The final set of issues covered by the general theory of responsibility relate to the influence we have over the decisions made by others that can affect how we live. Just as we would not want to have no influence over others’ choice of action when that can impact on us, we should not leave others with no influence over our choice of action that can impact on them.
Citizen Participation: our decision-making involving each other
People’s responsibility can be diminished to the extent their influence over a course of action is reduced. Beyond matters of which individuals are fully in control themselves, there are many activities in society that involve others by design, accident, or unwelcome interference. It is not uncommon that out of impatience, excessive certitude, or low regard for the perspectives of others, some people make decisions without those affected ever getting a chance to have a say about them. This can happen in the context of any social group, from a neighbourhood, workplace, to a region, a country, or the world. If we are to involve one another in the decisions we make, we need to have citizen participation – secured through processes of informed and deliberative engagement. It is why over the course of history, democratic and participatory practices have been found to limit irresponsible behaviour much more than dictatorships or anarchic free-for-all.
The Problem of Imposition
To protect people’s capacity for responsible behaviour, we need to deal with the problem of imposition, which arises when individuals’ options for what to do are cut out by extraneous factors. Imposition can range from physical forces that cause involuntary movement and thus nullify responsibility completely; to interference such as duress that presents immoral options as alternatives to more painful outcome, which may not take away a person’s responsibility (even though in cases where the threatened pain is severe, the person’s actions may be forgiven). It may also come in the form of internal mental pressure, which can remove responsibility if it is truly irresistible in the sense that a person makes demonstrable yet unsuccessful efforts in rejecting it, but not if the person actually embraces the obsession/addiction as an integral part of their identity. Attempts to tackle the problem of imposition must also navigate the arguments deployed by those such as philosophical determinists who maintain that there is no such thing as responsibility since everyone’s behaviour is ultimately determined by a chain of causes that go back before a person’s birth; sincere or devious advocates who insist the weakness of will exhibited in any blameworthy action is sufficient to deny responsibility for it; and well-off reactionaries who want to impose impoverished life choices on others and hold that the poor and powerless must take full responsibility for how they live.
Volitional Thoughtfulness
We need to cultivate volitional thoughtfulness in people so that they can reflect on the choices they make, learn to have greater control over their thoughts and desires, and engage more effectively others who may be affected by their decisions as they would want to be engaged by others who make decisions that affect them. There should be better understanding of subsidiarity – regarding how decisions are best taken at the most local level except for when it has to be passed to an authority with wider jurisdiction and greater capacity because otherwise no decision can be effectively made or carried out. People should also learn about when decisions need to be delegated to others to take on the role of formulating a collective response, and how they can maintain real influence over their decisions.
Power Balance as a Socio-Political Goal
Responsibility is sustained by mutual consideration, and we need to reduce power inequalities in society if it is to flourish. We must promote power balance across communities by means of: [a] the development of more effective participatory decision-making, with better utilisation of tried and tested participatory approaches, so as to raise people’s understanding of and influence over decisions that can affect how they live, and improve the chances of all decision-makers going with the most responsible options; [b] the securing of greater civic parity, so that wealth and status gaps are reduced, no one is left vulnerable by deficient public safety net, and the influence of money over policies and practices is greatly curtailed; and [c] the strengthening of public accountability, so that where we have to entrust decisions to a number of elected or appointed figures (for reasons of efficiency, emergency, or simple feasibility), we can be confident that they will have to seek our views and can be held accountable by us for the decisions they take.
--
For ‘The General Theory of Responsibility (part 1), go to: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html
For ‘The General Theory of Responsibility (part 2), go to: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility_11.html
For an overview of the theory and a guide to further reading, go to: https://hbtam.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html
Thursday, 21 May 2020
Monday, 11 May 2020
The General Theory of Responsibility (part 2)
Let us turn now to the second set of issues that are central to the general theory of responsibility. We have looked at the importance of our concern for each other and what we accordingly need to do. It will be seen that in order to act appropriately on our concern for each other, we also need to be aware what will help or hinder others in practice. To differentiate responsibly between what merits belief or not, we need to be prepared to take account of the reasons and evidence put forward by others, as we would want them to be prepared to take account of the reasons and evidence put forward by us.
Cooperative Enquiry: our reasoning with each other
Human knowledge has been advanced through cooperative enquiry, exemplified by the empirical exchange and examination of information in scientific research, legal due process, and impartial public inquiry. It would clearly be self-defeating if all sides were to throw in groundless declarations or incoherent assertions. Cooperative enquiry requires logical and testable information to be brought together and scrutinised openly to see what stands up best at any given time and thus warrants assent. To act responsibly, we need to ascertain the veracity of conflicting claims, which involves being ready to give defensible reasons, listen and respond, and revise views in the light of verifiable evidence; and this approach requires all sides to engage in a mutually receptive mode of reasoning.
The Problem of Ignorance
Misunderstanding, confusion, deception, lack of information can mean that what people do may have very different effects from what they anticipate. Although it is often said that ignorance is no defence, that is only relevant where there is a clear obligation for people to find out about the implications of certain behaviour before they engage in it (for example, people cannot shrug off responsibility by deliberately not checking if certain activities would break the law when they know they should check; nor can responsibility for any harm resulting from drunken behaviour be bypassed when it is common knowledge how excessive alcohol consumption can lead to injurious actions). In all other situations where ignorance of the relevant facts cannot be avoided or foreseen, responsibility would be nullified. However, efforts to improve our knowledge and understanding will encounter obstacles from, for example, philosophical sceptics/relativists who deny there is any basis for distinguishing truth from falsehood; those who are overwhelmed by irrationality as a result of psychological or physiological damages; or fanatic followers of cults or dogmas who recoil from objective examination of their beliefs.
