We, The We, The People · democracy is failing. We can also cite many examples of fre s h a p p...

Democracy, by general consent, is in a parlous state.Fewer people are voting or joining political parties,cynicism and alienation are widespread, debate ispolarised, governments are perceived as in thrall topowerful interests. According to the UK’s ElectoralCommission, the single most important issue arisingfrom the 2001 election was the need to address“urgently and radically” the decline in publicparticipation.

As Perry Walker shows in this latest NEF pocketbook,it doesn’t have to be this way. The last decade hasseen a host of new initiatives aimed at giving people avoice as well as a vote – and thus of rejuvenatingdemocracy where it matters, at the grassroots. The“constitutional reform” programme has largelyignored them – possibly because they involve a radicalhandover of power back to the people. But agenuinely participatory democracy not only offers theprospect of more efficient government and moremeaningful “national debates”. As the evidencedemonstrates, it makes people happier too.

Perry Walker is development director of thedemocracy programme at the New EconomicsFoundation and a member of InterAct, theparticipation network. He has also worked for thecivil service and the John Lewis Partnership.

The New Economics Foundation is the leadingindependent think-tank involved in the developmentof a fairer and more sustainable economy.

NEF Pocketbook 7

Price: £4.99

A NEFP o c k e t b oo kA NEFP o c k e t b oo k

We, The PeopleDeveloping a new democracy

Perry Walker


The New Economics Foundation (NEF) was founded in 1986by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES), whichhas forced issues such as international debt on to the agendaof the G7/G8 summit meetings. It has taken a lead in helpingestablish new coalitions and organisations, such as the Jubilee2000 debt campaign, the Ethical Trading Initiative, backed bythe Government and leading retailers, the UK Social InvestmentF o rum and the Green Gauge “alternative” indicators of socialand environmental pro g re s s .

NEF is a registered charity, funded by individual supporters,trusts, business, public finance and international donors, andacting through policy, research, training and practicalinitiatives to promote a “new” economy – one which ispeople-centred, delivers quality of life and respectsenvironmental limits. Its strategic areas currently include theglobal economy, corporate accountability, community financeand participative democracy. It is now recognised as one ofthe UK's leading think-tanks.

To become a NEF supporter, and receive its publications at adiscount, contact Sue Carter at the address below.

New Economics FoundationCinnamon House, 6–8 Cole Stre e tLondon SE1 4YH, United Kingdom

Registered charity number 1055254

Te l : +44 (0)20 7089 2800F a x : +44 (0)20 7407 6473

E m a i l : i n f o @ n e w e c o n o m i c s . o rgWe b : w w w. n e w e c o n o m i c s . o rg

Executive Dire c t o r : Ed Mayo

NEF PocketbooksEditor: David Nicholson-LordD e s i g n : the Argument by Design

ISBN 1 899 407 53 7First published: 2002

Cover Picture : Coffee house “democracy” in the 18th century(engraving by an unknown artist, c.1700 – Mary EvansPicture Library).

Printed on recycled paper


Perry Walker

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

1 The State Democracy’s In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

2 Participation Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

3 Tales from the Front Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

4 Reinventing Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

5 What About the Politicians? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

6 Breaking the Mould . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

Introduction

D e m o c r a c y, the American political philosopher John Deweyremarked on his ninetieth birt h d a y, “begins in conversation”.When, in 1999, Bill Clinton suggested that the World Tr a d eO rganisation invite the protesters in Seattle to the talks,rather than use the police to keep them out, there was nof o rmat he could propose in which both sides would have feltsafe. The agreed conventions did not exist – so noconversation could take place.

This pocketbook is for everyone who feels frustrated withthe state of people’s participation in local and nationalaffairs. Voters feel alienated from the political process –mistrustful of the political establishment, cynical aboutthose who are supposed to represent them, deeplypessimistic about their capacity to have any influence. In astudy of public perceptions of local government publishedby Lancashire County Council in 1995, the authorsconcluded: “The experience [of participants in the focusgroups] was of institutions which did not listen, did notcare about them individually, and against whom one had towage battle to create any impression”.

Edmund Burke has much to answer for. In his famousspeech to the electors of Bristol in 1774, he declared: “Yourrepresentative owes you, not his industry only, but hisjudgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he

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sacrifices it to your opinion”. Such sophistry hascontributed to a highly passive notion of representation.MPs and councillors tend to think their job is to takedecisions – to act as “leaders” – rather than to instigate theprocesses through which citizens can contribute theirknowledge and experience and have their say.

Many of us feel doubly frustrated, because there is so muchrecognition of the need for participation and yet so little goodpractice. What we do have is some hard experience of wheredemocracy is failing. We can also cite many examples of fre s ha p p roaches – ideas and initiatives that hold within them thep romise of rejuvenating democracy. This pocketbook looks atboth – the failures and the successes. It builds on both tosuggest ways in which part i c i p a t o ry democracy can becomesomething more than an empty catchphrase.

Ultimately, however, some hard choices may face us. Wedon’t like the democracy we have got, it seems – but at leastit doesn’t require too much effort. Hurling insults at over-familiar faces on the television screen may be preferable, forsome, to the demands of a public meeting on a cold winternight. Writers such as John Ralston Saul see a deeperconflict in this. “The virtue of certainty is not a comfortableidea,” he writes in his book, The Unconscious Civilisation,“but then a citizen-based democracy is based onparticipation, which is the very expression of permanentdiscomfort”. By contrast, what Saul describes as the“corporatist system” depends upon “the citizen’s desire forinner comfort”.

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Introduction

Are we ruled by ideas – indeed, ideals – of citizenship or byeconomics and the manipulation of markets? Do we wantto remain cynical – but comfortable – consumers ratherthan active participants in the decisions that govern ourlives? Saul’s conclusion is that reality involves “acceptanceof permanent psychic discomfort… And the acceptance ofpsychic discomfort is the acceptance of consciousness”.

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1 The State Democracy’s In

In ancient Athens, democracy directly involved largenumbers of those eligible, the free men. The Greeks thoughteconomics was for women – eco comes from oikos,meaning “household” – and politics was for men. Publicofficials were chosen by lot from among the citizens.Socrates was tried by a jury of 501 selected in this way. Aquarter of free male adults served as president of theAthenian republic for 24 hours. This system has been heldup as an ideal throughout history, but was condemned asunworkable for the much larger nation states thatdeveloped in Europe from the Renaissance onwards.

Democracy became feasible again when it was linked withthe idea of representation. This had, in its origins, nothingto do with ideals – Edward I summoned a parliamentbecause he needed agreement to taxation. However,representation, when added to the more direct Greek notionof democracy, was seen as the answer to the problem ofscale. One 18th century French writer described it as“democracy rendered practicable over a great extent ofterritory”. In 1822 John Stuart Mill called it “the granddiscovery of modern times”.

Over time, the flaws in this grand discovery have appeared,as they do with any novelty. First, the problem of scale re-emerged. The average constituency is over 10 times the

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size it was in 1790. Not surprisingly, our representativesfind it difficult to represent us. This is exacerbated by theculture all elites develop, which further distances them fromthe people. Peter Mandelson wrote that after September 11,“those of us who made our living by thinking and acting onbehalf of others would come into our own”. This is clearlya very different view of politics from that which wants tohelp others to think and act on their own behalf.

The stories such distance produces are both comic and sad.Epsom and Ewell Council described “eco-warr i o r ”Matthew Williams – precisely 11 years old at the time – as“a political extremist openly out to promote worldrevolution”. A newspaper poll found that fewer than onein 20 people could explain the current Labourg o v e rn m e n t ’s Third Wa y. Some thought it was a re l i g i o u scult, others a sexual position; one man asked if it was aplan to widen the M25. In 1990 Danish Prime MinisterS c h l u t e r, Conservative leader of a minority coalitiong o v e rnment since 1982, was about to fight his fourt hgeneral election. A banker told him: “I’m convinced allthinking persons will vote for you.” Schluter replied: “Butt h a t ’s not enough… I need a majority”.

