Research
Interactive Summary | Vitae | Political Communication and Deliberation | The Group in Society | Deliberative Democracy Handbook | By Popular Demand
Democracy in Small Groups:
Participation, Decision Making, and Communication
Order copies through Amazon.com.
Download a PDF of the complete book.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Rhonda has taught fifth grade at Eucalyptus Elementary School for ten years. She almost quit teaching when discipline problems became intolerable, but when she allowed the kids to create some of their own class activities, they became more involved and attentive. Now Rhonda holds weekly planning meetings in each of her classes. Assembled as small groups, the students make collective decisions about class projects, playtime, and which books Rhonda reads to them.
Tony wanted to get more involved in his community, so he
worked as a volunteer with the Jefferson Neighborhood Council. After a
year, he joined the planning board that oversaw all of the Council's
activities. The board met monthly and used a streamlined adaptation of
Robert's Rules of Order to move briskly through numerous minor and
major decisions. Gavin found the meetings fast-paced and rigidly
moderated. Like other volunteers, he began to see the board members as
distant and unreachable. After three months on the board, he quit and
stopped working with the Council.
Lisa and Alejandro were determined to raise their children differently from how they had been raised. They tried to create an open, egalitarian family atmosphere for their three adopted daughters. The family jointly decided upon chore assignments and family outings, using consensus during spontaneous family meetings. The daughters became adept at arguing and, to a lesser extent, listening. When the children demanded influence over decisions about allowances, Lisa and Alejandro refused to negotiate. The children tried a short-lived strike, but the issue was eventually forgotten and tensions diffused.
These scenarios offer a glimpse of the promise and problems of small group democracy. When a decision is made that involves more than one person, the decision can often be made through a democratic procedure. Whether the setting is a classroom, a community group, a family, or a senate chamber, group decision making can proceed according to democratic or undemocratic principles.
This book is written for those who want a better understanding of what makes a small group democratic. People usually use the word "democratic" when critiquing or praising large-scale political systems, and scholars and activists have discussed at length the meaning of large-scale democracy. Unfortunately, the meaning of democracy in small groups has not been explored. Since it is difficult to bake a pie without a list of ingredients, let alone a recipe, the absence of a definition of small group democracy may explain why apple pie emerges from the family oven more often than democracy.
This book is also for those who want to know how to start a small democratic group or make their current groups more democratic. There will never be a cookbook for democracy, because humans and their social appetites are ever-changing. Nonetheless, I think I can provide a few cooking tips. Different groups have different experiences, but almost everyone has encountered some of the most common group problems. Exceedingly long meetings, for example, are a ubiquitous phenomenon, and they can obstruct the democratic process in many ways. Groups that wish to proceed democratically must also find ways to adapt their procedures to compensate for large memberships, time pressures, and external power constraints.
But there is more to cooking than reading a recipe. Like anything else, democracy takes practice. By drawing on the experiences of existing groups, this book provides ideas and suggestions for those who wish to apply the principles of democracy to their social and political groups, their personal lives, and their world.
The copyright has reverted to me, and I have chosen to make this book available for free download. Use any of the links below to download, print, or circulate the complete book or pdfs for specific chapters.
Download a PDF of the complete book
