Deliberative democracy in Dublin

I wont comment on the defamations in the previous post.

We have been exploring the city on foot, always a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, I doubt that the excercise involved will offset the calories we are taking on board as we go. Highlights have included the Dublin City gallery, with an interesting exhibition which includes the entire contents of Francis Bacon's studio, transported from London after his death; the Chester Beatty Library which houses a terrific collection of Islamic, East Asian and Christian art and artefacts - reminiscent of the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon; and the Gallery of Photography with an excellent exhibiiton of early Irish photographs from a private collector's collection. Disappointments were the Irish Museum of Modern Art, for which I had high expectations, and the Trinity College art collection for which I didn't expect too much. Of course, there are no highs without the lows, and even the mediocre galleries incude the odd gem.

I also managed to attend a lecture at Trinity College by a Canadian academic, Prfessor Carty, on a citizens' assembly process undertaken in British Columbia in around 2004 to assess BC's First Past the Post electoral system. The lecture was quite straightforward, delivered well, and enjoyable, essentially arguing that the randomly selected citizens' assembly process worked very well, even though the subsequent referendum failed. The key points made were that there had been increasing frustration with politics and politicians in BC, and the then Opposition committed to the process as part of its then election platform.

When it won Government, the process was initiated along with a commitment to implement whatever the Assembly proposed should it pass at a Referendum. The bar was set at 60%, and more than 50% in a majority of districts. In the event, the Assembly recommended a Single Transferable Voting system over the status quo. At the subsequent referendum, the BC community voted in favour of the Assembly's recomendations with a 58% support level and a majority in 75 of 77 districts. As the previously set benchmark had not been met, the proposal failed. There was a subsequent referendum which also failed, though Prof Carty didnt go into why.The thought occurred to me that there was a paradox at the core of the process - it was built on voter dissatisfaction with politicians and politics, but was essentially aimed at finding a better way to elect politicians and determine politics. It didn't really question the underlying assumptions of the electoral system and politics generally.

I found the lecture quite stimulating, not so much for what it says about British Columbia or deliberative democracy, but because it highlights that the so called democratic deficit is widespread, even ubiquitous, in democratic societies. It seems to me that whatever the merits of citizens assemblies and deliberative democracy, our electoral systems are increasingly archaic and ill-suited to the the pace, demands and broad cultural ethos of modern societies. Our electoral systems are based on 17th and 18th century technology. Representative democracy no doubt will continue to have a place in democratic societies, but where in the political marketplace do voters and citizens have the purchasing power they have in commercial markets? Why can't we devise ways to allow for this? What might those ways be? I feel an essay coming on, so will spare you all.

Best wishes from Dublin

mike