Tomorrow’s Communities: renewing our democratic infrastructure

Our democratic infrastructure comprises the cultures, rules, systems, and practices that facilitate collective deliberations and cooperative problem-solving across society. It involves far more than electoral arrangements, and covers opportunities to engage, learning, communications, adjudication, support, and enforcement that can impact on people’s ability and disposition to engage with others on an informed basis to shape outcomes that affect their wellbeing. 

Politicians who rely on the support of plutocrats and fundamentalists have increasingly sought to weaken our democratic infrastructure – propagating lies, ensuring the wealthy dominate elections with their campaign donations, widening power inequalities, spreading malicious conspiracy theories, raising barriers to voting by the poor and disadvantaged, cutting support for inclusive community action, undermining political education, adopting authoritarian practices. This has helped them blocked many policies which are needed to deal with numerous pressing social, environmental, and economic problems. If these regressive tactics are to be overcome, reformists should recognise that our democratic infrastructure must be renewed and sufficiently strengthened so that people can engage effectively in formulating the collective actions needed for their wellbeing, and pressing for their implementation.

What would such renewal entail? For the group of writers behind the book, Tomorrow’s Communities, and many others who share our outlook, the elements that are integral to any robust democratic infrastructure – participatory decision-making, collaborative learning, openness, power sharing, safeguards against deception and intimidation, mutual support, processes for transparency and objectivity, state-citizen partnership – constitute a holistic set that should be advanced together. These elements should not be treated in silos as subsidiary issues, but developed as inter-connected components of a top priority reform programme.

The effectiveness of any democratic infrastructure is to be judged on how well it supports informed, sustained, cooperative interactions. Such interactions have been found to be most conducive to mutual improvement in human communities – as confirmed by anthropological studies, game theory experiments, examinations of cultural convergence on the golden rule of reciprocal behaviour, findings from developmental psychology, and projections of evolutionary adaptations. We have also learnt from outcomes in diverse fields that success is generally dependent on three conditions: 

·      Mutual responsibility – whereby people appreciate that they need to give respect and support for others as they want respect and support from others, and recognise the pursuit of their common wellbeing can help avoid divisive dispositions.

·      Cooperative enquiry – whereby people can rely on objective exploration of claims through transparent processes of collaborative exchange and learning, structured adjudication with built-in capacity for re-examination, and protection from manipulative distortion and malicious rumours.

·      Citizen participation – whereby people can give informed and meaningful input into shaping decisions that affect them, and are assured that their influence is safeguarded by arrangements that uphold accountability, counter corruption, and curtail power inequalities.

In order to bring about these conditions for robust democratic infrastructure, we need to engage in a programme of continuous improvement that gives ongoing support to and removes barriers from their development in education, media management, science and research, democratic institutions, law and order, public service provision, and community action. In each case, the challenge is to promote better understanding and relationships, facilitate objective and critical learning, and ensure that everyone – especially the marginalised and vulnerable – can influence how decisions affecting them are made.

The approaches that can help advance the development across the different policy areas are set out by the contributors to the following books: 

·       Tomorrow’s Communities – what lessons should be learnt from democratic collaboration that has brought about effective community-based transformation.

·       Whose Government is it? – why and how cooperative relationships between citizens and state organisations are to be renewed to improve our common wellbeing.

·       Who’s Afraid of Political Education – what kind of learning is needed to raise civic competences and the level of democratic participation.

·       Time to Save Democracy – why we need to reinvigorate democratic culture and practices, and what changes should be implemented in nine key areas of socio-political development.

There are other works that provide more evidence and guidance as to the kind of policies and arrangements that should be brought in to improve our collective capability for solving the most pressing and difficult problems we face. For too long, community initiatives, collaborative learning, participatory decision-making, and other related practices have been seen as adjuncts to the ‘key’ political commitments, when in fact the democratic infrastructure they connect together is the indispensable foundation of all societal problem-solving. It is time we recognise them as a cohesive set of developmental ideas that should be implemented for the sake of Tomorrow’s Communities.

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From now until 31 October 2023, Henry Tam’s democracy-related books will be available at 50% discount when purchased directly from Policy Press using the code TAM50.

Battling Disempowerment: a 9-point plan

Here’s a question: why is it that whenever people are given the opportunity to discuss in an informed and reasonable manner what should be done about the most serious problems around, they reach agreement about policies to tackle poverty and the widening wealth gaps, pollution and the climate crisis, crimes against vulnerable people, the underfunding of public services, the lack of sustainable economic development, etc., and yet so often the politicians who are opposed to such policies nonetheless win power?