Politics and corruption have, for many people, becomealmost synonymous. So have politics and insincerity, orpolitics and manipulation. According to the commentatorDarcus Howe, “this new breed [Blair, Brown, Thatcher] arenot really at ease with the idea of government. And that’swhy we’ve had so much either authoritarianism or control-

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freakery; none of them actually trusts the people they’remeant to represent”.

All this has reduced the legitimacy of representativegovernment. In Europe membership of political parties hasfallen by nearly 50 per cent over the last 15 years. In 1998turnout at local elections in England was 29 per cent ,down from 45 per cent four years previously. Nearly 70 percent of young people in the UK, polls show, have no interestin local politics. Many commentators have pointed out thatfewer people voted in the last general election than in thetelevision show Pop Idol.

People feel alienated because they “are forever subjectedto others’ designs and reduced to data in others’p rogrammes”, wrote the American academic Jeff Lustig.“They rarely feel themselves the authors of their ownlives.” According to John Routledge of Urban Forum, anu m b rella body for community groups, “politics is the artof preventing people from taking part in affairs thatc o n c e rn them”. Linda Ryan Nye, campaigning on genderequality in the Canadian constitution in the 1980s, spoke of “the kind of pain you feel when you find outy o u ’ re invisible”.

This alienation leads to periodic violence, directed against astate which is seen as an external agency, a coercive force.Larry Siedentop, author of Democracy in Europe, remarks:“The way that the French police sometimes stand asidefrom illegal action amounts almost to a ritualised

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The State Democracy’s In

recognition by the State that periodic violence is a conditionof its survival in such a centralised form”.

If distance and alienation make up the first flaw in oursystem, the second is the prevalence of polarised debaterather than constructive dialogue. According to the PublicConversations Project, based in the US state ofMassachusetts, which seeks to promote dialogue on divisivepublic issues, some controversies “become defined byopposing views that cluster around two seeminglyirreconcilable poles. A line [is drawn] between two simpleanswers to a complex dilemma and induces people to take astand on one side of that line or the other. (For example,you are either a royalist or a revolutionary.) Most peoplewho care deeply about the issue yield to this induction.

“Being aligned with one group offers benefits. It gives one asocially validated place to stand while speaking and it offers theunswerving support of like-minded people. It also exacts costs. Itportrays opponents as a single-minded and malevolent gang. In theface of such frightening and unified adversaries, one’s own groupmust be unified, strong and certain. To be loyal to that group, onemust suppress many uncertainties, morally complicated personalexperiences, inner value conflicts and differences between oneselfand one’s allies. Complexity and authenticity are sacrificed to thedemands of presenting a unified front to the opponent. A dominantdiscourse of antagonism is self-perpetuating. Win-lose exchangescreate losers who feel they must retaliate to regain lost respect,integrity, and security, and winners who fear to lose disputedterritory won at great cost.”

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Typical of such polarisation was the dispute over emissionstandards at an arsenic plant in Washington State, USA.The headline in the local paper read: “Tacoma Gets Choice:Cancer Risk or Lost Jobs”. Yet Pete Emerson, director ofthe De Borda Institute and author of Consensus VotingSystems, has demonstrated how artificial such black-or-white choices are in relation to Northern Ireland:

“There are many who say that Northern Ireland must be either apart of the United Kingdom, or part of a United Ireland, [implying]if not stating that the first proposal mutually excludes the second.Yet would it not be better to put the question in a different way,like this: a six- or nine-county Northern Ireland could beadministered by, devolved within, federated with, independent of,or integrated into (the nations of) Britain and/or (the Provinces of)Ireland. That’s at least ten proposals already, and not one of themmutually excludes the other nine. There’s much in common, forinstance, between a UK-type devolution and a United Ireland-typefederation, and it’s called a semi-autonomous Northern Ireland!”

The third flaw in our system of representative governmentis a consequence of the first two. We – the people – are sofar removed from the political system that we do not getthe opportunities to form our opinions properly. As a result,what our representatives represent is not our opinions butour interests.

In the era of opinion polls, this may seem a strangeconclusion. As long ago as 1888 James Bryce MP wascategorising the American political system as “government

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by public opinion”. This approach to government took amajor step forward in 1936, when George Gallup, on thebasis of a representative sample of a few thousand people,forecast that Franklin D. Roosevelt would becomePresident. The Literary Digest scorned him beforehand,predicting a win for Alf Landon on the basis of millions ofresponses – which were unrepresentative.

However, the value of such polls depends on the value ofthe opinions. The theory of rational ignorance says thatwhen any individual has little influence, it makes perfectsense not to spend time learning about an issue and formingviews upon it. In these circumstances, the value of opinionpolls as an instrument of democracy is undermined. It issolely the act of polling that creates the opinion – polls arethus an appropriate expression of a passive, alienateddemocracy. As the writer V. O. Key puts it, “the voice ofthe people is but an echo”. One US poll showed that a thirdof adults had views on the Public Affairs Act of 1975.There is no Public Affairs Act of 1975.

Polling as usually practised reinforces this and/or approachto decisions. In the 1994 US election there was anoverheated debate on health-care reform. Opinion pollsshowed widespread support for conflicting goals,summarised as: “One, lower my premiums. Two, cover theuninsured. Last, solve the nation’s cost problem.” Whenconfronted with details about how the uninsured were to becovered or how costs were to be contained, the support forthese options changed markedly.

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The political process, it seems, only rarely informs orrefines opinions. American academic Pippa Norris foundthat during the 1997 British election campaign, “knowledgeabout where the parties stood on a range of policy issuesdid not increase during the long British campaign despitethe wall-to-wall coverage in the media and politicians’efforts to publicise their manifestos”. The political thinkerHannah Arendt summarised this trenchantly:

“Opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and publicdebate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinionexists, there may be moods – moods of the masses and moods ofindividuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former– but no opinion”.

Against such a background, politicians represent ourinterests, not our opinions. Concludes Arendt:

“Through pressure groups, lobbies, and other devices, the voterscan indeed influence the actions of their representatives withrespect to interest, that is, they can force their representatives toexecute their wishes at the expense of the wishes and interests ofother groups of voters. In all these instances the voter acts out ofconcern with his private life and well-being, and the residue ofpower he still holds in his hands resembles rather the recklesscoercion with which a blackmailer forces his victim into obediencethan the power that arises out of joint action and jointdeliberation.”

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2 Participation Matters

Where do we draw the boundaries between public andprivate? The second half of the 20th century, many wouldargue, witnessed the privatisation of happiness – and aconsequent turning away from the public realm. As chartedin The Century of the Self, the BBC series exploring thelegacy of Freud, American radicals of the 1960s and 1970sfound the State a tougher nut to crack than they hadexpected. So they turned from taking on external authorityto tackling internalised repression – “the cop in the head”.From this came the fashion for EST, encounter groups andthe like.

But with a shift in means came a shift in ends. Theseradicals came to believe that to be happy they needed onlyto sort themselves out. They did not need to deal with theState. At times it appeared as if they did not either need todeal with other people. The legacy of this development isseen all over the western world, notably in thecommoditised and solipsistic universe of advertising.

Throughout most of history, such attitudes would haveseemed bizarre. Partly this reflects a sense of duty. AsPericles, the Athenian orator, expressed it, “we do not saythat a man who takes no interest in politics is a man whominds his own business: we say that he has no business hereat all”. Benjamin Barber endorses Pericles in his book,

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Strong Democracy. “Human freedom”, says Barber, “willbe found not in caverns of private solitude but in the noisyassemblies where women and men meet daily as citizensand discover in each other’s talk the consolation of acommon humanity.”

Other writers and thinkers have taken a similar line.Hannah Arendt describes how the American revolutionaries“discovered the ‘public happiness’ that derived fromparticipating in the business of government, the visceralpleasure that led them to actions they had never expectedfrom themselves; as they found in the ‘public spirit’ anexpression of solidarity fundamentally different from thatfound in private affairs.”

