non-hierarchical decision-making
by - 28.01.2004 00:00
some comments and links on non-hierarchical meeting/decision-making methods
The methods are known: use them!
28.01.2004 22:13
The ESFs and WSFs in general have (so far) lacked transparency. If the United Kollectives activists can get the London ESF to be a radically transparent, consensual, non-hierarchical forum, that would be a *huge* contribution to the whole peace and justice struggle. So please keep going even though it's a hard struggle!
My feeling is you might need to insist on something like formal consensus for decision-making, though clearly there are all sorts of manipulative tactics that the SWP and so on probably use (whether intentionally or not). Activist groups in the US have written a lot of excellent texts about all sorts of meeting techniques.
i very strongly recommend that you and other non-authoritarian people *read* through all this stuff below. Maybe having some sort of "practice" sessions where some people play the devil's advocate and deliberately use certain techniques to be manipulative, and everyone else practices reacting and using techniques to disenable the manipulation, might be useful.
If you think it's too much to read, have pity on activists in non-English speaking countries who need to translate it all (or find equivalent stuff in the local language). Appreciate the opportunity of already having this ready: read it, apply it!
There's no need to reinvent the wheel!
*
http://www.consensus.net/formal.html
Food not Bombs have some articles on formal consensus procedure. Quite good, useful for reference, especially http://www.consensus.net/ocac2.html
# http://www.geocities.com/collectivebook
Building a book on collective process that focuses on recognizing abuses, power-plays and negative group dynamics that can occur in egalitarian collectives.
# http://starhawk.org/activism/trainer-resources/consensus-nu.html
- Starhawk
As for consensus itself, there's a long discussion by michael albert, which more or less says that in practice, consensus methods are often more a method of improved communication than the actual decision method, and that different situations require different sorts of decision-making methods - as long as everyone affected can participate (this is the principle), the method itself is a technique, not a principle. Anyway, here is michael's text:
# http://www.zmag.org/forums/consenthread.htm
Another idea: why not use the sort of software technology that indymedia is using?
At a minimum, using public mailing lists with public archives, but even better, why not use a wiki? The indymedia wiki is only used for indy documentation, which is not very controversial, but the wiki culture on the wikipedia has lead to *consensus* - at a meta-level - on a wide range of controversial subjects, e.g. Israel/Palestine. Have a look at, say,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
to see how radical transparency can lead to quite impressive and original - and precise and (mostly) accurate - texts on quite controversial subjects.
Radical proposal for the ESF:
(1) the ESF web pages should be *entirely* wiki pages, so that anyone with internet access can restructure pages, speeches, programmes, etc.
(2) if email contacts are used, they should all correspond to publicly archived mailing lists (like on indymedia - usually)
(3) any *exceptions* to (2) (e.g. for personal data regarding participants' personal information) must be themselves *publicly* debated with proposals made on wiki pages and/or publicly archived mailing lists.
Indymedia and GNU/linux have been using these techniques for years and no big catastrophe has resulted from using them. On the contrary, radical transparency and non-hierarchy are among the reasons why both have been so successful and continue to grow. Since the ESF is about exchanging ideas, networking, communication about proposals for post-communist-capitalist social models - it's not for organising civil disobedience - there's no reason for not using the same techniques.
28.01.2004 22:13
The ESFs and WSFs in general have (so far) lacked transparency. If the United Kollectives activists can get the London ESF to be a radically transparent, consensual, non-hierarchical forum, that would be a *huge* contribution to the whole peace and justice struggle. So please keep going even though it's a hard struggle!
My feeling is you might need to insist on something like formal consensus for decision-making, though clearly there are all sorts of manipulative tactics that the SWP and so on probably use (whether intentionally or not). Activist groups in the US have written a lot of excellent texts about all sorts of meeting techniques.
i very strongly recommend that you and other non-authoritarian people *read* through all this stuff below. Maybe having some sort of "practice" sessions where some people play the devil's advocate and deliberately use certain techniques to be manipulative, and everyone else practices reacting and using techniques to disenable the manipulation, might be useful.
If you think it's too much to read, have pity on activists in non-English speaking countries who need to translate it all (or find equivalent stuff in the local language). Appreciate the opportunity of already having this ready: read it, apply it!
There's no need to reinvent the wheel!
*
http://www.consensus.net/formal.html
Food not Bombs have some articles on formal consensus procedure. Quite good, useful for reference, especially
http://www.consensus.net/ocac2.html
#
http://www.geocities.com/collectivebook
Building a book on collective process that focuses on recognizing abuses, power-plays and negative group dynamics that can occur in egalitarian collectives.
#
http://starhawk.org/activism/trainer-resources/consensus-nu.html
- Starhawk
As for consensus itself, there's a long discussion by michael albert, which more or less says that in practice, consensus methods are often more a method of improved communication than the actual decision method, and that different situations require different sorts of decision-making methods - as long as everyone affected can participate (this is the principle), the method itself is a technique, not a principle. Anyway, here is michael's text:
#
http://www.zmag.org/forums/consenthread.htm
Another idea: why not use the sort of software technology that indymedia is using?
At a minimum, using public mailing lists with public archives, but even better, why not use a wiki? The indymedia wiki is only used for indy documentation, which is not very controversial, but the wiki culture on the wikipedia has lead to *consensus* - at a meta-level - on a wide range of controversial subjects, e.g. Israel/Palestine. Have a look at, say,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
to see how radical transparency can lead to quite impressive and original - and precise and (mostly) accurate - texts on quite controversial subjects.
Radical proposal for the ESF:
(1) the ESF web pages should be *entirely* wiki pages, so that anyone with internet access can restructure pages, speeches, programmes, etc.
(2) if email contacts are used, they should all correspond to publicly archived mailing lists (like on indymedia - usually)
(3) any *exceptions* to (2) (e.g. for personal data regarding participants' personal information) must be themselves *publicly* debated with proposals made on wiki pages and/or publicly archived mailing lists.
Indymedia and GNU/linux have been using these techniques for years and no big catastrophe has resulted from using them. On the contrary, radical transparency and non-hierarchy are among the reasons why both have been so successful and continue to grow. Since the ESF is about exchanging ideas, networking, communication about proposals for post-communist-capitalist social models - it's not for organising civil disobedience - there's no reason for not using the same techniques.