How to write a 20-point Magna Carta for democratic cities—starting in a Rome hotel room
Spanish steps in Rome. Photo by Victor Malyushev on Unsplash
Great read in Noema magazine, from the journalist and democracy activist Joe Mathews, about how he got roped in to writing a new “Magna Carta for democratic cities”. The piece entertainingly opens with Joe throwing himself at his next-day deadline for the document, in a Roman hotel room. As he further explains.
To be clear, I did not write the famous Magna Carta (often seen as “Magna Charta,” with an “h,” and translated from Latin to “Great Charter”) that we learn about in our history books. That one, signed in 1215, established limits on the divine rights of monarchy and provided the foundation for our modern liberties and democracy.
This new Magna Carta, the one I wrote, is a response to the hard questions that local communities now face about 21st-century threats. How do they assert their rights and defend local democracy from rising authoritarianism? How do they master their own destinies in the face of digital transformation and overwhelming power? And how might they solve planetary problems that threaten their lives and homes?
Over the past two generations, such big questions have fallen increasingly to small, local governments. Why? Because our national governments have collectively failed to build the planetary institutions necessary to solve Earth’s biggest problems, from climate change to pandemics, corruption to poverty. They have also failed to protect democracy within their own borders, producing a pronounced democratic decline.
These twin failures have produced a massive void in governance that lower-level bodies have been compelled to fill. Some ambitious sub-national governments, like Quėbec, California or Guangdong, have stepped in and developed global policies on climate. But the most aggressive void fillers have been the world’s municipal governments — especially major cities.
Cities are stepping up to bigger challenges because of growing pressure from their inhabitants, who have grown more educated and wealthier. Residents increasingly expect their municipal governments to protect them from both national authoritarianism and the local consequences of planetary problems.
As a result, many local governments find themselves under pressure to be the primary unit of democracy and to develop the capacity and power to solve any problem, at any level. But city governments still lack the power, resources and legal authority that nation-states have for such broad governance.
In the early 21st century, cities have responded to planetary challenges by networking among themselves to produce “translocal” policies. For example, Jakarta and Rotterdam, two cities with considerable land below sea level, are working together on climate and sea-level policy, as Jonathan Blake and Nils Gilman detail in their new book, “Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crisis.”
But many global cities are eager to move beyond the ad hoc to establish more permanent collaborations and new structures of governance that are both local and planetary. This requires new rules and new understandings of governance — and like in 1215, a new charter.
In Rome, a change in the city’s leadership meant an opening for those eager to draft a planetary charter.
That’s how the new Magna Carta became my problem.
Joe goes on to describe how the Five Star Movement, one of whom had become Rome’s Mayor, commissioned him to write this, in a wave of democratic experiment. From his original version, it’s grown legs and become this formidable document below, found at the International Democracy Community site:
1. Democratisation as a permanent task: structural anchoring of permanent democratisation
Democracy cities are places where people never stop working to make their communities more democratic. Democracy cities are searchers. They experiment. They seek ways, new and old, proven and unproven, to deepen participation. Democracy cities are never satisfied with today’s democratic advances—because they are too busy working on tomorrow’s.
2. Room for dialogue: Spaces and infrastructure for discussions and decisions by citizens
A democracy city seeks to create physical spaces where people can be with each other, discuss with each other, and make democratic decisions together, freely and safely. In democracy cities, these spaces may take any number of forms, from previously abandoned buildings, to libraries, to schools, to streets reclaimed from brutal traffic, to centers that are explicitly houses of democracy.
3. Democracy as parity: no different standards for elected officials and citizens
A democracy city is a place where citizens can decide alongside politicians on any issue or question. Citizens and politicians are equals.
4. Infrastructure of participation: Continuous development of the infrastructure for participation & democracy
A democracy city is always developing infrastructure—human, physical and digital—for participation and democracy. In addition, a democracy city is committed to the openness and transparency of this infrastructure—so that the infrastructure can itself be refined and altered by the people to better serve democracy and participation.
5. Protection of local self-determination: definition of the rules for participation & democracy by the citizens
In a democracy city, the rules for participation and democracy are decided by the people themselves. A democracy city protects its democratic practices and procedures.
6. A voice for young people: a genuine democratic voice for young people
A democracy city works not only to educate and train youth for democracy but also to give young people, even those not old enough in the vote, real democratic power, especially over the issues that affect them most.
7. Social movements as engines of democracy: promoting exchanges between people and social movements
A democracy city is a place where people can connect with neighbours and strangers alike. Such a city promotes social movements that seek to protect and strengthen democracy.
8. From the local to the national and transnational: having a say on higher political levels by way of the city
In a democracy city, citizens work together to participate not just at the neighbourhood and local levels but also to find ways to participate at the regional, national and transnational levels of democracy.
9. Agenda 2030 in practice: sustainability
A democracy city supports sustainability through participatory instruments, because there’s no future democracy without sustainability.
10. Participation as a process: encouraging and promoting participation in all stages of development
A democracy city encourages people to participate in decision-making in every step of developing policymaking—from proposals, to research, to debate, to the decisions in the end.
11. Enforcement and transparency: Sufficient resources to implement citizens' decisions and monitor their implementation
A democracy city requires resources to implement what citizens have decided upon, and citizens need to be able to understand and control how those resources are spent.
12. Elections made easy: simple voting
A democracy city allows voters to cast their ballots with ease, and there should be no discrimination about the technology used. Rather, a democracy city should support the integration of traditional voting and electronic voting in ways that are secure, build trust, and follow best international practices.
13. Every resident is also a citizen: residual voting rights
Elections in a democracy city include all people, residents and stakeholders, including those who may be excluded from elections by the national government.
14. Every vote is heard: every vote is also heard between election and voting days
Although ballot decisions are necessary, a democracy city and its people know that elections and votes alone are not enough. In a democracy city, every vote is counted on election day— and every voice is heard year-round.
15. Democracy Support: Support for the development of ideas of the citizens
A democracy city doesn’t just permit citizens to offer their ideas for laws, constitutional amendments or regulations. A democracy city also welcomes suggestions, and supports its citizens in presenting their ideas in such a way that they are taken seriously by official politics.
16. Modern direct democracy: Modern direct democracy and participatory procedures for the involvement of all stakeholders
In a democracy city, the citizens themselves can propose and enact laws (regulations) and constitutions (charters). This is done using the instruments of modern direct democracy such as initiative and referendum, and via tools of participatory democracy, like participatory budgeting. Democracy cities design these tools in ways that encourage participation by everyone.
17. Open governance: Digital access to information (e-government, open data etc.)
A democracy city tries to make accessible all tools necessary for citizenship in reliable digital spaces.
18. Representation of the under-represented: protection of minorities, equality
A democracy city protects the rights of minorities and seeks diverse representation and parity between genders, races, religions, ages and geographies, not just among elected political office holders or civil servants, but also in public participation.
19. Media and public infrastructure: Media as help for citizens
A democracy city has diverse and reliable sources of news and context to help the people to govern themselves
20. City of the "happy losers": Addressing the concerns of the losing side
A democracy city is a place of "happy losers". That means that, after a decision is taken, the losing side in the debate feels like they were heard, and had a fair chance to participate.