Another Q for Spring: how can we get beyond "talking shops", and head for deliberative democracy?
From Perspectiva
Another question for Spring: The ideas of using direct democracy in the form of peoples assemblies has been being developed by various groups in recent times but has lacked ‘lift-off’, How can this be made to happen which doesn’t dissolve into another talking-shop?
Firstly, in Spring, it’s not direct democracy but deliberative democracy. Direct democracy - enabling regular referenda on society-wide issues - has become a tool for populist movements. Citizen Assemblies do not take off because, too often, the state commissioning them takes control of their framing and narrative.
However, deliberative democracy helps us move away from polarisation, and reduces our vulnerability to manipulation. Tools include assemblies but also smaller scale spaces for discussion and deliberation - for example, “world cafes” and “open spaces” of all kinds, empathy circles, or antidebates (see below). These build self-knowledge and relationship with others. They take off when the results of one group has a chance to be shared with other groups and momentum builds.
ANTIDEBATE
We have been helping to develop this mode of deliberative practice with Perspectiva. Here’s a summary of what it involves (from Jonathan Rowson’s Joyous Struggle blog):
An anti-debate is about the participatory knowing of deep democracy, in which we experience collective sense-making and choice-making through a simulated encounter with the nature of ‘the impossible we’. The point is to get beyond the idealisation of common ground and move towards the generativity of common experience grounded in mutual challenge and reciprocated respect.
The aim is not to find a consensus position, but rather to create what Robert Kegan calls ‘optimal conflict’ in a way that helps to outflank platitudes and see ourselves and others more clearly. The active ingredient of the antidebate is the problematic set of issues embedded in the question, and the aim, again in Kegan language is not so much ‘solving a problem’ as ‘allowing a problem to solve us’.
The antidebate will be a moving feast for a little longer, but we are currently working with a methodology that moves from
1. Selecting an initial question/prompt designed to be rich and provocative and in some sense resonant or timely. EG: Is War Natural? Or If peace is the way, we will always have violence.
2. This question is then the central prompt for an online Polis survey which serves to ‘warm up’ prospective participants, as well as showing the richness of the question and the range of views and interpretations of it.
3. The survey gives rise to partially analysed data, which helps to distill the original question into major thematic issues and highlights the areas of convergence, divergence and ambivalence.
4. We begin the session with a brief overview of what we are doing, why, and what to expect.
5. The first phase is called ‘tableauing’ in which we draw attention to the major thematics from the polis data, and ask people present (30-60) to show where they would place themselves in terms of strong agreement on one side and strong disagreement on the other; and then to specify their sense of how much that issue matters to the main question/issue at hand.
That means six different snapshots showing divergence, convergence and ambivalence of viewpoints in the room, and in each case people are asked/interviewed by a facilitator (of which there are currently three)
6. We then ask people to reflect on what they think is happening – ‘what’s this about?’ and describe the range of feelings and viewpoints in the room, and why the divergence might be the way it is. This phase often highlights some tension between what people think and what they feel, and it calls into question matters of identity with respect to the question(s) at hand.
7. We then send people off for a break, asking them to reflect and come back with their ethical commitments and willpower in the room and take a stand on something they feel particularly strongly about, in an attempt to steer the conversation and bring people with them. We also make it clear that people who feel disengaged or tired or unsure are welcome to sit it out around the edges of the room, but are asked to stay watching on the understanding we’ll check in with them later.
8. This phase is called ‘swarming’ and it’s dynamic, and enlivens the room. After people ‘take a stand’ on a particular issue, there are some rules but in essence others are allowed to join them. This process keeps happening until nobody wants to move or talk anymore.
9. At this point, mindful of the parallel problem of democratic disengagement, we turn our attention back to those who are disengaged, who have opted out, and we ask them to say what they are missing. We give each of the remaining swarms a chance to respond, with a view to recruiting them.
Once that is exhausted we say to the swarms that although they have been disagreeing and taking (often) competing stands, they also have things in common that speak to today’s political classes, namely a desire to speak, to join, to persuade and to move. The room then divides into those engaged in the process and those who are disengaged. We bring people’s attention back to how this process began and to the original question.
10. We ask people to place themselves on a line again, in terms of whether they agree/disagree with the question at hand and we speak to those who have moved and asked why, and those who have stayed and asked them why. We take a moment of silence and then a round of applause and hope feedback helps to improve the practice further.
We are still experimenting, but I feel we are beginning to get somewhere. Come and help us if you can!