DDDemocracy

Meaning and Context

DDD is an acronym for "Democracy by Digital Delegation", which could also be called "Democracy by Continuous Digital Delegation", or simply "Democracy 2.0".

As the name implies, this is a proposal for the development of the democratic model.

This democratic improvement is digital, in the sense that IT and telecommunications play an important and innovative role.

It operates primarily through a delegation system that differs from the current electoral systems.

And this delegation is continuous, continually updated, while current systems are typically cyclical.

The DDD model comes from a larger study, the "M3M model". The M3M model combines a critical review of the current models (collectivist model, competitive model, democracy, particracy, work, business) with a new model and a societal project. The text describing the M3M model is organized in three parts. The first part is the criticism of obsolete models of society. The second part is a deliberate choice of simple values ​​on which should be built a better and new model, intended to be translated into a kind of specifications. The third part describes the components chosen to implement the previously established specifications. It is from this third part that the essential part of the present document is extracted.

The original French version (DDD - "Démocratie par Délégation Digitale) is available here. The present document may include some weak translations.

Weaknesses of Western Democracies

In Europe, in America and throughout the world, the democratic model is sick: voters feel misunderstood, they no longer worry about exercising the right to vote, though hard won by their predecessors. The political class and the elected officials arouse, immediately invested with power, the distrust and suspicion of those who have chosen them. Whether or not these suspicions are justified, voters no longer feel validly represented in the numerous and complex institutions engendered by the increasingly tortuous and contradictory machinery of democratic structures.

The old democratic principle, namely the dignified and balanced representation of the elector, has been lost somewhere in the successive improvements of history. It is time to take a critical look at it, and to build something else, keeping the vital force of the democratic principle, but incorporating new structures and means suitable for the biotope of contemporary man.

Many authors and journalists have highlighted the limits and weaknesses of the democratic machinery. Here are reported, without orginality, the most significant ones, which will serve as contrasting base to the DDD proposals.

Strange success criteria for elected representative

Electoral campaigns involve candidates whose aim is to obtain a maximum number of votes. As a consequence, the elegance, the presence, the sense of distribution and the effectiveness of the media weigh more than the ambition or the clarity of the programs presented. These come down to well-chosen slogans, often developed by communication consultants whose performances will be paid not according to the quality of the program and the themes presented, but according to the votes obtained. As for the candidates themselves, the criteria of success mentioned - such as personality, media efficiency and others - will push forward and favor sympathetic and popular personalities, entertainment and communication people, such as journalists, actors, Charismatic affairs. These profiles can not be systematically denied human qualities, ideals and management qualities. However, given the challenges faced by elected officials, it is clear that these profiles are not a priori the best equipped to deal with these problems, compared to various specialists in the technical, political or scientific spheres. Alas, the latter rarely put their priorities in the techniques of electoral communications, or have no inclination for these exercises.

Democratic cycles are sources of dysfunction

In all democracies the same depressing cycles are observed in their naive repetition.

In electoral periods - mandates expiring and renewing - elected representatives in place are like their competitors eager to take their place. It is the period of promises in every direction, of the glorious results of those who have exercised power, of the deplorable results of those who wish that those who have exercised it will no longer exercise it and give way to it. During this election period, candidates are enthusiastically depicted by their troops, with disdain by their competitors, and objectivity gives way completely to the media circus. One of the consequences of these exercises is that the elected officials in this period no longer care to manage but to present an optimal balance sheet enhanced with promises brought to the tune of the day.

Then, during the exercise of the mandate, the elected member is gradually obliged to retreat in the face of the too optimistic promises that he has to advance in order to obtain the votes. Inevitably, or at least in the vast majority of cases, the popularity of an elected official is gradually weaker than he had at the time of his campaign. And in fact the management of the problems is biased and unhealthy, since the distortions between promises and constraints of ground imply a management in delicate equilibrium. It is during the term of office that elected officials can draw more or less legitimate, and never announced, benefits from their power. It is the period of elevator referrals, the inventory of debits and credits, and the search for the best returns on electoral investment. If he is undeniably integrity and devoted - but how did they get there? - it should also be noted that others who are less scrupulous know how to take advantage of the money invested in election campaigns. The former want and can deal with problems in the interest of the citizen, but the latter want and can deal with the same problems without forgetting the interest of their party, their friends and themselves.

Moreover, democratic cycles often have as a corollary the alternation of men and parties in power. Most often the end of a mandate and the beginning of the next one involve the pausing of the programs slowly put in place by the predecessors, and the gradual taking of information from the successors. This results in long periods of floating and management failure, either because programs can no longer be completed, or because they are not yet solidly supported by information or not fully constructed. In both cases, the possible management qualities of the predecessors and successors do not weigh heavily against the implacable logic of democratic cycles.

It is not in the interest of elected representatives to tackle the real problems

Why should an elected representative bravely tackle the most delicate problems he is being asked to tackle?

It has been shown that if the best solution to a problem involves unpopular measures, unlikely to retain or drain votes in the future, then an elected official has every interest in not treating it. It is better for him to take temporary, popular and, preferably, mediate measures, rather than addressing a problem at the source. Postulating hard decisions, conveying to others the delicate and unpopular need to treat them better is the most profitable political choice. This is a step in time: NIMTO (not in my term of office). The same logic exists for the fields of competence: NIMBY (not in my back yard). In other words, no politician wishes that a thorny problem falls within his sphere of competence.

