This post is to provide some background on the context of policy argumentation - what are the situations in which policy analysts might seek support, and how could such support be provided? In the IMPACT project, we have chosen Green Papers and the subsequent consultations as starting point for discussing the design and impact of tools to support policy argumentation. The consultation on the European Commission’s Green Paper on “Copyright in the Knowledge Economy” is described here briefly and may serve as a common reference for our discussion.

Background

With its “Interactive Policy Making” initiative started in 2001, the European Commission has adopted a systematic approach to consulting interested parties in the process of policy making. Often, these consultations are based upon Green Papers outlining the current state of affairs, the goals to be reached by the new legislation, and some policy alternatives.

The Green Paper “Copyright in the Knowledge Economy” was formulated in 2008 in the context of the EU’s attempt to modernise and harmonise copyright legislation. It’s aim was to stimulate debate on a specific aspect of the implementation of copyright laws in the Member States, namely the lack of harmonisation of the exceptions and limitations to copyright protection.

The consultation and its results

The consultation on the Green Paper was open from 16 July to 30 November 2008 and invited “all stakeholders” to comment on the questions submitted or “any other issues that are addressed or touched upon” in the Green Paper by e-mail. The consultation yielded over 370 responses from a wide variety of stakeholders.

Analysis of the responses vis-à-vis the Commission’s summary report reveals that in some cases, important nuances evident in the responses are eliminated in the summary provided by the Commission, and much fundamental criticism contained in stakeholders' contributions seems to be glossed over. Whereas the consultation allows stakeholders to make their voice heard, there is no way for them to engage in truly deliberative argumentation.

These observations are admittedly highly descriptive and non-representative. However, more thorough studies have shown similar results: Hüller (2008) finds in another case study that the EC’s summaries are biased towards the statements of well established actors, whereas individuals' and civil society actors' statements play only a marginal role and are rendered wrongly. Furthermore, the results are corrupted by not allowing for debate about controversial statements. Experts interviewed by Winkler and Kozeluh (2005) comment that a systematic methodology for interpretation and presentation of results would be necessary to use online consultations more effectively. Furthermore, Fazi and Smith (2006) note that concrete feedback, especially on why certain proposals were discarded, is crucially missing in the way EU consultations are conducted.

Discussion

It can be assumed that technical support would be valuable in order to improve consultations particularly with regard to three aspects:

• Firstly, with a view to the wide variety of responses in terms of form, style, substantive content, and argumentation, argumentation support systems would be valuable to make the most relevant differences explicit and readily recognisable.

• Secondly, assuming that the exclusion of certain arguments is mainly due to the practical necessities of condensing, structuring and aggregating the responses, providing policy makers with alternative – and more powerful – ways of achieving these accomplishments might be an important first step to bring the voices of individuals and civil society actors back into the policy making process.

• Finally, offering such tools not only to policy makers, but also to stakeholders engaging in consultations would allow for more interactive and deliberative communication between stakeholders and policy makers in the process of opinion formation.

Notes

Please note that a more detailed analysis of the case is included in our Requirements Analysis Report which is published on the project’s website (pp.19ff.). Data from this consultation (the content of the Green Paper and of the responses) is used for testing and demonstration of the tools developed in the IMPACT project.