Democracy as it is practiced in western countries consists of periodically voting in elections and then leaving the winners to just get on with it with no more binding input from the electorate. Governments can become immensely unpopular and still retain office until an election is due. Politicians have no need to seek voters opinions or input outside of electioneering. It seems nothing we say has any effect, even opinion polls are only noticed when it suits them.

I wonder is there any way we can change our systems of democracy to give the people more of a say. Would there be a way to make recallability (sacking pollies or calling of new elections if enough people wanted it) workable. Are there any other ideas. Could the internet be useful in some way? Will it lead to self goveernment?
Is anyone even interested?

mikk

Then comes the practical buts paramount among these are those who have power via the current system(?) will resist any change they perceive as a threat to that power by fair means or foul.

To illustrate this point consider "the glass ceiling" debate. This has been a focus for 40 years+ and progress is painfully slow even though the change only involves a limited number directly.
If we then extend that number to politicians of all levels and their supporting bases all of which have their own little power kingdoms you have a very much larger "resistant mass". By the time we add those unenlightened souls who don't understand the current system and don't want to we then have belligerent, recalcitrant, hissing and spiting inertia .
Here one only needs to look at the 'republic' debate which on the side of the royalists, is based more on emotion, prejudice than fact.

In other posts I raised the same issue as you by advocating the following:
1. Two legislative bodies Cabinet (national) and the Reps .
2. Make elections on a strictly proportional basis. Similar to the Hare Clark system .
3. All political campaigns limited and reimbursed by the govt.
4. No political parties.
5. Campaigns only on policy ...
6. People vote for policy first
7. Then their choice of candidate as a local member.
8. All parliamentary votes on online with explanations as you suggested.
9. National Vote for ministries in cabinet.
10. Fixed general elections four years.
11. By elections can be held when 45% of the electorate sign a petition demanding same or resignation.
12. Limit the number of consecutive terms three terms in reps, two for cabinet.
13. Independently elected speaker.
14. Increase wages by 20% super the same as everyone else.
15. Stop gold card entitlements for ex’s
16. Trips o/s for reps must be approved by the relevant minister and the cabinet then published.
That’s a good starting point.

No political parties is a good idea in theory. Those exceptional men who devised the US Constitution thought that the new country could operate without political parties. Political parties quickly appeared, but the law of the land did not provide for them. It is a normal tendency for people with common interests in a democracy to unite as a party to support those interests. It is better to recognise that in the law of the land and provide for it than to imagine that it wouldn't happen.

It is my experience that many Australians are overly respectful or cowed by authority. Like some other Australians I am bothered by the fact that there are no checks on the power of the prime minister to make war. Senator Bartlett circulated a petition which called for checks on that power such as open debate in parliament and other checks before a prime minister sends in the armed forces where there is no immediate or evident danger to Australia. I took a copy of the petition with me to a men's club I belonged to. Although several men said they agreed with the petition they were unwilling to put their names on it.

To have accountability it is necessary to create a feeling that citizens have a duty to call their government to account. Periodic elections are not enough.

It is also necessary to make Australia a representative democracy. At present parliamentary do not consider the wishes of their constituency, their conscience of the good of Australia. "They always vote at their parties call, and they never think of thinking for themselves at all."

Mikk its a big problem and I think it was Churchill who summed it up best " demoracy is a terrible form of government but its the best we have"

What we need is another "doctrine of the two kingdoms" except this time it helps lead to the seperation of goverment and captialism which will stop big business and other ugly lobby groups getting their voices heard above that of the people.

Most people agree that democracy is the fairest and most workable solution for the common good of large populations. A majority of those people believe it is the only solution. The idea of Government by the people and for the people is an ideal that has been fought for and for which people have given their whole lives.

It therefore appals us that even this 'perfect' solution does not seem to be working. However, knowing that we can't come up with anything better, we tend to accept the flaws of our own systems because we assume that the only alternative to democracy is unthinkable.

However, democracy per se, is a system that not one country in the current world can lay claim to. It simply does not exist. "By the People. For the People"? It hasn't happened.