Cognitive Thoughtfulness
Ignorance can be reduced through the cultivation of cognitive thoughtfulness on two levels. For people who are open to learning, we should ensure education for all ages enhance their understanding of and skills in assessing rival claims and settling disagreement. They should be familiarised with how assertions, from ones about everyday occurrence to those putting forward complex theories, are subject to exchange of observation, evidence and arguments so that they can be accepted provisionally, revised or rejected. Supplementing direct enquiry would be indirect evaluation of claims made by a given authority or expert, based on the latter’s track record in complying with cooperative enquiry. For those whose minds seem closed to cooperative enquiry, we should connect their ‘unquestionable’ assumptions to experiences of events that may lead them to think again. By enabling them to live through what their dogmas or prejudices insist could not possibly happen, they could be brought round to re-examining what they think they ‘know’. Another effective technique is to link their deepest interests to trying out what would in practice achieve them – for example, discovering how science-based medication rather than superstitious rituals help their loved ones recover from serious sickness.
Objectivity as a Socio-Political Goal
Aside from minimising ignorance amongst individuals, there are many societal obstacles to cooperative enquiry that should be tackled. We need to promote objectivity across communities by means of: [a] the teaching and application of collaborative learning in all organisations, so that people working together can discover and appreciate how reliable claims are established through mutual testing and revision; [b] the establishment of systems for critical reviews with trained investigators and evaluators to oversee their operation, so that claims invalidated by new findings can be identified and put aside, while hitherto unaccepted claims can be reassessed as dependable if new evidence or conceptualisation warrants such a change; and [c] the support for responsible communication through the dissemination of up to date information, and the necessary regulation and enforcement to prevent false and deceptive communication that subverts ‘freedom of speech’ into a shield for vicious lies and egregious manipulation.
--
To be continued in ‘The General Theory of Responsibility: (part 3)’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility_21.html.
For ‘The General Theory of Responsibility (part 1)’, go to: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html
For an overview of the theory and a guide to further reading, go to: https://hbtam.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html
Cooperative Enquiry: our reasoning with each other
Human knowledge has been advanced through cooperative enquiry, exemplified by the empirical exchange and examination of information in scientific research, legal due process, and impartial public inquiry. It would clearly be self-defeating if all sides were to throw in groundless declarations or incoherent assertions. Cooperative enquiry requires logical and testable information to be brought together and scrutinised openly to see what stands up best at any given time and thus warrants assent. To act responsibly, we need to ascertain the veracity of conflicting claims, which involves being ready to give defensible reasons, listen and respond, and revise views in the light of verifiable evidence; and this approach requires all sides to engage in a mutually receptive mode of reasoning.
The Problem of Ignorance
Misunderstanding, confusion, deception, lack of information can mean that what people do may have very different effects from what they anticipate. Although it is often said that ignorance is no defence, that is only relevant where there is a clear obligation for people to find out about the implications of certain behaviour before they engage in it (for example, people cannot shrug off responsibility by deliberately not checking if certain activities would break the law when they know they should check; nor can responsibility for any harm resulting from drunken behaviour be bypassed when it is common knowledge how excessive alcohol consumption can lead to injurious actions). In all other situations where ignorance of the relevant facts cannot be avoided or foreseen, responsibility would be nullified. However, efforts to improve our knowledge and understanding will encounter obstacles from, for example, philosophical sceptics/relativists who deny there is any basis for distinguishing truth from falsehood; those who are overwhelmed by irrationality as a result of psychological or physiological damages; or fanatic followers of cults or dogmas who recoil from objective examination of their beliefs.
Cognitive Thoughtfulness
Ignorance can be reduced through the cultivation of cognitive thoughtfulness on two levels. For people who are open to learning, we should ensure education for all ages enhance their understanding of and skills in assessing rival claims and settling disagreement. They should be familiarised with how assertions, from ones about everyday occurrence to those putting forward complex theories, are subject to exchange of observation, evidence and arguments so that they can be accepted provisionally, revised or rejected. Supplementing direct enquiry would be indirect evaluation of claims made by a given authority or expert, based on the latter’s track record in complying with cooperative enquiry. For those whose minds seem closed to cooperative enquiry, we should connect their ‘unquestionable’ assumptions to experiences of events that may lead them to think again. By enabling them to live through what their dogmas or prejudices insist could not possibly happen, they could be brought round to re-examining what they think they ‘know’. Another effective technique is to link their deepest interests to trying out what would in practice achieve them – for example, discovering how science-based medication rather than superstitious rituals help their loved ones recover from serious sickness.
Objectivity as a Socio-Political Goal
Aside from minimising ignorance amongst individuals, there are many societal obstacles to cooperative enquiry that should be tackled. We need to promote objectivity across communities by means of: [a] the teaching and application of collaborative learning in all organisations, so that people working together can discover and appreciate how reliable claims are established through mutual testing and revision; [b] the establishment of systems for critical reviews with trained investigators and evaluators to oversee their operation, so that claims invalidated by new findings can be identified and put aside, while hitherto unaccepted claims can be reassessed as dependable if new evidence or conceptualisation warrants such a change; and [c] the support for responsible communication through the dissemination of up to date information, and the necessary regulation and enforcement to prevent false and deceptive communication that subverts ‘freedom of speech’ into a shield for vicious lies and egregious manipulation.
--
To be continued in ‘The General Theory of Responsibility: (part 3)’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility_21.html.
