What’s the theory? Why are they useful and good? What role should they play in municipal or state governance? Here are my notes …
Some theory
- Endogenous Constitutions by Ticchi & Vindigni, ties consensual systems with income inequality, not surprisingly consensual systems deliver greater income equality.
- Choosing the Form of Government:-Theory and Evidence from Brazil by Nakaguma, this would seem to disagree with Ticchi.
- Citizens’ Senate – Towards Consensual Presidential Democracy/ by Tony Czarnecki, a précis of his longer paper held at https://sustensis.co.uk/citizens-senate. In the précis he critiques strong government, identifies weak local government as a problem, justifies citizen’s assemblies and pairs them with citizen petitions for legislative initiative.
- Contrasting Styles of democratic Decision Making: Adversarial vs Consensual Politics by Ken McRae, this maybe the first person to define consensus vs majority
- 8 Principles of Direct Democracy, not quite the same thing, but establishes petitions and referenda as key tools in direct democracy. This is posted at the Centre for Global Development.
I should look for some stuff on credit unions and micro lending, this will also have the community dimension.
The disagreement between Ticchi and Nakaguma may need the two theories to take into account the levels of corruption.
De Tocqueville in “Democracy in America” coined the phrase “Tyranny of the Majority”
Human Rights and guarantees for local democratic autonomy seem key here, The tools can be used to oppress as well as empower.
I wrote about Democracy and Plebiscites on this blog.
In Sept 2022, I was pointed at Brigitte Geissel of Goethe University who has written often on innovative democracy.
I added the reference to Brigitte-Geissel.