John Stuart Mill argued that it was “of supreme importancethat all classes of the community should have much to dofor themselves; that as great a demand should be madeupon their intelligence and virtue as it is in any respectequal to; that the government should encourage them tomanage as many as possible of their joint concerns byvoluntary co-operation.” Mill’s reasoning was that a people“among whom there is no habit of spontaneous action for acollective interest – who look habitually to theirgovernment to command or prompt them in all matters ofjoint concern – have their faculties only half developed”.

The great sociologist Durkheim pointed out other benefits.In a cohesive society with high participation, he said, “thereis a constant interchange of ideas and feelings from all to

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Participation Matters

each and each to all, something like a mutual moralsupport, which instead of throwing the individual on hisown resources, leads him to share in the collective energyand supports his own when exhausted”.

What is partly at issue here are different senses of what it isto be human and what it is to be happy. Many modernvoters, reared in a culture that sets a high value on thesatisfaction of material “needs” and consumeristaspirations, might find some of the views expressed abovetoo exacting. Freedom, we tend to believe nowadays, meansfreedom to be private as well as to be public. Equally, tolive a purely private life is to tip the balance the other way.What is not in doubt, however, is the sense ofempowerment that comes from a greater participation inpolitical processes.

The most striking statistical evidence for the value ofparticipation comes from Switzerland. Two academics,Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer, classified all the cantons on a six-point scale according to how participative theywere. Cantons vary, for example, in the number ofsignatures they require to launch a referendum. Frey andStutzer then asked 6,000 Swiss residents how satisfied theywere with their lives.

Their study found that a one-point increase in residents’participation scale increased the proportion of those whosaid they were very happy by 2.7 per cent. To give someidea of the significance of this effect, it is nearly half as big

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as that involved in moving from the lowest income band –around £11,000 a year – to the highest – £80,000 andupwards.

Frey and Stutzer were able to test whether greater happinessfrom higher participation was due to the outcome – bettergovernment – or to the process. Foreigners resident inSwitzerland, for example, enjoy the outcomes but are notallowed to take part in the process. In fact, foreigners’happiness resulting from better government rose by onlyone-third as much as the increase for Swiss nationals. Thefindings thus clearly suggest that two-thirds of the benefitslie in the process – in the act of participation.

As described in Chapter 4, many of the new approaches todemocracy involve getting people to consider issues ingreater depth before coming to a decision. These newdeliberative methods have thrown up an impressive body ofanecdotal evidence on how participation in them widenspeople’s horizons. Individuals who have taken part inseveral of the US National Issues Forums say that they startlistening to the news more and in a different way, lookingfor options and their consequences. They also become moreinvolved in civic activities – deliberation seems to get peopleto take the first step to civic involvement. The vast majorityof participants – 96 per cent – in the Choices method, alsodescribed in Chapter 4, said that as a result they wouldeither look for similar discussions, read more or becomemore involved in civic affairs. Many said they would do all three.

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James Fishkin, the American political scientist who inventedthe “deliberative poll”, was present at the first one ever held,in Manchester in 1994 under the auspices of GranadaTelevision and The Independent newspaper He recalled later:

“A woman came up to me and said that during 30 years of marr i a g e ,her husband had never read a newspaper but that from the momenthe had been invited to this weekend, he had changed. Not only didhe read every bit of our briefing materials, but he now read ‘everynewspaper every day’.” The woman speculated that her husband“would be much more interesting to live with in re t i re m e n t ” .

In another deliberative poll, the proportion of theparticipants agreeing strongly with the statement “I haveopinions about politics that are worth listening to” rosefrom 40 per cent at the start to 68 per cent at the finish.

Another important development in democracy, alsodiscussed in Chapter 4, is the citizens’ jury – 16 “ordinary”representatives of the community who spend four daystaking evidence from experts before drawing up theirconclusions. Experiences from citizens’ juries in Britain have been summed up by the King’s Fund in its bookOrdinary Wisdom and they provide some moving accountsfrom participants.

Comments ranged from simple expressions of empowerm e n tand self-confidence – “I feel more confident to take part incommunity issues and disputes”, “I have more care of healthauthority issues now, and feel a better person for this” – to

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g reater commitment and civic involvement. One part i c i p a n tsaid: “I would like to contribute more now in communitymatters”. Others clearly found the process life-enhancing. “I will never forget the experience”, one wrote. Anotherd e c l a red: “You don’t just walk away from a citizens’ jury –it changes your life”.

Deliberative polls also seem to make people more tolerant.“At the beginning of one small group discussion on thefamily”, an account of one poll runs, “an 84-year-oldconservative from Arizona expressed the view that ‘afamily’ required that there be both a mother and a father inthe home. He spent three days in dialogue as part of agroup that included a 41-year-old woman who had raisedtwo children as a single parent. At the end of the weekendhe went up to her and asked what three words in theEnglish language ‘can define a person’s character’. Heanswered his own question with the words: ‘I was wrong’”.

One benefit is the reduction in stereotyping when peoplecome together in a setting where it is safe to explore theird i ff e rences. Future Search conferences bring around 64people together over two or three days in an attempt to plana joint future. Participants are divided up into interest or“stakeholder” groups, with sessions in which the gro u p sdecide what they are particularly proud of or sorry for. OneF u t u re Search, which took place at Forres in Aberd e e n s h i reand focused on youth issues, found a remarkable unanimityof views between some disparate groups In the “Prouds andS o rries” session, “sorries” included “lack of communication”

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(the youth group), “not listening enough” (communityo rganisations) and “although listening more, ignoring mostof what is heard” (the “authority” group). And while theyouth group diagnosed police as the main problem – police,they said, “abuse power towards the young and arep rejudiced, eg young people are assumed to be drunk even ifsober” – they added: “There is stereotyping both ways –youth stereotype the police too”.

Another clear benefit of participation is that it improves thequality of decision-making. Research by the New EconomicsFoundation on community quality of life indicators hasshown that the best measurements, and measurers, often comef rom within communities themselves. In one study in Mert h y rTydfil in 1996, it took a survey by local schoolchildren beforea reliable picture of local crime could be established. Localpolice re c o rds were less accurate simply because people werem o re pre p a red to tell the children the tru t h .

As these and many other stories make clear, it’s a powerfulexperience to be able to share your views, and fears, withothers – others whom you may often have perceived ashostile – and then to hear that those “others” feel the same.Unfortunately it’s an all too rare one in contemporarydemocracy. Part of the reason is an absence of structure –the right kind of format to make the democraticconversation possible. Part of it is the wrong kind of spirit –one that gives away power with one hand but takes it backwith the other. The next chapter shows how getting itwrong is, sadly, rather more difficult than getting it right.

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Page running head

3 Tales from the Front Line

In 1998 the Royal Parks Agency raised the possibility ofrestricting cars in Richmond Park, London. In November1999 it reported to the three surrounding local authorities,Kingston, Richmond and Wandsworth. Their request forfurther traffic counts delayed the agency’s publicconsultation, which did not begin until summer 2000. Whatfollowed provided an small but impressive cameo of whydemocracy isn’t working.

The proposals, not unnaturally, aroused strong feelings inlocal residents. Yet the main outlet for these, apart from apetition organised by the Richmond Park Conservatives,was the letters page of the Richmond and TwickenhamTimes. The following quotations, all from the paper, showhow unsuitable a forum this was – and how, in the absenceof an appropriate format or structure, there was little tohelp people to form their opinions, let alone identify wherethe common ground with others might lie.

The fundamental flaws included:

! Disagreement on the facts. What impact wouldrestriction of traffic flows in the park have onsurrounding roads? Statements that it would create“unbearable” congestion in local streets werejuxtaposed with other statements that it would not –

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that fears of such congestion were “wholly incorrect”.In the absence of other evidence, which of thesestatements were to be believed?

