Bjørn Bedsted about Democracy X, local transitions and global participation
In this episode of Democracy Narrators podcast, Alessandro Oppo interviews Bjørn Bedsted, International Director of Democracy X, discussing the organization’s work on deliberative democracy, citizen participation, and sustainable development. Democracy X is a nonprofit foundation working to find solutions for societal challenges like developing technology in desirable directions, addressing planetary boundaries, and advancing democracy with innovative mechanisms.
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Transcript
Welcome on another episode of Democracy Innovators podcast. And, our guest of today is Bjorn, Bested. Sorry for the pronunciation. And, you're the international director of democracies. So thank you for your time. And and as as a first question, I would like to ask you what is DemocracyX, and if you can tell us a little bit about the the history behind.
Yeah. I mean, DemocracyX is a nonprofit private foundation. So working to find solutions for societal challenges like the development of technology in a societally desirable direction, looking for solutions for how to deal with planetary boundaries, and looking for ways to develop democracy in with with new innovative mechanisms. It's a merger between what used to be a public institution from back in the 80s, the Danish Board of Technology, and a small company called Participation Denmark, which is which is much younger. So, there's different historical backgrounds in the organization. One is to give advice to policy makers on new developments in science and technology, in combination with the promotion of deliberative democracy, but also in combination of mobilizing citizens and empowering empowering them from below, so to speak, to take action in especially climate action.
Is there any project that, democracy is following any project that has done in the past that you you think, it's relevant. I I don't know. Something that can inspire. Or
Yes. I mean, if you take the area of, of deliberative democracy and and and citizen participation, we have been among the front runners internationally. And, we developed the first method for global citizen participation connected to UN COPs on climate and biodiversity called World Wide Views. So World Wide Views was organized three times in 2009 for the Climate Cup in Copenhagen, in 2012 for the Biodiversity Cup in Hyderabad, India, and in 2015 for the Climate Cup in in Paris. And the whole logic here was to see that there had been developments for making citizen participation connected to political decision making at the local level and at the national level and also for some years at the European level, especially in the area of research and innovation projects. But as more policy making is going global, the idea was to think of what kind of citizen participation a method could link to, to the issue and negotiations. And and and worldwide views was, the answer we came up with at that time. So it's a method for distributed, citizen participation where at least a 100 of citizens in each participating country go through the same process on the same day, receive the same information, deliberate on the same questions, and vote on a set of questions with predefined answering options. And the results are then fed into national policy making and to the UN COPs.
I'm thinking about, other kind of, software related to civic participation and, actually interviewed, the founders, creators of some. And, this kind of software are using now AI and, to reach, I think, a similar goal of the of the platform that you used. I'm referring to worldwide views. And, I'm thinking that, a lot of times, that kind of software are related to some, to a small scale. So I don't know, for our neighborhood or, I don't know, a company. While, for this kind of problem, I mean, I'm referring to environmental problem, that require really that all the people agree eventually at the global scale. I mean, it's it's very different, the scale.
Yes.
And so I'm thinking what are your, impressions or opinion about that? And, eventually, if you think that in the future, this kind of solution can, in a way, substitute institutions to deal with this kind of of problems. So everything is decided by, citizens, mediated by some software, or I don't know. Like
Yeah. I mean, I I don't know if if at some stage it's it's something like that might be be possible, I don't think it's desirable, and and I don't think it's technically in anywhere near making making sense to to put it forward as a as a proposal for for governance. Having said that, I I I think AI opens up a a lot of different opportunities for for for helping to facilitate public deliberation and citizen participation. But but, I think as in most experiences with online versus face to face, it has to be in some kind of of combination or constellation where where both elements included. And how that might look like in the future, that's fair. That's, that's difficult to say right now. But but there's a lot of room for innovation, I would say, at the moment, for how to to use AI in these processes.
And do you see any, particular problem that, eventually, this new solution has to face to be, like, effective? I mean, to mediate and to, represent in some way what citizen want. Like, which kind of issues, have you identified related to civic participation, eventually with, like, it is there anything that came into your mind?
