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The Uniting Element in Reconciling Divided Societies and Building Global Governance

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Presentation title Democratic Efficacy: The Missing Link in the Too-Long Unsuccessfully Tried

Recently, the possibility opened up to present the Civil democracy approach to Rebecca Shoot, Co-Convener at the Washington Working Group for the International Criminal Court (WICC) and former Executive Director at Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS). I was especially happy because Rebecca’s recent work with CGS was aimed at global governance, while her ongoing one at the WICC has a focus on divided societies and intractable conflict, a wide areas with cases as Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, the recently reheated conflict between India and Pakistan, with cases currently seen as more historically conflictive but with ongoing potential for violence as Bosnia/Herzegovina, Cyprus, or Rwanda, or cases of societies in continuous struggles to build peaceful relations among their members and social groups, as Lebanon or South Africa. Her work thus bridges two fields in which the demand for better institutions is most present. I have worked on both areas, but at that time my theoretical conceptions seem not yet have been clear enough, so that none of that work has been able to publish so far, and I was thrilled by the challenge to present both vastly different fields under one uniting perspective and eager to see whether I would be able to communicate the advantages of Civil democracy in both fields better this time.

Presentation slide with the text: Two Long-Time Riddles Global Governance The current global institutional system is in legitimacy crisis because people don’t see themselves as political agents in global governance. Private actors and informal multi-stakeholder arrangements in global governance disempower ordinary citizens. Global institutions fail to build democratic agency from below. Divided Societies In many conflict zones, people need to escape conflictive narratives and passive defense for common problem solving. Current attempts build on politicians facing the incentive of building internal legitimacy conflictively. Peace is made by people, not by politicians. Two different areas, one common problem:

The second slide introduces the common perspective in form of the common problem of democratic efficacy:

Democratic Efficacy The fact that people feel heard and part of the political process through their formal democratic participation Needed for democratic global governance as well as pacifying divided societies Once partly realized, today mostly lost, plus a table that describes democratic efficacy in the Second half of 20th century in Western societies (+few others) as Realized through group homogeneity norms, in most non-Western societies as Unrealized, globally in this period as Realized through national representation, and in the 21st century in Western societies (+few others) Increasingly unrealized through individualization, in most non-Western societies as unrealized, and globally as Increasingly unrealized through globalization.

Slide #3 introduces how the problem can be solved:

Regaining Democratic Efficacy: Identifying the problem "The one vote on the ballot": "Partitioning representation" Demands people to join non-overlapping groups for representation Works only if such groups exist: pre-media counties, pre-1968 classes Regaining democratic efficacy is possible Decision orientation Individualizing participation Individualizing representation For areas as global governance and divided societies Vision: Long-term democratic efficacy builds peace and prosperity Strategy: Implementation possible through small-starting movements

Slide #4 dives deeper into the “How” of regaining democratic efficacy:

How Does It Work? Decision orientation Making important decisions with individualized participation and representation, rendering representative positions less important. Accepting complex decisions with many (incl. compromise) options Retrieving option rankings from all citizens without overload Individualizing participation Mixing direct-democratic participation and representation through the 'meta-decision freedom' to either participate of be represented Indirect ranking as decision proposal or for representation Individualizing representation Splitting and specifying the vote allows to include all political actors from traditional actors to specialized civil society organizations Named 'Civil democracy' for empowering citizens and civil society

And the fifth slide is already the last, describing the current perspective:

What Next? Spreading the word Rethinking Democracy to be launched late 2025 Search for cooperation partners in five areas Western societies, public media, urban governance, Middle East, global (esp. climate) governance Funding and (re-)building a platform On existing but non-scalable prototype Starting the 'Movement of movements' e.g. for global governance: Connecting transnational climate NGOs for democratically mandated civil society representation and own collective decision proposals at upcoming COP negotiations. For further information: hanno.scholtz@uzh.ch, +41.79.755.3227

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