Wise Democracy Victoria

This is the original, slightly longer version of my article in today's Times Colonist Newspaper on collaborative democracy.


When Democracy Falters Who You Gonna’ Call??
Public anger and resentment is growing worldwide against the political elite.  Politicians and corporate leaders have been unable to resolve global economic crises and spreading unemployment.  Hundreds of billions in public tax dollars continue to pour into private banks and corporate bailouts.  Billions more go into questionable military adventures with only minority public support.
Many people are questioning whether democracy as-we-know-it is up to dealing with these modern day challenges.  There’s a creeping malaise in Western liberal democracies. The hyper-partisan politics of today is creating a party-focused system with politicians consistently putting the interests of their parties ahead of the interests of their constituents and the public trust.
Consider the disrepute the BC Liberals have engineered for themselves with their shady HST tactics and BC rail cover-up.   Look at the recent shenanigans by the unelected Senate as they killed Bill C-311 in a surprise vote without debate; a move that many Canadians consider an affront to democracy.
Fortunately, wiser forms of democracy are beginning to emerge, providing citizens with meaningful opportunities to participate in political decision-making.  For example, the government of Iceland has initiated a constitutional assembly that is considering suggestions put forward by 1,000 randomly chosen citizens.  The expectation is that the assembly will radically alter the current contract between citizen and state.

In our experience with Wisdom Councils, random selection is a key mechanism for taking democracy beyond our current system which is gridlocked by big money, partisan interests, fundamentalist ideologies, etc., etc.  Ran across this excellent booklet exploring some of the history and application of random selection ... also known as sortition.  A digital copy is available for free download.

Sorted: Civic lotteries and the Future of Public Participation
Oliver Dowlen
http://www.masslbp.com/publications.php
In 2004 and 2006, two major democratic experiments took place in Canada's first and third most populous provinces. Two years later, this pamphlet explores the impact of Ontario and British Columbia's first Citizens' Assemblies by examining the premise on which each assembly was based: the use of sortition, or a "civic lottery" to select citizens to participate in a binding public process.

By examining the use of civic lotteries through history - a tradition that remains at the core of our judicial system - this pamphlet explains how sortition can lower the barrier to political participation and extend a meaningful new franchise to citizens wishing to serve their communities. Against a backdrop of institutional and political stagnation, Sorted: Civic lotteries and the future of public participation makes the case for reviving a neglected democratic tradition - one that works in partnership with existing institutions and elected legislators to create a more powerful and direct role for citizens.

Received a link today for www.Participedia.net:  
Participedia is a tool for strengthening democracy. Based on a wiki platform, its main content consists of user-generated articles which describe and assess participatory governance throughout the world. For instance, there will be articles on the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly of 2004, consensus conferences in Denmark, participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre and other cities, local school council governance in Chicago, municipal evaluation meetings in China, and the People’s Campaign for Democratic Decentralization (under the Panchayati Raj reforms) in Kerala, India. In addition, there will be articles on participatory methods, such as deliberative polling, citizens' assemblies, and participatory budgeting, as well as articles about the organizations that sponsor, implement, and study participatory governance. Over time, we hope Participedia will garner hundreds and perhaps thousands of such articles.