Organising the Present to Give Voice to the Future? Organised Interests and Representing Future Generations

Future generations cannot literally be present or exercise voice within our democracies, thus seemingly rendering traditional forms of political representation impossible. While one reflex is to designate representatives – such as dedicated ombudspersons or commissions – another is to look to how existing non-designated representatives make claims for and on behalf of future generations. Recent empirical work has focussed on parliamentarians and the media, and shown limited evidence of claims-making for future generations. We extend this research endeavour to the organised interest (OI) system. While the OI system has long been considered an important intermediary institution in our representative democracies, there are also reasons to doubt its scope to deliver advocacy for future generations: in particular, its requirement to be responsive to ‘present’ members. Either way, an absence of empirical research leaves us guessing. Through analysis of the mission statements, public advocacy and media mentions of over 1200 entities within the Australian organised interest system, we explore empirically the degree to which organised interests advocate for or about future generations. Preliminary results find that some OIs do reference future generations in both their missions and their advocacy, but this is mostly confined to a small subset of citizen groups. Mixed evidence is found to support the concern that groups more democratically responsive to members/supporters are less likely it is to advocate on future generations. Analysis of group media mentions confirms that those who claim to represent future generations are in turn taken-up in the media as relevant sources in this context; but, at the same time the media incorporates a more diverse range of voices, with economic groups becoming more frequent participants.