Introduction

When we consider the design of democratic institutions, the criteria we articulate tend not to have future generations in mind. This is understandable, because the institutions and systems that we denote as democratic rarely, if ever, live up to the expectations that we place on them for current generations, let alone future peoples. Democratic theorists tend to focus on the plight of existing people who are excluded or marginalised in some way. When Robert Dahl (1989) presented his five criteria for a well-functioning democracy – (1) effective participation; (2) voting equality at the decisive stage; (3) enlightened understanding; (4) control of the agenda; and (5) inclusiveness – he did so to show that actually existing polities functioned more like polyarchies than democracies for actually existing peoples. In most of my own work on democratic design, my tendency has been to consider how existing people are impacted by democratic institutions and how the enactment of the goods of inclusiveness, popular control, considered judgement and transparency might better realise democratic expectations across present generations (Smith 2009). The bias of democratic design is generally presentist. If we are to consider future generations within our democratic practices, do we need to think of democratic design in a different way? What criteria, goods or principles need to guide our design thinking.

I approach these questions through the analysis of three institutional forms of varying design that have been integrated into democratic polities in an attempt to engender a long-term orientation: (1) future-regarding parliamentary committees, in particular those in Finland and Germany; (2) offices of future generations (OFGs) in Israel, Hungary and Wales; and (3) deliberative minipublics (DMPs), such as the recent climate assemblies that have been organised principally across Europe. The aim is to articulate a set of emergent goods or principles for future-regarding democratic design from the practices of these institutions.

Future-Regarding Parliamentary Committees

The core defining feature of contemporary democracies – competitive elections – generates institutions that are particularly myopic. The lack of presence of future generations within elected assemblies means that their interests are rarely considered in any systematic manner.