Tiered Democratic Governance

Chapter 6: The Transition from Western Democracy

Chapter 6: The Transition from Western Democracy

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

In Chapter 2, I described many of the limitations inherent in the western democratic model of governance, and why this model, if left to its own evolution, would never likely transform itself beyond these limitations.

In Chapter 3, I described a new model of governance—a model without political parties and without the limitations that political parties bring to the public decision-making process.

In Chapter 4 and 5, I described two new tools we will have to learn to make this new system of governance work: consultation and the advisory board.

For the readers that liked what was said in these chapters, the next question is: “How do we move from the western democratic model to a TDG?”

This chapter is a possible path of transforming a western democracy into a TDG.

Historical Footnotes

The signing of the Magna Charta in 1215, which has been regarded as the hallmark of western democracy, was not a straightforward process to build a better society. Throughout much of its early history, the charter was ignored, forgotten, abused, poorly applied, and often not universally accepted. If the charter did indeed lead the English people to modern democracy, it took at least 500 years for them to get a passing grade.

Coming to this past century, the export of the western democratic model to less-than-democratic nations has not always been a guarantee of transformation of such nations for the better. It is true that there have been successes, but there have also been places where western democracy has clearly not worked or is still very fragile—despite great investments in trying to make an undemocratic nation embrace western democracy.

These two parts of history have an important lesson for the early builders of the TDG. We have seen that we cannot just apply western democracy and assume it will automatically take root and mature in a short time. The same will be true for the TDG. Citizens in western democracies should not assume they already have the values, attitudes, and skills for the TDG to work. They will need at least two decades to learn the new ways. And this learning will come from a conscientious effort of applying the principles of the TDG.

Stage 1: The Early TDG

The first step for citizens who want to start building the TDG is to find other citizens in the same locality with the same vision. They should be located such that there is opportunity for face-to-face meetings. In these meetings, they will discuss affairs of the local TDG and resolve, by consensus, such things as boundaries of their local TDG, recruiting new members, establishing rules for membership and electoral processes, and structure of their first elected tier. Going through this process gives each member a good chance to get to know each other—and size up who each feels is best for the inevitable first election.

At this point, I'm going to introduce some new terminology: “Early TDG”. I want to differentiate between the different formative stages of the TDG and the final result: when the TDG actually becomes the system of governance. So this chapter will introduce new terminology as it explains the evolution of the TDG.

One challenge of during the early TDG will be the many citizens who have some excellent ideas and will be rather inflexible in accepting other ideas. I recommend to these people to realize that whatever ideas are created in these early stages will most likely be changed beyond recognition as the TDG evolves. So speak eloquently and passionately for your ideas, but also listen for when the consensus seems to be going in another direction. Whether the consensual decision is to your liking or not, do your best to make it work (or at least step out of the way). Maybe your ideas will be more acceptable when the group sees its consensual decision not working so well.