Political
Governments establish laws and regulations, enforce them with police power, and incarcerate people who seriously violate the rights of others.
Liberal democracies organize competitive political parties, free and fair elections, separation of powers, and the rule of law. They balance the private and public sectors, regulate the economy, provide public services, and ensure human rights, civil rights, and political freedoms.
As envisioned here, a holistic democracy movement would support liberal democracy, make voting easier, push for lifetime equality of opportunity, and ensure that society meets everyone’s basic needs.
Everyone who promotes justice and compassion nurtures the Bottom-up System, even if they don’t see their work this way. However, when they discuss their actions as ways to change the world and reform the Top-Down System into a Bottom-up System, they could expand awareness of how issues are interconnected and promote a holistic democracy movement. This long-term worldview could help sustain the movement over time and unify diverse populations.
A network of small teams could build bottom-up hierarchies with lower-level groups selecting representatives to higher-level bodies. The network could focus on winnable short-term demands, realizing no victory or defeat is final.
The movement could utilize deliberative democracy, which involves the official or unofficial use of randomly selected participants with equal power to recommend new legislation on a particular issue.
“Deliberative Polling” invites randomly selected participants to review carefully balanced briefing materials on an issue, discuss them for a weekend, and then report on their opinions.
The Irish Citizens' Assembly regularly considers controversial, pressing questions, releases its report, and the government responds.
The above linked resources support the arguments presented in this chapter.
The above linked tools, some tested and others untested, present methods that compassion-minded people can use to advance a holistic democracy movement, whether or not they identify with this movement and explicitly commit to mutual support for self-improvement.