Reference Parliament
Description
Thomas Leif Olsen:
"‘What’, ‘How’ & ‘Why’?
What? A Reference Parliament is a virtual meeting point for non-elected members of the general public, where they can access and in a timely and therefore truly influen-tial manner debate all / any issues that elected parliamentarians debate in the national and /or supra-national parliament (and/or state or federal assembly), that members of the general public - as individuals or collectives - wish to influence the elected parlia-mentarians’ views upon, arguments for (or against), and voting on.
How? A Reference Parliament is a ‘wiki’ to which all parliamentarians’ submissions, proposals, interpellations, bills and voting records are copied. The wiki will sort these along several principles, including (i) ministerial area, (ii) issue, (iii) chronology and (iv) individual submitter, but also include search functions for more detailed analysis. The wiki will further provide interactive debate- and voting-functions and give dead-lines for when voting must be completed in order to predate the elected parliament’s final debate and/or vote on the issue (etc).
Why? The whole idea with the Reference Parliament is to allow the general public - who both elect and bankroll the elected parliamentarians - to truly influence those decisions they take in parliament in a way beneficial to the general public. In today’s parliamentarian systems is the electorate only electing and bankrolling the parliament-tarians, while the parliamentarian’s day-to-day influences come from totally different sources, such as professional lobbyists (paid by vested and often obscured interests), institutional bodies representing members or particular interest-groups, ‘Big Capital’ labeled ‘too large to fail’, and/or the like.
So …? By non-elected members of the general public debating and voting on the very same issues (bills) as the elected parliament debates (although the elected parliaments’ decisions are decisive - not the recommendation shaped by the general public through their debate and voting in the Reference Parliament) will the elected parliamentarians always know what outcome the electorate, as a collective, would prefer. Even though the elected parliamentarians can - and initially even may prefer to - ignore the views expressed by the general public through the Reference Parliament, will a much closer scrutiny of the governing process soon force them to much better than today balance the interests of those electing and bankrolling them vis-a-vis those ‘lobbying’ them."
Discussion
The arguments for a reference parliament, by Thomas Olsen, Saigon, September 1, 2011
"I would like to contribute to the p2p debate by questioning some key assumptions. In most scenarios outlined by p2p-advocates, including its ‘poster-boys’ Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, will socio-economic transformation come from p2p-initiatives in the field of innovation and production. Creative and responsible individuals will form networks to create increasingly sustainable outputs. This will eventually lead the for-profit sector as well as our politicians to rewrite the rulebook for how our societies are governed.
In short, the fairytale about how the good defeat the evil will now finally become true!
It is extremely hard to find any passage in history where this actually happened. To the contrary, all social change has followed an upheaval of some sort, for the simple reason that the incumbents, obviously benefiting from status quo, have most of the trump on hand until the very day they realise they have already lost it. Most people are prepared to convert under the guillotine, but only very few on sheer instinct.
The most dramatic of social transformation in Western society, the Enlightenment, leading to today’s model of a ‘democratic capitalist state’, was preceded by 30 years of intensive warfare. Also more short-lived social transformations, like the communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China, were preceded by bloody upheavals where the social transformation had immense amount of blood on its hands.
Current socio-political processes in North Africa are hardly peaceful either, and can only avoid serious bloodshed if and when the ruling class is weakened by illness, old age or excessive internal rot.
A successful - and at the same time peaceful - transformation towards a sustainable society is actually almost impossible without the direct participation of the governing bodies (the states), since it is the state that issues the legal framework under which we are expected to live and work. Established practice also gives the state the sole right to use force and violence - also against it own citizens, if or when they obstruct. Few, if any, political elites have proved willing to rule out power-speak when they feel threat from civil society. The latest example is the British, handing down ‘deterrent’ senten-ces for minor crimes, following a social uprising by the poor in one of Europe’s most segregated and discriminating societies. The argument that they are all criminals is all too familiar, an argument used across the world throughout history. And now, all of a sudden, does this ‘freedom-loving’ society even want to curtail access to social media, so it cannot be used by ‘thugs’.
The ultimate key to transform our societies is therefore to engage the state, not to try to circumvent it. The for-profit sector will surely do its best to retain status quo, as we have seen from the response to the 2008 Wall Street collapse. However, civic society has one avenue it not yet dared to try: Organisation.
In the past, civil society organisations were based on collectiveness, in the sense that groups was formed to argue in favour of particular interests, the most typical example being trade unions. White collar trade unions then competed with blue collar trade unions, and trade unions in the developed world argued for measures detrimental to workers in the developing world. Solidarity may have been the slogan, but in reality competition prevailed.
The totally new type of Organisation we need is a way for civil society to impact their elected politicians. Everybody agrees that casting their vote every 3rd, 4th or 5th year is, given the complexity and rapid development of our post-modern societies, nowhere near enough to ensure democracy. Politics is in fact far too important to leave to our politicians.
The question everybody is grappling with is how this influence shall be achieved. The ‘diversity’ all sustainability-advocates argue in favour of requires an almost unlimited range of ‘influences’ to reach our politicians. Nevertheless, as people tend to be flock-animals, are clusters of concerns the most realistic scenario even in the case of a wider debate. Elected politicians are - as we all know - permanently lobbied by groups with particular interests. The more single-minded the interests, the more money they need to spend in order to get their message through to policy makers. The American Rifles Association is just one point in case.
Politicians are also humans. All humans can be influenced, given the right arguments are used, and there is no ultimate ‘logic’, void of biases, that politicians are trained in. But civil society, of which our politicians are also members when they are off-duty, is so meek so it waits until next election to make its views known. That is the model we have be fed, and that is how the large majority of the world’s population view politics.
Given the ‘good old’ 80/20 rule, that means that 80% of 8 billion people are willing to wait for that very day when they can slip a pink or blue or green ballot in a cardboard box. The key argument is that politics is too difficult for non-politicians to understand.
That is indeed a strange assumption, since politics is about our lives, not about some aliens living on another planet.
In my book “Good Governance in the New Millennium” I argue in favor of what I call a Reference Parliament. This is a means to an end. Given the terminology this blog (and several others) use, it could also be called a ‘Political Common’.
My assumption is quite simple. Politicians are under their well-tailored surface just as the rest of us; people struggling to live a good life, caring for their family and friends. But their chosen career has given them a power-tool they cannot resist using, and they are afraid of losing it. Hence they become the tools of whatever ensures their survival. That is a human weakness. The task ahead is to prove beyond doubt that civil society is the boss they are there to serve. In the feudal state the ruler owned his subjects. In the post-modern society it is civil society that owns the state. This key assumption is what Reference Parliaments sets out to enforce."
More Information
- contact author via [email protected], [email protected]
- This link takes you to the final chapter of my book, where the Reference Parliament is conceptually drafted: ….(to be scribd'ed).
- This link takes you to a more analytical document, discussing not only the role of the Reference Parliament, but also the background for why it is needed, why we do not have it yet, how it can be achieved and what its initial tasks could be: http://p2pfoundation.net/Glocal_Democracy.