

INDEX

Democratic theorising, 12 Democratisation, 2, 8, 10, 14, 30, 46, 52, 98, 167, 193, 237, 253–260 Demoi, 19, 29, 31, 41, 43, 58, 160, 205, 209, 242, 252, 256 Demoicracy, 11, 28, 30, 31, 52, 59 Depoliticisation, 28, 70, 73, 78, 81, 82, 111, 118, 145, 161, 165, 236, 237 Descriptive representation, 2, 5, 15, 21, 50, 87, 88, 159, 198, 200, 241 Digital platform, 9, 94, 98–101, 104, 134, 136 Discourse, 2, 20, 21, 41, 56–58, 88, 94, 122, 123, 157, 164, 168, 226, 237, 239, 241, 249, 252, 254, 259 Disintermediation, 9, 20, 57, 72, 75, 81–83, 85, 87, 88, 111, 118, 157, 165 E Empowering dissensus, 29, 255 EP elections, 114 EU political groups, 224, 225, 251 EU politicisation. See politicisation Eurocentric, 36, 216, 221, 226, 242, 244, 245 European Alternatives (EA), 206, 211, 213–218, 220, 226, 231 European Citizen Consultations (ECCs), 20, 72, 77–82, 85 European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), 71, 165 European Citizens’ Panels (ECPs), 12, 15, 20, 72, 88, 95, 98, 100, 103, 105–107, 118, 121–124, 126, 130–132, 134, 135, 157, 158, 160, 161, 164, 165, 178, 184, 195, 199, 208, 216, 237, 238, 241

267

European Commission (EC), 14, 15, 20, 54, 55, 70, 72, 75, 76, 81, 86, 95–98, 103, 104, 110, 118, 149, 163–165, 168–175, 177–180, 182, 184, 187, 189, 190, 193–197, 199, 219, 231, 236–238, 241 European Council, 53, 55, 78, 79, 95, 96, 117, 142, 167, 172 European democracy, 10, 78, 99, 103, 106, 111, 114, 141, 171, 237 European integration, 8, 9, 12, 28, 30, 51, 54, 59, 78, 122, 255, 258 Europeanisation, 71, 112, 174, 251 European Parliament (EP), 49, 54, 55, 75, 86, 95, 96, 98, 101, 104–106, 116, 117, 122, 124, 149, 163, 167, 168, 172, 173, 175, 176, 188, 200, 224–226, 236, 251 European politics, 20, 72, 74, 168, 215, 248, 257, 260 European public sphere, 20, 25, 69–72, 74, 80–82, 85, 87, 94, 117, 167, 170, 238 European Union (EU), 2, 7, 11, 19, 33, 114, 115, 130, 239, 259 Euroscepticism, 126, 260 Eurozone crisis, 8, 54, 60 Everyday citizen, 2, 8, 72, 82, 83, 85, 86, 157, 159, 160, 190, 195, 197, 237, 239 Expert, 81, 84, 95, 123–125, 127, 130–132, 134, 139, 142–149, 151, 152, 154, 159, 165, 173, 179, 180, 185, 186, 190, 195 Extinction Rebellion (XR), 192, 221, 226, 239 F Fact-checking, 142, 147–151

268

INDEX

Feminism, 35, 215 Framing, 70, 127, 128, 130, 136, 145, 149, 161, 165, 183, 186, 191, 193, 216 Future of Europe, 52, 71, 76–78, 87, 96, 101, 158, 166

G Gender mainstreaming, 116 Globalisation, 6, 11, 25, 52, 228, 247 Global Souths, 52, 60, 226, 228 Gramsci, Antonio, 3–6, 14, 21 Grounded theory, 12, 13

H Habermas, Jürgen, 25, 26, 31, 32, 38, 82 Hardt, Michael, 11, 33, 35–37, 40, 53, 98, 210, 226, 242 History from below, 243

