35
Chapter 3:
General evaluation of impact: What does the model mean?
Competency
The concept of competency will change. Traditionally competence has its source in the
nation-state and can then go up to the supranational-international sphere or down to the local,
regional-federated sphere. The legitimisation for the national source of competency is a
virtual social contract.
Here competency has its source in the people and the social contracts they sign up.
Competency may continue to have territorial connections, but it will not have an a priori
territorial source. The national-territorial bond is shifted from the set of premises to the
results. Competency is founded originally, through an actual contract in the form of a poll. It
is not founded once for all matters and generations, but part for part and constantly open to
revision.
In leaving aside the premise of the nation as the source of competency, the concept of
competency is secularised from a metaphysical element. To the extent that nations represent
real communities and not mythical, imagined communities, they will receive competency
through polls.
92
Changing one concept, for instance that of competency, and keeping the others in place, is not
possible. This concept relies on that of sovereignty and territoriality. Sovereignty is knitted to
territoriality as well so that a change of the first will again have an impact on the second. Both
are essential to the definition of a society, which in its turn is strongly interrelated with every
individual’s self-concept and so on.
Not only the concepts of the theoretical level are hopelessly intertwined, but they are also
connected to reality. If we change concepts, reality will change.
93
People conceive themselves
as members of a national community. This has influence on their behaviour and becomes
social reality. To change one concept means to change them all.
94
It is impossible to foresee
the final result, which is one aspect of what has been called the modern condition.
Formally the model is pointing to competency, but in its working it will surely have indirect
impact on concrete political decisions. In how far the instrument of direct democracy is used
only as corrective and in how far it becomes the leading political sphere, degrading the sphere
of policy-implementation to a modern form of administration, depends on other factors. Both
in Germany and France the Head of Government is not directly elected by the people.
Nevertheless German elections to the national Parliament are factually an election on the
person of the Chancellor, whilst the person of the Prime Minister is in France mostly the
result of negotiations within the political class. Similarly the range of how the model will
actually work in practice can be great.
The allocation of competences is usually the work of a constitutional assembly and the results
are submitted to the people in form of a referendum to achieve legitimacy. It can be concluded
that traditional political theory attaches much importance to the idea that the people should
decide on the organisation of the political system. The best way to reach this goal is not one
yes-no referendum on all constitutional provisions for the lifetime of the constitution, but
92
Only minor adjustments by a qualified majority and special legislative process are tolerated.
93
In changing the concept, we both try to impose our ideals on reality and we adapt to reality. Our ideals and reality both
develop and are never in congruency, so that the process is endless.
94
The question if the proposed change is paradigmatic or subparadigmatic is difficult to answer. On one hand side the principle
of territoriality loses only its character of principle, territoriality as such will continue to play an important role in community
building. This may already be due to the animal ancestry of mankind. On the other hand side it is not enough with this one
transformation as I have tried to show.
36
differentiated and reversible decisions. Referendums on constitutions resemble political
ultimatums, because the consequences of a rejection are worse than the adoption of an
imperfect charter
95
. The adopted constitution does not completely correspond to the real will
of the people.
Other applications
The model can be used generally for situations where a greater number of individuals have an
interest to steer a greater number of decisions that require expert knowledge or special skills.
It has been criticised that workers have no influence on the decision-making of the firm
96
. The
obvious counter-argument is that insider-information loses its value when it is spread amongst
the workers. A market-analysis and strategy can become useless when the concurrence knows
about it. Without that knowledge a decision will be suboptimal. But the worker can judge on
the past and distribute the competency to decide the different questions that steer the company
according to this experience. The worker takes the place of the stockholder and replaces the
interest of the capital with the workers interest.
Hirst
97
points out that the modern threat for the freedom of individuals does not came from
the state and the classical public sphere, but from large hierarchical quasi-public institutions
possessed of powers comparable to those of the state.
98
Hirst quotes Norberto Bobbio who
argued that the main issue for modern democracy was not just ‘who votes’ but where can they
vote. Bobbio wants to say that democratic progress is nowadays measured in the number of
contexts where the right to vote is exercised.
99
Hirst promotes democracy for the complex and
rapidly changing divisions of labour and institutional patterns. Democracy must be as flexible
as the patterns. The easiest way to keep up with societies’ speed is to implement the same
motor, an interaction of independent rational actors, which can be viewed as a market.
Hirst doubts that the democratic deficit in public decision-making is an adequate response to
the crisis of modern democracy, because the institutions that implement or administer those
decisions are structurally limited
100
. Therefore “We require a constitution for society as much
as we do for the state.”, but its very idea “smacks of totalitarianism”
101
.
