By Isabella Kaminski, Open Democracy
Not to be confused with people’s assemblies (a more informal gathering, often of existing activists) citizens’ assemblies are a way of exploring public views on a particular topic and coming up with concrete solutions.
By Marcin Gerwin, Resilience.org
Imagine a group of people of different ages who meet in order to settle some matter important for a city, a country or for the European Union. This group was not selected through elections but by lot. They make decisions from the position of supreme authority which in democracy are ordinary people.
By Mariah Brennan Clegg, Climate Justice Project
To be sure, ecological calamity will not permit an organized, equitable, and civilized global community. Marxist Humanists and others would like to add, “it doesn’t come from one, either.”
By Frances Moore Lappé, Adam Eichen, Alternet
In this tumultuous world, one thing seems certain: today’s dire threats to our democracy did not arise out of nowhere. Every culture thrives, or not, on whether its core narrative—the causation story we tell ourselves—enhances mutual gain or spurs division. And, the narrative driving today’s unfolding catastrophe feeds the latter.
By Bernardo Gutierrez, Open Democracy
For some years now, we have been witnessing the emergence of relational, cross-over, participative power. This is the territory that gives technopolitics its meaning and prominence, the basis on which a new vision of democracy – more open, more direct, more interactive - is being developed and embraced.
By Frances Moore Lappé, Adam Eichen, Common Dreams
If you’ve heard the term “net neutrality,” is it something you imagine only internet fanatics can grasp? Not at all. It simply refers to baseline protection ensuring that no internet service provider can “interfere with or block web traffic, or favor their own services at the expense of smaller rivals.” As such, it is integral to democratic dialogue.
By Frances Moore Lappé, Common Dreams
Democracy shrinks further as those elected by relying on huge sums from the top 1 percent form a political class with little need to respond to the real concerns of most Americans. Citizens, however, are not sitting idly watching our democracy go under. A citizens movement, what we call the Democracy Movement, is pursuing all angles to fight back and to take our democracy forward.
By David Orr, Common Dreams
In short, democracy is everywhere and always a wager that enough people would know enough and care enough and be wise enough to participate honorably and well in the conduct of the public business. The only sure foundation of democracy is a well-educated and well-informed citizenry that is tolerant of differences, good hearted, merciful, and farsighted.
By Rob Hopkins, Rob Hopkins blog
How come we can still stick with a procedure from the late eighteenth century, elections, believing they are synonymous with democracy? It’s a very, very recent procedure and it was originally not even conceived as a tool for democracy. Elections were introduced to stop democracy, rather than to make democracy possible. If innovation is truly important, let us rethink the key procedure we use to let people speak. Ticking a box is no longer an option.
By Brian Davey, Feasta
My argument is that a healthy democratic society is inherently participative and if it is not then the institutions of democracy will wither away as a smaller group take all the decisions, in their own interest, shutting out everyone else.