! The “rubbishing” of opponents’ views, often in highlycoloured or emotive terms. Faced with denials that thetraffic would shift en masse to local streets, onecouncillor insisted that it would, creating “a steel ring ofgridlock and fumes”.

! Scaremongering and playing on fears. A suggestion thatcars in the park made women feel safer was linked tothe murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common.

! Use of hostile debating ploys. Some letters, for example,were openly sarcastic. “Deadly dog walkers andbarbaric senior citizens should be ashamed ofthemselves by daring to enter the park, therebybothering those many lovable caring cyclists on theirRaleigh Turbo-propelled 2000 GTs”, according to onecorrespondent.

! Lack of agreement on what the debate is about. Forexample, a statement that “there is no visual orscientific evidence of car pollution damaging the parkenvironment” was followed by another statement that“the issue at stake… is not pollution in the surroundingarea or the survival of flora and fauna but amenityvalue”. Faced with a lack of clarity on what the “issueat stake” actually is, people argue “past” each other.

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Not surprisingly, one letter-writer described the debate as“a ping-pong match”. There was no way of building onviews that might promote consensus – such as, for example,“I too am a motorist [but] I am increasingly aware that mycar’s presence represents something negative to the park”.Nor was there any sense of where the balance of views lay.According to the vice-chairman of the Friends of RichmondPark a “moderate majority” of people visiting theRichmond Park stand at the May Fair “agreed with varyinglevels of park restrictions”. But there was no way ofestablishing how representative a sample this was.

What of the politicians? The local authorities set up theRichmond Park Forum, supposedly to represent residents’views on the park; actually, it consists solely of councillors.The forum has not been seen as neutral. One letter to theRichmond and Twickenham Times said it should moreaccurately be entitled the “campaign to keep RichmondPark congested, noisy and polluted”. Even the paper’seditorial described it as “just another arm of the roadlobby”. The agency meanwhile issued a “consultationquestionnaire”. This contained mainly tick boxes with littleor no room for comment. Its distribution appeared erratic.The authority’s proposals appeared nine months later andare still, in 2002, being fiercely opposed.

A tale of two citiesIf Richmond is, at least partly, a story of polarised anddegraded debate, our next tale involves mismanaged

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Tales from the Front Line

consultation. It concerns a city with a central controlledparking zone (CPZ). CPZs have the effect of displacingparking by commuters and shoppers to the predominantlyresidential areas around the centre – making access difficultfor those who live there.

As part of UK government commitments to traffic andparking management, the local authority started to considerextending its CPZs into these residential areas. Externalconsultants were asked to make recommendations. Theyproposed an extension to the CPZ, suggested suitable areasand outlined basic elements of the scheme – the number ofpermits per household or business, costs, visitors’ permitsand parking restrictions on residential streets. They alsorecommended – in a report that subsequently became public– minimal consultation on the ground that the issue waslikely to be extremely contentious.

Early in 1999 a consultation leaflet was sent out, describingthe proposal and seeking views by return. It went to allresidents and businesses in the proposed new CPZ but notto those in the areas immediately beyond, who were likelyto suffer the next wave of knock-on effects.

Public reaction was immediate and hostile. It was madeworse by the fact that the authority was ostensibly seekingviews in a “consultation” yet had already put in aprovisional order for the parking meters. The hostility wasboth to the proposals themselves, and to the lack of anyattempt to involve local people or to offer choices.

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Emergency public meetings were held, protest groupsformed, judicial review considered and the engineer’sdepartment flooded with letters and complaints.

The scheme was rejected except in one area suffering badlyfrom commuter parking. The authority’s leaflet had madeclear that the choice for residents was all areas or none:however, it then changed its mind and suggested that thescheme might be implemented in just area. This caused asecond flurry of opposition.

At this point much staff time – supposedly saved by usingconsultants – had been spent on merely explaining thesituation; no clear way forward existed. The electedmembers considered shelving the idea. However, the councilfinally decided to try again in two or three areas wherethere was evidence of particularly serious problems andwhere the majority against the expanded CPZ had beennarrow. There was further consultation, also by leaflet. Nomention was made of the possible knock-on effects fromthis new scheme, nor was there any further consultationwith those in the remaining areas where no scheme wasnow proposed.

After almost four years this initiative has proceeded nofurther and considerable frustration has built up.

Fortunately it doesn’t have to be like this. A second city –let us call it City B – had a similar parking issue, promptingthe local authority to think about extending its CPZ in the

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summer of 1999. A public announcement that this wasbeing considered caused a rush of comments and reactions,many of these as negative as those received, later in theprocess, in City A above. One group of objectors evenappointed its own consultants and briefed counsel.

City B, however, decided to consult straight away. Roundone of the consultation involved a series of publicneighbourhood meetings. As well as general invitations,specific ones went to groups and organisations, such asschools, likely to suffer knock-on effects – whether theywere local or in surrounding areas.

On average, almost 100 people attended each local meeting.There was initial caution about being invited to expresstheir views without, as yet, a scheme to react to. Yet thedecision to “listen” to citizens early enough for them tomake a difference worked. The meetings were mainlyinteractive: individuals and groups contributed to long listsof parking-related issues and key principles for change.There was a short presentation from the council officersabout the scope and limits of a CPZ and an opportunity forquestions. One key question was, of course: “How do weknow you mean it when you say you will listen to us?”People were also asked how they wanted to be consultedagain, when proposals were ready.

From analysis of the results of these meetings, an outline ofproposals began to emerge. The next stage of collaborativeworking was a “stakeholder meeting” with representatives

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from some 70 local groups and organisations and includingelected members. People worked both on possible solutionsand on how to consult at the options stage. Choices werekept open as late as possible. Next came a carefully targetedconsultation on the possible options for implementation –location, permit numbers and costs. This was done usingleaflets and small local exhibitions.

The end result was a scheme with clear community supportwhich applied to some but not all areas – as theconsultation had indeed suggested. It was supportedenthusiastically by elected members and was due to beimplemented in the summer of 2000. The total time fromthe start of the process to its agreement by committee wasless than 10 months.

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4 Reinventing Democracy

Active democracy is not “pie in the sky”. There are manyexamples of how it can be made to work. Even at the levelof grassroots consultation, as the last chapter showed, someauthorities succeed. What should we be looking for – whatare the rules that govern whether democracy can be madeto succeed?

There are four basic principles. We need to make it easy forpeople to discuss issues that concern them; to ensure thatthese discussions help people form their opinions, becausethey consist of dialogue not debate; to make sure thesediscussions have influence; and to legitimise decisions.

Helping people to take part

In encouraging participation, politicians tend to think in term sof stru c t u res – in terms, say, of “strengthening parish councils”– because they spend so much of their time inside them. Butwhat Oscar Wilde said of socialism applies to politics ingeneral – it takes up too many evenings. So we mustconcentrate in the first place not on stru c t u res but on issues.We must make it easy for people to take part on the issues theyc a re about – and recognise that many of these are local ande n v i ronmental. Twelve thousand people, for example, wrote top rotest about an incinerator proposed for Guildford .

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Two initiatives in the US have focused on this area.National Issues Forums provide briefing materials that areused by 3,200 citizens’ fora every year. A study of theeffects found some remarkable broadening effects. Fiftythree per cent of the participants changed their minds, 71per cent had second thoughts; and 78 per cent hadencountered good viewpoints different from their own. The second US initiative, Choices, runs programmes oninternational issues for both general audiences and highschool students – over 400,000 people take part each year.A typical programme consists of four discussions at publiclibraries led by a local scholar. Among the topics are globalenvironmental problems, trade, China and conflictresolution. Participation is open to everyone.

In the UK Choices was tried out in 30 schools and collegesin Avon in 1995. The teachers involved reported high levelsof student enjoyment and engagement and some “amazinglypowerful” speeches. When Choices for Bristol generatedideas for improving the city by distributing 7,000 copies ofa discussion guide, it received 2,032 suggestions – andpublished a booklet listing every one of them.

