Restorative Democracy: governance, legitimacy, and policy conflict

Abstract

A recent report to the European Commission commented on democratic decline, noting that “[d]emocratic legitimacy seems to have lost its balance and compass” (Merkel, 2019). In the introduction to the same report, the DG for Research and Innovation stressed the need to respond to this trend by building “inclusive, open, fairer, and altogether more democratic societies” (in Merkel, 2019). Administrative practices are central in both this decline and in the possibilities for renewal. They ground citizens’ experience of government and the legitimacy that organizations and practices are accorded. Administrative practice also presents a key set of opportunities for restoring legitimacy by reshaping practice (Warren, 2009). As the actions of administrative agencies provoke conflict, they confront public officials with the need to manage the demands and opportunities that the conflicts present. Citizens’ experience of government is, thus, often an experience of conflict and of administrators’ efforts to ‘manage’ the demands that conflict poses. Substantial progress has been made where administrators have responded by organizing forms of dialogue and negotiation that engage interests to fashion a way to move ahead at a practical level (Forester, 2017; Susskind, McKearnan, and Thomas-Larmer, 1999). These practices can fall short, however, when policy implementation and governance programs damage relationships and leave groups feeling harmed (Laws and Forester, 2015; Forester, 2013). In such circumstances, practical action, legitimacy, and trust intertwine tightly and become constitutive of one another, too often in a spiral of decline. Practitioners and researchers have begun to respond to this sense of decline by drawing insight and inspiration from efforts to develop restorative practices, drawing on work that began and developed within the criminal justice system (Pali and Aertsen, 2018; Bazemore and Schiff, 2001). Restorative justice is a practical approach that ‘gives’ the conflict back to those who are affected by it, invites them to do something about it, and supports them in their effort (Zehr, 2015). It involves forms of repair that address relationships as well as outcomes and that seek practical commitments to change and reconciliation. The papers in this panel explore the extension of these insights and practices to democratic governance. They develop a sense of what restorative democracy might mean as a framework – a theoretical context, a mindset, and a set of practices – that can contribute to repairing the relationship between state institutions and citizens. Working restoratively means centering the experience and needs of those who have been – or will be – harmed, creating inclusive conversations in which the unfiltered expression of emotions and hopes is possible, and linking reflection on harms in the past with practical discussions about what needs to be done to put things right. In exploring these practices – and the experiences that inspire and ground them – the papers pursue a practical vision of democratic society that treats conflict as the essence of social life and as a primary way in which society is ‘sewn together’ (Coser, 1977; Deutsch, 1973; Simmel, 1955).

Title	Details
Constructive conflict for biodiversity	View Paper Details
Restoring trust: Youth participation from below and top-down in Amsterdam	View Paper Details
Understanding and repairing relational dynamics in localized policy-conflicts – a framework for analysis and action	View Paper Details
Performative deficits and possibilities for repair: A restorative approach to policy conflict	View Paper Details