For ‘The General Theory of Responsibility (part 1)’, go to: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html
For an overview of the theory and a guide to further reading, go to: https://hbtam.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html
Friday, 1 May 2020
The General Theory of Responsibility (part 1)
Why should people take responsibility for how they affect the lives of others? What is the basis for differentiating responsible behaviour from irresponsible ones? And how can society help its members act more responsibly?
According to the general theory of responsibility, these questions can be answered with reference to three interrelated sets of issues:
• Our concern for each other
• Our reasoning with each other
• Our decision-making involving each other
Through looking at these issues and their implications, we will get an overall picture of how responsibility connects in a way that is crucial to advancing our wellbeing. We will begin with the first of these in this essay (and in parts 2 and 3 we will look at the other two sets of issues).
Mutual Responsibility: our concern for each other
Responsibility matters because of our concern for each other. This is not about pure altruism, or about instrumentalist help for others to secure gains for oneself, but essentially about reciprocity – in caring about the wellbeing of others as we would want others to care about our wellbeing. It is embodied in the Golden Rule which, over the course of history, has been found to run through the emergence of the earliest civilisations down to diverse contemporary social structures. It endorses our treatment of others as we would have others treat us, and castigate attitudes and actions that go against this. Mutual responsibility – the recognition that we need to account for how our behaviour may support or hinder each other – is an unmistakable social reality that is at the heart of human existence. People who would pay no heed to how their behaviour might impact on others, could expect others to treat them with similar disregard.
The Problem of Indifference
As concern for others is the foundation of responsibility, its absence leaves us with the first key obstacle to responsible behaviour - indifference. Some people may not feel any concern for others because of their unfortunate upbringing, acquired prejudice, psychological trauma, or some form of pathology. There are also people who reject concern for others on different grounds: for example, philosophical egoists who refuse to accept that we can ever genuinely care about the wellbeing of others; free-riders/exploiters who without hesitation neglect the wellbeing of others when they seek to take advantage of them for their own benefit; or adherents to some extremist doctrine that celebrates apathy or even disdain towards the suffering of others, and leads them to care nothing about how their actions may impact on others. If we allow indifference to persist as a result of any of these factors, we would end up with more people perceiving others as beings whose feelings count for nothing, and hence lack any sense that they should take responsibility for how their behaviour may affect others.
Empathic Thoughtfulness
We cannot solve the problem of indifference by invoking some ‘absolute’ justification for our position. Our sense of mutual responsibility comes from our interpersonal connections with other people. To avoid such connections becoming deficient, we should cultivate empathic thoughtfulness by means of education, social support, and where necessary, rehabilitation. We know from developmental psychology that empathy and a propensity towards mutual concern grow from infancy under normal caring conditions. There are techniques for strengthening these sensibilities, and methods to restore them if they have been depleted. They can enable people to appreciate how others could be/have been hurt by their actions, and reflect on what changes they would want to make in the future. There is no guarantee they would always work, and in cases where we are dealing with those whose irresponsible acts cause harm or pose a dangerous threat to others, then proportionate forms of punitive as well as restorative response may also be required to remind transgressors of the implications of not taking others’ wellbeing into consideration in their behaviour.
Togetherness as a Socio-Political Goal
Beyond dealing with individual cases, there are society-wide challenges to counter the neglect of mutual responsibility. We need to promote togetherness across communities by means of: [a] the development of shared missions, so that people can recognise and appreciate the threats and opportunities they can handle much more effectively by working collaboratively, and learn about practical ways to help achieve common goals; [b] the championing of mutual respect, through formal protection of everyone’s entitlement to dignified treatment, systemic countering of prejudice, and impartial adjudication of complaints against discriminatory acts; and [c] the provision of coherent membership that explains why people are admitted as members, what mutual commitment is entailed by being a member, and the transparent basis on which membership terms may be revoked or restored.
--
To be continued in ‘The General Theory of Responsibility: (part 2)’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility_11.html
For an overview of the theory and a guide to further reading, go to: https://hbtam.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html
According to the general theory of responsibility, these questions can be answered with reference to three interrelated sets of issues:
• Our concern for each other
• Our reasoning with each other
• Our decision-making involving each other
Through looking at these issues and their implications, we will get an overall picture of how responsibility connects in a way that is crucial to advancing our wellbeing. We will begin with the first of these in this essay (and in parts 2 and 3 we will look at the other two sets of issues).
Mutual Responsibility: our concern for each other
Responsibility matters because of our concern for each other. This is not about pure altruism, or about instrumentalist help for others to secure gains for oneself, but essentially about reciprocity – in caring about the wellbeing of others as we would want others to care about our wellbeing. It is embodied in the Golden Rule which, over the course of history, has been found to run through the emergence of the earliest civilisations down to diverse contemporary social structures. It endorses our treatment of others as we would have others treat us, and castigate attitudes and actions that go against this. Mutual responsibility – the recognition that we need to account for how our behaviour may support or hinder each other – is an unmistakable social reality that is at the heart of human existence. People who would pay no heed to how their behaviour might impact on others, could expect others to treat them with similar disregard.
The Problem of Indifference
As concern for others is the foundation of responsibility, its absence leaves us with the first key obstacle to responsible behaviour - indifference. Some people may not feel any concern for others because of their unfortunate upbringing, acquired prejudice, psychological trauma, or some form of pathology. There are also people who reject concern for others on different grounds: for example, philosophical egoists who refuse to accept that we can ever genuinely care about the wellbeing of others; free-riders/exploiters who without hesitation neglect the wellbeing of others when they seek to take advantage of them for their own benefit; or adherents to some extremist doctrine that celebrates apathy or even disdain towards the suffering of others, and leads them to care nothing about how their actions may impact on others. If we allow indifference to persist as a result of any of these factors, we would end up with more people perceiving others as beings whose feelings count for nothing, and hence lack any sense that they should take responsibility for how their behaviour may affect others.