People also, as we have seen, need help forming theiropinions. This happens through a process of deliberation,defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “carefulconsideration” or “the discussion of reasons for andagainst”. One of the best descriptions of this process is byDaniel Yankelovich in his book Coming to PublicJudgement.

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Reinventing Democracy

Yankelovich divides deliberation into three phases:consciousness raising; working through; and resolution. Heargues that both working through and resolution involvethree elements: intellectual, where people clarify theirthinking; emotional, where people understand the natureand source of their feelings; and moral, where people worktheir way through conflicting values. Working through, hesays, takes time and happens best when people cometogether in debate.

Most discussion of the criteria for good deliberation isbased on the work of the German philosopher JurgenHabermas and his attempts to define an “ideal speechsituation”. Habermas’s basic distinction is between fairness and competency. Fairness means that people arefree to turn up, make statements, discuss the statements ofothers, and influence the outcome. Competency means thatthe people who are deliberating have the best discussionand come to the best decision of which they are capable.This has to do with access to information and with howinformation is used.

Sometimes fairness and competency collide. Experts may be more competent to assess the validity of certaininformation, but it would not be fair to give themprecedence in attending or speaking. Sometimes theysupport each other. The rules of procedure that achievecompetency may also promote fairness – for example,making sure everyone has a chance to speak.

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One important criterion, which contributes to both fairnessand competence, is that the process should be under thecontrol of a variety of stakeholders, so that no group candominate. A UK national consensus conference onradioactive waste management in 1999 was funded byNirex and two government bodies. Greenpeace, which wasnot involved, argued that the title of the event skewed thedebate towards the pro-nuclear establishment, because itexcluded the question of whether nuclear waste should becreated at all.

Citizens’ juries are an increasingly popular method ofbringing people together to form opinions. The number oflocal authorities in Britain using them rose from less than20 in 1991 to 110 in 1997. By contrast with NationalIssues fora and Choices, they involve an invited group,chosen to be representative of the community. Typically, acitizens’ jury consists of 16 people, who receive help fromone or two independent moderators and spend around fourdays hearing presentations from witnesses before reportingtheir conclusions.

Some accounts of juries in action are very moving – vividlyhighlighting, for example, the difference between debateand dialogue. During one citizens’ jury on health, a womandescribed the scene round her kitchen table the nightbefore: “I looked around the table at my kids and husband.Everyone was talking and no-one was listening to anyoneelse; not like here when we all listen and take it in turns. Itold them we should all be listening to each other, and my

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husband laughed and said: ‘Don’t worry, kids – your mumhas been doing a citizens’ jury… She’ll be back to normalsoon’”.

The starting point for citizens’ juries is the legal system. Bycontrast, deliberative polling starts with the idea of opinionpolls – to which it adds deliberation. In the 1994deliberative poll already mentioned, 300 people spent aweekend in Manchester discussing crime. The proportionagreeing that the courts should send fewer people to prisonrose from 29 per cent to 44 per cent during the weekend.Intriguingly – but not unexpectedly, given the number ofpeople involved – the 300 included a number of convictedcriminals. A report on the exercise concluded:

“The criminals enriched the dialogue. They had actually been toprison. They had some firsthand (if anecdotal) sense of whatmotivates people to commit crimes, and of what might deter themfrom doing so.”

Making sure voices are heard

It’s all very well to discuss and deliberate, of course. Butsuch deliberations have to lead somewhere if they are to beseen to have point. Structures have to be created to enablethe discussions to influence events and decisions. In somecases, issues will be raised by politicians – this is coveredlater. But it is vital that citizens should also be able to raiseissues – that there should be scope for citizen initiative. As

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John Harvey of the Direct Democracy Campaign notes:

“If a petition signed by one per cent of the [Swiss] electorate issubmitted calling for a referendum on some issue currently underconsideration by government, then a referendum has to be held.The signatures of two per cent of the voters are enough to call avote on any other issue not yet under governmental consideration.”

Deliberation also needs to be more adventurous andinclusive. Impressive as National Issues and Choices are, itis possible to take the process beyond the public library tothe pub and the home. How this might be done is describedin the next chapter. It is also important to connect peoplewho do not normally meet. One example of this is Imagine,developed by the New Economics Foundation from anAmerican approach called Appreciative Inquiry. By gettingpeople to tell each other stories of what works in theircommunity, Imagine has proved a powerful means ofinvolving the excluded, building up a shared vision of aplace and generating the social energy needed to turn thisinto action. In the UK, it has been pioneered in Waterloo inLondon and Thanet in Kent.

T h e re are complex trade-offs between size, numbers andre p resentativeness, however. As noted above, citizens’juries and deliberative polling involve fewer people thanNational Issues Forums and Choices but have theadvantage of being re p resentative – not in a conventionalpolitical sense but in the sense that they are re p re s e n t a t i v eof those directly involved with the issues. In the

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deliberative poll on crime, the presence of people withcriminal re c o rds helped ensure the polling gro u pre p resented society at large. Even large events, such asWashington DC’s second Citizens’ Summit, which bro u g h t3,500 people together in 2001, can still involve only asmall pro p o rtion of the total population.

After deliberation, decisions need to be legitimised. Areferendum is one way of doing this, although it may takeseveral forms. In some of the smallest Swiss cantons,decisions are sometimes taken at town meetings, which allvoters may attend; the same principle operates at the lowestlevel of local government, the Gemeinder (commune), ofwhich there are some 3,000.

According to the Direct Democracy Campaign, severalthousand voters may turn out for such town squaremeetings. “The proceedings can be heated and lively. Votersvote by show of hands on issues of local accounts andtaxation, recommended new by-laws, planning anddevelopment issues, and anything else which is making theheadlines in the local area. Turnout is sometimes low atthese meetings, but there are usually rules in place wherebya minority in the crowd can demand a paper ballot if it isfelt that a decision made by show of hands would notachieve a democratic result.”

Above this scale, a referendum may be needed. Under theUK’s Local Government Act of 1972, six voters can call aparish meeting and if at least 10 people turn up and call for

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a referendum on a local issue, the parish council is obligedto hold one – although the results are only advisory.

Another possibility is a preferendum, which attempts tocapture a subtler range of possibilities than the conventionalreferendum, pushing these through into consensus.Preferenda have been promoted by the Northern Ireland-based De Borda Institute, which promotes inclusive votingsystems, and involve three stages – debating, voting andanalysing the vote. During the debating stage, as peoplesuggest amendments and modifications, a range ofproposals emerges. When the meeting agrees that all pointsof view have been captured, participants use a pointssystem to list each one in order of preference. In a 10-option ballot, for example, voters give 10 points to theirmost preferred option and one point to their least. If oneoption commands a “consensus” – 75 per cent supportfrom all participants is the suggested minimum – it isadopted. Otherwise debate resumes on the most popularoptions until consensus is achieved.

If one theme emerges strongly from all the ideas outlinedabove, it is participation. Yet many people find it hard tosquare participatory ideals with the theory and practice of arepresentative democracy. And where do all these new ideasleave the politicians? The next chapter briefly examineshow participation and representation can co-exist.

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5 What About the Politicians?

I t ’s hard to give power away. Most politicians promise todo it, but when they get into office they find compellingreasons to do the opposite. One of the most depre s s i n gn a rratives of contemporary Britain is the appare n t l yresistless growth of centralisation. Part l y, it’s a personalthing. What’s the point of spending your life climbing tothe top if you can’t then indulge in a little judiciousa u t o c r a c y ?

A politics which involves the led as well as the “leaders”works much better, however. Politicians need people’scommitment not only for taking decisions but forimplementing policies – a point graphically illustrated bythe ill-fated poll tax of the late 1980s. More recently localauthorities have taken a step in this direction by askingvoters for their views on council spending.