I I I don't think this this technology, AI technology neither can nor should, substitute real citizen participation. The same as I don't think it it it could or should substitute, decision making in government or or the discussion you have about,
Yes. Yes. Of course.
But maybe you mean something else by your question.
Yes. Sorry. I, sorry. I I think the connection didn't work for twenty second.
Oh, okay.
But, yeah, what do so sorry. I missed the, the last part. But but was I was thinking it was not like to use the AI to substitute, No. Civic participation, but to facilitate it Yeah. In some way. So if there is a conflict between, two people, I don't know, two different position, AI can be used to show the different, positions and eventually mediate between them. And, I'm wondering, like, if there was a particular moment in your life that you, thought that something like democracy was necessary, Like, if there was, I don't know, situation that you have seen, could be a conflict, could be something else related to politics, that you have seen, and you thought, okay. We need something, new.
Yeah. New in terms of AI or new in terms of deliberative democracy?
New in terms of everything. I mean Yeah. Yeah.
Well, okay. It's army. Yeah. Yeah. Big question.
I I I think
generally when it comes to, I mean, the big big questions like climate change and green transition and staying within the planetary boundaries, I mean essentially you need a lot of a lot of deliberation. I mean, there's a lot of knowledge about what is wrong. There's also a lot of knowledge about what could be done, but choosing different solutions over others carry different trade offs. So so in order to to have a just transition, you need a democratic transition as well. So I mean, those issues are very closely interconnected. So green just and democratic transition for are very closely interconnected. So I don't think that we will get a green transition in the speed we would like to see, if we do not use deliberative mechanisms more extensively than we do at the moment. In another area, innovation policy, which is hotly debated right now in in Europe because of the pressure from The US in particular. There's a lot of doubt about what you call the European model of innovation, namely to put up different regulations for for what we don't want in terms of privacy, in terms of data ownership, in terms of environmental side effects, and health hazards, all those all those rules we put up for for industry and and innovation. They might come under pressure right now. I mean that's the new agenda in the EU. That's the new agenda that's being pushed by the pressure from The US. So I think that's a crucial moment for sticking to European values and, and being more assertive about, having deliberations about the kind of future we want rather than to liberating blind innovation and, and letting innovation power shoot in different directions without shaping, the trajectory. So I think we need more deliberations about the kind of future we want and don't want. And we need innovation, European innovation policy to to stay within those boundaries. I think that should be the European innovation model.
Okay. And, in relation to the to the to the regulations, how do you think the approach should be, like, to be effective? And,
I I I don't think Europe should be afraid of just being clearer about what it is we don't want. I think we're doing that already. I mean, with the different laws we have. Of course there might be rules that a cilium could be removed. Let's talk about that and that's always a good idea to review bureaucracy and see what we can get rid of. But as a principle I don't think we should limit our ambitions for what we don't want. Something I think we can get better at is to think about what we do want. Rather than liberating innovation and let innovators come up with ideas for the future, I think we as a collective should be better defining the kind of future we would like to see and let innovation be steered to a greater degree by that. I'm not talking about doing away with basic research, which is also a good thing, But I'm talking about our strategic priorities, as a as a continent and and talk more about what is it what kind of future would we like to see. And that requires citizen participation.
Absolutely. I really share the idea that, civic participation will shape the future. And, talking about the past, like, would you like to share some something about your background? I mean, professional background, but also, eventually starting also from when you were a child, if there is something significant for us to know.
