A Proposal for Improving Democracy
promoting more purposive participation in politics
[The U.S., where this author has always lived, is used for illustrative purposes.]
There is no shortage of ideas for improving how elections are conducted in democratic nations. When to vote, how to vote, how votes get counted, and the criteria for determining winners of elections are all matters of concern. All such suggestions are attempts at improving the electoral process as an end in itself and with the expectation that participation in elections will be encouraged, and democracy thereby strengthened.
As beneficial as such proposals could be, this proposal is not about any of that. Rather, it is a call to improve democracy itself by making the political process in representative democracies, whether republics or parliamentarian systems or an amalgam of both, more directly democratic. This proposal would increase the opportunities for running for (national) office as well as more meaningful, impactful participation of other kinds in the political process, including perhaps influencing national legislation.
[For present purposes, the political process is defined as ‘the process of effecting choices for the community as a whole’—be it a book club or a nation-state — choosing what to do and taking action to accomplishing it.]
In any democracy all citizens are free to express their thoughts, beliefs, and opinions and they have the rights to vote, run for office, (peaceably) assemble, and petition the government — except for restrictions that are ‘democratic’: universally applicable and universally applied (with age being the only inarguably universal restriction). Yet, only a paltry few people are in a position as an individual to have an impact on the outcomes of the political process. In the U.S., especially, much of that is due to the influence of money: rich people and the representative of large corporations are invited into the inner sanctum of the political process; for anyone else, the only way to impact directly political outcomes is to be one of the handful elected to public office. The informal but very real constraints on achieving that end (many having to do with money) are well-known to all. (Working up to being a ‘senior aide’ to an elected official is another way to have some influence, but aides are hired based on conformity with the attitudes and goals of their employers.)
For most people, to make any attempt at getting elected to public office or having any meaningful impact on outcomes in the political process requires first becoming a member of a political party. Also, political parties do serve many other functions, many of them positive, in the political process. In general, they are a conduit for participating in the political process in ways that do go beyond expressing opinions and voting for whoever happens to be on the ballot. Still, unless a person is one of the few people with influence on the choices the party opts to seek to effect, that level of participation does not amount to much more than anything any other citizen can do. Moreover, political parties have negative impacts on the political process that can easily exceed their positive impacts. They are sources of friction, internally and among parties, that is added to the already fraught process of effecting choices for any community as a whole. The party in itself — and a person’s place in it — can become more important to members of it than the best interests of the community are.
While political parties do serve as vehicles for people to participate in the political process, that participation is especially limited by the very nature of the parties in the U.S. The two major parties self-identify in some general way along the left-to-right political spectrum and they have a big, overarching issue or two or three that they emphasize in a general way, but they are not as a party much interested in specifics. Even a party’s platform is no more than a list of mostly general, blustering positions on various issues. For most people, to join a party is to endorse its place on the political spectrum and to contribute in very small ways, perhaps doing some grunt work. For only a handful of members of a party does participation in it go anywhere near as far as influencing in any way even one of its political positions.
In addition, the goal of all political parties everywhere is to become as big as possible. That contributes to making meaningful participation in any party difficult to achieve. To reiterate, however, most members of even small political parties are nothing more than filler.
Perhaps most importantly, political parties are exclusive. A person can only be a member of one political party. No party anywhere allows its members to be a member of even one other political party at the same time.
All of that discourages people from joining political parties — with good reason. Given that joining a party is about the most a person can do in this country to get involved in the political process, that is not good for democracy. As I see it, then, besides a general dearth of opportunities for meaningful, impactful participation in the political process, the biggest problem in democracy is the very existence of multiple, competing political parties.
To be sure, this proposed tweak to the existing political system — the set of institutions, including political parties, via which the political process proceeds — is only a suggestion. Nothing here is written in stone. I am convinced, though, that this idea has the potential to transform the political process in any democratic nation for the better, by genuinely empowering the citizenry in new ways in the governing of the nation via the political process.
