Referendums or Citizens' Assemblies?

Holding a referendum on whether to remain or leave the European Union was one of the dumber decisions in the long history of the British political class, as is becoming increasingly apparent. Obviously, when David Cameron took his fateful decision, he hadn't the slightest idea of what his Conservative Party would do if the vote was leave. But that just magnified the initial blunder of choosing to have a referendum at all. Referendums are perhaps the worst instrument available in the democratic toolkit.

Referendums are yes/no affairs, and yes or no sucks one of the vital ingredients of democracy—compromise—out of an issue. It also divides, creating an atmosphere of us and them, winners and losers, breeding hostility in the process. Referendums are the hammer of majority rule, more in-your-face than face-to-face.

Few issues are as simple as yes or no. Referendums relieve citizens of the need to think below the surface. Some citizens will research the issue, think it through calmly and thoroughly, and discuss and debate it with others. Some won’t. The ignorance component of referendums can, therefore, be very high. How many Brits, I wonder, understood the economic ramifications of leaving. Or how many understood how it would affect the Irish question. And how many votes had little to do with the EU, but were a slap in the face to the political class over immigration or declining incomes.

One of the powerful advantages of representative democracy is having decisions made by people whose job is to study issues thoroughly before deciding. Referendums short-circuit this advantage. A decision made by elected representatives after thorough consideration might well be closer to what the people would decide if they deliberated rather than simply voting in a referendum. The best solution will almost certainly come from deliberation, not a battle between hostile viewpoints inflamed by sensationalist media.

Referendum also often fail to get a turnout that represents a cross-section of the electorate. Those who are emotionally involved in the issue or those who have a vested interest may be disproportionately represented.

If I am being hard on referendums, I make no apology. Democracy, healthy democracy, requires a great deal more than the people’s voice and the people’s will; it requires fully informed, thoughtful voices and wills, and these are often absent, to a greater or lesser degree, from referendums.

So is there something better? Is there a vehicle that will combine the desire for direct democracy with the need for deliberation? The happy answer is yes—citizens’ assemblies.

A citizens’ assembly simply means bringing together ordinary citizens to decide issues. They are provided with a comprehensive package of information, access to experts and politicians on all sides of the issue, and ample opportunity to discuss and debate among themselves face-to-face in small groups. Only after this immersion do they offer their opinion. The result is not simply what the public thinks but what the public—at least the public in microcosm—thinks after thorough deliberation. We have the opinion of an ideal citizenry.

The participants in an assembly become a sort of mini-parliament. Free of any grip of party loyalty, allowed to deal with their fellow participants on an equal, open, intimate and informal basis, they are also more willing to allow the heartfelt views of others to influence their own. The competitive, adversarial nature of conventional party politics is sharply reduced. By bringing people of all sorts together, assemblies create a more consensual, inclusive democracy as opposed to the hostile, partisan, macho democracy of party politics. In effect, they take the “politics” out of decision-making.

All groups in society can be equitably represented in an assembly, but they are there as individuals, not as representatives of groups, as they are with party politics. Referendums force citizens to take sides, and the majority hammers the minority. As referendums divide people, assemblies unite them; where referendums are exclusive, assemblies are inclusive. And, unlike a referendum, every citizen involved will generally be well-informed.

Assemblies not only bring citizens together as individuals but as equals. They eliminate not only political inequality but social and financial inequality as well. The CEO of a large corporation sits down with the welfare mother; they can get to know each other and understand each other’s views and problems. Not only can they conclude the issue under discussion, but they can build bridges for the future. People isolated in their own domains tend to obsess on their own world views, constantly reinforcing their prejudices.

Particularly important in assemblies is the dialogue between participants. Good talk—vigorous, well-informed conversation, especially debate with those whose views differ from one’s own—remains the main ingredient of healthy democracy. It not only ensures better decision-making, it engenders respect for other views and refines the art of compromise. It both educates and civilizes. It offers the possibility of a politics of shared goals rather than a politics of angry difference.

What criteria then should we apply in constructing an assembly? I suggest two:

First, participants must be chosen by random selection. Anything else does not accurately represent the people in microcosm. Other means, choosing participants as voices of interest groups, for example—labour, business, the handicapped, etc.—would be slipping back to representative governance.

Second, attendance must be mandatory, as it is with jury duty. A citizen who refused to attend without good cause would be in contempt. If we relied on volunteers, the voice of the assembly would be skewed toward those with a special interest or those who simply enjoy political activism. That wouldn’t do. We seek the voice of the people, all the people.

Citizens’ assemblies could even be established as permanent bodies. Assemblies of appropriate size could be brought together to deal with an issue within a set period. Once they had deliberated and drawn up their conclusions, that assembly would be dissolved and replaced by another to deal with the next issue. And so on. Assemblies could be another branch of government at all levels of government.