Well, as as a child and a young person, I I I I never really knew what what I wanted to do. So, I mean, you know, I thought the whole world was a bit bustling. I didn't know, yeah, what what what to what future to look at and and and what what to study and so on. I accidentally studied anthropology and also accidentally stumbled across the Danish Board of Technology in a as a as a student position and I've sort of stayed in the same organization ever since. But that confusion about not knowing, you know, not having a clear sense of direction as a young person also sort of translated into a sympathy for deliberative democracy. So so I mean, it was both a confusion about what I wanted myself, but also a confusion about not having any truth, you know. So so I mean, you know, being young and philosophical and so on, you sort of reach the conclusion that there is no truth and blah blah blah and so on. But but that's kind of stuck with me. So I mean, if that is more or less the case, I mean, it's truth in the sense of what is the right thing to do, not not truth in the sense of other facts and so on. That's another discussion. But small more truth in the sense of what is the right direction to go in. I mean, if if nobody knows or nobody can say for sure, what is the right way of of finding out? And and I still think despite all the criticism and and you can direct against, Habermas and his model for for deliberative democracy, it's still I haven't seen anyone come up with a better suggestion for how to proceed, Even those have been criticized for, you know, hiding power relations or all that kind of things, but show me a better model and I would be happy to to collaborate, but I haven't seen it. So that was one realization and one reason why I sort of got interested in deliberative democracy and have stuck with it. The other was the realization early on at the student job, you know, stumbling on different subjects like chemicals in in consumer products or GMOs or climate adaptation. Different problems where I was thinking as a regular citizen back then, oh someone has this under control and then the realization that no one has. When you dive into some of these topics and say and you say oh shit so so I mean someone has to do something. So so I mean there's a lot of stuff that is simply not under control at all and, and requires societal solutions. Yeah.
I I was thinking that, I mean, you're a little bit older than me. And, but I also felt the same, confusion that you were talking about, and I think it's something very common. I mean, our society is changing so fast. Something that was a job that maybe now is a job, in some years, it will disappear. People learn something, but then society change and everything, yeah, is changing very fast. And and so I, yeah, I really feel this, confusion. And, I'm thinking about your, background. I mean, you studied anthropology. And so how does, these, I don't know, impacted or, like, how do you related it with, democracy? I mean, because anthropology is like studying, human being also in the way they interact to each other. I don't know if you had any thought about it.
I I I have. I mean, it's, yeah. It's probably more often more indirect than than direct, but I mean, for moving into global citizen participation citizen participation and also, I guess, technology assessment and research and innovation issues have have more and more global impact and more and more decisions globally in scale. So I mean, how do you I mean, the models you use in order to either include citizens in decision making or to think about priorities and research and innovation or to think about potential impacts for new developments in science and technology, you need to change your perspective. So so for whom, I mean, for for whom will these impacts come? How how how do you take them into consideration? That's one thing. But about deliberative democracy, it's also about thinking, I mean, are these citizen participation processes? Are they essentially, a western construct and and and so on? That's that's an ongoing discussion. Should other parts of the world follow other types of models and so on. And that's a familiar discussion you know in anthropology whether or not the cultural differences overshadow the cultural similarities. Just as this is a discussion in identity politics you know. Are our differences more important than than our similarities? So so that's a very familiar space for anthropology to to navigate in. My experience has been with many of these citizen participation model, models for for one thing is that, I mean, they they are immediately understandable and sympathize with in very different cultural contexts. That doesn't mean that the precise implementation in different cultural settings or political settings will differ to some degree, but the basics, the basic ideas it's not, I mean, yeah. It can be a western construct, but I mean as long as someone else likes it. I mean that's the more interesting point I would say. Rather than trying to invent a wholly different type of of inclusion or participation process. Because you are situated in in South America say or Southeast Asia or or in China or whatever. Yeah.
I'm thinking now about civic participation, and the fact that, I mean, nowadays, policy makers are paid to take decision, for citizens. And, if if we think about ancient Greece, ancient democracy, I mean, when they people had the to vote, okay, just the people that were citizens, not women. I mean, I'm thinking back then, not slaves. But, like, citizens were, like, paid to for the day they were not working. And so I'm thinking if it will be possible, of course, in the future, to compensate people that actively participate in decision making regarding depends on on the scale. But I'm thinking that, that would, help a lot of people to, participate. Yes. I don't know what we
yeah. I I and and I think in in in, it's it's becoming more and more normal. So so, to recognize that in in in these citizen participation processes. And most people know about and which is normal and unknown thing in many societies where you can be called upon for jury duty and you get a compensation for that. I think that comparison is fair and worth promoting. I mean, it's not that at the moment we're being flooded by deliberative democracy or citizen participation processes. So I think, I mean, if that ever happens, we can start talking about it again. But for now, I think it's a reasonable way of thinking.