That would be accomplished by creating a single political party. What?! Yes: there would be a single legally recognized political party — at the national level, anyway (at least at the start).
‘Single-party state’ is a term associated with Nazis and Bolsheviks, historical perpetrators of the most brutal forms of totalitarianism. It would be possible, though, to retain the existing political process in any democratic nation yet transition to being a nation with one legally recognized political party at the national level. Still, distrust at any mention of a single party is one reason for limiting this proposal (at least initially) to the national level, allowing traditional political parties to continue in state and local politics, at least at the beginning.
I suggest calling it, in the U.S., the US Party. The only function of this Party would be to act as a host for (any number of) formally organized caucuses. Those caucuses would perform (at the national level) all of the functions for citizens that political parties now provide, but would vastly improve the quality of that participation in every way.
Before going any further, though, I think it is important to emphasize how much would remain the same with this paradigm in place.
First of all, our system of government would not change at any level. Every geopolitical unit, from the tiniest town to the nation as a whole, would continue with the form of government it has at present. To reiterate, other political parties could still exist, as individual states could retain the existing party system within each state. (To be clear, those parties would not be eligible to nominate candidates for elective offices at the national level.) All elections for office would be conducted exactly as at present except for determining, for national offices, how candidates would be nominated (see below).
Citizens who were not a member of the Party could still freely engage in political speech, peaceable assembly, petitioning the national government, voting in national elections (if registered, as at present), and running for any office at the state or local level. That is, they would retain every political right they currently have — including the right to vote in national elections — except the right to run for a national office. [Since any citizen old enough to vote could join the party, the right to run for a national office would not thereby be restricted, so no constitutional issue would arise — in the U.S., anyway.]
Historically, single parties in nations have been characterized by ideology and exclusivity. This party would represent no ideology (or theology) and would be wholly inclusive. One more time: any citizen old enough to vote could join the party.
Joining the party would be a formal process, but would be free. Any (old enough) citizen could join at any time, quit the Party at any time, and could join and quit any number of times. Yet, even people who had been convicted of felonies (and are therefore currently denied certain political rights in some states) could still join/remain in the Party. Given the place the Party would have in our national politics, any means of expulsion would be too dangerous of a political tool to have lying around. Caucuses within the Party would presumably choose to have some process for expelling people from them, but the Party could not be allowed to expel anyone who had joined.
The idea for a single Party with an unlimited number of caucuses was inspired by the functioning of the two chambers of the Congress of the U.S. In both chambers there are caucuses: groups of lawmakers that crystallize around an idea or even an attitude towards governance. An idea might be ‘saving the natural environment’ or ‘promoting economic growth’. Various caucuses are ‘progressive’, or ‘conservative’ or ‘centrist’. Most importantly, caucuses are not (necessarily) restricted by party affiliation: they certainly can be open to membership on the basis of some shared goal or issue or perspective, regardless of the party to which a person belongs (if any — there are a few Independents in our national legislature). Finally, a representative or senator can be a member of more than one caucus.
Before getting into the completely necessary but more tedious details of the proposal, I’ll relate some of the positive outcomes it would provide for the democratic political process.
I am convinced that this proposal would combine the best elements of the parliamentary system and the republican system. The former, with more parties holding offices of government, encourages more active participation in politics by more citizens, but, as noted above, makes party politics — internal to parties and among parties — too much a part of governing. Also, encouraging the proliferation of parties leads to the unwieldy ‘coalition politics’ parliamentarianism often generates, which can make government far too unstable. Our system in the U.S. is supposed to mitigate that kind of instability by including many points of view and political positions within each of the two major parties, but of late it has not been doing a good job of that. A partisan divide has emerged that has made the two-party system a fault line threatening to reduce to rubble our democratic political process. At the same time, our system leaves all but a very few citizens, including even almost all members of both major parties, as passive participants left only to choose between the potential candidates that the powers that be in those parties bring forth. This proposal, with limitless caucuses but those caucuses existing outside of government itself, would combine the participatory engagement that having numerous effective political parties encourages with the stability of our system, in which party politics is not (supposed to be) such a large part of actually governing.