Citizens’ assemblies, whether as a permanent part of our constitutional system or just used ad hoc, have the ability to transfer substantial decision-making from legislatures to citizens in a wave of direct democracy that would improve citizens as it involved them. Every citizen would share the prospect of becoming a legislator, and if assemblies were part of all levels of governance, the prospect could be very good indeed. Citizens would expect to be called to assembly duty just as they can now expect to be called to jury duty. Citizens would be kept on their democratic toes, creating a more aware and confident citizenry. And, no doubt of some small satisfaction to politicians, citizens would have no one to blame, or credit, for how the country was run, but themselves.

Citizens' Assemblies Gaining Favour

Democracy has been producing some perverse results recently. A prime example is our neighbour to the south. In 2016, the American people elected Hillary Clinton, one of the most qualified candidates they have ever been offered for president, but they got Donald Trump, undoubtedly the least qualified candidate they have ever been offered. The people were overruled by an eccentric institution called the Electoral College. A similar result elected George W. Bush over Al Gore in the 2000 election. The Electoral College, it seems, has a soft spot for incompetents.

Another example is the Brexit referendum in Britain. I have written in a previous post about the perversity of referendums in general and of this one in particular. That post also presents the much more democratic alternative, the citizens' assembly—a set of citizens chosen randomly, to accurately represent the population, and then brought together to study the issue in depth. The group learns from experts and stakeholders, and consult and deliberate, before making their decision on the issue.

Fair Vote Canada pointed out in a recent article how citizens' assemblies are gaining favour. In France, the Citizens’ Assembly for the Climate is tasked with developing a climate plan that cuts carbon emissions by 40 percent before 2030. A Citizens’ Assembly in Scotland will make recommendations to guide Scotland's post-Brexit future. In the UK, the Citizens’ Assembly on Climate will direct the government on how to meet its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The Irish Citizens’ Assembly will propose legislative changes to advance gender equality. Irish Citizens’ Assemblies, which have done groundbreaking work on gay marriage and abortion, are an international model for citizen participation. All the above will be reporting on their deliberations in 2020.

The German-speaking region of Belgium has even formed a permanent Citizens' Assembly. All six parties in the region's parliament endorsed the bill that established the assembly. Parliament will be bound to respond to its recommendations. This tiny community is setting an example for all of Europe. At a time when anger and distrust is troubling a number of Western democracies, they would do well to take a close look.

As could Canada. Citizens' assemblies would be a useful addition to our governing institutions at all levels of government. Fair Vote intends to do everything possible to achieve a national citizens' assembly on electoral reform in the current Parliament.

Is Universal Suffrage Logical? Is it Moral?

Not everyone is a fan of democracy. Other than those who outright prefer dictatorship of one kind or another, some critics simply don't trust all citizens having equal power over their governors. Jason Brennan, a Georgetown University political philosopher, expresses just such a view in his book Against Democracy. Brennan believes that because most people are ignorant of the issues allowing them to impose their will on everyone is immoral. He particularly takes issue with universal suffrage, i.e. one citizen /one vote. As alternatives, he offers various methods of rule by the knowledgeable, which he calls epistocracy.

The idea that only the well-informed should guide society has always been around, dating back at least to Plato. Brennan's book is, nonetheless, well-timed. The two most prominent modern democracies, Britain and the United States, are both currently being run by buffoons. Of course neither buffoon was elected by the people—Trump by the electoral college and Johnson by the Conservative Party—so we can't really blame all the ignorant voters, just some. Nonetheless, both countries are becoming travesties of democracy largely because of voters who were angry but ill-informed, a dangerous combination.

Still, I remain loyal to one citizen/one vote. Although there are those who couldn't care less about voting, I think to most people it has great symbolic value. It says they are as valued as citizens as anyone else. This I think is important, even though Brennan  is quite right that most people have a poor grasp of most issues.

But this is a personal conceit. It's just me. Is there some fundamental reason why people would cleave to democracy? Why the vote has symbolic appeal?

The emotional reason must arise somehow from what we, a social species, evolved to be, our natural morality so to speak. Evolutionary biologists talk about reciprocal altruism, “a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time.” In other words, I do you a favour when you need one, you do me a favour when I need one, and if we don't cheat we are both better off. (Cheating is the other half of the story, and an interesting half it is.) From reciprocal altruism perhaps comes our sense of fair play and from fair play, democracy, bequeathed you might say by evolution. ... Perhaps.

The logical reason may simply be recognizing that democracy is essential to a free society. There is no absolute freedom. As long as we live in groups we must have rules. The question of freedom in a society of rules becomes a question of who makes the rules. If one man makes them, or a group of men make them, then we are servants of that man or those men. We are not free. The only way we can be free is to make the rules ourselves. And it follows that we must all have an equal say, i.e. democracy, in making them. If one person has less of a say then that person is that much a servant of the rest of us, that much less free. To accept epistocracy is to accept a diminution of freedom. And that I’m very leery indeed of doing.