I Ideology, 39, 126, 164, 168, 190, 199, 223, 238, 250, 259 Imaginary, 21, 53, 60, 75, 159, 195, 205, 231, 241, 249 Intergovernmental, 28, 30–32, 53–55, 124, 252 Intergovernmentality, 8, 54 Interpretivism, 93 Intersectionality, 39 Interview, 12, 21, 94, 101, 106, 108, 123, 124, 126, 129, 130, 137, 139, 154, 156, 164, 173, 184, 206, 230

L Legitimacy, 2–4, 6, 8, 9, 19, 20, 25, 29, 30, 32, 42, 53, 55, 57, 59,

69, 71, 72, 82, 85–87, 94–96, 117, 122, 124, 137, 154, 159, 170, 174, 190, 195, 199, 200, 235, 236, 238, 239, 247, 253, 254

M Maastricht Treaty, 76, 122 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1, 14, 34, 35, 238 Macron, Emmanuel, 41, 57, 58, 77, 78, 96, 199 Mass politics, 5, 15, 45, 46, 73, 85, 160, 167, 208, 225, 241, 251, 257 Mediation, 11, 37, 38, 44–48, 50, 58, 59, 73, 74, 82, 83, 88, 241, 256 Mediator, 46–48, 70, 72, 74, 79–82, 85, 87, 88, 101, 118, 127, 138, 157, 159–161, 190, 193, 196, 198, 208, 213, 226, 249, 251, 253–255 Member of the European Parliament (MEP), 86, 98, 103, 106, 124, 154, 156, 172, 173, 176, 225, 226, 251 Member of the Parliament (at the national level) (MP), 73, 103, 111, 156, 180 Micro-macro link, 79, 80, 138, 158, 253, 254 Migration, 94, 95, 103, 105, 115–117, 122, 126, 150, 220 Minipublics, 5, 9, 15, 21, 46, 50, 59, 73, 74, 82, 85, 122, 145, 235, 241, 254, 255, 257 Mouffe, Chantal, 26, 56, 58 Multitude, 11, 33–39, 42–49, 52, 53, 57–60, 205, 209, 211, 212, 241, 246, 249

INDEX

N Narrative, 41, 69, 82, 157, 207, 214, 243, 258 National Citizen Panels, 154 National parliaments, 49, 54, 55, 74, 103, 104, 111, 112, 158, 159, 251 National political parties, 107, 224 Neoliberal, 7, 26, 54, 83, 191, 192, 199, 200, 252, 253, 255 Neutrality, 83, 125, 144, 145, 148, 159, 161, 236 New intergovernmentalism, 28, 53, 54, 60 Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), 71, 109, 183, 225, 226 Normative, 11, 32, 49, 59, 69, 80, 82, 94, 108, 117, 145, 157, 168, 171, 193, 256, 259, 261

P Parliaments, 50, 53, 95–97, 123, 124, 172, 239, 247, 257 Participatory democracy, 46, 69, 78, 96, 178, 240, 244 Participatory turn, 8, 20, 70, 81, 85, 87, 170 Passive revolution, 2–5, 7–9, 15, 20, 235, 237, 238, 240, 246, 257 Permissive consensus, 28, 95 Plenary (of the CoFoE), 20, 88, 94, 100, 104, 106–109, 113, 118, 121, 126, 133, 154, 155, 173, 176 Pluralism, 26, 30, 33, 57, 116, 125, 145, 183, 189, 243, 254 Polarization, 83 Policy-making, 8, 20, 29, 30, 70, 74, 79–81, 85, 117, 159, 163, 164, 168, 172, 178, 182, 187, 194–196, 200, 237, 238, 241

