Philippe's Reviews > Rebooting Democracy: A Citizen's Guide to Reinventing Politics

This featherweight tome offers a lot of bang for the buck. In an opening gambit, the author offers a dry-eyed account of why representational democracy as currently practiced will not, for the most part, take care of the public interest. A mix of hard to avoid psychological and social mechanisms (politicians’ elite group norms, ideological biases, fear of uncertainty, voters’ ‘rational ignorance’, amongst others) and patent design flaws (short electoral cycles, wrong incentives, lack of demographic representativity, lack of supervision, ill-guided political integration) continue to uphold a dysfunctional political system. Much of this is common sense. However, having just read Ianis Varoufakis’ And the Weak Suffer What They Must? - a shocking account of Europe’s monetary crisis - I am reminded how easy it is to lose sight of the tremendous cost of these malpractices.

Arriaga’s proposals for a reboot of democracy are as level-headed as his diagnosis. He sees various forms of ‘citizen deliberation’ as a key route to democratic empowerment in a post-ideological world. This refers to a collection of deliberative formats in which panels with ordinary citizens, supported by policy and scientific experts, develop positions and recommendations on issues of general interest. In one US-based case discussed in the book, citizen panels are used to add a deliberative layer to the process of handling ballot measures:

Before a referendum is held, a panel of 24 randomly chosen citizens now deliberate for a number of days on the measure being proposed. After interviewing advocates on both sides and consulting scientific experts who provide them with in-depth information on the topic, these citizens carefully analyze the question before them and conclude their work by issuing a public statement. Written in everyday language and not more than two or three pages long, this document includes the panel’s key findings about the choice facing the electorate, short group statements by the panelists who support and oppose the ballot measure; and any additional considerations that the panel collectively deem relevant. (…) The full statement is then included in the ‘voter’s pamphlet’ that all registered voters in Oregon receive in the mail before a referendum.

Arriaga points out that if this process is set up in the right way, then randomly selected citizens are perfectly capable of analyzing and deciding on complex policy matters. I can confirm this based on my own professional experience with citizen panels on complicated health care matters. (Unfortunately the deliberative processes I have been involved in were held in purely consultative settings, without real political leverage).

The principles and practices of citizen deliberation can be expanded beyond topical policy issues. Arriaga suggests to create ‘citizen chambers’ to more structurally oversee political decision-making. And, as in our short-winded political systems investing in more distant temporal perspective is hardly rewarded, citizen panels could be tasked with developing an updating a long-term vision for the community (region, country) as a whole.

Finally, the author points out that these deliberative processes need to be backed up with strategic electoral reform (for instance, the implementation of rank voting instead of voting for a single candidate, and a return to a more democratically acceptable way of party and campaign financing).

I believe that these sober and modest proposals could make a genuinely positive difference in the way our democratic institutions work. It’s not a silver bullet and it’s not meant to be. Insights from a variety of disciplines have confirmed time and again that only our ability to learn faster than our environment changes will help us to survive complexity. Our political systems’ core business today is not learning but desperately maintaining the status quo. Something’s got to give.