Note: Anna Wohlfarth co-wrote the initial Participedia case on BürgerForum Europa.
The Citizens’ Forum is a new form of participation developed by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Ludwig-Erhard Foundation and the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation. It is a 6-8 week online deliberation embedded in two live events, one at the beginning of the process and the other one at the end. This article describes the second edition of the Citizens’ Forum Europe.
The financial and economic crisis, of which we have heard so much discussion since 2007-8, is only one aspect of a whole series of underlying political trends which have been apparent for much longer: a crisis of (in)equality and of increased precarity of the workforce, a human rights crisis, a demographic crisis, an ecological crisis, a crisis in civil liberties, and above all a crisis in democracy.
The Municipality of Scansano presents a number of economic problems: changes regarding agricultural activities and the primary sector in general, less crop diversification, negative trends in local income. This is also due to bad management of the available natural resources, that produces many social and cultural problems, such as the decreasing use of traditional activities and practices and the loss of local identity.
