Ten questions and some inadequate answers on participatory democracy - presentation at the Club of Venice plenary conference June 2013.

1. Participatory Democracy
Ten questions and some inadequate answers
Club of Venice Plenary Session, Tallinn, June 2013
e Democratic Society

2. Six years ago I knew all the answers

3. A er a lot
of work ...

4. ... I’m fairly
sure I know
the questions

5. Ten three-beer problems

6. e Absent Audience problem
1

7. How do you get enough people involved
to make tools useful ?

8. It’s not by saying
“this is good for democracy”

9. e Scales of Justice problem
2

10. How do you balance
different voices ?

11. Maths ?
Discussion ?

12. e Carthage problem
3

13. Carthago Delenda Est
Here we go again

14. It’s all the fault of the liberal elites !
I might just go and watch the football

15. e Kingsley Amis problem
4

16. “More will mean worse”

17. Not everyone will become omas
Jefferson - how do we handle it ?

18. e Head above the Parapet problem
5

19. How can Goverment create
conversation ...

20. ... and keep people
interested in the
question, not
who’s asking it

21. e Crying Baby problem
6

22. Who would rather participate in
politics than calm a crying baby ?

23. Everyday lives get in the way

24. How do we fit politics into five minutes?

25. e Great Western Railway problem
7

26. Lots of different incompatible
approaches
Photo: Marlow & District Railway Society

27. When we need
connectivity

28. e Venetian Citizen problem
8

29. Who is a
Venetian citizen?

30. Someone with an Italian passport
living in Venice?

31. Someone who comes from Venice?

32. Someone who loves Venice but lives in Milwaukee?

33. How can we reflect lives of overlapping
citizenships ?

34. e George W Bush problem
9

35. “I’m the decider,
and I decide.”

36. What is the
limit of
control ?

37. Balancing
“who cares”
with “too risky”

38. e William Morris problem
10

39. Take something hand-cra ed
and mass-produce it

40. Without losing the design quality

41. I promised you some
inadequate answers

42. Perhaps it would be be er to say
incomplete answers

43. New institutions

44. Government changing alongside

45. Networks !
Networks !
Networks !

46. Flexibility in finances
and structures

47. Tolerance of mistakes

48. Collaborative effort

49. We have it in
our power to begin the
world over again.
Tom Paine

50. Presentation by Anthony Zacharzewski
for the Democratic Society. June 2013
@demsoc | ajz10@demsoc.org | http://www.demsoc.org