How do we practice Democracy?

Since democracy is the people rule, then the most perfect form of democracy is direct democracy. In a direct democracy, the decisions are taken by the people who have to live with the consequences of those decisions. Those decisions pertain but are not limited to societal objectives, the constitution, policy, legislation and evaluation of all of the above.

Direct democracy functions best in small groups where face to face discussion can occur easily. With modern digital and IT tools, in theory groups can be larger, and technologies exist for informing and collating opinion over large groups. Fishkin’s deliberative polling, Prohaska’s Vote4Democracy voter agglomeration method and Flux models are examples of this.

Three disadvantages of large-scale direct democracy are that voters / citizens may not be interested or inclined, they may not have the time to participate, and they may not avail themselves of the information provided to make an informed decision. These are not trivial issues.

Even when the citizens decide the broad policy direction and societal outcomes they want, and leave implementation to an executive, there is still the problem of deriving that ‘will of the people’ and then monitoring progress.
Further, because the concept of direct democracy is foreign to most people in the modern world, and we have been conditioned to believe that democracy equals elections, acceptance of the possibility of setting up direct democracy systems is very low.

If implemented without a period of education and adaptation for the community, a direct democracy system where participation was partial, would result de facto in a version of representation, where selection was only by volunteering. Voluntarism precludes formal citizen selection of the representative and any robust accountability. So any move toward setting up direct democracy requires a change process.

So, in the current governance situation, accepting that we are living in a representative democratic system, which has some formal representative selection and accountability processes, the questions are:

1. How do we set up a more democratic political system in the shorter term which lays foundations for moving toward more direct democracy (where we are the pro-democracy movement)?

2. What could such a system look like?

3. Can we escape representation (where we are a populous, complex industrial human society)?

To answer the second question first to give a lead into question one before coming to question three, there are several existing examples of more democratic representative systems. The best known (though not widely) is Abdullah Öcalan’s experimental adaptation of Murray Bookchin’s liberal municipalism in Rojava, Kurdistan, known as democratic confederalism. Democratic confederalism is a political philosophy that promotes federations of popular assemblies and participatory politics (definition taken form Eleanor Finley’s Practicing Social Ecology, Pluto Press, 2025).

Many Indigenous peoples practice very similar governance structures in the contemporary world such as the Zapatista movement in Chiapas Mexico. Historically there was the Haudenosaunee, Blackfoot, Pontiac and other Indigenous American confederacies. The Occupy movements have used such governance structures.

Sociocracy and holocracy are other participatory governance models currently used at local scales or in organisations that rely on direct participation at the local level with delegation of representatives up the scale of decision making.

A final practical example is the governance organisation of modern environmental and peace protest movements. This revolves around affinity groups and a federated structure of councils and caucuses. An affinity group comprises 15 to 20 people who have developed a relationship and work together in the protest environment for mutual support. The affinity group is the basic unit for direct collaborative decision making.

In all the democratic confederalist systems, each affinity or local group is autonomous and governs themselves. To coordinate activity across several groups or at a regional level, the basic units send selected representatives to councils. In some versions of the system these councils only coordinate activity. In other versions they may have some delegated decision-making responsibilities.

This is a very simplified overview. Each confederacy decides how it is going to work. Sociocracy, holocracy and democratic confederalism have rules or guidelines for selecting and managing representatives, as well as at what level decisions need to be taken. The point here is that models provide a practical example of how a more directly democratic system might work.

To return to question one, where do we start?

Simultaneously we need to do several things including:
• Promote and inform about the importance of participating to some level in the decisions that establish what our society prioritises, how benefits and costs are shared and how society operates,
• Talk up the possibilities of direct democracy where it might be easily applied,
• Inform and educate people about the pros/cons and mechanics of direct democracy, and of deliberative methods for deriving the will of the people,
• Point to and run demonstrations of direct and other forms of participatory democracy in action,
• In parallel to representative structures set up local direct democracy institutions,
• Within representative democracy systems, expand spaces for community participation in decision-making at all stages of the governance process, as a way station on the path to more direct democracy,
• Explore further how technology can facilitate direct democratic input.

Can we escape representation?

I can’t give an answer to this question. In the future, the possibility is open. For the immediate future, probably not. Social changes driven by collapsing socioeconomic and ecologic systems will drive some change. We have to assess which form of governance will best deliver for humanity and us. Some form of democracy is most likely to do this successfully. We need to be prepared. Our task now is to design and build the escape route to more democratically functioning forms of governance, using the examples of sociocracy, holocracy and democratic confederalism.

More ideas coming by and by.

Peter Tait

A pdf version of this piece can be accessed here.