Towards a Peoples Branch of Irish Government

democrates

At the moment 'we the people' already have a tiny peoples branch - the constitution which only we can change in a referendum.

But the initiative for changes to our constitution can only come from the legislature, in this we are left entirely dependant on representative democracy.

In fairness invitations for public submissions are becoming more frequent not just for referenda but on legislation and on areas of policy. But again these occur only at the pleasure of the government, and there is no reason to assume continuous improvement (eg foi act partial repeal).

Without delving into the practicalities of it's introduction, what benefits might a permanent peoples branch bring?

DadaKopf

What's a 'people's branch'?

Tea drinker

What would their area of expertise be? Would it be on an "as needed" basis? This would be different from consultants, how?
I feel our political representatives should have relevant expertise or qualifications to their area's of responsibilities. Making the people's branch redundant?
I don't really understand your point democrates... .explain a little more please.

democrates

My bad I was way too vague.

What I mean by a peoples branch is simply a branch of the state that uses direct involvement of the people.

Rather than being prescriptive about it's role and how it might operate what I hope to do is throw it open for a brainstorm so people can put forward their own ideas in a kind of design your ideal peoples branch.

Maybe a good starting point is to answer the what why who how and where questions. I'll try it and see if the format works, so an example suggestion to kick the ball off:

What: A state-funded body accountable to an ombudsman
Why: To give the people direct input to any aspect of the running of the state
Who: A board of management elected at the same time as the general election
How: A website facilitating local peoples councils and records of their results, also a record of how legislators responded to input from the peoples branch
Where: The main body could meet in Dublin, Athlone, Ballydehob?

It would be beneficial to see what alternatives the bright minds on boards can come up with in an idea generation exercise, what would your version of the above be?

Dontico

wow that sounds so origional. an organisation that represents the people!
but how we run it? who gets to organise it?
we could vote people in to represent us. that might work.
we could name it after the OP, maybe call it "democraticy"? :rolleyes:

democrates

Dontico wrote:

wow that sounds so origional. an organisation that represents the people!
but how we run it? who gets to organise it?
we could vote people in to represent us. that might work.
we could name it after the OP, maybe call it "democraticy"? :rolleyes:

Sarcasm on boards, will wonders ever cease.

In fairness you've tripped one wire, I started out with a side swipe at representative democracy then put it forth as a suggestion. Do you see the current arrangements as satisfactory, and if not do you have any ideas as to how it might be improved?

brianthebard

In switzerland if you get a certain percentage of the population to petition for it, you can have a referendum on an issue (afaik, may or mat not be true) Is that the sort of thing you want?

Dontico

democrates wrote:

Sarcasm on boards, will wonders ever cease.

In fairness you've tripped one wire, I started out with a side swipe at representative democracy then put it forth as a suggestion. Do you see the current arrangements as satisfactory, and if not do you have any ideas as to how it might be improved?

the only problem is making sure everyone is educated enough to vote for the right party.or know enough about the issues to pick the right person for them.

DadaKopf

There's another thread in this forum that might deal with this topic a little better.

The centralism-regionalism one.

democrates

brianthebard wrote:

In switzerland if you get a certain percentage of the population to petition for it, you can have a referendum on an issue (afaik, may or mat not be true) Is that the sort of thing you want?

That's precisely the kind of power the Swiss people have, and personally yes I want it here in Ireland.

Ireland is a long way from direct democracy though, many people believe only they and a handful of others are capable of voting with any intelligence, or they'd like more say but fear those with whom they disagree having a say. Donticos point is well taken at the same time, it wouldn't be something we're ready to have rolled out on a large scale any time soon, we're not prepared.

Direct democracy could evolve however so that over time people become familiar with it. But should it be introduced from the top-down starting at the constitution, or should it be introduced at local council level first then develop up toward Dail business. As far as that kind of question goes the regional - central thread looks like a good place to discuss.

In any event this thread hasn't exactly set a fire so I'm happy to drop it.

DadaKopf

In any event this thread hasn't exactly set a fire so I'm happy to drop it.

