One side benefit of being on Medium has been learning new things. And some of these new things have been useful to my ulterior motive.
Several Medium contributors told me that my alternative democracy looks similar to sociocracy. So I took a quick look at this “philosophy.”
No, the two are not the same. But sociocracy is interesting to me. So a couple of years ago, I put myself on an email list from Sociocracy for All (SOFA). While I read those emails and learned a bit about sociocracy, I could not dedicate myself more fully to this cause.
I have gained two basic understandings about sociocracy. First it is about decentralizing decisions to “circles” of people best able to make those decisions. Second, the decision-making mechanism is based on consent of all participants in that circle.
I am now in a life position to take some courses in sociocracy. There will likely be some articles coming from me in the next six months.
Sociocracy has had a significant and recent development. A few rural districts in the United Kingdom have adopted a sociocratic approach in their local governance. Check out this video.
The location is significant for me. In 2004, I wanted to improve the first edition of my TDG book by incorporating some research to support my new democracy.
Unfortunately, I could not find much modern research on tiered democracy.
While I read a lot of somewhat related books that helped me make some points for my TDG, these books only provided indirect logic for my cause. I was basically “bending citations” to fit into my theories on governance. The academics who saw my manuscript gave it a big thumbs down. My approach to using research and citations to make a point was not good. I never published this second edition.
But I did find one modern example of tiered democracy on a political science website. There were a few rural districts in the United Kingdom that had a two-tier system. The residents would elect a neighbor into the first tier. Then these first-tier representatives would elect, from amongst themselves, the second tier. This second tier was actually the decision-making body of the rural district.
The research I found centered around the dismantling of this system in the 1980s. It seems the voter turnout for the first-tier elections was about 25%. That was enough for the political scientists to deem that this system was not working. So the first tier was removed; residents directly elected the second tier, which was now the only tier. The research paper did not offer any insights whether voter turnout increased or whether the residents felt that local governance was better than before. It was almost a case that experts from far away walked into town, made changes, wrote a paper, and walked away. They never looked back to see if their changes had worked.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that rural UK is interested in implementing sociocracy into local governance. This region seems to already have a little history of experimenting with new and different ways.
Again, I should say that my research skills are lacking. Maybe someone should look into this matter.
Sociocracy and the TDG
Other than four salient features, I leave each TDG to design itself. The actual mechanism for decision making is one of those features each TDG will have figure out for themselves.
So I can envision some early TDGs trying out sociocratic techniques. If they work well, they will be adopted elsewhere.
In my TDG book, I recommend that elected representatives strive for consensus. I feel that, after sufficient discussion and reflection, the decision-making body does need to move forward if most of the representatives want to go that way. So majority vote is sufficient when these conditions have been met. But this approach is not a salient feature of the TDG.
As an active worker in a political party, I became somewhat competent in Robert’s Rules of Order. I can imagine parliamentary procedures being used in the TDG. While many organizations already use parliamentary procedures, they do not use them rigorously. So the rules can be simplified such that most TDG builders will easily understand them — and still get things done with no one being disenfranchised by complex rules.
And with a proper TDG spirit, the rules won’t be used to settle power struggles. A minority would not use the rules to thwart the will of a majority. Or the majority would not use the rules to override the voice of the minority. So simplified parliamentary rules are possible in the TDG. With simplicity will come better acceptance of the rules. Simplified rules might be become an accepted way for the TDG to reach decisions.
Each TDG will experiment with their own decision-making process; the better ways will prevail. Maybe there will be a combination of these three ways. Maybe there will be other ways.
Sociocracy is an interesting concept. Take a look.
Published on Medium 2023
