It is not uncommon to hear phrases such as ‘we must defend democracy’, ‘that is undemocratic’, or ‘democracy is not good enough’, but how often are people clear about what they mean by ‘democracy’?
‘Democracy’ means many things – a multi-party electoral system; majority rule; power sharing amongst all citizens; accountable government; participatory decision-making; equality of political status; one person, one vote; every vote carrying the same electoral weight. When some want to promote democracy, and others lament its shortcomings, they might not so much be contradicting each other as talking about quite different forms of governance.
What is distinctive about communitarian democracy is that it addresses the vulnerabilities of relatively superficial forms of electoral politics, and formulates requirements which would maximise the equal and deliberative input of all members of society in shaping how they are governed.
It has three main components, and each of these has three conditions, giving a total of nine requirements to meet to secure effective democratic governance:
[A] TOGETHERNESS: citizens should be connected through a sense of mutual responsibility; they need to recognise each other as interdependent members of society with common concerns.
[1] Shared Mission:
Solidarity should be cultivated by facilitating people in developing a practical understanding of what they seek together – such as the pursuit of security, the improvement of living conditions, or other objectives that matter to everyone.
[2] Mutual Respect:
There can be little trust in any collective decision-making arrangements if certain groups and individuals are discriminated against. Mutual respect must be taught and safeguarded against exclusionary tactics such as targeted insult and intimidation, or the promotion of racial or cultural divisiveness.
[3] Coherent Membership:
Responsive governance needs those under its jurisdiction to understand and appreciate why they benefit from that common jurisdiction. Citizenship should be grounded on the awareness of their rights and responsibilities, and the conditions for bringing in new members as well as the criteria for suspending membership terms.
[B] OBJECTIVITY:citizens should be able to reason and judge through cooperative enquiry; their deliberations must be protected by safeguards for impartiality and enforcement against deception.
[4] Collaborative Learning:
To steer clear of both the autocracy imposed by some know-it-all and the anarchy of perpetual disputes, we need cultural and organisational arrangements to advance extensive collaborative learning to build a shared and dependable knowledge base.
[5] Critical Re-examination:
A system of critical re-examination, that will review ideas in the light of the evidence and cogent arguments, is needed to minimise the likelihood of people stepping back from reasoned deliberations with others, or holding their own views as unquestionable for all time.
[6] Responsible Communication:
Reliable governance calls for safeguards against irresponsible communication which might otherwise undermine objective deliberations and cast a shadow over the prospect of citizens attaining a shared understanding of what they should do as a group.
[C] POWER BALANCE:collective decisions should be made on the basis of citizen participation; arrangements and reforms are needed to enable citizens to have an equal say in shaping public policies.
[7] Participatory Decision-Making:
Inclusive governance requires the adoption of tried and tested participatory practices that make it possible for citizens to engage deliberatively in a wider range of pubic decisions, and give everyone a fair share of influence so that none may come to dominate others.
[8] Civic Parity:
There should be no unbridgeable gulf between the influence different groups of citizens can bring to bear on the rules and practices that affect them all, and this necessitates limits on inequalities in wealth, political connections, and social status.
[9] Public Accountability:
Collective self-governance requires a distribution of power that will enable any given group to hold to account anyone in that group whose actions impact on the lives of others. This needs to be sustained by an effective system of public accountability.
Instead of defending or denigrating ‘democracy’ when it merely refers to some superficial form of electoral system, we should focus our energy on developing the kind of governance that we really need as a society – that of communitarian democracy.
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For a detailed exposition of communitarian democracy, see Time to Save Democracy: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/time-to-save-democracy
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