Mind the Gap: The Ideals of Public Input and the Mucky Reality of Government

Abstract

There are many arguments for why public input should be integrated into government and leadership decisions. But, sadly, piece after piece of research reports problems in the way such input is collected, processed and responded to by political elites. As Figure 3.1 indicates, there is a big gap between the ideals of input and the realities of government and politics. Not surprisingly, most academic literature points the finger at politicians as being to blame, even though the literature has not sought to understand public input from the politicians’ perspectives. And, despite the evidence of deliberative polling before and after showing citizens will be more open to alternative and unpopular policies, the reality is (as the quote from Nicholas Reece in Figure 3.1 suggests) that the general public will not take that time and, thus, the potential positives of deliberation are not realisable in the normal nature of politics and government. There is a big gap between deliberative polls and actual votes: Hansen and Andersen (2004, 283) reported how in Denmark in 2000, whilst a deliberative poll showed a majority for Denmark’s joining the single currency, the actual referendum revealed a majority against Denmark’s participation. Using existing academic literature, this chapter will therefore briefly review the theoretical ideals of public input and then summarise the main problems with previous and current practise.