Talk:Grassroots democracy

Defining terms

I made a big change in the page because the previous entry didn't make any statement about the idea that grassroots democracy is geographically and community based. As such, it was confusing two very distinct issues, namely whether or not decision-making is "rooted", and, whether or not non-elected individual members are allowed to enter into the decision-making process. These two issues are not the same, yet people often seem oblivious to the distinction.

In fact, in many cases, the two points specifically contradict each other. A grassroots organization may go to great lengths to follow a community-based process of debate and consensus building. Once a decision has been reached, were someone from another commuity were to "butt in" and then make changes simply on her own initiative, then the process would cease to be "grassroots", but it might arguably be participatory. Similarly, if outsiders were forbidden to intervene, the process could be "grassroots", but not "participatory."

These issues are not trivial, as they have been the focus of very heated debate within Green Parties between advocates of computer-based decision-making who have no interest in creating local, riding-based political entities versus people who have been working on creating a confederacy of community-based political organizations. The experience is that isolated individuals have no understanding at all of the need to accomodate different points of view----many of whom have no interest at all in participating in internet-based discussions and instead only wish to work on a face-to-face basis in their local organization.

The result is that individuals become incensed when a larger institution, like a Green Party national office, steps in to defend the rights of non-internet-based membership to set national policy. Because the partisans of "participatory process" (i.e. things like a Wiki) do not actually see any of the large numbers of members who choose to participate through grassroots organizing venues (or representative electoral processes, for that matter), it looks as if some sort of arbitrary control has been exerted.

This is difference of viewpoint between people existing in different organizational milieus has been the cause of some extremely bitter conflict. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.104.66.26 (talk • contribs) December 23, 2005 (UTC)

First sentence doesn't make sense

I think there is a verb missing:

Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as is practical ***is given*** to the organization's lowest geographic level of organization. Gakrivas 14:52, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Nice one. I changed this half a year later :) . Just goes to show that wiki thrives on action and not on talk . Be Bold ! :D Regards Sean Heron 17:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

FYI

If people who watch this page are also interested in how Wikipedia is governed, be sure to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Advisory_Council_on_Project_Development . Slrubenstein | Talk 13:18, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Examples

How is it that EZLN is considered both grassroots and participatory democracy and most of the other ones are in both articles. Isn't grassroots built around mayors anyway?Domsta333 (talk) 09:13, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Overlap between participation articles

I was looking at the articles on participation, and I noticed that they are not very coordinated and they overlap quite a bit. I'm starting a discussion about this at Talk:Participation#Overlap_between_participation_articles. Any help is appreciated! MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 16:26, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge discussion

There are now articles for Grassroots and Grassroots democracy. I think these are referring to the same thing. Because I think it is better and because there is a precedent for including the latter into the democracy template, I propose that the content of grassroots be merged into grassroots democracy. Any objections? Blue Rasberry 22:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge it. --24.61.49.27 (talk) 21:03, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I object. Grassroots Democracy would serve better if it was a branch of Grassroots, thereby allowing a greater specification between the two subjects. (Anonymous). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.193.60.231 (talk) 23:30, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, Grassroots Democracy would serve better if it was a branch of Grassroots and not the other way around. Already the first sentence of Grassroots Democracy refers to grassroots organisation as main decision-making authority. Thus, Grassroots Democracy is a product of a grassroots movement. However, the Grassroots article needs to be further developed. At the moment the article emphasizes very much on grassroots as a political movement in the sense of "party political" (and it is also very much US focused). There are so many interesting examples of grassroots movements and organisations that started off as such (e.g. Amnesty International, Greenpeace, 2011 Egyptian revolution, Otpor!), but also inspirational people that triggered such movements (e.g. Vandana Shiva, Mahatma gandhi, Gene Sharp). There are tons of literature about strategy, functioning, structure and impact of grassroots out there and there are a lot of good and bad practice that can serve critical reflection. Actually, I think "grassroots" should become a category :-) Max Mustermann (talk) 14:22, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Democracy (everyone gets to vote on everything) is grassroots by definition, making Grassroots Democracy redundant. Besides, grassroots has become a non-political term, too. The word is also used in social-change movements. I think a better idea is looking at how the text in Grassroots Democracy overlaps with the text in Democracy. Dan Bollinger (talk) 23:09, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Per Max Mustermann & IP#24.193.60.231, Grassroots Democracy serves better as a branch of Grassroots.--JayJasper (talk) 18:48, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Not Encyclopedic

This article is somewhat general and written in a very basic manner. An expert would be appreciated to help or at least an editor capable of re-arranging/adding info into more logical subheadings. Minigoody101 (talk) 09:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Not sure 'basic' is the word that I'd use - I could barely understand it. It would be useful if it was a little more accessible to people who aren't politically inclined.Weirdtheory (talk) 02:37, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

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