An alternative to the radical demand to “democratise” private institutions could be made
through public decision on a second level
102
, deciding only that a service is too powerful to go
without control of the interested parties. This would give the people the protection of their
freedom from the non-governmental super-powers and nevertheless leave the autonomy to
choose an appropriate means to the “capital”. The private sphere is not annihilated, only the
framework is defined differently.
103
The entrepreneurs or managers in representation of the stockholders should be capable of
deciding on the “how”, because they respond to the risk involved. On the side of the capital
stand also individuals whose freedom, expressed through the free use of economical means, is
in danger.
95
This was the case with the after WW II German Constitution (Grundgesetz), which contained certain provisions on federalism,
which were unacceptable in the eyes of the Bavarian Parliament. It only dared to vote against, because it knew that the
Grundgesetz would be adopted anyway.
96
Robin Archer ”Towards Economic Democracy in Britain” in ”Reinventing Democracy”, p. 85-96.
97
Paul Q. Hirst ”Democracy and Civil society in ”Reinventing Democracy”, p. 97-116.
98
Cf. the example below: The capitalist employer can impose rules of the labor contract onto the employees.
99
Norberto Bobbio “The future of democracy”, p 56. Original title: “Il futuro della democrazia”. Bobbio thinks about democracy
spreading from the strictly political sphere to the social sphere.
100
Paul Q. Hirst ”Democracy and Civil society in ”Reinventing Democracy”, p. 106-107.
101
Hirst op. cit. p. 101-102.
102
A market on the first level, the level of consumers, is blocked in steering, because alternatives lack and the cost of organizing
widespread consumers is too high.
103
In some countries employee representatives are obligatory. This provision is hardly contested anymore with the argument
that this is an infringement of the autonomy of the entrepreneur.
37
To apply the model to this example, at least two preconditions would have to be fulfilled.
First there would have to be a stable political will to give the workers a part in the decision-
making process of private firms.
Secondly, that the market can do that. The use of the economical theory in the political
context relies on the assumption that the market is not only efficient, but respects also the
autonomy of every actor and represents therefore at the same political pareto-optimality. All
deals are made by free consent, so nobody is forced. Criticism to this assumption considers
specific situations of initial disadvantage where deals are accepted because they are the least
bad alternative. The outcome does then not represent a politically fair solution.
Nonetheless I can imagine that the proposed model has better potential to be extended to the
discussed area than other propositions. There are many fields where democracy was never
considered; now there is an opportunity to think anew.
Consensus, political community
Consensus has two meanings. One refers to the process of finding decisions within political
systems. But this presupposes a more basic consensus on the system and the process by which
the particular decision shall be worked out. Obviously, the basic consensus is not generated
by the political system but by the surrounding society. Thus the state cannot generate the
basic consensus, even if its institutions were not secularised and relatively value-free like in
modern democracies. When a political system lacks backing from society it constantly has to
strain for an official consensus and its activities are seriously hampered. Such a state is bound
to implode like the communist states.
Recent developments like immigration, globalisation and communicational revolution are
feared to make this consensus more and more difficult. Remedy can be to strengthen meaning
and impact of the consensus by lowering the threshold until it can become effective in the
political system, by direct democracy. Remedy can be to enhance the creation of a
prepolitical
104
intermediary structure by installing mediated direct democracy. Remedy can be
also to farewell the silent assumption that consensus is an over-all homogeneity in life-style,
for example the general patterns like “conservative” or “socialist”, but to admit that small-
scale consensus suffices also for the basic consensus.
The last point needs explanation, because it seems that the splinters of consensus found by the
proposed referendums rely in their turn on a more basic consensus. I think that this is partially
true. Nevertheless the borderline to the basic consensus is pushed backwards. Intercultural
consensus on the ideal that the concerned persons should have the power to decide in their
own sphere (democracy) is most probably easier to reach than consensus on any substantial
provision.
I refer here to the argument about the impossibility to predefine the experts
105
. The claim to
autonomy, to “decide ourselves what concerns us”, relies in public matters always on a
predefinition of who the in-group. The category becomes clear when the claim to autonomy is
applied to the concrete situation. The exclamations ”We the Irish want to decide ourselves on
Northern Ireland” or “We the inhabitants of Ulster want to decide ourselves” or “We the
People of the UK want to decide ourselves on our territory in Northern Ireland” induce much
less acclamation than the claim to autonomy above. These exclamations exclude each other,
whilst they all seem to have a convincing part.