Most, unsurprisingly, reserved to themselves the finaldecision. One, however – Milton Keynes – undertook toabide by voters’ preferences. People were allowed to specifywhich of three spending and council tax levels they wanted.Forty-five per cent of people cast their votes – comparedwith 26 per cent in the previous local elections.

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According to John Stewart, the Birmingham Universitypolitical scientist who is one of the most thoughtfulcontemporary writers on this subject, the passive concept ofrepresentation, of the sort we now have in the UK andthroughout many other liberal democracies, leaves little orno place for participation. This has produced “a tendencyto see representative and participatory democracy asopposed”, he argues. But there is no inherent contradiction:

“Given an active process of representation… representativedemocracy requires and is strengthened by participatorydemocracy. It is the role of elected representatives to aid theprocess of deliberation and in the end, if required, to balance andjudge differing views.”

The municipality of Almere in the Netherlands, forexample, has developed what it calls a “consensus meter”.This is used on-line and is similar in some respects to thepreferendum, allowing electors a say in council priorities.For example, 20 possible projects were up for discussion.Which were the most important – or the most popular? Theconsensus meter allowed people to prioritise their choices. Ifa consensus was reached, it became council policy. Wherethere was no consensus, policy was set conventionally bythe councillors.

The extent to which people participate partly depends onhow much influence they think they will have. But ifgenuine participation can be injected into representativepolitics, two roles for politicians, especially at local level,

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What About the Politicians?

emerge. One involves actually setting policy; the other,providing the framework in which citizens can takedecisions. Given the advent of Cabinet government in manylocal authorities, and the concentration of powers thisentails, such a change would be highly opportune. As inParliament, a new role is needed for “backbenchers”. Ifcouncillors can rise above the machismo that comes withthe territory – the notion that their job is about taking“tough decisions” – they could start helping citizensdiscover what citizenship means.

There are benefits for all, leaders and led alike, in thisapproach. Milton Keynes gave away more decision-makingpower than other local authorities – but got deeperinvolvement and commitment in return. Similarly, peoplewho have taken part in National Issues Forums in the USlearn that there is no faceless “they” to blame. Thepolarised debate on emission standards from an arsenicplant in the US, mentioned in Chapter 1, led to attempts by the Environmental Protection Agency to heal thedivisions. Reporting on this process, the academic EstherScott concluded: “In becoming involved, the public begins to appreciate the difficulty simply attendant onmaking regulatory decisions… and the inadequacy ofsimply identifying ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ in environmentalprotection”.

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6 Breaking the Mould

The need to modernise democracy is widely re c o g n i s e d .In Britain, this has taken three forms: structural changeslike re f o rm of the House of Lords or devolution in Wa l e sand Scotland; renewed attention to citizenship, forexample in the school curriculum; and “technical fixes”to improve voting rates. These include e-voting andmaking postal votes available on demand. Much lessattention has been paid to helping people become fullercitizens through discussing and influencing issues thatthey care about.

Many of the reforms needed have been covered in the lastfive chapters and involve reasonably straightforwardchanges in policy. Greater use of referenda is one – inparticular greater use of the binding, as opposed to themerely advisory, referendum. Complementing this would bea right of citizens’ initiative as practised in Switzerland –giving citizens the right not only to initiate referenda butthe right to challenge agencies to initiate some of thedeliberative processes already outlined.

The New Economics Foundation, for example, has trialleda democratic “game” called Democs – standing for“deliberative meetings organised by citizens” and describedlater in this chapter. Citizens should be able to challengeagencies to hold Democs.

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We also need to create a policy environment that favoursp a rticipation. Why should citizens not be re w a rded for beingactive democrats? One exciting possibility is through time-banks, which enable people to “bank” credits they re c e i v efor sharing their skills and offering services: one time cre d i tis equal to one hour of help, whatever the activity. Thesec redits are then exchanged for the skills and services neededf rom other participants. Gardening, befriending, DIY andl e a rning new skills are popular activities within most timebanks.(Only time actually changes hands).

There are now 35 time banks operating in the UK, withmany more sprouting in housing associations, communitycentres, schools, libraries, regeneration initiatives, localauthorities and health centres. They offer a whole new wayof revitalising local participatory democracy, by recognisingpeople’s involvement. In Watford, for example, the councilused time banking to “repay” older residents for theiradvice on its recycling services – their rewards included afree local authority leisure card.

Rewards could also be financial. A citizens’ income, forexample, would recognise our responsibilities as citizens.The French idea of an income d’insertion, or participationincome, involves paying a basic income to all citizensactively participating in a “worthwhile” way in society. Oneway of implementing it would be extending the workingfamilies’ tax credit to all citizens participating in caringactivities, a community group or a self-help group workingfor the good of the community.

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R e w a rds should go not merely to individuals but tof o rw a rd-looking agencies and institutions. We want toencourage more local authorities to behave like MiltonKeynes. A simple way of achieving this would be to tie ap ro p o rtion of central government allocations to localg o v e rnment to improvements in the voting rate. Another isbetter indicators of the quality of democracy. As a society,we are bad at measuring genuine quality of life, re l y i n galmost exclusively on (inaccurate) financial measures suchas GNP. The government recently answered such criticismsby introducing new “official” criteria to measuresustainable development. If we are serious abouti m p roving the health of democracy, we should take itspulse regularly – for example, monitoring , thro u g hregular opinion polls, the level of trust citizens have in govern m e n t .

More broadly, the citizenship agenda has to be deepenedand extended – into areas sighted but not yet fully charted.First, this requires a revaluation of the roles of “politicians”and “people”. Giving newly “relegated” backbenchcouncillors a role in boosting participation has already beenmentioned. But politicians need to learn, in practice, how totrust the people. More public positions – on the boards ofschools and hospitals, for example – should be chosen bylot. This was one of the cornerstones of Atheniandemocracy, expressing both the involvement of ordinarypeople and the “deprofessionalisation” of politics.Citizenship also needs to be developed far more in schools.Opinion-forming deliberative games such as Democs could

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Breaking the Mould

be particularly useful in enabling children to decide onissues that matter to them – the dinner rota or after-schoolactivities, for example.

One should include the media in this search for a moregrown-up democracy, since in many people’s eyes they areone of the chief culprits for the dumbing-down ofcontemporary politics. Ed Fouhy, director of the PewCenter for Civic Journalism in the US, is by no means alonein his opinion that the media generally “exhibit theattention span of a hummingbird.”

Civic journalism, now developing in the US, is onepromising avenue out of the sound-bite culture. A typicalexample is The Ledgerer-Enquirer, the local newspaper ofColumbus, a small town in the state of Georgia. In 1988 itpublished an eight-part series on the town’s problems andopportunities on the theme “Columbus: Beyond 2000”. The response was a vast collective yawn. In the words ofthe political scientist James Fishkin, “the community had agovernment but it lacked politics, in the sense of a politicsbased on citizen engagement and serious dialogue betweencitizens and leaders”.

The paper’s own response was to organise a town meeting.This helped launch a new organisation, United Beyond2000. The next stage was the establishment of a volunteertask force. Finally a new strategic plan for Columbus wasgenerated.

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Another local newspaper in the US, the Charlotte Observer,organised fora that brought readers face to face withcandidates for the governorship and the presidency. In anattempt to shape its own coverage to reflect voters’interests, the paper held an opinion poll and also conveneda panel of 500 people to form a “citizens’ agenda”. This guided coverage of six issues during the 1992campaign. One journalist commented: “We weren’t just a newspaper any more, we were the electorate.” When itran stories on inner city crime, it pledged to stick with thestory for at least a year and to work with neighbourhoodsto find solutions.

