26. Nine Party Democracy

As Prof. Colin Copus argues in his excellent book Party Politics and Local Government, for better or for worse, political parties have come to dominate the landscape of local politics in the UK. Most of the time it is the national political parties that determine the processes, outcomes and (within legally defined limits) the structure of local decision making.  As a ruling group, parties, or a coalition of parties can decide the number, role and size of council committees and other associated bodies.

But what if we turn this on its head and instead design a system that explicitly determines the shape of local political parties?  I had this thought when reflecting on something Jean Jaques Rousseau said. Rousseau didn’t like political parties -  he thought that they interfered with a communities ability to identify the general will of the people.  This is what he says in the social contract (Book II, chapter 3):

If, when the people, being furnished with adequate information, held its deliberations, the citizens had no communication one with another, the grand total of the small differences would always give the general will, and the decision would always be good. But when factions arise, and partial associations are formed at the expense of the great association, the will of each of these associations becomes general in relation to its members, while it remains particular in relation to the State: it may then be said that there are no longer as many votes as there are men, but only as many as there are associations. The differences become less numerous and give a less general result. Lastly, when one of these associations is so great as to prevail over all the rest, the result is no longer a sum of small differences, but a single difference; in this case there is no longer a general will, and the opinion which prevails is purely particular.

It is therefore essential, if the general will is to be able to express itself, that there should be no partial society within the State, and that each citizen should think only his own thoughts: which was indeed the sublime and unique system established by the great Lycurgus. But if there are partial societies, it is best to have as many as possible and to prevent them from being unequal, as was done by Solon, Numa and Servius. These precautions are the only ones that can guarantee that the general will shall be always enlightened, and that the people shall in no way deceive itself.

The interesting point here is that, for Rousseau, if there are partial societies, e.g. parties, ‘it is best to have as many as possible and to prevent them from being unequal’.  OK, Rousseau is talking about all citizens rather than a representative assembly but it started me thinking about what a council decision making structure, designed around this principle might look like.  This is what I came up with.

The Nine Party System

The rules for this system are as follows:

First, every council will have exactly nine parties of equal size.  The size of these parties will be proportional to the size of the council but the number of councillors would need to be divisible by nine.  So, for example, a council with 64 councillors would have 63 under this system, seven councillors in each party.  The minimum size of a council would have to be 27 councillors for the system to work.

Second, elections would be for parties not individuals.  Voters would have a list of the available parties on their ballot papers and, depending on the preferred voting method would select one or more.  Of course information about the membership of each party would be made available.

Third, every committee of council, including the executive, would have nine members with one place allocated for each party who can nominate any of their members to that place.  Chairs and vice chairs would be decided by each individual body at their first meeting.  As places are for parties rather than people then if someone cannot attend, someone else from their party simply attends in their place.

Fourth, the requirements for forming and running a party will be established in law and carefully monitored.  Ideally funding should be provided and access to publicity regulated so that each party has a chance to operate on a level playing field.

Fifth, the number, type and functions of committees would be determined by the first full meeting of each council.  This meeting will also elect a chair.

Benefits

Here are some of the benefits of this system, from a rousseauian perspective at any rate;

• National political parties could not dominate.  They could stand as a single party in elections but, as they could only stand one party they could never have more than one ninth of the councillors;
• Single parties could not dominate.  Every party in this system would have an equal chance to participate in decision making - there would be no more ruling groups;
• A wider variety of opinions would be represented, more space would be created for local concerns to be raised;
• It would be much easier for organised groups of citizens to access the decision making process by forming a party
• Politics would be more fluid as it would be much easier for parties to form and dissolve. 

Why Nine?

Actually nine may be something of an arbitrary number.  Seven or even eleven might do as well.  There doesn't seem to be an optimum size for a council committee although for any group five seems to be the minimum worthwhile size and as groups get larger the law of diminishing returns probably kicks in.   An odd number seems helpful simply as it avoids needing the chair to have a casting vote on split decisions. 

 

23. Ostracic Voting

OK, the phrase ‘ostracic voting’ sounds strange.  This may partly be because I have probably just made it up.  Yes, it is connected to the idea of ostracism which, like many of my favourite democratic ideas, goes back to classical Athens.  I wondered whether it might be something that could be applied to the practice of modern local democracy.

Agora Museum in Athens

I got the idea after a visit to the rather beautiful Athens Agora Museum, where, as well as coming face to face with a real life kleroterian as they used for sortitions, I came across some ostraca (ostracons?).  Now these wonderful little broken pieces of clay or shell where used for the process of ostracising (expelling) unwanted politicians.

Ostracism in Classical Athens

The Wikipedia page about ostracism, which is well worth read, explains it like this:

Each year the Athenians were asked in the assembly whether they wished to hold an ostracism...  If they voted "yes", then an ostracism would be held two months later. In a section of the agora set off and suitably barriered, citizens scratched the name of a citizen they wished to expel on pottery shards, and deposited them in urns. The presiding officials counted the ostraka submitted and sorted the names into separate piles. The person whose pile contained the most ostraka would be banished...

