Deliberative democracy: gloves are off
Deliberative democracy is a simple idea. Get a diverse microcosm of the population into a room to nut out a difficult political problem in a rational and civil manner. Then get the public to trust their recommendation and political leaders to implement it. That’s governance by and for the people.
Peace is a simple idea. Get populations to march in great numbers to end war. Promote non-violence. Get the warring leaders to negotiate a treaty. Live happily ever after.
What’s wrong with these two fairy stories? They depend on the best in people but are unable to defend against the worst. They assume everyone would rather be rational, ethical and involved. Not.
If they know of it at all, many political leaders don’t like deliberative democracy. They think that decision-making is a lot easier with less people involved. Elections are all we need to give a deserving elite absolute power for a short time. Accountability means saying only as much as you have to, which is a lot easier when the media are in cahoots.
In British Columbia, citizens have been unsatisfied for decades about how political parties can gain a majority of legislative seats on a low percentage of the popular vote. Representation by minority parties was rare.
Finally, a government got talked into commissioning a Citizens’ Assembly to study the situation. After eight months, the Assembly recommended switching to Single Transferable Vote (STV) electoral system, which involves multi-member electorates and preferential voting.
None of the political parties which held seats on government endorsed it. The unelected Green Party did. That’s because STV would fix that imbalance.
The recommendation went to referendum in 2005 and came within a breath of passing. They just ran the referendum again, but it failed miserably.
Elections BC, the agency that runs the election, was given a mere $6m to inform the public. It had absolutely no impact.
The NO campaign came out strongly, especially in the last two weeks. It was well-funded by the same corporate sponsors who fund political parties. They flooded the TV and newspapers with ads that were completely misleading.
The campaign managers were experienced political operators. Their job was to manipulate public opinion. This is the real enemy of deliberative democracy.
They claimed that STV reduces female representation in government, which is a completely groundless and ridiculous claim. But women were left fearful.
They claimed that under STV governments can’t govern. What they mean is that they can’t govern absolutely, without negotiation against values that satisfy all citizens, not just the few who support the leading party. We can’t have too much democracy, can we now.
They said STV was too complex. But how hard is it to put a 1 on a ballot? Preferential ranking was optional. The desirability of making all votes count is unchallenged. The complexity is handled by a computer. Claims that the count could be tampered with are stupid and offensive.
They claimed that the larger constituencies make government inaccessible. But with multi-member constituencies, you have a better chance of having representation that matches your political view. And they only need to be as far away as the telephone or computer! But rural voters didn’t get that.
They claimed that the existing system was the best. The No campaign say the public are better informed now. No, they are more misinformed and propagandised than ever. Shame, shame, shame.
And this last claim is the most serious, because the Yes campaign did not provide an adequate response to the onslaught.
Nowhere was the Citizens’ Assembly and what it represents to democracy in British Columbia (and elsewhere) celebrated.
They worked out the pros and cons of all the electoral system options, including sticking with the incumbent system. With 160 of them from all corners of the province, with equal male and female representation, you’d have to know that they canvassed all the issues.
The Citizens’ Assembly were ordinary people who rose to the occasion and demonstrated that deliberative processes work well. There is plenty of evidence that their work was sufficiently independent, competent and legitimate. They earned the public trust.
Many voters did not know what the Citizens’ Assembly was. Inevitably, disconnected conservatives would think that it was a collectivist conspiracy. Run for your lives!
Where was the campaign to promote the value and safety of their work? Where was the campaign to trust their prudent judgement rather than the grubby agendas of party apparatchiks, corporate lobbyists and compromised media?
The activists behind deliberative democracy know they live in an imperfect world. But they can no longer be nice about improving it. The gloves must come off.
And the people supporting the Yes campaign were all rather too nice, weren’t they? They needed to come out fighting from the start. They should have launched a pre-emptive strike to mute the fear that the No’s would raise.
Deliberative democrats and others who seek to make democracy more democratic have to promote their cause by very non-deliberative means. They have to be aggressive and bloody-minded about it.
They have to enter the noisy and hostile political cage to get rid of it. They have to spear the interests of power that cling to the status quo for their own benefit.
The meek will never inherit anything.
Image credit: Ester17 via FlickR
Published under a Creative Commons License