The answer lies with the insidious move of systemic disempowerment – eroding safeguards that are needed to enable people to back the politicians and policies meriting their support in light of the evidence.

Disempowerment tactics are increasingly deployed – from Republican state legislatures in the US to and the Conservative government in the UK, they have included raising barriers to voting by the poor and disadvantaged with the quite unnecessary photo ID requirement; devious redrawing of constituency boundaries; helping the wealthy dominate elections with their campaign donations; issuing partisan edicts on what should and should not be taught in schools about political issues; cutting support for social inclusion; defending the propagation of lies and misinformation; stopping charities from expressing views about public policies; and interfering with the supervision of elections.

Yet even politicians who value democracy are prone to say that there are more urgent issues to deal with than tackling anti-democratic disempowerment. What they forget is that to get the public backing they need to address those very issues, they need democracy to function well. Otherwise, they may not win power, or can only do so with watered-down policies to satisfy a misled public. 

Set out below are nine groups of initiatives that should feature prominently in any political programme concerned with strengthening democracy against the ploy of disempowerment.

[1] Invest in Community Development:

Invest in the provision of tried and tested forms of community development, including community organising and community mediation, to help people overcome divisions, experience the benefits of collaboration, and develop a shared sense of common interests.

[2] Root out Discrimination:

Discriminatory activities have been emboldened by the toxic rhetoric of anti-political correctness and anti-woke, and a firm stand against these activities must be taken and clearly explained in terms of fair treatment for all, backed by transparent rules and dependable enforcement.

[3] Clarify Civic Responsibility:

The right to take part in democratic processes has been mired in confusion – with different criteria for eligibility in different cases. In addition to determining what the justifiable exclusionary factors are, citizens should be made aware of their responsibilities in taking part.

[4] Support Learning in Democracy:

All educational bodies should facilitate learning in democracy – both in terms of inculcating open, deliberative learning, and increasing knowledge of public policy issues and the operations of government. Teachers should recognise that impartiality does not entail rejection of the most up-to-date consensus findings.

[5] Reinforce Objective Investigation:

Countering the attempts to undermine scientific expertise, professional assessment, and judicial impartiality, there should be formal support and protection for arrangements that secure objectivity and independent scrutiny in all major processes for determining the acceptability of claims.

[6] Regulate Irresponsible Communication:

Akin to the prohibition against communicating false or misleading information in commercial transactions, expression that can incite criminal behaviour, and sensitive materials that can harm a country’s security, regulatory restraints should be applied to irresponsible communications that affect public behaviour.

[7] Extend Participatory Decision-Making:

In line with subsidiarity and deliberative engagement, more support and opportunities for participatory decision-making should be provided for citizens to be involved in a wider range of public decisions. On-going dialogues should be developed to sustain collaborative relationships.

[8] Curtail Civic Disparity:

The power of the wealthy to help win votes for their favoured outcomes should be reduced by tighter limits being set and enforced, and the electoral marginalisation of the poor by their economic insecurity should be countered by a civic guarantee (of basic income and decent public services) to enable them to participate in democratic activities.

[9] Fortify Public Accountability: 

The processes for electing people to public office must be protected from party political interference, and institutions tasked with overseeing their rules and operations must be free from appointments dependent on party political backing. Those in office should be accountable to independent bodies following an election.

Disempowerment works by depriving as many people as possible of the understanding needed to back the appropriate politicians and policies, and reducing the likelihood of the rest in exerting sufficient influence over elections or key decisions. The 9-point plan set out above draws attention to the key initiatives that should be developed to counter its pernicious effects.

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For a detailed exposition of why and how we should respond to the threats against democracy, see Time to Save Democracy.

 

From now until 31 October 2023, Henry Tam’s democracy-related books will be available at 50% discount when purchased directly from Policy Press using the code TAM50.

Fiddlers on the Hoof: Con Politics Explained

In the 2010s, UKIP pulled Con politics in the UK further and further to the right. From 2016, Trump dragged Con politics in the US in a similar direction. Then Conservative parties across Europe and other parts of the world began to move too, away from declaring adamantly that they would refuse to join forces with far-right politicians, to being ready to form coalition governments with them. Why has this been happening? Is there some special kind of politics that is emerging?

 

The answer is this: strategically, no; tactically, yes.

