It’s Democracy, Stupid – an Agenda for Self-Government by Tom Bentley

“Democratic progress is conventionally characterised in one of two ways – making those who govern more subject to those who elect them through various channels of accountability, and consulting people more often on a wider range of decisions, for example through focus groups or the internet…. But both of these options ignore the real foundation of the ancient democratic ideal: that the goal of democracy is not accountable or responsive government by representative leaders, but self-government…. politics cannot change society unless it can persuade people to change the way they themselves behave…. It must help people to develop and express their own identities in ways that contribute to wider social goals.”

 

Summary: An Agenda for Self-Government

The goal of democracy is self government. This is the root of the ancient democratic ideal, but it has been lost from the twentieth century western models of politics.

Our current political institutions are not up to the job: as a result, politics is disappointing citizens and forcing politicians to make promises they cannot deliver. The disengagement of citizens from formal politics, which is going on across the developed [and developing] world, illustrates the scale of the problem. But twenty-first century societies are facing a series of challenges which can only be met through political action.

Real politics – the power, ideas and influence of ordinary people – is the only route to real change. This politics is thriving in our homes, work places, communities, social movements, businesses and civil society.

We need a new era of grown-up government, which treats people as intelligent adults and expects them to do the same. It must distribute power with responsibility. This is the only way to deliver a new political agenda based on well-being and quality of life.

Such an agenda implies radical restructuring of the state and public institutions. A combination of institutional inertia, short-term overload and political aversion to risk mean that politicians have so far only tweaked at the edges of the transformation we need.

Better health, education and iobs, a higher quality of life and genuine social inclusion can only be changed by persuading people to change the way they behave – government cannot deliver on behalf of the people.

This means forging new systems of cooperation, innovation and learning in every sector. Democracy in practice must mean the chance to shape our own lives, through systems which allow us to meet collective goals in a more diverse, fluid and individualised society.

The avenues for progress towards this goal are clear. But they depend as much on practical innovation in every sphere as they do on analysis and communication.

 

Introduction

Labour’s first term of government has, by most conventional measures, been a success. So why is it politics still surrounded by anxiety and disappointment? Why, even for those who are succeeding, does society still seem to fraying at the edges? In short, why do we feel so bad?

The reason is that the model of politics we have inherited is not up to the job. It traps citizens and representatives into outdated roles, and it forces politicians into making promises they struggle to deliver. While it may improve its own effectiveness at the margins, politics as a set of institutions, cannot provide the transformation which politicians now feel compelled to offer.

It’s time for politics to grow up. After a century where politics has been marked by the struggle to gain democratic rights and freedoms for individuals, a new challenge is taking shape. The challenge is to make democratic participation mean something. We need government which treats people as grown ups and asks them to do the same.

This means a new political agenda. Not just electing a different party or a different set of leaders, but going much further. It means wholesale reorganisation of the institutions through which we interact with each other and make decisions. It means redistributing power away from centralised organisations and small elites. It means equipping people in practice with the responsibilities and the tools to shape their own lives.

 

Disengagement is the problem

The clearest illustration of the problem is the steady decline, across the industrialised world, of people’s engagement with formal politics. In eighteen of the world’s twenty most industrialised countries election turnout has declined since the 1950s, on average by 10 per cent. At the same time, and with the same consistency, people have become far less likely to identify strongly with a political party.

In the UK, we are entering an election period in which most agree there is only one plausible outcome. But despite Labour’s dominance, and despite the wave of energy and enthusiasm which accompanied their election in 1997, confidence in politicians and political institutions continues to wane. More people voted in last year’s Big Brother TV polls than in the Scottish, Welsh or European elections.

The greatest challenge is now the divide between people and the political class. The sense of disconnection and disempowerment that many people feel matters more than the divisions between left and right, and helps to explain the strength of reaction to apparent abuses of power or position.

But there is also a deeper, underlying challenge. The world is changing in ways which require political responses and solutions. But the same changes are also helping to blunt the tools and mechanisms on which governments rely to do their job. The challenge of a new politics is not just to provide a language which can capture people’s values and aspirations and clarify the issues of the day. The real challenge is to connect those emerging values and priorities with systems of organisation which can make a difference to people’s daily lives.

