Thank you for writing that, Brian Olson, I felt it but wouldn't say it.
My impression, from trying to follow some of the discussions on this site, is that there's little, if any, interest in democracy. Instead, the esoteric schemes proposed here seem intended to empower minorities (factions, really) at the expense of the majority. Would that there were more interest in Dr. Jane Junn's admonition that we "... reenvision the incentives for political engagement to be more inclusive of all citizens."[1]
Although there is an ample harvest of political commentary, it is mostly mundane. We will not improve our electoral processes until we step outside the common assumption that our political system is adequately democratic and start to establish a rational basis for considering alternatives that might better serve society. For example, we might ...
1) consider the working paper entitled, "A 'Selection Model' of Political Representation", (By Dr. Jane Mansbridge, Working Paper Number: RWP08-010 Submitted: 02/24/2008, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Faculty Research Working Paper Series).[2]
2) ponder Dr. Alasdair MacIntyre's assertion that "... everyone must be allowed to have access to the political decision-making process" to experience the internal goods that enrich society and benefit the community,[3] and Dr. Jurgen Habermas' description of 'public spheres' as places where private people gather and articulate the needs of society.[4]
3) study the Report of the Commission on Candidate Selection (a board composed of the leaders of five large political parties in Great Britain) that investigated why parties are not representative of the people.[5] (Mr. James Gilmour, on this site, called my attention to this report and I'm deeply grateful to him for doing so.)
The cited material (1) offers academic support for exercising care in selecting candidates for public office; (2) provides a philosophical rationale for understanding that such a change would have a dynamic and significant impact on those who participate in the process; and (3) shows that political parties, themselves, recognize their inability to represent the people.
As Dr. Mansbridge points out, trust in government is plummeting in most developed democracies. It is time to look beyond the platitudes that harness academic inquiry to existing political structures; it is time to consider the benefits that will flow from making politics a project shared by the entire community; it is time for objective analysis of the profoundly anti-democratic nature of partisan politics (in spite of the storm of calumny it is sure to unleash); it is time to show that democracy is not a vague, hypothetical state, it is citizens talking amongst themselves ... as in MacIntyre's "community" and Habermas' "public sphere"... with a purpose.
Fred References: [1] http://www.tc.columbia.edu/news/article.htm?id=4479 [2] http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP08-010 [3] http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/p-macint.htm [4] http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/habermas.htm [5] http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/downloads/Candidate%20Report.pdf ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