Banishment would be for 10 years although, as property rights were essentially unaffected this constituted a political suspension rather than any more significant – you could get the death penalty for political crimes back then.  Once the term was up the victim could resume their place in the political order as before – in special circumstances people could even be brought back early.

The benefit of ostracism for the Athenians was that it provided a countermeasure against tyranny and could also help decide issues of policy where particular positions were strongly associated with individuals.  With the rise of organised factions, however, its use declined.

Ostraca in the Agora Museum in Athens

Ostracic Voting in Local Democracy Today

Thinking about this I wonder if there are at least four ways ostracic voting might be used in local democracy:

1.         Committee Meetings

Committees could be given the option to decide whether to have an vote and the ability to expel a member of the committee for any period of time. This might improve the performance of the committee and keep individual members on their toes.  It would not affect political balance as a replacement would come from the same party. However, party motives may come to the fore and with a small group, the secret nature of the voting might not be sufficient protection against these motives dominating.  On the other hand, where the committee members are genuinely concerned about the effectiveness of the group it gives them the ability to remove unproductive, disruptive or uninterested individuals.

2.         Council Meetings

Council meetings could be given not so much the power to recall, as the power to eject.  Council as a body would have the option to remove any unproductive, disruptive or uninterested individuals and force a by election in their wards.  Again, this procedure could be subject to group politics but, with a secret vote, that would be more difficult to arrange.

3.         Recall Elections

The procedure of recall elections gives voters the chance to remove unwanted representatives. Ostracic voting provides a different way to organise this. Every year voters would have the chance to nominate a councillor they would like to see ostracised (this could be done on a ward or council wide basis), the councillor with the most votes, perhaps with a minimum threshold would be ostracised, and a by election held.

4.         Local Elections

Finally, ostracic voting might be applied to the local election procedure itself. Voters could rank candidates, not in their order of preference, but in their order of disapproval. Selection could take place on the simple basis of the candidate least disliked being elected or after a series or rounds similar to the alternative vote or single transferable vote.  

All of this might sounds weird but perhaps it is not as weird as all that as this method is already popular.  Just look at any number of reality TV shows such as Big Brother to see ostracic voting in action.

13. Agoric Democracy

If you think that the Internet is the way to revive democracy then look away now.  You probably won't like this one.

The idea of Agoric Democracy is inspired by the Agora of the ancient Greek polis (the Roman equivalent was the Forum) .  Now I'm no expert on ancient Greek cities and I'm basing this on what is probably an ideal version of a much messier reality but, as far as I know, you can say the following about the Agora:

• Agora literally means 'gatheing place' (agoraphobic comes from this and actually means fear of public places not open spaces)
• It was at the centre of many ancient Greek cities including Athens during the height of its democracy
• It was the city's central square which often had public buildings around the outside and hosted markets as well as political activity
• It was the place to come and deliberate, shop, see entertainment, argue or just be seen
• It was the place where trials could take place, political speeches made and new laws declared
• People who didn't go to the agorae were idiots - this is where the word comes from

From this I'm drawing three important principles of agoric democracy:

• Politics is not a separate activity.  Politics, law and commerce all take place in one physical space, sometimes at the same time. (Compare this with many cities in the UK today where council chambers are housed in building away from city centres and where shopping centres are devoid of (more or less) all political activity).  At a personal level people don't have separate identities as citizens or as consumers so why should these things be catered for separately by society? 
• Political activity is open and in public.  Law making assemblies meet in full view of people going about their normal everyday business.  You don't have to make a special effort to see politics in action - it will just be there in front of you.  'Speak to my councillor' would be on the shopping list just below 'batteries' and just above 'socks'.
• Interaction and deliberation are face to face. Non verbal communication is very important for human communication and so communication concerned with democracy and decision making should not be conducted without it.  Citizenship needs face to face deliberation.

This last point is one that can be argued but there is no doubt that online and offline deliberation are different and, according to this article by Min:

... many theorists are skeptical of the power of online deliberation. With the exception of Walther's (1992) social information processing theory, most other communication theories suggest that online discussion will be less effective than face-to-face discussion. Traditional social presence theory (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976) asserts that communication is most effective when nonverbal cues are present.

From the this perspective, the challenge of democracy is one that needs to be taken up by urban planning and political geography.   It means taking a new look at city centres and shopping centres and weaving in spaces for council committees to meet, for councillors to have their surgeries and for council officials to have their offices.  These political spaces should either be completely open or, at worst, behind glass.  It means providing places where people can stand on soap boxes and make their arguments, set up stalls to support their campaigns or just meet with other folk to debate the issues of the day.  Of course all this takes place in the middle of shopping, eating and entertainment in the thriving centre of the urban space. 

Hence reviving democracy is a challenge of design and planning.  Not so much designing out crime as designing in democracy. Ensuring local politics takes place in a constant stream of human contact and interaction.

One footnote to this is that this new (old) vision of the city might actually help with a problem caused by the Internet - namely the pressure placed on city centre retail by online shopping.

I have also noticed that the Welsh word agored means 'open', I'm not sure whether that is connected, but I'd like to think it is.