Problems and Purpose

The EuroPolis Project was an experiment to assess “how political and social attitudes toward European Union (EU) issues change as a result of exposure to information, and what implications this has for political participation and voter turnout.”^[1] In response to skepticism regarding the EU’s legitimacy and democratic capacities,^[2] EuroPolis was created to influence European policy indirectly by highlighting the positive effects deliberation could have on participants, their opinions, and their participation level in European democracy.

In May 2009, participants were randomly selected from among more than 4,000 EU citizens; they were then polled prior to and following deliberation for their views on immigration, climate change, and the EU. Specifically, organizers sought to answer the following questions:^[3]

• Would deliberation change their evaluation of EU policy alternatives?
• Would their policy preferences change?
• Would their electoral choices be more aligned with their policy preferences and would they be more or less likely to vote in second-order elections?
• Would their electoral choices change?
• If EU citizens had equal opportunity to engage in a thoughtful dialogue with citizens of other EU states to discuss what they expect from their Union, would they identify the interests and problems they share with other EU citizens?
• Would they develop stronger bonds with fellow EU citizens and feel part of the Union they formally belong to?
• Would there be an increase in civic engagement?

Background History and Context

European citizens in recent years have become increasingly skeptical towards further integration, in part due to a perceived “democratic deficit” in the EU.^[4] Critics cite evidence of this deficit in a

“a comparatively weak EU Parliament, EU executive decision-making processes that bypass EU parliamentarian scrutiny and direct electoral accountability, first-and-second-order elections dominated by parties campaigning on domestic platforms rather than on EU issues, citizens' preferences on EU policy issues that often go unheard and unrepresented, and a lack of forums for EU citizens to get informed and openly debate on policies governing their Union.” ^[5]

These deficiencies feed into political disengagement, reflected in low turnout for EU Parliamentary elections, while also inhibiting a sense of community amongst the EU polity.^[6] This project aimed to address these criticisms, and explore whether citizen involvement in informed and thoughtful deliberation on the EU could increase public engagement in EU affairs, perceptions of the Union’s legitimacy, and a sense of belonging to the EU.^[7]

This deliberative polling event was not the first of its kind in the context of the EU. In October 2007, also supported by the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, the first EU-wide Deliberative Poll “gathered a random sample of 362 citizens from all 27 EU member states to the European Parliament building in Brussels, where they spent a weekend deliberating about a variety of social, economic, and foreign policy issues affecting the European Union and its member states.”^[8]

Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

The University of Siena coordinated the project with a team of other academic partner institutions [i].^[9] Professor James Fishkin of Stanford University, who originated the concept of Deliberative Polling in 1988, was also involved in the project. The project received funding from a grant from the European Commission under the 7th Framework program,^[10] which covered half of the 2.5 million euro cost, and the rest was provided by a group of private foundations[ii].

Participant Recruitment and Selection

The EuroPolis project attempted to create a microcosm of the European Union to test the possible effects of deliberation on the attitudes and voting behaviour of participants. The survey house TNS (responsible for the Eurobarometer, also funded by the Commission) interviewed a random sample of 4,384 voting-age EU citizens from all 27 member states.^[11] The sample was stratified to ensure adequate representation from the smaller countries.^[12] In addition to random sampling, the organizers, in an effort to avoid a self-selection bias present in some deliberative projects, also took special care to minimize the chances that only those who were very interested in the discussion topics, the EU, and politics in general would participate. Native language contacts provided logistical help to the selected participant and kept in contact with them in order to ensure their participation was possible. The 4,384 selected were interviewed through either CATI (Computer-assisted telephones interviewing) or CAWI (Computer Aided Web Interviewing) in their native language.^[13] The questionnaire that the respondents were administered was roughly 20 minutes long and asked standard socio-demographic questions as well as

“their general attitudes, policy preferences, and level of knowledge about the two policy issues selected for the Deliberative Poll (climate change and immigration), their views on European integration, perceptions of EU institutions and their general political orientation, participation, interest in politics, horizontal trust and voting intentions for the European Parliamentary election in June 2009.”^[14]

Approximately 3,000 of these respondents were randomly selected and were asked post-interview if they would be willing to participate in a deliberative event in the next month.^[15] The 1,300 respondents who were not asked to attend the event at the end of their initial interviews constituted the control group for the experiment. A random subsample (348) of those asked attended the event.^[16] The number of seats given to each country in the EU Parliament provided the proportional stratification by which this final group was selected.