Empathic Thoughtfulness
We cannot solve the problem of indifference by invoking some ‘absolute’ justification for our position. Our sense of mutual responsibility comes from our interpersonal connections with other people. To avoid such connections becoming deficient, we should cultivate empathic thoughtfulness by means of education, social support, and where necessary, rehabilitation. We know from developmental psychology that empathy and a propensity towards mutual concern grow from infancy under normal caring conditions. There are techniques for strengthening these sensibilities, and methods to restore them if they have been depleted. They can enable people to appreciate how others could be/have been hurt by their actions, and reflect on what changes they would want to make in the future. There is no guarantee they would always work, and in cases where we are dealing with those whose irresponsible acts cause harm or pose a dangerous threat to others, then proportionate forms of punitive as well as restorative response may also be required to remind transgressors of the implications of not taking others’ wellbeing into consideration in their behaviour.
Togetherness as a Socio-Political Goal
Beyond dealing with individual cases, there are society-wide challenges to counter the neglect of mutual responsibility. We need to promote togetherness across communities by means of: [a] the development of shared missions, so that people can recognise and appreciate the threats and opportunities they can handle much more effectively by working collaboratively, and learn about practical ways to help achieve common goals; [b] the championing of mutual respect, through formal protection of everyone’s entitlement to dignified treatment, systemic countering of prejudice, and impartial adjudication of complaints against discriminatory acts; and [c] the provision of coherent membership that explains why people are admitted as members, what mutual commitment is entailed by being a member, and the transparent basis on which membership terms may be revoked or restored.
--
To be continued in ‘The General Theory of Responsibility: (part 2)’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility_11.html
For an overview of the theory and a guide to further reading, go to: https://hbtam.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html
Thursday, 16 April 2020
The Impact of Communitarian Empowerment
Communitarian empowerment is about enabling diverse communities to cultivate mutual respect and cooperate at all levels to advance their wellbeing. Some people feel that it is an idealistic aspiration that can have little impact in practice. I would suggest that practical impact is precisely what can be achieved – on a substantial scale.
Let’s take a look at the civil renewal strategy implemented by the UK Labour Government in the 2000s, and the wide-ranging benefits it brought about. The strategy had three core components. First, it promoted wider deployment of good practices in improving state-citizens relationship. This involved setting up the network of Civic Pioneers, investing in the Community Development Foundation, and convening the Councillors Commission, to ensure practical advice and key research findings are widely available, which helped to increase the use of the most effective techniques for community participation, and give citizens more informed control over the decisions that affected them.
Secondly, the strategy channelled support to targeted groups to develop collaborative arrangements on the ground. Actions covered providing help for local authorities and community groups to learn more about using techniques such as participatory budgeting to enable citizens to deliberate together in setting priorities for the use of public funds; setting up Guide Neighbourhoods whereby residents from different parts of the country could learn from neighbourhood groups with a good track record in shaping and improving the public services in their respective localities; creating the Asset Transfer Unit to help communities take over public buildings when they could add greater value in meeting local needs; and advancing Take Part projects which led to diverse citizens and groups bringing their influence to bear on civic matters.
Finally, the strategy ensured there was sustained momentum to learn about and apply empowerment approaches in the development of government policies across the board. Young people were proactively sought to become involved in shaping integrated children services, employment training, and social inclusion initiatives. Older people and people with disabilities were invited to serve as advisors on government policy development groups, so that they could highlight problems that might otherwise be overlooked, and share ideas on workable solutions. The Communities for Health programme was launched to enable local people to set health promotion priorities. Local authorities were given incentives to engage people more widely and effectively in neighbourhood and parish plans, spatial planning framework, and Home Zones (for residential street design). Support was given to engaging local people in ‘myth busting’ campaigns to tackle racism and misinformation. Furthermore, neighbourhood policing was rolled out with a strong focus on seeking community views; while Community Justice Centres were set up with locally based judges who regularly met with the people in the area to discuss their concerns and what might be done differently.
The net impact of the strategy transformed numerous communities, many in the most deprived areas, and raised trust in public services and satisfaction with the local quality of life. After a decade, greater participation went hand in hand with increased confidence in communities’ ability to work with government partners to improve people’s lives. More would have been achieved, but a change of government in 2010 put an end to the civil renewal activities, and sadly, disappointment and alienation began to surface again. Yet we know that if and when the political will is there again, communities can be empowered to thrive once more.
--
NB. This essay is based on my experience as the Head of Civil Renewal in the UK Government during the 2000s.
Let’s take a look at the civil renewal strategy implemented by the UK Labour Government in the 2000s, and the wide-ranging benefits it brought about. The strategy had three core components. First, it promoted wider deployment of good practices in improving state-citizens relationship. This involved setting up the network of Civic Pioneers, investing in the Community Development Foundation, and convening the Councillors Commission, to ensure practical advice and key research findings are widely available, which helped to increase the use of the most effective techniques for community participation, and give citizens more informed control over the decisions that affected them.