You don't have to. Its an interesting topic. And this is 'Political Theory', so don't let an interesting argument with a few good responses die because it's not a provocative flamewar in 'Politics'.

Petitions are a great idea. They'd have to be policed, though. We don't want developers getting in a petition to let builders build wherever they like, or corporations turning us into a low wage export processing zone!

democrates

DadaKopf wrote:

You don't have to. Its an interesting topic. And this is 'Political Theory', so don't let an interesting argument with a few good responses die because it's not a provocative flamewar in 'Politics'.

Petitions are a great idea. They'd have to be policed, though. We don't want developers getting in a petition to let builders build wherever they like, or corporations turning us into a low wage export processing zone!

Exactly, it's a question of where you draw the line in terms of how many signatures are required on a petition in order for it to trigger a referendum which let's face it is an extra hassle for busy people.

I don't know if/how signatures are validated in Switzerland or what sentances accrue for signature fraud on petitions, but even if that happens the people ultimately have to vote on the proposal in the resultant referendum so there's no fear of extremists or vested interests slipping anything unwelcome past the people and the press.

The recent peoples forum on Europe is an interesting step in the right direction, though if the EU constitution hadn't been rejected it wouldn't have emerged. At least a random group of people chosen to be representative of the wider general population were polled for their views on a diversity of topics. Let's see if the results are published online.

That should be an annual event. It should also be an annual event targetted to national politicians IMHO so hearing Bertie insist that the EU politicians have to listen is a bit like the cat calling the dog hairy ass since his government have initiated no such forum to listen to themselves.

We do have partnership in fairness, the unions represent employees and ibec the employers, but by selecting these particular entities to sit at the table the talks become framed and often mired in terms of their opposing core motivations around pay and conditions. No disrespect to Mark Begg or Turlough O'Sullivan but it's not broad enough.

Public consultations tend to happen on a case by case basis, be it a new bypass, gas pipeline, or review of company law, but this is all very piecemeal and often you only hear about them when the deadline is gone. At the very least their ought to be a one-stop-shop website for all of these so you can see where public input is planned or currently being invited. As it stands the fringe elements are on top of it and get their spoke in, a one-stop-shop would make public consultation more representative.

This would probably save a few bob too rather than each area going off and paying for an online public consultation system. And how hard would it be to add a general suggestion box? How many bright ideas wither out there that could increase benefits and/or decrease costs of running the nation. And stick vbulletin on for good measure.

Anyway, if partnership talks include some representation of the results from the suggested annual national peoples forum as well as a synthesis of public submissions on various topics through the website (or by post-luddites), and the politicians listened, then acted accordingly where feasible, we'd be far better off. An online record of what the people asked for vs what politicians gave us would be very informative even for this representative system.

That's still a far cry from direct democracy, but then it would be such a fundamental change that small steps make sense. The Swiss are at it for centuries, it started as a round table of warlords, and only in the 1970's did women get the vote. But that would seem to be a Swiss male cultural issue rather than a problem with direct democracy given that men in other counties voted in referenda to give women the vote long before.

Thoughts?

Mick86

democrates wrote:

Sarcasm on boards, will wonders ever cease.

He may have used sarcasm but he's right. Our elected representatives are supposed to do just that Represent us-the people. Democracy has been corrupted by the emergence of political parties. We are forced to elect people who claim that they will be loyal to us and when they get elected their loyalty returns to their party. Worse still is the class of people who are traditional party voters. Muppets like that should be disenfranchised until they accumulate four or more braincells. Even voting for independents is a waste of time because they inevitably gravitate towards whichever party suits their agenda. Outlaw political parties and return democracy to the people.

democrates

Mick86 wrote:

He may have used sarcasm but he's right. Our elected representatives are supposed to do just that Represent us-the people. Democracy has been corrupted by the emergence of political parties. We are forced to elect people who claim that they will be loyal to us and when they get elected their loyalty returns to their party. Worse still is the class of people who are traditional party voters. Muppets like that should be disenfranchised until they accumulate four or more braincells. Even voting for independents is a waste of time because they inevitably gravitate towards whichever party suits their agenda. Outlaw political parties and return democracy to the people.

