The future of leadership
In a changed world, the nature of leadership changes too. It can no longer be top-down, because there is no 'top' to impose it.
Change delivered from the bottom-up is harder to achieve, but success leads to the initiative gaining greater acceptance and the 'buy in' from the public.
As Mindapples.org's Andy Gibson wrote in Social by Social, campaigning has now become "the art of creating – and leading – social movements".
"Senator Bill Bradley (quoted in Seth Godin's Tribes) defines a movement as having three components: a story of the future we are trying to build; a connection between and amongst the leaders and members of the movement; and something to do. Technology takes care of the middle bit: the rest is up to you.
"So rather than telling people what to do, share what you have done and invite others to join in. Find a shared vision of the world we want to live in and give us simple ways to create it together. Because with the instantaneous, global reach of modern technologies, whoever can find the right questions to ask, the right small actions to encourage, can make a real difference."
There will still be campaigning to be done, statistics to be quoted, inspirational leaders to energise, debates to be had in public places as well as in the media and online, but to be successful the public, or large sections of the public, will need to understand the argument about why the case is strong. This could be a case built on self-interest, or it could be a case built on a wider sense of obligation or compassion.
Modern liberal societies, however, are characterised by social, political, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. Is it conceivable that a consensus can really be found?
Parvin and McHugh (2005) said it would be "naive in the extreme" to think that debate will lead to consensus which can be implemented by state institutions.
"If the modern world has shown us anything, it is that consensus and unanimity on political issues is often impossible, and while democrats might strive for as much consensus and agreement as possible, it is simply a fact of political debate that certain values and ways of life will remain incompatible with one another, as will the political positions they embody. It is difficult to see how any amount of democratic debate is likely to resolve deep disagreements between 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' supporters over laws governing abortion, for example, or between religious groups and animal welfare activists about methods of slaughtering animals, or gays and evangelical Christians about laws governing homosexuality." [i]
Their argument is that such debates, where values are fundamentally different, require strong institutions which can make a decision on behalf of everybody even when many disagree with the outcome.
It is the nature of politics, particularly in cases such as those described above which are as divisive as it is possible to get, that there really is no final decision and no end to the debate. Consensus is never reached and there are always calls to reopen the discussion and change the current decision.
When viewed this way, these controversial issues see governing transformed from being about definite outcomes and implementation to being a continuing process. There may be a current, temporary outcome but there is no guarantee that this position will remain. Therefore, no final decision needs to be taken by an independent institution. And that being the case, a form of rolling direct democracy is at least as useful a mechanism for allowing the debate to continue as representative institutions are.
Besides which, the process of microgovernment is designed to allow policy in controversial areas such as these to be devolved almost to the individual level. This means that while one group may opt into one framework on, say, abortion, another group could opt into an opposing framework. This has the advantage that one group is not imposing its opinions on the other, although they could seek to do so through metaframeworks on the issue.
Parvin and McHugh also highlight the risk that direct democracy would not mean that power is shared equally among the population.
"Far from improving and purifying democracy, however, such a system would simply enshrine the vested interests of the powerful and replace truly democratic, reflective, decision making with what John Stuart Mill called the 'tyranny of the majority', where the interests of minorities are systematically over ridden and marginalised by the voting power of the groups who happen to compose the largest or most powerful group in society. It would protect vested interests by placing enormous power in the hands of those in a position to influence political opinion on a large scale. Big business, the mass media, and other influential groups would wield far greater power than they do under the current system and, more than ever, public policy would be shaped and determined by those able to pay for the lobbyists, public relations executives and advertisers to communicate their messages effectively and dominate the democratic arena through the brute forces of money and influence." [ii]
Their contention is that only a representative democracy, by placing intermediaries between the public and the law-making process, can ensure that minorities are protected.
They also note the distinction between debate and decision-making, arguing that while direct democracy allows for minority voices to be heard in the political debate, it also ensures they carry no weight in the decision-making precisely because they are a minority.
"Fairness in one does not necessarily entail fairness in the other – and the problem with direct democracy is that it simply does not adequately address the question of how debates are turned into decisions and, in doing so, it advocates a strategy for decision making which would make the position of the groups it tries to represent much worse than it would be under a more representative system." [iii]
In an era of legal, constitutional and international protections of individual human rights, however, this argument seems to hold less water.
And ironically, Parvin and McHugh go on to add that it "cannot be right that democracy is best served by a system which allows power to be concentrated in a powerful elite or majority at the expense of all those other, smaller, often more nuanced minority views which exist in society" [iv].
This sounds more than anything else like a description of the modern representative system, where a small elite holds the reigns of power and the electoral system excludes smaller parties which do represent minority viewpoints.
In addition, a system of microgovernance combined with the absolute protection of fundamental rights could be expected to give minority groups greater freedom for self-government than they do now, even if there are public majorities which hold differing views.
And would big business and the mass media hold undue influence? Well, no more than their counterparts in trade unions and grassroots networks, it might be supposed. But this is really an issue about the definition of 'undue', which is not at all clear-cut. In a free society, why can't large and powerful organisations speak out provided no one is prevented from expressing alternate views? In that sense, there really is no 'undue' influence at all, providing it is not corrupt or underhand.
Even in such circumstances, it would be wrong to think that this hands power to major lobbyists. The opposite is in fact the case. If they do successfully make the case to have a particular policy framework adopted, their continued success will then depend not on access to politicians or the machinery of government but on the public continuing to perceive that it is delivering the intended results. If it is, then support will be maintained, but if not then the public can be trusted to recognise the negative outcomes and make alternative choices, whatever the propaganda might be.
Footnotes:
[i] Parvin and McHugh (2005), p. 646.
[ii] Parvin and McHugh (2005), p. 647.
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