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.