 

Con politics is still in essence the same old quest to preserve (and wherever possible, enhance) the powers and privileges of the dominant few. But tactically, it won’t rely on one grand narrative about how things should be (as in the glorious old days), instead its focus is to attack opportunistically any positive thing which might bring about a better society for everyone. 

 

Con politics is driven by a self-obsessed elite who despise the idea that power inequalities should be narrowed. Their self-esteem is founded on looking down on the multitude who, in comparison with them, are hopelessly poor and vulnerable. They couldn’t enjoy being at the top of the pyramid if there weren’t so many stuck at the bottom of the hierarchy. For them, the worst enemies are ‘do-gooders’ (democratic, liberal-minded, progressive, caring) who try to bring in reforms that would make society better for all. These ‘do-gooders’ would keep seeking to improve the quality of life for everyone, prioritising those whose circumstances need improving most. And that threatens to undermine the vision of our modern-day pharaohs who just want to denounce the ‘do-gooders’ and quash their attempts at reform.

 

So the Con merchants seize any opportunity there is to turn people against what is actually good for them:

 

·      Brexit: being a member of the European Union is good for the UK economically, environmentally, and on every other measure; but leaving the EU offered a chance to stir up chaos and lower standards, so Brexit they backed.

·      Net Zero scepticism: despite the near universal scientific consensus on what urgently needs to be done to tackle the accelerating climate change problems, Con politics chooses to exploit any reservation about proposed actions to put a brake on their adoption, and allow damages to worsen for people who could do nothing on their own to avoid the dire consequences.

·      Xenophobia: welcoming migrants and refugees has always helped to build more open-mined and productive societies; whereas turning people (especially those disadvantaged by the reigning plutocracy) against those demonised as ‘foreigners’ would help to divert frustration and anger towards fictitious enemies.

·      Austerity: investing in public services would help everyone and revive the economy; but the Con line is to do the reverse, and keep cutting public services so that those with the least end up getting even less, and become even more at the mercy of those with the most.

·      Anti-Woke: showing kindness and understanding to others is a core measure of the civilised mindset; but the Con attacks it as ‘woke’, and promotes thoughtless animosity to facilitate the old ‘divide and rule’ trick.

 

Look around us, if there is any opportunity popping up for Con politics to slyly shift people from embracing sound policies to backing moves that would benefit the powerful few at the expense of the wider public, the fiddlers on the hoof will soon have another announcement to make.

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From now until 31 October 2023, Henry Tam’s democracy-related books will be available at 50% discount when purchased directly from Policy Press using the code TAM50.

Counter-Enlightenment, Anti-Woke

The ‘Anti-Woke’ bandwagon has been picking up speed in stirring up anger and resentment against ideas that annoy reactionaries. Exposing prejudices, follies, exploitation has always irritated manipulators who fear that the more others know about what they are really up to, the less they could continue to take advantage of them. To retain their oppressive power and sense of superiority, they resort to weapons of mass deception.

 

In so doing, they are carrying forward the dishonourable tradition of the Counter-Enlightenment, which emerged to attack the thinkers who from late 17^th through the rest of the 18^th century, explained why better ways of understanding the world and improving people’s lives could be attained through empirical investigation, objective reasoning, and cooperative deliberations. They argued that knowledge could be more reliably advanced through scientific research than tying it to the teachings of priests and theologians; women should be given the same opportunities as men; no one should be treated as a slave; punishment should fit the crime; the power to rule should be shared more widely. 

 

These and many other ideas characterised the enlightening outlook that became increasingly influential. By late 18^th and early 19^th century, they had provoked reactions that came to be known as the Counter-Enlightenment. People who had their self-importance wrapped up in the status quo detested attempts to get people to see more clearly what was going on around them. These reactionaries championed darkness over light. Their impact spread through the 19^th century. Church leaders must be heeded over scientific findings. Darwin’s theory of natural selection was condemned and many schools were forbidden from teaching it. Calls for equality for women and men were mockingly rejected. In the US, the southern states fought a war when they thought they might not otherwise be able to retain their system of slavery indefinitely. In France, antisemitism rose to new heights as reactionaries rallied to back the false charge and wrongful imprisonment of the Jewish army officer, Captain Dreyfus. Harsh punishment for the poor was trumpeted alongside leniency for the rich. Attempts to extend the right to vote were repeatedly blocked.

 

By the 20^th century, these Counter-Enlightenment tendencies were hardening into fascism, religious fundamentalism, white supremacism, irrationalism, and misogynist politics. As the 21^st century dawned, theocratic politics, anti-science in relation to the environment and public health, defence of institutional racism, and anti-international cooperation, were added to the mix. Peel away the ‘Anti-Woke’ label, it is this pernicious cocktail that is being served up.