 

Is politics over?

Some argue that, despite the hype, politics has less to do now, and this explains its decreasing relevance. According to this view, the triumph of market liberalism, combined with rising living standards, has ended the great ideological conflicts and made politics a question of administrative efficiency and managerial competence. People are left free to get on with what really interests them, while party-based cliques compete for the chance to exercise what little power is left.

But this thesis is not borne out by reality. Despite wealth, peace, freedom and technological progress, advanced industrial societies face a degree of social fragmentation, environmental threat, economic uncertainty and cultural drift which undermines their ability to face the future with confidence. From global warming to personal privacy, genetic discrimination to financial instability, population movement to ageing societies, the twenty-first century presents a set of challenges which will only be met through politics in some form. The triumph of markets may have given business influence over more of our lives, but it has not eradicated the need for political action, even where it has changed the way in which the issues are framed.

And while formal politics – the worlds of legislation, candidates and government departments – may be struggling to deliver, political conflict is thriving in many other locations. From ethical consumerism to anti-capitalism, family-friendly campaigns to fuel protests, new forms of politics have asserted themselves in every sphere of life. Politics now takes place in kitchens and classrooms, on street corners and in the media. Corporate boardrooms host discussions of environmental responsibility, and voluntary organisations claim democratic legitimacy. The evidence is that we want to believe in politics, but cannot bring ourselves to accept what politicians tell us.

Just as politics, understood as a separate industry, a realm in which power is won by competing for the levers of control over other sectors, is losing its grip over what happens in the rest of society, so politics is reappearing in every other sphere. In all these places, and more, a search is going on for new ways to reconcile the competing pressures of modern life, to allocate resources fairly, and to realise deeply held values.

Despite the decline in people’s willingness to vote, or to identify with a particular party, there is no reported decline in their levels of political interest, or in how often they discuss political issues. And there are other ways of having an impact. The UKs leading eleven environmental organisations boast 5.4 million members between them. A recent survey in 25 countries found that one in five consumers reported actively rewarding or punishing a company for its perceived social performance. Protest and alternative living movements are growing strongly, fuelled by the new forms of organisation made possible by networked computer technologies.

The problem is not a lack of political issues. The problem, in a sense is that there are too many. As societies have become more diverse, more complex and more open, the range of issues and social groupings has become far harder to corral into coherent policy platforms or voter coalitions. And as the channels through which people can effect change multiply, it becomes harder to convince them that they should respect the options offered by formal politics. An increasingly heterogeneous politics is ill-served by a three or four party system.

 

The new political agenda

As values and culture change over time, the goals of politics must also change. While many still aspire to basic security and opportunity – secure homes. sustainable income and the chance to raise families – a new set of priorities is also emerging. Quality of life is becoming the new goal – the liveability of cities, a new balance between work and life, a radical shift towards environmental sustainability, opportunities for learning and cultural participation which go beyond the mass consumption and entertainment of the twentieth century.

This agenda is gradually emerging from a broader context of uncertainty and disruption. The bases of wealth and prosperity are shifting, as part of the long transition towards and economy based on knowledge and services. Family structures and relationships are also in flux, and individuals value choice and freedom more now than perhaps ever before. In all of these areas, established routines have been disrupted and destroyed by technological change, competitive threat, or changing values.

These new issues are headed towards the mainstream agenda of politics. Currently they are often treated as questions which can be addressed once the basic questions of jobs, health, education, transport and crime. But the new agenda cannot be separated from these well established problems. In fact, the basics can only be delivered in the context of the new agenda.

People now seek forms of fulfilment and achievement which reflect their own sense of self. They can access an unprecedented range of cultures, ideas and lifestyle choices. Politics must go beyond material wealth and security and help to deliver well-being if it is to sustain its legitimacy and contribute to real progress.

But to do so, our political systems will have to go far beyond what they are currently capable of achieving.

Overall, we are seeing a huge increase in the power and value of knowledge – knowledge used to develop and sell new products and services, to develop more complex medical treatments, to maintain diverse social networks, to improve individual life-chances through education, to restructure firms and global supply chains and to keep records of people’s behaviour.

