tag:,2007:/2 2007-09-12T16:06:51Z Movable Type 3.33 tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.386 2007-08-09T16:33:06Z 2007-09-12T16:06:51Z

The Power Inquiry took participatory democracy to the Shambala Festival on 24-26 August, with the Shambala People's Assembly. This built on our large-scale citizens' events and combined perfectly with a vibrant friendly non-corporate summer experience to get your voice...

powerinquiry powerinquiry.org The Power Inquiry took participatory democracy to the Shambala Festival on 24-26 August, with the Shambala People's Assembly. This built on our large-scale citizens' events and combined perfectly with a vibrant friendly non-corporate summer experience to get your voice heard on the issues that matter most. The People’s Assembly took place on Saturday 24th at 4:30pm, in the Rebel Soul area, bringing together the views of the Shambala community and defining their core values and principles in a mini-forum. Festival-goers discussed their shared values and laid out the key festival priorities in areas such as the environment, community engagement, social entrepeneurship and human rights as well as mapping out the direction for the future of the festival over the coming years. This event reflects the opportunity we all have to define the rights and responsibilities that bind our society; Shambala forms a micro-cosm of society and the People's Assembly allowed participants to define its core values and beliefs. To have a look at our report on Shambala's top priorities click here The Rebel Soul venue and group discussions ]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.385 2007-07-09T19:37:06Z 2007-07-09T19:46:12Z

The recent announcements by Hazel Blears, the new Secretary for Communities and Local Government that citizens should be given decision-making powers at the local-level are to be welcomed. All of us who work on participatory budgets and grass-roots democracy have been clear to demonstrate the benefits of these approaches from across the world, such as the hugely successful Participatory Budget process of Brazil. The truth is that this approach has been gaining ground and followers around the world and is rapidly becoming an intrinsic part of our understanding of what it means to be democratic. However it is only through an agreed inclusive framework that citizens can take part on a more equal footing and will therefore choose to engage over successive years.

powerinquiry powerinquiry.org The recent announcements by Hazel Blears, the new Secretary for Communities and Local Government that citizens should be given decision-making powers at the local-level are to be welcomed. All of us who work on participatory budgets and grass-roots democracy have been clear to demonstrate the benefits of these approaches from across the world, such as the hugely successful Participatory Budget process of Brazil. The truth is that this approach has been gaining ground and followers around the world and is rapidly becoming an intrinsic part of our understanding of what it means to be democratic. However it is only through an agreed inclusive framework that citizens can take part on a more equal footing and will therefore choose to engage over successive years. In Brazil the process of participatory budgeting emerged from the struggle for popular democracy against a brutal military regime. Community organisations were one of the key forms of resistance during the 1970s and 1980s as people struggled to regain their democratic rights. Within the movement for democracy, the PT party, that is now in government, developed out of a conjunction of community organisations, trade unions, progressive church leaders and independent intellectuals. Once democracy was re-established in 1985, a constitutional convention was set up that ran until 1988. The constitution that emerged is a very comprehensive document that guarantees a wide range of rights including social provision, employment rights and political rights to all the groups who had previously been excluded from power; it also crucially established a deeply federal system that hands a very wide range of powers to the state and municipal levels, thereby opening the possibility for much greater degrees of local citizen involvement. Local community organisations were then able to take power and adopt a style of local government that built on their roots within civil society, particularly in the city of Porto Alegre where the Participatory Budget was pioneered. The process was so popular that it was then rolled out to many other major cities of Brazil, including Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Recife and Belem at the mouth of the Amazon and has since received cross-party support in Brazil and World Bank recognition. This experience has led to a broader use of participatory democracy in Brazil, including at the national level, on a range of issues such as the environment, gender rights and even the first steps towards a participatory budget plan at the national level. The Brazilian case shows that for participatory democracy to go beyond consultation, to real co-decision making, there must be a recognition of the balance of powers between the citizen and each level of the state, guaranteed within a binding constitutional settlement that cannot be reversed by central government. tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.383 2007-07-09T10:44:03Z 2007-07-09T10:59:32Z

In our constitutional tradition the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, meaning parliamentary representation and the powers of elected officials, has come to be seen as democracy. But it isn’t, or rather there is a lot more to democracy than this.And this poses a fundamental question for Gordon Brown’s agenda. Will it be guided by the same untenable, yet deeply entrenched, assumptions? If we want a democratic constitutional settlement fit for the 21st century, the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty must itself become part of the public debate.

