Democracy

Achieving True Democracy: Ending Political Apathy
2020-09-17 Peter Monien

This is part 10 of my “Achieving True Democracy: A New Breed of Party as Realistic Next Step” articles. This is the last article of the series. Here you can find part 1, the introduction for the article series, and part2, a short description of the idea of the Proxy Party, and part 3, a description of how a party program should look like, and part 4 about finding, prioritizing, and voting on topics, and part 5 about going beyond ‘simple’ direct democracy, and part 6 about efficiency and effectiveness, and part 7 about safeguarded information processes and decision processes, and part 8 about a 1:1 transfer to parliament, and part 9 with some questions and answers about my concept of the Proxy Party. I hope I succeeded in outlining a cohesive and realistic way to create a new breed of a political party as a democratic parliamentarian champion: a party that is grassroots democratic yet effective and efficient. Following the advice of

Achieving True Democracy: Questions & Answers
2020-09-16 Peter Monien

This is part 9 of my “Achieving True Democracy: A New Breed of Party as Realistic Next Step” articles. Here you can find part 1, the introduction for the article series, and part2, a short description of the idea of the Proxy Party, and part 3, a description of how a party program should look like, and part 4 about finding, prioritizing, and voting on topics, and part 5 about going beyond ‘simple’ direct democracy, and part 6 about efficiency and effectiveness, and part 7 about safeguarded information processes and decision processes, and part 8 about a 1:1 transfer to parliament. How does the Proxy Party differ from a normal party? The Proxy Party: …is organized on the basis of grassroots democracy and also includes the most important right of the member of parliament (the voting right). …obliges the elected representative to vote as determined by the party base. …does not ignore the dissenting votes of its members but reflects their

Achieving True Democracy: 1:1 Transfer to Parliament
2020-09-15 Peter Monien

This is part 8 of my “Achieving True Democracy: A New Breed of Party as Realistic Next Step” articles. Here you can find part 1, the introduction for the article series, and part2, a short description of the idea of the Proxy Party, and part 3, a description of how a party program should look like, and part 4 about finding, prioritizing, and voting on topics, and part 5 about going beyond ‘simple’ direct democracy, and part 6 about efficiency and effectiveness, and part 7 about safeguarded information processes and decision processes. In rare cases, the political leadership of a typical party doesn’t decide on its own but hands the vote to the member base, the majority will decide about the voting behavior of their representatives in parliament. Even if 49% of the members vote against a petition, all their representatives will still vote for it. This might even increase well above 50% when the party leader

Achieving True Democracy: Safeguarded Information and Decision Processes
2020-09-14 Peter Monien

Safeguarded Information and Democratic Processes

This is part 7 of my “Achieving True Democracy: A New Breed of Party as Realistic Next Step” articles. Here you can find part 1, the introduction for the article series, and part2, a short description of the idea of the Proxy Party, and part 3, a description of how a party program should look like, and part 4 about finding, prioritizing, and voting on topics, and part 5 about going beyond ‘simple’ direct democracy, and part 6 about efficiency and effectiveness. A democracy without deliberation (based on well-balanced facts) is a weak democracy. Focusing on political differences while demonizing the other side makes a democracy very vulnerable to a divide and conquer strategy. It misses out chances to agree on common goals and put forward measures that a great majority of citizens would vote for. “The point with democracy isn’t that the majority is always right. The point is that there is a process of free

Achieving True Democracy: Efficient and Effective
2020-09-11 Peter Monien

This is part 6 of my “Achieving True Democracy: A New Breed of Party as Realistic Next Step” articles. Here you can find part 1, the introduction for the article series, and part2, a short description of the idea of the Proxy Party, and part 3, a description of how a party program should look like, and part 4 about finding, prioritizing, and voting on topics, and part 5 about going beyond ‘simple’ direct democracy. A grassroots democratic political party is not an end in itself. Its main purpose is to act on behalf of its members and to bring about political decisions in their interests. To be successful in this endeavor, it has to be effective (doing the right things) and efficient (doing the things right). An effective Proxy Party I argue that a Proxy Party is more effective than the conventional political parties if it: represents its members and the voters better than

