The place(s) of student voice in 14-19 education policy reform: reflections on consultation and participation

Certain policy areas with considerable impact on young people's educational experiences and achievements, notably assessment and qualifications, do not involve consultation with young people to any meaningful extent. Findings from a national study, which included focus groups with 243 students in the 14-19 phase, are presented with respect to student consultation and participation in such policy areas. A lack of meaningful consultation regarding what students see as ‘higher level’ policy agendas was found (such as qualifications provision, choice or structure). Students are therefore ‘voiceless’ in relation to major qualifications reforms

On the road from consultation cynicism to energising e-consultation

A major concern in recent political discourse is that government has become both isolated from and unresponsive to its citizens. Democracy, by definition, demands a two-way flow of communication between government and civil society and it is now commonly argued that ICTs have the potential to facilitate such improved flows of communication--hence, e-democracy and e-consultation. The preliminary research findings presented here are part of a larger ongoing research project on e-consultation on the island of Ireland (see http://e-consultation.org). The paper initially draws on focus group discussions on the theme of (e)consultation conducted amongst activist citizens. High levels of frustration, scepticism and cynicism were expressed on the form, nature and process of extant consultation processes. The main focus addressed in this paper, however, is on how these citizens envisage ICT being used in future e-consultations. In general, most focus group participants were open to the use of ICT in future e-consultation processes but the consensus was that community groups did not currently have access to an appropriate level or range of infrastructure, technologies or skills. As a follow up to the focus group findings the research group ran a number of demonstrations on e-consultation technologies with invited activist citizens. Technologies introduced included chat room, video-conferencing, WikiPedia, WebIQ, Zing and others. The main preliminary findings and feedback from one such demonstration, and our own observations, are then presented which suggest that the potential does exist for using e-consultation technologies in local democracy and in local government to drive positive change in the government-citizen relationship. We present no na�¯ve solutions here; we merely point to some possibilities and we acknowledge that ICT alone is very unlikely to be a panacea for the declining levels of citizen participation in most democratic societies.

Public Participation in Area-based Urban Regeneration Programmes

This paper reports the findings of research into the representation of local interests in area-based urban regeneration programmes in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The two case studies are contextualised by a review of the promotion of public participation in urban regeneration in both parts of Ireland and theorised as a site of interaction between state agencies and civil society. It is argued that the practice of public participation is a hegemonic project, which, within urban regeneration, is operationalised through partnership structures. The paper concludes that many factors from within and outside the case study programmes affected their consultation processes. Therefore the design and implementation of regeneration programmes should be undertaken in the context of an understanding of the relationship between the state and civil society in the empirical case.

E-Participation and E-Participants: solving the patent ‘crisis’

One of the major planks of some visions for E-Gov is that there is a willing participatory group who are more than happy to be involved in new forms of democracy and will be active and useful suppliers of input to e-consultation or e-participation processes. This group is different from that which goes online to the government site web and signs a petition asking the prime minister to resign. It is becoming clear, though, that the commitment to e-participation may well be there in theory, but difficult to access in practice. Further, the participation which is most welcome can frequently require training and expertise which is not widely available or there may be differences in opinion as to the point of participation. In this paper I will look to the attempts to encourage participation in the patent system. The UK is about to initiate a trial system utilising New York Law School’s Peer To Patent project, but has also attempted to involve participants in previous consultation exercises. I will use these as demonstrations of the sorts of problems which e-participation has met, and consider whether this new form of E-Gov is perhaps being oversold. The interesting question is whether participation is a growing tool which can ensure better public services from the State. My conclusion is that consultation and participatory projects can demonstrate involvement and are certainly educative but e-participatory projects are most likely incapable of achieving the goals set by their more optimistic advocates. The paper emphasises the patents field, but the lessons from it can – I suggest – be viewed as indicators having wider governance relevance. The primary point being made is that the technocratic view is always over-optimistic.

Employment regulation, game theory, and the lacuna in employee participation in liberal economies

Employee participation is a vital ingredient of what the International Labour Organization (ILO) calls ‘representation security’. This article provides theoretical and empirical insights relating to social policy impact of worker participation, specifically the European Information and Consultation Directive (ICD) for employee voice rights. While existing research on the ICD offers important empirical insights, there is a need for further theoretical analysis to examine the potential effectiveness of the regulations in liberal market economies (LMEs). Drawing on data from 16 case studies, the article uses game theory and the prisoner's dilemma framework to explain why national implementing legislation is largely ineffective in diffusing mutual gains cooperation in two LMEs: UK and the Republic of Ireland. Three theoretical (metaphorical) propositions advance understanding of the policy impact of national information & consultation regulations in LMEs.