THINK TANKS AS CITIZEN PARTICIPATION FORUMS

THINK TANKS AS CITIZEN PARTICIPATION FORUMS Ruurik Holm (Left Forum, Finland)

Three ways of improving participation: • Developing local democracy (Luhtakallio) • Participation and emancipation (Brangsch) • Economic democracy as a form of participation (Sjöberg)

Think tanks are • Participation forums connecting politics, bureaucracy, non-governmental organizations and academic researchers.

Various possibilities to influence the decision making process: •The preparatory stage (ministries) • By giving expert opinions in committees and governmental body meetings • Political parties • Public opinion (dissolving prevailing hegemonies, especially important for leftist think tanks) • Expert debate (topics and tools for argumentation, changing background assumptions)

Participation in the preparatory stage would be the ultimate way for a think tank which aims to influence the content of the bills. In the presence of a relatively strong party system (like in Finland), it often is the case that once the government has endorsed a particular bill, there is little opposition parties can do to prevent its passage.

Lobbying • Think tanks can also operate through less official channels: round table discussions, informal meetings, weekend seminars, dinner parties, etc. This type of influence does not usually become public but can be very effective.

If a think tank aims for democratization of the decision-making process, lobbying could be considered somewhat suspicious and even undermining the objectives of the think tank. However:

Beside direct involvement, there are more indirect ways to have a say to the content of the bills. A think tank which is close to a political party may, for example, participate in formulating the party standpoint about some actual topic. Indirect ways

Background • In addition, a think tank may not even aim at such a straightforward role in society, but prefers to stay in the background and formulate more general views about societal issues.

Composing and publishing surveys, producing information for • Political parties • Public discussion (media) • Expert debate

Challenges: • Establishing an expert network • Finding resources • Media visibility

Analyzing the challenges from the point of view of a leftist think tank in Finland:

Building expert network • Differences between academic and political cultures • The (false?) public image of Left Alliance as blue-collar workers’ conservative party • Possible bias / pressure for bias in research caused by funding institutions’ (trade unions, leftist organisations) interests

Finding resources • Scarcity of resources in general (outside business). • Private company funding is unlikely. • Intellectually interesting survey questions may be too theoretical for funding organizations. • The risk of politically non-beneficial research outcomes exists in all unbiased study.

Media visibility • It is hard to gain positive media visibility for Left Alliance related activity. • Media is only interested in clear, simple results. • The main media does not give space to political phenomena which are not close to sources of power.

Meeting the challenges:

Expert network • Providing financial resources and collaboration to do expert work may attract researchers. • The image of the political left can be changed by providing more carefully founded standpoints in public discussion. Argumentation instead of rhetoric. • An external scientific expert body (scientific council) to steer activity. This can work against bias in research and for guaranteeing its academic quality.

Finding resources • Possible general awareness about the need to raise the quality of (political or leftist) argumentation • Contacts with expert communities may be useful for funding organizations • More academic (objective) touch to research yields credibility to results

Media visibility • Is possible only when the message is novel, clear and well-argued • Still difficult to obtain • A concrete alterative is to operate outside main media, for example in the Internet

Thank you!

THINK TANKS AS CITIZEN PARTICIPATION FORUMS