Report: conference session - Meet the policy maker

Premise

One of the main tenets for the existence of Edgeryders when it was created was to give the European institutions information and ideas from European youth.

It is hoped that the Edgeryders experiment will be a venue to promote a more fluid dialogue between the ruling institutions of Europe and its young citizens, while at the same time provide insight into the new forms of precariousness and poverty that are emerging among the youth all around Europe, and avoid implementing policies that promote marginalisation (i.e., problem-solving policies vs. potential-promoting policies).

This session was a test case of that goal: sit around a table members of the Edgeryders community alongside those involved in policy decision-making and create a face to face debate that would (hopefully) tear down the walls between institutions and citizens.

Development

As all debates, this one started with a general presentation of projects on both parts, from the Deputy Mayor of Thessaloniki talking about the development of policies in his city to improve both economic growth via several venues (promotion of tourism and regional products) and the inclusion of youth as a central part of the city (via, among others, the creation of a creativity hub), to projects and initiatives developed by Edgeryders on their own or with the help of institutions (like the impressive Access Space in Sheffield or the occupation of vacant theatres in Italy to create citizen-driven cultural spaces).

So far, little debate, as presenting each project takes time and the institutional representatives already have a flair for speeches. It must be noted that Francis Gosselin, as debate moderator, took notes during the whole session, and posed some heavy questions on the table, as will be seen further onwards.

As indeed was expected by all, the appearance of Open Government and ICT was one of the first issues on the floor, and was answered mostly with platitudes right off the book. Yes, government can be a platform upon which to build applications, and yes, it should increase accountability and transparency. That, of course, remains to be seen, as all experiments on Open Government have been limited so far and in most cases quite local, and in difficult times it is rare the government that is willing to lose control to empower citizens.

The already mentioned case of Access Space was taken by Emma Toledano-Laredo as an example of the kind of initiatives that are looked for by the EU in general, and most of its states in particular. Not specifically for its inclusion, no-one-left-behind approach to social intervention, but for its low cost. One for the community, indeed. The problem came a bit later, when asked by Francis on EU policies on collaboration with non-established collectives. There is no plan to work with emerging communities that do not have the possibility (or need) to become an established citizen association or other type of “acceptable” group (i.e., NGO). If this looks short sighted, well, it is, just as much as it is unavoidable due to the amount of administrative red tape that covers all EU official collaborations with the citizens in a joint venture.

In comes the community at large (and the twitterverse)

Edgeryders is, foremost of all, a community-centered think tank to provide knowledge to the institutions of the EU so they can enact successful and actionable policies. But this is not your run-of-the-mill US-style think tank (it is unlikely the community will have brilliant ideas such as those that brought to the invasion of Iraq).

From the Edgeryders point of view, it is first and foremost a community, a platform where to exchange and publish ideas, experiences and forethoughts. And of course, the agreement inside the community on goals, procedures to make them happen and personal experiences is non existent. That creates little conflict in the community itself, used as Edgeryders are in having online disagreement (and a certain ease of managing offline disagreement as well), but can seem baffling to those not used to online, constant interaction.

The most clear example of this was the Twitter wall projected behind the table. While the Q&A part of the session was running, having usually at most one thread of conversation at a time, Twitter was exploding in comments, ideas, exchanges of information, planning and whatever else can be imagined.

Compared to that, the session itself was an excellent kickstart for the real (virtual) conversation that took place online, but it could not keep up. Nonetheless, the community started launching ideas during the Q&A, with mixed results.

As an example, a question about the EU implementing a model of equity crowdfunding (where a startup is owned by the community who has donated to create it) was basically unknown by most present (both Edgeryders and policy makers). And no wonder, as crowdfunding in general is something that has been approached very recently by the usually subsidies-based administration, and equity crowdfunding is such a US-born initiative that it shows itself as allergic to state intervention. However, for local projects such a scheme might relaunch the local economies without taxing the local administrations, at a moment when their budgets are being reduced day by day.

Another idea that came along, and may be unrealistic considering the way institutions do their work, was the creation of a “make everything better” fund, instead of dividing the funds among different areas. This holistic approach has some merit: social inclusion policies without health care (as can happen with separate budgets) are quite ineffectual. Of course, to be able to apply such a scheme the whole of the EU administration should be rebuilt from the ground up, and that usually incurs such costs that probably there would be no money left for such a fund.

Another proposal quite like to be immediately forgotten was the creation of a startup support programme similar to that established by President Obama in the US. That was quite easily (and frighteningly) turned down with a single sentence: Society is changing. Quite an interesting choice of words, as what it meant was that there is no intention of funding programmes to promote innovation via startup creation, which in turn would likely increase employment and, thus, European countries’ internal markets, making the economies of the EU in general a more solid and survivable model than the current “all you need is austerity” trend. But such is life, sometimes you win one, sometimes you don’t.

