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The Politics of Consultation1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Léon Dion
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THE DIVERSIFICATION IN THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION AND the growth of the political system have increased the number of instances of decision-making and intensified the relations between social and political forces. Parties and pressure groups are not enough in themselves to channel the interests, ideologies, and stresses, originating in the social system, into the political system. Nevertheless, during the last forty years, other, less familiar channels have broadened considerably and of these it is what we call the consultative councils which have made the greatest impact. So much has their importance grown in recent years that they must be considered as a mechanism of systemic interaction, comparable in weight to those of the pressure groups or parties. The consultative councils have, in fact, become a major cog in the political system and any attempt to exclude them is doomed to failure.

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Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1973 , pp. 332 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1973

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References

2 The wealth of literature on political participation almost entirely overlooks the phenomenon of consultation. It does, of course, give valuable insights into the channels which, although they are often elementary, are nonetheless essential to democracy. There is no need to demonstrate their usefulness in this essay. Yet they overlook some important dimensions of participation, especially participation in consultative councils. The politics of consultation is not simply a supplementary method of participation in politics, susceptible of being treated by means of the well‐worn techniques and concepts of the literature on elections and parties. Quite clearly, this is something quite different which can only be dealt with properly by the elaboration of its own problematics.

3 There arc other reasons for this difference in emphasis on participation between liberal and socialist systems. One is the far greater importance given to the role of the state, in socialist doctrine, in improving the material and spiritual conditions of life for its citizens. Participation in the activities of the state is seen in these countries as the only normal way to live. It is precisely the increase in the responsibilities of the state in liberal regimes which today makes so urgent the search for ways and means to ensure the real participation of individuals and groups. Besides, although liberal regimes have often neglected participation as a political value, they have recognized the individual's right to protest, which socialist regimes often reject.

4 Hauriou, V. M., Precis de droit administratif et de droit public, Sirey, Paris, 2nd edition, 1927, p. 88 Google Scholar, quoted in Drago, Roland and Heilbronner, André, ‘L'administration consultative en France’, Revue internationale des sciences administratives, Vol. 57, No. 1, 1957, p. 57.Google Scholar Similarly, Yves Weber writes of the consultative function ‘that it can be understood as the juridical expression of opinions which are held individually or collectively about an administrative authority, which alone is authorized to carry out the decision about which the consultation has been held.… The consultant authority should never consider itself bound by the content of the consultative act.’ (See l'Administration consultative, Librairic générale de droit et de jurisprudence, Paris, 1968, Vol. I, p. 224.) Nevertheless Weber writes elsewhere that the decision which emanates from the consultative act can sometimes be incorporated into the consultation: ‘… the use of the expression consultative procedure to describe any procedure necessary for the issuing of a decision taken in consequence of an act of consultation, derives from an extensive conception which gathers together and sometimes confuses those principles which govern the consultative competence and those which concern the action taken on consultation’. (Ibid., p. 204.)

5 Roland Drago and André Heilbronner, op. cit., p. 66. Yves Weber quotes B. Chenot who has counted 4700 consultative councils, committees, or commissions in France (op. cit., p. 3).

6 These forms do not include the many consultative bodies within the political system (inter‐departmental committees, etc.). This study is limited to ‘external’ consultations. Moreover, consultative bodies can be grafted on to the organs of partnership and self‐management.