As for those who are willing to give up their freedom, well .... they choose to be servants and that's a whole other thing. They will have their own justification both emotionally and logically. Ultimately each person's choice will depend on their personal genetic and cultural history and mine tilts me toward freedom and democracy.

Even if we were to choose those citizens we thought qualified to vote, would knowledge be the best criteria? An important one, yes, but how about judgment, honesty, tolerance, compassion or even simple common decency? You can always gain the knowledge you need, but can you gain compassion?

In any case, people don't vote on issues (except in a referendum); they vote to elect representatives to vote on issues. And they don't vote in isolation. They are greatly aided by political parties who present platforms outlining their positions on issues. This is in fact one of political parties most important functions. Almost everyone I know votes by party, not by candidate, and even people who don't pay a lot of attention to issues have a general idea about what the parties represent.

And once representatives are elected, they are well paid and provided with ample resources to thoroughly familiarize themselves with the issues. They have the entire civil service to draw on, and the civil service contains experts in all the areas they will have to deal with. Indeed, some might argue that a good civil service is more important to a healthy democracy than the elected representatives.

And once legislation is drawn up, it must pass scrutiny in the cabinet, the brightest and best of the representatives (one hopes), then survive three readings in the House of Commons and finally face review in the Senate, before receiving assent. It isn't as if policy was concocted by the ignorant masses on a whim and imposed willy-nilly.

Certainly democracy as it is practiced can use a lot of improvement. But overall it has done better than any other form of government, so it would seem sensible to improve it before leaping into some form of epistocracy. Interestingly, one form Brennan discusses, the "enfranchisement lottery," which involves choosing a random set of voters by lot and immersing them in a competence-building program, sounds very similar to citizens' assemblies, a form of decision-making I consider quite democratic and think should be used a great deal more. I have discussed citizens' assemblies elsewhere.

As long as lots of room for improvement is available, allowing everyone the equal right to simply pick a candidate they think mostly shares their values, or favours their interests, and letting those selected candidates deal with the issues—with experts at their elbows—would seem to be the sensible choice. Democracy has proven to the best of all the many systems we've tried so jumping to something new before we have given it every chance would be a risky venture.

I Am a Democrat ... and an Elitist

There is much talk about populism these days. The term has a variety of definitions, but the general idea is that society is separated into two groups at odds with one another—the mass of the people and a corrupt elite. The populist leader claims to represent the will of the people and stands opposed to their enemies who consist of the current political class, possibly other "elites" such as the traditional media, and usually a convenient scapegoat. Populism tends to be right-wing but not exclusively.

It is currently having good innings with the world's most important country firmly in the grip of the classic populist Donald Trump. In Europe, populist parties are making a lot of noise and of course there's Brexit, an example of populism in action. The main cheerleader of Brexit, Nigel Farage, recently created a new political party and did better in the EU elections than either of Britain's two major parties.

People do have justification for being unhappy with the current political regimes. We have been subject to rapid and sometimes what seems like overwhelming change: immigration, globalism, and technological innovation that renders millions of jobs redundant, all accompanied by stagnant incomes for most people with huge benefits for a few.

But you cannot either justify your grievances or solve your problems by electing demagogues, particularly buffoons like Donald Trump. Populist leaders, quite aside from their generally bad manners, rely on negative narratives—anti-elites, anti-politics, anti-foreigners and often anti-minorities. They dislike the complexity and the limitations of democracy and tend to undermine it. They prefer an authoritarian approach and promise simple solutions to complex problems. When citizens choose the route of populism, they sell themselves out.

But, as a democrat, do I not accept people's right to do stupid things? Of course I do. I am an ardent supporter of self-governance. Furthermore, I have confidence in the masses—but only when they are well-informed. When they are ill-informed they are capable of very stupid things indeed. They can, for instance, easily be roused into a mob, and they can run ardently into the arms of demagogues.

This is why I'm an elitist. If we are to be governed well, we must be governed by elites. Politics is no different than any other field of endeavour—the arts, science, the crafts, the professions, all must be led and inspired by the best if they are to excel. Without elites we would still be crouched around campfires gnawing on bones and shivering at the shadows.

The great thing about democracy is that we can choose our own elites, our own aristocracy if you like. We can elect representatives to form an elite, but only if we choose them wisely. We can elect highly competent people who familiarize themselves thoroughly with the issues and listen to all views before making decisions ... or we can elect populists.

Or we can become our own elite via direct democracy. I do not refer to referendums, perhaps democracy's poorest instrument (meat for another post). I refer to citizens' assemblies—randomly chosen groups of citizens brought together to decide an issue. If they are provided with ample material to immerse themselves in the relevant facts, hear a variety of views from experts and others, and spend time in face to face discussions before making their decision, they will become an elite and they will make a well-informed decision. Assemblies are an instrument that deserves much greater application in our democracies.

So we can elect an elite or we can become the elite. We have no excuse for abandoning ourselves to demagogues. We do indeed get the government we deserve.