104
In the sense of ”not yet belonging to the political system”; cf. Karl Popper op. cit. p. 72 and the lines on different ideologies on
page 25-26. When people come together to convene on their political system (state of nature), they have already certain ideas
of the process by which they will arrive at this convention. Procedural Justice about initial constraints and freedoms (Alexy,
Rawls) are in this sense prepolitical.
105
Pages 26-27.
38
People are often ethnocentric in their claims to keep aliens out of the decisions, but there is no
reason why a constitution should give way. The result of ethnocentric groups with mutual
claims to have exclusive competency in a certain matter is always extreme: One group can, by
whatever means, exclude the other. Peace-keeping measures work with “round-tables” and try
to balance the result. The model does exactly this weighing from the start.
India is an example of how the model can even work in a system with a given metaphysical
hierarchy. The Indian society is extremely high differentiated in castes, but inside them the
underprivileged have some kind of autonomous space to rule their affairs. Every society
knows equal ranks. No society can work with differentiation down to the very individual,
because it would be then by definition a tribe or family. The term of an abstract society would
misfit.
Within the castes, or social categories, people confront each other as equal. Admittedly the
rigid general organisation can set insurmountable obstacles for a larger exercise of the
freedom to organise oneself, but inside those spaces the model could be adopted and be
conform to the system.
In abstraction the point is that equality is inherent to communication, and communication is
necessary precondition for all systems. The model is in my view less ethnocentristic than for
example substantial human rights or the majority rule and more likely to become accepted
consensus.
How community is building
Historically, it could be assumed that people living in the same environment have always the
same interests. Natural forces were the biggest problems: A valley endangered by avalanches
or a plain endangered by floods and water-scarcity has to organise to survive. The interests of
modern man are of different nature.
This simple statement is often perceived as a catastrophe under the heading of globalisation.
But where is the catastrophe when scientists share their knowledge with other scientists on the
world, but not with their neighbour, when Jews all over the world have a normative system in
common that they do not find as state religion, and when all kind of communities build all
over the world, united by communication and some kind of institutions in the large sense?
This means only that the assumption that people who live in a common geographical territory
have common interest does not always coincide with reality. It has to be adapted.
The problem is that we cannot define in advance where the concerned people are and which
the community is. This can only be decided by themselves, from a subjective insider-
perspective. To the extent that modern communication technology creates the problem, it
provides also the answer. Popular initiative indicates the interested parties. A person who
takes part in the specific dialogue of the community is obviously a member. When certain
Germans bother enough about North Sea oil-rigging that they are ready to change their daily
habits, then this means that their common interest is concerned. They feel members of an
ecological community. They do not know each other; their community is imagined like the
nation-state’s is.
The conceptual assumptions to be reconsidered are those which work in absolute and
predefined terms, i.e. sovereignty, predefined competency in predefined matters and, of
course, a predefined space and time.
I want to show that territory is not the most meaningful criteria, and sometimes not
meaningful at all. People can live on the same territory and not share the same social space;
and they can live on distant territories or even constantly change territories, and still share the
same social space through communication. The best examples for the latter are the TNC’s, the
transnational companies. They relocate their production and their markets, search for their
39
human resources and their suppliers according to the opportunities. Success justifies the
method: They produce more than 1/3 of the world’s industrial output.
106
To understand them,
territory is an obstacle.
107
When relations spread more and more often over the static borders in which a common
regulation is made, then the regulation will not only be formally unadapted or inefficient, it
will even violate the substantial principle of Justice. Justice means to treat like cases alike.
When relations spread over several zones of different regulation the treatment will be
different without sufficiently justifying reason. Some members of the same community will
be treated differently because they live in a certain territory or because their parents did so.
And when the same regulation is imposed on different communities, then different cases are
treated alike.
If a European can buy or sell in Copenhagen freely a piece of Marihuana which would
deserve the highest penalty of drug regulation in Munich and therefore send him for 5 years in
prison, then the different treatment does not find rectification in a history of the attitude
towards drugs. The different treatment is due to the historical drawing of borders between
nation-states and has nothing to do with the act. It is not principally inconceivable to pursue
different policies in contiguous places, but there should be a reason or at least some kind of
reflected argumentation about that
108
. A good reason would be a popular decision.
109
Democracy
One of the functions of representational democracy is that the people give the general
direction of politics and expert politicians install this politics through a high number of
complex decisions. The model tries to maintain this task sharing.
According to Thucydides, Pericles said: Even if only a few of us are capable of devising a
policy or putting it into practice, all of us are capable of judging on it. If Pericles would have
not lived in a city-state with one level sufficient for all decisions, he would have said: Even if
only a few of us are capable of defining what competences should be split from others or
distributing them to the different centers, all of us are capable of judging it.
