A discussion with Marjan Ehsassi, executive director of FIDE North America, about citizens' assemblies and how they can be used in politics, business, and academia.
Excellent interview! Democracy is in need of reform and sortition based citizen assemblies have a part to play there. I appreciate how Marjan Ehsassi isn’t advocating for a specific version / vision of how these assemblies ought to be, but rather accepts that this form of government is still in a sort of experimental stage and the details are being worked through. On that subject, I have two questions: (1) Has anyone attempted to hold citizen assemblies remotely, and if so, how did they perform compared to in person assemblies? (2) Have citizen assemblies been used anywhere to make appointment decisions? For example appointing a judge, city manager, ombudsman, or members of non-partisan commission?
Election by lottery lacks transparency. So not only do you need to come up with an alternate system for this, but for our corrupt jury system. Presumably corrupt only, as, perfectly, lacking transparency we never could know if it was pure white snow.
I don't see why you don't just, Swiss-style, have absolutely everyone be a member of a local comittee. Make them local enough and you have your small focus groups that you are talking about for issues either they select themselves or that are parcelled out to the individual block-level committees.
France, the most corrupt nation on earth is hardly a good example except for the basic overall concept which is a great one--vive, and revive la true France.
I enjoyed this interview with Marjan Ehsassi about citizens assemblies. She feels like we Americans have lost our respect for process, and I agree. One can see it in the public's general disregard for due process with respect to immigrants arrested by ICE, a disregard that at least one circuit court recently has found shocking. We have to experience democracy to appreciate process and its loss, and Americans don't experience democracy. Assemblies would help.
I think of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which according to Nathan Schneider in his book Thank You, Anarchy focused for the first few months on process. The movement surprised itself early on by its focus on process and not on restructuring Wall Street or the broader financial system. I think it will take these separate spaces for people to learn process that impacts their local areas. In other words, I don't see how representative government can be a partner with democracy as long as money (oligarchy) and personality (something Mussolini championed) control the representatives' votes.
One can understand many political movements as expressions of participatory democracy (a pleonasm if there ever was one). They start with a political end in mind, but they discover what Marjan speaks of, a hunger for participation. I think movements that occupy or that involve encampments are on an important level modeling rival polities, and those polities threaten the established government captured by big money.
But so many political movements founder due to a lack of good process. Francesca Polletta's Freedom Is an Endless Meeting looks at how the pacifist movement, the student civil rights movement, the SDS, and the early feminist movement did right and wrong with respect to process. She thinks we know a lot more now, and she was writing in 2002. I do love the thoughtful way that Marjan describes the assembly members as being selected and the meetings conducted. Facilitation is so important.
It would be so fun to be on a citizen assembly, but I think American governments may end up adopting them simply to check a box. They'll end up deep-sixing the formulated proposals that Marjan speaks of, and citizens would feel used. In other words, in the current political culture, advisory assemblies would act like innovative civics classes that have no applicability outside of the classroom. At least jurors know that their decisions matter.
I'm interested in her article about making the assemblies a fourth branch. This comports with at least two other Elysian articles, one by J. K. Lund ("What if your side hustle is being in Congress?") and one by me ("It's time for Thomas Jefferson's village-states"). Hannah Arendt's On Revolution essentially argues for America to adopt a fourth branch of government modeled on Jefferson's village-states. There's so much good energy around this idea. Let's make it happen this time.
Of what possible use is a fourth branch, when the other three are now controlled by one man? Perhaps a much stronger imperative involves a mechanism that overhauls the entire system; that is proportional on the basis of ideology, rather than geography; that is far more parliamentarian; that has provisions for national referenda; that eliminates the toxic corruption of unlimited dark money (cf., Citizens United and then McCutcheon), and -- for the good of the nation -- adds an "insurance" clause to the effect that NO ReThuglican can ever sit on any judicial bench: not small claims court, traffic court,...or what is now the Extreme Court.
I asked on the call whether this fourth branch should just replace congress altogether. She said no because we still need people that devote their careers to thinking about these issues, but I still wonder about that as a possibility.
What a refreshing concept, that We the People are smarter than the dictator. The people living the issues get to decide instead of depending on a representative who does not represent, nor pay attention to phone calls and letters their staff answers with form letters.
I love this idea. Too many potential innovations are warped or killed by officials with hidden agendas. I’ve found Edward de Bono’s six-hat framework for collaborative innovation to work beautifully with mixed groups. No more lowest-denominator decisions or dominance by so-called devil’s advocates.