The representativeness of the 348 participants was measured by comparing them to the nonparticipants—the original 4,384 interviewees who did not attend. In terms of age, class and other demographics, the participants and nonparticipants were very similar, although men were slightly over-represented (54%). On a left-right scale (0 to 10), participants and non-participants were virtually identical. The two groups also had nearly identical pre-deliberation attitudes on climate change, although the participants had slightly more ‘liberal’ attitudes on immigration. The participants were also more interested in politics and had a stronger sense of civic duty. ^[17]

The 348 EU citizens arrived in Brussels on May 29th and stayed there until the 31st. They were hosted at a “nice resort”^[18] and given 80 euro as compensation for their time. All of their individual accommodation expenses, as well as travel expenses to and from the event were covered in full by the project. They were also greeted by staff who spoke their native language, and given another copy of the background information.

Methods and Tools Used

The EuroPolis project used a specific deliberative tool invented by James Fishkin called a Deliberative Poll (DP). This research design incorporates five main characteristics and two additional elements specific to this project. A Deliberative Poll requires a random selection of participants, documents providing the participants with an easily understandable and balanced explanation of the issues, small group discussions including moderators, large group or plenary sessions in which the questions from the small group stage are answered, and continual monitoring of the participants attitudes through surveys. The EuroPolis Project also included a control group, which also completed the initial and final questionnaires; and audio recordings of the small group interactions. The interviewing process began on April 16th and took until April 28th to be completed.

What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation

The project was divided into two main phases consisting of the participant selection and the weekend in Brussels.

First, roughly 4,300 citizens were selected using a stratified random sample of the EU’s population aged 18 and older. This group was then given a questionnaire, administered using either CATI (Computer-assisted telephones interviewing) or CAWI (Computer Aided Web Interviewing). This questionnaire was used in order to assess, among other things, the respondents’ general political views, policy preferences, interest and participation level in politics, trust in EU institutions and other EU citizens, and familiarity and understanding of the issues of climate change and immigration (the policy issues chosen for the project). Following the interviews, 3,000 or so were randomly selected and asked to participate in the next stage of the project and from this number, 348 participants were chosen to attend the weekend in Brussels based on proportional stratification reflecting the number of EU Parliament seats filled by each member-state. ^[19]

Several weeks before their arrival, all 348 of the participants were provided with documents briefing them on the discussion issues and the EU institutions involved in these areas. This material provided information in their native languages on the discussion issues (climate change and immigration), and general information about the EU and how it works in those areas. This document went through three rounds of revision to ensure that it provided a truthful description of the problems and so that it covered all positions on the issues and the proposed solutions. The European Policy Centre (EPC) organized a group of independent experts to write the first drafts and incorporated input from experts as well as politicians from the different parties in the EU Parliament. The EPC sought to create a document which gave accurate and balanced accounts of the problems, including opposing viewpoints and other directions in which the policies could go. ^[20]

Weekend in Brussels

Small groups (25 in total) of randomly assigned participants speaking up to three different languages were assigned to discuss the issues with the aid of experienced moderators, all 30 of whom came from Brussels. They were chosen for their job by Avventura Urbana, who along with Robert Luskin and James Fishkin, trained the moderators before the event took place in a two-day long session to ensure they were adequately prepared for their roles. ^[21]

Simultaneous interpretation provided by more than 150 translators present at the event allowed participants to discuss with the other members of their small groups in their native language. This enabled real time discussion between the participants without linguistic limitations like having to find a common language in order to take part in the deliberation. Over 80% of the participants reported that they had “little or no problem following the discussion through simultaneous translation”.^[22]

The moderators assigned to each small group helped facilitate the discussion in the small groups and were charged with the responsibility of making sure that opposing views were heard in the deliberation. While in the small group discussions, the participants were encouraged to devise questions, which they would later direct towards the panel of experts and also the attending politicians. These questions were on the subjects of the discussion topics (immigration and climate change) as well as on the functioning of the EU decision-making process, with the former being directed to the attending politicians[iii]. After the separate plenary sessions with the experts and with the politicians, the participants again returned to their small groups where they filled out the third questionnaire. ^[23]

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

The internal impact was positive in that the participants reported enjoying the experience, and also indicated an increased attachment to Europe after the event. At the end of the weekend participants were asked to rate the event on a scale of 0 to 10. 86% rated it 8 or higher, and