269

Policy without politics, 29, 81, 195, 249 Political actors, 5, 18, 41, 48, 81, 152, 154, 157, 236, 242, 248, 257, 259 capital, 109, 199, 236 communication, 18, 167, 170, 238 community, 32, 50, 213 contestation, 241, 254 debate, 29, 72, 83, 85, 88, 118, 144, 157, 159, 185, 193 elites, 4, 7, 8, 28, 73, 235, 252, 257 field, 80, 160, 208 imaginary, 11, 21, 37, 44, 45, 208, 224, 230, 236, 241–243, 249, 252, 255–257 institutions, 9, 12, 19, 25, 31, 33, 52, 58, 80, 122, 194, 198, 215, 242, 252, 253 parties, 9, 19, 46, 50, 57, 60, 73, 114, 125, 157, 190, 208, 211, 224, 230, 249, 251, 254 strategy, 248 theory, 11, 12, 15, 28, 44, 52, 59, 94, 205, 206, 260 Politicisation, 19, 29, 30, 50, 59, 81, 95, 96, 107, 112, 117, 235, 254 Polity, 19, 26, 29, 31, 32, 36, 40, 94, 172, 236–238, 245, 247, 248, 256 Populism, 28, 53, 56–60 Positionality, 207, 258 Postcolonial, 2, 11, 13, 14, 47, 49, 51, 58, 59, 231, 236, 247, 256 Prefigurative politics, 208, 225, 230, 241 Public sphere, 9, 10, 19, 20, 25–27, 29, 31, 46, 47, 50, 72–74, 79–82, 85, 86, 88, 94, 98–100, 111, 112, 118, 145, 149, 158–160, 165–168, 170, 174,

270

INDEX

187, 189, 190, 193–196, 198, 199, 207, 209, 236, 238, 241, 248, 250, 252–255, 257 R Racism, 51, 117, 216, 220, 222, 223, 227 Recommendation, 20, 96, 99, 102, 104, 106, 113, 115–117, 121, 124, 131, 133–135, 137–140, 142, 147, 149, 150, 152–155, 158, 164, 172, 176, 177, 179, 183, 185–187, 189–191, 194, 195, 216 Representation, 2, 3, 5, 21, 33, 34, 37, 45, 46, 48, 50, 55, 58, 59, 73, 76, 77, 84, 180, 200, 224, 225, 231, 235, 238, 240, 241, 256, 257 S Schmidt, Vivien, 8, 29, 74, 81, 174, 206, 235 Social contract, 33–35, 41 Social media, 84, 167, 190, 195, 248, 250 Social movements, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, 21, 46, 50, 52, 59, 158, 160, 190, 205–207, 209, 210, 212, 213, 218, 220, 222, 225, 226, 237, 238, 255–257 Solidarity, 7, 21, 39, 52, 209, 218, 227, 231, 243, 249 Sortition, 242, 254 Sovereignty, 2, 10–12, 28, 32, 35, 38–44, 48–50, 53–55, 58–60, 208, 211, 247, 256

Spinoza, 35 Spitzenkandidaten, 29, 54, 95, 96, 117, 251 Supranationalism, 247

T Technocratic, 8, 29, 57, 70, 80, 82, 118, 135, 136, 159, 161, 165, 168, 174, 181, 186, 191, 193–196, 199, 200, 210, 235–238, 249, 252, 255 Technodeliberation, 135 Technopopulism, 57, 58 The people, 2, 10–12, 28, 29, 31–35, 38–40, 42, 49, 56–60, 73, 126, 154, 256 Trade unions, 20, 46, 50, 52, 57, 60, 100, 106, 107, 109, 118, 155–157, 166, 207, 218, 222, 224, 225, 228, 230, 239, 249, 251 Transnational, 6–8, 10–12, 15, 21, 30–33, 36, 43, 45, 48–50, 52, 55, 56, 58, 60, 74, 114, 116, 160, 205–214, 216, 217, 220, 221, 226, 228–230, 239, 241–243, 245, 247–257, 260, 261 Transnational democracy, 3, 10, 15, 33, 58, 60, 206, 231, 240, 241, 248, 260 Twitter, 190, 195

V Von Der Leyen, Ursula, 41, 96, 97, 164, 169, 175, 199