Effectiveness Archives - Democracy Upgrade

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