Why LegiLab?
SLOVENIA
In analysing the situation we cannot overlook the research Mladina 2010 (Youth 2010). The key findings of the research derive from the fact that the youth, dissatisfied with the way democracy works, become politically less active. As a result, conventional political participation of young people in Slovenia is on average smaller and shows a diminishing trend in comparison to youth in general.
The researchers assume that in the following years youth is more likely to engage in more individual and ICT forms of political participation (e.g. petitions). These findings and experience from our fieldwork with youth clearly demonstrate that young people do not like to expose themselves in political and socio-political debate and that they do not feel confident in this field. They prefer to hide behind anonymity and impersonal communication (e.g. using online forums). They feel alienated from the socio-political processes and notions of political, i.e. the understanding that politics is by no means exclusively a thing of politicians; that it is affected by multinational corporations, capital, NGOs etc.
Mostly they also lack the awareness that virtually any decision an individual makes is in effect political (e.g. where one buys clothes, where one eats, whether one drives a car or not, how one spends one's leisure time...). Thus politics is something that is being done, reflected, and developed from a 'bottom up' perspective. If we consider all of the above to be a sign of a lack of political competence for political participation, the reasons for that should be sought in the lack of education in socio-political activity in school as well as in family environment, in the pressures of the capitalist system directing the youth towards flexibility and competitiveness which encourages them to gain narrow competences and skills, by which it devalues humanistic knowledge and creates a culture of fear and silence (according to the Brasilian pedagogue and activist Paolo Freire). Here again a number of reasons can be detected, but let us mention only two:
a lack of humanistic background in Maribor which would help to make sense of and put into question ideologies and contexts.
- for the second time in 25 years Maribor is currently undergoing a large economic and social crisis as seen in the social structure of the area and the indifference of youth towards a common solution to social problems. The fight for survival makes them to focus exclusively on themselves and their own future. As a consequence the majority of youth in Maribor is disengaged and insufficiently self-initiative and creative.
In the report from the research Mladina 2013 (Youth 2013) (CEYPUS, FES) we can read that half of Slovene youth feels 'not to be represented at all' by the young people active in politics. Only 15% of the youth believes that their vote influences state institutions 'a lot' or 'a bit', while a mere 25% believes that they can influence the local government institutions. In part this can surely be put down to a lack of direct dialogue of politicians and political structures (party youth organisations, youth city councils...) with their young constituents and constituents in general, a lack of consultant/deliberation bodies, the disregard for grassroots movements and for youth 'bottom-up' proposals, and the decline of activist culture in Slovene society. Resulting from all of the above, the youth with lower education or coming from deprivileged areas as well as those who fall out of the education system are mostly excluded from the Slovene socio-political life.
POLAND
For the past few years in Poland both civil society organizations as well as public bodies have been making an effort to build communication channels and tools for cooperation between decision-makers and the society at large. Although these efforts cannot be overrated, the scope, reach and quality of dialogue can be improved in many ways. A good example on the local level is e.g. the participatory budgeting that many municipalities have introduced and has been quite successful. Though due to its rules we do not observe huge engagement of citizens in creating projects wanting to change their neighbourhoods, instead it became another source of funding for schools, institutions, as the beaurocratic procedures are often too complicated to get through by non-formal organizations. Because of the rules of local participatory budgets the projects that win are mostly concerned with infrastructure rather than e.g. social, interpersonal issues, meetings, workshops and discussions.
On the national level there are few possibilities to engage citizens in decision making, among them the people’s legislative initiative which is a way to propose a legislation by gathering 100 000 signatures of citizens. But as Poland is experiencing strong political division and the majority rule of one political party, it is becoming more and more difficult for citizens to engage in decision making out of line with the ruling party in any other way but by protesting which is currently prevailing. Moreover, research shows that 80% of Poles do not feel they have influence on the political situation on national level, and 72% of women and 66% of men feel no influence on the local level (Ciaputa et all 2016). (http://www.geq.socjologia.uj.edu.pl/documents/32447484/35419405/GEQ%20broszura%20wydanie%202.pdf). Thus any effort to improve the engagement of citizens in decision making is very important. What is more, we can clearly see that new, creative ways of engaging people into dialogue with decision makers are necessary.
ITALY
In Italy the distance between the population and the governement has been quite large for a very long time due to scandal and corruption and the disaffection to elections. The last decade saw the rie of mostly 2 parties: the right wing Lega Nord and the “5 stelle” movement that won the local election in Rome. In any case, democratic Italians believe that the government goes ahead to do whatever the Euroepan Commission wants and the economic crisis is pushing people to find a scapegoat in migrants, accused of stealing their jobs and welfare and worse.
Ununployment is very high, in youth already as high as 45%, so that the crisis and lack of jobs are the main hot issues togetehr with immigration.
In this situation there are 2 regional laws which try to promote participatory processes in a town or group of towns, taking care of bottom-up initiatives to propose local laws about chosen issues (environmental, social, etc.).
Polls also indicate that citizens are captured easily by fear, promoted by political speches and mass-media information, therefore the need to increase citizens' partcipation at different level is quite clear. With this project we want to promote Legislative Theatre as a process that can be implemented in a school, a social center, a district, etc. in order to educate citizens in participation and real democracy. But also as a way to make politicians used to collaborating with citizens in a constructive way.
It is not easy to establish a dialogue due to the strong polarisation of some groups and beacause of the passivity and delusion of the majority.
Our organisation has had some experience in Legislative Theatre with youth which proved to be very positive in certain aspects, thus we would like to learn more from the other partners and to implement new projects.
SCOTLAND
In Scotland the Scottish Parliament has recently passed the Scottish Community Empowerment Bill which, amongst other things has promised the transference of power from the Government to local communities. In Edinburgh we have a Co-operative Council who have promised to ensure that decisions are made with people and communities and not done to them. The language of community empowerment is strong in Scotland and Edinburgh. However this language is not enough. Many of the decision making structures still need to change and adapt to be able to conform with this legislation. There are countless examples of community groups being excluded from decision making and mere “consultation” taking the place of co-production. There is a danger that the language of community empowerment will be dressed up as the practice of community empowerment. This project will be essential in Scotland because we are searching for methods that will help to transform this language into practice.
Through many years of experience we have seen that our theatre methods enable people to participate and have a say about the issues that affect them. What is currently lacking in Scotland is a variety of methods that policians and public bodies can use to involve people in decision making. By developing Legislative Theatre approaches and learning about theatre approaches in other countries we will be contributing to the ways in which community groups can actively use the community empowerment legislation that is available to them to ensure that they have a better say in the decisions that affect their lives.