How the exclusive institutions face the inclusive demands - the case-study of the Czech governmental advisory bodies
Abstrakt
This paper analyzes the role of Czech advisory bodies in the governmental decision-making processes. It discusses the ways of how these deliberative institutions cope with the demands imposed on them by the participative discourse.
I argue that their ability to manage contradictory demands of participation and deliberation results from sometimes vague and sometimes even entirely missing formal procedures defining the conditions of participation. The consequential uncertainty enables the government to keep the control over the deliberative situation and at the same time to face the possible criticism of being not enough inclusive.
Advisory bodies in the Czech governmental system are highly exclusive institutions, based on the capacity of their members to deliver expert opinions and to deliberate properly. They are constituted mostly from the members of government, bureaucrats and experts appointed from academic, civic or private sector.
They are set up by the government primarily to provide it with the expert advises in various public policy fields and to create the space for discussion among government and other social actors. These deliberative goals are reflected in their institutional arrangements.
However, the institutional designs as well as the practice of advisory bodies are at the same time significantly influenced by the strong position of the participatory discourse. As such, these primarily deliberative institutions have to find ways of how to declare an inclusion of broader public in their activities and how to act transparently and accountably.
They have to comply with both the deliberative and participative principles. To understand how advisory bodies cope with these two demands I look at their institutional arrangements and analyze the formal public opportunities to influence both the inputs and outputs of their activities.