The practical knowledge of steering the boat of state requires talent, experience and expertise,
but public matters effect all as a real situation they have to live in. People are automatically,
only by living in the situation, experienced experts. The key is that the democratic decision is
more remote to the level of concrete decisions and closer to the life-world of the citizens.
If the historical definition of competency and distribution works out well, nothing will
change. The system receives approval by non-initiative. When competences are split up too
much or along unclear lines so that different entities constantly interfere and waste energy,
then the people will perceive that. Some will propose alternatives and by a trial and error
process a better solution will be adopted. Without such a direct channel to make a new try, it
106
De Sousa Santos p.254.
107
In 1996 the citizens of Munich had to vote for or against a project of completing a circumfering highway. The citizens of
Munich have mostly good access to public transport and have little interest in using the highly frequented ring road. The
concerned are the people living outside of the city s borders. Some have to come to Munich every day to work and learn, others
come once a week to shop and for leisure, and a great part of the holiday traffic across the Alps and to east Europe depends on
the road as well. Their interest was not weighed with the interest of the citizens of Munich to spend their communal taxes in
another way and to have a quiet city.
108
Today you do not even have to point to a law to avoid giving reasons, because law is so closely linked to the sovereign state
that the question "Who should make a law?" seems to make no sense because there is only one entity which has the
competency to do so.
109
States can not very well criticize that, even if they are not democratic states, because what a state implicates when he is
saying that he represents his people is, that the people want the state to represent them in this matter. If this is true the state's
competency will be confirmed. Society provides different sizes of group identification (onion model) so why should the
referendums come always to the same result then?
110
Karl Popper op. cit. p. 72.
40
takes more time to edit errors. Foremost the trial and error method is better adapted to
constantly changing conditions.
111
The same applies when competences are inefficiently distributed to the different levels. When
no European country wants weapons to be exported to a terrorist state, but all know that if
they do not, their neighbour will make the deal, then the state level is most probably too small
to produce the desired effect. People can transplant the regulation on a higher level.
This does not have to be the EU; it could be the ECHR, the CSCE or the NATO as well. That
the NATO contains countries like Canada and the USA, who have not yet adopted the
proposed model, is no problem. There the consent would be mediated in the traditional way
by their governments.
According to Troper
112
, the constitution has to be interpreted by those who act in virtue of it.
Before, it has no meaning. The interpretation cannot be guided by the constitution itself,
because it is in that occasion object of interpretation. The constitution is therefore recreated by
interpretation and cannot bind its creators. The constitution is not a set of norms but the
existing relations between the legal actors who jointly define their competences. The actors’
only constraint is therefore the power of the other actors.
The model would for the first time establish a kind of control of the “almighty” actors who
attribute competences to themselves. They cannot be hindered from further recreating the
constitution, but they would have to adapt more to the people’s will, because if they impinge
on others, the sanction might be that they lose more than what they hoped to acquire. From
the start the actors would restrict themselves to what they perceive as the will of the people.
Democracy would get an additional instrument to prevent tyranny, and this instrument would
work most of the time without having to use it, by simple threat.
Legitimacy
When do we perceive influence as legitimate? What processes or institutions confer
legitimacy?
1.
Wessels and Diedrichs
113
distinguish between two forms of legitimacy. On the one hand
objective legitimacy or legitimacy as an attribute according to the position of political science.
On the other hand subjective legitimacy, legitimacy as orientation or as acceptance by the
citizens.
The authors wish to redefine the position of political theory towards legitimacy, at least as far
as the EU is concerned. Their argument is that concepts from national experiences cannot be
transferred
114
. In conclusion they think that even a system with a lack of transparency,
increasing complexity and growing differentiation can be acceptable.
•
Legitimacy as an emotion (acceptance, subjective, orientation): Nietzsche's charismatic
leadership. This possibility always existed and will always exist, but it is metaphysic and
therefore not likely to be ever accepted by all. It may be a workable concept for groups
where you can always opt out; otherwise charismatic leadership cannot produce
legitimacy for all members.
•
Objective (attributed) Legitimacy: Herder thinks that the nation-state has an inherent value
given by history. The arguments that can be found for that are not strong enough to escape
deconstruction through enlightenment philosophy. I mention only the fact that history is in
its turn not value-free collecting of evidence, but reconstruction of sense in relation to the
111
Cf. below “The crisis of politics”: The political system is less and less capable of imposing a new try.
112
Michel Troper “Pour une théorie juridique de l’Etat”, p. 293-315, 314.
