Uppsala talks about begging

Deliberative citizens: Who wants to participate in political discussions and when, where and how does the deliberative conversation take place?

  • Period: 2014-01-01 – 2016-12-31
  • Budget: 5,805,000 SEK
  • Funder: Swedish Research Council,Australian Research Council

Description

Deliberative democracy is a way to engage citizens in politics and to give them an opportunity to reflect on social issues in an ideal way. The outcome of deliberative talks should form the basis of political decisions. Despite the great interest in deliberation from both researchers and practitioners, we are still far from understanding which factors promote the deliberative conversation.

This research project aims to develop a systematic understanding of the factors and mechanisms that lead citizens to engage in deliberation: psychological, situational, individual, structural, etc. We will develop an overarching model for understanding deliberation structured around three central questions:

  • Who is willing to participate in deliberative conversations?
  • How and when does deliberation take place?
  • What political/societal effects does deliberation have in the short and long term?

We want to increase understanding of the dynamic process that takes place partly when citizens are involved in ideally designed deliberative situations with significant conditions for deliberation to take place and when they participate in situations with limited conditions for deliberation to take place. The approach is interdisciplinary and based on research in psychology, economics and politics. Deliberation is a complex process that requires comprehensive analyzes at several different levels. This comprehensive approach is necessary in order to sort out previous contradictory research results, which have given rise to a great deal of confusion about the meaning of deliberation.

Citizen dialogue for specially invited citizens

During three days in January and February, around 60 selected Uppsala workers were given detailed information and the opportunity to discuss issues concerning the particularly vulnerable EU citizens who beg on the streets of Uppsala. The Uppsala residents' conclusions have then been compiled in a report which is then handed over to a representative of the chairman of the municipal board. The purpose of the report ”Medborgarnas åtgärdsförslag för att hantera tiggeriproblematiken” ("Citizens' proposed measures to deal with the begging problem") is to convey a citizen's perspective on the begging issue to politicians and decision-makers.

These issues have been discussed:

  • What is the problem with EU citizens begging?
  • Who is responsible for EU citizens begging in our neighbourhood?
  • What should we do to improve the situation in Uppsala?

The conversations during the Citizens' Dialogue have taken place in groups and have been interspersed with information from people who are well versed in the issue, as well as people who have a great influence on the daily lives of EU citizens. Examples of people who have been invited to speak are politicians, representatives from the non-profit sector, authorities in, for example, the police and social services and other experts. The names of the experts who participated can be found at the beginning of the report.

The citizens' dialogue is a way of letting politicians know what the citizens think about an important social issue, after the citizens have had the opportunity to really familiarize themselves with the issue.

The citizens' dialogue is also part of a larger research project on deliberative democracy theory.

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Project leader: Julia Jennstål
Co-investigators: Lotti Fred, Simon Niemeyer

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