Tuesday, January 10, 2012

representation and the Occupy governance process


Hello All!
I'm responding to an invitation from Stephen to begin using this blog as a place to air and discuss perspectives on Occupy. In particular, my interest lies in our system of Governance otherwise known as our General Assembly. There are many thoughts and threads on this topic in our Occupy community and I'm curious to hear yours, if you have one. In honor of my desire to spark constructive conversation, I'm sharing below something that I wrote in response to the question: who has the right (or how do we obtain the right) to use the label "Occupy" when organizing an action, be it a demonstration or a blog post? This question has been bundled into a title loosely called "representation" for the time being.
In order to respond to this question of representation,  I think it's useful to step back from the specifics and look for a moment at two poles of values that I see this movement holding on this topic: autonomy and community. I would like to start by placing the dilemma of this polarity at the core of human governance from time immemorial, in other words, as humans we have had to resolve this polarity in order to function and have done so in many ways over history. Most of those ways have involved coercion in larger or smaller ways. Most of us reading this today, would likely stand against the use of coercion but face a historic challenge: in the absence of coercive methods and models, and in the presence of a deep valuing of all perspectives (diversity), how do we create a new way of governing ourselves that equally honors and values maximum autonomy and maximum community?
In service of answering this question, I’ve heard some of us speak to core principles for guiding this new way of governing ourselves. These principles are close to our hearts, vital for our human evolution, and difficult to enact consistently or to hold each other accountable to. I posit that we need a system, think of it as a practice, that can allow us to enact these principles concretely and consistently over time.
As I explore some possibilities for governing ourselves in a manner that maximizes both autonomy and community, I’ll be outlining just a few of the principles that I've heard identified and highlighting how those principles are enacted through some simple shifts in the GA understanding of itself and it’s processes. I’m not trying to be exhaustive here in all the principles that could or do guide the GA system, I’m just calling our attention to some of the ones that bear on this question of representation. Please note that I've used verbiage from writing done by both Ben and Stephen on the wiki on this topic, so if you recognize some phrases, that may be one place you've seen them, I'll be highlighting those passages so you know what you're looking at.
1. Principle: Autonomy for all/equal authority of every person/or the right to self-organize:
We are all autonomous beings that deliver far greater creativity and energy when enabled to act independently. This principle applies both to individuals and to groups.
a. Proposed Policy #1: Occupy Burlington GA shall honor the right of every duely formed working group or individual to self-organize and will not exercise any coercion or control over their actions that lie within their clarified and documented ‘accountabilities’/‘distributed authorities’ (defined below).
b. Proposed Policy #2: insofar as any actions taken by a duely formed working group or individual are out of alignment with the aim and/or current strategy of Occupy Burlington or constitute an attack upon Occupy Burlington, those conflicts shall be brought the GA as ‘tensions’ to be processed through governance to a change in the ‘accountabilities’/‘distributed authorities’ of that working group or individual.
c. Proposed change to GA process to enable this: each working group earns the right to self-organize by:
i. taking responsibility for delivering on a clearly identified and recorded portion of the work of the Occupy movement, called an ‘accountability’ or ‘distributed authority’ which is verbiaged and passed through governance in a GA.
ii. agreeing to use the Occupy meeting process to run it’s meetings, including making decisions as they relate to it’s ‘accountabilities’, and reporting on it’s business to the whole GA.
2. Principle: freedom of association/consent to represent
No one may speak or act for or on behalf of an other without that other's explicit consent.
a. Proposed Policy #3: anyone or any working group wishing to act or speak on behalf of the social formation known as Occupy Burlington must receive consent for such representation from the appropriate decision-making body, be that a working group or the GA.
b. Proposed change to GA process to enable this: proposals for representation may be processed in a working group, provided that working group has a recorded ‘accountability’/‘distributed authority’ for planning and executing such types of representation, and in the absence of defined ‘accountabilities’, proposals for representation will be processed in the GA .
For example, let’s say that Education has an accountability for “dreaming up and operationalizing regular teach-ins on behalf of Occupy Burlington.” And let’s say that a member of Education has an idea about a teach-in focused on sustainability issues. That member of Education would bring that proposal to an Education Working Group meeting, not the GA, where it would be taken through the Occupy governance process to a decision. Let’s also say, for example, that during that teach-in, one of the speakers threatens to blow up the state house (this constituting an ‘out of alignment’ breach named above). Any member of Occupy attending the teach in could bring that breach, or ‘tension’ to the next GA and formulate a proposal for new accountability for the Education Working Group. For example, perhaps, ‘screening all speakers for their willingness and capacity to represent the current aim of Occupy Burlington (which presumably in this case would not be oriented to blowing up buildings). That proposal would then be taken through the governance process to an outcome in the form of a new accountability for the Education Working Group.
So in answer to the question “how do we create a new way of governing ourselves that equally honors and values maximum autonomy and maximum community?”, I am proposing an iterateable and transparent system of governance which includes everyone’s voice (maximum community) that distributes clarified nuggets of authority to individuals and working groups (maximum authority). We have the first part of such a system, an “iterateable and transparent system of governance” in the GA process. What we don’t quite have yet is an understanding and use of this governance system to distribute authority through the creation of distinct ‘accountabilities’ that may be governed by policies. My proposal is that we simply begin to use our GA governance process to clarify accountabilities and policies (that can be changed or updated at any time as issues arise or situations change) which define the limits and grants of authority Occupy gives to it’s working groups and/or individuals delivering on the work of the movement. Within those grants (and limits) of authority, each working group is free to enact it’s own work including actions in the name of Occupy. If issues arise, as they will, they’ll be brought by the persons sensing those issues to the GA for processing into updated grants or limits of authority on the requisite working group or individual.
In support of Stephen’s proposal that the solution to the question of representation be to focus on developing our relationships, I would like to say that it has been my experience that any time a group of people have actual physical work to do, something they wish to accomplish or change in the world, that we are deeply supported in both the capacity to deliver on that work and in the relationships that form as a container for that work, when we have distinction and clarity around that work flow and a concrete and effective means of integrating diversity of perspective. When diversity, or conflicting perspectives, can be efficiently, effectively, consistently, and transparently metabolized into decision and action on behalf of the community, we actually have more room for relationship, and more energy to build relationship, which then feeds back into the work that we have chosen to do together. Thus I believe that relationship is a critical and vital essence of the movement, but that in order for relationship to flourish over time in a variety of circumstances that we will be well served to focus on developing our decision-making systems into a well oiled, continuously evolving engine that can efficiently and effectively make use of our divergent perspectives.

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