The difficulty is that this knowledge creates new ethical dilemmas and political challenges. Creativity – using knowledge in new ways to create value – is now the key asset that societies possess. For politics to recover, creativity must be harnessed to promote quality of life and well-being.

This means a new understanding of change -what drives it, how it can be shaped, and where power lies in contemporary society.

 

Institutions out of place

The problem of delivery is not confined to government. Institutions in every sphere are under pressure. Whether businesses, charities, broadcasters, professions or corporations, we are surrounded by organisations struggling to adapt to a changing environment. This struggle helps to explain the pervasive sense of stress and insecurity which affects more and more of us, especially at work.

But the institutions of politics and government, central to maintaining a sense of order and reconciling competing challenges and demands, face a particular strain. Expectations continue to rise, driven by politicians’ promises, by the media, and by the growth of a more demanding, consumer-oriented electorate. Governments are trying to meet new, more complex demands using tools and levers which have changed little in half a century or more. The organisational systems on which they rely are stuck firmly in the past. The creative destruction and renewal ensured by market competition in the private sector is not matched by any corresponding impulse in the civil service, the church, local government or many areas of the voluntary sector. Our schools and universities retain basic structures which are centuries old.

As a result, the potential for progress remains stifled by organisational structures, cultures and history. In too many spheres, change is approached through cautious incrementalism, building shakily on past structures, rather than transforming and renewing whole systems of organisation.

The rhetoric of change and modernisation have been adopted by politicians across the world. In some cases they have led to concrete progress in delivering specific objectives. But in general they have not connected with a more tangible sense of improvement and progress in people’s lives. Surveys show that while many people are optimistic about their own individual prospects, they do not expect society in general to improve. Too often they lack any connection to organisations which can give practical expression to their wider concerns or aspirations.

In the UK we have seen a growing mismatch between the command of media communication shown by the most talented politicians, and the halting, uneven progress which they can deliver through the machinery of government. The effort to make public services deliver, expressed primarily through targets and central control, is increasingly at odds with the complex, diverse and growing demands which public service organisations face. The reliance on targets as a means of control, and on the media as a source of pressure and transparency, is in danger of paralysing the public sector?fs capacity to innovate and restructure.

The truth is that public services cannot hope to meet the inevitable growth in demand without more radical change to their basic structure. But the culture of experimentation, learning and risk-taking required for this to happen is held back by a combination of institutional inertia, short-term overload and political aversion to risk.

 

Beyond market purism

In the last decades of the twentieth century, the great shift which animated change and focused political conflict was towards a view of society based on markets. Where collectivism had failed, the dynamism and diversity of market competition would provide new solutions. Individual freedom became the paramount ideological value, and the injustice and inefficiency of government and bureaucracy the chief enemy.

But while the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s cleared away much of the old order, they failed to provide solutions for the great social challenges taking shape. Parts of the neoliberal legacy are now largely accepted by left and right across the world. But that wave of change failed to influence the basic nature, or even the size of government. More important, it failed to diminish the underlying importance of the social and the communal to achieving and sustaining progress.

The story which that era offered, of increasing freedom and prosperity realised through individual competitive effort, ended in failure. The insecurity of a global economy and the distress and anxiety caused by poverty and inequality undermined the optimism and energy which the new right had sparked around the world.

As a result, today’s politicians are engaged in an attempt to humanise the systems which neoliberalism left behind – to ensure fairness and opportunity in market-based societies, and to reduce the damage caused by systematic social exclusion. They are trying to do this without questioning the basic structures of market-based competition and economic rationalism.

The left has learned lessons from its past failures: above all the need for pragmatism, realism and effective communication. And while it has dominated the landscape of politics, from Britain to North America, Brazil to Scandinavia, its radical aspirations are streaked through with caution and uncertainty.

The problem is that this caution holds back the potential for real, lasting change. Because in many cases, politicians can only deliver on their promises of better health, education and jobs, a higher quality of life, and genuine social inclusion by being ready to overhaul completely the systems of organisation through which government operates.

 

The changing nature of power

Where government and politics in the past have formed the nodal point of societies, power and dynamism are now distributed far more widely. New ways of thinking, working and organising now flow from the commerce, the media, and from the social sector far more reliably than they do from the domain of politics and government. Ideas are generated in practice through entrepreneurship and experimentation, and spread contagiously through a communications infrastructure driven by a global revolution in new, networked technologies.

