In Part 1 of this series, I described a policy convention hosted by my political party of circa 1990.
I described how, in terms of making Canada a better place, very little got done in that convention. Yet the party invested a lot into this convention. You might be asking “Why?”
I did a fair amount of thinking about this paradox. Putting a few more anecdotes together, I came with a paradigm that divided political activities into two categories: “politics” and “governance.” This paradigm has become two small sections in Chapter 2 and 3 of my book “Tiered Democratic Governance.”
“Governance” is perhaps easier to define. It is the time dedicated to reaching a particular decision that eventually affects many citizens and society at large. Governance would include the following:
1) discussions with experts and stakeholders,
2) media briefings about the issue,
3) making the decision to create the bill,
4) shepherding a bill into law with due democratic process, and
5) implementing the decision.
These activities are about making a societal decision.
“Politics” is mostly about working towards winning the next election. These activities would include:
1) electioneering and campaigning
2) building influence inside a political party,
3) fundraising for election campaigns,
4) maintaining “election readiness” in between elections,
5) attacking politicians on the other side
6) dealing with scandals,
7) making political deals, and
8) analyzing polls.
In these activities, the focus is on getting and staying elected.
Some readers would argue that the two terms are intertwined. It seems logical that a political party needs to do politics first to gain the right to govern. And if it does not do governance somewhat right, all the politics will not save it for the next election. Let’s just agree that these two terms are related to each other.
But we can use the above criteria to define where any political activity lies on a politics vs. governance paradigm.
In the party policy convention I described in Part 1, there was little to take the party in a different direction. While issues were discussed, the resolutions were simplistic and produced mostly platitudes. Maybe the party leaders needed to hear that the rank-and-file members were solidly behind the leaders — and this gave the leaders more confidence in their political assertions.
With that angle, I would give that policy convention a score of 10% governance and 90% politics.
Political Fundraising
Here’s another example. I chaired a small committee to hold a fundraising breakfast for our local constituency association. We got a high-ranking member of the party as a guest speaker. He would draw less-active party members to the event and donate some money. My committee arranged for a hotel banquet room. We printed some tickets and set up accounting protocols to match tickets sales with ticket revenue. We handed out tickets to trusted sellers and later collected their money. We also sent out a newsletter to ensure that all members got notice and how to buy the tickets. We gave the hotel our numbers and preferred room layout. The hotel set things up according to our instructions. We had about 100 people at that event. After the event, we paid the bills.
I estimate my committee spent about 40 volunteer hours on this project. At the constituency board level, we probably occupied one hour of board time, and we could multiply that hour by 20 board members for 20 more hours of volunteer time. We could add in a little more time for the ticket sellers, as they interacted with their prospects. Let’s say 15 minutes per ticket sold. One hundred tickets means 25 more volunteer hours. Let’s just say 100 volunteer hours is not unreasonable.
Nowhere in these 100 hours was there anything about governance. We did not discuss anything like prisons, pipelines, or pensions. But we made a good profit to put in our election coffers. I would call our time in this event as 0% governance and 100% politics.
The high-ranking speaker got himself ready for this event and drove to the hotel. He gave a speech, probably a similar speech he had given before. It was a room full of partisans. The speaker did not change anyone’s vote. Only one media outlet bothered to show up. The speaker spent about four hours into this project, which included his half-hour speech where some issues of governance were discussed. He shook a lot of hands and gave a little time to many partisans. I would give his efforts at 5% governance and 95% politics. The 5% might be generous.
More Governance
I would like to give my readers personal examples when I thought of my political activities was at least 50% governance on my politics vs. governance paradigm. I can recall many ad-hoc discussions of where I and other members did discuss popular issues. Often we agreed with each other; I guess that is why we were in the same party.
But such discussions were not in our decision-making realm of our party. In these discussions, we were more socializing than governing. Whenever we were in formal deliberations that led to a decision we could make, those decisions were mostly about winning the next election.
I cannot recall any personal example where I would say my involvement was at least 50% governance. My many hours of volunteer work in a political party were almost all for politics.
Published on Medium 2023
Thelma Delgers: American Hero or American Fool?
