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November 16, 2006
Citizen assemblies: radical common sense
More on the debate about how our democratic systems should be in the hands of the people; how electoral reform should be instigated / agreed from below rather than simply imposed from above. Ben Rogers, in an article for OpenDemocracy, discusse the merits of citizens assemblies and uses the British Columbia PR one as a case study. His main argument is to ask:
"What can Britain's political system do to win back legitimacy? It is not just that the current parliament was elected in May 2005 on little more than half of the registered vote. Polling clearly shows that confidence in the political system has slipped dramatically - and slipped a lot faster than confidence in most other professions and institutions. The emerging consensus among politicians seems to be that they need to have another go at constitutional reform. This has been a consistent message of the British chancellor (and likely successor to Tony Blair as prime minister) Gordon Brown. The opposition Conservative leader David Cameron too is promising to reform the political establishment and bring power closer to people. ... In addition to reforming representative institutions, government has got to start engaging the public more directly in decision-making. Representative democracy needs to be complemented by new forms of direct democracy. "
Posted by malcolmclark on November 16, 2006
