During his illness, Involve’s ex-Director, Simon Burall, who sadly died in summer 2024, reflected on the challenges facing democracy and how Involve, and organisations like Involve, could contribute to the solution. He shared his thoughts in a letter left posthumously to me, the current Chief Executive of Involve. I reproduce his ideas here, edited lightly for clarity and to ensure Simon’s powerful points stand out – and I’ve added my own response.
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Simon:
We are at a moment of peril in our democracy. The world looks like it is becoming much more unstable and challenging. You don’t need me to talk about the environment, the erosion of democracy and the forces pushing social groups apart. But some solution lies in understanding the following key elements.
We need strong human rights and respect for difference if we are to give everyone a stake in the society they live in. If people don’t have this, they will fight for it.
We haven’t ever really built a clear idea about the importance of human rights into our theory of democracy. Nor articulated how they need to underpin our processes and work. Engendering respect is there; it’s in how we design processes and think about ideas and contributions from across society, but we could do more. I have been thinking about this for at least a decade and am under no illusion that it is difficult.
A robust framework of stable law which works for everyone however powerful they are is critical.
At its best, our work contributes to the development of legal frameworks, internal institutional processes for working in ways that match the needs of society better, and frameworks for thinking about the future. It does this in a way that is open, draws on the whole of society and can be trusted.
The big challenge is how we create new deliberatively democratic spaces, in that legal framework, with power - not just there to provide new ideas when the bureaucracy runs out. Sortition alone cannot be the solution. And one-off processes are important demonstrators, but we can’t stop there (and I know we aren’t!).
We need to be embedding deliberation in institutions, and creating institutions for deliberation.
A vision of a better world is vital
The far right, left and powerful are trying to tear down human rights and the law for selfish reasons. Some may do this knowingly, some unknowingly. One fight is to resist this, and bringing a vision of a better world is part of that resistance.
In my previous role as Director of the One World Trust, I learnt that at the height of the second world war, the allies came together and fought under the banner of the United Nations. They didn’t fight just to defeat the Nazis, they had a vision for a better world that had a clear framework of law, that would be trusted by nations and would remove the need for conflict. The EU was dreamt about by people incarcerated during the war. It is a massive peacetime project.
Neither are perfect (see my next point, below), but both show that there is a glimmer of hope to create better institutions, however dark it gets - it just needs the right people to focus on the right things.
No institution can last forever; the most selfish and powerful will try to destroy effective institutions so they can do what they want without any regard to constraint. The challenge is how to build resilient institutions which can change as society changes.
How much of a role does deliberation have, in creating space for society to reflect together on which institutions are working and which not, in a way that strengthens them so that they work for all? Probably this would be an important activity. However, attempting to create such a space always throws open the doors to fear and concern in practice; people may feel if institutions aren’t working, it’s because the selfish and most powerful are trying to take over.
How do you do open reflective spaces at moments of maximum peril? This is what the final space in Room for a View is hinting at and seems to me to be an important area of thought for deliberative theorists and practitioners.
The powerful think they have all the power. They forget the weakest have significant power too; even the power to withdraw labour and consent can stop the most powerful. The challenge is how to coordinate this power on a positive agenda for action.
Orwell in Homage to Catalonia tells the story of the left fighting between themselves and letting the right in. This was driven by autocratic left actors, but the middle had no way to resist and coordinate. How can this coordination be done? It cannot be done by government. How do we put the tools we know work in the hands of communities, of individuals and of the least powerful so they can create secure spaces for planning?
Coordinating this power involves much more than the right facilitation techniques, but these are a critical component. The first step is to set up spaces that are fair, work effectively, aren’t derailed, and are positive and creative places for developing shared solutions. One of my proudest achievements at Involve is working with the CSOs and Cabinet Office to set-up the UK Open Government Partnership process and it has guided my work since. Spaces built on these principles are open, transparent, participatory and accountable.
The key component is that they are built on the objectives of the key actors who might take part. They understand the incentives that are driving people to consider joining the space and work with these to set overall objectives for the space which meet all these, probably competing objectives and incentives. They co-create these objectives and all of the key documents and outputs from the spaces. This is where the power lies. How do you teach this philosophy and way of working across the country?
Democracy isn’t just voting - although this is important for kicking the worst people out. Democracy is at least as much about hearing all voices, opinions and perspectives together and letting this influence the decisions we take as a society about the future.
In summary of all these points; how do we give skills and tools to communities, individuals and the least powerful to help them to make their voices heard, while ensuring that the powerful listen to them and cede power? How do we help them create the shared vision for the world they want to live in?
Sarah:
Simon hopes for institutions that are resilient enough to symbolise our values. They should embody the rule of law and our rights, but should also stand for our vision for an equitable future. I agree with him that institutions always get co-opted. They wash inevitably towards hoarding power, not sharing it. I change my mind often on whether that means institutions are inherently flawed, and therefore whether we should try to work alongside and with them, or as an external voice for change. Is this consolidation of power a bug, or a feature? But I agree with Simon that embedding deliberative spaces can be a way for us to keep bringing back institutions to their visionary purpose.
I’m starting to see one way through, in the UK at least, which is all about relationship. In our practice at Involve I am shown the way by the principled and high quality work of our team. We need to understand the long standing trauma in communities in dealing with power. But we also need to understand there is trauma in institutions and the humans who work in them, when dealing with the public. We need to work better with both to help them come into relationship with each other and see that it would be a win-win to work better together. To open the space to challenge and change institutions, we need first to do the work of readying the institution to be in a new relationship with the public.
There’s also something about how to make the spaces fair for different truths, otherwise they themselves add to our systemic injustice and cause greater harm. There is work being done around the world on how to bring the weakest together with the most powerful in ways where different truths are foregrounded. Nicole Currato’s work on deliberative systems in spaces of trauma, and on how global deliberation can be decolonised gives fantastic pointers here.
While we can take hope from the story of Europe and the UN, I also want to learn and tell other stories of democracy, other framings for deliberation, and other histories and traditions. There are many stories that go beyond the “hero’s journey” of democracy from Athens outwards. That’s a learning path I am just starting on - many of my Involve colleagues are a good deal further along the road - so I take my place, with a good deal of humility, but with excitement.
Responding to Simon’s last letter here feels like the luxury of a final conversation with him. It’s right that in that conversation, he should have the last word.
Simon:
I believe Involve is an important organisation and a precious thing. It can be part of the positive change we need.
There is an idea from the Iain M Banks book, Feersum Endjinn, which sums up how I have tried to live my life.
In the world Banks creates, there is a weblike computer sub-structure or matrix. When you die, your thoughts and experiences are absorbed into the collective memory. If you have had a positive impact, it ripples through the matrix, influencing both the collective memory and its impact back on the world. Change comes through unnoticed influence, not through heroic individuals making change. I’ve tried all my life where possible to make that kind of ripple. I hope by capturing my thoughts a little, I can give the ripple some small chance of having an impact.