Have Your Say: Balearic Government opinion seeking

The Balearic Government is giving people their say. An internet campaign that goes under the title of "tú tienes la palabra" offers the possibility to cast opinions as to various initiatives undertaken by the government. The very use of the familiar, informal "you" form ("tú") gives the campaign the air of consultant-led marketing puffery styled in the language of the intimate; citizens are the government's friends. Of course they are.

It's all a bit of catch-up. Together with the informality, it is designed to make the government appear inclusive and to make the citizen participative. It's an approach that has been doing the rounds for years, one that sprang up in the US and which was couched in the managerialist vocabulary of the consultant - accountability, social responsibility, customer-focussed, stakeholder. It has taken it's time to catch on in the Balearics where the notion of citizen participation has only recently started to be given some prominence or respect.

If you are inclined to, you can visit the part of the government's website that enables opinion to be cast - balearsopina.caib.es. There you will find the various initiatives, new ones appearing on a daily basis. Anything from support for immigration to cultural promotion to statistical information that the government pumps out and to the politics of language. An interesting aspect of all this, where I'm concerned at any rate, is that I seem to have written about most of them at some point; some of them on many an occasion.

Whilst the drive towards inclusiveness and participation is not in itself unwelcome, certain questions arise. One is how much interest there is. The answer, given the number of responses to questions regarding initiatives already posted, is not very much. The campaign started on 10 December. Only now is information regarding it surfacing in the media, probably in recognition of the fact that there has been so little response. There isn't a lot of point in inviting opinion and not telling anyone that you wish to. Perhaps further opinion should be invited as to how well the government (and other public bodies) publicise things. I think we know what the answer would be.

A second question is what happens with the information. The fear is that it will simply add to one of the initiatives, that of statistical information provision. Percentages will be released in great abundance to the press who will slavishly reproduce them, and this will be the end of it. There will be an appearance of involvement and no more.

This government campaign is not the only attempt at getting citizens to participate or to voice opinion. Pollensa town hall, for example, invites comments and suggestions. You send them by email. And then? Who knows. One can guess at the sort of thing that they will include, as they are voiced often enough. Dog mess, street cleaning and so on. For a town hall that took little practical notice of some thousand people marching in the streets of Puerto Pollensa to complain about town hall neglect, you would have to wonder what notice they would take of emails from "disgusted of the Moll". The town hall now has its perfect response in any event, having finally got round to rolling out its 800 grands' worth of annual contract for new cleaning equipment combined with satellite positioning technology to show where is being cleaned and which the citizenry of Pollensa will eventually be able to consult via the town hall's website.

A third question that arises, or would were there any real interest in this government campaign, is the potential for manipulation. Not by government but by respondents. The weakness of online voting and opinion is the same weakness that one gets with text voting. It is a weakness that stems from a strength of both the internet and SMS: that of whipping up support, be it for an "X Factor" contestant, a Sports Personality or a political initiative. The democracy of inviting opinion, of quasi-referendums via new technologies, is to also invite the tyranny of minorities masquerading as majorities. It is the modern-day take on John Stuart Mill's tyranny of the majority in a democracy, without even the certainty that it is a majority view.

For the moment, however, there is no fear that this will occur with the government's campaign. So uninterested does the Balearics citizen appear to be in voicing his or her opinion that in one poll - on equality and women - a question as to the prioritisation of a protocol for detecting, preventing and drawing attention to sexist violence drew precisely no responses.

If the government is serious about citizen participation and counselling public opinion then it needs to rethink its online campaign and probably relaunch it with much stronger publicity and a message that you don't just have your say; your opinion will actually matter.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.