With the advance of widening anomie and social polarization in the country, I have been thinking how to create a sort of 'reintroduction' service for peoples who are physically neighbors, but socially moving further apart. If you like the idea, why not start it in your hometown or local area?
The Civic Democratic Institution (CDI) intends to contribute a catalyst for a vitalization of public discourse and democratic procedure. I feel this will be particularly useful for urban politics, but its application is equally useful for rural areas. As has been widely noted, it has been seen as difficult to develop representative politics in larger cities. Within this theory, representative politics can develop in smaller populations, though even then there is no assurance that what develops will be based on plurality. The CDI moves to develop a representative politics which respects a diverse political plurality: it is an open institutional forum designed to make a 'bigger table' for political discussion, and at the same time assure that this 'bigger table' remains 'flat' and inclusive of a plurality of interests. Through a two-tiered system of voting, the CDI would select for those best called recognized 'intermediaries.' If a certain individual does receive social recognition, it is only that--recognition. The CDI is nothing like an elected body for politics, but a social body representative of a particular area. The aim of the voting is to create a 'living poll,' if you will, of a city or rural area's socio-political outlook by honoring with recognition those whom the public admires. The aim of the CDI is to establish a 'representative-based agora' for political communication.
I am arguing that it is mostly the chosen institutionalized processes of selection which effect the manner and outcome of a political representation, as well as what types of groups are popularized and created. More important than what it selects for is what the CDI institutionally selects against including in a political process--politics of exclusion, short term popularity, one issue popularity, and 'landslide' bloc voting practices. The political process of the CDI aims to mitigate these four above mobilizing processes of social recognition. In terms of short term popularity, the structure of the CDI makes sure that this 'admiration' doesn't get out of hand and substitute a beauty contest atmosphere for the aim of a representative body. This is done by a second round of voting which allows for a group vote upon the roster of citizens who were recognized in the first round. To further address this point, both rounds of recognition voting are done over long stretches of time to mitigate short term popularity as the basis for politics, and the actual 'run-off' interval is limited to minimize political polarization--the politics of exclusion and one issue popularity toward which long elections contribute. In addition, by allowing this dual vote--each person's ability to vote in the second round either for or against each person on the first round's roster-- the politics of exclusion are mitigated: those who feel excluded will be more likely, when given a chance, to mobilize and to 'veto' exclusionary politics and politicos upheld in the first round through verifying or rejecting a particular person. This allowance for a choice of voting both for and against slows reactionary politics and its one issue popularity, which is only selected for by being limiting to a voting procedure which is for 'pro'-only types of voting. With the procedure of a 'pro'-only vote, the heaping of a vote behind an equally exclusionary political candidate is seen as the only option 'in self-defense'--if 'pro' voting is all one is allowed to do. Landslide bloc voting practices are curtailed through the dual vote which allows for a public registering of disapproval of existing candidates in a second round instead of making the one issue popularity of a subsequent reactionary exclusion the only feasible solution if excluded groups wish to respond. Through the institutional winnowing of extremists or reductionists (including the potential additional positive recognition of some moderate who only cursorily had been recognized before), one has a set of people who have run the gauntlet of the four above categories and could be considered politically 'legitimate' representatives of a community, instead of only representatives of contending processes of politics of exclusion, short term popularity, one issue popularity, and landslide bloc voting practices.
The above four processes generally are considered the methods of recognizing groups of interests in society, instead of merely a system which tends to do the opposite by perpetuating reactionary and one issue politics around short term popularity elected through a system of bloc voting practices. Each of these four ingredients of this 'representative finding process' finds no 'representatives' at all: they find individuals and interests which can be highly unrepresentative. The CDI is designed to introduce a 'second process' to politics, as a group of citizens beholden to the community and filtered through several selective processes which select against the four above-mentioned political processes. As such, they could have a beneficial effect on addressing issues of consensus as well as providing a 'pressure group' for an airing of consensus issues kept out of the political process. As a representative and different pathway of politics, they would promote a consensus based forum for politics.
Nothing is a preset or institutional given, beyond the desire to recognize reasonable people within a society, people who potentially have the political position to be a force for moderation and compromise. Below are some features or effects of the CDI:
1) The CDI allows for a test drive in something sorely lacking in the world, debate--debate on the directions of governments within society to assure that the government is reflective of its people's interests, instead of merely its own interest as an institution.
2) The CDI will in addition provide a public forum for commentary upon the government's policies by recognized popularly admired people, who have, therefore, the political wherewithal to be a voice for the community in addressing the activities of the government. They can provide their services as 'intermediaries' to achieve consensus for particular pieces of legislation which are passed by the governmental body with knowledge that that is what the people want or don't want.
3) The CDI can in addition be a place to raise or bring to the public mind issues which the government fails to address, whether by political negligence or indifference to their constituencies, or merely lack of information.
