In this second blog on building an effective citizen-led and responsive democracy, Shared Future director Jez Hall reflects further on how to address the current crisis in our democracy by taking an ecosystem approach. One that designs and then blends different democratic systems, and sees democracy as a verb, not a noun.  Within Shared Future it’s a journey we are already on.

Democracy is complex!

My latest thoughts have been inspired by the potential to combine two democratic engagement processes, both of which Shared Future has long promoted. That is, Participatory Budgeting(PB) and Citizens Assemblies and Juries(CA). They have often been seen as different beasts. Arguably the latter has been in the ascendancy. Certainly we will continue to champion CA’s and have delivered many, especially at the local level. Mostly, but not exclusively on the topic of the climate emergency. 

We have just had a democratic landslide, with a new Labour Government promising change. The need for change certainly seems to be real. Social inequality is at levels not seen for many years. Climate change is threatening to harm those least able to adjust to its inevitablity. The housing crisis is driving our economy, with young people caught in a cycle of high rents and low housing supply.

But the coffers of the government seem to be empty. Many believe Labour’s victory could be ocean wide, and pond deep. Voters are becoming increasingly fickle, and more tactical in how they vote, and the old certainties behind our representative democracy no longer hold. That means we need more experimentation, not less.

Recently a number of the larger organisations within our type of deliberative work, who also champion citizens assemblies and juries, have been arguing they could have a significant role in setting policy for Labour, and see the opportunity for the increasing growth of CA’s, especially at the national level.

I get that, but worry that putting all our eggs into one basket is risky. I don’t believe I’m alone in believing one solution does not fit all situations.

A blended democracy

It was therefore heartening for me to read a new proposal from the USA on Participatory Assemblies for Budgeting, which spurred an active online conversation on the possibilities of doing both in one process. Being even handed, and long in the tooth, I tried to point out some of the tensions in this blended approach. The fact there are questions doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. It does mean we should consider the whole picture.

I’ve long believed that we need to see the complementarity of the deep deliberation possible within a citizens assembly or jury, with sortition at its heart, and the widespread public engagement and participation of participatory budgeting. This is as someone with a 20+ interest in PB and, more recently but just as deeply, in deliberative processes.

Who holds the power?

I think there are some challenges in combining them, as they have different conceptual roots. For some, as its been transferred to what is sometimes called ‘the North’, PB has become a decaffeinated version of the originally radical Latin American mode, with a lack of governance and accountability around which budgets are made available for public debate, a decline in the importance of equity, and often sporadic processes that end when particular administrative champions move on.

Equally, a lot of deliberative processes suffer from being ad-hoc top down ‘policy forums’, without ongoing participation, rule making authority or ways to ensure that citizen recommendations are actually enacted… or at best… only the ones most palatable to politicians and officers. Following Arnstein’s ladder analysis, might not CA’s be a form of co-option or placation… handpicked (even if they are randomised) citizens being given temporary ‘quasi powers’?

However, both have strengths… PB on shining a light on the power of money and budgets. (I often quote this phrase: “Remember, the truth about a city’s aspirations isn’t found in its vision. It’s found in its budget.” Which is taken from a tweet by Brent Toderian, a Canadian city planner). Or, conversely, a CA’s proven ability to talk through and go beyond apparent divisions, and deal with complex information and tradeoffs.

And of course, both have their weaknesses. Not least the differing entry levels and capacity of citizens to get involved in complex and time-consuming deliberation, or the risk of PB distracting citizens by apparent power over a vanishingly small section of the budget, whilst the rest is left to elites and lobbyists to control.

Rising up from the streets

Plus, the fact that citizens are often most concerned and energised with their local democracy, such as planning decisions, or local services, or single issues that cross departmental silos like climate change or civil rights. Inevitably, due to their expense, large scale PB and CA’s descend from above… meaning there needs to be a prior decision to ‘permit’ them.

Can we ignore direct democracy, in the form of protest, non-violent direct action, petitions or referenda being squeezed out through safer, technocratic engagement ‘models’; that arguably set the rules for what change is ‘in scope’? Even imprison those that cross the line.

My next question is… do we blend them, or sequence them? For example, I’m keen on how a sortition based stratified Citizens Budget Council might make up a design group for how to run a PB process. Or maybe, when a CA is announced, there is also an announcement of a commitment to a participatory budget to enable the recommendations to be delivered, either by the public authority, or by investing in civil society, who may be better placed to deliver.

Learning from what we know

New York’s PB has been building in additional deliberation to its PB, through stratified neighbourhood assemblies.

In a small way, the link has been already made in the UK, through the Shipley CA, which evolved a next step of a hyper local PB.

And recently the original architect of PB in New York, Josh Lerner, produced a white paper on democratic ecosystems. Which, through a compelling analysis, took the position that we need to a blended democracy; representative, deliberative, participatory, online and direct democracy, and more. Ever evolving and interacting, and seen as equally valuable parts of a whole. Josh Lerner’s white paper proposes a new approach for defending & expanding democracy. As Josh puts it, we need a move from competing waves to democratic flows.

Grow the fertile margins of democracy

I think that an ecosystem approach has a lot to commend it. Ultimately, these are design issues. PB arguably works best in some contexts, and CA’s in another? We need more democratic diversity, and we need constant innovation to rebuild trust and tackle some massive 21st century challenges… especially whilst our representative democracy remains at best 20th century, or even 19th century, in its conception.

Within an ecosystem, the boundaries are often the richest and most fertile. The boundary between land and water being the most obvious. Or the hedgerows that lie between different fields. Using this same analogy, the most fertile democratic ecosystems occur where they meet. The interfaces and the fuzzy zones, where we are negotiating differences and growing something new. We need more of those spaces.

Read the related blogs by Jez in this series, on Ecosystems of Democracy: Go Deep, Connect and Inspire, and Can democracy survive our multiple crises: Ecosystem Democracy part 3

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Featured image: Shipley citzens jury on climate change