January 12, 2010
More on Power2010 (My usual cynicism returns)
I’ve got a more “big-picture” approach to Power2010 up at Liberal Conspiracy. Taking the wider perspective has forced me to retreat to my usual cynicism. You didn’t actually think my optimism about civic republican engagement in a mass bureaucratised democracy would last, did you? Liberal Conspiracy also have a nice video about the event, from Channel 4 news, which is worth a watch. Here’s (a very slightly different version of) my article:
Last weekend I was invited to observe the campaign group Power2010’s “Deliberative Democracy” event in London. Chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy, it was billed as drawing upon the work of Stanford Professor James Fishkin to pioneer methods in which ordinary people might “set priorities for electoral reform, MPs expenses and political scandals.”
Basically, 200 ordinary people selected by YouGov from a range of backgrounds were invited to debate ideas for political reform that had been suggested by the public online. Over the weekend they consulted academic experts and identified a set of priority issues which will be put on the Power2010 website. The public will be invited to vote on them, with the top 5 reforms being put to the Westminster parties. Somewhat ambitiously, the Power2010 website declares: “Together we will ensure every candidate standing for election backs these reforms so that the next Parliament delivers the change we need.”
My usual cynicism about these sorts of things was initially over-ridden by how impressed I was with the democratic process at the Power2010 weekend. There was something actually inspiring about watching ordinary people debate on equal terms, get enthused about their political system and work in a sense of reforming solidarity.
But the more I reflect, the more my usual scepticism returns. Because it seems highly unlikely that Power2010 can bring about the reforms (whatever they turn out to be) it champions.
On the one hand, the expenses crisis has put the Westminster parties on the back foot. Democracy runs on a consensus of legitimacy, and Labour and the Tories especially have been skating on thin ice recently. What will they do when Power2010 puts forward the public demands for reform? It’s possible that the need to “clean up Westminster”, and the threat of over-riding public anger if this doesn’t happen, will force politicians to take Power2010 seriously.
Then again, how powerful is Power2010? The Tories – the natural party of natural hierarchy – have never been keen on taking diction from below (indeed, learning your place in stratified systems of subordination is part and parcel of the Eton education, as Dave and Boy George Boris Johnson would surely attest).* But it’s not like Labour has any moral high ground here. Government by focus-group and tabloid headline has resulted in one of the most mistrusting, suspicious and authoritarian governments in recent British history. If New Labour ignored 1 million people marching against illegal war on the streets of London, why will they take notice of Power2010 and its press releases?
It seems deeply unlikely that the expenses scandal has changed politics that much, even in an election year. At best, I predict that Power2010 will elicit the usual mealy-mouthed fob-off rhetoric from the major parties. It’ll then either be ignored, or receive token gestures towards superficial reform with everything the governing party was going to do anyway dressed up as though it came from the Power2010 campaign.
I could be wrong, of course. Maybe Power2010 will actually succeed in making politicians – who’ve spent their entire lives crawling into positions of power – give up some decision-making authority, and instead do what “The People” say. In that case, hiring out a London hotel in walking distance of the Houses of Parliament to feed and accommodate 200 people from across the UK for 2 days will seem like an efficient use of Joseph Rowntree money. Failing that, one wonders how many other organisations and schemes went empty handed.
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* H/t to Tim J for pointing out the mistake
Philip R Hosking said,
January 12, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Whilst it contains many good ideas for reform, and I’ll emphasise that point, at no time is Cornwall mentioned. A surprise considering our various demonstrations for greater home-rule, not least of which being the 50,000 signatures on a petition calling for a Cornish Assembly. None of the propositions under the ‘Devolution and Local Government’ section allow for the creation of a Cornish Assembly. All we are served up with is a choice between an English Parliament or devolution to the same old government zones such as the South West or North East. We’ve been down that road before I think. Additionally no mention is made of our particular constitutional status or the need to reform it in consultation with the people of Cornwall. More here http://www.duchyofcornwall.eu
For any campaign or organisation to talk about devolution and local government reform yet ignore Cornwall and one of the UK’s largest popular demands for devolution strikes me as odd to say the least and smacks of wilful intent.
POWER 2010 write:
· Evidence suggests that the public do not want regional Governments. New Labour considered introducing regional assemblies in a number of areas in England. One referendum was held on this issue in the North East and 78% voted against the proposal.
“Evidence suggests that the public do not want regional governments” Really? So the petition of 50,000 calling for a Cornish assembly, a Goverment of Cornwall Bill from one of our MP’s and a well supported and long running campaign for devolution are what exactly?
The Cornish Democrat: http://thecornishdemocrat.blogspot.com/
Bill le Breton said,
January 14, 2010 at 10:24 am
Dear Paul,
I was please to read your first piece on this 2010 event especially when you wrote that, ‘The sense of civic co-operation and solidarity that rapidly emerged had almost tangible worth. The participants really cared about the issues, they really wanted to sort them out together.’
It rankles though when you keep referring to the participants in this piece of political action as ‘ordinary people’ and when you cannot stop yourself using that conditional ‘almost’. (winking smiley here).
You once came down very hard on me in another place when I had the temerity to suggest that ‘you don’t have to be an Aristotelian to agree that political action is part of the essence of being a citizen’.
Perhaps there are indeed ‘ordinary people’ and there are citizens. Those you witnessed at 2010 being citizens, exercising citizenship. (I realise that for Aristotle there were slaves who could never be citizens but in our world it is a very useful notion that political action is transforming individually and collectively.)
I believe that on the back of a Labour Party membership card is a guiding mission,: ‘to put power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many, not the few.’ (my italics). Citizens are those who take power and use it. Slaves or non-citizens have things doled out to them – even when that is so-called power, wealth and opportunity. Those who do the ‘putting’ sacrifice that quality of citizenship which provides access to relations of equality.
