Fung on Empowered Participation and his Democracy Cube

Today I sat through a fascinating talk by Harvard Professor of Public Policy Archon Fung, the author of Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy and co-author of Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance.

Participatory or popular forms of democracy are normally approached from an ideal conception. Fung argues for a "different conception of democracy" using what he calls a pragmatic approach to look at alternative grassroots forms of democracy. In his new research he has studied alternative forms of governance in Chicago, India, Brazil and in smaller towns in the United States. Through his pragmatic approach of studying what are essentially localized and thriving models of participatory democracy he constructs a "democracy cube," what he describes as a "menu of institutional alternatives for the power sharing of governance."


Fung sees his approach as providing a different sort of conception of democracy, what he calls deliberative democracy, but what it seems to do is provide a palatable and provable approach for models of participatory democracy on the micro-scale.

One example he discusses and has studied, co-governed community-policing in poor neighborhoods in Chicago, provides a real institutional alternative and policy proposal. From this example, and his look at other alternative governance strategies, he argues for the following: a model of inclusion, more equal consideration of interests, effective consideration of interests, equal and effective opportunity of participation, constructive conflict management and lastly some sort of constraining principle that would allow things to get done and not take for ever. One question I was thinking though; are these micro structures he discuses, while allowing for more-accountablity and social justice, also focused on shifting around limited resources within marginalized communities without building deeper changes within the macro system that they exist? Would they be cut off at some point if they became threatening to elites?

He promotes what he sees as the most scientific approach, a sort of pragmatism, with which he constructs his model by looking at real examples of micro grassroots democracy. That is what I find interesting. It is refreshing as well to see workable models for real policy proposals from political theorists working on grassroots democracy. His work clearly focuses on the micro and on urban communities that have been open and supportive to these types of alternative structures. This also opens it up to some criticism.

His examples are clearly inspiring but there is also a problem of "looking at the world through rose-colored glasses". For example, how would one deal with the issue of hegemony, especially in its blocking a deepening of democracy in most areas, with Fung's model? And also in regards to macro level issues, one participant at the talk mentioned how could this model be used for large campaigns and bringing about big change? And what of the issue of hegemony, class and the conflict over civil society, or what Cox and Gramsci would see as a conflict between hegemonic civil society elites and an emancipatory-counterhegemonic civil society? I see democracy, popular and participatory democracy, as being necessarily a much more conflictual and polarizing process.

Oaxaca, Not Washington

>>>Kristen Bricker has written up an excellent review looking at the issue of direct democracy in Nancy Davies' new book The People Decide: Oaxaca's Popular Assembly.

>>>Meanwhile Al Giordano has tackled Clinton Inc™ for the vast empire of donor connections that it has leveraged in its corpo-democracy race for Washington's seat of power. And check out youtube to see Hillary Clinton confronted for signing on to another, yes another congressional bill giving Bush more war leverage, this time for a supposed already-planned-out bombing campaign on Iran.

The Constituent Assembly: Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador

In recent years a popular-based apparatus of governance, named the Constituent Assembly, has taken shape in Venezuela, in Bolivia and soon in Ecuador. In Bolivia it has faced the most opposition by the countries USAID-NED-CIDA-EU-united elite civil society and parties. Here is a brief overview of how the Constituent Assemblies are playing out:

-In Ecuador voters will elect a 130-member body from 3,200 candidates this Sunday. Ecuador's President Rafael Correa is depending on the constitutional assembly to push for the reforms that are needed to shift Ecuador's government away from the model of corrupt-elite democracy to a more popular based model that could back partial nationalizations as well as numerous programs aimed at the countries poor majority. In April 2007 eighty two percent of the population voted in favor of forming the assembly. Ecuador's President has said that they are in favor of "non-renewable resources to be owned by the state or by public enterprises" and has advocated the seizure of the Occidental oil fields in Ecuador because of their breaking their contract with Ecuador on fifty-two different occasions. Referring to Occidental, Correa said "
they believe we are still a colony". He argues, like Morales and Chavez, that for far to long too much of the profits from his nations oil fields have gone to foreign corporations when the majority of his country lives in such deep poverty.

-In Venezuela the constituent assembly has pushed through some of the most democratic and poor-based reforms in the western hemisphere to date, a process made easier due in large part to the opposition boycotting of recent elections. This has some similarity with what occurred in Haiti 2000-2004 when foreign aid agencies actually suggested to elite political parties/civil societies that since they could not win (as 70 percent of the people were behind Aristide/Lavalas), then they should instead boycott in order to discredit the entire process. In Haiti the strategy worked for the elites because of the governments huge dependence on foreign aid (and legitimacy provided by foreign 'experts' who can hold up the aid). The Aristide government lost somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of its national budget immediately upon entering office- this was all money the Haitian government had long depended on (i.e. road construction, healthcare, aids programs). But in Venezuela the USAID-elite plan has really backfired. The Chavista program remains uber popular and flush with petro-dollars, not to say there is no room for criticism. The PopDem manifests itself in the votes and popular organizing/pressure from the social movements and poor, so in that respect we should move on to Bolivia, probably the most grassroots and democratic example of them all:


-In Bolivia the MAS movement and President Morales' government have partially succeeded with the Constituent Assembly model, although according to the Democracy Center "the Assembly has been suspended since early September, when violent protests over a proposal to move the seat of the executive and legislative branches from La Paz to Sucre ground its sessions to a halt." This last Thursday members of the assembly agreed to get back into session but it is unlikely that the problems will cease. According to numerous press reports, the Bolivian government is complaining about USAID programs that have been working heavily to derail the constituent assembly and other Bolivian government measures; all the while keeping reportedly 70% of their budget undisclosed. Here is a result graph of the constituent assembly vote from Bolivia:

Nicaragua Mobilized

Here is a great video montage of poor Nicaraguans celebrating the Sandinista electoral victory earlier this year. Put together by a Nicaraguan-American that was in Nicaragua during the election.

Remember Harry Perkins ?

A Very British Coup made in the early 1980s is a fictional movie about a popularly elected leftist prime minister in the UK. He is eventually destabilized by a collection of media elites, the US embassy and big business. I would definitely suggest people view this film.
One of the better lines in the move is "One man, one newspaper"...or better yet, one woman, one newspaper. What a good idea.

Rachel Manley - In The Shadow of My Fathers

A fascinating interview with Michael Manley's daughter. Manley was a great friend of Haiti.

Sandanistas and Ortega Return

While Ortega has numerous detractors and there seems to be some valid criticism, there is also a lot of hope from the poor in Nicaragua and in the region that Ortega will promote alternatives to the US/neoliberal policies forced on Nicaragua now since the early 1990s. Ortega's return also says something about his political genius, that he was able to basically plan out a 15 year long process of returning to political office. And he has done just about everything to accomplish this. Negroponte and other US officials are going haywire but Chavez and Evo are welcome guests now in Managua.