Re: [wg-review] 3. [Constituencies] Rough Proposal C - eliminate NC, keepconstituencies

[Harald Alvestrand <Harald@Alvestrand.no>]

At 18:43 04/01/2001 +1300, DPF wrote:
>There is a major difference here with DNSO though.  In almost every
>democracy in the world representatives are based on population based
>constituencies or sometimes geographical constituencies.  Both are
>fairly objective measures such as one rep per electorate of 50,000
>people or one rep per well defined geographical entity (such as a
>state or province).

The At Large elections showed quite clearly that 10.000 is a small number.
A representative structure based on headcount is clearly vulnerable to 
groups that are good at "getting out the vote".
So this approach has some problems.

>Here in the DNSO we have seven constituencies based on groupings of
>interest which clearly do not cover all those interested and affected.
>Also all constituencies have an equal vote when their relevance to the
>DNSO may not be equal and the number of people they represent may
>especially not be equal.

The question of voting strength is critical.
And the question of what one can use voting strength for.

Trying to think outside the box, one could imagine wanting a structure where:

- The process of getting sensible proposals before the governing body
   allows open participation, and allows the creation of expert groups to form
   those recommendations based on qualifications, NOT representativity
- An action could be adopted only with a significant consensus of interests
- Any action could be blocked by a significant grouping of interests, but
   NOT by representatives of a single interest acting alone

I believe using representativity in the FORMATION of options is a mistake; 
people who participate in a discussion need to be allowed to operate to the 
best of their own personal ability to reach "results that make sense".

Representativity is important in the ADOPTION of courses of action.

My $0.02.


--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, alvestrand@cisco.com
+47 41 44 29 94
Personal email: Harald@Alvestrand.no

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