A key issue for democracy is the environmental agenda,which demands that we recognise both nature and futuregenerations – those who will inhabit the world that weleave – as stakeholders. Currently unre p resented, theyneed people to speak for them in the present. Mechanismsfor achieving this are beginning to emerge. They includethe Council of All Beings, developed by John Seed andJoanna Macy, and the UK Council for Posterity, launchedin 1990, which aims to provide legal re p resentation forthe interests of future generations. Intere s t i n g l y, suchdevelopments coincide with the growth of the intern e t ,which is giving many people the experience ofexperimenting with identities not their own. Anotherrecent proposal, from the Chilean lawyer Godofre d oStutzin, writing in R e s u rg e n c e magazine, is that Nature berecognised as a legal entity.

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Breaking the Mould

Finally, new forms are needed, through which people canexperience the maturer processes of democracy long sinceceded to their representatives. The preferendum, alreadymentioned, involves both deliberation and the search forconsensus. Some of these forms are bound to beexperimental. Cafe Society, for example, launched withChannel 4, encouraged people to reserve a table in a bar orrestaurant every so often, announce a topic, and debate itwith all-comers. As already noted, a genuinely activedemocracy involves discussions that have influence – thatfeed into decisions. But new structures should encouragedeliberation. In that sense, the recent Home Office proposalto support Speakers’ Corners is a retrograde step, sincethese tend to be merely another form of shouting match.

Making “national debates” a reality

Democs, already mentioned, is the most recent experimentwith a new form of democracy. Developed by the NewEconomics Foundation, it is a card game that allowsanyone to play – and at the same time work through anissue of public policy. Democs have been developed on fourissues in genetic research – stem cells, genetic diagnosis,insurance testing and xenotransplantation. Feedbacksuggests that not only do opinions shift considerably duringthe game – as registered in votes at the beginning and at theend – but that participants discover unexpectedly largeareas of consensus.

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Democs have a number of advantages over many of theexperiments already described. The basic game involves upto six or eight people sitting round a table – although therecan be as many tables as there is space. They can beorganised by anyone – individuals, NGOs, agencies – andheld virtually anywhere. Friends might hold one insomebody’s home; they could make a change to quiz nightin the local pub; or they could be part of a public meetingor a Women’s Institute event. They are thus extremelycheap – by contrast, say, with a citizens’ jury, which cancost £20,000. There are clear rules for conversation –designed, for example, to encourage listening, preventinterruptions and stop people feeling awkward aboutdisplaying “ignorance”.

Perhaps as important as anything, they are a kind of game –the facts that form the basis of the discussion are firstcertified as balanced by a neutral body and then“nuggeted” on to cards, which are dealt out to the players.According to various theorists on the role of play incivilisation, including the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga,author of Homo Ludens, games make people feel safe. Theystimulate creativity through the provision of “absolutefreedom within very definite limits.”

This is not the place for a detailed discussion of howDemocs work – references to this are listed at the end of thepocketbook. Nor is it being argued that Democs is the onlyway forward – as these pages have shown, manyalternatives to the current orthodoxy have sprung up in the

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Breaking the Mould

last decade or so. But if politicians are serious when theyuse the terms “national debate” or “public debate” –whether the subject is education or the NHS or the complexscientific and ethical questions raised by the new science ofhuman genetics – then Democs, or something similar, mustplay a part, if we want that debate to be genuinely public.Otherwise, it will merely involve the usual suspects –assorted politicians and pundits with the odd professionalor expert thrown in for good measure – and the rest of uswill remain passive, and resentful, consumers.

It is for these reasons that citizens, as already suggested,should have the right to challenge an agency to convene aDemocs, if the body concerned doesn’t call one itself. Ineither event, the organisation must commit itself on the useit will make of the results. In return, it can negotiate on thequality thresholds it expects – who comes, how themeetings are run and so on. The King’s Fund, for example,has supported citizens’ juries held by health authoritieswhere the authority wished to resolve a choice betweenclearly defined options, each of which – in theory at least –the authority was equally willing to adopt. There must alsobe agreement on content material.

The issues facing mass democracy at the start of the 21stcentury are urgent. If democracy is indeed a conversation,as Dewey remarked, much of the conversation we see incontemporary politics, notably in the House of Commons,is loud, rude, superficial and confrontational. It is not adialogue where people seek the truth but a competition

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where they score points for shouting. Turnout in the 2001general election was at an all-time low of 59 per cent;among younger voters, it was 39 per cent. According to theElectoral Commission’s report, the “single most importantissue” arising from the 2001 election was “the need toaddress, urgently and radically, the decline in publicparticipation.”

In a truly participatory democracy, people would no longer,to repeat Mill’s words, “have their faculties only halfdeveloped”. Society would be more cohesive, less resentful.For this to happen, we need to reinterpret “representation”.MPs and councillors must rethink their jobs – so that theseare less about “taking decisions”, more about enablingcitizens to have their say. Burke, one of the theorists ofrepresentative democracy, also reminds us of how genuinelytrusting societies are created. “To be attached to thesubdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to insociety, is the first principle, the germ, as it were, of publicaffections, “ he wrote. “It is the first link in the series bywhich we proceed toward a love to our country and tomankind.”

Burke’s words are more relevant now than ever. The ideasoutlined in this pocketbook, from Democs to preferenda,undoubtedly involve more than dropping a voting slip in aballot box every few years. Those with a vested interest inmaintaining the status quo – a category which will nodoubt include many of today’s politicians – may even arguethey are unrealistic. But what are the alternatives? A sullen

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Breaking the Mould

and cynical electorate dragooned into the polling station bycompulsory voting? Uninvolved and uninformed voterspressing keys on their computers? Anyone who thinksconsultation is expensive, as the saying goes, should tryconflict. This pocketbook has sought to show that ideas forempowering people and raising participation are there to begrasped. In other words, we can have an active democracy –if we really want it.

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7 Summary – A Checklistfor Active Democracy

At the opening of a new century, mass democracy is in aparlous state. Issues seem ever more complex, debate isincreasingly polarised, voters – especially young people –have become alienated. In the name of “representation”,power has been centralised and leaders turned intoautocrats. Turnout in the 2001 UK general election was atan all-time low of 59 per cent. According to the ElectoralCommission, the single most important issue arising fromthe 2001 election was the need to address, “urgently andradically”, the decline in public participation

Active democracy improves decision-making, generatespolicies that have public support and makes for a cohesivesociety. A Swiss study found that involvement by people ingovernment decision-making made them significantlyhappier. Local authorities that make genuine attempts toconsult voters get faster decisions and more commitment byvoters in return. Examples include Milton Keynes council,which implemented the results of a referendum it held oncouncil tax levels.

A range of initiatives have been taken over the last 10–15years to involve citizens in deliberation, opinion-formingand consensual decision making. They include consensus

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voting, National Issues Forums, Choices, citizens’ juries,deliberative polling and the preferendum. These are mainlydescribed in Chapters 4 and 6. More recently, the NewEconomics Foundation has developed Democs (deliberativemeetings organised by citizens), a cheap, self-organised cardgame aimed at establishing common ground among citizenson controversial issues, and feeding this through intopolitical decisions (see Chapter 6).

It is vital for the future of democracy that such initiatives,and other more established forms like the referendum, arepursued and extended. This would help to give realmeaning to that much-used but little-understood term“national debate”. Changes could include:

! A right of citizens’ initiative, enabling voters tochallenge agencies and governments to hold referenda,Democs and other forms of citizen deliberation anddecision-making.

! Agreements under which agencies agree to abide by theresults of such citizen deliberations. Referenda should bemade binding rather than advisory.

! Refining forms of referendum such as the preferendum(explained in Chapter 4) that enhance genuinedeliberation and the search for consensus.

We also need more radical innovations to meet the newchallenges of democracy. These include:

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! Rewarding citizens for their participation in democracy.Ways of doing this range from time-banking, in whichpeople exchange debits and credits in the form ofvolunteer hours worked, to the straightforward financialpayment by the State of a “participation income,”administered through the working families’ tax credit.(see Chapter 6).