“59% gave it a perfect 10. The ratings of the plenary sessions with politicians and experts were also high, each being found useful by 74%. The ratings of the small group discussions were still higher, with 92% finding them useful.” ^[24]

In contrast to the internal impact, which was high and perceived by the participants to be quite positive, there was no direct, observable external impact. While this does cause problems if the project is tested by Dawid Friedrich’s (2013) standards in that both internal and external impact are necessary to be considered deliberative and democratic, it was not the plan or intention of the EuroPolis Project organizers for it to be anything more than an experiment. However, if external impact is measured by increased political participation in the EU, the event could potentially be seen to have had a considerable impact. Participants who considered it their duty to vote in EU elections rose from 48% to 56% after the event.^[25] However, there is no data to show whether or not this increased civic responsibility translated into actually going to the polls or not.

Isernia et al. (2013) found that while the immigration debates had no initially visible effects, the climate change debates had a significant impact on the European party affiliation of the participants.^[26] Serious deliberation on climate change increased the electoral appeal of the Greens by 10%.^[27] The electoral impact of deliberation on immigration was less clear. However, even the increased support for the Greens can only be substantiated as true impact if the change held true on Election Day.

Many participants changed their view on issues. Before deliberation, 72% wanted the EU to do as much as possible regarding climate change, increasing to 85% after deliberation. Additionally, following deliberation, the participants were more enthusiastic about energy efficiency (increasing from 75% to 84%) and using an emissions trading system (39% to 49%). Opposition to investing in nuclear energy went from 35% to 43% and support for investing in biofuels fell from 55% to 50%. Among all participants, the belief that immigration is an important problem increased from 44% 64%. Deliberation did not change opinions on whether the government should send illegal immigrants back to their country (23%) or legalize them (40%), but it did affect participants’ views of how governments should deal with immigration: “the percentage in favour of reinforcing border controls fell from 66% before deliberation to 59% afterwards.” ^[28]

The findings from the deliberative polling exercise were presented in the Residence Palace in Brussels on the 3rd of June 2009.^[29]

Analysis and Lessons Learned

The results of the experiment can be seen as generally quite positive.

“On average, participants found the event extremely balanced. Of those who said that they had read more than half of the briefing materials (a large majority of the participants), roughly two-thirds saw them as balanced, and only 11% saw them as clearly favouring some positions over others. Similarly, 69% agreed that their small group moderator ‘tried to make sure that opposing arguments were considered’, while 86% disagreed that the moderator ‘sometimes tried to influence the group with her/his ideas.’” ^[30]

Overall, the participants rated the experience very highly and the results from the surveys show that they gained knowledge about the topics covered and the EU, experienced changes in their political attitudes and preferences towards political parties, and importantly, identification with Europe increased after deliberation.^[31] The increased attachment to Europe may be related to the demographics of the participants, however, this does not change the fact that there was an identity change. Even if selection bias or the framing of the debate changed peoples minds, it stands that there was a change and that needs to be further researched in order to understand said change. Also, since the control group and participant group shared nearly identical characteristics, it is likely that since the participant group experienced changes and the control group did not, there exist mechanisms within the project that need to be discovered. Hopefully, when more data is released there will be better opportunities to search for these mechanisms.

While the deliberative quality of EuroPolis has been judged as a mix of good and bad,^[32] this experiment still provides us with the possibility of beginning to understand the positive effects of deliberation on identity. It also illustrates how having a direct or instant impact on a particular policy is not necessary for a deliberative project to be successful in increasing the common identity of participants.

See Also

Deliberative Polling (method)

References

^[1] EuroPolis: A deliberative polity-making project. CIRCaP. Centre for the Study of Political Change - University of Siena. Retrieved Nov 1, 2020, from https://www.circap.org/europolis.html

^[2] Cordis. (April 29, 2015). Final Report Summary - EUROPOLIS (EuroPolis: A deliberative polity-making project). European Commission - Cordis. Retrieved Nov 1, 2020, from https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/225314/reporting

^[3] Cordis. (April 29, 2015). Final Report Summary - EUROPOLIS (EuroPolis: A deliberative polity-making project).

^[4][5][6][7] Cordis. Final Report Summary - EUROPOLIS (EuroPolis: A deliberative polity-making project).