113 Wessels/Diedrichs “A New Kind of Legitimacy for a New Kind of Parliament - The Evolution of the European Parliament”
http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/1997-006a.htm;
114
They do not motivate this opinion.
41
present situation. History is not empirical enough, because its findings change by time.
There are no objective criteria to define if an individual is not yet or just enough marked
by the culture and blood of a nation to be regarded as belonging to it.
It may be objected that people simply want to believe that it is history, to have a kind of
metaphysical justification. To a certain extent this is true, but since the Enlightenment it
becomes an increasingly difficult position to maintain. The repercussions of metaphysical
ideologies have shaken the whole world and have become less convincing.
Political science tried to restore legitimacy, which was lost together with metaphysics,
through different models of (virtual) free consent: Contractualism and democracy. Legitimacy
is then an intellectual construction, relying on the consensus of all on the procedures by which
decisions are made.
2.
Objective and subjective legitimacy are of different importance for the model. Subjective
legitimacy (i.e. factual acceptance, with or without reason) depends only on the individual’s
capacity to judge (emotionally or rationally), but objective legitimacy has further
preconditions:
Any legitimate system has to be just. One aspect of Justice is to check natural inequality. To
be able to check this inequality, its area and extent have to be assessed in some way. There are
two levels where inequalities have to be balanced, once within a political system actually
working, but also already before, when the political system is agreed upon.
The problem of initial disadvantage is left aside when the social contract
115
is conceived as
virtual, with virtual actors (thus rational and, as to Rawls, ignoring their individuality). In
reality the desire of the disadvantaged to install a political system with equalling effects to
their favour is in concurrence, and in this concurrence some are more disadvantaged than
others. This initial disadvantage, in itself caused by nature, is prolonged and some persons
will end up worse despite all attempts to establish real equality.
Some people for example do not dare to cash in their social welfare, how can they be
expected to demand effectively a higher treatment in front of experts, even if it would be
necessary to check their disadvantage? The initial disadvantage may be a bad financial
situation of the parents. Resulting lower education leads to a less good capacity to seize the
problem and possibilities to change the situation, and they will be less apt to articulate and
form an effective opinion.
This problem is inherent to objective legitimacy, but some models come closer to the ideal of
equal chances than others. The presuppositions for real acceptance are not accumulated, but
acceptability can still be a goal. The acceptability the model promotes is not a pure form of
argument, but relies on a higher degree of participation with equal weapons. The fact that
decisions on competences are left open makes the political system more abstract and neutral
to prepolitical exclusions. Within the political sphere people can use their votes in the area
they know best (rationality), or where they are most convinced (emotional). In those areas it is
less likely that experts can shy them from standing for their interests. Justness and legitimacy
rises in proportion to the representation of the people’s will in the result.
In this sense the model is the only legitimate system, because it is relatively better than any
other ways of objective legitimisation.
3.
Legitimacy is often seen as a function of the public participation. Direct democracy and
also general elections are often criticised for the low percentage of participants. With the
model the participation in every single question would be in tendency even lower, but the
integration of individuals in political decisions as such will rise.
115
Whose purpose it is to set in work a political system.
42
Groups who nowadays rarely participate in public affairs can be expected to respond most
readily to the new possibilities. One example is the younger generation, which has fewer
problems to use the new media and has therefore higher chances to trigger a popular initiative.
Another example is the supporter of small political parties, who has to fear to be always in the
minority and participates for that reason in proportion much less. The chance to influence the
outcome is equal to those of the others and this formerly underrepresented person gets an
incitement to take part in the polls.
As non-participation in single decisions is rational in a situation of scarcity of votes, a person
can be said to have participated in all decisions when this person has used votes at all.
116
Legitimacy rises.
117
4.
After von der Groeben
118
a first criteria to accept a constitutional system is that it can
promise success in an area where the values and goals of a great majority of the citizens are
situated. Once the system was a goal in itself and categories like order and obedience,
faithfulness and sense of obligation were enough to create legitimacy. With the secularisation
and the pluralism of values a system will only be accepted if it seems to be of best use for the
accepted goals. But these goals may be different now for different citizens.
In my opinion the problem is that the interests of the citizens cannot be assessed in abstract
and if they could they were subject to rapid change. The fluctuation between social classes
and their differentiation is rising and even more are interests. With every change in life-style,
belongings, place, qualification etc., interests are likely to change, too.
To belong to a certain social class in the traditional definition at a certain time does ever less
precondition the individual’s interest. A market corresponds more than a rigid institution to
that situation.
Polycentricity
The Viking was Norwegian and the “Neanderthaler” was German, the immigrant who is
living in my house is alien. We all respect the mystification of ancestors who were completely
different from us and accept that they belong to our national history. The non-nationals share
our life-world, but are condemned to the status of a foreigner.
