Objeto de Automatización

In this section, I explore how legitimate material interests are both the means of assessing eligibility to participate in a specialised functional body as well as the method of demarcating the boundaries of the bodies’ authority. To explore this issue, I will first discuss the difficulties involved in decentralisation of government functions. Centralised multi-functional agencies provide a simpler method for organising issues and determining public policy, whereas demarchy creates a great deal of institutional disorganisation and redundancy. Burnheim’s solution is to have participants

themselves determine the limits of the specialised functional body’s authority, and he contends that these bodies are initially set up by higher-level bodies. I disagree with this latter proposal; I argue that higher-level bodies cannot set up the specialised functional bodies as this process would create the same type of tyranny that Burnheim intends to prevent.

52

The move from multi-functional agencies to specialised functional bodies in determining eligibility to participate in political decision-making on public policy requires closer examination, as there would be a significant increase in the number of specialised functional agencies if each public policy problem has its own deliberative body that has authority to deal with these matters. The Australian Federal government currently has 19 distinct issue portfolios (Australian Government, 2016a), each of which may be divided into a dozen or more sub-issues. Large multi-functional agencies provide a means of organising complex issues in a coherent manner. Demarchy has the potential to split each of these into its own specialised functional body. However, Burnheim (1985) does not see this as a grave concern. Indeed, he sees his proposal as providing more autonomy and bringing the issues closer to those who are affected by them. He argues that there is no reason why the various services that the local councils provide, such as “roads, parks, libraries, recreation facilities, building regulations, health services, garbage collection and so on, should not be run quite independently of each other, with different geographical circumscriptions and with closer relations to similar services in other areas than to many other services in their own area” (p. 6). In a modern technologically-driven society people increasingly belong to overlapping communities that engage in diverse social activities. Burnheim argues that there would be overlapping and interrelated functional authorities that would be akin to a political ecosystem, in contrast to the existing hierarchy of politics. He aims to create an alternative to geographically based political boundaries which have historically been able to delineate communities but become problematic for policy-making in a globalised context. Simply put, Burnheim is attempting to have people participate in a far more pragmatic manner than under other models of democracy. Demarchy aims to create a deliberative community; believing oneself to have an objectively correct point of view or doggedly pursuing one’s own agenda fails to be pragmatic. A useful though crude starting point for assessing eligibility is to look at all those affected and all those who are unaffected.

All governments deal with public issues and policy. Many electoral democracies deal with issues through centrally controlled multi-functional authorities, i.e., geographically-bounded entities such as local councils and nation states, whereas a demarchy does so through multiple specialised autonomous agencies, i.e., functional authorities, of varying geographical scope across issue areas.

In a demarchy, these functions will vary in accordance with the kinds of work the autonomous agencies are required to do. The tasks are split between specialised functional authorities charged with deliberation and negotiation over issues, and higher-order committees that have the

responsibility to coordinate, act as quasi-judicial bodies and develop procedures for selection. One

53

of the difficulties with using this structure is determining who is eligible to participate and who is not. Burnheim (2006) proposes that people should come together to address a specific issue, whereby the committee discusses the nature of the problem and how they are to begin to address it.

He points out that the convention for deciding on publicly accepted policy would require that people accept the decisions made by a group of volunteers selected by lot who are:

[w]ell informed about the question, well-motivated to find as a good a solution as possible and representative of our range of interests simply because they are statistically representative as a group. If this group is then responsible for carrying out what it decides, the problem of control of the execution process largely vanishes. Those directing the execution process are carrying out their own decisions. (p. 84)

He goes on to say that the group could require some stimulation or persuasion to provide motivation

“but there is no institutional basis for a conflict of interest between bodies responsible for making decisions and those responsible for execution” as they “have an overriding interest in showing that their decisions were practical and well grounded” (p. 84).

For Burnheim, a person’s interest in an issue makes them eligible to participate in the authority administering it, but this participation has term limits. Committee membership is based on rotation of the members at regular intervals to prevent the formation of political alliances as well as to create a continuity of governance. These groups meet when necessary to deliberate and make decisions on a specific issue. This may operate adequately with small issues that only require a single authority to administrate it but some issues may begin to overlap with multiple specialised functional authorities. For example, an environmental issue, such as preserving a local forest in a township may only require a small authority to oversee it but if the town develops or grows then this may begin to impact on other issues such as economic development or town planning. Within

Burnheim’s proposed structure, it is not clear what the organisational relationships are between the single-issue authorities. He argues that committees are to coordinate their activities with one another, but this creates the issue as to where authority lies. Agencies would be able to affect the outcomes of one another when their issues overlap. For example, a committee tasked with dealing with drought conditions may have impacts on other existing authorities, such as those for

agriculture, environmental protection, and sanitation.