Social and economic change are increasingly driven by international forces, and policy problems do not respect national borders.

The stable social classes and groupings on which government has focused its policies are more fluid and harder to communicate with. People are less ready to accept institutional authority, less subject to direct control.

In this environment, not surprisingly, power is seen to have shifted to other places. Businesses are held up as the drivers of real change, and increasingly expected to provide solutions which go beyond their traditional role. Individual entrepreneurs and celebrities are revered and media power is equated with other, more tangible forms of control.

But a network society still needs organising concepts and frameworks for coordinating collective effort and common resources. The decline of deference and hierarchy threaten a collapse into formless chaos as much as they promise a new era of democracy and opportunity. The great danger remains that the political sphere will become narrower in an attempt to defend its own territory, that politics will become cut off from the currents which can renew and sustain its capacity to offer progress. Politics and politicians have to engage with the very forces which are undermining their credibility.

Avoiding this danger, for leaders of all political colours, requires a constant stream of challenging and radical ideas. Governments must be willing to learn, and to accept vigorous debate as a necessity for identifying solutions. But ideas alone are not enough to produce change in practice. Across whole societies, from industry to the media, religion to the family, institutions are failing to keep up with the pace of change in their external environment. The ability to connect new ideas and radical aspirations with practical, concrete outcomes calls for far-reaching processes of learning and transformation in all areas of organisational life.

 

It’s democracy, stupid

But if politics is to change, we must go beyond just the recognition that its old manifestations are dead or dying. While we can criticise those who use outdated command and control structures in their attempts to achieve social progress, there is little point if we cannot suggest any constructive alternative. This points us to one of the most important characteristics of politics in the twenty-first century: there are no predetermined solutions.

Political action, for centuries, has been predicated on the idea that a particular source of knowledge can provide progress for the whole of society. Whether that source is science, or the market, religion or ideology, politics has been dominated by narratives in which leaders have attempted to govern through certainty, drawing on their own access to privileged knowledge in order to make decisions on behalf of the people.

The great shift of contemporary politics is the realisation that there is no one source of certainty – and that progress in a post-political age depends not primarily on the design or management of institutions, but on the ways in which they draw on and interact with the people they serve. In other words, politics cannot go forward without another wave of democracy.

Democratic progress is conventionally characterised in one of two ways -making those who govern more subject to those who elect them through various channels of accountability, and consulting people more often on a wider range of decisions, for example through focus groups or the internet.

But both of these options ignore the real foundation of the ancient democratic ideal: that the goal of democracy is not accountable or responsive government by representative leaders, but self-government.

 

Overcoming a false choice

This realisation casts new light on many familiar policy dilemmas. Today’s politicians are trapped in a contest between two inherently limited models of policy delivery. The left offers the promise of strong public services, developed and managed by a strong political centre, using new technology to customise and individualise the service each citizen draws upon. This view depends on the effectiveness of the state in a traditional form – and it helps explain current efforts to make public services subject to performance targets and media-based accountability. In Britain, New Labour is trying to restore the legitimacy of the state by proving its competence in delivering modest, relevant improvements to the public services people care about.

The right, meanwhile, continues to offer the chimera of a minimal state, with social need met by private action – a combination of market-driven services and philanthropy, with the rules and basic functions maintained by a state which returns the maximum possible wealth to citizens in reduced taxes. This position depends on the fragile argument that social need can be met largely through private action, and that markets are so responsive and self-regulating that they can eventually find ways of solving all major social problems.

The striking fact is that both models continue with the myth that government can deliver on behalfofthe people it serves. The truth, of course, is that politics cannot change society unless it can persuade people to change the way they themselves behave.

For example, health and education cannot be improved indefinitely simply by increasing public spending – they depend far more on changes in lifestyle which engage the citizen actively in living more healthily and making use of learning opportunities. Carbon emissions cannot be reduced without changing the way we choose to use cars. Jobs cannot be created without harnessing people’s own enterprise and imagination. The safety of public spaces depends not just on the level of electronic surveillance or the number of police officers, but also on the flows of people through those spaces, and the ways in which they are prepared to interact with each other.