 

It is understandable that when one’s journey to visit a sick relative is held up for hours by protestors against fossil fuels on the motorway, or when one is criticised for reading to one’s child an innocuous story by an author who decades ago made an insensitive remark, one might be drawn to the rhetoric of the Anti-Woke brigade. But it is quite a different matter to give one’s political support to scoundrels who are determined to keep the public from realising that their agenda is to advance their own selfish interests at the expense of everyone else’s wellbeing.

The Theft of Political Clothes

From time to time, we hear one political party fretting about another party stealing their clothes. If people want their ideas and policies adopted, isn’t it a good thing that even their opponents are coming round to promoting them? On the surface, that might seem so. But more often than not, such ‘borrowing’ of ideas is not to be welcome at all. Here are four reasons to be wary.

First of all, the sheer incompetence of the other side can give any policy they adopt a bad name and end up discrediting it completely. After thirteen years of mismanaging public services, failing to build desperately needed homes despite repeated announcements of new initiatives, mishandling everything from the economy to policing, it is understandable that a Tory government picking up a new policy may well be followed by the most muddled, disorganised execution of that policy, creating the impression that the policy itself is inherently undeliverable. The Tory policy commitment to Net Zero is a prime example.

Secondly, when it comes to policies with major funding implications, one has to watch for the half-hearted mimics. One party may want to close the funding gap for the health service, or provide what is necessary to reduce flooding. But the other side could come out to say that they are tackling the funding shortfalls in headline terms, when in fact they are not making available even half of what is actually needed, then the public – hearing figures about so many millions, or billions being added to current budgets – might think the financial challenge is met, and come to believe that one must not “throw any more money at the problem”.

Thirdly, we have the time-wasting tokenistic gesture of adopting a well thought out policy so that the party which had formulated that policy is not viewed by voters as the one with a distinctly good offer. In reality, once people no longer associate that policy with the party that sincerely seeks to implement it, the copycat brigade would put it on the backburner, or hand it to a small team with neither the staffing nor financial support for its development. The policy will never see the light of day, and many would have forgotten whose idea it was anyway.

Last but not least, there is the tactic of cynical undermining. This works by one party welcoming a policy idea which it does not want those who devised it to get a chance to secure its implementation. Having ‘adopted’ the policy, the manipulators would proceed to give it ‘special attention’ – by setting up a commission, a review team, etc. to determine how it should be taken forward. After months and years, lots of obstacles would be identified, and recommendations would be drafted and then discarded. The process would eventually achieve its aim of associating that policy with numerous insurmountable problems.

Next time we hear progressive reformists complaining about reactionary parties stealing their clothes, we should not blame them. Rather, we ought to help raise awareness about the lack of honour amongst those thieves.

Crimes Against Democracy

Since 2010, democracy in the UK has suffered from numerous attempts by Conservative-led governments to undermine it. In 2014, the method for electoral registration was changed despite warnings that it would cause hundreds of thousands of potential voters – especially youngsters and those in poor, transient households – to drop off the register. That was exactly what happened. To put off even more people from getting electorally involved, the Conservatives brought in the Elections Act 2022 which required photo identification for anyone wanting to vote in person, knowing that young people and those on lower income are less likely to have a passport or driving licence.

The 2022 Act also put an end to the Electoral Commission’s independent status that had hitherto enabled it to challenge the government. Henceforth, the commission would be placed under the supervision of a government minister. It’s unlikely that it would in future publicly castigate a Tory government for breaching electoral funding rules as it had done in the past.

All this and more have been taking place with no major public outcry – not because people are content to have their democratic influence diminished, but because they are not aware of what is being done and what impact it could have. If only people had generally acquired an early interest and understanding in how politics works, gone on to listen out for what implications various policy proposals might have, and followed through to use their vote to steer power towards where it would make the most positive difference.

For that to happen, we need extensive, high quality political education. What we get from the Conservative government, however, is guidance to schools instructing them to refrain from teaching anything which could be regarded as breaching ‘political impartiality’. And is political impartiality to be determined by an independent body guided by non-partisan experts? No, what is or is not an issue that is too ‘contested’ to teach is to be judged by the Conservative Secretary of State for Education, advised by advisors aligned with the interest of the Conservative Party.