Secondly, the strategy channelled support to targeted groups to develop collaborative arrangements on the ground. Actions covered providing help for local authorities and community groups to learn more about using techniques such as participatory budgeting to enable citizens to deliberate together in setting priorities for the use of public funds; setting up Guide Neighbourhoods whereby residents from different parts of the country could learn from neighbourhood groups with a good track record in shaping and improving the public services in their respective localities; creating the Asset Transfer Unit to help communities take over public buildings when they could add greater value in meeting local needs; and advancing Take Part projects which led to diverse citizens and groups bringing their influence to bear on civic matters.
Finally, the strategy ensured there was sustained momentum to learn about and apply empowerment approaches in the development of government policies across the board. Young people were proactively sought to become involved in shaping integrated children services, employment training, and social inclusion initiatives. Older people and people with disabilities were invited to serve as advisors on government policy development groups, so that they could highlight problems that might otherwise be overlooked, and share ideas on workable solutions. The Communities for Health programme was launched to enable local people to set health promotion priorities. Local authorities were given incentives to engage people more widely and effectively in neighbourhood and parish plans, spatial planning framework, and Home Zones (for residential street design). Support was given to engaging local people in ‘myth busting’ campaigns to tackle racism and misinformation. Furthermore, neighbourhood policing was rolled out with a strong focus on seeking community views; while Community Justice Centres were set up with locally based judges who regularly met with the people in the area to discuss their concerns and what might be done differently.
The net impact of the strategy transformed numerous communities, many in the most deprived areas, and raised trust in public services and satisfaction with the local quality of life. After a decade, greater participation went hand in hand with increased confidence in communities’ ability to work with government partners to improve people’s lives. More would have been achieved, but a change of government in 2010 put an end to the civil renewal activities, and sadly, disappointment and alienation began to surface again. Yet we know that if and when the political will is there again, communities can be empowered to thrive once more.
--
NB. This essay is based on my experience as the Head of Civil Renewal in the UK Government during the 2000s.
Wednesday, 1 April 2020
3 Steps to Democratic Consensus
If collective action is to reflect the concerns and informed judgement of all those who will be affected by that action, then it has to be grounded on a high degree of democratic consensus. But how feasible is it to obtain democratic consensus when people’s views seem to be becoming more polarised in society?
What needs to be recognised is that polarisation is not inevitable. And agreement cannot be guaranteed either. Any group seeking to reach a common understanding on what they should do, require a systematic approach, which is encapsulated by the following T.O.P. tips:
Togetherness
Objectivity
Power Balance
TOGETHERNESS
Democracy cannot function with one voice dictating to everyone else or each insisting on doing what one wants regardless of the impact on others. The only way for people to feel that they ought to take each other’s concerns and perspectives on board is by cultivating a meaningful sense of togetherness, whereby interdependence is recognised as a fact and appreciated as an asset. In practice, this calls for:
• Promoting a shared mission, so people can see and remember what are the essential objectives they have in common, and why they need each other in meeting them.
• Declaring a commitment to mutual respect, so that rules and procedures are visibly in place to root out discrimination, and no one’s needs will be brushed aside.
• Formulating the terms of coherent membership, so everyone knows the basis of how people become members, what responsibilities and rights are to be expected, and when membership might be refused or suspended in light of specified criteria.
OBJECTIVITY
Lies and innuendos from social media deception as well as mass propaganda have made it extremely difficult to conduct informed discussions about what any group, from a neighbourhood to a country, should do. But remedial actions can be carried out to ensure that distortion is substantially curtailed, and people’s capability to assess the veracity of claims is greatly enhanced. These actions should cover:
• Extending opportunities to learn through cooperative enquiry, so that people are familiarised and skilled in reasoned discourse that progresses by means of exchange of objective evidence and cogent analysis.
• Building in systems for critical review of claims and arrangements, so that both dogmatic assent and arbitrary doubt are displaced by beliefs linked to rigorous scrutiny and appropriate re-evaluation.
• Enforcing rules for responsible communication, so that the spreading of lies and misleading information is prohibited under clear definition and curtailed by adequate sanctions.
POWER BALANCE
There can be no genuine consensus if some are so powerful that they can force or bribe others into backing their demands, or if many are left weak and vulnerable that they cannot speak up for themselves. Power inequalities must be reduced to a level where people are confident and able to exchange ideas and question one another’s assumptions without fear or hesitation. The key elements to be put in place include:
• Facilitating participatory decision-making, so that as much as possible those affected by a potential course of action get the chance to take part in deliberating what form that action is to take.
• Maximising civic parity, so that by means of reduction of income/wealth gaps and strict limitations on corrupt or intimidatory practices, people can influence collective processes on equal terms.
• Strengthening public accountability, so that where power needs to be vested in certain individuals for efficiency or emergency reasons, they can be held to account effectively by others.
In conclusion, while we must never be complacent about how securing the conditions to facilitate democratic action, we should not slide into the opposite extreme of assuming that it reasoned consensus is an impossible goal to reach. Many groups, from the local to the international level, have found that taking the key steps outlined above can be transformative in enabling people to reach a shared position on what should be done for their common wellbeing.
--
For a detailed exposition of how democracy should be developed and safeguarded, see Time to Save Democracy: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/time-to-save-democracy
What needs to be recognised is that polarisation is not inevitable. And agreement cannot be guaranteed either. Any group seeking to reach a common understanding on what they should do, require a systematic approach, which is encapsulated by the following T.O.P. tips:
Togetherness
Objectivity
Power Balance
TOGETHERNESS
Democracy cannot function with one voice dictating to everyone else or each insisting on doing what one wants regardless of the impact on others. The only way for people to feel that they ought to take each other’s concerns and perspectives on board is by cultivating a meaningful sense of togetherness, whereby interdependence is recognised as a fact and appreciated as an asset. In practice, this calls for:
• Promoting a shared mission, so people can see and remember what are the essential objectives they have in common, and why they need each other in meeting them.
