The Politics of Public Participation. The First Citizens’ Initiated Wisdom Council in Vorarlberg, Austria

Wisdom Councils contribute to the further democratization of society in many ways. They offer a room for dialogue, give citizens an impression of the multitude of different perspectives and the opportunity to contribute their thoughts and ideas to policy. In Vorarlberg, Austria, the instrument has been applied more than 30 times and it is possible for citizens to initiate a wisdom council by collecting a thousand signatures. In 2017 this happened for the first time. In an accompanying case study we could gain insights into the politics of public participation. Participants of the wisdom council described the procedure as surprising in regard of the quality of dialogue and were content with the recommending character of the results. They got motivated for further political participation and felt inspired by the fact that their wisdom council was initiated by citizens. Nevertheless, there are also things to be improved – especially in regard of the publicity of the procedure. Wisdom councils showed to be a relatively unknown procedure to the wider public in Vorarlberg, even in regard of politically interested citizens. For the initiators of the wisdom council this meant that they did not only have to get citizens’ signatures for their subject, they also had to explain what the purpose of a wisdom council is, how it works and that the instrument is actually in existence. Inviting citizens to participate in a procedure they possible have never heard of lead to questions in regard of the random character of selection as well as the possible impact of the procedure. This may be seen as one cause for having to invite six hundred citizens in order to get thirty to participate and weakening random selection. Mainstream media did not seem to contribute much to the publicity of the procedure. First there is the question of how to report about the balanced results of a wisdom council within the logic of mass media, second these procedures of public participation may be in rivalry to mainstream media's claim to represent public opinion and thus be ignored in their reporting. Wisdom councils meet the need for political participation of citizens and at the same time strengthen their political interest. To secure this positive contribution to society and democracy for the future, our findings show that there are things that have to be improved to make the procedure as well as the results more resistant against political opponents, which try to discredit them by pointing at a supposed lack of representativeness or public interest. Our findings originate from a case study of the wisdom council on dealing with ground and soil that took place in September and October 2017. We accompanied the wisdom council process and made a media analysis as well as qualitative content analysis based on interviews with initiators, administration officials and participants of the wisdom council.