A couple of months back I was reading "In Search of Common Ground" by Bastian Berbner (which I recommend) and was fascinated by a chapter detailing Ireland's 2014 Constitutional Convention. While the chapter (and the book) were focused on overcoming bias among people, for this rambling I will talk about the process in which they participated.
The Irish Constitutional Convention was made up of 100 members, notably 66 Irish citizens selected at random. By design, those selected at random were to be reflective of Ireland's population. The concept of a properly representative democracy (even if only on the constitutional question) via random lottery was fascinating to me, but the same chapter traces the practice to Athens where random lottery was the entire basis of their democracy. The word for this is Sortition, and I find it to be a fascinating idea.
Deliberative Democracy is the concept that deliberation, not voting, is central to decision-making. "Deliberative democracy seeks quality over quantity by limiting decision-makers to a smaller but more representative sample of the population that is given the time and resources to focus on one issue." (Taken directly from the wikipedia article because I honestly cannot summarize it better). I believe that, as a society, we can implement the principles of Deliberative Democracy and Sortition for the benefit of the people. Recognizing that the limitations of Deliberative Democracy make it a poor option to replace our existing institutions (not that the institutions would allow that anyway), it certainly can be selectively implemented to improve outcomes and involve diverse voices in decision making processes. It is these selective applications that I am referring to as the Deliberative Assembly (DA for short).
So, what should a deliberative assembly be used for as a sort of in-between of representative and direct forms of democracy? For the general public, I think state-wide and smaller is where this can best be applied. It should be used to tackle community issues with multiple conflicts and differing visions for the future. How do The People want their communities policed? What is the best way to deal with the unhoused in your community? The topics of our time are certainly fitting for the use of DAs, but they can even be used for local master plans, setting the vision for the area's physical future. The only drawback is that these processes take additional time and resources to convey all relevant information such as the history of the issue, different opinions, potential impacts, finances, processes, legal considerations, and more. Not to mention skilled facilitators to lead the process.
Fundamentally, I believe the power of DAs draw from the fact that our current structures of governance are not representative of the populations they serve. Elected officials are statistically older, whiter, and richer than the rest of us (although it is slowly improving in our congress). I believe citizen-led ballot initiatives playing a larger role in our democracy demonstrates the failures of our institutions in the eyes of the Public. Elected officials have allegiances other than their constituencies, resulting in this tilt toward more direct forms of democratic decision-making.
Per usual, I must make the education connection to finish things off. While K-12 classroom discussions may include socratic seminars, I do see application of DAs as likely beneficial to Higher Education. Student Governments struggle with getting individuals of diverse viewpoints involved in their organizations. There are many reasons for such, but the result is that students are disconnected from their representative organization and therefore their university's administrative decision making. Students often are not aware of how much influence they have in their institutions. One fix that I suggest is the deliberate, intentional involvement of students on select issues through deliberative assembly. Not just students who are involved in clubs and student government (a unique breed indeed), but The Students involved via Sortition in an assembly.
In Spring of 1918 at the Northern Arizona University, all but two students gathered to rally at the defense of university President Rudolph Harin Henrich Blome who was being ousted for being German during the WW1 anti-German hysteria. They organized, elected their representative board (mostly consisting of Women, to note), and fought for their president. While they did not get the result they wanted, I think it is a great example of people coming together for their community. A little over a decade later, students would create the Open Forum Club and would build the Open Forum House, a place for discussion and deliberation. While no longer around today, it is a testament to debate being one of the backbones of a healthy democracy.
Brendan Trachsel © Copyright 2024 
