Collective Decision Making Around the World: Essays on Historical Deliberative Practices

By Kettering Foundation

Is public deliberation rare? How widespread has it been? Are deliberation’s organic practices at the very core of collective decision making? Did it exist before governments developed?

The case studies included in this book, edited by Kettering Foundation program officer Ileana Marin, begin to answer these questions. The research suggests, rather paradoxically, that deliberation may have been widespread throughout the world and throughout history. Taken as a whole, the case studies also show that deliberation is both fragile and powerful. It can be destroyed by top-down politics, but like a sturdy plant, if eradicated in one area, it reseeds itself in another.

Collective Decision Making around the World includes chapters written by international colleagues of the Kettering Foundation. In spite of the challenge of finding accurate historical records, this volume contains six case studies describing deliberative practices in six countries: Albania, Cameroon, Colombia, New Zealand, Romania, and Russia. Chapters in this volume include:

Introduction, Julie Fisher and Ileana Marin

Background Paper: The Political Anthropology of Civil Practices, Noëlle McAfee and Denis Gilbert

Traditional Decision-Making Processes: The Case of the Baka People in Cameroon, Joseph Sany Nzima

Artisan Democratic Societies: Colombia, 1830–1870, Catalina Arreaza and Gabriel Murillo

Ancient Public Deliberation and Assembly in the Code of Lekë Dukagjini, Daut Dauti

Pacific Ways of Talk—Hui and Talanoa, David Robinson and Kayt Robinson

The Romanian Sfat: A Historic Deliberative Experience, Ruxandra Petre

Early Traditions of Collective Decision Making in Russia, German Artamonov and Denis V. Makarov

Afterword, David Mathews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kettering Foundation
• Release date: Jan 1, 2006
• ISBN: 9781945577314

Book preview

Introduction

By Julie Fisher & Ileana Marin

The question of whether people have always engaged in public deliberation has often been posed at the Kettering Foundation. David Mathews, president of the foundation often says that deliberation is a natural process. Indeed, democratic practices probably appeared before the term democracy was invented, and direct self-rule through deliberative talk predates the Greeks in a number of cultures. Even though people may not have always deliberated by specifically spelling out pros, cons, and tradeoffs of different options, decisions based on alternative courses of action have often been made by communities.

At times, communities revert to deliberation as a kind of default mechanism during a crisis. For example, during the collapse of East Germany in 1989, citizens spontaneously began to organize round tables to explore what to do next.¹ In Argentina, after the economic collapse in 2001-2002, neighbors flocked to the streets in front of their houses to talk about their problems.

This sort of crisis deliberation however is not usually sustained; democracy requires that we keep on deliberating beyond crisis situations. In Tupelo, Mississippi, it took a series of crises, combined with innovative leadership, to produce a long-term commitment to informal community deliberation.

The Kettering Foundation has been interested in this topic for over ten years. A background paper on this topic by Noëlle McAfee and Denis Gilbert is included in this book following the introduction.

In 2003, the Kettering Foundation decided to sponsor a series of research papers on historic deliberation. The papers were written by international colleagues, none of them historians by profession. Despite the challenge of finding accurate historical records, we received ten case studies² from eight countries that included accounts from colonial records of the open town meetings in nineteenth-century Colombia to an interview with an 81-year-old man in a mountainous region of eastern Romania. Six of these studies representing as many countries were selected to be included in this volume.

The first case study looks at traditional decision-making processes in Cameroon. Joseph Sany Nzima, the author, pays particular attention to the Baka people of his country. Next, Gabriel Murillo and Catalina Arreaza are the authors of a case study that describes the artisan democratic societies of Colombia in the nineteenth century. Daut Dauti of Kosova presents the ancient forms of public deliberation as found in one of the oldest codes of Albania, and David Robinson and Kayt Robinson conducted research on Pacific Ways of Talk in New Zealand.

The Romanian sfat, one of the oldest forms of deliberative assemblies in a community, is the topic of Ruxandra Petre’s case study. German Artamonov and Denis Makarov of Russia describe the early traditions of rural collective decision making in their country.

