Is there really anything neutral about an assembly (or a facilitator)?

Held by Claire Mellier and Clare Farrell, facilitated by Alex Lockwood.

• You can watch the summary video here:

• Watch the defining of the problem between Claire and Clare here:

• Or watch the full round-table here:

• And spend a bit of time with Josh Knowles‘ live illustration made during the round-table:

Context

A huge amount of effort is put into presenting assemblies and other deliberative and participatory democratic processes as ‘neutral’. On the one hand the balance designed into representation and governance has been designed that way to earn their legitimacy and the trust of those not chosen to take part. Designers and facilitators are directed to be ‘neutral’ and do their job ‘objectively’.

But many leading deliberative governance experts, through hard-won and long experience, now argue that in reality there is no such thing as pure neutrality. There are always implicit framings in what and how questions are asked, and who makes decisions. The way you talk about the subject, determines how people will think, deliberate, respond, and recommend. Then it becomes a question of: how is this governed? And there is no such thing as neutrality of governance.

If that’s the case then is there a more nuanced conversation to have about integrity? What are the principles, values that underpin the work we do in this space? This itself is a question that gains little acknowledgement.

This is also not a philosophical or theoretical conversation. For example, how do you design and facilitate conversations around capitalism, GDP, or growth? And if you decide not to facilitate the citizens’ deliberation around this topic (as was the decision at real French and British climate assemblies) who decides?

Integrity is in reality about practice, because it determines practical issues: e.g. who funds the assembly, what’s the mechanism of governance between the funder and delivery body, who makes the final decisions on subjects, who appoints the experts or leads? Who has the decision-making power? It’s about money, power, decisions, everything that’s real.