The attempt to ‘put’ power in someone’s hands is to offer them a licence, a lease on that power which should already be theirs. Citizens are freeholders of their own power.
Being a citizen, so defined, is to use and revel in freedom. But strangely this does not lead to the abuse of power. A citizen is someone who makes use of her or his own power and helps others to take and use their power, together.
I would hope that had that group stayed together a little longer the ‘others’ would have put that woman right about the young man’s gift of knowledge, insight and, yes, his help to her in taking power. Perhaps, before that transformation took place the problem was that she thought him ‘an ordinary person’.
B
Paul Sagar said,
January 14, 2010 at 10:35 am
Bill,
If it’s any consolation, I’ve been thinking a lot about republicanism recently, and I’m starting to revise some of my views. Though i’m still more drawn to the Ciceronian, “Neo-Roman” approaches which focus on freedom and democratic engagement than the “Aristotelian” approaches which tend to focus on virtue and self-fulfilment.
Bill le Breton said,
January 14, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Have you the time to tell us more, yet? Paul
Guy Aitchison said,
January 15, 2010 at 2:11 am
I preferred your first blog!
Sorry, Paul, but this really is quite a cynical view. The failure of the 1m+ anti-war protest to prevent Iraq was a major blow to activists and civil society in general but to use that as an example of why subsequent campaign must fail is a counsel of despair. If people never campaigned for things that looked impossible at the time there’d be no mass franchise, no equality for gay people, no minimum wage etc etc. You have to make a song and dance about these issues even if it’s ultimately about simply shifting the terrain of debate a bit in your favour.
With regards Iraq, the protest itself may have failed in its aims, but I still think it was a massively important moment in our politics and our society. The people made the right call and the elites got it wrong in the most dramatic and obvious way possible. That moment contributed to a public mood which sometimes find expression in anti-politics. If there aren’t campaigns trying to build that frustration and anger and that realisation in a democratic direction, then we might as well just give up.
Guy, POWER2010
Paul Sagar said,
January 15, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Guy, you make some good points. I will try and reply over theweekend when hopefully I get some free time AND my Internet connection starts working again (I’m on my iPhone)
Paul Sagar said,
January 15, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Guy,
Some good points.
“The failure of the 1m+ anti-war protest to prevent Iraq was a major blow to activists and civil society in general but to use that as an example of why subsequent campaign must fail is a counsel of despair.”
I didn’t really mean it as a counsel of despair, and more as a sobering reflection from our recent past about mass democratic potential. Perhaps it does come out as a counsel of despair – but I’m tempted to ask that you don’t shoot the messenger!
“If people never campaigned for things that looked impossible at the time there’d be no mass franchise, no equality for gay people, no minimum wage etc etc. You have to make a song and dance about these issues even if it’s ultimately about simply shifting the terrain of debate a bit in your favour.”
I agree. I’m not against campaigning. But from what I can tell, the successful campaigns need to have a large, long-lasting groundswell of support. What needs to happen is that the campaigners make it so that the very terms of political legitimacy change: e.g. that it’s simply no longer widely tolerated to disenfranchise the poor or discriminate against gays. This takes enormous amounts of prolonged campaigning. But Power 2010 is by definition not this sort of prolonged campaigning. It aims to have 5 reforms adopted by the Westminster parties. It hopes to invigorate people via the internet, not on-the-streets campaigning.
It’s possible that P2010 will get the main parties to genuinely accept its reforms (and not just pay fob-off words), and perhaps this will make the groundswell of change, meaning long-term democratic reform to “fix” our “broken” system. Maybe. But given the structure of P2010, i’m dubious. You can’t after all, pay for people to come to a London hotel for the weekend every week…
“With regards Iraq, the protest itself may have failed in its aims, but I still think it was a massively important moment in our politics and our society. The people made the right call and the elites got it wrong in the most dramatic and obvious way possible.”
7 years on, what’s changed as a result? Blair and Campbell are making a mockery of Chilcot enquiry. The former gives interviews to the BBC to by-pass the enquiry, the latter just lies.
I don’t see anything having shifted post-Iraq. Not a single person has been brought to account. And Labour were re-elected in 2005.
“That moment contributed to a public mood which sometimes find expression in anti-politics. If there aren’t campaigns trying to build that frustration and anger and that realisation in a democratic direction, then we might as well just give up.”
You are right about this. I guess my scepticism is about whether P2010 is the right way to do it.
But that doesn’t mean I’m against trying. And let’s be honest, you guys are doing more than I am. But the privilege of being a postgrad student with a blog is that I get to nit-pic – I don’t, however, mean to denigrate (at least, not too much; the criticism is intended to be somewhat constructive).
Guy Aitchison said,
January 17, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Cheers Paul – and constructive criticism like yours is always very helpful.
Just on Iraq, my point wasn’t that those involved have been held to account (legally or politically) or that the electoral landscape has shifted decisively as a result. But there has been a change in the public mood. Politicians, the political system and the old order of “parliamentary – for which read executive – sovereignty” suffers from a fundamental lack of trust as confidence in the elites has been broken.
I think the MPs expenses scandal was, at least in part, a manifestation of the latent mistrust created by Iraq. To invoke Zhou Enlai commenting on the French Revolution, what the exact effects of this will be, I think it’s too early to tell. But I think we’ll be dealing with the fallout for some time.
I agree with you that in the end it’ll be people on the streets organising for themselves that will make the difference. From my perspective, the ideal outcome would be our very own “velvet revolution” in which we can all take part, postgrads and non-postgrads alike :)