We want to establish a permeable democratic structure in the political and social domain. Our objective is the promotion of social collaboration and co-determination.

The basic elements of our concept are:

(@ Direkter Parlamentarismus) - the realisation of the democratic idea
(@ Politikfeldparlamente) - one parliament for each political field
alliances - one for each political idea
discourse - a prerequisite for legitimate decisions
scaling - division of the parliaments
dynamic voting - one vote in each political area
chooso.org - the tool
areas of application - democratic discourse and decisions in every area of life

[edit] (@ Direkter Parlamentarismus)

The objective we pursue with our concept of '(@ Direkter Parlamentarismus)' is to realise the original idea of democracy and to make it applicable to all areas of society, not only in the range of the political system.

Today's democracy allows us primarily to elect political representatives. This was until now the only way to realise democracy in large societies. However, the basic concepts of democracy are autonomy and parliamentary discourse - both are not realised today.

"Real" democracy has little in common with contemporary democratic systems where citizens exert influence mostly by voting for a set of positions represented by a political party every four or five years.

We have developed a viable concept in which every interested citizen can at any time participate and place his/ her vote on single political issues directly and bindingly.

We will realise a system in which every citizen can be a parliamentarian in each political area.

(details on (@ Direkter Parlamentarismus))

We can achieve this by combining (@ Politikfeldparlamentarismus), a dynamic voting system (a variation of delegated voting) and the possibilities put forth by the internet.

The internet makes it possible to solve the so far unsolved problem of the democratic idea: how can democracy be realised in societies that have reached a dimension which makes it impossible to hold meetings every citizen can attend and to have an equal and deliberative discourse?

Through the internet and innovative software tools we will be able to solve this problem in the near future. Temporal, local and quantitative restrictions aren't an unsolvable problem in cyberspace the way they are in conventional parliaments; we are developing chooso.org as an online software tool to accomplish this.

[edit] (@ Politikfeldparlamente)

Our concept is based primarily on the idea that for every political or social issue one parliament is established in which this issue is discussed. In these parliaments positions and consequences can be argued; new solutions can be discussed and compromises can be made; and there can be binding polls on strategies.

In our concept there will be as many parliaments as there are socially relevant issues; there's not one central parliament which deals with all those issues.

This entails many positive effects. For example, (@ Politikfeldparlamentarismus) enables parliaments to return to their original purpose: factual discourse on socially relevant issues. This discourse is especially encouraged by the fact that parliamentarians aren't representatives of political parties which are focused on elections but citizens who are actually interested in the respective specific issues discussed in their parliament.

In the political domain these specific issues are (@ Politikfelder); in other areas there could be parliaments on all kinds of issues or topics.

More details on possible areas of application can be found here (...)

Everyone who wants to get involved in an issue can either join the respective parliament or - if it doesn't exist yet - establish one. It is not necessary, as it is today, to be elected to become a member of a parliament and take part in parliamentary discourse. The only necessary qualification for a parliamentarian is their concern with the respective issue.

Within the parliaments there will be any number of alliances each representing one particular position on the issue. Parliamentarians can join an existing alliance which represents their view and help develop and advance this position; or they can establish a new alliance which can then be joined by others.

In the political area there will be one parliament for each issue that is concerned with a specific law. If more than one parliament concern the same law they will be merged.

(more details on parliaments (@ Politikfeldparlamente))

[edit] Alliances

Within a parliament those who hold a similar position on the issue can form an alliance. An alliance is best described as a political party with just one objective concerning just one issue. Internal procedures of alliances resemble those of today's political parties.

The alliance's position can be discussed, developed and refined by its members in a democratic way. Members can be elected to represent the alliance's idea on a higher level (see scaling) and the interests of their electors who might not have the time to actively take part in discourse (see dynamic voting).

Alliances can be concerned with an issue that affect more than one political field; in that case they have to be active in all parliaments that are affected.