Sustainability

Most of the case studies reveal that particular manifestations of deliberation in its traditional form have died out. However, Russian peasant communities and their regional or tribal veches survived in some areas until 1917. The Council of Elders preceding meetings of the peasant assemblies included a singer to preserve organizational history. In Albania, communism put an end to centuries of deliberation fairly recently. The Illyrians used deliberation to control the power of kings as long ago as the eighth century. With the introduction of the Ottoman rule in the late fourteenth century, the Albanians withdrew to the highlands, and a ruler named Lekë Dukagjini (1410-1481) wrote down and codified deliberative practices that had been valued and passed on for centuries. These practices continued among Albanians in Kosova and survived the loose Yugoslav version of communism until the United Nations occupied the country in 1999 and began promoting Western-style democracy.

The practices of Hui in New Zealand and Talanoa in Fiji survived to the present day, perhaps because of references to people from the past not present in the room. In Fiji, a modern version of Talanoa has been used to heal polarization among politicians. In Romania, seven unusually prosperous small mountain towns where deliberation is still practiced were discovered. And among the Baka, or Pygmy, in Cameroon, deliberation remains a key to the survival of small hunting-and-gathering communities.

The diversity of cases, despite the fact that only a few have survived, suggest, rather paradoxically, that deliberation may be widespread, albeit ephemeral, throughout the world and throughout history.

Contrasts with Modern Deliberation

How do historic examples of deliberation differ from present practices? In Fiji and among the Māori people of New Zealand, the Talanoa and Hui provide opportunities for all voices to be heard, not just all views, as in a modern forum. National assemblies and regional assemblies in Albania used the phrase to beat a matter the way Americans would say to beat a matter to death. Deliberations among the Baka in Cameroon sometimes last for many days.

A second major distinction with modern forums is that traditional deliberation did not typically include women or young people. In Albania, citizens were represented by household heads, and in Russia, every tenth head of a household was drafted to serve in the peasant assembly. Among the Māori in New Zealand, women convene the Hui but are not part of it. Here again, however, there are exceptions. Among the Baka in Cameroon, deliberation is based on horizontal kinship, and everyone in a community of 1,000 is important for survival. No one has institutionalized power; authoritarianism is criticized; and leadership shifts, depending on talents and tasks at hand.

How democratic were these forums in other respects? In Russia, Albania, Romania, and the South Pacific, elders were given privileged positions, either as a separate council or within forums. Russia reacted to the long Tartar invasion that began in the thirteenth century by centralizing power, and the veches³ were less able to restore democratic processes. Further deterioration occurred with the introduction of serfdom in the seventeenth century. Yet Russian assemblies had two chambers, and the upper aristocratic assembly’s decisions had to be approved by the lower assembly of commoners. Within the Albanian forums, the position of the priests and imams was not privileged.

The artisan democratic societies and the town meetings in nineteenth-century Colombia excluded the indigenous population. However, the first artisan society in Colombia, founded in 1838, included both artisans and peasants. Along with other groups, such as the Masons and literary associations, the societies promoted the idea of an informed rational public opinion. As Gabriel Murillo and Catalina Arreaza write, Deliberation did not just happen in their chambers; they also made sure it happened outside and made it accessible to the masses. Through the civic education provided by these groups, tradesmen learned to speak in public, read newspapers, and contact politicians. Members could propose themes for internal deliberation. Ultimately, it was the bipartisan hegemony of the Liberal and Conservative parties that ended the role of the artisan societies. Since this hegemony eventually culminated in the civil war of 1948, the survival of these societies might have led to a more positive form of political development.

The Russian tribal unions also clashed with authorities and provided a kind of rough check on state power. The community assembly in Smolensk prosecuted Governor Schein after his military loss to Polish invaders in 1626. Although governors generally negotiated between the community assembly and the czar, it was harder for the community to replace a headman of the council of elders than a state-appointed governor. The czar sometimes replied to a request to stop a subsidy with, you elected him, you solve the problem.

The Process of Deliberation

Although evidence is limited, the case studies suggest differences in the deliberative processes:

• Hui and Talanoa in New Zealand go in circles and repetition is common. People drink kava ⁴, and gifts are presented. During a Hui, an elder listens to the contributions of all, then pulls them together into a decision. Women are not allowed to speak but are traditionally the peacemakers behind the scenes.

