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Direct democracy has had a bad name in the US ever since our founding, but the history of direct democracy (e.g. ancient Athens) that our founders had access to, turns out to have been somewhat inaccurate (and direct democracy was more functional than previously realized).
But similar to the way we define (mischaracterize) socialism in this country (as anything that involves the state), we also wrongly define direct democracy. For instance, in NYC (where I live) one time mayor Lindsey attempted to make our democracy more direct and participatory. He did this by creating community and school boards. However, members of the school boards were caught taking bribes from unscrupulous school principles, and eventually the system was scrapped.
But at no time was this system in fact characteristic of a direct democracy. Citizens of the communities these boards claimed to represent were not able to vote on the issues, they had no appreciable input into the decision making process, and so it was really a variation of representative democracy (just more decentralized than what we have today). Nonetheless, this period gave direct democracy a bad name (and it gives its detractors some red meat to add to their arsenal).
IMO mixing some features of direct democracy into our political system (direct voting on issues at the local level, more referendum voting at the municipal and state level, and the ability to hold recall elections across the board), could potentially be the answer we're looking for (in terms of reducing corruption in our political system). I don't think it's the only thing we need to do (I think we need other ideas as well, like public financing of campaigns), but creating mechanisms and incentives to enhance citizen participation in our democracy, could go a long way to enfranchising marginalized communities and reducing corruption.
Thoughts?
Things that Direct Democracy needs in order to be optimally effective (in no particular order):
1. A highly informed, involved and egalitarian electorate
2. A non-partisan system of government; preferably one where individuals, rather than committees, are voted in to roles
3. Representatives with scrupulously high ethical standards
4. High levels of local executive power with centralised principles and governance
5. Rigorous and ruthlessly executed governance systems with lifetime consequences for transgressors
This list isn't exhaustive but compare it to your current political structure and you can work out how appropriate it would be to put DD in place. I'd suggest that if 1, 3 & 5 aren't there, there's no point at all: self-interest and corruption would all too quickly destabalise the system.
Direct democracy has had a bad name in the US ever since our founding, but the history of direct democracy (e.g. ancient Athens) that our founders had access to, turns out to have been somewhat inaccurate (and direct democracy was more functional than previously realized).
But similar to the way we define (mischaracterize) socialism in this country (as anything that involves the state), we also wrongly define direct democracy. For instance, in NYC (where I live) one time mayor Lindsey attempted to make our democracy more direct and participatory. He did this by creating community and school boards. However, members of the school boards were caught taking bribes from unscrupulous school principles, and eventually the system was scrapped.
But at no time was this system in fact characteristic of a direct democracy. Citizens of the communities these boards claimed to represent were not able to vote on the issues, they had no appreciable input into the decision making process, and so it was really a variation of representative democracy (just more decentralized than what we have today). Nonetheless, this period gave direct democracy a bad name (and it gives its detractors some red meat to add to their arsenal).
IMO mixing some features of direct democracy into our political system (direct voting on issues at the local level, more referendum voting at the municipal and state level, and the ability to hold recall elections across the board), could potentially be the answer we're looking for (in terms of reducing corruption in our political system). I don't think it's the only thing we need to do (I think we need other ideas as well, like public financing of campaigns), but creating mechanisms and incentives to enhance citizen participation in our democracy, could go a long way to enfranchising marginalized communities and reducing corruption.
Thoughts?
Things that Direct Democracy needs in order to be optimally effective (in no particular order):
1. A highly informed, involved and egalitarian electorate
2. A non-partisan system of government; preferably one where individuals, rather than committees, are voted in to roles
3. Representatives with scrupulously high ethical standards
4. High levels of local executive power with centralised principles and governance
5. Rigorous and ruthlessly executed governance systems with lifetime consequences for transgressors
This list isn't exhaustive but compare it to your current political structure and you can work out how appropriate it would be to put DD in place. I'd suggest that if 1, 3 & 5 aren't there, there's no point at all: self-interest and corruption would all too quickly destabalise the system.
"representatives" would be contrary to direct democracy, although you could have a system of delegates (and in most DD systems, delegates are usually rotated in and out, they're not elected ... every citizen would have an obligation to be a delegate at some point, much like we have a jury duty obligation).
But in a hybrid system, I suppose we could have some aspects of both representative and direct democracy (which may be the most functional of all the alternatives).
There's many problems inherent in both representative and direct democracy, and to date, I'm not aware of any advanced society that has been able to find the perfect mix. So IMO I think we need experimentation (but it takes a lot of work and activism just to get the space and resources needed to experiment).
I will never be a fan of mob rule by vote. Considering the history of slavery, sexism and homophobia in America, the idea that the voters should have absolute power vile. Voting is certainly part of an open system, but no part of government, including voters should be given absolute power.
May 22, 2015 at 7:28 pm (This post was last modified: May 22, 2015 at 7:42 pm by nihilistcat.)
(May 22, 2015 at 4:53 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I'd want to see the studies, naturally. I'm unsure how one would test whether a decision is 'better'.
I have this study in pdf on my computer (but I had to purchase it). I have more on my computer as well, but this is probably the most rigorous study I've seen on this topic. It has a pretty good sample size, and its methodology was really good as well.
There's lots of ways to measure this. For example, in the context of corporate decision making, you can look at the byproduct of decision making (a marketing campaign, a new product, reorganization of back office functions, whatever) and you can track the outcomes very precisely.
But you do raise an interesting point. Sure, a clerk in the group may say we need to do X this way to shorten the red tape involved, but do we consider that "advisement" or participation in the decision making process? The way this study approached this question is they looked at "consensus" decision making. In other words, all group members had to agree on the final decision (consequently, even the least qualified group member could block a decision and force the group to address his/her issue). However, to what extent does less tangible cues influence group members? For example, is there a tendency to follow the most qualified and highest ranking group member? But this is actually pretty easy to determine with simple statistics, so I think these studies are valuable and so I think there is merit to the idea of group decision making, but again, this study was done in the context of corporate decision making (and so its results are limited to that context, and I'm not sure to what extent we can extrapolate more broad based conclusions from this study)?
(May 22, 2015 at 7:15 pm)francismjenkins Wrote: "representatives" would be contrary to direct democracy, although you could have a system of delegates (and in most DD systems, delegates are usually rotated in and out, they're not elected ... every citizen would have an obligation to be a delegate at some point, much like we have a jury duty obligation).
Sorry, I used the wrong word: 'delegates' is right. The problem I was trying to highlight is that delegate-self-interest can cause corruption
Quote:But in a hybrid system, I suppose we could have some aspects of both representative and direct democracy (which may be the most functional of all the alternatives).
Sorry, I sent you off down the garden path: I'm not talking about a hybrid system, I'm talking about a system where 'all interested parties' take a democratic group decision on 'everything' and then a sub-set of that group act on the decision. That's what I understand as 'direct democracy'.
Quote:There's many problems inherent in both representative and direct democracy, and to date, I'm not aware of any advanced society that has been able to find the perfect mix. So IMO I think we need experimentation (but it takes a lot of work and activism just to get the space and resources needed to experiment).
I agree, sort of. I would prefer to hold off until we've managed to get more of 1, 3 & 5. In the meantime, maybe some of the more socio-politically progressive nations might take that sort of step and provide some well needed R&D.