Liberate by de-liberating, vote by compulsion

The ideal of democracy is that citizens can on an equal basis engage with and influence the direction of their society. This notion of joint self-determination poses a huge number of questions: what defines the ‘society’; who qualifies as a citizen; what kind of equality can there be; does it just mean the tyranny of the majority or are minorities protected by rights encoded in a higher law; how do citizens have equal access to the arguments?

Let’s put all these kind of general questions on one side even though their presence shapes what follows. Let us consider some actually existing societies and in particular the United Kingdom and the European Union. Here are two ostensibly democratic entities built on much learning and experience. The first regards itself as being the home to the ‘mother of parliaments’. But now, more and more of its voters are going on a passive strike and declining to turn up at the polls. Should they be made to vote?

But supposing they did, would they be any the wiser and the outcomes any better? Voting for the European Parliament (so-called, for it is not a true legislature) is catastrophically low. The EU generates a lot of legislation and sets standards for hundreds of millions - yet few feel that it enhances their collective ‘self-determination’. Would it help to bring a representative cross-section together under conditions that allowed them as regular citizens to deliberate directly on the future of the continent?

These two practical questions, one posed in the recalcitrant Kingdom that still does not believe itself to be European, the other looking at the grandest experiment in true international sharing of sovereignty of our time, come at the same issue: how can citizens engage in a fashion that gives legitimacy and credibility to the outcome?

openDemocracy is hosting both debates in two separate sections of its coverage. They are part of an experiment in opening out openDemocracy in a networked fashion to new partners committed to the same high standards.

dLiberation is, we hope, going to be about those big questions posed at the start with a special focus on the process of engagement. It will pursue living examples rather than generic discussion and the launch example is the EU’s first deliberative poll in which some hundreds of citizens from all 27 countries will be brought together in Brussels just before the summit later this month. Is there a European ‘demos’ or people? How can people be engaged with issues that are international in their force? We will be looking down a large microscope.

In Britain there has been a sudden rise in interest in new devices that might re-engage the public and ‘restore trust’. Some of these are fundamentally conservative, seeking to burnish, modernise and restore the existing order of things rather than make the order itself more democratic. Others can indeed alter the balance of power (for example, the creation of national parliaments in Scotland and Wales). The latest is the proposal to make voting compulsory.

Fiona MacTaggart, an articulate Labour MP who was a Minister and is now just a regular member of parliament on the so-called ‘back benches’ argued at a recent Fabian conference in favour of compulsory voting. She wants to see it as part of a larger reform of the voting system to make it more proportional. She also argued that while citizens should vote as a duty and by law they had to have the right to tick a box saying ‘none of the above’.

A member of the audience, Suzy Dean was appalled. She felt it was an attempt to resolve by compulsion what should be addressed by freedom, and a persuasive change of behaviour by the parties. She sent her denunciation of Fiona MacTaggart to us. It opens our debate. We are publishing it with the MP’s reply. You can read Susy here and Fiona here.

Please read the debate and let us know your comments. And please follow the ongoing exploration of European wide deliberation and democracy at dLiberation. For me, one of the most interesting and I think original parts of  Fiona MacTaggart’s reply is when she talks about what it is like to be an MP. The present system places a huge premium on organising your own supporters. There is little need to try and persuade others to change their mind. If MPs knew all citizens were going to vote they would need to try and persuade them. Engagement is a two-way street and, oddly enough, by legally obliging citizens to vote, it would then become a must for the politicians to try and persuade them doorstep by doorstep.

The exchange takes the debate further than I have seen it and as Britain has just gone through a revolting spectacle of self-manipulation as the Prime Minister wrestled with whether or not he should exercise his prerogative power and call a ‘snap’ election there is, perhaps, a growing feeling that we need some rules. Should making voting a legal duty be one of them?