• Declaring a commitment to mutual respect, so that rules and procedures are visibly in place to root out discrimination, and no one’s needs will be brushed aside.
• Formulating the terms of coherent membership, so everyone knows the basis of how people become members, what responsibilities and rights are to be expected, and when membership might be refused or suspended in light of specified criteria.
OBJECTIVITY
Lies and innuendos from social media deception as well as mass propaganda have made it extremely difficult to conduct informed discussions about what any group, from a neighbourhood to a country, should do. But remedial actions can be carried out to ensure that distortion is substantially curtailed, and people’s capability to assess the veracity of claims is greatly enhanced. These actions should cover:
• Extending opportunities to learn through cooperative enquiry, so that people are familiarised and skilled in reasoned discourse that progresses by means of exchange of objective evidence and cogent analysis.
• Building in systems for critical review of claims and arrangements, so that both dogmatic assent and arbitrary doubt are displaced by beliefs linked to rigorous scrutiny and appropriate re-evaluation.
• Enforcing rules for responsible communication, so that the spreading of lies and misleading information is prohibited under clear definition and curtailed by adequate sanctions.
POWER BALANCE
There can be no genuine consensus if some are so powerful that they can force or bribe others into backing their demands, or if many are left weak and vulnerable that they cannot speak up for themselves. Power inequalities must be reduced to a level where people are confident and able to exchange ideas and question one another’s assumptions without fear or hesitation. The key elements to be put in place include:
• Facilitating participatory decision-making, so that as much as possible those affected by a potential course of action get the chance to take part in deliberating what form that action is to take.
• Maximising civic parity, so that by means of reduction of income/wealth gaps and strict limitations on corrupt or intimidatory practices, people can influence collective processes on equal terms.
• Strengthening public accountability, so that where power needs to be vested in certain individuals for efficiency or emergency reasons, they can be held to account effectively by others.
In conclusion, while we must never be complacent about how securing the conditions to facilitate democratic action, we should not slide into the opposite extreme of assuming that it reasoned consensus is an impossible goal to reach. Many groups, from the local to the international level, have found that taking the key steps outlined above can be transformative in enabling people to reach a shared position on what should be done for their common wellbeing.
--
For a detailed exposition of how democracy should be developed and safeguarded, see Time to Save Democracy: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/time-to-save-democracy
Sunday, 15 March 2020
The Case for Regulation is Going Viral
For decades we’ve been bombarded by anti-government propaganda. Leave things to the Free Market, to the Big Society, to generous philanthropists, to brilliant entrepreneurs – and tell government to back off, and we’ll end up with the best of all possible worlds.
This mantra knocks every regulatory measure as unnecessary ‘red tape’, every rule as an infringement against our liberty, every policy initiative as a drain on resources that should have been left in individuals’ own pockets.
But the reality is that without a democratically responsive government to deal with the many problems that would otherwise be left to fester, we would all end up significantly worse off. While this is obvious to a lot of people, it is sad – and at times tragic – that there are many who are disposed to ignore it until something terrible happens.
Health and safety requirements are dismissed as irksome, until innocent people are killed and then we get the outcry about deficient legal standards. Financial institutions wind people up about the state getting in the way of their business, until they mess up and insist the government must step in to help them. Environmental protection is resented as costly and unnecessary, until repeated flooding destroys homes and residents call for urgent action. Privatisation is lauded as the way forward, until the gross inadequacy of profit-based care provision leaves families in despair and people demand government to come up with an alternative.
Now the rapid spread of Covid-19 around the world is leaving us with no doubt. Just leaving individuals and businesses to act on their own with no coordination or supportive intervention would be disastrous. We need government to pool resources when few individuals can spend their own way out of a global pandemic. We need regulation to prevent a dangerous problem from worsening. We need collective planning and action to find the means to tackle a major threat. We need an established authority to bring the evidence and expertise together and apply them to devising suitable solutions.
Anti-government ideologues and laissez faire opportunists will no doubt continue to make out that the world is better off with government powers shrunk to just the level sufficient to help the rich or defend certain fundamentalist sects, but no more. Yet the case against them is inescapable. Everyone across the world can see, we cannot leave what happens all around us to irresponsible individuals who care more about the hotels and gold courses they own than the fate of their fellow citizens. We need government institutions that engage in the democratic concerns of the public, and we need political leaders who prioritise citizens’ wellbeing above all else. If we haven’t got them, we must make urgent changes.
This mantra knocks every regulatory measure as unnecessary ‘red tape’, every rule as an infringement against our liberty, every policy initiative as a drain on resources that should have been left in individuals’ own pockets.
But the reality is that without a democratically responsive government to deal with the many problems that would otherwise be left to fester, we would all end up significantly worse off. While this is obvious to a lot of people, it is sad – and at times tragic – that there are many who are disposed to ignore it until something terrible happens.
Health and safety requirements are dismissed as irksome, until innocent people are killed and then we get the outcry about deficient legal standards. Financial institutions wind people up about the state getting in the way of their business, until they mess up and insist the government must step in to help them. Environmental protection is resented as costly and unnecessary, until repeated flooding destroys homes and residents call for urgent action. Privatisation is lauded as the way forward, until the gross inadequacy of profit-based care provision leaves families in despair and people demand government to come up with an alternative.
