In a recent article published in Policy & Politics, Clementine Hill O’Connor and Hayley Bennett examine how “lived experience” has become increasingly important in anti-poverty policy making, and ask what it means to treat such experiences as a form of evidence. They argue that, while lived experience is often presented as a movement-led, democratic challenge to established forms of expertise, it is also shaped by governance-led processes that channel participation into institutional priorities.
The United Nations Development Programme has described 2024 as a global elections “Super year”. However, while that may be the case, younger generations across many established democracies remain deeply disillusioned with mainstream electoral politics. This is hardly a revelation, but reflects the findings from a large body of existing research identifying low levels of youth voter turnout. By way of contrast, very little attention has been paid to how young people can – and occasionally do – engage with politicians and officials between elections on issues of importance to them. Even when parties attract overwhelming youth support, such as the Labour Party in 4 July UK General Election, they often have little idea of how to govern for - let alone with - young people. In our recent article for Policy & Politics, we argue that youth engagement with local policy-communities on issues that have meaning for their everyday lives offers a potential antidote to this democratic malaise.
So first the good news. Our research points to an increasing willingness of policymakers to engage with young people – particularly in the area of environmental policy. Less positively, policymakers struggle to provide opportunities for meaningful and sustained engagement. Our article explores where the problems lie and suggests how these might be resolved.
Policy & Politics Autumn Highlights collection free to access from 1 August – 31 October 2019.
This quarter’s highlights collection focuses on some of our recent articles looking at public participation in the political process through a range of different lenses. Our first article, the Use and Abuse of Participatory Governance by Populist Governments challenge the notion prevalent in academic literature that participatory governance is a panacea for all ills in Western democracies. Based on a case study of Viktor Orban’s national consultations in Hungary, the authors use their case as evidence of how not to run a public consultation and why asking the public is not always such a great idea.
Involving people in policy-making is generally a good thing. Policy-makers themselves often pay at least lip-service to the importance of giving citizens a say. In the academic literature, participatory governance has been, with some exaggeration, almost universally hailed as a panacea to all ills in Western democracies. In particular, it is advocated as a way to remedy the alienation of voters from politicians who seem to be oblivious to the concerns of the common man and woman, with an ensuing decline in public trust in government. Representation by political parties is ridden with problems, so the argument goes, and in any case it is overly focused on the act of voting in elections – a one-off event once every few years which limits citizens’ ability to control the policy agenda. On the other hand, various forms of public participation are expected to educate citizens, help develop a civic culture, and boost the legitimacy of decision-making. Consequently, practices to ensure that citizens can provide direct input into policy-making are to be welcomed on both pragmatic and normative grounds. Continue reading →
Wahed Waheduzzaman, Sharif As-Saber and Mohotaj Binte Hamid
Countries around the world have been facing numerous challenges in promoting citizen participation in the governance process. Among them, elite capture is considered to be a significant stumbling block that undermines this process. ‘Elite capture’ is where elites in a society exercise disproportionate and unacceptable levels of influence over collective functions and manipulate decision making processes to secure undue benefits for themselves (see Wong, 2012).
Sarah Brown,
Agnes Batory & Sara Svensson 
Policy & Politics Journal Blog 