Some other ideas went straight to the marrow: the open sourcing of food production (considered impossible by some and as an ongoing project by others), the problem with squatting criminalization, taking into account the incredible quantity of vacant residences in Europe (which was, quite understandably, conveniently set aside, as the right to private property is there, in the European Convention on Human Rights, as the first Protocol), along with hundreds of ideas more that appeared on the Twitter wall, showed the muscle of a community brought together to be a think tank.

Ah, the Twitter wall. For many present it wasn’t such a big deal, after all the basis of any conference or unconference is having the tweets right there so one can follow several conversations at the same time, but… to see a Twitter wall in the Council of Europe, where everyone feels absolutely free to say whatever comes to mind. That is an idea the European Parliament might want to adopt, with just the right touch of bravery.

And the public did feel comfortable with it. Just to give an example of something no one would have said out loud but had no problem tweeting:

leashlessTo watch the Ravening Beast of Cryptoanarchy cutely demonstrated on a CoE stage gives me the chills. #LOTE it’s the end of all taxation

Now, not what you usually see in a Council of Europe conference, right? Exactly.

And it showed as well the main problem with these think tank, citizen-driven models: we don’t speak the same language.

Many of those present in the session were doers, people who see something wrong and just go ahead and fix it. The talk in these cases is very direct: we have problem A, and for that we need to do B and C. Once there is an agreement with that, you go ahead, carry out your part of B or C, or both, and if everyone is on the same wave the problem gets solved.

This engineering approach is fine and good, but the way of expressing A, B and C is direct and solution-based. Policy making works on a completely different level, and for a hacker approach may seem inefficient. At the same time, policy makers think of the processes needed to apply precisely that, policy, which is often an indirect approach to the problem, and requires much fine tuning of a certain word in a specific article, or the use of a specific term in another, to make the law pass, not to mention strategic voting and lobbying. All these techniques are alien to Edgeryders at large, and can mean the difference between a successful engagement of the two groups and failure.

If Edgeryders must be the think tank for Europe, we better start getting some translators soon, who can articulate the hacker discourse into something understandable by the institutions, and vice versa. Who can make the translation on both sides?

“News of my death were greatly exaggerated”

Patrick, I have to say I have a slightly different reading of that session. We started with the idea that the most innovative (and radicalized) European youth are separated by institutions by an impassable chasm, and that cooperation is impossible. This view is held not only by many innovators, but also by most people within institutions.  What we got at the end was the idea that the chasm is indeed there, but it is not impassable. The reason for this is twofold:

  1. out of the range of proposals that come from the civil society to some government agency (say, a unit of the European Commission), some will be perceived by said agency as impossible or unrealistic ("you'll have to push a law through parliament for that"), but others will not. Access Space is a perfect example: this type of project they can and will support (AS is in fact funded by the European Regional Development Fund, so it's not just talk, but actual money on the table). I disagree with you on the point that it gets support because it is cheap; but even if you were right, in the end it would not really matter. What matter is that James and people like him get support for their actions.
  2. people in the institutions are, well, people, just like you orme (and in fact I am a man of the institutions); given a reasonably open and welcoming iinteraction environment, you can have a conversation with us. Some of us are reasonably smart. All can learn. Once the ice is broken, the incentives are there to collaborate more closely: civil society gets better directed resources for its projects, institutions get better value for taxpayer euro.
Proof of concept: the day after this session, and largely because of it, the Council of Europe and the European Commission were discussing the deployment of Edgeryders towards another project they have. 

In my opinion the reports of all-out conflict you report are like those of Mark Twain’s death: greatly exaggerated. The session was a clear win. Not despite the disagreement, but because of it - and because it was managed, so that it stayed respectful and conducive to a better, deeper conversation.

All-out conflict? Me?

Hi Alberto,

I doubt I’ve presented an all-out conflict in the session. In fact, my main point there is /precisely/ that the two groups have to learn to talk to each other in a mutually understandable language. Even if the Cryptoanarchy tweet was on the far side of the spectrum (which is precisely the reason I chose it), I do agree that the conversation can be carried out, as long as everyone is willing to listen.

There were, however, those who had no desire to listen. Of course from the point of view of the “policy makers” present the session can be considered as a great success and face to face communication with citizens. From no communication at all to pleasantries there is a huge gap. But there were cases (such as Spyros Pengas deflection of the possible collapse of Europe question to a totally unrelated potential employment creation via the Occupy Theatres project presented by Alessia) where the will to listen was just not there.