Now the rapid spread of Covid-19 around the world is leaving us with no doubt. Just leaving individuals and businesses to act on their own with no coordination or supportive intervention would be disastrous. We need government to pool resources when few individuals can spend their own way out of a global pandemic. We need regulation to prevent a dangerous problem from worsening. We need collective planning and action to find the means to tackle a major threat. We need an established authority to bring the evidence and expertise together and apply them to devising suitable solutions.
Anti-government ideologues and laissez faire opportunists will no doubt continue to make out that the world is better off with government powers shrunk to just the level sufficient to help the rich or defend certain fundamentalist sects, but no more. Yet the case against them is inescapable. Everyone across the world can see, we cannot leave what happens all around us to irresponsible individuals who care more about the hotels and gold courses they own than the fate of their fellow citizens. We need government institutions that engage in the democratic concerns of the public, and we need political leaders who prioritise citizens’ wellbeing above all else. If we haven’t got them, we must make urgent changes.
Sunday, 1 March 2020
The Five-A-Side Model for Electing National Leaders
Bitter in-fighting, draining of time and resources, and airing of ‘flaws’ and ‘weaknesses’ that ultimately only help their real opponents – these are what the Democrats in the US and the Labour Party in the UK have been undergoing as they try to select someone to challenge for their respective country’s top political position.
A common problem with both the US presidential primaries and the UK party leadership election is that they in effect eliminate any meaningful choice for voters in the election that really matters down the line (the ones that decide who will take over at the White House or 10 Downing Street). Worse still, the process of elimination is unreliable, and often counter-productive.
Absurdly, people who dislike the Democrats or the Labour Party can get involved and vote for a candidate they believe would be easier for their preferred party to defeat when the main national election comes. The candidates themselves are put in a position where they have to find high profile ways to appeal to sections of activists to maximise votes at this stage, and thus fuel polarisation within their own party. And a small minority in the country end up ruling out all candidates bar one to face the electorate when the big choice has to be made (in the US, figures for participation in presidential primaries range from 20% to 30%, while in the UK it is an even smaller percentage since party leadership is determined by the party’s members and the Labour Party’s members, for example, amount to only about 1% of the UK’s overall electorate).
Can it be done any other way? Yes, and here’s the ‘5-a-side’ model I would put forward.
Political parties can choose their own chair, leader, secretary-general, etc in their own way. However, when a presidential or general election is coming, the party must ask their members for two things: [1] any of them wishing to be a candidate to indicate their interest and reasons why they should be considered; and [2] all of them to register the candidate they would like to nominate for the main national contest. The 5 candidates with the most nominations in any party would become the representatives from that party.
In the presidential and general elections, voters will be asked to cast their vote for one of the approved candidates from the party they favour. All the votes cast for the candidates of any given party will be totalled up as the votes for that party. The party with the highest number of votes will be declared the winning party, and whoever out of the five candidates from the winning party has the most votes against their name would be the one elected to take the highest office.
In such a contest, instead of attacking others in their party for an excessively long period of time, the five candidates on each team may devote some time to showing why they offer more than their colleagues, but they will concentrate on showing up the deficiencies of the party they all oppose. Voters would not need to worry about having to choose between the party they support and that party’s sole representative whom they do not want to back. Instead of the prolonged, unhelpful, intra-party discord we have been witnessing, we will have a straightforward 5-a-side contest, giving voters real choice of who they want to lead their country.
And instead of arguing viciously and speculatively about who would be most electable, each party can put forward its top 5 candidates and see who might actually get elected.
--
Note: some questions that may arise:
Question 1:
Would this displace the electoral college system in the US?
If the US wants to continue to give the citizens of its less populous states a boost to match the voting power of citizens in the more populous states, it can make the process more transparent by allocating a higher weighting to the votes from smaller states. That would show how the vote from a citizen in a smaller state in effect counts more than the vote from a citizen in a larger state – which is what the electoral college system in a more obscure way delivers currently.
Question 2:
Is it not possible that the top candidate of the party with the most votes could end up having fewer votes than the top candidate of the party that has lost out overall?
With the prevailing electoral systems in the US and the UK, it is already possible for the person who ends up as President or Prime Minister to have won fewer votes from citizens compared with their opponent (in the US because of the electoral college system, in the UK because the leader of a party can win a bigger personal majority than everyone else but still not get to be Prime Minister because their party has fewer seats overall). With the proposed system, the country gets both (a) the party with the highest support from the people, and (b) the candidate within that party who has the highest support to take charge.
Question 3:
In the UK, the leader of the party is the one who has by convention been the one contesting to be Prime Minister. Would the 5-a-side proposal not sever that link?
The link made sense when the leader of a party was chosen by the majority of the party’s MPs, and the Prime Minister was whoever could command the majority support from MPs in the House of Commons. But all political parties have already stopped their MPs from determining who their leader is, and handed that decision to party members. And it is now possible, for example, with the Labour Party choosing a leader (Jeremy Corbyn) who was neither chosen by his fellow MPs nor able to command their confidence of his ministerial team. The proposed approach would mean that while the leader of a party can be one of the 5 candidates for that party to be considered by the country to be Prime Minister, voters would have a chance to choose someone else from that party. Furthermore, unlike the current system, there is no room for spoiling tactics to back someone who may be more easily defeated by one’s favoured party, because on the crucial ballot, the vote must be cast for one party.
Question 4:
Why turn the UK system into a quasi-presidential system? And what if the party with the most MPs fails to win the contest to decide who should be Prime Minister?