Achieving True Democracy: Going Beyond ‘Simple’ Direct Democracy
2020-09-03 Peter Monien Comment

This is part 5 of my “Achieving True Democracy: A New Breed of Party as Realistic Next Step” articles. Here you can find part 1, the introduction for the article series, and part2, a short description of the idea of the Proxy Party, and part 3, a description of how a party program should look like, and part 4 about finding, prioritizing, and voting on topics. The benefits of the Proxy Party approach are quite obvious. The direct results are massive improvements in the quality of representation of the citizens and the reduction of corruption: Better representation The greatest benefit of the grassroots democratic approach lies in the far better representation: The members are in the driving seat to decide what topics should be tackled. The members are empowered to directly participate in the stages of fact gathering and deliberation. The members can take on the decision and decide about the best solution

Achieving True Democracy: Finding, Prioritizing and Voting on Topics
2020-08-26 Peter Monien

This is part 4 of my “Achieving True Democracy: A New Breed of Party as Realistic Next Step” articles. Here you can find part 1, the introduction for the article series, and part2, a short description of the idea of the Proxy Party, and part 3, a description of how a party program should look like. The Proxy Party focuses on designing and securing party-internal information processes and democratic processes effectively and efficiently and implementing the results developed in the processes: Important points of the content-related work are above all to: pick up new topics weight the incoming topics with the members prepare important topics enable factual input and fact-checking provide a platform for a deliberation process that aims at knowledge gain for all participants and their individual forming of their political will create a culture that focusses on finding common ground determine if the topics should be included in the

Achieving True Democracy: A Sound Basis and New Party Operating System
2020-08-21 Peter Monien

This is part 3 of my “Achieving True Democracy: A New Breed of Party as Realistic Next Step” articles. Here you can find part 1, the introduction for the article series, and part2, a short description of the idea of the Proxy Party. The Proxy Party could give itself the normal type of program like a normal political party. But I would argue that it should go a different route to emphasize that. This route includes: …the Proxy Party is more trustworthy, …will be more open and adaptable to add topics based on the will and current priorities and their members and…will ensure it will stay to be more representative than the conventional parties. Why a party program at all? A program should achieve the goal to rally people around a set of values and goals and enable its officials and elected representatives in parliament to act efficiently guided by this

A New Breed of Political Party — The Proxy Party
2020-08-18 Peter Monien

This is part 2 of my “Achieving True Democracy: A New Breed of Party as Realistic Next Step” articles. Here you can find part 1, the introduction for the article series. As long as we don’t fix the political system itself, the system will not represent us. Therefore, democracy itself needs an upgrade. Urgently! If we are serious about strengthening democracy within the next years and achieve true representation, we must rethink the political party as a vehicle for representing democratic interests. The new breed of political party shouldn’t impose its political will on its members but only assist them to form their individual political will and represent this as accurately as possible. It will not force a decision by majority vote but truly represent the breadth of decisions its members reached after consideration of the topic. Why do I call this new type of party “Proxy Party?” Those familiar with

Achieving True Democracy: A New Breed of Party as Realistic Next Step
2020-08-18 Peter Monien

Introduction: Politics Doesn’t Represent Us Politics doesn’t represent the majority of the People. Public opinion and public policy differ, sometimes a lot. Even if an overwhelming majority is clearly in favor of a certain policy it doesn’t mean that this will translate to legislative action in parliament. A ‘good’ example are the two US-parties locked in a partisan death spiral. Without them, the US population could easily agree on dozens of issues listed in the article What if a Presidential Candidate Ran on What Most Americans Actually Wanted. An American study has shown that “when preferences of low- or middle-income Americans diverge from those of the affluent, there is virtually no relationship between policy outcomes and the desires of less advantaged groups.” A German study revealed very similar results. Worldwide, the currently implemented democratic systems and their rules seem to work against a democratic representation. The systems themselves and their rules were formed by professional