Unlimited caucuses with the power nominate candidates for national office would decentralize political power in this nation. People pursuing power would at least be contained in smaller ponds. At the same time, seeking national office would become easier and far more accessible for far more people, at least as far as getting on the ballot is concerned.
Here, though, I want to relate an even more important way that this idea would improve our political system. In the House and Senate much of the process of arriving at actual laws and programs and policies takes place in caucuses. This paradigm would actually give all citizens (old enough to vote) the opportunity to participate directly in the process of formulating potential legislation at the national level.
To be taken seriously in that respect a caucus would have to have members who could do the necessary research and then draft laws and policy proposals in a useable form, but there would be no formal restriction on what any caucus might propose. Even in the technical process of formulating potential legislation, though, a caucus could be small enough to allow all voices within it to be heard. To my mind, that is, most specifically, the most important contribution of this idea to strengthening democracy. It would make the process of governance much more directly ‘democratic’.
Any member of a caucus who felt ignored or didn’t like some particular outcome within a caucus would be free to start another one. (Anyone who was too much of a nuisance or there merely for the purpose of being disruptive could be — presumably — voted out of a caucus.) Caucuses could self-limit the maximum number of members they might have, such that when one reached a certain size a portion of the membership would depart to establish a new caucus, with the various iterations of the caucus acting as one politically. That way the participatory inclusiveness of caucuses could be maintained while the number of people involved in furthering any cause could be unlimited. In democratic politics the ultimate power is numbers.
If a caucus did not have the expertise (or desire) to formulate actual (potential) legislation, its members could still make their collective voice heard regarding any issue that might be of importance to them. Caucuses could exist for many other reasons than developing actual potential legislation; here I’m emphasizing having that capacity because I think it is the most important contribution of this idea to improving the democratic political process.
That brings us to another strength of this idea, that it does establish a fence between the legislature and the Party. As alluded to above, one obvious lesson from both our political system and parliamentary systems around the planet is that mixing party politics with legislating is a formula for increasing the difficulty of governance. So while the caucuses within the Party could debate and develop potential laws, programs, and policies, they would not be directly related to any caucus that might exist in the House or Senate. (To that end, there should be a rule requiring any person elected to office to disassociate from all caucuses to which that person belonged for as long as that person held office.)
Now for those details. . .
Like political parties now, the only official function of the caucuses in this single national Party would be the nomination of candidates for elective offices. That part of the political process would become much more intimate, more streamlined, and far more inclusive than it is at present in any democratic nation.
To be clear, any member(s) of the Party could organize a caucus based on any particular issue or any political, cultural, or moral perspective. That is, there would be no constraint on what could serve as a ‘seed crystal’ for a caucus.
Members of the Party could be members of as many caucuses as they wanted (subject only to the requirements of membership a caucus might have). On the subject of membership requirements, caucuses would be wholly self-governing. Each would be run however its members saw fit — including requirements for membership, based on any criteria whatsoever. The only rule imposed on all caucuses would be to allow freedom of disassociation: freedom to leave and have one’s name stricken from the membership rolls — merely by declaring oneself to be disassociated from the caucus — effective immediately, at any time.
Caucuses would be organized commensurate with the different geopolitical units that exist at the national level: in the U.S., national level (for president), state level (for the Senate), and at the level of a congressional district (for the House of Representatives). In every case each caucus would be a separate organization for purposes of nominating candidates for national offices. Any caucus could have ‘chapters’ in areas as small as neighborhoods, but the relevant scope of the caucus itself would be the national or state or congressional level.
