Two links in the feed this morning had me thinking about democracy, participation and local governance.
Duncan Green provides a review of the new book How to Rig an Election, by Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas. There are many ways to hack a democracy, including gerrymandering electoral districts, influencing or straight out hacking of polls, manipulating voter registration and making it difficult to vote. The authors in this new book point out an important truth:
Leaders are most likely to try and stay in power when they believe that their presence is essential to maintain political stability; in cases when they are less committed to plural politics; when they have engaged in high-level corruption and/or human rights abuses; when they lack trust in rival leaders and political institutions; when they have been in power for a longer period of time; and when they control geostrategically important states with natural resources, effective security forces, weak institutions and high levels of distrust.
Threats to the voting system are global, affecting every country and every level of government. Many of the characteristics of these governments and leaders are present and increasing in Canada and we have already seen election irregularities over the past decade in Canada, including, targeted misinformation campaigns, allegations of identity theft, and cyber security threats.
But democracy is not simply about voting. While the voting process is important, it is what happens in-between elections that shows the mark of a mature democracy. How are you involved in your local governments? Do you have the ability to participate in decisions beyond sending in petitions, protesting or writing to your representatives? Do your governments conduct “sell and tell” sessions disguised as consultation? Does your participation have a meaningful impact?
Most of us simply move from election to election without much participation at all in governance and citizen participation. This lack of involvement leads to apathy and makes it easier for elections to be manipulated and for government policy making to be overtaken by other interests. Witness last week’s agreement between Nestle and Kinder Morgan to move the proposed path of the TransMountain pipeline so that it wouldn’t pose a risk to an aquifer that Nestle uses to produce bottled water. Kinder Morgan was accommodating of the request, but the Coldwater First Nation, who had the same request with the same concerns that its community water system would be imperilled by the pipeline received the cold shoulder. Who is making policy? Where are the levels of government that are supposed to be protecting the rights of citizens? The decision making process is too opaque, and not enough people know or care, so decisions get made every single day that affect citizens’ rights in favour of commercial interests. In this case, neither company is even Canadian and yet they are divvying up local aquifers, while actual local governments can’t get any attention at all, on exactly the same issue.
The essence of democracy is not voting, it is participation. To leave you with hope, take some time to read about the work being done in Cali, Colombia, and Bologna, Italy with respect to inclusion of citizens in urban planning, deliberation and experimentation as they work to build civic culture, belonging and identity. These projects are easy to design and implement but they require effort and they require local councils to take an interest in what citizens have to say and to provide them with the tools to build the communities they want to live in. Such participation in the long term increases voter participation, knowledge of governance processes and collective responsibility for the health of democracies.
Spent an hour in conversation with a friend in the US last night discussing the role of dialogue in connecting communities together. My friend has extensive experience working with immigrant, refugee communities and in working with inner city agencies. He’s been personally affected by Trump’s travel edict as his family members are directly targetted by the current travel ban. He’s a man I respect very much.
We were talking about ways to connect and understand the “other side.” After our conversation I stumbled over this podcast on the “deep story” of what is motivating Trump supporters, and probably both Brexit supporters and other Europeans struggling with how the world is changing and how they perceive their privileges coming apart. We talked about how there is always a thin slice of people that will never sit down with “the other.” We also spoke about the many main street Republicans who feel abandoned by their party and have done since the Tea Party took it over. It comes down to the fact that arguments on economics and policy cannot overrule the emotional aspects of identity, especially when people feel those identities are under assualt through no fault of their own.
In her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land, sociologist Arlie Hochschild tackles this paradox. She says that while people might vote against their economic needs, they’re actually voting to serve their emotional needs
The image of standing in line to get your rewards and watch people stream past you is compelling. It’s one thing to deconstruct this image with data and facts, but first it’s important to understand it and how people deeply FEEL it.
Deep story is fascinating to me. Here in my home community of Bowen Island, we experience tensions from time to time over our deep story. We all have ideas about what we think this place is and who we think we are. To some extent that story is an illusion born in our world views and our desires. In a place like Bowen Island, where most of us moved here from somewhere else, our own deep story includes the deep motivation that brought us here.
And deeper beneath the personal deep story we bring is the emergent and slowly changing story of the island’s identity. Over the last couple of years, as a member of our local Economic Development Committee, I have worked with friends and colleagues to understand our deep story. Once you can see it, it reveals the deep yes’ and deep no’s that make things happen or hold things back. People are often surprised by things that go on in our little community, but understanding the deep story helps to explain where these things come from.
When you understand the deep story, you can find deep places to connect together and important places of engagement and curiosity. Dialogue gets more interesting as we set out to learn about each other, what we care about, what we assume is true, and what is essential to our identity. Strategy that does not take the power of identity into consideration creates implementation plans that will inevitably endure oblique assaults on its efficacy. Understanding the deep story and identity of a place or a person is essential to resilience, collaboration and peacemaking across difference. A healthy community can hold different stories in all their complexity, even when those stories conflict with each other. An unhealthy community pits one story against another, and cynical leaders do the same.
We have a choice as citizens. This podcast helps us become resourceful in making that choice.
I am not at all surprised by the announcement today that the government is abandoning its promise to reform the electoral system. I never believed they would.
Many progressive voters were lured to the Liberals in the last election on a powerful premise: first, the only we could defeat Harper was not to split votes between the NDP, Greens and the Liberal Party. The Liberals took on policy planks from the other parties, including a promise to reform the electoral process in an effort to court voters away from the NDP and Greens. Many people I knew threw their support to the Liberal party on this basis. I chose to vote locally for a candidate I respect – Ken Melamed from the Green Party – and for a party whose policies I supported more than the others. I often waver between voting Green and NDP. In the past I have voted strategically, against my values, in order to try to get a “better than nothing” result, but in this election I was weary of the toll of regret that took. I hoped fervently that the democratic reform effort would pan out, and even leant help and support to it. But from the start I had no faith that the Liberals would do it. The weight of history and entrenched interests was always too much to move.
And so today comes the new mandate to the Minister of Democratic Institutions, which in part says the following:
“A clear preference for a new electoral system, let alone a consensus, has not emerged. Furthermore, without a clear preference or a clear question, a referendum would not be in Canada’s interest. Changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate.”
The stark irony here is that democratic and electoral reform is needed specifically because a consensus is no way to run a country. Having strong representation of alternative and opposing views with in governing institutions is essential to a health democracy. The first past the post system enforces a false consensus on decision making, by whipping votes and having party politics run the country. The opportunity for a broader agreement that might represent consensus decisions containg dissent is lost. Decisions that do make room to wrestle with, appreciate and sometimes resolve differences make for more robust decisions and more resilient institutions. For the moment, we have lost a chance that we never had to reform the electoral system.
More importantly, we haven’t really yet replaced Harper. Several of the problematic bills that were championed under the Conservative government including C-51 (The Anti-Terrorism Act 2015) and S-7 (Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act) are still on the books. Pipelines that Harper could not get built have been approved under Trudeau. And reconciliation moves at a glacial pace and with no major shift in sight.
To be fair to Trudeau, the Fair Elections Act has thankfully been gutted, and scientists are now allowed to publish again and share their findings publicly. But the number one lure for progressives during the last election has today been shown to be a mere honey trap. Irresistable at the time, but empty calories and regret at the end.