Loomio
Tue 27 Sep 2016 7:14PM

Kommentteja säännöistä

LS Lauri Snellman Public Seen by 342

Olen kirjoittanut tosi pitkän selostuksen säännöistä. Niissä on tosi paljon hyviä puolia, mutta myös vakavia heikkouksia. Laitan omat kommenttini ja vastaehdotusluonnokseni esiin. Olisi kiva saada aiheesta keskustelua.

LS

Lauri Snellman Tue 27 Sep 2016 7:40PM

Tässä kommentit ja vastaehdotukset PDF:änä.

LS

Lauri Snellman Tue 27 Sep 2016 7:45PM

Koetan tehdä tekstistä huomenna yhteenvedon ennen iltaa, jos ehdin töiltäni.

LS

Lauri Snellman Wed 28 Sep 2016 3:41PM

OK, so here's an English summary:

The rules have major strengths and major weaknesses. The weaknesses are there by (ideological) design.

  1. Basic conditions of success

DiEM attempts to build a common space for liberal, green and socialist supporters of a democratic and social Europe. DiEM needs

-to build an European public sphere
-alliances with national and transnational civil society groups
-the ability to lobby national parliaments in a coordinated way
-the ability to coordinate nonviolent actions across Europe

Public discussions, lobbying and nonviolent pressure need a lot of participants, which must be brought in through alliances at the local and national level. These actions are effective, when they are brought together into a common public sphere and coordinated through a common strategy, which must be built at an European level.

  1. The democratic process is DiEM's major strength

-DiEM's policy process can create a common European-wide democratic system and a common political discussion. It looks like it will work! :)
-The process could be improved by
-having DSCs in different countries comment and discuss each other's proposals, strengthening pan-European discussion
-giving the membership more power to direct the preparation of policies. Here's a proposal

  1. The members and DSCs discuss policy in their communities and online. The policy proposals are collected.
  2. CC and the experts develop a few alternative policy concepts based on the proposals. The concepts include an overview of the policy package, an account of who benefits from the policies and institutions that would implement the policies.
  3. The members debate the alternative concepts and choose one concept by voting.
  4. CC and the experts prepare a policy paper from the basic concept chosen by the members, which then goes to an Assembly and is then voted into a DiEM policy.

  5. The lack of federalism is DiEM's Achilles heel

-Varoufakis gives two reasons for avoiding federalism in the DiEM organization: (con)federations of national parties/organizations are too weak to implement a common policy and prevent the formation of a common political will (general will?)
-Varoufakis' reasons sound Hamiltonian!
-Alexander Hamilton: US Founding Father, like Varoufakis had first-hand experience of the utter dysfunctionality of cartel confederalism
-Hamilton: need to get rid of cartel middlemen (US states) to have a monopoly of violence, Varoufakis: need to get rid of cartel middlemen (national organizations) to have a common democratic process
-Problem: like Americans in the 1780s, Europeans today are more integrated in local communities, national/state political systems and associated civil society groups.
-Influencing national political systems requires legitimacy at the national level. A transnational mobilization requires alliance-building at the national and local level to bring national and local civil society groups into the movement.
-Both require integrating local and national perspectives into the DiEM organization.

  1. Both DiEM and the EU are franchising organizations

-DiEM a franchise. It operates as a hub/spokes-network. Local franchise corporations (DSCs) get their brand (DiEM), support services that enable acting together (common strategies and discussions) and financing (the DiEM fundraising system) from the central corporation controlling the franchise (CC, AP, VC).
-Ironically, it mirrors the structure of the EU. EU has franchises (nation-states) that buy into EU policies (common foreign policy, common market, the euro), the Commission to coordinate national legislation, the European Parliament to validate the acts of the Commission and the Council, and a Council of member-states that holds sovereign power.
-The difference: in the EU, sovereignty belongs to national governments. In DiEM, it belongs to the members. The (implied) recipe for democratizing Europe: cut out the cartel middlemen!
-Is it sufficient? The EU never solved the relationship between the European centre and national governments, because European integration didn't get rid of a centralist view of political organization (http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles2/eurcomm.htm) Either you build a centralized Europe ("federalism") or reject transnational politics in favour of an alliance of centralized nation-states ("intergovernmentalism"). Does DiEM escape this trap?

  1. Principles of power-sharing

It is possible to avoid the centralization trap with a power-sharing scheme. The scheme combines the strengths of different forms of federal systems (http://www.jcpa.org/dje/books/fedsysworld-intro.htm), so that it avoids both centralization and cartelization.

-both DiEM national organizations and the CC are dependent on a network of DSCs (so there are no centralist national systems, or a DiEM version of a Brussels superstate)

-National organizations coordinate national networks (which involve DSCs and NGOs from a single country), according to national policies and campaigns that are decided by the national membership.

-the CC coordinates directly transnational networks (which involve DSCs and NGOs from several countries) according to common policies and campaigns that are decided by the membership. (Note: DiEM is not dependent on national organizations when running a pan-European discussion or directing pan-European campaigns. This means that the national and county/city organizations do not act as cartel middlemen.)

-Common decisions are made by a double majority: a majority of members and a majority of national organizations (like Swiss constitutional referendums)

-A Senate represents national organizations in the policy-making process and approves the decisions of the CC. Each Senator is directly elected by a national membership.