Page 16 - Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

14 A Project of the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) What is in it, what isn’t? This handbook takes a problems-based approach to democracy. This means focusing on the strengths and weaknesses specific political practices offer when addressing the different types of problems a democratic society might face. There is a seemingly endless list of challenges that democratic societies face, ranging from political, moral or structural problems that each lend themselves to different methods of resolving them. Citizens’ Assemblies and Civic Lottery do not address all problems. They are in ways insufficient when it comes to the problems of inclusion and collective decision making. The best solution to political inclusion is franchise and political equality. Conversely, voting is a strong decision making and participatory mechanism but is also low- information and so functions rather poorly when it comes to collective agenda setting. Democracies function best when they make use of different mechanisms to take advantage of their strengths and weaknesses.