Traditional democratic institutions are failing. It’s time for an upgrade.

[applegrove]

Traditional democratic institutions are failing. It’s time for an upgrade.

By John Boik, Lorenzo Fioramonti, Gary Milante at Foreign Policy

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/16/rebooting-democracy-participatory-reform-capitalism/

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The failings were not due to a “clash of civilizations,” as Huntington famously argued. There is nothing inherent to democracy that makes it incompatible with the Arab or any other culture. Rather, the failings resulted from promotion of form over substance — replicating an image of democracy rather than a functional, inclusive, accountable decision-making system that is adapted to local needs. If democratic initiatives in the Arab world and elsewhere are to evolve and mature, it will be because expressions of democracy have markedly improved. We are suggesting that democratic systems are due for a major upgrade, and that new, more flexible versions will allow for community programming — refinement of a system by the very people who use it.

Political systems are decision-making systems. But societal decision-making is not limited to the political realm. Economic systems, too, make decisions — and are ripe for deeper democratic mechanisms. Indeed, decisions made through an economic system can at times have greater impact on a society than those made through political systems.

Recently, stinging criticisms of contemporary capitalism have appeared by economists, religious leaders, activists, and ordinary citizens. Clearly, both political and economic systems are failing to keep up with citizens’ demands for function, participation, and accountability. What would the next generation of political and economic systems looks like, if these demands were to be met?

When engineers develop a product, one of their chief tasks is to ensure that it performs within certain measures of quality. In this context, a scientific approach to developing the next generation of democracy would measure quality not as increased economic output but by the broader metric of increased wellbeing. Wellbeing implies not only avoiding negatives such as pollution and hunger, but also enjoying positives: meaningful jobs, good wages, access to education and health care, justice, strong social bonds, sufficient time for family and friends, and a vibrant ecosystem. If we were to purposefully design better versions of economic and political decision-making systems, then we would measure their performance by their ability to maximize these characteristics.



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