Renewing the democratic paradigm through
the co-production of public action
 
Authors: Séverine Bellina
and Jo Spiegel
Far from being the norm, democracy is a minority political system. According to the Democracy Index of 2016, it represents 45,5% of States. And in the States where it exists, the tendency is towards a decrease in democracy. In Europe democracy is regressing and creating a space for illiberal phantom democracies (Poland, Hungary) or imperfect democracies (such as France) in which rights are being weakened, populism is rising and ecology is not taken seriously. In the same year the international community (including organised international civil society) adopted a previously unseen international consensus on the necessary action for sustainability (the Sustainable Development Goals– ODD) and for democracy (ODD 16 and 17). An agreement was proposed for the cooperation of actors around the world on open, responsible, inclusive and participatory democracy for sustainable development.  Everywhere, aspirations towards more democracy exist and give rise to pioneer initiatives. Their goal is to reconnect citizens to the public sphere. However, in 2017, the same index revealed, for all world regions, an unequaled regression of democracy. France, which had already qualified as an imperfect democracy in 2016, lost its rank by five places in one year. In 2017, it was ranked 29th of 176 countries. France is experiencing a worrying democratic crisis. Its diagnostic has been henceforth well established The qualifications (transparent, fluid, participatory, collaborative, inclusive, anti-) used to define its solutions also suffice to understand its symptoms. The presidential elections of 2017 reminded us that the frontier for extremism didn’t exist as long as rights for all continue to regress. Supported by municipal teams, citizens, civil society actors and academics, innovations are tested in terms of tools (ex : participatory budgets, independant citizen committees, agora, houses of citizenship, participatory councils, civic tech) and forms of public action (decisional processes, shared leadership, collegiality, implication of inhabitants, co-responsibility). Rooted in a given territory or collectivity, attached to personalities or specific collectives, these experiments remain little known  outside of a circle of the inititated, and limited in their significance. Measuring their social and systemic impact remains difficult and complex. However, without yet being able to embody a new system, these dynamics fall within the refounding of democracy. They enlarge the field of possibilities but they are not a new reduced model. The refounding of democracy is a complex and uncertain path that takes various forms and trajectories, and falls within a diversity of non-linear temporalities between the short, middle and long term, rooted in the territories. In this context, we affirm that it is urgent to refound democratic governance in a systemic way, beginning with : Two principal imminent challenges : - To re-legitimize democracy as a political system faced with populist responses which are riding on defiance towards institutions not adequately responding to social
- anxieties ; To support development founded, not on the economic paradigm but on the political one, for effective access to rights for everyone, social justice and sustainability.
And strong convictions : - The urgencies of today and tomorrow require, more than ever, activating ecological and social Transition in favor of societies that are more fair and sustainable ;
- Democratic transition is the « mother of Transitions » : we must collectively, and with the greatest number, define the values and the development model to which ecological and social transition can lead.
- Questions of meaning and values give structure to leaving the democratic crisis ;
- « Living », « permanent », real and effective democracy is a continuum which is anchored in the long term and can not be restricted to electoral deadlines ;
- Democracy is, above all, a path towards peaceful coexistence, towards recognising others as similar. Democracy is a principal of equality, which is philosophically and legally affirmed, but also inscribed in everyday reality. It is not enough to work on institutions and tools, we must equally, and above all, work on peaceful coexistence ;
- The local level is a strong link in the « democratic transition chain », where confidence and proximity to the reality of needs and urgencies persists, it is a space for testing, and a territory that supports collective innovations favorable to concrete action ;
- The strength of the transformation of our societies lies in the articulation of various levels of decision-making and action (from the local to the national, and, through Europe, to the international), the various actors (citizen, social, public, economic, consular), and individual, collective and institutional spheres ;
- The necessity to give all actors the opportunity to get involved in a political role (in the co-construction of politics) and to not bring into opposition the elected official with the citizen, nor representative democracy with participatory democracy, to put responses into place at the personal and general level, and at the local and global level ;
- The need to react on the « democratic chain » in its entirety, going from individuals to institutions and through forms of collective organisation and their reciprocal interactions.
This is why we propose to influence the democratic system, to renew it, with the initiative Fabriques de la transition démocratique-FabDem (Democratic transition labs). Founded on a pragmatic method, the  FabDem are based on solutions and transitions already in use, as well as on distance for reflection. The FabDem aim at effectively uniting experiences and actors, initiatives and tools, meanings and values, distance for reflection and vision, the accumulation of knowledge and the diffusion of practices, in the service of constructing a positive story, the capacitation of actors and adapted public policies. More generally, with the FabDem we affirm wanting to contribute to a strong transformation of the system with the cross fertilisation of a diversity of tested solutions, as well as by providing an analysis of their potentials. Concretely, we would like to unite the pioneers of democratic action and strengthen their community, as well as open other spaces for debate and action. Our objective is to contribute to refounding our democracy on the paradigm of « shared power », substituting this for the present : « power over ». We maintain that the coproduction of public action is a strong vector for individual, collective and institutional democratic resilience, which is required in order to redefine democratic fabric starting with a change in the relationship of decision-making and power.  Coproduction of public action allows for simultaneous action on a change in postures, individual and collective legitimacies of actors and their interaction, the appropriation of common ethics and (co) responsability, as well as on the co-construction of shared social regulation. While allowing for the intervention of actors with different interests and constructive interaction between the different regulations that these actors mobilise, plural public action opens up other practices and relationships to power. This gives meaning to our proposition to make the Fabriques de la transition démocratique laboratories and spaces for true experiences of rupture, renovation, and renewal of democracy. For more information : see the Fabriques website and the project document.
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