Athenian-style democracy for Bury St Edmunds

From a four page paper by David Chapman entitled 'Can Bury St Edmunds Follow the Model of Ancient Athens? Local Goverment by Direct Democracy.'

During its most creative period, ancient Athens was governed as a direct democracy. Would it be possible then for a present-day city of similar size also to operate as a direct democracy? Let us consider Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding St. Edmundsbury local government district. This district has about half the population, and one-quarter of the area, of ancient Athens and its surrounding district of Attica. It should therefore be practicable to run Bury St Edmunds as a direct democracy. How then can this be done?

The principle of direct democracy is that any citizen has the right to take a direct part in political decision-making. But it seems that in Athens only a small proportion of citizens - at most 15 per cent - chose to exercise this right, even though they were paid for attending the various meetings. The situation is unlikely to be much different in Bury St, Edmunds. Thus under straight direct democracy, the majority of citizens, ie those who do not want to attend meetings, or are unable to attend them, would be deprived of influence.

To overcome this problem, and also to make the system more manageable, a proxy voting scheme is therefore proposed (using a form of Proportional Representation with transferable votes). By this scheme, those citizens who do not attend meetings, can give their proxy votes to those who do attend, and so can still exert their influence on the decisions made.

The scheme is extremely non-elitist, and allows maximum participation, in that any citizen may take an active part in the political process, by joining any committee. It is difficult to predict how many will in fact take part - perhaps fewer than 2,000 assumed, but certainly more than the present 100 or so who participate as local councillors.

Public policy under the scheme can be expected to be highly responsive to the citizens' needs. In order to get and to keep their proxy votes, the activists will have to explain to the rest of the citizens what they are doing, and will have to respond to the citizens' preferences. The non-activists in their turn are likely to become better informed and more involved, and more willing at least to give a proxy vote.

A further incentive to responsiveness is that the scheme provides effective and easily used means of recall. In the case of an ordinary committee member, proxy votes can easily be withdrawn, either by the other activists, or by the non-activists. In the case of an officer elected by a committee, he or she can at any time be recalled in a new election.

To administer the scheme, a Proxy-Vote Officer would be appointed, with whom each proxy voter would register his or her votes, registering them either as transferable or non-transferable, and as either secret or open. The Proxy Officer would certify to each activist how many transferable and non-transferable votes he or she had at any time, and also would provide the name, address and telephone number of any supporter who wanted to vote openly, so that the activist could keep them informed, and seek their opinions. Transfer of proxy votes from one activist to another, would also be done through the Proxy Officer.

The Proxy Officer would also publish, for the guidance of all citizens, details of each committee, showing its remit, the name of each activist on the committee, his or her proxy votes, which other activist had given votes to him or her, and how many votes had been given.