(more details on alliances)

[edit] Discourse

The original concept of parliamentarism (@ gibts das Wort auf englisch?) aims to encourage political discourse in parliament. In contemporary democracies, however, parliaments have become forums for political parties. Legislative proposals are worked out in commissions (@ Ausschüsse?) (usually in closed sessions) and presented in parliament. The process of their development is intransparent and irreproducible. This process can at best be described as a pseudo-discourse conducing to the parties' election campaign strategies.

Our concept of direct parliamentarism involves a discourse that focuses on describing your own position and getting to know those of others; and on developing better solutions by incorporating a high amount of expertise, a variety of approaches, and a willingness to compromise. Unlike in today's parliamentarism which is focused on political parties not only the majority of voters is addressed; real political discourse presupposes a diversity of opinion.

This is only possible if citizens with all kinds of social backgrounds concerned with the respective issue take part in discourse and have equal access to it.

In (@ Direkter Parlamentarismus) there can be real discourse - within alliances, between alliances in a parliament, but also between parliaments.

(more on discourse)

[edit] Scaling

It can become necessary to divide parliaments for two reasons: when they have so many members that comprehensible discourse becomes impossible; and when administrative distribution of competence (?? @ die heutige Aufteilung der staatlichen Zuständigkeiten) requires it (see principle of subsidiarity).

Scaling of parliaments and dynamic voting ensure that parliaments retain a high degree of permeability for new ideas even when they have many members.

(@ zu komplex für mich...: Dadurch steht das gesamte Potenzial der Gesellschaft für den politischen Diskurs in Echtzeit zur Verfügung. Außerdem ermöglicht die Skalierung bei politischen Themen, für die mehrere subsidiäre politische Ebenen zuständig sind (etwa Länder, Bund und EU), eine Politik aus einem Guss. Eine Versandung von Themen durch konkurrierende Zuständigkeitsbereiche wird somit verhindert. Über das System des DIREKTEN PARLAMENTARISMUS sind so selbst Lösungen für politische Themen in demokratischem Diskurs möglich, die von globalem Interesse und in globalen Zuständigkeiten verstrickt sind.)

(more on scaling)

[edit] Dynamic voting

Another characteristic of (@ Direkter Parlamentarismus) is the dynamic voting mechanism inside of parliaments and alliances. To become a parliamentarian no election is needed since an interest in the issue is sufficient. Parliamentarians' interests and the degree of participation they aim at can vary widely. Some just want to support a specific position with their vote; others want to actively take part in discourse and contribute their own ideas and expertise. To allow for these different levels of participation and to facilitate binding decisions in parliaments and alliances we employ the concept of dynamic voting.

Within a parliament each member can vote for an alliance by joining it. Each alliance stands for a specific position on the parliament's issue, so it quickly becomes obvious how widely each position is accepted among the parliamentarians.

Members of alliances can give their vote to another member who runs for election if they don't want to personally participate in each intra-alliance poll.

The voting system is dynamic because each member can at any time directly exercise their right to vote on an issue or to withdraw their vote from one delegate and give it to another.

(details on dynamic voting)

[edit] chooso.org

We aim to develop and run an online software tool that makes it possible to easily (implement/ use/ employ?) (@ Direkter Parlamentarismus). This aim is not obtainable by conventional online tools such as forums, blogs or wikis; our primary objective is therefore the development and programming of a new tool. This software will of course be open source; we think it is important that everyone who is interested in our concept and project can contribute to the software development. On our online platform, chooso.org, all users of our tools (e.g. parties, associations, NGOs) can present themselves to others and form networks.

(details on chooso.org)

[edit] Areas of application

As noted above (@ Direkter Parlamentarismus) can not only be applied in the political domain but in all areas where people want to collaborate under democratic terms. We are developing variations of our concept of (@ Direkter Parlamentarismus) adapted to different social systems and to individual conceptions and wishes of the respective users.

If you are interested in a concept for an area of application that we haven't developed yet, please contact us directly and support us by cooperating with us or by donating.

(details on areas of application)