[MG] Start Digest, Vol 37, Issue 1

[Michael Allan]

Jens Egholm wrote:
> Mass-to-mass communication (actually I misquoted him, he termed it
> "many-to-many" instead) are basically the method of communicating in
> fora where many can talk to many in contrast to previous medias
> (television, newspaper etc.) (for the full quote see Bohman 2010 pp.
> 83, 89 f.). ...

I don't think I've read it.  I'll try to find a copy.  Where should I
look?

> The minipublics are institutional "smaller publics" where citizens
> can deliberate. "A minipublic is thus an institutionally constructed
> intermediary in popular will formation, although is could act in
> such a was as to become an agent for the creation of a larger public
> with normative powers" (Bohman 2010 p. 88).  Anyway; The idea is to
> create smaller publics, so actual deliberation can take place, as
> required by the idea about deliberative democracy.  It was this
> concept I wanted to couple with proxy-voting: Imagine small
> institutionally underlined minipublics consiting of a proxy and it's
> principals, that take part in a deliberative process. That, if
> anything, has to be deliberation? :)

Here's a previous attempt to couple aspects of deliberative democracy
and proxy voting: http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht

  Introduces a medium of communicative assent for the purpose of
  consensus building.  The backbone of the medium is a peer-to-peer
  voting mechanism that is open to continuous recasting (delegate
  cascade).  It differs from the conventional media of *mass* assent
  in preserving the deliberative basis of consensus, regardless of
  scale.
                
But yours is only the second attempt I've heard of in this direction.
Nobody else has tried to ground voting within a comprehensive theory
of society, so far as I know.  Deliberative democracy alone would not
be such a theory, but it can easily be made part of one, as in
Habermas or Rawls.

> > But is it realistic? ?To restructure parliament in "liquid" form
> > would involve changing the constitution. ?That would certainly
> > meet with strong and competent opposition from the political
> > class, not to mention others.
> >
> > It would also go against historical precedent. ?During the
> > Enlightenment, the institutions of the state were not the first to
> > be restructured in democratic form; the first to be restructured
> > were those of the public sphere. ?It might even be considered more
> > democratic that it happened that in that particular order, which
> > would make it one of those rare cases (seemingly) in which the
> > more realistic approach is actually closer to the ideal, and not
> > further from it.
> 
> You're probably right. I'll condense my assignment to concentrate on
> the proxy-voting. But on another note if we look away from the
> realistic issue; is it desirable? Think about the current system of
> voting for a bit. It's given that over a period of 4-5 years at
> least some of the representatives will have taken a new political
> standpoint, to the disadvantage (not to mention the democratic
> disadvantage) of the voters. It's really silly to have a system
> where your vote are tied to a person for a set period, while the
> person doesn't have to answer to his/her votes. ...

Ideals matter, I agree.  Ideals are the stuff of theory, and in theory
the legislature is not part of the public sphere.  Rather it is part
of the administrative system.  As such, no matter how it is
restructured, it can never be made into a properly deliberative body.
It's debates will never approximate free speech.  Its function
requires close ties to centers of power in the judiciary, bureaucracy,
executive and (though this may change) political parties, and there
can be no free speech where there is power.

There is no power in the public sphere, and there we can hope for
ideals of deliberation.  To go one step further and attempt a
deliberative *democracy* would require bringing the public sphere and
the administrative system into proper relations with each other.  We
cannot conclude from this that we must restructure the administrative
system (government).  Maybe we do, maybe we don't.  All we may
conclude is that we must restructure the public sphere enough to make
it viable.  History reminds us, too, that the administrative system
has a way of adopting the proper relations to the public sphere and
other parts of society on its own.

It is even probable that a government cannot (in theory) maintain
itself in opposition to a healthy public sphere.  Either the public
sphere must be obeyed or, as in totalitarian states, it must be
destroyed.  The tyrant fears nothing so much as people who speak out.
He cannot long survive in that atmosphere, which is pure poison to
him.  Likewise, neither can a recalcitrant legislature survive for
long, not even for one year.

> I realize the practical aspects are challenging, but it doesn't have
> to be a legislature we're testing the idea on. It might as well be
> some institutional arrangements or other organization.

True.  So long as their existence depends on a rationale of democratic
legitimacy, then the theory and practice should be portable.  If I
recall, Ed Pastore often says we should use a chess club as a testing
ground.  In practice, I think we're ready to commence testing at any
institutional scale - chess club to federated world - but only alpha
testing.  We're not ready for beta, yet.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 416-699-9528
http://zelea.com/



Originally posted to the mailing list of the Metagovernment Project:
http://metagovernment.org/mailman/listinfo/start_metagovernment.org