Proposition 5 — People are empowered when they are equally able to participate.

In handing people power we cannot just let existing inequalities be replicated or further entrenched. This means ensuring that people can take part in new structures of power, no matter what their background is. It also means avoiding these spaces being taken over by particular interest groups or people who have the most time or resources.

Building the capacity to participate

Again, this is where a facilitating state can help. A large part of this involves capacity building — we need to ensure people and communities have the capacity to participate. This could mean looking into the current state of civil society infrastructure and how accessible our existing institutions and groups are. It may also mean going to where people are already assembling, such as Facebook groups or local community groups and developing new ways of mapping, interacting with and supporting these emerging political forms.

It could also mean ensuring people have the time and resources to help them to participate and the state investing in physical infrastructure to allow them to do this. Indeed, recent research from the Local Trust and OCSI found that “places to meet, connectivity — both physical and digital — and an active, engaged community are vital to secure better social and economic outcomes for people living in deprived neighbourhoods. People in places which lack these features have higher rates of unemployment and child poverty, and their health is also worse than those living in other deprived areas…It supports the case for new solutions to ‘level up’ civic infrastructure (such as community centres, libraries, green spaces) and improve connectivity and community engagement.”

In building the capacity for people to participate, the state can provide a convening and facilitating role. It can map existing civil society activity and groups, explore new forms of civic engagement and identify persistent gaps. Also, on a broader level, interventions like the move towards a 4-day week, increasing the number of public holidays and the introduction of a free National Education Service can also ensure more people have the time and resources to participate.

Navigating Difference through politics at every level

Enabling people to equally participate also has a broader meaning than just equipping people with the time and resources. It means us all being able to get better at managing differences, negotiating and coming to a constructive consensus. When power is handed down to different levels and more decisions are made by more people, at its essence it means more people in our society are actually practicing politics (the process of deciding how we govern resources and live together). From large Facebook groups run by groups of administrators who are having to work out their own norms, to the campaigners running local XR groups; many are facing inherently political problems of how to deliberate, govern their spaces and reach decisions. We need to investigate new models of governance, make it easier for people to share these emerging forms and create systems of accountability when people feel things are unfair.

When we push power down, we accept that decision-making will be messy, constructed and explored. We must curate different kinds of political spaces that help unleash this collective exploration, where participants construct consensus which is greater than the sum of their own perspectives. This is the very essence of politics — the art of bridge-building which respects difference and reconciles opposing interests.

In a world where everyone is practicing politics, this lost political art will be needed more than ever. Currently politics has become shallow, abstracted and often fails to generate consensus or a constructive way forward. In a political world distorted by social media, the dog whistle politics of Trump and Brexit, populism, culture wars and easy answers is driving us all to ever more extreme positions. For people to be able to equally participate, we have to change this.

In this climate, reconciliation becomes an inherently political act and could form the basis of a new politics of encounter. As Neal Lawson argues in 45 degree politics we are looking to build “a future that is negotiated, not imposed, and therefore demands a new way of inter-relating. Sue Goss has called for a way of organising together she terms the ‘open tribe’ — a way of organising that both values beliefs and identity and is responsive to complexity. This is a model that recognises and celebrates our sense of identity, and the belonging that comes from tribal loyalties, including shared values or the membership of one party or organisation over another. But it also acknowledges the need for openness. The open tribe adapts and thrives; it is not a closed gene pool. To be open means to know how to relate to, and have empathy with, others. The old tribal loyalties, developed during the Fordist era, are inadequate for the kinds of network organising we need in a more complex society….In processes of negotiation and dialogue, we learn, adapt and grow, but also find that the best change happens when as many people as possible are involved in the process — when the complexity of the governing body at least equals the complexity of the body it is governing.”

In the creation of an open tribe we may need to spend more time creating opportunities for intergroup interaction, understanding and encounter. At an interpersonal level, it also involves us all understanding better the forms of power we have when we enter a situation, the privileges we carry and being open and sensitive to oppression we might not see. It requires us all to have a deeper understanding of each other, moving beyond a shallow identity politics and towards one of mutual understanding and negotiation.

This may require new spaces, structures and forms of association to be created which give time and space for deliberation. It may also require new forms of civic training in the art of politics and require jobs to acquire new dimensions and skills around bridge building and deliberation. Current power hierarchies suppress dissent and difference, as they start to decay in the face of technological shifts more uncomfortable disagreements have been unleashed. Currently they are being expressed through culture wars and populism but we can find new modes of expression and understanding difference. We must develop new political architecture and skills to help us deal with this process.

This also has implications at a national level. If you devolve power to regions — how do you stop them from competing or existing regions from growing stronger at the expense of others? Rather than encouraging different regions to bid for money — regional plans should be shared and open. Funding should be incentivised around ways for regions to collaborate rather than compete. The process of constructing a national industrial strategy should be a priority of any government who plays a coordinating and facilitating role rather than a top down directional one.

What could this look like?

• Creating a right to have “time to participate”
• Invest in a national civic infrastructure commission who will audit the physical infrastructure needed for participation?

Proposition 6 — People are empowered when leaders let them be