Changing Democracy

Most of my work and wonderings over the last 45 years has focussed on the ‘community realm’—the world of interpersonal relationships, rather than the ‘societal’ realm—the world of (still interdependent) strangers. Both realms, of course, are profoundly important to our well-being. But while community stands or falls on the quality of inter-personal relationships, society stands or falls on more formal structures and systems, and is dependent on good government.

Recently, like so many of us, I’ve become disturbed by our democracy’s incapacity to address the very real and growing crises that we are facing as a nation and a planet, and have turned my attention to what might be done to change that. It’s easy, but lazy, to simply blame politicians; to believe that if we just voted for the right people, everything would work out fine.  But, through my reading and reflection I’ve stumbled upon the troubling assertion that electoral democracy itself—this sacred cow of western governments—is actually the root of the problem. I’m increasingly certain that we need to find different ways of selecting and supporting our political leaders. And it turns out that democratic thinkers have been trying to tell us this for millennia; often proposing ‘sortition’ (the process we use to select juries) rather than election as our method of constructing democratic governments. (See, for example, ‘Against Elections—the Case for Democracy’ by David Van Reybrouck)

‘Elections’ and ‘democracy’ are so enmeshed in our minds that a proposal to stop elections sounds like a call for tyranny or chaos. But, in fact, it’s a proposal to ensure that governments are genuinely representative, and that they can invest their full energy in governing for the common good, rather than trying to ‘win’ the favour of an easily misinformed and distracted electorate.

“So this paper is a thought experiment… can we imagine a new system of democracy that preserves our freedom and safety, but enables governments to make the rational and often dramatic decisions that will be needed to address the climate and environmental crisis, the rapidly changing and unstable world order, and the rise of AI as a dominant force?

Here’s my attempt. It’s only of any relevance if you, dear reader, critique it, and offer your own thoughts on how we might either update or replace our current system.  My hope is that we move from impotent complaint about our current system, to imagining—and debating—what a better system might look like.” 

If you have any thoughts about all this, I’d love to hear them via the ‘comments’, or by email to tim@csdnetwork.com.au

Re-thinking Democracy - 12.pdf