The space and time a nation refers to is not the real territory or real space. History mystifies
and legitimates what is long gone to the disadvantage of others living amongst us.
A special encyclopaedia lists 210 peoples without state
119
, and estimates on the number of
peoples without states run as high as 9000.
120
Exclusivity of territory cannot work out.
Territories are never homogenically populated and why should they? Only to make them
easier to administer? We have better tools than ever to find more intelligent solutions. The
size of the nation-states is, along with their existence, an historical accident. Only ex-post can
we interpret it as a logical step in an evolutionary process. The nation-state was not too big to
risk disintegration and not too small to risk being overwhelmed by its neighbours, both in
relation to the instruments known at the time
121
.
116
A more extreme interpretation is possible: When the person starts to think if it should participate and sacrifice votes, then it is
already reacting to the logic of the system, because the person examines then if it is concerned. The fact to give no votes at all
means in this case that the concern by the decided competences was too low. This person is nevertheless an actor in the sense
of “He who is silent is assumed to be consenting”.
117
John Stewart "Democracy and local government" in "Reinventing Democracy”, p. 39-56, 54.
118
Hans von der Groeben “Legitimationsprobleme der E.G.” Nomos Baden-Baden. Quoted after Norbert Kohlhase op. cit. p. 68.
119
We can be glad most of these people are peaceful, the Sami for example have in their language no word for "war".
120
James Minahan, "Nations without states", p. 485.
121
Martin Peterson “Europe: Identity and ideological changes in the 1990s“. Working report from the Inter-European Research
Symposium in Göteborg on May 8-9, 1992.
43
The partial ideals have to be weighed in a meta-discourse. The addition of the majority’s
opinion in each of the discourses does not provide a consistent solution. This leads to the
question how to represent one’s specific interests. Direct democracy could deal with the
problem, but it is technically unfeasible:
Direct
democracy
Remedies
1.
The number of the decisions is too
high.
Representational systems can reduce the number of
the decisions.
2.
Policies are too complex to be
separated into “Yes or No”
questions and non-experts cannot
decide what the best solution is.
To compete with the complexity the parliaments
developed a system of commissions, specialisation
of the representants and consulting procedures.
3.
The most important disadvantage
seems to me though, that most of
the decisions are only of interest
for a certain group and forbid
therefore to be treated by all.
To avoid that unconcerned people are bothered with
the decision and concerned are left out,
decentralisation (federalism) and transnationalisation
(international cooperation or codecision as in the
EU) was instituted. This solution stems on the
assumption that concern is located, that it has a
certain place in the territory. As shown this is a false
assumption and in this paper I propose a
constitutional setting working without this
assumption as far as possible.
The model tries to open up towards polycentricity.
We live in a world with one centre when one geographical space responds to all needs.
Whether we want education, employment, influence public affairs or buy goods, we have to
go to the city. This place becomes a bottleneck. Rush-hours and high rents are the symptoms.
A solution in this situation is decentralisation. The computer-firms of Silicon Valley did not
choose to build in a city, but outside, where the rent, taxes and rush-hours were no problem
yet.
The Austrian Wiener Wirtschaftsuniversität chose to offer the same lecture three times a
week, once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the evening. The students can
choose then which one fits best, if they have part-time work for example. Thus students can
earn money also at daytime and in irregular time schedules. The university wins as well: Its
locations and staff are not anymore overcharged in the “rush-hours” and empty afterwards.
The same idea can be applied to the terms of the studies. Why are the locations of the Munich
University so few used for five months of the year, and in the rest of the time it is impossible
to get a seat? It seems not very clever to me to use expensive buildings in the middle of the
city only for a short time.
123
Decentralisation is equally necessary in political questions. This already worked without a
new hierarchy, but in overlapping time-spaces.
In medieval ages there were mainly two kinds of centres, the Church and the non-spiritual
power.
124
Centres at that time were cloisters and courts. They had another scope and accepted
123
The university should at least rent out the rooms during the vacation. In my opinion the year could be split into three
trimesters and every student and teacher can choose two, having the third free. The organization would profit from the
decompression.
124
Political theory always worked to represent the society in its decisions. In feudal times the society was built upon the mutual
rights and obligations of the lean-master (e.g. the king) and the lean-taker. These personal bonds could be modified when
representatives of the groups met and consented to it, because there were no other interest groups involved in the decision and
therefore the assembly contained all who should decide. Today the theory claims to represent all people of a public power in a
territory and thereby all. Tomorrow the system could represent all in the exercise of a competency interested persons and
therefore again all who should decide. This is the logical consequence if people do not consider that responsibility for others
44
each other as equal. The earthly power did not generally submit the servants of the Church to
their norms and vice-versa. If it can be called Sovereignty, then it the earthly power ruled one
part of the situations and the Church the other.