• In Russia, elders organized lists of speakers and subsequent voting. When no decision was made, going to the wall meant that a physical fight might be the only way to settle an issue.

• In Albania and Kosova, beating a matter was followed by the best orators presenting their opinions based on the common benefit, followed by majority vote.

• Among the Baka of Cameroon, tense situations are avoided by paying no attention to the speaker. Deliberation involves long, meticulous discussions of alternatives and the one with least opposition is chosen.

Despite contrasts with modern deliberation and differences among traditional processes, there are also similarities with the more structured process used today. During the sfat in Romania, participants consider the interests of people not in the room. Then all opinions are presented, followed by the effects of alternative decisions. The elders enforce rules, such as the need to find the best solution, but the decision is made without voting. It is simply recorded on a blackboard and implemented. Community members who did not attend the sfat told Ruxandra Petre and her colleagues that they trust whatever decision is made. For example, one sfat and the mayor’s office jointly started building a local clinic, which helped them lobby for support from the government.

In Russia and Albania, assemblies were also courts that could try people accused of crimes. Thus, deliberative juries may have common historical roots with deliberative forums. Just as courts today settle civil disputes, traditional assemblies were also involved in peacemaking. In Albania, local assemblies often helped communities avoid blood feuds. People not allied with either side, after getting the respect of both sides, got people to talk to one another openly. Sometimes blood feuds were settled at the expense of the individual victim whose suffering had prompted the feud in the first place.

Conclusions

Is deliberation rare? Is it a part of the cultural basis for democracy? How widespread has it been at any one point in history? Are its organic practices at the very core of collective decision making? Was it ubiquitous before governments developed? These case studies only begin to answer these questions. However, they do support the views reflected in Amartya Sen’s⁵ contemporary work as well as the Kettering Foundation background paper and others who challenge the notion that democracy is an exclusively Western practice.

Taken as a whole, the case studies also show that deliberation is both fragile and powerful. It can be destroyed by top-down politics but seems to also be as natural as a sturdy plant eradicated in one area and reseeding itself in another. Sustainability seems to be related to codification, references to the past within the process itself, and how ingrained it becomes in the overall political culture.

The preservation and recovery of unique public places in the twenty-first century could help resurrect deliberative democracy as well as community and collective decision making. Democracy becomes effective when those who have the capacity and will to live by its rule are able to deliberate together about what really matters in their community life. If there was once an openness to deliberation in a community, then maybe this could resurface with new opportunities.

____________________

¹ Cristiane Olivo, The Practical Problems of Bridging Civil Society and the State: A Study of Round Tables in Eastern Germany, Polity 31 (Winter 1998): 245-267.

² The case studies not included in this volume were:

Melanie Beauvy, Political Participation at the Village Level in the Frankish Kingdom during the Middle Ages.

Elfidio Cano del Cid, Guatemala: Santiago Atitlan: A Case of Contemporary Civic and Political Participation.

Gheorghe Cretu, Decision Making Process in the Romanian Togetherness Villages.

Lariza Pizano and Sandra Martinez, The Cabildo of Santafe de Bogota: Between Deliberation and Representation.

Luciano de Privitellio and Luis Alberto Romero, Civil Society Organizations, Civic Traditions and Democratic Culture: The Case of Buenos Aires, 1912-1976.

Parichart Sthapitanonda, The Deliberation Process in the Urban Society: A Case Study of the Civic Group in Banglumpoo Area, Bangkok, Thailand.

³ Etymologically, veche comes from a word meaning to speak or to talk. In early Russia, the word was used to denominate town meetings.

⁴ Kava (Piper methysticum) is an ancient crop of the western Pacific. Kava is related to black pepper; both have heart-shaped leaves and flowers similar to the flower spike of the anthurium. Kava also has a peppery taste. Kava has long been a part of religious, political, and cultural life throughout the Pacific. Kava is traditionally consumed as an herbal tea.

⁵ Amartya Sen, Democracy and Its Global Roots, The New Republic (October 2003).

