How could we accelerate the reform of democracy and especially achieve a wider political consensus? What changes would be required to end adversarial politics, which is the backbone of the rising wave of populism? In a nutshell we need to abandon a democratic system in which a minority of voters can create not only a majority government but can also ignore the wishes of the majority of voters, because their votes were dispersed. That is the situation prevailing in the Anglo-Saxon world. However, in Europe, where in most countries we have coalition governments, the adversarial politics rules the day. Perhaps the only exception are the Scandinavian countries, where coalitions can be formed ad hoc, pass a specific law with the so-called double majority, i.e. the majority of the MPs and the majority of voters, who those MPs represent. That of course requires an appropriate electoral system and the system of executive powers enabling such a politics of consensus. The main elements in such a system is a very active role of the president, who plays the role of the arbiter. The positive consequences of such a consensual politics, are evident everywhere in the Scandinavian countries, all of which are in the top 10 most contented nations in the world, with Finland being the happiest country twice in a row.
The advantage of such a system lies in its ability to introduce legislation with long-term commitments, such as in health and education, or as is the case in Sweden and New Zealand, agreeing 3-year budgets. Governments are formed much more quickly, and the legislation is also passed faster than in coalition governments although usually not that fast as in the single party majority rule, like in the UK.
However, that system does not guarantee that any legislation, which sometimes may be urgently needed will pass through the Parliament very quickly. Additionally, the consensual politics must engage the electorate throughout the whole term of the parliament and not only during an election. Therefore, the consensual politics must also rely on some additional arrangements, such as those proposed by the Consensual Presidential Democracy (CPD), and fulfil these criteria:
- Consensual politics must start with the consensus reached at the level of an ordinary citizen. For that we need an entirely new mechanism which will enable citizens to take part in the legislation process throughout the term of the parliament. This can be done by selecting citizens randomly for a specific task and debating it within a Citizens’ Assembly, or for a specific time – serving throughout one term of the parliament in its second chamber – the Citizens’ Chamber.
- Any legislation to be passed by the parliament requires a double majority. This means there must be a proportional representation electoral system, which will allocate the mandates to the Parliament proportionally. Like in any parliament any act to be legislated will require the support of the majority of MPs. But the double majority principle would also require that the act gets the support of the majority of the voters
- Key role in such a system is played by a strong President, which is the main counsellor and arbiter between the parties. He helps the Parliament to pass the legislation with the support of ad hoc coalitions, which may be different for each act of Parliament
- The President must also have exceptional legislative power applied mainly in emergencies, when he can issue executive order to pass emergency laws, which must be approved later on by the Parliament
But how can we implement such a consensual politics at a citizens’ level? As it happens, we can apply some elements of this new type of democracy in the Conference on the Future of Europe (COFE), which started in May 2021. Over 10 months it is to debate hundreds of new policies, some of which may require constitutional changes, or even a new Constitution. To assist in that process, Sustensis has created this website to use POLIS – the most advanced AI based system. To explain how it works, imagine that you have signed an on-line petition. Many countries now apply this form of political engagement. For example, in Britain, there must be 100,000 signatories for a parliamentary petition to be discussed in the Parliament. But when you sign a Parliamentary petition it is understood you fully agree with it. Since you cannot modify the petition’s wording in any way, the only other option is to abstain.
But it does not have to be like that. This is where the innovative approach proposed by POLIS, an approach developed by an American company, which uses an advanced AI system, can help. It has been applied for proposing a new legislation in several countries, such as the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Taiwan, Denmark, and also used by the polling companies, such as DEMOS or Engage Britain in the UK.
An approach like this may play an important role in a new style of democracy, such as Consensual Presidential Democracy, since it allows for blending of a representative and a direct democracy. However, to have a real impact on a country’s politics, it needs to be accompanied by a legally binding procedure, as it has been done in Taiwan or Canada, so that a parliament discusses the initial proposal or a petition and then implements a legislation.
It starts with an assumption that people need time to understand the implications of the proposed legislation. To enable that understanding, Polis introduces to the participants in a debate an initial wording of the proposed legislation or a petition (max. 140 characters). But the participants can also see all modified versions of the original proposed legislation, comments left by users, and how many people have signed up for each of these versions. Therefore, a participant can sign one of the existing versions of the proposed legislation or propose his own for all others participants to read. Read more on this here.
Overall, a system like Polis could solve several problems in modern democracies, not only related to petitions, such as:
- It raises significantly the participation in politics giving people real influence on the outcome of a proposed legislation
- It achieves consensus on a proposed legislation by continuously redefining the initial wording of the proposed new law. This allows people to adapt gradually their views to the views of the largest group and therefore, achieving much broader political consent through a better understanding of the issue, since the initial wording of the proposed legislation changes to reflect the views of a growing majority.
- It is the best antidote against fake news. People learn from each other, and if they find themselves in a really small minority, they can then gather more information to understand the issues better and perhaps change their mind.
- It can replace referenda and make the decisions such as on Brexit achieved with a far wider consensus.