4) In essence, I foresee the CDI operating as a checking mechanism with the government, in a flux of mutual flow of ideas and hard data on issue popularity, with both institutions working in tandem for a better society as well as a better and more efficient and responsive government, which is only unresponsive sometimes when it fails to get accurate information. The CDI will assure that social backing of any legislation exists, instead of there being a void between the voting for and the activities of the elected officials, into which any amount of misinformation can seep, basically because of the structure of voting practices. The structure of the CDI will provide an assurance of parity for governmental policy decisions.
5) Interestingly enough, the CDI will place human beings at the fore of the fount of information, instead of institutions of television, print, radio. Thus, with the CDI, the media can be serving an actual representation of a cross section of society instead of mediating the message of the community back to itself through only through what can generally be 'sold' through pre-existing distribution channels, which can change only as society's market composition changes, or only as the media's advertising budgets change. The media, with the existence of the CDI, can perform their social duty with efficiency, as well as be assured that they will have buyers for their coverage of information and events concerning a wide audience. Therefore, the CDI and the media will operate on a mutually beneficial basis, with the media providing accurate coverage for the public, and assured that their said coverage will have wide buyers. Each are enriched--the public society, by appropriate media coverage, and the media, by inherently wide audiences.
6) Overall, the CDI's introduction creates a triple flow of information and feedback, creating a political process which integrates
The structure and procedures of the CDI are described in the following ten points:
1) First, a specific opening annual date is determined before the first round of voting for a community's first CDI, and that date is instituted as the set date for the beginning of the annual year cycle. The dates of course are changeable later within the structure of the CDI voting if the community is unsatisfied or come to dislike their original choice of the date of commencement.
2) The first round of voting for the CDI occurs throughout the first nine months of the annual year. The annual period is the recommended length of the entire two-tiered CDI voting as well as the subsequent length of the 'recognition' of intermediaries. After the first year of a CDI, it follows that the two-tiered voting for the subsequent CDI occurs throughout the term of recognition of the previous year's acclimated intermediaries. This provides a further means of assuring public feedback with the existing CDI. After the first year, the interwoven interstitial voting/recognition should maintain itself to a large extent, with the public judgement of the performance of the CDI's present intermediaries becoming a people's basis for the subsequent voting of intermediaries.
3) The voting and the recognition begin from the previously set commencement date, allowing everyone one vote for anyone they feel deserves a vote. Anyone's vote throughout this nine months can be withdrawn or added for a particular person they had wished or do wish to nominate, allowing for understandable fickleness, the potential of someone falling out of favor with the community, or someone performing an admirable deed which brings recognition late in the nine month span. I wish to make this clear: this is nothing like a manner for voting for predetermined candidates. When I am talking about 'voting,' I am talking about tallying totals for anyone, for any citizen, that anyone wishes to publicly recognize as someone they admire or trust in their community. This is a grass-roots, cultural version of representative, republican democracy-- a way to get public recognition for a wide body of local people and for a potential local politics to develop out of their consensus.
4) The votes for the first round of nine months are either tallied by that year's CDI 'sponsor' organization which is decided upon before the annual year begins, or otherwise amongst a mixed body of community organizations which feel they could do an expedient job and are recognized publicly for such an ability in the community. The totals are published with wide availability by several different publishers, in several different media, to be determined by the community.
5) Throughout the subsequent tenth month, people have a chance to decide and debate publicly upon the people they have recognized privately and individually throughout the first round of nine months, since they are able to gauge the community itself by regarding the names which have been published with their respective totals of votes. It is in the tenth month that the second round of voting begins, with everyone again allowed a single vote for anyone of their choice, either for or against, for as many people as they wish who appeared in the first round of voting. Thus, the first round of open voting forms the billet for the second round of voting, with each round allowing both for and against voting procedures. As mentioned above, voters can vote for or against as many people on the billet as they want in the second round, with one vote per voter per person on the billet, as long as they are not voting a second time for the people they have voted for in the first nine month span. This mitigates a potential utilization of bloc voting practices mentioned above.
6) This second round of voting ends at the commencement of the eleventh month. Once more, differing media are employed with the same tallying organization/organizations to publish the information of the totals--considering the 'for' votes as positive, the 'against' votes as negative, adding or subtracting respectively from the totals of the first round of the CDI voting. Anyone who has been recognized successfully through both voting procedures has the ability within the week after the second tally (7 full days) to, if they so desire, to opt to be unconsidered, to assure the CDI of being comprised of those interested in the intermediary role for which their community feels they would be suited.