As for the economic-based backing of projects, there I was just quoting Emma Toledano, who said exactly that and precisely related to Access Space. Policy makers are people, of course, and people worried about their professional life. And currently that means austerity. There is nothing wrong with that (until there is, of course, which can and probably will happen eventually), but it is a fact.

I do agree that humans on both sides can understand each other, but from what I perceived at the session, the common language is not yet there.

That being said, it is likely my grim outlook on humankind has tinted some of the text…

Sure you got the facts right ?

If my memory serves me correctly in the example you take up of Spiros you are misquoting him. The discussion where this point came up was between him and Emma Toledano, and he was making the exact opposite point- that Europe was going to “explode”.

The question of economic backing to which you are referring was put on the table by Francis who was moderating the discussion. I asked whether about whether the European Commission could support initatives and projects that come out of non-institutionalised networks, or groups of individuals collaborating without any institutional affiliation. Also I did not perceive that Alessia’s experiences or points were dismissed, what do you base that statement on- do you have a quote? Maybe Alessia remembers the response or reaction to her presentation and points in the discussion afterwards?

honestly I hadn’t the

honestly I hadn't the impression of not being listened.
Spyros has given an overview of Thessaloniki's cultural politicies that stand out positively for variety, quality and social inclusion from the Italian ones that led the occupations as reaction. Perhaps he could comment about how Thessaloniki's administration would react in the same situation.
even more sincerly, listening to the closing speech, I felt listened by Gilda Farrell.
then It is true that that session was the first moment of more detailed discussions about the same topics, sometimes between small groups during the following days and in the breakout sessions.
I think also that the limited time and also the emotion (yes!) makes more difficoult a deep comunication, but it was important give time to the variety of experiences.

Learning to communicate

“If Edgeryders must be the think tank for Europe, we better start getting some translators soon, who can articulate the hacker discourse into something understandable by the institutions, and vice versa.”

Yes, I agree that communication was the main issue of citizen-and-institution collaboration that surfaced in the “Meet the Policy Maker” session. However I doubt if the idea of translators for that, when taken literally, would help. It’s not that we don’t understand each others words, it’s that our mindsets are mutually foreign and the room to bridge that gap has been missing so far.

A one-and-half hour debate like the MTPM session is not the space to reach mutual understanding, of course. But it can be learned of course, if both sides are open to it. It just needs way more time. Like (crazy idea ahead) sending a group of 10 or so Edgeryders to be in kind of a co-working space with the EU parliamentarians. They should just get a small room of their own and an info&meeting booth right in the EU parliament, permanently. They would draw all kinds of ideas and input from the web community, and get questions from parliamentarians discussed there … after some months, if we’re successful to understand and communicate well and happen to be “liked”, the policy maker people might stop by frequently to get inspired, discuss a policy issue with the grassroots people, and experience a fresh kind of communication and collaboration …

Personally, I would like this experience. I see way more chance for positive changes with this way of long-term communication than in a MTPM session that (per my experience as a panelist there) just could scratch the surface and clarify muttual positions, but without a chance of mutually affecting each others mindsets.

We need a new word for “policy maker”

Not to disagree with you Neodynos, but I just have to say it’s amazing the amount of meaning we unconsciously attach to this word - policy maker. And it feels it’s suddenly in strike opposition with “citizen”. And other dichotomies which we inevitably get at: parliamentarians/ grassroots, people with power/ people with no power, … next thing you know we’re in the blue eyed vs. brown eyed dilemma.

I guess some words are loaded with meanings more than others…  I’d like to get rid of them, the meanings that are induced somehow.

getting on-board

Hey everyone,

Thanks Noemi for the report and for raising this question…

I want to share some reflections on “the Edgeryders being a part of the public policy community”, since that’s one of the subchapters in my paper (hope soon everyone will be able to feedback)…  there is no universal answer… In one hand I think that the Edgeryders already ARE a policy makers, as being part of the overall public policy community (by the definition)… On the other, the Edgeryders seem to act in quite isolated manner, which is understandable due to innovativeness they perform, and due to challenge they bring to the institutions…

In my experience, to make things more integrated and move forward, each side has to acknowledge the other (BUT REALLY), and OPEN itself for transformation… In practice, this means that more “meeting points” are needed, not only those formal ones, but maybe more fruitful disscussion about REAL entry points and mechanisms for innovative European youth to become integrated into the policy cycle… What I’ve said in March, I truly believe - this is enormus learning and transformation opportunity for both sides…

One more thing I want to share - I LOVE policy making process (lol), and I would recommend everyone to get familliar - it can be very dynamic and creative, so, there’s no need for dychotomy… we can / and should all contribute, since anyway we are part of it…

The truth is that  current policy making NEEDS “fresh Air” (I won’t say fresh blood !!), so the Edgeryders sholdn’t give up their chance/right/responsibility to engage…

Sladja