The Proteus Fund’s Democracy Project explores whether a holistic approach to democracy issues might be more effective than single-issue or sectoral approaches. The Project is informed by a year-long research project, led by former Program Officer Larry Marx, that investigated how more integrated strategies might be executed. The research examined linkages and gaps among areas in the field such as structural reform to elections, lowering barriers to participation, maintaining public access to the media, deliberative approaches to democracy, campaign finance reform and more. We sought to understand whether catalytic conditions might be created to energize many needed reforms together, and what role philanthropy might play in this process: a “systems” approach for system change.
As a result of complex interrelationships and a broad definition, democracy lends itself well to a systems analysis to help define and assess the efficacy of a holistic approach to reform. In exploring how funders may help to revitalize our democracy, we use systems thinking as a way to argue for greater participation of citizens, particularly the most disengaged of our citizens, and for inter-connectedness of approaches. We identified three challenges currently common in pro-democracy work resulting from failure to use systems thinking:
1) Boom and bust hyperbole from over-sold solutions;
2) Unintended consequences of reform; and
3) Fixes to the wrong problems.
Emerging from a systems perspective, “transformative interventions” work on leverage points designed to permanently transform structural arrangements. In this report, we agree with systems scholars and others working in related areas that the most important leverage point in a system is the paradigm out of which the system arises.
With respect to democracy, the paradigmatic governing principle within our system is the placement of responsibility for citizenship and participation on the individual, as a privatized burden and privilege, rather than a community responsibility for ensuring the right of all. Based on systems thinking and “targeted universal” strategies, we argue for six key transformative strategies to shift this paradigm of American democracy: organizing for shared governance; universal, automatic voter registration; national right-to-vote and federal standards; public financing of elections; fusion; and harnessing elites’ self-interest for mass civic participation.
This research project concludes that there is a broad democracy agenda, and some excellent work on it—but there aren’t enough broad and integrated policies, organizational infrastructure, or funding to advance it, and there are serious disagreements on strategies. We propose several solutions.
Our report also concludes that there is great reason for optimism around the potential for pro-democracy work in this political moment:
1) There is great work happening in the field with minimal resources;
2) There is momentum for important victories and efforts, especially in key states;
3) Anti-democracy forces have over-reached and there is a political opening that wasn’t there even just two years ago; and
4) What’s needed is better connecting what’s already in place with more – and more strategically coordinated – funding; there is no need to create anything new.
Click
here for the Executive Summary of the Report on this research.
Click
here for the Full Report.