Increasingly, government can effect real change only by working through partnerships and networks, and helping to inspire changes in culture, rather than simply trying to regulate and control. Many of today’s politicians are groping their way towards this realisation, often in response to intractable policy problems. It is crudely expressed in the desire to strengthen people’s responsibility in specific areas like jobseeking and neighbourhood renewal and the offer of partnership from the state. To work, it must go far further than this, defining democracy by the direct contributions which free individuals make to solutions which work at mass scale, whole systems involving millions of interactions which nonetheless depend on ethical commitment and personal motivation.

In other words, we must now move towards grown-up government – institutions which respect the intelligence and self-determination of individuals, but which expect people to take active responsibility for producing collective solutions.

But democracy in its current form can easily be described as part of the problem. For many citizens, the experience of participation is meaningless, because the act of voting does not result in any real change. Our models of representative government reinforce political competition at national level, when many of the most significant problems require international or local coordination and cooperation. Consultation and polling are often obstacles to progress, discouraging long termism and slowing down the process of change.

And the alternatives on offer still seem weak and unsustainable. While direct action may produce alternative sources of motivation and generate media coverage, it does not offer a lasting, positive agenda. Real solutions can only be found if they are built through systems of organisation which can operate in the real world. The retreat into isolation or denial, whatever its motivation, is not a realistic option for most people.

These conclusions lead us to a new political agenda. It is based partly on the need for leadership in thought – seeking new ways to understand and interpret the world, and to use the power of ideas to shape future alternatives. But it is also based on practice, and on harnessing innovation and entrepreneurship to create the organisational knowledge we need to make progress.

 

The avenues for progress

There is now a clear agenda, focused on reshaping politics, and connecting people with the support and resources they need to shape their own lives for the better. It rests on seven avenues of progress, which interlink to provide a path towards sustainable twenty-first century societies in which well-being is a realistic goal for all.

1. Building new forms of democracy

A bill of rights and responsibilities could form the foundation of a new, active role for the citizen. Compulsory voting would be the universal obligation towards a healthy politics, combined with more responsive and participative systems for involving people directly in public decisionmaking at every level. Citizens would expect to be called for a form of jury service, and given time from other responsibilities to allow for their contribution. A right of initiative would create the opportunity for groups of citizens to put items on the national political agenda. New technologies could be harnessed to create deliberative networks through citizens could debate and decide. New forms of democratic election and involvement would be developed at local and international levels. Votes could be issued at birth, and held in trust by parents until children reach voting age.

2. Reshaping the state into grown up government

Such democratisation could not take place without radical reform of the basic structures of the state. Administrative discretion and decisionmaking power would be devolved towards the level of service delivery, and the central state reshaped into a core of information provision, and systems designed to promote innovation, learning and continuous improvement. New career structures and models of accountability for public servants would reinforce the drive to make real outcomes, not remote numerical targets, the test of their performance. Responsibility for solving problems and delivering outcomes would be developed to autonomous teams within the public services who would be contracted to achieve specific goals.

3. Reinvigorating civil society

The institutions of civil society would become more directly involved in producing social outcomes. Service delivery and new organisational models would be pioneered by a far wider range of social organisations and entrepreneurs. The media, in its new and old forms, would become more actively involved in responding to citizens and in providing the infrastructure for civic participation. Social entrepreneurs would be backed by investment and evaluation to create new ways of delivering social outcomes and involving people directly in civic life. Devolution of power and resources to neighbourhood level would take place at a far more radical level than anything yet proposed. The transfer of l00 billion Euro of public assets and revenue streams to community organisations and citizens’ groups, over a period of seven years, by starting with 1 billion Euro in the first year and doubling the amount in each subsequent one, would be one way to achieve such a shift.

4. Unleashing a new business agenda

Businesses would be released from the competing pressures of shareholder accountability and social responsibility by reshaping their contribution to sustainability and quality of life, while freeing them to use enterprise in creating wealth. Corporations face many of the same problems as governments, in responding to increasing demand, more fluid and diverse customer bases, and the need to deliver at mass scale. Their rhetoric of autonomous ‘teamwork’ is often contradicted by the reality of authoritarian management hierarchy. Companies desperately need their own forms of democracy and self government to sustain the commitment and contribution of workers and customers. They increasingly rely on social infrastructure and the overall quality of life to attract and retain the right workforce. The ethical concerns of consumers are beginning to shape the markets in which businesses succeed or fail. A new role for business could begin with new opportunities for companies to deliver public and social services, and with a tax regime which taxed companies not on profit but on their overall contribution: to sustainability, learning and skills, and social inclusion. New cooperative institutions would enable businesses to collaborate, for example in specifying and delivering training and skills development.