! A “participation grant” to progressive local authorities– achieved through an annual set-aside in centralgovernment’s allocation to councils that is conditionalupon improvements in local voting rates.

! New Government-backed indicators of democratichealth and participation levels to complement thoserecently adopted for sustainable development. Onepossibility is a regular opinion survey measuring levelsof trust between citizens and government.

! Giving rights and voices to nature and to futuregenerations, for example through innovations such asthe Council of All Beings and the Council for Posterity.

! Filling positions on public bodies from members of thepublic, chosen by lot.

These proposals are discussed in more depth in Chapter 6.More generally, we need to extend the processes ofparticipation into new areas and rethink its relationship torepresentation.

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Summary

Changes in this area include:

! Recasting the role of “backbench” councillors, ofteneffectively powerless because of the growth of cabinetGovernment. Their job should increasingly be tofacilitate and enable citizen involvement.

! Developing citizenship in schools through “games” suchas Democs built around practical decision-makingprojects for children.

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Acknowledgements

The New Economics Foundation is grateful for the assistance received to develop Democs from the Wellcome Foundation (grant number 065282).

InterAct is an alliance of practitioners, researchers, writers and policymakers committed to putting effective deliberative, participatory andco-operative approaches at the heart of debate and decision-makingin the UK. More details at www.interactweb.org.uk

Many thanks for highly perceptive comments go to: Richard Adam;Lorna Ahl; Jeff Bishop; Lindsey Colbourne; James Derounian; Kate Gant; John Jopling; Yung Lie; Marilyn Mehlmann; David Nicholson-Lord; Geoff Snelson; and Alastair Wyllie.

I also thank my colleagues at NEF, past and present, for their insights, especially: Sarah Burns; Julie Lewis; Sanjiv Lingayah; Alex McGillivray; Ed Mayo; Florian Sommer; and Andrea Westall.

Sources and ReferencesMore details on Democs are available on the NEF website atwww.neweconomics.org.

Perry Walker can be contacted at [email protected].

NEF’s briefing on Democs, A Better Democracy is on the Cards, canbe downloaded from the website.

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The NEF Pocketbooks

NEF’s Pocketbook series was launched in May 2000 with the aim ofgenerating ideas, stimulating debate and pencilling in newpossibilities on the social and political agenda. They combine thevirtues of a book and a good newspaper article – an incisive read onan important contemporary issue in a handy pocket-sized format, longenough to provide genuine insight into a subject but short enough tobe read on a train or tube journey. Their scope, focus and formatmakes them a highly distinctive source of radical thinking – big ideasfor small pockets.

Already published in the Pocketbook series:

Why London Needs Its Own Currency, by David Boyle (2000). NEF Pocketbook 1, ISBN 1 899407 278

Have we got our currencies wrong? Does a “one size fits all” currencylike the pound, or even the Euro, condemn large sections of society toexclusion and hopelessness? Alternative currency expert David Boyle,author of Funny Money, argues that the new London governmentshould set up its own parallel currency – the Thames.

The Case for Community Banking, by Derek French (2000). NEF Pocketbook 2, ISBN 1 899407 308

With the Government’s proposal for a universal bank in disarray, thispocketbook sets out a practical alternative – a network of communitybanks that can fight financial exclusion in beleaguered urban and rural neighbourhoods

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Stakes not Shares: Curbing the Power of the Corporations, by Roger Cowe (2001). NEF Pocketbook 3, ISBN 1 899407 359

Big business has never had such power over our lives as it has today,and yet has never been run with so little regard for democracy.Guardian writer Roger Cowe says a “New Model Company” isrequired, putting the needs of communities, staff, customers and theenvironment on an equal footing with those of shareholders.

An Environmental War Economy: The Lessons of Ecological Debt andGlobal Warming, by Andrew Simms (2001). NEF Pocketbook 4, ISBN 1 899407 391

Climate change threatens to overwhelm the planet’s life supportsystems yet we have failed to respond to its challenge. Writer andcampaigner Andrew Simms points to the wartime experience ofreducing waste and conserving resources as an example of how thedeveloped world could start paying off its environmental debt to theplanet.

The Mutual State: How Local Communities Can Run Public Serv i c e s, by Ed Mayo and Henrietta Moore (2001) NEF Pocketbook 5, ISBN 1 899407 405

Ed Mayo is executive director of the New Economics Foundation andHenrietta Moore is professor of social anthropology at the LondonSchool of Economics. The authors set out a radical agenda for publicservice reform, looking at the scope for citizens’ involvement inmutual/non-profit social enterprises.

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A New Way to Govern: Organisations and society after Enron, byShann Turnbull (2002). NEF Pocketbook 6, ISBN 1 899407 480

The business world, and the Stock Markets, have been rocked by thescandals surrounding the collapse of Enron and WorldCom. ShannTurnbull, a leading business practitioner as well as an academic,makes the case for a new “ecological” approach to the running oforganisations, based on self-regulation, decentralisation andstakeholder involvement.

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NEF Campaigns and Programmes

Democracy

NEF’s work on democracy aims to “create and develop newdemocratic space in which citizens can operate to influence bothpolitical decision-making and the quality of their own lives”. The themeof democracy underpins all NEF’s work. In addition NEF has adedicated democracy programme.

NEF’s democracy programme works with local, national and regionalgovernment, with charitable trusts, with business in the UK and abroadand with citizens in local communities. The programme offers:

! New ideas for democracy.

! Participative evaluation of projects and programmes, such as theProve It! model.

! Development and application of tools to build local democracy.

! Facilitation and training.

! Report writing and production of handbooks and resourcematerials.

! Mentoring, advice and consultancy.

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Democracy projects from NEF include:

! A new core programme – democratic space – to develop bignew ideas and practice in democracy.

! Work with behavioural economists to explore the willingness ofcitizens to participate in civic activity.

! Anti-Apathy – bi-monthly events run by Cyndi Rhoades to explorebig issuesincluding democracy, progress and security, throughwords, music, film and discussion.

! Events on democratic innovation at the Institute of ContemporaryArts (ICA) in London.

! Further development of Democs – NEF’s game for democracy.

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NEF’s Publications PackageThis package, popular with hundreds of individuals, libraries andpolicy and research groups, costs £95 a year. It incorporates NEF’saward-winning monthly newspaper Radical Economics, plus at leastfour pocketbooks and six in-depth research and policy reports - asaving of over 30%, posted to arrive on publication day. It is an idealway of keeping up with the important and fast-moving debates onissues such as social exclusion, local enterprise, community self-help,globalisation and the green economy.

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Democracy, by general consent, is in a parlous state.Fewer people are voting or joining political parties,cynicism and alienation are widespread, debate ispolarised, governments are perceived as in thrall topowerful interests. According to the UK’s ElectoralCommission, the single most important issue arisingfrom the 2001 election was the need to address“urgently and radically” the decline in publicparticipation.

As Perry Walker shows in this latest NEF pocketbook,it doesn’t have to be this way. The last decade hasseen a host of new initiatives aimed at giving people avoice as well as a vote – and thus of rejuvenatingdemocracy where it matters, at the grassroots. The“constitutional reform” programme has largelyignored them – possibly because they involve a radicalhandover of power back to the people. But agenuinely participatory democracy not only offers theprospect of more efficient government and moremeaningful “national debates”. As the evidencedemonstrates, it makes people happier too.

Perry Walker is development director of thedemocracy programme at the New EconomicsFoundation and a member of InterAct, theparticipation network. He has also worked for thecivil service and the John Lewis Partnership.

The New Economics Foundation is the leadingindependent think-tank involved in the developmentof a fairer and more sustainable economy.

NEF Pocketbook 7

Price: £4.99

A NEFP o c k e t b oo kA NEFP o c k e t b oo k


Perry Walker


We, The We, The People · democracy is failing. We can also cite many examples of fre s h a p p...

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Transcript of We, The We, The People · democracy is failing. We can also cite many examples of fre s h a p p...