Petitions are useless. Or are they?

“Petitions are useless.” You’ve no doubt heard that phrase before. Perhaps you’ve even said it yourself at some point. After all, governments often stick to their policies, laws don’t change overnight, and you end up wondering whether a simple signature can really make any difference at all. Yet let me ask you a question. If petitions were truly insignificant, why do politicians, the mainstream media and even researchers pay them so much attention? Why do some of them spark national debates, to the point of worrying those in power? The answer runs much deeper than one might imagine. And it might well change the way you view the next petition you’re asked to sign.

Another one...

It has become almost commonplace to smile whenever a new petition circulates on the internet.

‘Another petition!’ is a phrase we often hear. It is uttered with a touch of irony, as if one were talking about a well-meaning, perhaps generous gesture, but one that ultimately amounts to nothing. Many of our contemporaries are convinced that one more or one fewer signature will never change the course of events. Those in power would continue to govern, the authorities would continue to administer, and major decisions would be taken in exactly the same way, whether ten people or a million had expressed their opinion.

This objection seems to be rooted in common sense. It therefore deserves to be examined seriously. Sound reasoning never consists of dismissing one’s opponents’ objections out of hand; on the contrary, it consists of acknowledging their full force before responding to them. Let us therefore ask the question frankly: is a petition truly capable of influencing public life, or is it merely an illusion intended to soothe the consciences of those who sign it?

It is interesting to note that this question is not one asked solely by members of the public. Political scientists have also been asking it for several years. Even journalists, often accused of chasing fads, have come to realise that this is no longer merely a social phenomenon, but a new political reality.

In 2016, the daily newspaper Le Monde devoted a lengthy analysis to this issue under a telling headline: ‘Online petitions: what does the people want?’ The newspaper did not start from a theory. It started from a fact. A few weeks earlier, a petition against the Labour Law had surpassed one million signatures. Another, calling for a pardon for Jacqueline Sauvage, had sparked an unprecedented national mobilisation. These two initiatives had stirred such emotion that it became impossible to regard them as mere internet curiosities. They had become political events in their own right.

The question posed by Le Monde at the time is remarkable for its simplicity: can petitions influence the course of events? The answer provided by the experts consulted is more nuanced than either their most enthusiastic supporters or their harshest critics imagine. The former sometimes see a petition as an almost automatic means of forcing a government to back down. The latter reduce it to a purely symbolic exercise, devoid of any real effectiveness. Researchers reject both these caricatures.

Firstly, they observe an obvious fact: a petition has no legal power. It does not pass a law. It does not bring down a government. It does not replace Parliament, the courts or elections. No one seriously claims otherwise. Judging a petition by the yardstick of what it was never intended to achieve would be like criticising a compass for failing to propel a ship forward. A compass was never designed to propel a ship; its purpose is to point it in a direction. Yet it is precisely here that the argument becomes interesting.

A petition reveals an invisible force

Whilst a petition does not, on its own, have the power to change a political decision, it fulfils another, infinitely deeper function that is almost always overlooked. This function is summed up in a particularly apt phrase by the political scientist Romain Badouard, quoted by Le Monde. According to him, petitions are ‘indicators of shifts in public opinion’.

This expression is worth pausing over, as it may contain the true answer to our question. What, indeed, is an indicator?

By definition, an indicator does not create a reality. It reveals it. A thermometer does not cause a fever; it measures it. A barometer does not cause a storm; it signals a change in the atmosphere. Similarly, a petition does not artificially manufacture public opinion. It brings to light an opinion that already existed, but which remained scattered, silent and, consequently, virtually invisible.

This distinction is crucial. As long as a conviction remains confined to the minds of thousands of isolated individuals, it has little political existence. Everyone thinks they are almost alone in being concerned about an issue. Everyone is unaware that their neighbour may share the same concern. Conversations remain private, concerns remain scattered, and those in power may be under the impression that these are merely individual reactions, with no collective significance.

But suppose a petition gathers one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand or one million signatures. What has happened? These citizens’ convictions have not changed in the space of a few days. They already existed. However, something fundamental has taken place: these convictions have become visible. What was previously merely a multitude of isolated opinions now appears as an organised, measurable and impossible-to-ignore movement. It is at this very moment that a petition begins to have its first effects.

This assertion may come as a surprise. Many of our contemporaries would be tempted to reply: ‘How so? The authorities haven’t decided anything yet. The law is still in force. The decree hasn’t been withdrawn. So where is this effect you’re talking about?’

The question is perfectly legitimate. But it presupposes that we reduce the whole of political life to the moment when an authority signs a document or announces a decision. Yet such a view is remarkably simplistic. It considers only the final stage of a much broader process, the early stages of which generally remain invisible to the general public.

No major political decision appears suddenly, like a bolt of lightning in a clear sky. Before a government changes its stance, before a minister abandons a project, before a parliament votes through a reform, a more subtle shift must almost always have taken place within the country. A previously diffuse sense of unease must become perceptible. A concern that seemed limited to a few individuals must emerge as widely shared. In short, a public opinion must take shape. It is precisely at this point that the petition comes into play.

In short, the true function of a petition is not to replace institutions, but to make visible a public opinion that, until then, had remained scattered and silent. It does not artificially create convictions; these already existed in many people’s minds. By giving them a public voice, it transforms them into a collective reality whose significance can now be gauged by politicians, journalists and observers of public life.

This is why governments follow the evolution of public opinion so closely. They know that, whilst an authority may govern by law, it cannot govern in the long term against a current of opinion that is firmly rooted in the country.

