A journey to political literacy
My name is Patrick and I’m politically illiterate. You are too.
So begins the first article in a series by All Hands On co-founder Patrick Chalmers for The Correspondent. Patrick is on a journey and he wants us to come with him.
Talking politics often feels like a personal health hazard. Unless we can learn to understand our own roles in a dysfunctional system, there’s no chance of fixing it. Come learn with me.
This first article generated 96 comments, or contributions, with Patrick actively involved in the discussion that his article had given rise too. Some of the questions asked in the thread may well be addressed in future articles. For example…
Can politics be also about common thriving, rather than simple distribution?
Not to be outdone on the good questions front, this is how Patrick opened the second article in the series.
Democracy is an emotionally charged word that resolutely defies a universally approved and universally applied definition. This article also prompted a lively, well-informed discussion, with some contributions taking the form of mini essays in their own right, including comments like this from a kindred spirits for All Hands On.
We want to explore deliberative democracy and citizen assemblies. We want to look at the problems with power as problems of sustainability. It's systemic and we need systemic solutions, where power can circulate in much more sustainable eco-systems of politics.
In his third article, Patrick takes us on a “global tour of innovations intended to bring more of the power to more of the people”. Under the title, “Democracy isn’t working: five ideas that are already helping to fix the problem”, he describes a series of “quiet revolutions” that are introducing more trust, transparency, direct participation, and some cyber-punk attitude, into democratic processes. The tour takes in participatory budgeting (PB), crowdsourced digital democracy, Citizens’ Initiative Reviews (CIR), and various approaches to deliberation by representative populations. And the tour takes in Brazil, Taiwan, Mexico, Switzerland, Oregon and Kenya.
And it ends with the very question that led to the establishment of All Hands On. How indeed?
“The key question is how to adopt such innovations more widely and at scale. How do we manage such transformational changes, upending top-down government in the process? ”
