E-Consultation: Report on a Workshop on Decision-Making.
The success of any consultation process
depends in large part on the decision-making procedure with
which it concludes.
Now in many human relationships, and certainly
in most domestic relationships, people use a consultation
process which allows for compromise. The same should apply
to the political arena. Unfortunately, in days of old, politics
was often a win-or-lose basis, and many consultations (public
enquiries and so forth) were little more than a subterfuge
in which the government invariably got its way.
To-day, however, with the Belfast Agreement
and so forth, there does appear to be a genuine desire to
create a more pluralist and a more inclusive politics, and
therefore, a more open and transparent administration. If
such is the aim, any consultation process should be based
on the following:
it should engage all interested
parties, and it should therefore be multi-optional;
parties should be able to make any
relevant suggestions (as long as they conform to agreed
norms on human rights); and
those parties (including the government)
should then express their preferences on all the options
proposed during the consultation process.
A methodology for this sort of debate was
first used by members of this Institute in 1991 at public
meetings with members of Sinn Fein, Ulster Unionists, and
everything else in between. Basically, the procedure is as
follows. Participants sit in a circle and each speaker is
limited to a certain time quota. A data projector is used
to display a constantly up-dated summary of all options "on
the table". If there is no unanimity when the debate
draws to a close, all parties are asked to confirm that their
aspiration is nevertheless represented in the final list of
options. This now becomes the multi-option ballot on which
the participants vote by expressing their preferences. The
voting profile is then displayed on the computer screen, and
the outcome is the option with the highest average preference.
The rules for counting the preferences are
very important. In the example presented at the workshop (please
see the attached power-point file), a given group of participants
- Ms. J, Mr. K, Ms L, etc. – expressed their preferences
on five options – A, B, C, D and E. These were then
analysed according to a number of different methodologies,
all of which are called democratic, but only two of which
give a really fair answer. Simple majority or plurality voting
gives the answer A, which represents the first wishes of a
few but not the best compromise for everyone. Two-round voting
and the single transferable vote give an outcome of E, which
is also an inaccurate expression of the common consensus.
A Borda or Condorcet count, however, give B as the winner;
what’s more, these counting procedures invariably give
that option which represents "the best compromise for
all concerned". Of the two, we recommend the Borda preferendum,
for it is a win-win voting methodology in which the outcome
depends on the preferences of every voter.
In conclusion, therefore, we propose the following
definition of a consultation process:
Every participant is allowed
to make proposals;
to join in the debate;
Every participant agrees
to compromise and, as part of that compromise,
to state their preferences;
And these preferences are then analysed
on the basis of either a Borda and/or a Condorcet count.
OurKingdom, the new economics foundation and the de Borda Institute recently gave interested parties from think tanks, research groups and campaigning organisations, and members of the general public, the opportunity to participate in an online trial of consensus decision making.
The de Borda Institute and nef (the new economics foundation) have received a grant from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust to test the potential of consensus voting More...
Site information now available in a number
of langugages