powerinquiry powerinquiry.org formulated question: Does 'power to the people' mean democracy or just direct participation? Gordon Brown has called for some new participatory processes. This raises the crucial question of the balance of decision making between citizens, representatives and government. Well done Riddell for highlighting a shift in political discourse, for the way we talk about politics. It raises all manner of questions about the old and the new. Yet the way he poses it is wrong. It puts the argument in a straight-jacket if, as he does, you define 'democracy' as what happens inside representative institutions and counterpose it to 'direct participation', meaning citizens having decision making power. I suspect the pull of a big conceptual issue, or rather Riddell's attempt to evade it, is behind this as well as other current commentary. All cling to increasingly untenable assumptions about parliamentary sovereignty. True these have underpinned our constitution since the seventeenth century. But they do not work any longer. Citing the ad hoc way in which referendums are called, Riddell correctly suggests we must clarify the relationship between popular and parliamentary sovereignty. Yet the closer one looks at the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty the more one sees it as a case of strategic obfuscation on behalf of governing elites rather than a principle that could be clarified. What was once a good alternative to absolutism in the 18th century has become a permission for the elective absolutism of the political class in the 21st. Forged in the 1688 settlement, the doctrine was parasitic upon, yet ultimately opposed to, ideas of popular sovereignty. These first emerged in the English civil war and perhaps it is finally time we can claim them with patriotic pride. To quote Martin Loughlin of the LSE on popular sovereignty, "Although the concept received its first clear expression by the Levellers in the 1640's, their claims raised a series of fundamental questions that those seeking to manage the unfolding English revolution felt necessary to repress. Thereafter with the subsequent failure of the English revolution and the restoration of the old order, even the more elementary precepts of constitutional ordering based in the principle of popular sovereignty came to be obfuscated." In our constitutional tradition the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, meaning parliamentary representation and the powers of elected officials, has come to be seen as democracy. But it isn't, or rather there is a lot more to democracy than this. The logic of tradition enables Riddell to counter-pose 'democracy' with 'direct participation', when these ought to reinforce each other. And this poses a fundamental question for Gordon Brown's agenda. Will it be guided by the same untenable, yet deeply entrenched, assumptions? If we want a democratic constitutional settlement fit for the 21st century, the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty must itself become part of the public debate. ]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.380 2007-07-05T12:40:17Z 2007-07-05T12:49:08Z

In a speech today at the Local Government Association conference, Hazel Blears - the new Communities and Local Government Secretary - will announce 10 pilot projects across England that will give people the power to decide budget priorities for their local council.

Molly Kearney here. This announcement follows a very similar logic to the Open Budget process that the Power Inquiry initiated with the London Borough of Harrow in 2005. The Open Budget was designed to give Harrow residents a more direct and detailed say over their local council's budget, largely through the organisation of a 300-strong deliberative assembly. ]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.379 2007-07-03T17:37:18Z 2007-07-03T17:43:37Z

Brown's statement to the House today has opened a new constitutional moment in the nation's political life - one of those defining moments when the way power is managed is opened up for contestation because the status quo has broken down. The question is, in whose interests and by what principles will it be shaped?

powerinquiry powerinquiry.org Brown's statement to the House today has opened a new constitutional moment in the nation's political life - one of those defining moments when the way power is managed is opened up for contestation because the status quo has broken down. The question is, in whose interests and by what principles will it be shaped? As the Power Commission's Vice Chair, Ferdy Mount, eloquently puts it, constitutional reforms are so often 'cynical manoeuvres for power decked in the bunting of high principle'. While these moments of constitutional rupture emerge because the status quo is no longer an option, what replaces the old order is not necessarily a more just or democratic one. Yet there are grounds for hoping that Brown may have ushered in a genuinely democratic constitutional moment, rather than another (archetypically) British attempt to devolve power in order to retain it. The basis of this hope resides not solely in the sweeping changes he set out today to humble executive power, but also in the very fact that a political incumbent is heeding the call from those outside, recognising that democracy is part of the solution to the ills of democracy. Democratic reformers should never cease quoting Brown's Jeffersonian-inspired words back at him if, or when, he deviates from the path he has himself set out today: 'the best answer to disengagement from our democracy is to strengthen our democracy'. The question is now whether this constitutional moment will lead to a sustainable solution, one that not only meets needs which can no longer be ignored, but forwards the democratic ideal itself. The tone and priority Brown has given to the relationship between citizen and state, as well executive and parliament, has given us reasons to be hopeful. Yet this requires not only the holistic institutional reform proposed in today's Green paper, but a process of citizen-inclusive change owned not by any party, or any even the political class as a whole, but the people themselves. The challenge is how we can let 'the people' in all their diversity speak in a way that links their voice into a fair and sustainable constitutional settlement. It's now time for democratic campaigners, philosophers, historians and practitioners to illuminate, contest and construct the mechanisms and processes that can turn the democratically desirable into the practically feasible. tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.378 2007-07-03T16:38:39Z 2007-07-11T16:05:37Z

Gordon Brown has put forward a series of unprecedented proposals for creating fairer, and potentially more democratic, constitutional arrangements for the UK. Drawing from reports made by the Power Inquiry and other reform groups, the PM has ushered in a remarkable constitutional moment. The challenge we all face is to make this a democratic constitutional moment owned and nurtured by the people, rather than a narrow political class.

powerinquiry powerinquiry.org here.]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.377 2007-07-02T11:15:41Z 2007-07-02T11:46:13Z

We signed up to the Power statement because when constitutional reform is imposed in a hurry, it is unlikely to protect people's rights and freedoms or be built to last.

