Deliberative democracy

An OurKingdom conversation [History: Jeremy Gilbert > Rosemary Bechler > this post > Rosemary Bechler (part one; part two) > Jeremy Gilbert]

John Jackson (London, Mishcon de Reya): The texts of Nick Herbert's public speeches sometimes give the impression of having been drafted first by a well informed assistant, with a sound knowledge of our constitutional history, and then given a ‘going over’ by Herbert to provide a (Conservative Party) politically correct gloss. The result can read in an oddly disjointed – almost Palinist -  way. This is a pity: it diminishes the value of serious attempts to discuss serious questions in a serious way. The public lecture commenting on a decade of the Human Rights Act, sponsored by the British Institute of Human Rights and delivered by Herbert yesterday at the site of the British Library’s Taking Liberties exhibition is a striking example of this.

Despite the disjunctions, some good, and some bad,  points emerged clearly from  Herbert’s lecture.

He was right to:-

• Warn against the dangers of judicial activism;
• Emphasise that human rights cannot have meaning, or exist, without popular consent;
• Say ‘ – in society we have responsibilities to one another.’ and ’- there is a danger that rights become not tools for protecting the individual within society, but advancing the individual against society.’

But wrong to:-

• Argue that judicial activism has been accelerated by the Human Rights Act which has undermined parliamentary sovereignty and the separation of the powers;
• Imply that popular consent can only be expressed through parliamentary representation;
• Suggest that the best way for our society to ‘re-balance’ rights and responsibilities is via a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities proposed by a (Conservative) government and, following debate, converted by a (Conservative) government dominated parliament into an Act ‘preventing judge-made law’ and restoring ‘the place of parliament’.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): watched Question Time while hopping back at first to Newsnight, where I thought Iain Dale was good against what is clearly going to be the prevailing reaction, that David Davis is 'mad'. Have you noticed that there is a trope now in media discussions where people say about a politiciian that he is "very principled" meaning "ignore him he does not understand 'where it is at'? They did this with Tony Benn. Having almost walked the gangplank in loyalty to this GroupThink, Fraser Nelson at Spectator CH suddenly thought, "hang on", and in an admirable post noted that while the whole of the media establishment sees Davis as bonkers 95 per cent of BBC responses say the opposite.
This is one man against the political class in its full sense, as Peter Oborne defined it, which INCLUDES the media.
The key moment on Question Time was when the tool of the Sun, the carefully sinister George Pascoe-Watson, said he could not understand why Davis had done this "stunt" except for rasons of self-publicity when he could have been Home Secretary in two years time and removed the legislation from the statute book. One knew immediately that had David stayed this would not have happened!
I've commented on the politics of this and where we could go from here in a strong article by Conor Foley over at Liberal Conspiracy. This is what I wrote:

Keith Sutherland (Exeter, Imprint Academic): Alex Parsons’ inspired proposal for the delegated vote would help to restore democratic legitimacy. However it does nothing to address the more fundamental problem of how to facilitate informed political decision making in mass democracies. Political psychologists can predict, with 80% accuracy, voters’ judgments about complex issues, solely on the basis of emotional preferences and passions that bear no logical relation to policy issues. In 82% of twentieth-century cases, the tallest candidate won the US presidential election, and surveys show that the public does slightly worse in estimates of the parties’ positions on most issues than it would do if it proceeded by flipping a coin.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): As the Brown government makes a hash of its so-called citizens juries, James Fishkin reports on the conclusion to the altogether more serious efforts to listen to the people of Europe which Clive James Matthews has been blogging over on our sister site dLiberation. It is a must-read if you are really interested in 'listening to the people'. Fishkin works from the Centre for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford and has developed a sophisticated form of deliberative polling. For a good overview of the issues involved see his review of the best selling Wisdom of Crowds. He concludes:

Tony Curzon Price (London, openDemocracy): We - particularly the "we" who think and talk about politics too much - have a picture of a thriving public space as one in which informed citizens discuss and debate, from fundamentals to tactics, values to vices, news to gossip, action and reflection, serving on that committee and organising this grouplet ... and always holding power to account. What stops this vision coming about? According to Matthias Benz, over on openDemocracy's Deliberation Debate, referenda have a measurable impact on how much people talk about political issues. His message: if you want people engaged, informing themselves and talking politics, get them to vote on issues. Matthias does some serious statistics to measure the size of the effect. Here are some ways of thinking of the impact. The difference between the most and least participative institutions is about the same, in terms of informed-ness, as:

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): A new openDemocracy blog has been launched: dLiberation. Its immediate mandate, to cover the Tomrrow's Europe experiment in Brussels next month. Its author, the famous J Clive Mathews, known to many of us as nosemonkey.Three things are coming together here. At the top level there is the question of how, in an age of globalisation and the internet, we can arrive at trustworthy knowledge, methods of understanding and policies that actually influence the way the world is governed - and as the current financial crisis shows it does need government! It is not good enough for policy makers just to come to the right opinion. The process effects their legitimacy and authority and also their ability to come to conclusions that offend vested interests. This calls for democracy, not of the plebiscitary variety, but a democracy based upon a wise public.

Daniel Leighton (London, Power Inquiry): For anyone thinking about how to involve ‘ordinary citizens’ in political decision making, Bettany Hughes’ TV documentary on Athenian democracy provides good food for thought. After seeing part one I want to alert people to the case for adding selection by lot to our own government. Part two goes out tomorrow, Saturday. It may not be easily digestible for moderns obsessed with elections as the alpha and omega of democracy. As Hughes reminded us, the Athenians opted for lotteries over elections as their primary method for appointing people to political offices. In the modern world elections are seen as the defining characteristic of democracies. In that part of the ancient world elections were seen as an aristocratic device. Although the Athenians used elections for a small minority of public offices, particularly for military and financial posts, lottery was considered the method that embodied the principle of political equality. Allotment spread the work of administration into the citizen body, engaging them in the crucial democratic experience of, to use Aristotle's words, "ruling and being ruled in turn".

Neal Lawson (London, Compass): The left has played fast and lose with democracy. It still sees it as a means to achieve the capture of state power, a purely instrumental view. This must change, especially now as Gordon Brown's premiership seems set to call for more democracy in new, deliberative forms. All very welcome and principled but he needs to avoid the dangers of being instrumental. Democracy has to be valued for its intrinsic contribution to peoples everyday lives and not just for the opportunity it provides to control the state. For someone like me on the left this is crucial because of the tension between our competing desires for equality and diversity. A modern left must encapsulate both. Democracy in the full sense, from entrenched minority rights to fair-voting , but especially the culture of democracy, allows people to make practical trade-offs themselves and in the process become empowered as humans. At Compass we have just published the final part (opens as pdf) of our Programme for Renewal trilogy. It is on democracy and sets out this case. Part 1 was on the good society and part 2 on a new political economy. Democracy brings the whole together. It is both means and ends. However, the understanding of how this works and of how process shapes outcomes remains very weak - the concept of democracy needs to move centre stage.

Jessica Reed (London oD): Now that you British are talking about writing down your constitution (and this applies also to the constitution or constitutional treaty of the E.U) one crucial question is sure to give headaches to those at the top: who should write it? Should it be a body of elected politicians? Outstanding jurists? And how should the British public be actively involved? Pam Giddy of the Power Inquiry has said here in OK that she does not want another “bogus conversation”. She did not say that her organisation has a record of holding events which have indeed involved British citizens in political decision making. I witnessed one of these, the recent European Citizens Consultations, which took place in York last March (and which we live-blogged!). Ollie Henman, co-coordinator of the event, later wrote about the deliberative process, and how engaging everyday citizens does work. He also has experience in Brazil. There is much more practical knowledge about legitimate citizens participation, from Canada to Brussels, than you'd know of by reading the London media. Much of it helped by Jim Fishkin of the Center for Deliberative Democracy in Stanford, California. My message to  OK readers is: don't think you are alone!