54

Burnheim’s structure leaves too many ambiguities as to the limits and boundaries of each authority.

An example of this problem can be seen in the need for higher-order bodies; coordinating

committees which are multi-faceted in the functions they perform. He sees these higher authorities as responsible for “setting up the various functional bodies, hearing appeals about their structure, restructuring them to meet changed circumstances, and adjudicating their disagreements and dividing up resources between them” (p. 87). These bodies are not legislators but do create the framework for the functional authorities to operate within. Those people serving on higher-order committees are also chosen by random selection, though eligibility is not through legitimate

material interests. Instead, members must have already served on specialised functional authorities, as well as being nominated by peers on those committees as being highly competent and judicious.

Higher-level bodies are not to set the boundaries or limits on specialised functional authorities however; that task is implied to fall to those affected by the specific issue.

I find Burnheim’s stated role of higher-level bodies (to set up specialised functional bodies) to be somewhat misguided. If these higher-level bodies set up the specialised functional bodies, they violate the autonomy of those with legitimate material interests. Members of the higher-level bodies do not have legitimate material interests; their involvement in the creation of functional bodies would be dictatorial and authoritarian. They would be dictating who is affected and who is eligible to participate, when this needs to be done by the specialised functional body. The higher-level body may be useful in arbitrating disputes between the specialised functional bodies, but nothing more.

For example, a committee dealing with a human rights issue, such as euthanasia, would need to carefully consider the limits of its own authority. There are any number of groups which may have a legitimate material interest: those with terminal illnesses, medical professionals, families of those in palliative care, and even the whole population. The sanctity of life and the way we end life is an issue that affects all people, and arguably all people have a material interest in this issue. The committee needs to define the scope of this issue for themselves to be meaningfully representative;

this cannot occur if some external, non-interested body dictates who is eligible to participate and who is not. The specialised functional authorities themselves determine their own political boundaries, with Burnheim arguing that they do this by looking at legitimate material interests.

The concept of legitimate interests is difficult to define let alone implement when contextualised within a framework of modern industrial capitalist societies. Those who have a legitimate interest in an issue often come from multiple geographical locations while identifying with many overlapping

55

issues. Historically created boundaries are becoming increasingly inappropriate for democracies as they fail to account for the substantial changes the world has undergone. Burnheim (2016) points out that lives are now more complex than ever before and do not easily fit into previous notions of cities or villages. Political discourse in a demarchy becomes a matter of discussion and mediation of interests that are of public concern to make policy decisions. There is a much greater requirement for citizens² to recognise how they are affected by issues but this is challenging to measure. The community is not comprised merely of those affected by a single issue; citizens are members of many constituencies. Burnheim sees all people as part of a larger democratic community, but as individually affected by issues. His view more subtly embraces the nuances of contemporary political contexts, recognising the complexity of each issue in terms of those affected and how the context shapes the issue. The same issue may have completely different interests and implications when in a separate context; a specialised functional authority that administers noise pollution in a city centre will have different interests than one concerning the same issue in residential suburbs.

The city centre is a bustling commercial district likely having a 24-hour marketplace and so would have a high noise tolerance. The more suburban areas would be residential, requiring lower noise ordinances for people at home.

Burnheim (2016) explicitly argues that it is fallacious to view political communities as self-contained entities, as he states that this perspective of identity is no longer tenable in a globally interdependent world. He implies that a more accurate method of looking at this issue is to conceive of identity and congruency as:

a global ecosystem consisting of a host of diverse subsystems, each with its own specific needs and activities. Each of these subsystems has its relative independence from interconnectedness with other systems. The order of any such whole arises from the interactions of its diverse constituents. (p. 3)

Though not explicit, Burnheim recognises the difficulty in distinguishing between communities, identity, and how they are affected in a contemporary context. It may be the case that there are issues that affect groups in a specific manner, but it is becoming increasingly challenging to see

2 The term “citizen” has less significance in a demarchic context, implying that the individual is affected rather than having specific rights and duties to a nation or city-state. “Citizen” may have different meanings depending on the social, political or historical context. Burnheim implies that a demarchic citizen is eligible to be selected for participation.

56

these issues as clear and distinct. A person may live in one city, work in another, belong to a minority group while being a citizen of a completely different nation. Identities and congruencies are simply more complex than before. This complexity creates a difficulty for demarchy as it is not clear how far the authority of a specialised functional body should extend. The citizen needs to evaluate if they are affected and then engage dialogically with the specialised autonomous authority to decide whether they do have a legitimate interest. Each demarchic authority is to have

jurisdiction over those with a legitimate interest in a given issue.