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| Designing and implementing democracy policy | Graphical version |
Designing and implementing democracy policy is one way to try and explore solutions to problems faced by democracy. This can also contribute to efforts to secure the functioning of democracy by preserving policies and arrangements that have been found to be good for democracy.
What is democracy policy?
By democracy policy we mean political strategies related to the protection and development of democracy – rule by the people.
It is about long-term decisions by political bodies related to democracy, formulation of policy lines, and politically-mandated development and safeguarding work.
Governments of other Nordic countries have carried out various evaluations and projects on the functioning and development of democracy and shaped their democracy policy programmes on the basis of these. But, Finland has not engaged in democracy policymaking since the 1970s.
Nevertheless, it is quite obvious we cannot ignore the problems faced by democracy in Finland. Therefore we need to outline Finnish democracy policy.
One of the manifestations of the existing will and need to develop democracy in our country is the fact that the Government Programme of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen’s first Cabinet includes the Citizen Participation Policy Programme.
But this Programme is limited to the Cabinet’s one term in office, and no long-term development plans or decisions have been made on the development of democracy or on a permanent body that will be responsible for democracy development.
Foundation and objectives
In Finland the Constitution lays the foundation for democracy policy work. Under the Constitution, public authorities must promote opportunities for the individual to participate in societal activity and influence decisions that concern them.
Public authorities must also endeavour to guarantee for everyone the possibility of influencing decisions that concern their living environment.
In the light of our Constitution, the starting point and objective of Finnish democracy policy work must primarily be the safeguarding and development of the functioning of representative democracy and secondly the creation and maintenance of as many opportunities as possible for people to participate and influence in their living environment as well as in different spheres and levels of society.
More detailed outlining of the content of democracy policies requires information about to what extent democracy policy work can be carried out and where it is needed. This calls for assessments of the status of democracy: studies on where Finnish democracy works and where it does not.
When setting objectives for democracy development work, we should remember that democracy is not a competition, although the realisation of democracy can be compared with other countries.
Tools such as democracy indicators, and research and assessments in general, can help assess the national state of democracy. The role of public debate as a reflector of the state of democracy should also be brought up.
Problems related to democracy
In Finland problems have come up in both representative and direct democracy. In this respect there appears to be need for wide-ranging democracy policies that recognise every policy area and level.
Accordingly, a general objective could be to protect and deepen democracy at the local, regional and national level while also taking international development into consideration.
At a more specific level, our main concerns related to representative democracy include how to make involvement in party work and elected offices and institutions more interesting to people.
In the field of direct democracy, participation in elections, the referendum institution, people’s civil society involvement and the relationship between government and citizens are all experiencing problems.
Therefore, in this respect the objective could be to strengthen opportunities for and efficiency of citizens’ participation, remove barriers to participation and improve citizens’ equality.
Concrete tools
Concrete measures are also needed to improve facilities for democracy. These could include institutional reforms, legislative amendments, pilot projects and various experiments.
Although the range of democratic tools should be wide, the number of tools is not decisive: what matters is that we achieve good and lasting results over the long term. It is also important to monitor and assess implemented projects and reforms. Assessments must evaluate objectives set in democracy policies against results achieved though concrete measures.
Recent years have seen the launch and implementation of various Finnish development projects, such as the Participation Project, the Hear the Citizen project and projects under the Citizen Participation Policy Programme.
These have generated a wide selection of tools for the promotion and safeguarding of democracy in fields such as information provision, communication and interaction. We can say the Finnish set of tools has been taken to the Nordic level, but the practical implementation and establishment of those tools is still incomplete.
Policy definitions and follow-up needed
The Citizen Participation Policy Programme and democracy development projects have been a good start.
Nevertheless, we should remember that the main problems of democracy cannot be fixed through individual concrete proposals or actions. Instead, longer-term plans and policies are needed.
The absence of a long-term democracy policy programme and related follow-up work is a major obstacle to efficient promotion and safeguarding of democracy in Finland.
Another problem is that we lack a clear body for democracy development and monitoring.
To be able to determine who should be responsible for democracy policies, we must analyse the government and administration responsible for democracy.
Cooperation and coordination
In the Finnish central government, responsibilities for democracy issues have traditionally been decentralised and allocated to several ministries without any common objectives or guidelines.
During the Citizen Participation Policy Programme the Programme organisation has worked towards democracy development in cooperation with many ministries and other organisations.
Of course, the tools for the advancement of democracy and the state of democracy can be assessed by individual evaluators, researchers or working groups, but broader guidelines and objectives must still be set somewhere to ensure the creation of an extensive and influential cooperation network and implementation of reliable coordination, information, monitoring and follow-up work.
We must remember that, regardless of the way in which the administration of democracy issues is organised, the efficient and appropriate development of democracy issues always requires common guidelines and monitoring as well as horizontal and vertical cooperation across and between the levels and spheres of government.
The author is a researcher in constitutional law at the University of Joensuu.
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