As an example, there could be caucuses for banning the production or sales of meat of any kind. People sharing that goal could organize a caucus at the national level and also caucuses in different states and within various congressional districts. Again, any of those could have ‘chapters’ down to the local — even neighborhood — level, but as a unit each would be confined to acting at the national, state, or congressional level. They would all be related by virtue of their goal, but each would be its own organization. That does not preclude a functionally unified set of caucuses existing through all governmental levels with the same goal(s) and for that matter the same rules of internal governance at every level, but the important point is that membership would be separate at each level: a person would have to join any caucus at each level. That becomes important in the process of nominating candidates for office in this paradigm.
So a person could be a member of a caucus at any of those levels. At any level, a person could also be a member of more than one caucus. To participate in the process of putting forth a candidate for a national office (however any caucus might have chosen to organize that process), a person would have to be a member of that specific caucus.
To be clear, a nominee would have to be a member of the Party, but would not have to be a member of that caucus. So any caucus could nominate any member of the Party to run for office at the level of that caucus. Caucuses that did not formally nominate a candidate could still endorse candidates.
To nominate a candidate a caucus would only have to have a sufficient number of members. For any given election, to nominate a candidate the membership of a caucus would have to be at least, say, 10% of the total membership of the Party in the relevant geopolitical unit.
> For a caucus at the national level to put forth a candidate for president the membership of that caucus would have to be at least 10% (?) of the membership of the whole national Party.
> For a caucus at the state level to put forth a candidate for the Senate the membership of that caucus would have be at least 10% (?) of the number of members of the Party living in* the state.
> For a caucus at the congressional district level to forth up a candidate for the House of Representatives the membership of that caucus would have to be at least 10% (?) of the number of members of the Party living in* that congressional district.
[*A person could only count as “living in” one state and one congressional district.]
At any level, the same person could be nominated as a candidate for an office by any number of caucuses (with enough members) within the geopolitical unit relevant to that office. So a person could be nominated as a candidate for president by any number of (eligible) national caucuses, a person could be nominated by any number of (eligible) state-level caucuses within a state to be a candidate for the Senate, and a person could be nominated by any number of (eligible) caucuses within a congressional district as a candidate to represent that district in the House of Representatives. Every candidate for any office nominated by at least one caucus (with enough members) would appear on the ballot [along with the name(s) of the caucus(es) that had nominated the candidate?].
While a member of the Party could be a member of any number of caucuses, in each election a person could only participate in (presumably, vote in) one caucus to nominate a candidate for each office. For example, a person who was a member of more than one national caucus could only participate in one of them to nominate a candidate for president. At the state level that same person could choose to participate in any caucus of which that person was a member to nominate a candidate for the Senate, and choose any caucus of which one was a member to participate in nominating a candidate for the House. So as far as nominating a person for office, a person would only have one vote to give (at each level).
It is of the utmost importance that this Party would be separate from and independent of the national government. The only thing the government would have to do with this party would be to pass a law limiting running for national office to being a member of the national Party — and ensuring its internal governance would be subject to the requirements of the Constitution (such as membership being open to any citizen old enough to vote). Any individual caucus could be undemocratic as all get-out, but the Party as a whole could not abridge any political right.
To make it absolutely clear, the government would have nothing else to do with the organization, administration, or funding of the Party. Funding would come solely from voluntary donations from individual members of the Party. Again, given the place it would have in our politics, the rules of the Party as a whole would have be subject to the guarantees of rights of citizens in the Constitution: the Party (as opposed to a caucus)could not adopt any rule regarding participation in it that would be contrary to the rights of people pertaining to the political process that are guaranteed in the Constitution.
Many people are of the opinion that democracy needs some kind of reboot. Most of those people are focused on how elections per se within the existing political system. This proposal concerns more meaningful participation in the political process — the process of effecting choices for the community as a whole — that goes far beyond elections in themselves. It would at the same time reduce the level of ‘politics’ in actual governing, while increasing the possibilities for impactful participation in the political process for all citizens, to include running for national office and actually having real input in the formulation of possible legislation.