Excellent interview! Democracy is in need of reform and sortition based citizen assemblies have a part to play there. I appreciate how Marjan Ehsassi isn’t advocating for a specific version / vision of how these assemblies ought to be, but rather accepts that this form of government is still in a sort of experimental stage and the details are being worked through. On that subject, I have two questions: (1) Has anyone attempted to hold citizen assemblies remotely, and if so, how did they perform compared to in person assemblies? (2) Have citizen assemblies been used anywhere to make appointment decisions? For example appointing a judge, city manager, ombudsman, or members of non-partisan commission?
Election by lottery lacks transparency. So not only do you need to come up with an alternate system for this, but for our corrupt jury system. Presumably corrupt only, as, perfectly, lacking transparency we never could know if it was pure white snow.
I don't see why you don't just, Swiss-style, have absolutely everyone be a member of a local comittee. Make them local enough and you have your small focus groups that you are talking about for issues either they select themselves or that are parcelled out to the individual block-level committees.
France, the most corrupt nation on earth is hardly a good example except for the basic overall concept which is a great one--vive, and revive la true France.
I enjoyed this interview with Marjan Ehsassi about citizens assemblies. She feels like we Americans have lost our respect for process, and I agree. One can see it in the public's general disregard for due process with respect to immigrants arrested by ICE, a disregard that at least one circuit court recently has found shocking. We have to experience democracy to appreciate process and its loss, and Americans don't experience democracy. Assemblies would help.
I think of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which according to Nathan Schneider in his book Thank You, Anarchy focused for the first few months on process. The movement surprised itself early on by its focus on process and not on restructuring Wall Street or the broader financial system. I think it will take these separate spaces for people to learn process that impacts their local areas. In other words, I don't see how representative government can be a partner with democracy as long as money (oligarchy) and personality (something Mussolini championed) control the representatives' votes.
One can understand many political movements as expressions of participatory democracy (a pleonasm if there ever was one). They start with a political end in mind, but they discover what Marjan speaks of, a hunger for participation. I think movements that occupy or that involve encampments are on an important level modeling rival polities, and those polities threaten the established government captured by big money.
But so many political movements founder due to a lack of good process. Francesca Polletta's Freedom Is an Endless Meeting looks at how the pacifist movement, the student civil rights movement, the SDS, and the early feminist movement did right and wrong with respect to process. She thinks we know a lot more now, and she was writing in 2002. I do love the thoughtful way that Marjan describes the assembly members as being selected and the meetings conducted. Facilitation is so important.
It would be so fun to be on a citizen assembly, but I think American governments may end up adopting them simply to check a box. They'll end up deep-sixing the formulated proposals that Marjan speaks of, and citizens would feel used. In other words, in the current political culture, advisory assemblies would act like innovative civics classes that have no applicability outside of the classroom. At least jurors know that their decisions matter.
I'm interested in her article about making the assemblies a fourth branch. This comports with at least two other Elysian articles, one by J. K. Lund ("What if your side hustle is being in Congress?") and one by me ("It's time for Thomas Jefferson's village-states"). Hannah Arendt's On Revolution essentially argues for America to adopt a fourth branch of government modeled on Jefferson's village-states. There's so much good energy around this idea. Let's make it happen this time.
Of what possible use is a fourth branch, when the other three are now controlled by one man? Perhaps a much stronger imperative involves a mechanism that overhauls the entire system; that is proportional on the basis of ideology, rather than geography; that is far more parliamentarian; that has provisions for national referenda; that eliminates the toxic corruption of unlimited dark money (cf., Citizens United and then McCutcheon), and -- for the good of the nation -- adds an "insurance" clause to the effect that NO ReThuglican can ever sit on any judicial bench: not small claims court, traffic court,...or what is now the Extreme Court.
I asked on the call whether this fourth branch should just replace congress altogether. She said no because we still need people that devote their careers to thinking about these issues, but I still wonder about that as a possibility.
The people already have the power. State legislatures can be abolished.
What a refreshing concept, that We the People are smarter than the dictator. The people living the issues get to decide instead of depending on a representative who does not represent, nor pay attention to phone calls and letters their staff answers with form letters.
I love this idea. Too many potential innovations are warped or killed by officials with hidden agendas. I’ve found Edward de Bono’s six-hat framework for collaborative innovation to work beautifully with mixed groups. No more lowest-denominator decisions or dominance by so-called devil’s advocates.