Participative Processes for Measuring Progress: Deliberation, Consultation and the Role of Civil Society

A set of statistical indicators able to grasp the progress of a country should, first of all, embody and outline a nationally-shared vision of progress. This may be reached through democratic processes for the definition of the values and priorities which our societies wish to pursue. Today, in front of a long-standing crisis of legitimacy which affects our democracies, the implementation of participative procedures is more than ever needed, and public deliberation is the process through which legitimate choices and decisions should be shaped and made. In this context, civil society may provide fundamental contributions in terms of stimulating social participation, activation of resources, sharing of information and knowledge, so to engender a shared idea of progress and well-being and to help selecting suitable indicators to measure it. This article—which tries to integrate insights coming from theory of democracy and progress indicators’ studies—presents the theoretical issues behind the need for involvement of citizens and organized civil society within participative processes, distinguishing between consultation and deliberation. Moreover, the article analyses, through the lens of Archon Fung’s analytical framework on the varieties of participation processes, some of the most influential experiences of participative definition of national progress indicators in order to assess how the conditions for granting legitimacy have been actually addressed.