7 Heckscher, Gunnar: ‘Interest Groups in Sweden: Their Political Role’ in Ehrmann, Henry W., Interest Groups on Four Continents, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964, pp. 154–72;Google Scholar Political and Economic Planning, ‘Advisory Committees in British Government’, Vol. 26, January 1960, pp. 1–140; Potter, Allen, Organized Groups in British National Politics, Faber & Faber, London, 1961;Google Scholar Finer, S. E., Anonymous Empire, Pall Mall Press, London, 1966;Google Scholar Yves Weber, op. cit.; Pierce, Roy, French Politics and Political Institutions, Harper & Row, New York, 1968;Google Scholar Hayward, J. E. S., Private Interests and Public Policy: The Experience of the French Economic and Social Council, Longmans, London, 1966 Google Scholar: Lapalombara, Joseph, Interest Groups in Italian Politics, Princeton University Press, 1964 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bernstein, Marven H., Regulating Business by Independent Commissions, Princeton University Press, 1955;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cronin, Thomas E. and Greenberg, Stanford D., The Presidential Advisory System, Harper & Row, New York, 1969 Google Scholar; The Institute of Public Administration, ‘Advisory Committees in Administration’, Ninth Annual Conference of the Canadian Institute of Public Administration, 1957; ‘To Commission or not to Commission’, Canadian Public Administration (special number on consultative administration in Canada), Vol. 5, No. 3, 1962, pp. 253–367; Laliberté, Jean, La Participation des étudiants aux comités gouvernementaux, Master's thesis, University of Laval, 1968;Google Scholar De Seve, Micheline, Les Comitds de planiftcation au ministire de l'education, Master's thesis, University of Laval, 1969.Google Scholar

8 Boisdé, Raymond, Technocratie et démocratie, Plon, Paris, 1964, p. 133.Google Scholar

9 White, Leonard D., ‘The Public Service of the Future’, in The Future of Government in the United States: Essays in Honour of Charles E. Merriam, Harper, New York, 1942, p. 209;Google Scholar quoted in McKean, Dayton David, Party and Pressure Politics, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1949, p. 605;Google Scholar Cronin, Thomas E. and Greenberg, Stanford D., op. cit.Google Scholar

10 Rokkan, Stein: ‘Numerical Democracy and Corporate Pluralism’ in Dahl, Robert A., Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1966, pp. 106–7.Google Scholar

11 Rivero, J., ‘Le plan Monet et le droit’, Droit social, 03 1950 Google Scholar, quoted by Marcel Merle in ‘L'Influence de la technique sur les institutions politiques’, Politique et technique, Centre de sciences politiques de l'Institut d'etudes juridiques de Nice, III, Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 1950.

12 Marcel Merle, op. cit., p. 59.

13 For the whole question of representation with regard to the parties, the assemblies, the interest groups, and the consultative councils, see our first volume.

14 Hayward, J. E. S., op. cit., pp. 1 ff.Google Scholar; Rémond, René et al., La Démocratie à refaire, Colloque ‘France‐Forum’ de Saint‐Germain‐en‐Laye, les Editions ouvrières, Paris, 1963, pp. 105 ff.Google Scholar

15 Among the administrative services, one can distinguish those which carry out strictly administrative tasks, such as the general direction of ministries, those which exercise quasi‐legislative functions, such as certain great networks or agencies and lastly those which have a quasi‐jurisdictional competence such as the regulating commissions. These three different types of administration are clearly to be seen in the United States but they can be found in varying degrees in all countries. For the United States see Bernstein, Marven H., Regulating Business by Independent Commissions, Princeton University Press, 1955;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Carey, William L., Politics and the Regulatory Agencies, McGraw‐Hill, New York, 1967;Google Scholar Cronin, Thomas E. and Greenberg, Stanford D., op. cit.Google Scholar

16 Holtzmann, Abraham, Interest Groups and Lobbying, Macmillan, New York, 1966 Google Scholar, Chapter 5; Key, V. O., Jr., Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups, Crowell, Thomas Y., New York, 1964 Google Scholar, Chapter 24.

17 The Institute of Public Administration, op. cit., pp. 156–7.

18 Political and Economic Planning, ‘Advisory Committees in British Government’; Ehrmann, Henry W., Interest Groups on Four Continents, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958, pp. 158–68.Google Scholar

19 In this way the consultative procedure can be considered as a delaying factor in the unfolding of the political process. On the evidence, it actually often acts as such. This should not however be imputed to the consultative process itself but to the conditions in which it works. Only too often, because of democratic scruples or in order to try to paper over the profound divisions in the heart of society, it is only resorted to in the very last stage of a legislative project. Consultation does not produce all the results it could if it were conducted through permanent councils, endowed with precise prerogatives and if it came into action the moment a social question became a political one, that is generally well before a draft bill is presented.