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TMP Submission 12 Attachment rescuing democracy Before you start to read this book, take this moment to think about making a donation to punctum books, an independent non-profit press, @ https://punctumbooks.com/support/ If you’re reading the e-book, you can click on the image below to go directly to our donations site. Any amount, no matter the size, is appreciated and will help us to keep our ship of fools afloat. Contri- butions from dedicated readers will also help us to keep our commons open and to cultivate new work that can’t find a welcoming port elsewhere. Our ad- venture is not possible without your support. Vive la open-access. Fig. 1. Hieronymus Bosch, Ship of Fools (1490–1500) rescuing democracy: how public deliberation can curb government failure. Copyright © 2016 Paul E. Smith. This work carries a Creative Com- mons by-nc-sa 4.0 International license, which means that you are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and you may also remix, transform, and build upon the material, as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors and editors (but not in a way that suggests the authors or punc- tum books endorses you and your work), you do not use this work for commer- cial gain in any form whatsoever, and that for any remixing and transformation, you distribute your rebuild under the same license. http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ First published in 2016 by punctum books, Earth, Milky Way. www.punctumbooks.com isbn-13: 978-0-9982375-0-3 isbn-10: 0-9982375-0-7 Library of Congress Cataloging Data is available from the Library of Congress Book design: Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei PAUL E. SMITH RESCUING DEMOCRACY How Public Deliberation Can Curb Government Failure To my grandchildren Jet, Thomas, Ella and Lila. May their generation — and those that follow — govern themselves better than ours does. Contents List of figures and tables 14 Acknowledgements 15 Synopsis 19 1. Signs of failure 35 part i Diagnosing dysfunction 2. Democratic dysfunction from fundamental structure 55 2.1 The function of democratic government · · · · · · · · 56 2.1.1 Social choice by democratic government · · · · · 64 2.2 Ambiguous delegation · · · · · · · · · · · · 69 · · 2.2.1 Obstructions to communicative democracy · · · 75· 2.2.2 Citizens as directors · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 81 2.2.3 Ignorant directors · · · · · · · · · · · · 84· · 2.2.3.1 Fairly stable motivations of citizens’ ignorance of public goods · · · · · · · · · · · 88· · 2.2.3.2 Relatively dynamic motivations of citizens’ ignorance of public goods · · · · · · · · 92 · · 2.2.4 Unconscious directors · · · · · · · · · · 95 · · 2.2.5 Failure in accountability and legitimacy · · · ·102 · 2.2.6 A less fundamental type of ambiguous delegation — supermajoritarianism · · · · · ·105 · 2.2.7 An objection to ambiguous delegation being seen as a major problem · · · · · · · · · 106 2.2.8 An overview of ambiguous delegation · · · · 108· 2.3 Excessive competition · · · · · · · · · · · 109· · 2.3.1 Competition distracts politicians from producing public goods · · · · · · · · · · · · 114 2.3.2 Competition tempts politicians to sell legislation · 115 2.3.3 Political competition intensified by commercial competition · · · · · · · · · 120· · 2.3.4 Exacerbation of political competition by ambiguous delegation · · · · · · · · · · · · 121 2.3.5 Minimizing the damage from competition · · · · 122 2.4 Excessive compromise · · · · · · · · · · · ·123 · · 2.5 Triple dysfunction · · · · · · · · · · · · ·126 · · 2.6 Checking the hypothesis by backward mapping from two democratic failures · · · · · · · · · 129 · · 2.6.1 Neglect of the long term in Australian politics · · 130 2.6.2 Recurrence of environmental policy failures · · · 134 2.7 Summary and implications · · · · · · · · · ·137 · · 3. Susceptibility to dysfunction: Types of democracy 141 3.1 The Nordic democracies · · · · · · · · · · · 142· · 3.2 The case of the United States · · · · · · · · · 146 · · 4. Susceptibility to dysfunction: Types of issue 159 4.1 Issue characteristics that create problems for liberal democratic governments · · · · · · · · · · 160 4.2 Three cases of irresponsibility by liberal democratic governments · · · · · · · · · · · · · 167 4.2.1 Size of population · · · · · · · · · · · ·170 · · 4.2.2 Global warming · · · · · · · · · · · · 176· · 4.2.3 Unemployment · · · · · · · · · · · · 186 · · 5. A pervasive symptom of dysfunction: Escalating the scarcity of natural capital 191 5.1 Illustrating the problem · · · · · · · · · · · 194 · · 5.1.1 Characteristics of the choice on economic growth that confuse democracies · · · · · · · · · · · 196 5.2 Two key concepts for the scarcity multiplier analysis · · 198 5.2.1 Inflating want by supply · · · · · · · · · 198 · · 5.2.2 Private goods bias · · · · · · · · · · · ·203 · · 5.3 The scarcity multiplier · · · · · · · · · · · ·206 · · 5.3.1 The mechanism · · · · · · · · · · · · 207 · · 5.3.2 Extreme scarcity from the private goods