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Direct/Participatory Democracy - Use Areas
Direct/participatory democracies are implemented by Podemos in Spain, Five Star Movement in Italy and the Momentum Movement in Hungary. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna are four football clubs in Spain in which the President and other major offices are democratically elected by the members directly. In Israel, the mayor of Jerusalem is directly elected by the residents of Jerusalem and the Likud Party primaries also practice direct party democracy by its members.
POLITICAL PARTIES ARE CURRENTLY UTILIZING A DIRECT/PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY.
Five Star Movement
The Italian political party Five Star Movement (M5S) in resolving whether to join the far-right Lega or League in a coalition government didn't retreat into a conclave of party leaders but asked its members to vote online in May 2018 and in turn, received the overwhelming support of 94% of the voters. The process was a perfect example of using digital technology in 21st-century politics, the platform made digital democracy its core. According to Gianroberto Casaleggio, "Ordinary citizens will become protagonists, abandoning the current system of delegate democracy in the hands of politicians". As a result of the success of the M5S participatory platform, new parties have also joined the digital democracy movement.
Podemos
Podemos is a political party in Spain in which through their Consul participation system, has skillfully utilized social media channels to become one of the most popular political organizations in Spain. Podemos offers a platform for the registered members to vote online in primaries, internal affairs, attend online training events etc. The party has a participatory portal which is named Participa and Podemos hasn't witnessed any case of rank and file rebellion since it started holding online referendum since 2014.
Momentum Movement
Momentum Movement is a Hungarian political party that "burst on the political scene when they started collecting signatures for a referendum on Hungary’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics in Budapest." They strongly believe that in a democracy, such decisions have to be made with the consultation and consent of the people and that the decision to bid for the Olympics was made without consulting Hungarians, and even worse, it would not have been in their interest
Cantons of Rojava
Cantons of Rojava uses a social revolution that is based upon a set of values that assert a radical form of direct, grassroots democracy and the recognition of gender, religious, and ethnic equality among all citizens. It practises a democratic confederalism that grants its citizens and their communities the right to self-determination, local autonomy, and freedom of expression, whereby, every formal political formation from the citizen’s councils of the local neighbourhoods to the heads of the various ministries and the elected heads of the regional administrative bodies must be co-chaired by both a man and a woman. By pursuing a model of a co-operative economy that blends co-operative and private enterprise, it explicitly rejects the nation-state as a political form, that means a system that administers a territory while avoiding the hierarchical systems that characterize formal state structures — stateless democracy.
Flux
Flux is an Australian based political movement whose goal is to substitute the world's elected legislatures with a new system known as issue-based direct democracy (IBDD). "In IBDD, voters would still have the right to vote directly on every issue or delegate their vote to someone else, but unlike in liquid democracy, voters can choose to forego votes on one issue to use on another issue". With this, voters are given the opportunity to reserve their voting chances for the issues that are of the best interest to them. Such vote specialization or preference allows citizens to participate effectively in issue-based direct democracy without having to focus on every issue as they would in regular direct democracy.
POLITICAL PARTIES: FIVE STAR MOVEMENT, PODEMOS AND MOMENTUM, HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS.
- They operate using digital technology by asking members to vote online.
- One of the online decision-making platform used is called LiquidFeedback.
- Subverting open societies has been greatly criticized especially in the digital realm.
- "Digital democracy has now become a must for all new political movements that want to be seen as in sync with the times."
ORGANIZATIONS/platforms CURRENTLY UTILIZING A DIRECT/PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY.
Swiss company Haufe-Umantis uses a system where employees of the company vote on all important business decisions, including who gets to fill the leadership positions. The leaders are elected on a yearly basis and even have the right to call for a referendum.
How the Haufe-umantis system operates
- The group decides democratically what to do, by raising their hands.
- The response of the people is that the practice provides clarity about the major decision-making of the company. All employees are involved in the process and are aligned with the outcome. Collectively they vote for a certain direction, so they’re naturally more inclined and motivated to make it work. And they also say the practice is a good check to see if management is not getting completely out of reality.
DEMOCRACYOS IN ARGENTINA
Democracyos is an open source digital governance tool for small communities, corporations, large cities & whole nations. It has an inbuilt Sovereign protocol with smart contracts that allows governance for any kind of organization based on two key pillars:
LIQUID DEMOCRACY
A peer to peer democracy, which lets you elect among friends and people you trust.
DECENTRALIZED ORGANISATIONS
No central authority is required for accountability. Whether it's a small community or a whole nation, decisions get stored using a blockchain & executed with 100% transparent transactions.
CLUBS THAT PRACTICE COLLABORATIVE DECISION MAKING WITH THEIR MEMBERS.
Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atheltic Bilbao, Osasuna in Spain practice collaborative decision-making with their members. These four clubs in Spain, maintain the tradition of socio ownership, in which the President and other major offices are democratically elected via a vote, and a cluster of peñas, or members' club act as focal points of the club's culture and tradition at local, regional, national and international levels. The members believe the process enables them to be more involved in the running of the club and are positive about it.
Direct/participatory in Israel
MAYORAL ELECTIONS IN JERUSALEM
The mayoral election process in Jerusalem utilizes a direct/participatory democracy system to directly elect its mayor via a vote which involves voting for ONE candidate by putting a slip of paper his or her name in an envelope.
ISREALI LIKUD PARTY PRIMARIES
All registered party members and the party’s supporters determine through a primary vote on who gets to lead them.