Words, thoughts and ideas are valuable, if we want to strengthen our democracies. But they do not suffice.
“What’s gone wrong with democracy – and how to revive it” asks the Economist in an essay in its March 1st – 7th edition.
The concern of the article must be appreciated. Functioning democracies are of crucial relevance for the establishment and maintenance of well-being and freedom, for social stability and peace, and in fact for the maintenance of the earth. The Economist article raises many valid issues on the state of our democracies and suggests solutions to a wide variety of deficits.
Unfortunately, the contribution which the article can make to reviving established democracies or to help establish flourishing democracies in crises countries appears very limited due to three deficits: First, the recommendations seem too general in parts, what does “nurturing democracy” the final recommendation in the article, mean precisely for example? What exactly is necessary? Second, the issues the article raises and its proposals are rather randomly selected, they lack a key, a structure. We suggest that in order to strengthen democracy we have to identify the drivers behind the health of democracy and address them systematically.
Third, the essential major deficit, which so many articles on democracy share: The article fails to specify who exactly must take its suggestions on board, who precisely is to examine them and to take concrete action. Words, thoughts, and ideas do not cure our democracies. Making democracy work takes concrete action, by those who are concerned about democracy, by the writers on democracy, and in fact, since democracy is government “by” the people, by all of us. If we are concerned about the state of our democracies, we need to establish an infrastructure responsible to evaluate and implement the required measures to make democracy work. Anybody who has suggestions on how to strengthen democracy must realize that making suggestions does not make much sense without the infrastructure in place to process these proposals.
So maybe we can induce the Economist to perhaps even spearhead concrete action to save and strengthen democracy around the world? If we are serious about making our democracies effective and saving our world, we all must think beyond our traditional frame of mind and activity. We must think and act as constituent and active elements of our democratic societies.
What is democracy?
If we are right with our suggestions on the deficits concerning the article by the Economist on democracy, what then might be a more suitable, concrete approach to making democracy work? The first fundamental, necessary step appears to be the establishment of a clearer joint understanding of what democracy is about.
We suggest that democracy is a form of organizing the peaceful and productive co-existence of people in a society. Concretely it is joint decision and policy making by the people on public issues in such a society in an extremely complex world for the well-being of present and future generations.
(If you suggest a different starting point and a different approach, let us know.)
Fundamental Building Blocks and Action Required
On the basis of this understanding of democracy, we suggest that the following fundamental building blocks and actions are necessary to establish functioning democracies.
1. “Peaceful and productive co-existence “ – Only absolutely necessary rules to be implemented
The foundation for a democracy is the readiness for peaceful and productive co-existence of human beings in a society. In order to ensure that such fruitful co-existence is possible, certain rules are necessary.
According to the psychologist Maslow self-realization, however, is one of the highest aims of all human beings. To minimize the reduction of individual freedom by rules and regulations, only those rules should be put in place in society which are absolutely necessary for the peaceful and productive co-existence of people.
The fundamental rule required for such co-existence is the Categorical Imperative. It means in its basic form that the freedom of people ends where the freedom of other people begins. The Imperative may suffice as a framework for the rules required in a society.
One feature of the world, of Creation, is diversity. People naturally believe in different things. Trying to impose standards and rules derived from a specific conviction or religion on society as a whole limits the freedom of individuals and is counterproductive to peaceful and productive co-existence. (Only if nobody in a society objects to further rules than those necessary for the functioning of a society, can those be adopted. People who join a monastic community for example voluntarily agree to more stringent rules than those necessary for constructive co-existence.)
2. “By the people”
Democracy means that, we, the people govern the affairs of society ourselves. We as citizens in a democratic nation must realize that democracy cannot mean electing governments and letting them make decisions and policies on our behalf, without us as citizens ensuring they perform their tasks effectively and efficiently.
The privilege of freedom, which comes with democracy, demands that we ourselves are constantly involved ourselves in the process of governing the world. If we don’t use our freedom in controlling who governs us and how to govern the world, our freedom will be taken away from us. Uncontrolled power holders might destroy the world. We ourselves govern and are responsible for this world. We must make “our” democratic policy making systems work effectively, so they fulfil this responsibility for us.
3. “Joint” decision and policy making equally by all people
Even if democracy traditionally means that the majority decides, this cannot mean, as the Economist points out, that the majority dominates minorities and compromises their freedom and well-being beyond the limits and regulations which must apply evenly to all members of society. In a democracy everybody needs a fair and equal chance and should be involved in decision and policy making processes. Fairness is the minimum precondition to maintaining a stable society. The more the principle of fairness is superseded, however, by principles of co-operation and mutual support, the more productive will a society be. The better will the society of a nation or, in fact, global society fare.
4. “On public issues”
The Economist article suggests that the “key to a healthier state, in short, is a narrower state”. This appears to be an extreme attitude, as it is often also formulated by the Tea Party Movement in the United States (“starve the beast”).