Historically, political theory proposed to split up state-power into two, then three powers.
Actually this can not be conciliated with the principle of inner sovereignty of the state. A
mirrored process for outside sovereignty would be to distribute competency on different
levels. This does not have to be a federation, where we have again a federate hence superior
state. It can be thought in parallel spheres like Church and Crown in the premodern period.
In history, the Emperor and the Pope were chronically in conflict. The model, properly
designed, may prevent fighting. The conflicts still occur, but there is a constitutional
procedure to solve them.
125
In an increasingly complicated world, we cannot understand every detail. We must not lose
the general scope.
When a CD-player stops working, we will not analyse which chip broke down and why. We
will either replace a module, if we can localise the problem, or we will buy a new, hopefully
better CD-player. Traditional referendums can be compared with searching the broken chip,
changing government with replacing a module and redistributing the competency with
replacing the CD-player.
126
The rationale behind changing government is that the problems have a remedy, which can be
found and applied. This is a mechanistical view of policy and it sends the government out to
mend broken microchips. The model proposes to apply new, more problem-oriented
instruments.
The crisis of politics
Nationality gave the frame for a relation to a large enough group to cover all interests. In the
times of industrial revolution it was appropriate to think in categories of social classes.
Describing an important aspect of reality, the categories of labourers and capitalists or later of
employers and employees formed also the way in which reality was perceived. The current
political parties are expression of these oppositions. A generation ago a worker could blindly
vote the same party of the left and be sure to have contributed to the representation of his
cause.
The manager of a multi-billion $ company is employee and the merchant of hot chestnuts is
capitalist when he owns the tin-stove. Today the interests of workers are neither stable nor
common and a change of social class is much more probable. Indeed have nearly all self-
employed once been employees themselves and many employees own a part of their company
by means of shares.
127
The employer-employee opposition became a dialectical relation,
where every individual is part of both poles.
The once appropriate categories became increasingly weaker in describing correctly the
bundle of interests an individual has. In the same degree the political parties, which formed in
their centre, have lost pertinence. The consequences are
greater potential of conflict inside the parties. The common interest is less obvious and
the official position of the party depends increasingly on politics of power.
depends on having the same stamp in the passport, but on a more substantial common bond. This can be a common language,
but even this may be regarded as formal in comparison to common personal interests.
125
In history those conflicts were decided by power, but could be tabled again any time.
126
The metaphor refers to Chapter two “The advantages of the model”, point 13: Not the goals of policy–making and their
relation is in question, but the know-how.
127
The capital of the employees forces the managers to drive the employees to work or even fire them, which is obviously not in
the interest of the individual as employee, but in the interest of the individual as share-holder.
45
Less commitment to parties, because the individuals’ interests are more deviant and
therefore the parties’ positions appear more eclectic than before.
An increasing number of voters which are prepared to give their vote to another party
than the last time.
128
Often the decision whom to give the vote is more or less
spontaneously
129
or based on a single question, which gives place to demagogic
strategies
130
.
The success of new parties which try to avoid the old stereotype. ”Die Grünen“ in
Germany focus on the common interests of all consumers in an ecologically good
environment. Also “New labour” in the UK can be mentioned here.
a shift towards representation of interests through NGO‘s. NGO’s are not better just
because they are non-governmental, but they are more adapted because they have no
territorial restrictions and no difficulties in transgressing borders of sovereignty.
Can another category be found that integrates a considerable part of the people? We can
assume certain ecological and social concerns as being capable to assemble and categorise
everyone, but many other concerns cannot. In those areas the political sphere often rejects to
provide decisions, because those questions are highly contentious. The judiciary overtook this
task, and the US Supreme Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the Corte Costituzionale and
last but not least the ECJ are examples. In all those countries the silent transformation of
political questions to judicial questions is opposed. This opposition points out that the
democratic legitimacy of courts of law is low compared to the people or their representatives.
Law is threatened to be interpreted too extensively. The political critique, which was the
reason why the political sphere did not come to a decision, threatens the courts now. The right
addressee for delicate questions is the voter.
Financing
When public tasks are exercised by different entities, these entities have to be financed. If
they would be financed by one centre, their policy would be entirely dependent.
131
If every
new centre gets with the competence for the task also the competence to cash general taxes,
the citizens would soon be oversollicited, because the total amount of taxes could not be
controlled.