The UK system has become increasingly a de facto presidential system. But instead of ensuring the person who is to become Prime Minister has to undergo a transparent and accountable process, the case of Boris Johnson taking over from Theresa May as Prime Minister has illustrated how the present system would allow someone to be picked by 0.43% of the electorate (who were Conservative Party members), and give him the country’s highest office when he did not command a majority in the House of Commons. As for the scenario of a party securing most MPs and yet failing to win the Prime Ministerial contest, the candidate chosen by the people to be Prime Minister should be offered the first option to form a coalition government – since the people’s wishes are for the legislature and the executive to be under the direct control of different parties, but that the two sides should work together. If that does not prove possible, the next option could be to invite the candidate with the next highest number of votes from any party to negotiate on the formation of a government.
A common problem with both the US presidential primaries and the UK party leadership election is that they in effect eliminate any meaningful choice for voters in the election that really matters down the line (the ones that decide who will take over at the White House or 10 Downing Street). Worse still, the process of elimination is unreliable, and often counter-productive.
Absurdly, people who dislike the Democrats or the Labour Party can get involved and vote for a candidate they believe would be easier for their preferred party to defeat when the main national election comes. The candidates themselves are put in a position where they have to find high profile ways to appeal to sections of activists to maximise votes at this stage, and thus fuel polarisation within their own party. And a small minority in the country end up ruling out all candidates bar one to face the electorate when the big choice has to be made (in the US, figures for participation in presidential primaries range from 20% to 30%, while in the UK it is an even smaller percentage since party leadership is determined by the party’s members and the Labour Party’s members, for example, amount to only about 1% of the UK’s overall electorate).
Can it be done any other way? Yes, and here’s the ‘5-a-side’ model I would put forward.
Political parties can choose their own chair, leader, secretary-general, etc in their own way. However, when a presidential or general election is coming, the party must ask their members for two things: [1] any of them wishing to be a candidate to indicate their interest and reasons why they should be considered; and [2] all of them to register the candidate they would like to nominate for the main national contest. The 5 candidates with the most nominations in any party would become the representatives from that party.
In the presidential and general elections, voters will be asked to cast their vote for one of the approved candidates from the party they favour. All the votes cast for the candidates of any given party will be totalled up as the votes for that party. The party with the highest number of votes will be declared the winning party, and whoever out of the five candidates from the winning party has the most votes against their name would be the one elected to take the highest office.
In such a contest, instead of attacking others in their party for an excessively long period of time, the five candidates on each team may devote some time to showing why they offer more than their colleagues, but they will concentrate on showing up the deficiencies of the party they all oppose. Voters would not need to worry about having to choose between the party they support and that party’s sole representative whom they do not want to back. Instead of the prolonged, unhelpful, intra-party discord we have been witnessing, we will have a straightforward 5-a-side contest, giving voters real choice of who they want to lead their country.
And instead of arguing viciously and speculatively about who would be most electable, each party can put forward its top 5 candidates and see who might actually get elected.
--
Note: some questions that may arise:
Question 1:
Would this displace the electoral college system in the US?
If the US wants to continue to give the citizens of its less populous states a boost to match the voting power of citizens in the more populous states, it can make the process more transparent by allocating a higher weighting to the votes from smaller states. That would show how the vote from a citizen in a smaller state in effect counts more than the vote from a citizen in a larger state – which is what the electoral college system in a more obscure way delivers currently.
Question 2:
Is it not possible that the top candidate of the party with the most votes could end up having fewer votes than the top candidate of the party that has lost out overall?
With the prevailing electoral systems in the US and the UK, it is already possible for the person who ends up as President or Prime Minister to have won fewer votes from citizens compared with their opponent (in the US because of the electoral college system, in the UK because the leader of a party can win a bigger personal majority than everyone else but still not get to be Prime Minister because their party has fewer seats overall). With the proposed system, the country gets both (a) the party with the highest support from the people, and (b) the candidate within that party who has the highest support to take charge.
Question 3:
In the UK, the leader of the party is the one who has by convention been the one contesting to be Prime Minister. Would the 5-a-side proposal not sever that link?
The link made sense when the leader of a party was chosen by the majority of the party’s MPs, and the Prime Minister was whoever could command the majority support from MPs in the House of Commons. But all political parties have already stopped their MPs from determining who their leader is, and handed that decision to party members. And it is now possible, for example, with the Labour Party choosing a leader (Jeremy Corbyn) who was neither chosen by his fellow MPs nor able to command their confidence of his ministerial team. The proposed approach would mean that while the leader of a party can be one of the 5 candidates for that party to be considered by the country to be Prime Minister, voters would have a chance to choose someone else from that party. Furthermore, unlike the current system, there is no room for spoiling tactics to back someone who may be more easily defeated by one’s favoured party, because on the crucial ballot, the vote must be cast for one party.
Question 4:
Why turn the UK system into a quasi-presidential system? And what if the party with the most MPs fails to win the contest to decide who should be Prime Minister?
The UK system has become increasingly a de facto presidential system. But instead of ensuring the person who is to become Prime Minister has to undergo a transparent and accountable process, the case of Boris Johnson taking over from Theresa May as Prime Minister has illustrated how the present system would allow someone to be picked by 0.43% of the electorate (who were Conservative Party members), and give him the country’s highest office when he did not command a majority in the House of Commons. As for the scenario of a party securing most MPs and yet failing to win the Prime Ministerial contest, the candidate chosen by the people to be Prime Minister should be offered the first option to form a coalition government – since the people’s wishes are for the legislature and the executive to be under the direct control of different parties, but that the two sides should work together. If that does not prove possible, the next option could be to invite the candidate with the next highest number of votes from any party to negotiate on the formation of a government.
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