^[8] Center for Deliberative Democracy. (2007, Oct 27). Tomorrow’s Europe, the first EU-wide Deliberative Poll. CDD. https://cdd.stanford.edu/2007/tomorrows-europe-the-first-eu-wide-deliberative-poll/

^[9] EuroPolis: A deliberative polity-making project. CIRCaP. Centre for the Study of Political Change - University of Siena. Retrieved Nov 1, 2020, from https://www.circap.org/europolis.html

^[10] EuroPolis: A deliberative polity-making project. CIRCaP.

^[11] Isernia, P. & Fishkin, J. S. (2014). The EuroPolis Deliberative Poll. European Union Politics, https://cdd.stanford.edu/2014/the-europolis-deliberative-poll/, 14.

^[12] Isernia, P., Steiner, J., & Mauro, D.D. (2013). Toward a European Public Sphere – The Europolis Project. https://www.academia.edu/31782652/TOWARD_A_EUROPEAN_PUBLIC_SPHERE_THE_EUROPOLIS_PROJECT, 4.

^[13] Isernia, P., Steiner, J., & Mauro, D.D. (2013). Toward a European Public Sphere – The Europolis Project.

^[14][15][16] Isernia, P., Steiner, J., & Mauro, D.D. (2013). Toward a European Public Sphere – The Europolis Project, 5.

^[17] Europolis (2009). Representativeness Analysis: Participants vs. Non-participants. Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University. https://cdd.stanford.edu/mm/2009/europolis-representativeness.pdf

^[18][19][20] Isernia, P., Steiner, J., & Mauro, D.D. (2013). Toward a European Public Sphere – The Europolis Project, 5. https://www.academia.edu/31782652...

^[21] Isernia, P., Steiner, J., & Mauro, D.D. (2013). Toward a European Public Sphere – The Europolis Project, 6.

^[22] Isernia, P., Steiner, J., & Mauro, D.D. (2013). Toward a European Public Sphere – The Europolis Project, 5-6.

^[23] Isernia, P., Steiner, J., & Mauro, D.D. (2013). Toward a European Public Sphere – The Europolis Project, 6.

^[24] Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University. (2009, May 25). Final Report: EuroPolis – Deliberative Polling® on the European Union. https://cdd.stanford.edu/2009/final-report-europolis-deliberative-polling-on-the-european-union/, 4.

^[25][26] Isernia, P., Steiner, J., & Mauro, D.D. (2013). Toward a European Public Sphere – The Europolis Project. https://www.academia.edu.../

^[27] Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University. (2009, May 25). Final Report: EuroPolis – Deliberative Polling® on the European Union. https://cdd.stanford.edu/2009/final-report-europolis-deliberative-polling-on-the-european-union/, 1.

^[28] Final Report: EuroPolis – Deliberative Polling® on the European Union, 4.

^[29] EuroPolis: A deliberative polity-making project. CIRCaP. Centre for the Study of Political Change - University of Siena. Retrieved Nov 1, 2020, from https://www.circap.org/europolis.html

^[30] Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University. (2009, May 25). Final Report: EuroPolis – Deliberative Polling® on the European Union. https://cdd.stanford.edu/2009/final-report-europolis-deliberative-polling-on-the-european-union/, 4.

^[31] Isernia, P., Steiner, J., & Mauro, D.D. (2013). Toward a European Public Sphere – The Europolis Project.

^[32] Gerber, M., Bächtiger, A., Fiket, I., & Steenbergen, M. (2014). Deliberative and Non-Deliberative Persuasion: Mechanisms of Opinion Formation in EuroPolis. European Union Politics, 15(3), 410-429. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269704815_Deliberative_and_Non-Deliberative_Persuasion_Mechanisms_of_Opinion_Formation_in_EuroPolis

External Links

EuroPolis Project at the University of Siena Website

Final Press Release (English)

CDD: EuroPolis: Deliberative Polling® on the European Union

Notes

[i] The team included partners from the University of Essex, The Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), the University of Oslo, Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences PO), La Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain (CSIC), and the Median Research Centre, Romania (MRC).

[ii] The Compagnia di San Paulo coordinated the support from foundations including the King Baudouin Foundation, the Bosch Stiftung, and the Open Society Institute (Switzerland).

[iii] Isabelle Durant (Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium), Toomas Hendrik Ilves (President of Estonia), Giuliano Amato (former Prime Minister of Italy), and Jens Peter Bonde (Member of the European Parliament from Denmark).