bias · · · 218 5.3.3 Three reinforcements of the scarcity multiplier · ·219 5.3.4 The influence of each iws system and their control · · · · · · · · · · · 223· · 5.3.5 Motivators of the scarcity multiplier other than politi- cal decisions to privatise public natural capital · · · 224 5.3.6 Costs and benefits of the multiplier · · · · · ·228 · 5.4 Implications of the scarcity multiplier · · · · · · 234 · 5.5 Conclusions for Part I · · · · · · · · · · · 242· · part ii Prescribing a remedy 6. The People’s Forum: A deliberative aid for liberal democracies 247 6.1 The mission, strategies and shape of the People’s Forum · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 250 · · 6.1.1 The focus of the Forum · · · · · · · · · · · 253 6.1.2 The structure of the poll · · · · · · · · · 255 · · 6.1.3 Voting process · · · · · · · · · · · · · 256 · · 6.1.4 Ballot paper · · · · · · · · · · · · · 258· · 6.1.5 The execution of the Forum’s strategies · · · · · · 260 6.2 Evaluating democratic institutions · · · · · · · ·262 · 6.2.1 Political equality goods · · · · · · · · · ·266 · · 6.2.2 Governmental goods · · · · · · · · · · 268 · · 6.2.3 Institutional goods · · · · · · · · · · ·270 · · 6.2.4 Evaluating goods of democratic institutions · · ·274 · 6.3 Five major functions of the People’s Forum · · · · ·275 · 6.3.1 Public deliberation of issues · · · · · · · · 275· · 6.3.2 Deliberating what is to be deliberated · · · · · · 277 6.3.3 Examining basics · · · · · · · · · · · 278· · 6.3.4 An element of meritocracy · · · · · · · · · · · 280 6.3.5 Economizing citizen effort · · · · · · · · ·285 · 6.3.6 Summary of anticipated contributions by five major functions of the Forum · · · · · · · 286· · 6.4 Initiating and running the Forum · · · · · · · 289 · · 6.5 The People’s Forum compared with principles and designs for deliberative democracy · · · · · · · · · ·291 · 6.5.1 The People’s Forum compared with principles for deliberative democracy and public management · 292 6.5.2 The People’s Forum compared with other proposed deliberative designs · · · · · · · · · · · · · 297 6.5.2.1 The Popular Branch · · · · · · · · · 297 · · 6.5.2.2 The People’s House · · · · · · · · · · 301 · · 6.5.2.3 Pyramidal democracy · · · · · · · · 305· · 6.5.2.4 Comparing the four designs and observations on five more · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 311 6.6 Perspectives on the promise of the People’s Forum · · ·320 7. Design details of the People’s Forum 325 7.1 Twelve functions of the People’s Forum · · · · · 325· · 7.2 Elements of the design of the People’s Forum and why they should produce its twelve functions · · · · · · ·327 · 7.2.1 Twenty-two elements of the design · · · · · ·327 · 7.2.2 Function 1 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 329 · · 7.2.3 Function 2 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 342 · · 7.2.4 Function 3 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 343 · · 7.2.5 Function 4 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 349· · 7.2.6 Function 5 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 350 · · 7.2.7 Function 6 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 354· · 7.2.8 Function 7 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 355 · · 7.2.9 Function 8 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 355 · · 7.2.10 Function 9 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 355· · 7.2.11 Function 10 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 360 7.2.12 Function 11 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 361· · 7.2.13 Function 12 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 363 7.3 Comments on design element E1 — the ballot paper · · 372 8. Likely reactions to the Forum 381 8.1 A closer look at the differing reactions of liberals and conservatives · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 383 8.2 The applicability of the People’s Forum to the polarized politics of the USA · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 394 8.3 General prospects for the Forum · · · · · · · · 397· · 9. Supporting devices, performance indicators and trialling the People’s Forum 401 9.1 Devices that may synergize with the People’s Forum · · 402 9.2 Performance indicators for the People’s Forum · · · 415· 9.2.1 Indicators of achievement of mission (indicator types i & ii) · · · · · · · · · · · · 417 9.2.2 Indicators of execution of the first strategy (indicator type iii) · · · · · · · · · · · · · 418 9.2.3 Indicators of execution of the second strategy (indicator type iv) · · · · · · · · · · · ·419 · · 9.3 The inadequacy of small-scale trials of the People’s Forum · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·420 · · 9.3.1 Simulation instead of small-scale experiment · ·424 · 10. Conclusion 427 Afterword. A method for designing political institutions 439 The five strategies of the method 442 “Pushing and pulling” as science 448 Applying the five strategies 452 The method as a theory of institutional design 454 Appendix. Population growth and
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