Molly Kearney here.]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.376 2007-06-29T16:26:32Z 2007-07-11T16:06:04Z

In the interim between today's cabinet meeting on constitutional reform and the presentation of the proposals discussed therein to Parliament on Monday, the Lib Dems have published their own 20 step guide to democratic renewal. At the heart of the...

powerinquiry powerinquiry.org whether citizens should be involved in constitution making but how this can take place in way that meets democratic criteria. Read the Lib Dem proposals in full here. If Brown does opt for an open convention this could put us in a potentially very interesting and democratically creative space. It cannot be defined (or constrained) by precedent or convention for the simple reason that such a bold move is historically unprecedented in the UK. The closest we have come is the Scottish constitutional convention (set-up in the 1980's). This laid the ground work for the devolution settlement when it was endorsed by a then insurgent Labour party in the mid 90's. Yet this was a claim of right initiated by those outside of Government, rather than by the Government itself. It remains to be seen how far an incumbent Government is willing, or able, to expand their collective democratic imagination. Will they be capable of setting a new precedent for future moments of constitutional change and renewal? ]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.375 2007-06-27T10:22:36Z 2007-06-27T10:55:10Z

In today's Telegraph Billy Bragg argues that 'Brown has set the agenda' by promising a constitutional reform bill and now it is time for 'us [to] take the initiative'.

Molly Kearney Telegraph Billy Bragg argues that 'Brown has set the agenda' by promising a constitutional reform bill and now it is time for 'us [to] take the initiative'. He writes: 'in order for our politicians to replace warm words with action, we have first to demonstrate our willingness to become involved. The Power Inquiry petition is the first step in this process'. Read Billy's full article here. ]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.374 2007-06-26T14:40:48Z 2007-07-11T16:06:39Z

How can institutions be made accountable for their actions and for the power that they wield in and over local communities? We know that many public authorities are frequently reluctant to cede power or control, and too often people are...

Molly Kearney make it an issue's call. What is clear, is that when people are empowered, real change can happen within communities. Niall Cooper National Coordinator, Church Action on Poverty ]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.373 2007-06-26T14:26:37Z 2007-07-11T16:07:32Z

A retiring employee of the Audit Commission was explaining the Brazilian origins of the idea of participatory budgeting - an item in the latest Local Government White Paper - to a meeting of senior local government officials. 'Obviously the circumstances...

Molly Kearney Red Pepper and New Politics Programme of the Transnational Institute ]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.372 2007-06-25T14:12:00Z 2007-07-03T17:18:48Z

In his address Sunday to the Labour Party in Manchester, Gordon Brown gave constitutional reformers reason to be (cautiously) optimistic, declaring that 'constitutional reform matters to me' and that he wants 'a new constitutional settlement for Britain'. You can read...

Molly Kearney here. He's yet to reveal the nuts and bolts behind this 'constitutional settlement' - that is why we have launched a petition demanding that citizens be put at its heart - but it is encouraging for all of us that Brown has so firmly committed to putting democratic reform at the forefront of his agenda. Crucially, Brown has accepted the connection (so often argued for by the Power Inquiry) that for Government to 'renew people's trust' it must first put its 'trust in the people'. ]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.371 2007-06-25T13:35:27Z 2007-06-25T13:54:27Z

Friends of the Earth, Involve, the Women's Resource Centre and NEF have joined make it an issue's call for citizens to be involved in the next phase of constitutional reform. Add your name now....

Molly Kearney Friends of the Earth, Involve, the Women's Resource Centre and NEF have joined make it an issue's call for citizens to be involved in the next phase of constitutional reform. Add your name now.]]> tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.370 2007-06-25T13:33:04Z 2007-07-03T17:21:06Z

It is crucial that any major constitutional change in Britain springs from the deliberation of the people.

Molly Kearney It is crucial that any major constitutional change in Britain springs from the deliberation of the people. And this should not merely be an exercise in consultation that can been manipulated, overridden and ignored by the elite of one political party. What makes a constitution and a written Bill Of Rights so necessary has been the accrued actions over two decades of parties that have ignored the unwritten conventions of the British constitution in favour of immediate political expediency. The record of erosion over the last ten years particularly - the attack on rights, privacy and ordinary freedoms - suggests that these same people are not to be trusted with fashioning a new constitutional settlement with a written code of Rights. That much must be self-evident. tag:www.makeitanissue.org.uk,2007://2.369 2007-06-22T13:06:48Z 2007-06-22T13:18:42Z

Citizens decide future direction for Europe. The Power Inquiry hosted the UK part of the European Citizens' Consultations - these events brought together a cross-section of citizens in every European country to work out their own proposals on what kind...

powerinquiry powerinquiry.org The Short Report contains the key statements, to download click here The Long Report gives the full detail of the process and the pattern of preferences over the week-end, to download click here The Appendix to the Long Report contains all the specific proposals by table group, to download click here ]]>