Paper's abstract
Bernard
Reber,
Precautions and Democratic Innovations
Any innovation, especially if it is called democratic, is not justified by its mere enunciation. The democratic experimentalism does rush towards an institutionalization of citizen participation without having carefully analyzed these two moments, which were the French Grand débat national and the Convention citoyenne pour le climat. One innovation particularly attracts attention here: the existence of a legal committee transcribing the proposals of the 150 members of the Convention. Have we not made a mistake like many entrepreneurs of participation who appeal to Habermas, when he defends the rule of legal institutions rather than deliberative politics? Have we taken a risk by submitting law to a weakly instituted discussion? These two experiments are indicative of the path remaining in order to succeed in the project linking law and democracy with heterogeneous audiences and not like the "fiction" that Habermas claims. It is therefore an exercise of modesty in which citizens learn that they are not the explorers of a terra incognita, neither in climatic nor in institutional matters.
Key Words : climate - democratic innovation
t. 62, 2020 : p. 399-425