7) In addition, to provide social parity between the sexes, the smallest number of a particular sex shall be the determining factor for the equal number of the other sex in the CDI, as a means of providing a sexual parity and basis of socialization between the sexes publicly, in addition to a manner of assuring that the CDI is accustomed to discussion amongst and for both sexes equally. The reduction of the majoritarian sex is accomplished not by taking away those with the least number of positive votes, but by trimming the largest and the smallest vote totals from the part of the cohort to be adjusted for sexual parity. In the event that the number required to be trimmed is odd, after the equal removal of votes, the remaining one will be removed based on the subsequent largest vote. If a community finds that achievement of sexual parity creates a body which is considered too large for fruitful discussion (only if that is what a community wishes to 'do' with the CDI, see below), a lower multiple (meaning any multiple) of the number of the lower sex can be agreed upon to be utilized instead of the actual number, thus still achieving sexual parity. This is decided upon in the second week (7 full days) of the eleventh month, in the week after the CDI members are given the option to withdraw from their position. In other words, the vote on the multiple is decided by the CDI as it stands after those who wish to opt out have done so, and of course before any reduction. If the achievement of sexual parity creates a body which is considered by the CDI too small for fruitful discussion, a different method of determining the size can be instituted within the following tenth month of the subsequent year, thus giving time to see if the phenomenon is repeated, or still holds the public's interest in the subsequent year.
8) The eleventh month and the twelfth month of the annual year of voting, as well as the subsequent ten months of the next annual year (for a total of twelve months, or one year) is the duration of a recognized CDI for a particular community. This CDI can set its own meeting times, places, and protocols, and can change them throughout the twelve months of their recognition if they so desire.
9) The accumulation of votes for the subsequent first round of the CDI begins on the same specified date as the year before, unless within the second round of voting (the tenth month) for the presently recognized CDI the dates of commencement of the first round of voting were changed by a public plebiscite organized by the present CDI to be voted upon within the second round of voting. To assure that the community is granted at least 5 months to accumulate a different mean total for first round voting, any proposed change of the opening of the first round of voting which shortens the first round voting interval of the next CDI to less than 5 months shall not be allowed. Changes in the voting times occur only during the subsequent CDI's second round of voting, and the present CDI is the only body which can table such a motion, with the vote being decided by the community voting at large at the subsequent second round voting for the subsequent CDI. If passed, this subsequent CDI's placement extends to the new set date of the installment of the next CDI. This will be demonstrated by example. If it follows that if the five months minimum was indeed decided and verified in the plebiscite, the subsequent first round of begins two months hence. This has not changed. The same commencement year date is utilized as before. What has changed is that only five months total have been allowed for the first round to accumulate the billet for the second round, with the second round beginning six months hence (with only three months for the actual voting of the first round, plus the two months period before voting begins). Thus seventh month hence would contain the same 2 week interstitial period where potentially recognized members can opt to leave (week one) and the multiple for sexual parity is decided (week two). After the seventh month hence, the two months are again allowed before voting begins again, for a total of nine months hence as the closest time available for a novel commencement of the annual year of the CDI. From that point, everything is as before, running on an annual cycle with nine more months to accumulate the totals for the first round of voting for the billet of the second round of voting. Therefore, due to the other procedures of the CDI, a maximum shift of the annual year commencement date is held to shifts of three months at a time (if the date is being moved back), in each round. By holding to this example of a five month minimum for the first round voting, the nearest that the subsequently chosen commencement date can be is nine months hence.
10) The two months at the end of the annual year of the CDI--the two months before the subsequent first round of voting commences once more--are structured for the community to witness and judge for themselves the efficacy of the people they voted for and recognized, before commencing to see if they would like them to serve once more, or be removed, in the subsequent CDI. If the case of an individual dying while a member of the CDI, their position will be offered to the one next in line, considering that of course any subsequent inclusion can change the sexual parity, which can be adjusted concurrently by offering the newly created position to the next who would achieve sexual parity as well. If no such person exists, then the CDI will continue unchanged in this regard.
As mentioned above, the CDI sets its own agendas of discussion and introduction, its own researches, its own trips, its own role in the community, its own places of meeting, as well as the manner of procedurally determining its own consensus, if committee votes are to be taken. Even if they don't get along, valuable information in the form of societal recognition in itself is achieved--without the additional frustration of, for example, electing legislative officers to governmental institutions and discovering that they refuse to work together, or even worse agree together to do nothing. With the CDI, these situations can be addressed within the society, and then governmental policy can be purposefully achieved with a community consensus backing it. The CDI can be a testing service if you will for future political conceptions, and a much desired place to air public opinions in an era grown hard and silent due to political polarization, where few intermediaries can be found. The CDI selects for intermediaries, and as such is a force for political consensus and peaceable discussion in society.
It is not a requirement to have a politics which devolves around the four above categories of politics of exclusion, short term popularity, one issue popularity, and 'landslide' bloc voting practices. These are not inherent problems in politics and unsolvable, but are caused by specific institutional structures which select for them. To introduce something else is to consciously understand the processes of political formulation and design structures which dampen or select against unrepresentative political effects. The CDI makes headway in that direction.
Copyright 1996.
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