Imagining and Then Jointly Pursuing a Power-With Vision of a Democracy to Lives Up to Its Ideals (Prospective Reconciliation)

6. Civic Knowledge and Skills

As we explained when we introduced the notion of constructive confrontation, it is important to envision a future that makes place for "others," — for people who are different from you and likely do not share your values and goals. In small scale situations, we can just avoid such people (although even that may not be a good idea, but that's for another time). In societal level conflicts, "the other" isn't going to go away. The African National Congress (ANC) realized this when they acknowledged that "South Africa belongs to everyone who lives there," paving way for the end of apartheid, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the new government and constitution, which while far from perfect, promised a livable life for both white and black South Africans. In Israel, neither the Jews or the Palestinians are going to just go away, despite the fact that some people on both sides wish they would, and some on the Palestinian side (Hamas) go so far as to make that their avowed goal. In the United States, neither the Left nor the Right is going away. It may change form, they may change goals, but there are going to be people and parties with profound differences going forward no matter what we do.

Given that, if we want a stable and strong democracy, we need to design one that really does work for everyone — that promises security and a respected identity for all legitimate actors. (We are not saying we need to respect and make room for people who we call "bad faith actors," — people who are acting to destroy democracy for their own nefarious ends.) Effective democracies need to expose, block, and disempower them.

This is far simpler to write than to do, of course. Both scholars and practitioners seem to have quite divergent images of what elements are necessary for a healthy democracy. Our list includes our Massively Parallel Democracy Building Goals: the need to cultivate compromise, respect different identities, preserve electoral integrity, promote reconciliation (which now makes this list circular since this is an introduction to "prospective reconciliation,") promote effective communication and problem solving, and limit massively parallel partisanship. All of these factors are explored more below, but the key ideas are that all identity groups need to have a secure place in a power-with democracy, and decision making should be made through compromise and collaboration as much as possible, rather than power-over, 51% hammer effect politics.