segunda-feira, 11 de dezembro de 2023

Example of how to prevent participatory democracy from turning into democracism

We live in representative democracies in which politicians supposedly represent the interests of the population. The ideal, however, would be for democracy to be more participatory, that is, for it to have greater, more direct participation by citizens, which would happen mainly through plebiscites, even more so if the political class, in representative democratic regimes, tends to represent and defending their own interests and not prioritizing the interests, or rather, the well-being of the population. But, there is another caveat, as a participatory democracy can easily slip into democracism, a dystopia of democracy itself in which the opinion of the majority starts to be treated as law, regardless of whether it is more right or not, in moral and intellectual terms.


So, thinking of a way to prevent the search for improving democracy from ending up having the opposite effect, I propose here a model of plebiscite within a scenario of full or participatory democracy. In this model, popular participation will not be alone, because together with specialists (in fact) and specific groups that are more interested, they will also have voting power, even to maintain a greater balance. And, to establish this parity, the voting power of both must be relatively equivalent to the popular vote. In this way, the opinion of a majority will have to be compared with the opinion of the minority most interested in the topic and also with the opinion of experts, those who generally know more about it.


Example: a plebiscite to determine whether children with gender dysphoria should be allowed to "transition" to their desired sex.


Popular vote: represents 50% with 100% agreement

Expert vote: represents 30% with 100% agreement

Interest group vote: represents 20% with 100% agreement


So, if 70% of the population is against, 60% of experts and 40% of the interest population, it would look more or less like this, if the expert and interest group votes represent 50% of the total votes, in the first case it will be 60 out of 30 % and the second 40 of 20%, obtaining results, respectively, 18% and 8% and, together, making up 26% of the total votes against. These will finally be added to the popular vote: 70 of 50% = 53%. 53 + 26 = 61% votes against the proposed measure. In this example, the popular vote weighed more. But it may happen that the votes of experts and interest groups make a difference...


This is in a scenario where the majority of proposals can be put to a vote.

Nenhum comentário:

Postar um comentário