5. Education for creativity

Education systems would be radically restructured to provide every child with a sound foundation for lifelong learning, and all adults with ongoing opportunities to learn. Curricula would emphasise creativity and life skills alongside formal disciplinary knowledge, and a far wider range of organisations would provide learning opportunities. Schools would be open 24 hours, and investment would focus more on the under fives, where it makes most difference. Public investment in education would double over a decade.

6. Towards environmental sustainability

Governments, firms and NGOs would collaborate to create new standards of environmental performance, using innovation in every sector to achieve sustainability. The UK would set the goal of recycling 100 per cent of household waste within a generation. International markets would be created in reduction of harmful emissions, while productivity would be defined more and more by improvements in resource efficiency. Tax systems would reflect the hierarchy of environmental impact of different activities.

7. Putting well-being alongside economic growth

Governments would prioritise well-being alongside income as a measure of progress. New time rights would enable people to control their own working lives and balance them against other responsibilities. National accounts would measure well-being and fulfilment along with economic growth. Stress and depression would become the focus of cross-sector public health strategies. A national ‘competence account’ would be established, to assess the readiness of people and organisations to face the future with confidence.

 

A chance to shape the future

In the long run, this means an entirely different political landscape, and a series of profound shifts in the way we understand and relate to politics.

But perhaps, most important, it means that there is a huge opportunity for politics to be reshaped by people and organisations which are prepared to test out in practice their responses to the issues which matter most.

The forms of practice and innovation which can develop this agenda are already distributed across our societies. The challenge is to learn from them and shape them into new systems of self-government. We will need new examples of leadership, and new forms of ownership and organisation, in order to meet it.

With them we can reshape the space in which public business is done, to create not just a new list of political issues, but also a new set of tools with which to resolve them.

This is the true challenge for politics in the twenty-first century. It must create a new language which can capture and mobilise the aspirations of diverse, fluid societies, but it must also shape the wholesale transformation of the organisations through which we interact with others, access resources, channel our energies and create wealth and knowledge.

Achieving this kind of progress will be difficult in the extreme. It is a paradox that living in an age of unprecedented knowledge, with the tools and power to accomplish tasks unimagined by past generations, makes life more complex and daunting. Determining how we handle knowledge; who owns it: who controls it; who is able to protect knowledge about themselves is hugely difficult. The moral dilemmas become more complex, and the range of choices more bewildering, as we learn more about what we can do.

Resolving these dilemmas will remain the task of politics, because no other sphere can do the job. The frameworks for making such decisions, setting rules and solving problems across whole societies, can only come from institutions which reflect and draw on the diverse resources and interests of those societies.

And in the long term this definition also helps to show the depth of political challenge. The task is to go beyond just humanising the market, just trying to soften the consequences of capitalism, and instead align the economy and human needs so that the two work in tandem. Rather than politics running behind, it must help to shape the future, so that firms are motivated to train workers, protect the environment and support families; so that innovation and cooperation reinforce each other, and so that the way people develop and express their own identities also equips them to contribute to wider social goals.

This is the challenge which Demos is taking on. It has shaped a wave of change in Britain and beyond, but its long-term agenda remains unfulfilled. It aims to produce the ideas which will shape twenty-first century politics, and to stimulate practical innovation which can help provide hard-edged organisational solutions.

 

(This entry is a repost of “It’s Democracy, Stupid – an Agenda for Self-Government” by Tom Bentley of Demos – The Think Thank for Everyday Democracy, which is made possible by the Demos Open Access License)

Keywords: ecosocial crisis, beyond left and right, reforming politics, democratic democracy, participatory democracy, self-governance, decentralizing power and responsibility, global is local, institutional diversity, policentricity, resilience, global governance, life-sustaining civilization design