The solution is to connect the competence for a task with the competence to demand a
purpose-bound fee. There is one complication. If for example health-care is financed by fees,
the ill would quickly be bankrupt and everybody risked the same fate without hope for public
solidarity. The model would privatise everything.
132
Therefore social security has to be
guaranteed by an insurance-system. The sane pay for the ill and the young for the old, because
they might be in need themselves.
The effect is, that every individual controls the personal total of insurance-fees. The
concurrence keeps the performance of public tasks efficient.
133
The shifting of a competence
to another centre works, because there are no debts to transfer. Solidarity cannot anymore be
solicited on grounds of a mythical national community. The individual’s own interest in social
security replaces solidarity.
Privatisation has unsocial effects, because the capital determines the organisation, and capital
is not equally distributed. In this context the organisation is defined implicitly by the polls.
128
“Wechselwähler”
129
“unentschiedene Wähler”
130
“eingelöste und uneingelöste Wahlgeschenke”
131
There are many further problems: Either there would have to be one centralized state, or the different actors would constantly
quarrel about the financing.
132
The example of the USA shows the disadvantage of a great privatization of public tasks.
133
The entity risks losing the competency if another entity can provide the service cheaper or better.
46
The political will of the electorate forms the public task as social as wished. In the same time
the salutary effect of privatisation, the absence of subventions from the state, is preserved.
The public finances are brought back into balance. This balance is not only a precondition for
further integration into a currency community, but furthermore for all exercise of public
power.
Post-modern flexibility and a true copy of communities
Whatever category applies to define a community of people, the category will always cut
people in “yes or no”-camps, in friend or enemy. There will always be some people in
between, who do not properly fit in. In national-states there are expatriates, exiles, immigrants
of different generation and national minorities. In political communities there are people who
are interested in a certain policy to some degree, but also in another policy to the same
degree.
134
In the EU there are “EU-foreigners”, i.e. non-nationals which are nationals before
the law.
With a top-down approach all people are clear-cut members of either the in-group or the out-
group. Post-modernity is not “either-or”, but “neither-nor”, “both-and as well” and “more or
less”. If the statistical distribution can represented like this (Bell-distribution):
…
The distribution refers to anything the categorisation can take place in. The graph gives the
percentage to which the categorisation fits. The sector below the graph can be described as the
characteristics in number and extent which fit the goal of the categorisation and above the
graph those which do not.
Mathematically, a person can only be member or not member of an oppositional pair. A
person can only either be born by German parents or not be born by German parents.
Nevertheless in both groups are great differences. A person may be born by parents who are
regarded Germans because their parents were German before they emigrated, but they have
no bonds to Germany apart from the definition. Another person has been born in Germany,
speaks exclusively German, has always been living in Germany and is, in spite of that, not of
German nationality after the definition.
As long as communities are defined by categories they can never be a true copy of the real
communities.
134
A high employee and share-holder may have equal interests in social as in liberal policies.
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Outlook
The previous chapters are demonstration of the virtues of the model for polycentricity. There
are still difficult questions to answer, for example how institutions can be financed without a
central tax authority. Although I am keen on proposing solutions, I think this is too technical
and too early in this stage. More basic critique and skepticism has to be fought first when this
model shall have a chance. Especially the current actors on the EU stage have to be
motivated. Increased legitimacy alone may not convince them. There are other reflections,
which could.
The federalist fears a new “Luxembourg compromise”, where they had to incline before one
single stubborn nation. Adopting the model, the European system can hope for the highest
integration bearable by the people. Federalists will appreciate this safety against the next
period of “Europhobia”. One step back in hard times is better than losing grip altogether.
The confederalist wants to keep integration as low as possible. With the model in work, the
national system can hope to use its closer connection to the people, for example through the
intermediary institutions of a civil society, to motivate them to promote the “national
interest”. Confederalists can hope for the minimum degree and time of power shift away from
the nation.
The functionalist will consider the following argument:
A constitution shall be stable to function as guideline and general framework. But due to the
process of “deterritorialisation of social relations” coexisting “with reterritorialisation of
social relations”
135
, the rigid definition of competences in a constitutional paper
136
is an
obstacle to any swift problem solution. To get the most appropriate instruments against
problems, we should adopt this model.
These motives may draw attention to the model. I am thankful for any proposition for
amendment
137
, because only then it has a chance to contribute to the development towards
polycentricity.
135
De Sousa Santos, op. cit., on globalization, p. 270.
136
States without written constitution have similarly very rigid definitions of competences.
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Write to: Lvoltmer@web.de.