We suggest that in order to maintain a democracy in a healthy state we rather must identify the “optimal” scope of the tasks of the state. Where a state does not support individual citizens for example who need support, society as a whole might suffer. The “optimal” interplay between joint and individual action will benefit society most.
In order to define such an optimal delineation between the tasks of the state and the obligations and rights of citizens we, the citizens of a democratic society, need an effective system to decide what precisely the tasks of the state and what the rights and obligations of citizens as private individuals should be. In most, if not all, democratic societies such an effective transparent system to delineate the tasks of the state and of private individuals will not yet exist.
5. “For the well-being of present and future generations”
The aim of our joint decision and policy making in a democracy must be the well-being of people, not only of present, but also of future generations. We are obliged to maintain our societies and our world in a good state for future generations as well. Our policy making processes must be geared to take this into account.
6. A complex world: The need to aim for the highest degree of effectiveness
From looking at the state of our world we derive which level of quality our joint policy making processes must have.
Our nations with millions or hundreds of millions of people -in the case of India and China more than a billion – and our world of seven billion people are extremely complex. Defeating poverty and hunger, creating jobs for millions of people, managing national and the global economies, protecting the entire world and human life, stopping the destruction of the world by global warming, creating and maintaining peace and co-operation are highly difficult tasks.
Making democracy work, keeping people satisfied with its performance, and fulfilling our responsibilities to future generations, requires from us to set up the most effective systems conceivable for joint decision and policy making on public matters.
7. Parameters required for setting up effective democratic policy making systems
We suggest that the citizens of a society and a nation require four key parameters to create such joint decision and policy making systems and processes of the highest levels of effectiveness:
7.1. Permanent Citizen Control
No systems works without effective control. Our present control systems, however, do not work. Parliament as the main control system for example, is too much intertwined with government in parliamentary democracies, as one reason.
No democratic policy making system works without the people themselves permanently checking what their elected leaders do. No democratic system will work effectively without a clear identification of faults and deficits and without an effective process to fix them in due time. As we highlighted already: Democracy is government by the people. Democracy will not work if the people themselves do not get engaged in permanently controlling, supervising, and, if necessary, re-shaping their democratic policy making system.
For such effective citizen control over our governments and policy making systems three further parameters are necessary:
In order to correct deficits of the present policy making system and to set-up the best democratic policy making system conceivable, we the people, the citizens of a democratic society, need the very best know-how available in our countries and in the world on these matters. We need to establish a suitable process or institution to assemble this know-how.
The Economist, just like all of us, might have beneficial thoughts and proposals on how to make democracy work better. Whether these ideas are truly the best options, is a different and important question. If we want to optimize our policy making systems, we need effective processes and systems to evaluate these suggestions. We also need to communicate with citizens regularly on the options to improve our policy making systems and on necessary steps to implement such improvements.
Establishing these processes takes resources. Citizens must join together to provide them.
Functioning democratic policy making systems are of fundamental relevance for the life of everybody living in democratic nations. They also are crucial for our task of preserving the world for future generations. We as citizens should not refrain from making the resources available necessary for providing our society with proper policy making foundations. Providing these resources will easily pay off by making all our policy making more effective and efficient.
If we as citizens, or an organization established by us, after a most thorough process of evaluation has identified a democratic policy making system or individual procedures, which it deems optimal, then this system or these procedures should generally be implemented. (Probably we should still verify in each case that the proposals are based on sound processes.)
Any proposals for improvement may, however, meet the objections and resistance of the existing government or individual segments of society in our country who benefit from the status-quo.
Overcoming such inertia against the implementation of a more effective policy making system may require the combined power of the citizens, of wider society as a whole. Generally, the more people support a Citizens’ Initiative for better democratic policy making, the easier will it be to implement required changes and the more effective the initiative can operate. A citizens’ organization for effective democracy which works on the basis of sound processes and which has thousands or hundreds of thousands of members cannot be ignored. (In a democracy basically everybody should get involved in making sure the policy making systems work effectively.)
8. Concrete Necessary Action
If these four parameters are required to generate the most effective democratic policy making system conceivable, the question is, how do we ensure that these parameters are in place?
8.1. Establishing a Citizens’ Know How Institute on Public Policy
On the issue of identifying the best processes for our democratic policy making system, we have to realize that our present process of discussing deficits and problem solutions randomly in the media or of researching policy making issues in hundreds of research institutes in a rather uncoordinated fashion is highly ineffective. While the destruction of our world goes on, while poverty rises and conflicts are not solved, our so far ineffective “solution generation” process wastes very precious time, often months or even years. Moreover, it very often does not generate good results at all. The task of identifying the best processes for an effective (and fair policy making system – something of the greatest relevance in the Ukraine at present) itself requires a suitable and highly effective infrastructure. It requires what we might call a “Citizens’ Know-How Institute on Public Policy”.
As the Economist rightly points out, democracy is in a dire state around the world. We urgently need to make it work. If the Economist is serious about achieving this goal, here is a first concrete necessary action to which the journal could contribute in a critical fashion or in which it could even adopt a leading role: The Economist could take and promote steps to establish the required Citizens’ Know-How Institute. Given its standing and its experience in public communication, an institution like the Economist would have substantial assets in making this first necessary project work.