Perhaps we should stop listening to those who keep telling us that we already live in a democracy? Uncritical acceptance of this statment gives rise to a sort of fatalism such as that expressed above by Winnie.

We should keep on striving to achieve democracy because, yes, it probably is the best we could have. We just haven't arrived at it yet.

I came across some information on an international conference, They have very interesting panels on identity and a featured panel on Barak Obama and you can also make a real African Safari…

AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
IDENTITY POLITICS ON THE INTERNET
August 27-29, 2009
Organized by Institute of Identity Research (IDmap)
www.idmap-conferences.net
Will be held in Amboseli Wildlife National Park, Kenya
Featured panel: Barack Obama' Election and Kenyan politics of Identity:
Will he identify himself with the World or with his People?

• The Dead line for submission of the Abstracts is 01.05.2009 (200-500 words)
in Word or PDF formats
• The Dead line for submission of full-text papers is 01.07.2009
Preliminary program of the Conference includes the following panels:
• Kenyan 2007 Presidential elections and the Internet
• Traditions and Identity in Kenyan politics: Barak Obama as a Luo
representative of Kenyan identity politics
• Facebook and Identity: do old ethnicity definitions still matter?
• World Identity politics: Case-studies and Comparative Analysis
• Parties and recruitment in the digital world
• Gender, ethnicity and empowerment: what is better to be a white man or a
black woman?
• When religion comes to the Internet: the new ways to build and reinforce
religious identity
• Government on the Internet: new ways to preserve Nation-state and its
identity on the Net
• New English and E-Linguistic: jargon and vocabulary of Internet campaigns
Participants are welcomed to join the following working groups:
• Computers and identity
• Culture and identity
• Mathematical expressions of identity
• Internet and Politics
• Internet Vocabulary
Best Identity MA/PhD Thesis work award:
During the conference the Institute will award the best MA/PhD work submitted
for the evaluation. The work should reveal an original and innovative approach
in the field of Identity with its expression on the Internet. Information
regarding submission procedure can be found on our site or through direct
contact of our Administrators.

www.idmap.net

muoka wrote: "Featured panel: Barack Obama' Election and Kenyan politics of Identity:
Will he identify himself with the World or with his People?"

I am one of Barack Obama's people. I am a citizen of the United States who lives in Australia. We have elected him president of our country. We are his people, and I expect that he will identify with us.

Barack Obama has a varied ancestry, His father was a black man from a Kenyan tribe. His mother was a white woman from Kansas. He is neither a Kansan nor a Kenyan. He is neither black nor white although he is called a black man because in a racist America anybody with any discernible black ancestry has been labeled black. By electing him president my country has become less racist. I am white and claim him as a member of my tribe.

Some good points made.

What about the idea of referendums on important issues of the day to be included at the time of a general election.

The elected government would have more than just a mandate merely by being chosen over an other party, but a real voice on what the people expect of their government.

The larger a population becomes the harder it is to instal 'real' democracy. Democracy becomes unwieldy and difficult to administer unlike within a small commune where decisions can be made around the dinner table; and where larger influences (like the financial crisis) may require a shift in position.

I don't expect one can ever aspire to real democracy as defined by "by the people and of the people". But we can come a lot closer than where we stand now.

At least the current government is attempting to be more consultative through the summit and the community cabinets.

The proof will be in whether anything comes of that consultation.

In political science, the initiative (also known as popular or citizen's initiative) provides a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote on a proposed statute, constitutional amendment, charter amendment or ordinance, or, in its minimal form, to simply oblige the executive or legislative bodies to consider the subject by submitting it to the order of the day.

A referendum (plural referendums or referenda), ballot question, or plebiscite (from Latin plebiscita, originally a decree of the Concilium Plebis) is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy.

A recall election is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office. Recall has a history dating back to the ancient Athenian democracy.[1] During the American Revolution the Articles of Confederation stipulated that state legislatures might recall delegates from the continental congress.[2] The Virginia Plan, issued at the outset of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, proposed to pair recall with rotation in office, and to apply these dual principles to the lower house of the national legislature.