Limits of Particracy

Political parties allow individuals with similar opinions to group together and thereby gain more representative strength. It is a laudable principle in itself, and a rather natural prolongation of human nature.

However, par- ticipation leads to various suspicious and reprehensible drifts. The individual voter often feels more affinities for a party's wing rather than for its overallity, or even for an individual or group of individuals within that party. Moreover, parties are debatable fields of negotiation and effective distribution of power, where voters and their interests are not represented or represented in a transparent way. Finally, relations between political parties and financial powers are often compromising, opaque, and incite forms of compromise, even corruptions. Party funding mechanisms are often investigated, and it can be assumed that those that are not being investigated are simply those that are organized in a more discreet manner.

Non-specialization of elected representatives and leaders

It is an effect of the democratic mechanisms in general, but is amplified by the participation. Leadership posts, which always correspond to more or less broad areas of competence, are distributed to elected representatives either directly or indirectly through negotiations between ruling parties, and even more so within them. But in the vast majority of cases, executives set up and part of their teams have no expertise, no special skills. Their electoral and political successes give them the right to practice in the most diverse fields: health, environment, education, finance, justice, international relations, etc. It is as if none of these fields require knowledge As if the electoral competence was universally applicable and transposable.

At the same time, the voter who trusts a man or a party for certain areas of competence is obliged to choose the same man, or the same and only party for all areas of competence. What should be the choice of whoever thinks that a party's budget program is vital, while his approach to education is deplorable?

Difficult representation of minorities

Minorities consider themselves poorly represented in the great democratic states and in fact they are. Large entities in population and economic power, such as Greece (towards the EU), Scotland (towards Great Britain), Great Britain (towards the EU), Catalonia Spain), California (towards the USA) sees themselves as holders of badly or unrepresented identities, and wishes - and sometimes obtains - forms of secession, while this secession is a distressing prospect for many members of the super Entity or sub-entity. And of course in all parts of the world, smaller entities often experience more dramatically equivalent situations.

Ethnic, religious or cultural minorities live with similar problems, even if they do not have a defined geographical anchorage. These entities exist and are often represented by groups of influence or pressure, but often find in the democratic machinery only ineffective representations, often perceived as unfair.

Moreover, each of us possesses a mixture of multiple identities, and it would be absurd to try to force a person to define himself by a single identity, by a single party.

Existing democracies do not respect the identities of the minority groups they inhabit or the multiple identities of the individuals who make up the democracies.

When people say 'NO!' to the democracy

Beginning in 2016, the rejection of the democratic model was clearly manifested in major events in world political life.

In Britain, in June 2016, Britain's choice of the brexit expressed the disavowal of the European construction by one of its most important actors, thus opening wide the way to Euro-skepticism In each of its members.

In the United States, in the Republican primaries, and especially in the November 2016 presidential elections, the political class of the world's first power was slapped by a billionaire who was notoriously ignorant of politics and politics. diplomatic. To the great democratic and republican figures, he preferred a narcissistic and megalomanic clown to direct him. One hundred days after the start of the presidential term, a record of unpopularity is beaten by this new champion of democracy.

In France, in May 2017, the presidential elections brought together four candidates, each one separately receiving more obstruction, protest, denigration, and support. In the second round, the main messages express the 'need to block ...'. The president did not have 25% of voters in the first round, and he begins his mandate with more opponents than supporters.

In these three cases, the themes of identity withdrawal, far from the humanist ideals supposed to feed the democratic processes, were the most listened to.

Then in these three cases, the dominant message was a NO NO. Not to the political class in general, not to the 'democratic' supranational (European) construction, not to the major actors of political landscapes.

Finally, in all three cases, the diseases of the democracies mentioned above have been clearly emphasized and even demonstrated.

General principles of the DDD model

In the DDD model, in contrast to the standard democratic model:

• There is no cycle of democratic exercise: it is an ongoing process.
• There are voters, but no election event.
• The parties are replaced by more numerous and more flexible structures, the delegates.
• Competence fields are defined and serve as well-segmented territories of democratic practice.

Actors of the DDD

The elector

As in the classic model, the citizen elects choices. They are structured differently, they may be very simple or relatively complex, but the general democratic principle remains applicable: the elect are ultimately designated by him, the elector, and his peers.

The candidate

Any elector may declare himself a candidate in a given jurisdiction. If this is the case, it is his responsibility to make known his program, his own choices and convictions. The candidate is likely to have responsibilities within a management college.

The representative

Any elector may declare himself a representative in a given jurisdiction. This means that other voters can trust him and align himself with his voting choices. This is one of the delegation mechanisms. The representative does not necessarily have to publish a program and is not likely to exercise management responsibility.

A voter may be either a candidate or a representative, but not both; The action of the elector may relate to one or the other.

The management college

Each competence field has its governing body, which is a management college consisting of a number of candidates designated by the mechanisms described below. One of these members becomes the secretary-general of the college.