Democracy++

July 2007

The Green Party has just entered into coalition government with Fianna Fail. In negotiating the Programme for Government, they abandoned many of the core issues for which they campaigned. The Greens were very prominent, for example, in the protests against the U.S. military's use of Shannon Airport for the occupation of Iraq and the CIA's 'extraordinary renditions'. Similarly, they campaigned vigorously against the M3 Motorway route. In return for dropping considerations such as these they received a few small policy concessions and some ministerial posts.

The arguments for and against coalition are familiar. Briefly stated, the case for is that it is better to have some access to power than none. There are some bitter pills to swallow, but by participating in government they will have at least some level of influence into policies of concern. The case against is that the price is too high. They will be forced to compromise to the extent that they will lose their integrity and be forced to support policies directly opposed to their core values. And they will probably pay the price in the next general election when they are punished by their voters and take most of the blame for the government's record on 'green' issues.

Trevor Sergeant's decision to 'fall on his sword' is particularly futile and ironic. He promised not to lead the party in coalition with Fianna Fail. After leading the negotiations and being instrumental in persuading Green members to accept the deal, he announced his resignation as party leader. I presume by this manoeuvre he hopes to persuade himself and others that he has kept his word!

Their decision was predictably naive. They could make a far bigger impact by consistently stating the case for their policies and serving to inform people rather than become apologists for all kinds of decisions that go against their values. They have been co opted into the consensus and leave us poorer for a lack of real dialogue about issues of vital importance to the future of humanity. But they deserve some sympathy. The dilemma they face is the same one presented to all smaller parties in parliamentary democracies. The problem is not particular to the Greens - it is systemic. Parliamentary democracy, in its current forms, is undemocratic. It is an advance over dictatorship but does not live up to our expectations of what democracy should mean.

Parliamentary democracy is a power game. The electorate have an opportunity, every four to five years, to cast a vote that will affect every area of their lives for the next four to five years. One party, or a coalition of parties, gets hold of the reins of power and everybody else is the 'opposition'. The role of the parties without power is to criticize more or less everything the power-holder does. If you observe a session in parliament the similarities to a debating society are obvious. It is an adversarial system with the winner of the debate, as judged by the electorate periodically, taking all the spoils. The system ensures that parties' main concern must be gaining and retaining power rather than serving the people. Surely there must be a better system than this that we could design. Must we adhere to the notion that the best way to decide our collective future is through win-lose power struggles?

It is a very blunt instrument. For example, over 100,000 people marched in Dublin in protest against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The vast majority of the Irish public were, and still are, against it. But the government ignored them because an election wasn't imminent and they judged, correctly, that the economy would be the biggest issue that would influence people's vote. Therefore the people's wishes could be safely ignored.

Many of the key issues affecting people's lives are outside of the control of Parliamentary democracy. Globalization has increasingly taken power away from national governments and placed it into the hands of secretive groups such as the WTO. Through successive international agreements, and the sacred cow of 'Free Trade' our governments have ceded more and more power to effectively influence our destinies.

Most key political decisions are heavily influenced by powerful, well-funded special interests. Almost all lobbying is carried out in secret. Large corporations possess the resources to deliver analyses that are invariably drawn up to support their interests. Political parties are heavily dependent on donations from special interests, who expect favourable legislation in return. The non-transparent influence of corporate lobbying severely disenfranchises citizens while providing the illusion of democracy.

The simplest way to control a people is to keep them in ignorance. Most people rely on the mainstream media for local and international news. This media is owned, in the main, by private corporate interests who are motivated to present 'news' in such a way as to keep people ignorant and to promote values that serve their interests. Information is thankfully available, especially through the internet, but it takes a lot of time and effort to obtain and to learn how to read between the lines of corporate propaganda.

And there is always the threat of military power hanging over us if subtler methods fail. Countries that step sufficiently out of line with the 'corpatocracy' will face the same fate as Iraq or numerous other countries experienced since the second world war. We are reduced to tinkering with the system. We can play with a number of parameters, while always remaining within tight (though subtle) control and live in the illusion that we are free and enjoy democratic rights. We have witnessed an ominous erosion of democracy, by stealth, over the past twenty years and most of us are not even aware of it.

The Hungarian revolutionary, Joseph Hasek, was regularly incarcerated for promoting his unpalatable views. He responded by registering a new party, ironically calling it 'The Party for Moderate Progress within the bounds of the law'. I fear that most of the parties we witness today fall into this category.

I think the time has come when we need a dialogue about the current state of democracy and how we can make it more democratic in the sense that it more truly meets the needs and reflects the views of the people. I do not view our current democratic institutions as an end state. I believe that we can and should work towards generating new forms of government that are based on win-win scenarios and are not purely power games. We see, justifiably, more and more cynicism among people with respect to politics and politicians. This trend will accelerate unless democracy can evolve to address people's needs.

I tentatively label the new form that will emerge as 'democracy++'. I intuitively sense that it will be based more on a 'bottom up' rather than a 'top down' approach to organization and decision-making. It will require a reframing of the current view of power and how it should be used. It will need to value integrity and honesty over image and appearances and must, to be truly democratic, ruthlessly expose hidden sources of power. It needs especially to be based on people having easy access to more balanced information and this means that the ownership of the media needs to be restructured. I would be very interested in dialogue with people who resonate with some of the issues raised in this article.