History confirms this principle

It would, moreover, be surprising if it were otherwise. The history of nations teaches us that even the most powerful institutions never exist independently of the attitudes that surround them. A law may be enacted in a matter of days; yet it often takes years to foster the mindset that will enable its adoption or, conversely, that will ultimately lead to its abandonment. Legal texts sometimes change very quickly; the deep-seated currents of public opinion, on the other hand, develop slowly, but their influence is often more enduring.

That is why it would be unfair to judge a petition solely on the basis of its immediate outcome. Such an approach would be akin to judging the value of a seed by noting that it has not yet grown into a tree a few hours after being planted. Every significant human endeavour undergoes a period of maturation. The same is true in public life. Before decisions change, minds must evolve. Before institutions transform, convictions must be strengthened. And, even before these convictions become a social force, they must first come to recognise themselves as such. It is precisely this initial task that a petition fulfils.

At first glance, this function may seem modest. Many would therefore be tempted to conclude that, if the petition is merely a gauge of public opinion, its role remains secondary.

Such a conclusion, however, would be hasty. It is natural to focus all our attention on spectacular events. History books recount the battles, elections, revolutions, treaties or laws that officially mark the beginning of a new era. But these events, however important they may be, never arise spontaneously. They are the visible culmination of a process of development that precedes them and makes them possible.

Let us take a very simple example. When a tree falls under the blows of an axe, an inattentive observer might believe that the final blow is the cause of its fall. Yet everyone understands that this is not the case. If that final blow does indeed cause the tree to collapse, it is solely because dozens of others preceded it. Taken in isolation, none of them would have been enough. Together, they gradually weakened the trunk until the final blow made inevitable what had long been in the making. The same is true in the life of nations.

A law is almost never the origin of a change; it is often its confirmation. A government does not create a nation’s mindset from scratch; it accompanies it, accelerates it or sometimes thwarts it, but it cannot replace it in the long term. Institutions undoubtedly exert a real influence on society; however, they are themselves subject to an even deeper reality: the moral, intellectual and cultural state of the nation they govern. This is why public opinion holds such an important place in any free society.

A moral force before it is a political one

This expression should not be taken to mean the shifting array of knee-jerk reactions provoked by day-to-day controversies. Public opinion, in the highest sense of the term, is the carefully considered judgement formed by a significant section of the population on the major issues that determine the country’s destiny. It is born neither in a day nor as the result of a passing emotion; it is the result of a slow process during which facts are examined, arguments weighed up, convictions tested and consciences gradually enlightened.

It is precisely because it arises from this slow maturation that genuine public opinion ultimately exerts an influence which those in power would be wrong to disregard. A minister may, of course, ignore an isolated protest; it is far more difficult for him to remain indifferent to a conviction firmly rooted in a significant part of the country.

Not because it possesses any particular legal power, but because it gradually creates an intellectual and moral climate with which any responsible authority will necessarily have to reckon. We then come to understand the true role of petitions in a new light. They enable men and women who shared the same concerns without knowing one another to realise that they belong to the same community of thought. They help to bring about that public opinion without which even the noblest convictions would risk remaining scattered, silent and ultimately powerless.

Thus, almost without the public realising it, a simple petition accomplishes a task whose significance far exceeds the document to which each person has added their signature. It plays a part in the slow formation of currents of opinion which, over the years, often end up guiding the decisions of those in power themselves.

The right to express one’s convictions is a common good

A truly free society is not characterised solely by the right to vote; it is also recognised by the opportunity afforded to citizens to make known, respectfully yet firmly, their convictions on the major issues affecting the common good.

Conversely, a society in which citizens were to forgo peacefully expressing their convictions would see decisions no longer rising from the nation to its leaders, but descending solely from the top down to the bottom.

This concept is at the root of genuine public opinion, which is nourished not by external stimuli, but by the vital forces that make up the nation. It forms part of a tradition of thought firmly rooted in the social doctrine of the Church, which clearly distinguishes the people from the masses. In his famous Christmas Message of 1944, Pope Pius XII established this distinction: the people are made up of conscious and responsible individuals, endowed with a life of their own, whilst the masses are inert, passive and easily swayed by external influences.

This idea echoes the thinking of Saint Thomas Aquinas, for whom ‘the people are not just any gathering of men, but the gathering of a multitude united by a consensus on the common good and shared interests’. The people are thus composed of active citizens, capable of forming judgements on the common good and of having their own vision of their country and its needs.

As early as 1950, in an address to Catholic journalists, Pius XII pointed out that the absence of genuine public opinion is ‘a disease of social life’ and went so far as to assert that ‘to stifle that of citizens, to reduce it to enforced silence, is, in the eyes of every Christian, an attack on the natural right of man, a violation of the world order as established by God’.

Far from being a mere means of mobilisation, a petition therefore fulfils a requirement deeply in keeping with the Christian conception of society: to enable citizens to peacefully express their convictions so that the common good may be pursued in the light of truth.

It is precisely in this spirit that Avenir de la Culture launches its petitions. They do not seek to impose a truth by force, but to enable all those who remain attached to France’s Christian heritage to make their voices heard – voices which, otherwise, might risk remaining scattered and silent.

The next time someone tells you with a smile, ‘A petition is useless’, remember that before laws can be changed, one must often begin by making a conviction visible. And it is precisely this endeavour—humble in appearance but decisive in its consequences—that is made possible by a petition freely signed by citizens determined not to let their country stray from what has made it great.

For the ideas that bring about lasting change in a nation are almost never born in government offices; they first take root in people’s consciences, gain strength within public opinion, and ultimately inspire the institutions themselves. Institutions change laws; an enlightened public can change the destiny of a nation.

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This article was first published on Avenir de la Culture.