Yeah. It's something that, we probably both wish that it it it will happen in the future. Still, we don't know when. And, I'm thinking, like, about the collaboration with institutions. I saw that the Danish Board of Technology Foundation was doing a sort of counseling work for the Danish Danish Ministry of Science and Innovation and Education. Mhmm. How it and and then it changed the name to DemocracyX. Right?
Mhmm.
So how how is working with institutions from your experience? And, do you think there is a knowledge gap, between technicians, politicians, like, these kind of topics that are quite new in a way are comprehensible to policy makers that you have talked to? Is there this is there still this gap? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if it was clear.
No. I I yes. You I I think you were. I I think I understood. Let let's see. I I think my impression is that the gap is growing. It has a little something to do with speed. It has something to do with complexity, and it has a lot to do with centralization and professionalization of of of bureaucracy, governments, administration, where you get more and more professional decision makers. And fewer and fewer experts on topics. So, when it comes to scientific knowledge, I mean it it's it's, it's it has harder conditions now, than it did, in the past. So so, I mean, in the past, you had more people with a deeper knowledge in in the central administration about some of some of the topics, that are confronting policy makers now than you did in the past. And that's a problem. That's one thing. And the mechanisms for including it in decision making processes are not very good. They could be science advice is not functioning very well. It is too one dimensional, it's too limited. And a bigger problem is that the capacity to request it and use it and compliment it with other types of knowledge, that of stakeholders and that of the views of citizens, for example, is almost nonexistent in the public administration. And I think that's probably one of the reasons why you see more and more decisions and laws that are passed by politicians, but don't really work in practice. They're not really implemented. So so and and I think that's not that's a global, that's a global development where where you see more and more decisions being announced in public, and it and you get the feeling that that this has more to do with communication than with actual, change or implementation. And I think this is one of the reasons.
And I'm thinking that this reflects also on citizens, like, as you said, you said speed the complexity, centralization, professionalization. So I'm thinking about that, also academic studies are very specific. So we just, maybe no one specific topic. It can be computer science, can be whatever. And, and so it's a sort of cultural problem. I don't know. Many times I thought, like, that we are applying a sort of for this to to knowledge so that one person just do something very specific. It does it very well, but then, they lose completely all the, the the big picture. Yeah. And I'm thinking so, I mean so the problem, is probably the educational system. I'm thinking it if it should be more, multidisciplinary, like the approach interdisciplinary. I don't know.
I don't know either. I I think one of the reactions is, I mean, to this challenges that you see more and more systems thinking in academia and attempts to look at societal developments as systems. So I mean, that's also growing out of the climate modeling. You know, the whole idea of modeling, the physical environment is transgressing into the to the social environment and the more political environment. And and and people try to build up models to see stuff as systems. So that's one answer. But but but it always comes with the challenge that that, it's it's to to to have model thinking for something so complex is yeah. It's obviously a challenge.
Yeah. I think one of the biggest one. And and thinking about democracy I mean, democracy, the word. I mean, nowadays, it has a different meaning from the one it had in the past. I'm thinking about, ancient Greek democracy, but also democracy is applied in different ways in every country. So, what is for you democracy, and how would you describe it? I mean, there could be different kind of and, yeah, and eventually also challenges, about the democracy that we as we know them right now and, eventually also associated with some kind of technology. So some kind of software for decision making. Yeah. Mhmm.