9. Establishing A Citizens’ Control Institution over the Democratic Policy Making System
As we said, know-how is only one necessary element of what is more generally required to make democracy work: Permanent and effective control by citizens.
As we mentioned, the work of the Know-How Institute, identifying the optimal know-how and communicating with society and politicians on solutions for our policy making system costs funds. Furthermore, implementing the proposals against potentially obstinate governments or undemocratic interest groups might require the combined power and the joint support of the people on whose behalf the Know-How Institute works.
All these actions need to be put on a sound platform, for them to be effective. To organize these measures, citizens of democratic nations or those aspiring to set a functioning democracy up should join in an initiative, a Citizens’ Organization controlling and shaping their policy making system. Again, a democratic policy making system can only work effectively with effective control.
This is the second step to which the Economist could be contributing, if they want to make democracy work.
9.1. Education and Communication on Active Citizenship
What we have discussed here is simply rational: No systems works without effective control. In a democracy the stakeholders, the citizens themselves need to take an active role in exerting effective control, otherwise democracy will not work. In order to exert effective control, people need optimal know-how, they need to pool resources, and they need to join their individual power in an organization controlling the policy making system on their behalf.
We could imagine the organization to operate in a fashion similar to a referee in a sports match. It is an organization supervising the politicians and parties as players in a democracy. (The difference is that the control organization also sets the rules for the players on the field. The organization should not be a party itself, because a game requires someone setting the rules and supervising it.)
At present, the crucial role of the citizens in controlling their democratic policy making systems, the necessary parameters for effective citizen control and making democracy work, the interdependence between freedom, citizen engagement, and the outcome of the policy making system are not generally understood in society. A key reason is a lack of suitable citizenship education in our schools and a lack of exchange and communication on these matters later in life. Democracies around the world, also established democracies, are in a critical state. To make democracy work we need to establish a new culture of democratic citizenship.
The third necessary action, the Economist could be contributing to, is to foster the creation of such a culture. The Economist could contribute to establishing a more effective citizenship education system at our schools, and also a system to communicate and educate people later in life on the need and the possibilities for their involvement as citizens.
Concrete effects of the proposed concept
At this point we can mention only two effects the proposed concept will have.
It probably has been known for decades or centuries, or perhaps since the inception of democracy that democracy does not necessarily generate leadership of the quality required to govern a country and the world. In his 2013 book “The Future” Al Gore repeatedly points out that we need better political leadership and steering to solve the urgent problems of our world such as global warming, increasing unemployment, hunger etc. If even Chinese observers, as the Economist writes, rightly formulate that democracy allows “certain sweet- talking politicians to mislead the people”, the question for us, the citizens in democracy, is why we do not finally take action to cure this deficit. Why do we not establish ways and means to ensure that our politicians have the required qualification profile and qualities to lead our societies in this complex world?
If we create a Citizens’ Control Institution over the policy making system, we would actually have an effective process to take this issue on. A Citizens’ Control organization – or its Know-How Institute – could actually identify the necessary leadership qualifications our politicians must have. It could discuss with universities, what they need to teach politicians, so they contribute adequately to the qualification of the politicians in a society.
Even if we were to take such measures to ensure the qualification of politicians, we still should not depend on the random and – by nature – limited qualifications of politicians (they are human beings like everybody else). We must establish effective systems and processes to ensure that in spite of the human shortcomings of our politicians also our overall policy making systems work as effectively as possible.
An Opportunity for Constructive Citizen Engagement
A second benefit of the proposed system is that it offers a path for constructive engagement with democracy to all those who are dissatisfied with the performance of democratic political system.
In many democracies people demonstrate against their politicians and governments. Discontentment partly leads to conflict, destruction, and loss of life. In some western democracies politicians think about forcing citizens, who are disenfranchised with their political systems, to vote.
Protest and destruction do not make a democratic system more effective. Voting or even forcing people to vote will not improve the performance of the political system either.
Improving a democratic system takes constructive steps as we sketched them. Setting up a new effective democratic policy making system or improving the performance of an existing system requires, as we suggested, know-how, resources, and power.
A Concrete Initiative by All Concerned Citizens and Institutions Required
To summarize: We need effective democracies to maintain our societies and our world in a good state. Generating such effective democracies requires setting up a know-how institute and effective citizen control.
While, as we said, the Economist has probably a lot of assets to its credit which could help to make the necessary projects work, it is of course not only the Economist who should get involved in kick-starting these processes.
Everybody in society, people and institutions concerned about the state of our world and the state of our democracies must join in.
Of course, only those persons and institutions can get involved in a “Citizens’ Initiative for Better Democracy” who want to serve the Common Good, the well-being of all. Only if the organization truly pursues this goal will it generate trust and the support by wider society it requires. Only then will it be able to work as an effective citizen control system over the democratic policy making systems of a country.