Quick facts about Folkstyret

Folkstyret is a democratic party. If Folkstyret is elected by the citizens into parliament, Folkstyret will forward each proposal to 1,000 randomly selected citizens. They will receive information about the proposal and then respond to what they think about it on a five-point scale. The Folkstyret Democratic Party finds out the statically normal view of the proposal, the standpoint which most people can agree on, and then vote accordingly in parliament. Each time a ramdom person of the population gets a question about what they think of a proposal, they also get the chance to express whether there is something else they want to put on the political agenda or if they want to back up any other proposal that someone else already has put forward. These proposals are sorted in order of popularity and are converted into proposals by the elected Folkstyrets’ ombudsmen.

The Folkstyrets Democratic Party has two built-in auto-rejects, which means that Folkstyret automatically votes against proposals that are not approved by the Council on Legislation. This means that proposals that are contrary to the Constitution, are discriminatory, restrict individual freedoms or are not congruent with other legislation cannot be implemented with the help of Folkstyret. Thus, Folkstyret cannot be used to harm liberal democracy. The second auto-reject is triggered if a proposal or vote has been manipulated so that Folkstyret is not able to produce a legitimate basis for the vote. For example, if the time given is too short or if someone is trying to force a decision too far from the citizen (that the principle of subsidiarity is not followed).

All in all, this also means that the Folkstyret Democratic Party only needs to have one single election promise in all general elections: to follow Folkstyrets own statutes.

This solution benefits from the fact that we are many in the population. This means that each randomly selected group is so large and versatile that it can reflect the true and well-thought out opinion of the population on the issue. At the same time, and because we are many millions of inhabitants in the country, each of us on average will be selected quite rarely. Folkstyret gives the whole democratic system and its decisions more legitimacy, perfectly reflecting our views on each issue while not disturbing us in our ordinary lives.

Those of us who want to get involved politically can do so as much as we want in raising public opinion and debating, but we, through our own representatives, all have exactly the same political power in the decisions.

Since the Folkstyret Democratic Party does not come up with any policy of its own, but is merely a pure and undistorted channel for citizens ‘opinions on various issues directly into the decision-making assembly, the Folkstyret can arrange citizens’ panels with randomly selected citizens who can tackle more complex political problems, free of prestige , ideological ideas and other barriers. Just let the power of the best arguments lead them on the path to the common good. If it turns out to that a decision that has undergone the democratic procedure in all its steps does not generate the result that was intended, that will soon be corrected as it will be sent through another round in the process. Much more flexible, vibrant and evolving than it is today, when a chosen decision maker, because of prestige, sticks to his decision for another four years before he can be voted out for a new desicion to be taken.

The political parties can then wholeheartedly represent the political elites, whether they are farmers and foresters, the labor movement, the free churches, the environmental movement and so on. At each election, the voters can choose how much influence the political parties should have in relation to the citizens themselves.

Folkstyrets’ mission statement

The purposes of Folkstyret is to:

Make democratic development possible

Democracy has spread throughout the world in waves to more and more countries. When a country is democratized, it typically starts out as a polyarchy, as it is the first stage of democratic development. A polyarchy allows a country’s political elites to continue to govern the country through political parties, albeit with greater democratic legitimacy due to universal suffrage. However, the political elites and their parties do not want to relinquish power and hand that over to the citizens, which is the hallmark of real democracy. Instead, they want to concentrate as much power as possible to themselves. The competition between the political elites, and the political parties they work through, therefore obstructs democratic development after the first polyarchic step. Since Folkstyret is a democratic party that acts as a direct channel between the citizens and the political power, the citizens themselves can, in general elections, decide how much direct influence they want and how much they want to delegate to the political elites and political parties. Citizens have the opportunity not only to distribute power between the various political elites but also to distribute power between the political elites and themselves. In practice it is a version of sortition within a Bicameral System where the citizens themselves regulate the balance of power between the sortition chamber and elected chamber. This makes democratic development possible beyond polyarchy. This allows for political decisions beyond the legitimacy of the polyarchy. Democracy can begin to grow in depth so that it concludes more in every society and is not limited to spreading across the surface of the planet.

Protect the existing democracy

The political power play between the various political elites means that the political parties, in their quest for power, can be attracted to acquire help from undemocratic parties. This gives undemocratic parties political influence. Democratic parties use their influence to dismantle democracy. Anyone who wants to get rid of the most basic and undeveloped form of democracy we have in Sweden (the polyachy) can do so in just a couple of years. First through a simple majority decision in the Riksdag (175 votes agains 174), then a quick extra election and a new vote in the Riksdag with the same result. Then democracy is gone. Since Folkstyret is the only party that, because of its own constitution, cannot contribute to abolishing any individual freedoms, Folkstyret is the only guarantor that democratic development will not continue backwards as it has done in the last decade. (Down 5% according to the Economists Democracy Index.)

Curb populism

Populism is growing in the gap that arises between citizens and political elites. The populist claims to be the sole interpreter of the will of the real people. Instead of giving voice to a silent majority, the populist almost always expresses the views of a very loud minority. With Folkstyret, the citizens, with every vote in Parliament, can see the opinions of their own representatives in all the social issues that is decided on. No populist can with any credibility claim that the people wants something else when everyone can see the acutal result with their own eyes. This removes the basis of populism.

Let each new generation conquer democracy and make it their own

There is a wealth of democratic institutions, but the most important one is missing. The one who constantly includes the citizens in the political decisions and lets the citizens speak. It is through participation that each new generation can conquer democracy and make it their own. We are learning by doing. Every citizen learns how democracy works by being a part of it and it is through participation that each one of us can shape our own democratic values. Democracy must be reborn in every generation, education is its midwife and Folkstyret can be the institution that constitutes the maternity ward.