28/07/2025
Jakob Jespersen, der i 2024 udgav "LIVSDEMOKRATIET" på forlaget FJORDAGER, har skrevet dette indlæg om demokratisk fornyelse ... for engelsksprogede:
The Diffuse Demos
- a national democracy that includes future generations, people outside the nation, and life on Earth
Abstract
This article argues that it is both ethical right and practically possible to have national representative democracies in which future generations, people outside the nation state, and Life on Earth can propose and vote on legislation on issues that affect them.
The main proposal is to add a second national assembly of
representatives chosen by lottery among the nation’s adult population. One third of this assembly is given the task of representing future generations; one third has the task to represent (vulnerable) people outside the state who are significantly affected by national decisions, and finally one third of the assembly has the
task of representing the interests of Life on Earth (i.e., all other life forms, the biosphere, the ecosystems).
The task of the second assembly is both to approve or reject relevant proposals passed by the ordinary parliament and to put forward proposals for legislation, which will the need the approval of the parliament to become law.
The ethics
The often-unspoken ethics of democracy is, that those who are affected by decisions also must have some possibilities for – alone or together with others – influencing those decisions. We consider it undemocratic that women did not have the right to vote e.g., in a referendum on women’s suffrage whatever the democratic constitution said about voting rights. So, there is a democratic ethics behind the constitution.
And it seems to be the idea, that those who are significantly affected by a decision must have the possibility to affect those decisions. Those who have a stake must have a say.
The history
Most national democracies were established as a result of a persistent call by a population for freedom from either internal domination by kings, dictators etc. or from external powers such as colonial empires. And the call came from a well-defined population in a well-defined area.
Given this situation and the fact that the state had the power to collect tax, call conscripts and to punish its citizens it was no surprise that the citizens of the new democracies thought of themselves as those who were influenced by the governments decisions and therefore that it was them – and them only - who had the right, through elections, to influence those decisions. Independence and sovereignty were of key importance.
Technology and globalization
The world of the 21st century is very different for that of the 19th century when many western democracies
were formed. The power of technology plus cheap energy and globalization means that many of the decisions made by the rich nations have serious effects on generations far into the future, have effects on people in other countries1 and have effects on other life forms and the ecosystems in general. If we follow the idea that those who have a stake also must have a say, then future generations, people outside the nation and Life on Earth must have a say in the decision made by the national parliaments for them to be democratic. The question is how.
Selecting representatives for future generations, people outside the nation and Life on Earth
1 The world was already heavily influenced by decisions made by western Europe democracies during the colonial period. We tend to think that representative democracy necessarily means that citizens choose their representatives though elections. But electing representatives by sortition i.e. lottery, was a strong
tradition before the French and American constitutions from the end of the 18th century. Since it is impossible for e.g., future generations to vote in a general election it seems logical to look at sortition as an alternative democratic way of choosing representatives for the future, the world outside the state and
nature.
However only people who are alive today can participate in democratic deliberations, make proposals and vote. The most straight forward solution is therefore to select among the citizens by lottery one group of citizens who once elected will be given the task of representing future generation, select another group to represent people outside the nation and select a third group who will represent of Life of Earth. It is worth emphasizing that citizens selected in this way are democratically selected and that they
are representative of the general population to a higher degree than the representatives selected through general elections. These “future representatives”, “world representatives” and “Life representatives” could be members of the ordinary parliament with voting rights equal to the other MPs or they may constitute a
second assembly with e.g., the power to veto legislations passed by the parliament. It is the idea of a second assembly that we will elaborate here.
The FWL-assembly
The FWL-assembly is called so because it consists of representatives for Future generations, representatives for people from the rest of the World, and representative for Life on Earth. Since it is a
difficult task to represent future generations, people outside the state and Life on Earth each the FWLassembly should not be too small. An FWL-assembly of 240 members would mean that each of the three stakeholder groups would be represented by 80 citizens, which seems reasonable, but even an assembly of half that number might work. The members sit for a period of three years with one third being changed every year.
Why not experts?
Since it is a difficult task for ordinary citizens to represent the interests of e.g., future generations it might be far better to have experts in the field of future research speak on the behalf of those generations.
This raises two questions. First: if the people who are to represent e.g., future generations are appointed by the existing representative democratic system then they have limited power vis-a vis that system. Second: experts can provide detailed information and point out issues to be considered, but to take decisions value judgement is needed. While experts may have well-argued opinions, these personal opinions do not carry much weight viz a viz the opinions of the representative elected by the citizens. Finally, a large part of the population is highly suspicious of experts, academics, and ‘the like’.
The only way that representatives of future generations, people outside the state and Life on Earth can be politically on par with the traditional politicians is if they are democratically elected (by lottery).
Since the FWL-assembly holds political power, many will be interested in influencing it. Especially the NGO
community will be relevant and more than willing to give advice and make its opinions heard on the issues related to the future generations, the world’s poor and nature. The representatives will thus have access to all expert knowledge and opinions about the issues they discuss. The FWL-assembly can furthermore call on
the ministries to provide information.
The experiences with participatory pollsi lasting a few days are, that if ordinary citizens selected by lottery are given responsibility, if they are provided with relevant information and opinions, and if they meet and discuss with the assistance of experienced facilitators, then their capacity to make qualified decisions is
surprisingly high. Since the FWL-assembly will be semi-permanent its capacity to think on behalf of others will develop over time.
The FWL-assembly’s mandates
The FWL-assembly has a double mandate. The first mandate is to approve or reject proposals already passed by the elected parliament. That is, it works like most other second assemblies such as the American senate. The second mandate is to work as a first assembly i.e., the FWL-assembly has the task, with help from the ministries etc., to develop and pass proposals within the area of the groups it represent. These will then need the approval of the elected parliament to become law.
The effect of the first mandate is to make the laws developed and passed by the ordinary parliament less bad for future generations, people outside the state and Life on Earth. The FWL acts a as brake on the process of neglecting and harming the FWL stakeholders and it will over time result in the parliamentarians considering the FWL interests in their proposals to avoid a rejection by the FWL-assembly.
The second mandate is about legislation that has a positive effect on the FWL-stakeholders. This is very important because a lot of problems for the FWL-stakeholders are about decisions not being made.
It should be kept in mind that the two assemblies are not equal because the ordinary parliament deals with all laws while the FWL-assembly only concerns itself with laws that affects the three groups of stakeholders it represents. The FWL-assembly will also only meet for limited periods during the year.
Because this proposal means that power is taken away from the parliament it almost certainly requires a change in the national constitution.
Global governance
Let us imagine that several states establishing FWL-assemblies, and that the future-, world- and life-, representatives from these states started networking. Such a network could be very creative, would think globally and the ideas create by it would influence legislation in each state through the FWL-assemblies.
This could be the beginning of a non-hierarchic global governance system.
The details and potentials of such a system
The above is a very short summary of the book with the Danish title “Livsdemokratiet – en stemme til fremtiden, Verden og livet på Jorden” which roughly translates into: “Life Democracy – a Voice and a Vote for the Future, the World and Life on Earth”. At the national level, the interaction between the FWLparliament and civil society is described in detail and at the global level two sortition-based systems for global governance are described.
More information is available from me:
Jakob Jespersen
Phone +45 4255 1080
E-mail: [email protected]
i
See e.g., “Democracy When the People Are Thinking: Revitalizing Our Politics Through Public Deliberation”
James Fishkin
