Tab What problems can deliberative democracy address? Guide 3

There are many problems with contemporary democracies. Deliberative democracy cannot address all of them (for example, problems with electoral systems, corruption, jurisdiction boundaries and relationships between levels of government, human rights). But there are some problems that it is ideally positioned to address.

These stand out:

Gridlock - The most difficult decisions are not made.

There is a lack of meaningful participation for the public between elections.

Public decisions are highly sensitive to public opinion, but not to public judgment.

Representation - Decision making bodies are not very representative of the public.

In many countries, there is a troubling degree of polarization.

Public trust in democracy is low, and declining.

This guidebook is designed to address these problems. In order to do so, three critical aspects of political systems are worthy of note:

a

How participants are selected

b

What kind of conversation they engage in

c

How they make decisions

Let’s take each of those in turn.

a.

How to select the people who decide?

One of the most basic questions in the design of political systems is “Who decides?” If you unpack that question a little, you get something like this – How to select the people who set agendas, develop proposals, and make decisions?

There are three well-known answers:

Elections

Appointment

Self-selection

(an open invitation to anyone who wants to participate)

These methods have some serious limitations

You get a group that isn’t very representative of the public.
You get a group that is less diverse in their perspectives than the public is (and diversity of perspectives is an important factor in good problem solving).
You get people who are more interested in “winning” than in solving problems for the benefit of the public.
You get people who “owe things” to the people who helped them get elected or appointed.
If you have a lot of money and power, it is very possible to influence who is selected.

b.

What kind of conversation they engage in

The well-known modes are:

Debate

Negotiation and bargaining

Opinion giving

(surveys and polling, and typical public meeting process where many people speak, but there is no collaborative problem solving)

What are the problems with these answers?

Debate

Participants are trying to win against others, rather than solve problems with others. In a debate, it is very difficult for participants to recognize value in anything the “other side” says, or to question their pre-formulated proposals.

Negotiation and bargaining

Participants are trying to get as much as they can for their “side.” This often results in taking or conceding extreme positions.

Opinion giving

People say what they think, but they are not necessarily listening to others with open minds - let alone working with others to come up with something new that no one could have come up with by themselves.

What’s missing is open-minded, informed, collaborative problem solving.

c.

How they make decisions

There are three well-known answers:

Voting

Consensus

What are the problems with these answers?

Voting

The “object of the game” is “to win the vote” rather than “to come up with a solution that works well for everyone - or as reasonably close to that as we can get.” (half a population or more could be left unsatisfied)

Consensus

The process is time consuming, and almost impossible when dealing with highly contentious issues. A very small group, or even one person, can derail the whole process.

What’s missing are processes that stimulate critical thinking, explore all possibilities, and allocate sufficient time to analyze and learn together, before working towards a rough consensus that will come as close as possible, given time and resource constraints, to the ideal of a solution that everyone can support.