In ancient Greece, 500 juries sat in court in the trial that condemned Socrates to his death (Apology, Plato). Today, in most legal institutions, there are only 12. What does this show?

Let us face the facts: Greek democracy is arguably more democratic than that of the modern world. In Athens, citizens share a unique form of direct democracy, allowing each and every one of them to vote on any issue of their choice. Unlike today, there was no representative of the people, conferring all power into the hands of the people. This is what liberals meant by freedom; it was the unattainable ideal which has continually driven idealists of the recent past. Despite the aspirations of many modern thinkers like John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx towards participative democracy, which is not unlike Athenian democracy, these aspirations have been sadly disappointed time and again. While American democracy has often been decried as a lousy political system, it has also often been said that it is nevertheless the best political system available.

It is troubling to see that we have conformed so much to the system that we are unable to think beyond it, to see how it can be improved by transforming the entire concept, rather than merely its implementation.

In “The Politics Of Everyday Life”, Paul Ginsborg talked about deliberative democracy as an evolution of present day democracy, the ideas within which I agree with quite wholesomely. The idea is to bring in the people into the democratic process while maintaining the representative system to get the best of both worlds.

In the present system, using representatives is the only form of democracy available. There are various problems associated with it including shady deals and political bickering that you often read and hear about in the news; as well as corruption and broken promises. Representation means a surrendering of people power to a single person, who may or may not fulfill their trust based on his own individualistic desires. On the other hand, participative democracy suffers from potential paralysis of the decision making process due to inability to obtain majorities, exponentially increasing demands on the participants, and the tendency of the state to move towards obligatory participation.

By combining the two, the picture of the new democratic system may appear as follows: A parliament of representatives may begin a meeting, but sitting in with them is a crowd of citizens. The session begins, with the representatives going through each item on the agenda, and on each item, various reps will begin to speak, throwing back and fro arguments for and against the motion. Eventually, the chairperson will cease discussion on the table and request for any contribution from the floor, limited to a limited first-come-first-serve basis. Here, the people get the chance to express their views on the issue, after which voting starts, with one significant change: all members in the chamber will be allowed to vote. The motion is passed by the majority of both representative and citizen votes.

This is one workable scenario of political decision making in “restricted participative democracy”. While conferring all power on the people, depending on how many shows up, it restricts most of the discussion to the political representatives but still allowing a selected few to air their views. By such an implementation, we may avoid the pitfalls of the two democratic modes by turning them into mutually supportive forms.

A powerful aspect of the scenario is that the people are given the sole power to influence decisions, but it is limited to those who are active enough to actually show up and listen to the arguments. At the same time, because people actually show up, politicians are forced to avoid shady dealings and cater openly to the wishes of the masses, thus guaranteeing transparency. The participation of the people will also lower political apathy, and if participation becomes widespread, this encourages political awareness and education. It also reducing the politician-citizen divide, ensuring we will never require something like a meet-the-people session again. Secondly, by limiting discussion to only representatives, it neatens the procedure and length of debate as well as ensuring the quality of content. Imagine if everyone wanted a piece of the pie, clamoring to be the one to speak to the chamber!

This is not an idealistic goal; it is a pragmatic one. The change may be small, but the step from voting through representation to voting through participation is a large and revolutionary step, although it is certainly not unheard of. If major states in the world can implement something like this system of “restricted participative democracy”, it will be a new step towards the liberal goal of individual power and freedom.
21:11
0 Comments | Post/Read comment