Some of the western United States have various forms of initiative, referendum and recall. They have all been tried, and they all work.

david f, Obama will not be the saviour of the US.He is too socialist.He is putting the US into more debt.Follow Ron Paul the Texan ,he predicted this debacle and sees the reduction of debt and small Govt as the way to go.

Democracy!
What is our role in the election of the leader and other top officers in a party?
Who creates the party program and what is our role for the creation of this program?
What is the role of the mass media in the creation of the public oppinion?
Do the mass media write the truth? Do the promote peoples interests or their own?
Is our level high enouph to understand what is truth and what not, what benefit us and what not?
Is the electoral system fair or we vote other party and our votes go to an other, why the greens with about 7.5% do not have any federal MP?
What is our role as citizens between the elections?
Can PM take decisions for very important issues which was not in his program in the last elections and which will have high impact on our future or violate basic human rights?
How we can block the PM of ignoring the majority of citizens on any issue?
What about the democracy in work places? What about the democracy in scools?
What about the democracy in economy, culture, religioys democracy, community etc?
How we can deepen and widen the democracy?
How we can learn to live democraticaly?
What is the democratic principals, values?
What about the democracy in local, national or international level?
Can we use foreign tanks to create democracy?
What about the non democratic movements, as NAZI etc, how democracy defents its self from all these non democratic movements?
Is democracy compatible with any kind of descriminations?
What about the e-democracy, referendum, online referendum, democracy now, opem democracy etc?
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

thanks Antonios and everyone else. Seems we can all see the problems and the answers it is now just a matter of convincing those in power to relinquish some of it to us the people. That sounds like a tough request. Anyone got any ideas on how to achieve that one? Maybe we do need a revolution.

Antonios brings up an interesting point about workplaces, schools etc. Should we be looking to introduce democracy across the board? Businesses today are nothing more than "tinpot african dictatorships" with employees being virtual slaves to the owners and executives of the firm. Only the bosses make decisions and workers have no free will while at work. Hardly democratic and definitely unfair and the unequal power relationships allow and encourage exploitation of workers by their bosses. Should we be trying to extend participatory democracy to workplaces? Is that socialism?

Romany

I agree that democracy is probably the best system but it has flaws that we should be aware of. The biggest is that the masses do vote for the public purse; the Greeks knew about it and so did people like Jefferson. I would also add that the American constitution is a good document but unfortunately any and everything can be corrupted / misinterpreted beyond recognition.

On closer inspection it is in fact the debt based monetary system that is just as important as the political system. In other words if politicians were able to print money they would and the world would have collapsed many times over the past few hundred years. Thus its credit and the seriousness of debt that has kept the peace more that political will. This is why the printing of money as in happening in the UK is so dangerous; trust has been broken and revolution may occur as this is where hyperinflation leads

IMO. the way to go, as mentioned earlier, are C.I.R.
Citizen Initiated Referenda, that are legally binding on the Gov'.
Get up a petition, get enough people to support it, then it MUST be put to a referendum, and acted on if passed. I just can't see any way to bring this in, obviously the existing power groups will resist it to the death, and they'll have the Media onside too, vested interests are vested interests after all. I suspect that a popular movement now might work, but the situations going to get a lot worse before you'll get most people off the backsides, and away from the telly!
There is a drawback to cir's though, it makes us more vulnerable to demagogues, and just imagine if one had been started in america after 9/11, it would have made the Homelands Security Act look like the boy-scout's handbook! Mob- mentality can be a dangerous thing, and just imagine if Murdoch or Packer or such decided to promote an issue, the power to warp minds nowadays is scary as all get-out, that would put even more in their hands! Bears thinking about, doesn't it.
I've always said the "natural" power structure for humans is the Tribe, or Clan, and since we've started congregating in larger numbers, we have'nt found one that works, some-one always pays a hard price. I just can't think what would work, and nor can finer minds than mine, lol, perhaps computer technology will finally supply it?