If you outlaw political parties people can still meet in private and use other organisations to synchronise voting to their chosen ends, I think the right to associate freely should be protected.

But I agree that we should be able to get our hands on the tiller when necessary. To have visibility of what's going on is a transparency issue, the FOI act isn't sufficient, someone must know what to look for first, instead information should be available by default on the web without invading individual privacy of course.

johnnyskeleton

If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that people should have more control over specific issues, rather than merely voting for someone every 5 years or so.

For example, lets suppose that there is a certain minister who is voted into power by a segment of people who want lower taxes and are largely indifferent to human rights, civil liberties etc, democratic process etc.

Lets also suppose that said hypothetical minister proposes legislation which seriously infringes human rights and civil liberties, and trys to shuffle it through parliament while he does a, lets say soduku puzzle.

The problem is that, although that is consistent with representative democracy, it would be a stretch of the imagination to suppose that that is the will of the people. Also, the argument that such a minister (although it would be a nightmare world if there was such a person in real life) would not be re-elected is a specious argument, because the same people who elected him still want lower taxes, and don't care about the other issues. An even more extreme example is where there is a two party system, and an evil warmongering candidate is elected because the other guy is boring.

I suppose a system whereby people have more control over individual issues is more idealistic than realistic. Think of all the people who protested across the world against the war in Iraq. It made not a whit of difference. Nor, as we have seen, will people say "because I didn't support the war in Iraq, I'm not going to vote for that political party". Instead, politicians can do some bad things but when it comes to election time people tend to forget them.

However, I don't really how this can be changed without the entire system grinding to a halt, or government costing so much that there is no money left for health & education.

democrates

johnnyskeleton wrote:

If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that people should have more control over specific issues, rather than merely voting for someone every 5 years or so.

For example, lets suppose that there is a certain minister who is voted into power by a segment of people who want lower taxes and are largely indifferent to human rights, civil liberties etc, democratic process etc.

Lets also suppose that said hypothetical minister proposes legislation which seriously infringes human rights and civil liberties, and trys to shuffle it through parliament while he does a, lets say soduku puzzle.

The problem is that, although that is consistent with representative democracy, it would be a stretch of the imagination to suppose that that is the will of the people. Also, the argument that such a minister (although it would be a nightmare world if there was such a person in real life) would not be re-elected is a specious argument, because the same people who elected him still want lower taxes, and don't care about the other issues. An even more extreme example is where there is a two party system, and an evil warmongering candidate is elected because the other guy is boring.

Scary picture, of course those things would never happen, the people would take to the streets en masse wouldn't they.

johnnyskeleton wrote:

I suppose a system whereby people have more control over individual issues is more idealistic than realistic. Think of all the people who protested across the world against the war in Iraq. It made not a whit of difference. Nor, as we have seen, will people say "because I didn't support the war in Iraq, I'm not going to vote for that political party". Instead, politicians can do some bad things but when it comes to election time people tend to forget them.

However, I don't really how this can be changed without the entire system grinding to a halt, or government costing so much that there is no money left for health & education.

Well I think some solutions are possible, but I can't think of one which would pass the 'instant panacea or nothing' test . "Up the evolution" is my preferred approach, EG local pilot tests with a fallback option so we don't risk everything on unknowns. That said the ultimate goal is real power, protests can always be ignored as you point out.

skeptic griggsy

I find all this interesting. I didn't realize Ireland had regions,just counties.May you have more democracy!;)

democrates

skeptic griggsy wrote:

I find all this interesting. I didn't realize Ireland had regions,just counties.May you have more democracy!;)

Thanks. There's some brief info here about the four provinces including the fact that they have no legal status. They don't figure in elections and with the population disparities it would make no sense.

Interesting sig btw, enjoyed Plato's "The Last Days of Socrates" immensely. Buzan has a point though, rejection of dogma is wise, but it shouldn't be paralysing. We still need to continuously improve and push for practical change, but retain humility as we do so and don't oversell ideas with undue certainty. Anyway, hopefully neither of us will end up supping hemlock.:D