Constitutional visions from the grassroots
By Jennifer Todd, Joanne McEvoy & Shelley Deane,
Across these British-Irish islands, constitutional change is on the agenda – whether changing the form of the British Union or separating from it, whether increasing harmonisation between the two Irish jurisdictions or uniting them. And yet the process remains fraught. Public disengagement from politics, from expertise and from parties is one of the major problems of our age (see e.g. ‘Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy), and particularly problematic when the constitutional frame of our future lives comes into question (see e.g. ‘The Unfinished Constitution’).
In Ireland, where only the Irish government can set the terms of a referendum on possible future Irish unity, disengagement is a major problem. Even those people, North and South, who agree on their aims for Unity or Union, do not agree on the acceptable forms of Unity or Union, and many others have not much thought about it [See Obstacles to constitutional participation: Lessons from diverse voices in post-Brexit Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland - Jennifer Todd, Joanne McEvoy, 2024; Time for Deliberation, not Decision, on the Shape of a New United Ireland: Evidence from the ARINS Survey Focus Groups]. But if those who are disengaged or uncertain do not articulate what they want, and if others do not reach some shared views of acceptability, any future Irish polity, even if devised by the most able of politicians and the most expert of experts, is liable to produce dangerous disillusion. If, on the other hand, increasingly many citizens articulate their diverse perspectives, there is the opportunity to strengthen democracy.
Grassroots deliberation which allows ordinary people to create some shared visions of the future and shared priorities for politics upstream of decision-making can counter these dangers. Deliberation has to start from people’s own priorities, and it has to span the Irish border, so that Northerners and Southerners can explore their shared values, and their very different assumptions and expectations about future politics. It needs to have outcomes – not just in reciprocal understanding but in defining the future agenda of constitutional discussion in iterative ways, that can connect with, and inform political debate.
In this context, we began a series of four experimental, day-long trans-local deliberative cafés, with the aim of creating a replicable template for grassroots deliberation linked into politics (Constitutional Visions from the Grassroots.Summary Report.pdf). The aim was to engage with local networks, local expertise and local creativity while scaling up to national and transnational levels by inter-connecting different local areas in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In each case we linked into local government structures – the local councils of Mid Ulster, Longford, and Mayo were the immediate channels for political impact. Our idea was to develop a day-long deliberative schedule, where participants identified shared problems in the morning, shared policy priorities in the afternoon, and used these as the criteria by which to assess existing models of United Ireland and imagine new ones. We chose transversally defined participants – rural women in these areas – for we hypothesised that they would be likely to share many problems. We invited policy-experts to attend the first cafés to hear the women’s concerns, and respond with brief expert analyses of available policy channels to address them. Later we created short videos where the experts spoke to the general problems that the women had identified in the first cafés. In the late afternoon we presented schematic models of the constitutional future: the status quo where Northern Ireland remains in the UK; an integrated united Ireland; and a united Ireland where Northern Ireland is devolved within Irish sovereignty. We invited participants to suggest other models that might better address their shared problems.
Our participants (many of whom were disillusioned with party politics) were not only interested, but many came back to subsequent sessions – they said they needed to reflect more. They engaged with each other and with the experts. In the initial café, the participants were angry with local politicians who attended to answer questions; in later cafés, when the politicians were embedded in small table discussions, the dialogue was constructive and mutually informative. Return participants in particular developed the capacity to engage in constitutional discussion, and they facilitated small table discussions in the later cafés.
Our participants showed considerable constitutional creativity. They did not agree on their constitutional preferences, and very few changed their constitutional preferences over the course of the day (See Project MUSE - Beyond Identity and Ideology: How Grassroots Deliberation Can Reframe Constitutional Debate). But they devised new models of Union and Unity. Those who favoured the Union (and some who did not) wanted much strengthened North-South institutions and cooperation so that common problems, not least gender-based violence and anti-social behaviour, environment and health, could be addressed more effectively. Others who favoured Unity gravitated towards a model where power and decision-making were decentralised in key areas, to allow greater grassroots input. The form of decentralisation was discussed in subsequent cafés with considerable support for asymmetric forms of devolving power across different territorial and issue areas. These suggestions went beyond the polarising options usually proposed: many nationalists would find a strengthened shared island model acceptable, even if they preferred Irish unity; many unionists would see value in greater decentralisation where local expertise could hold policy makers accountable and where participation is maximised.
If generalised across the island, and across different groups – farmers, footballers, fathers - the process would radically lessen political disengagement, decrease polarisation, inform the corridors of power, and feed into wider political debate upstream of any future referendum. It would allow public interests to inform the shape of a new Ireland and facilitate the sort of public-political dialogue that is necessary for a well-functioning democracy. The same sort of deliberation within Great Britain, and perhaps between Northern Ireland and Scotland, is well-overdue, and would allow more coordination of linkages and priorities before future constitutional models are defined.
Jennifer Todd is full professor, emeritus, and fellow, Geary Institute, UCD. She writes on issues of identity, conflict and settlement.
Joanne McEvoy is professor of politics and head of social science, University of Aberdeen. Her research focuses on constitutional deliberation on the island of Ireland and post-conflict power-sharing in divided societies.
Shelley Deane is a post-doctoral Research Fellow North South Programme, Dept of Law and Government, Dublin City University (DCU) and co-editor of Irish Studies in International Affairs, Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South, (ARINS).