Well, I do think that the, I mean, biggest challenges to to to Western democracy or liberal democracy at the moment is the inability or or the lack of ability to deal with wicked problems on the one side and and the erosion of democratic legitimacy of, of democratic institutions and parties. That combined with the challenge of autocracy and its attack on these institutions that have lost legitimacy, but also attack on on on the idea that there are facts that we can and truths that we share, but, of course, we can discuss. And,
I'm thinking about, there are basically two ways, that in which a technology can be integrated in inside democracies. One is to look at the structure of democracy that there is right now and just, implement some solution that, make it works better. So trying to simplify the actual processes, but following them. And so that will be a way to, like, modernize it. And then there are there is a different approach that is building new completely new solutions. Eventually, like, yeah, completely different that could be totally bottom up, totally decentralized, or whatever. And, I don't know what what do you think about these two solutions? One that is, more, maybe linear, That in a way just cut some yeah. It helps in reducing time. Yeah. I sorry. I I don't know if you get the, the question. May maybe. Let's see.
Maybe my answer is is in the wrong doesn't quite fit with your question, but let's try. I mean, basically, I mean, no no no technology is is is only technical. It's always all also political. So so so so, I mean, no matter what technical invention you use or solution you use to a problem, it's inherently political, meaning that it has trade offs. It has benefits for something and someone and it has detrimental effects for other things and someone. So so so I mean, you it's never it's never only technical. It's always also political. So so so, yeah. So so so, I mean, it's the yeah. I I think that's, yeah, one answer.
Okay. Yeah. Because, yeah, sorry. My, yeah, my question was quite confused. Yeah. As I said, on a way we can just simplify the actual processes, of liberal Western democracies. And on the other side, we can, like, not we, change it completely the system. But as you said, every technology is, I I would say everything, but especially, technology, is, very political. So if, a system is designed, that the way that system is designed imply a lot of political, thoughts. I don't know. Yeah. And and, back to democracy, it will be interesting to know how it works. I mean, inside, the organization, how many people are there working, how yeah. If you can tell us around
forty, fifty people, working here on on on different issues. There's some who's working on the relationship between knowledge and democracy. There's some working on democratic innovation, both from the top down, meaning opening governance spaces for citizen participation, but also from the bottom up, self organization and, civic action processes. There's people working, teams working on the food system through the lens of social tipping point framework to see how how how the Danish food system can be improved or or transition to to a more sustainable model. There are people, a team looking on AI and digitization to see how we can take back control. I think that was the Brexit slogan, something like that. There's people working on a climate action day, and there are people working on green neighborhood communities, self organized green neighborhood communities in Denmark. So so it's a mix of of, of several different issues.
And, so a lot of a lot of people that are working on, on different sides of the same project. And I'm thinking about, their background. Is it, mixed hybrid in a in a way?
I think there might be a couple here with a background in natural science, but but, I mean, by far, most people here have a background in in social science. So so sociologist, anthropologist, political science. Yeah.
Okay. It's very interesting because I was thinking about what we were saying before, and so I wanted to see, yeah, the specific background. And, about, I mean, I have, a question that is, if you have a sort of message, to all the other people that are working, I mean, that they are experimenting with, civic participation, democratic, processes, and, that are actively researching for new solutions. And I don't know if you have a message to them with,
Keep up the good work, and it is one clear message, don't give up, you know, keep keep trying and collaborate quite importantly. And not only on on single projects, but also on looking for ways in which the common cause can be improved. Collaboration is important and and and looking for looking for actions the community can take together in order to to prove improve the conditions for for doing the individual work and and and the individual projects. Whether that be in in regulation or in in capacity training or anything. Anything that can help help, help promote, and improve the frame frame conditions for for their work.
And I have another question, that I forgot to make it before. Are you, facing any issue at Democra six, like, you need some kind of skill, you will need some kind of software researcher that eventually, I don't know, someone that listen could think, okay. I could help with this or something else.
I can't I mean, I can't think of any anything in particular. It's not like we're we're we're looking for something specifically right right at the moment. No. No.
Wonderful. And, I actually ended the the questions. But, if you would like to add anything else that you think is important or if you would like to ask a question, I don't know, then feel free.
No. I think I'm I'm alright. Thanks.
Okay. So thank you a lot, for your time and for everything. It was very interesting.
Well, thank you for your interest and for going through the trouble of doing something like this. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
