Commonground Initiatives: A Way Back To The People

The European election results in June 2024 acted as a big call to reflection. We were left feeling that something in the practices and processes of democracy was off. This feeling stemmed not just from the results and statistics regarding voters’ behaviours but also from a deeper observation of how electoral campaigns happened and then… stopped when elections were over. 

We followed the media campaigns in the weeks before the elections, the social media calls to vote, and the encouragement from people in our social circles to take European elections seriously, reminding their friends and followers of the importance of exercising their citizens’ rights. We knew these calls were important. Yet, something about this time-limited noise seemed to act as just one-time, sporadic boosts of civic engagement, creating a rather short-term effect and leaving us with a question: where does all the noise go when the elections are over? How do we keep people’s civic participation consistently active beyond electoral campaigns?

Beyond the fact that the results confirmed a concerning trend of increased support for far-right movements, we attempted to find answers to the question of the questions: how did we get to this point? What’s going on with democracy in Europe (and beyond!)?  

We landed on a first realisation: democracy cannot rely on the effect of occasional calls to vote alone. 

The problem with calling people to vote is that we’re relying on one decision-making mechanism from which many people feel removed. It’s almost like they’re missing a broader… context. When we call people to vote, we’re encouraging citizens to care about politics and civic life and, therefore, to participate in the process of democracy. But this act of care and participation isn’t something we can expect people to engage with occasionally when political elections happen. If we want people to participate in the process of democracy, this care and participation should be engineered before (and beyond) electoral campaigns. Because it’s in the consistency of getting people involved and caring about what happens around them in the civic life that participation is crafted and we build a path towards more intentional, informed and engaged voting.

Yet, the second realisation we landed on is that participation is the big forgotten piece in democracy. 

We like to think it this way: going to vote is not where people’s civic engagement begins. It’s actually where civic engagement leads to. It’s not (always) the core nor the activating action of democratic participation. It’s an output at the end of a consistent process that should be designed to keep people’s civic participation alive and intentional.

Why does this sound so obvious and yet so challenging to put into practice? 

By asking ourselves this question, we landed on the third realisation: doing the work with the people on the ground is the other big forgotten piece of democracy-strengthening work. On the one hand, community engagement and participation efforts are often only a collateral approach in local decision-makers and political agendas. In addition, today’s political climate makes these efforts particularly challenging when they stem from other actors of civil society, like local movements, nonprofit organisations or grassroots groups, often ostracised or heavily underresourced. On the other hand, at a higher level of democracy strengthening and activism work across Europe, we have observed that this work is often tackled through research-based, traditional approaches—usually led by institutions or mid-to-small organisations, backed by bigger institutions or foundations that “do” democracy for people rather than with them.

Regardless of where this effort is performed, whether by the local municipality government in a small town or a big European conference led by top democracy’s civil society organisations, the problem persists: democracy still happens in disconnection with the people, is mainly developed top-down, theorised through articles and policy briefs, and stays in the hands of a privileged few.

We’re making a big statement: If we don’t practice democracy with the people on the ground, we aren’t doing the work. Similarly, if we don’t work towards a consistent model of community participation and engagement in civic life, we aren’t doing the work. If we don’t work to resource locally-led, inclusive community movements, strengthen the agency and influence of citizens in local decision-making, and enable spaces for citizens to do democracy and be in the practices of democracy, we aren’t doing the work. 

We believe that democracy strengthening and activism requires involving and activating communities in civic development, whether in a small rural town or a big European capital. To protect and strengthen democratic practices in the face of today's threats, we believe that a long-term, consistent process for community participation and revitalising locally led community movements is needed.

And exactly from this belief is where our nonprofit organisation, Commonground Initiatives, was born.