Background Paper

The Political Anthropology of Civil Practices

¹

By Noëlle McAfee & Denis Gilbert

In the world today, people everywhere are faced with seemingly intractable problems: deep divisions in society and the conflicts among those of different beliefs or ethnic backgrounds. Even powerful states, with their electoral structures and legislative bodies, have only a limited ability to address these problems. The frustrations and ineffectiveness of states in dealing with tough issues have forced citizens to consider a more active role (beyond merely voting) in affecting results. When people collectively assume responsibility and act together to solve their problems, we experience a renewed sense of what politics really means: politics includes civil practices, not just government action.

Politics seems to be a human invention, gradually created as people came to think of their fate as no longer beyond their control but subject to human decision making.

Democracy, when referring to political systems, can have many meanings, depending on its context. Most nations today call themselves democracies despite obvious differences. Conventionally, the story of democracy has a narrow focus.

Democratic theorists love to say how the Greeks invented democratic politics and how it flourished ever so briefly, then died, not to be revived until the French and American Revolutions. Democratic politics seems to require very delicate machinery and special circumstances, and those who are not blessed with these have to learn how to practice it from others. Those who are seeking ways to develop democratic politics within their own countries are now looking abroad to countries that have followed first the Greeks, then the French, and finally the Americans in practicing democracy.

A review of the literature of political anthropology at the Kettering Foundation suggests that there may be another way to think about the politics of common problem solving and the way one particular form of that politics, democracy, evolved. Inclusive, community-oriented, common-problem-solving societies are not exclusive to American-style democracy. We are so accustomed to thinking that the Greeks—and only the Greeks—invented these structures that we rarely notice that cultures around the globe and throughout history had similar practices.

Certain civil practices conducive to common problem solving can be found globally and historically. Despite the conventional wisdom that the Greeks invented democratic politics and that those who want to build their own democracies ought to mimic the Greeks, it appears that the politics that preceded and led to the Athenian state are indigenous to most every culture. Civil practices, in an array of forms, develop wherever people come together to form political communities. Democratic practices are foreign to no one. Before there were countries, human societies had to be able to act collectively in order to survive. As the survival tasks became larger than kinship groups of families and tribes could handle, people had to create larger solidarity groups to secure the assistance of those who were strangers. Through the communal hunts of subarctic hunting societies, for example, individual knowledge and skills merged into collective action.²

Our survival as a species may be due, in large measure, to our ability to band together and act cooperatively. If not, another human propensity—to fear and make war on strangers—would have done us in. These early political communities throughout the world seem to have been less hierarchical than modern states and relatively egalitarian. Many of them were matriarchally based.

The need for solidarity among people who were not bound by blood ties led to political myths, legends of a common ancestor. Without this coherence, a group cannot define itself to itself or others, and cannot inspire or guide collective action. Universally, cultural myths speak of a Golden Age in a society’s past as a model for an ideal collective and to provide symbols of unity. In the tradition of the Ashanti of southern Ghana, it is maintained that the queen-mother originated from the moon and as such she is the source of life.… All clan members regard themselves as children of one mother and consequently of one ancestress, the woman who gave life to their clan.³ The Navaho provide an even more dramatic example: They are completely cooperative in their culture, guided by the life context of hozho, which refers to an environment that consists of beauty, harmony, and happiness. The Iroquois Confederation is regularly cited as a non-Western example of political unity. The Iroquois:

achieved lasting success by establishing an elaborate system of checks and balances that protected the rights of the member nations while striving constantly to maintain harmony among the peoples who comprised them. The first section of the Great Law refers to the planting of the Tree of the Great Peace, a white pine that symbolizes the unity of the league.⁴

Every early political community had to create a public space for people to communicate and associate with each other. Public spaces allowed people to band together as a matter of habit rather than crisis, in anticipation of collective action. The Landsgemeinde, or cantonal assembly, is an old form of uniquely Swiss public space, which originated in the early cantons of Central Switzerland.⁵ In addition, there is the case of historic Iceland:

Icelandic epic sagas tell us of assemblies that all men were entitled to attend and where all disputes and grievances were debated. At first, assemblies were confined to particular districts, but eventually a general assembly was formed to which men could come from any part of the island. An assembly was called a Thing, referring to the public affairs it dealt with, and in concept it was similar to a republic, which also deals with res (things or affairs) publica (public). The general assembly, known as