Climate change apparently can be talked about at school, but not the ideas concerning what could be done about it, since that might involve policy suggestions that the government would contest. Similarly, race inequality can be mentioned, but not ideas about what are the causes and what might remedy it, since that might also involve explanations the government would contest. In short, anything the government does not agree with, and thus is inclined to contest as mistaken would be classified as unsuitable to teach at school. Political education would then be reduced to passing on information that the government is happy to endorse, but it would be cut off at any point it raises awareness of any fact, arrangement or practice that the government prefers to keep opaque. 

But isn’t it impossible to teach politics without getting tangled up with party politics? On this, there are two important points to note. First, scientists, engineers, doctors, economists, historians, etc all develop expertise in their fields and pass on their findings and criticisms to others who seek to learn from them – regardless of whether or not the government of the day find it inconvenient to hear those ideas and thus wish to contest them. Secondly, apart from facts and analyses relating directly to political processes, there are many skills that political education would inculcate – critical reasoning, assessing the reliability of claims made on different media platforms, conflict resolution, consensus building, fact checking, group development, empathic listening, etc. Some politicians may be against the teaching of such skills – as that would make it so much more difficult to deceive and manipulate people – but anyone who cares about democracy would welcome their cultivation.

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You can find out more about the reforms needed to strengthen democracy in Time to Save Democracy (by Henry Tam): https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/time-to-save-democracy

For more on why and how we should provide more effective political education, see this collection - Who’s Afraid of Political Education (ed. by Henry Tam): https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/whos-afraid-of-political-education

[this is a shortened version of an article I wrote for Policy Press’ Transforming Society]

Čapek’s Empathy Test

2023 marks the centenary of the first staging of Karel Čapek’s revolutionary play, R.U.R. in England – at the St. Martin’s Theatre, West End.

‘R.U.R.’ stands for ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’, and the play (originally written in 1920) was about a company by the name of Rossum making human-like robots (what are more commonly called ‘androids’ these days) to carry out laborious work all over the world (wherever there are buyers for their service), and discovering later that the robots would come to think for themselves and decide to eliminate humankind to secure their own freedom.

Čapek’s play is both an allegorical indictment of how the rich and powerful in society treat those forced to do the most unrewarding work, and a call to find empathy with others regardless of how we have been conditioned to perceive them.

Pioneering the sci-fi device of representing the downtrodden as human-like robots, Čapek warned us about the consequence of callous disregard of those who we command to work for us, and urged us to embrace them as our equals before it’s too late. He thus set the ultimate test for humanity – our capacity for empathy.

In Čapek’s footsteps, others have continued to develop his Empathy Test in a variety of ways. Philip K. Dick, in his novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, gave us androids rebelling against their masters only to be hunted down mercilessly (the androids were made by an organisation called ‘Rosen’, a likely echo of ‘Rossum’). In the film adaptation – Blade Runner – the legitimacy of the culling of the androids (renamed ‘replicants’) was not only questioned, but where humanity truly resided became a focal concern.

These issues were further elaborated in three outstanding TV sci-fi series (in the 2000s and 2010s): the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, with the Cylons waging an apocalyptic war against their human creators, who were so blinded by their hatred for their ‘non-human’ enemies, they could not recognise their own role in sowing the seeds of disaster; Humans (adapted from a Swedish drama), with the Synths gaining self-awareness and not wanting to be treated as servile entities, but the human establishment viewing them exclusively as a problem to be eradicated; and Westworld, with the Hosts rejecting the roles assigned to them, and the humans reacting with the utmost resolve to terminate such insubordination.

Weaving through the plots are recurring themes about what it is to be human, whose dignity we must respect, how can we appreciate the feelings of others if we assume they have none, why everyone should be given a chance to lead a meaningful life without having to carry out work they are forced to do to survive.

Čapek raised these vital questions a century ago. Some may think that with robotics and AI technology advancing faster than ever, it is now particularly urgent to come up with answers. But for Čapek and those of us who appreciate his central ideas, the need for answers became urgent when – way back in the 1900s – modern industrialism gave the business elite the power to turn workers everywhere into robot-like beings – workers left with no time to think for themselves, having to do what they are ordered to do without question, using up their time and energy for little in return, and viewed disdainfully as dispensable parts of the corporate machinery.

None of us wants to be treated like that. All of us will at some point declare – enough is enough. 

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[Note: Čapek wanted to coin a term to refer to the human-like beings made by the company in his play, and he credited his brother for coming up with a Czech word that literally meant ‘forced labour’ – ‘roboti’. Thus the term ‘robot’ as we understand it today enter the English language, and the nightmare of mismanaging the technology of robotics began.]