An update for our democracy
In his work as a facilitator of participatory processes, Jascha Rohr has supported projects in village regeneration and urban development. He was one of the facilitators of the citizens’ assemblies commissioned by the Bundestag, for example on the topic of “Nutrition in Transition”. In July, he was selected by the Green Party as their candidate for the mayoralty of Oldenburg. And recently, as editor, he published an anthology on the renewal of democracy: “An Update for Our Democracy”. For him, one of the key qualities of this update lies in understanding and living democracy as a process of shaping. In an article for evolve, he writes:
“Understanding democracy as design means not merely viewing it as a legal framework, but being able to design it as the cultural, social and technological infrastructure of our coexistence. Its architecture consists not only of constitutional articles, but also of unwritten rules, institutions, attitudes and habits.
Like any complex order, it is always a product of its time and of a particular understanding of the world. And our understanding of the world has, of course, evolved since the end of the Second World War and the emergence of the global world order in which we now live. Our democratic operating system, if this technical metaphor is permitted, has long been in need of an update and a new cultural practice of lived democracy that is appropriate to the present day and our current understanding of democracy and social regulation.”
For Jascha Rohr, it is important that we all see ourselves as co-creators of such democratic processes and get involved accordingly: “States, societies, indeed entire civilisations have always been shaped. Often by elites, rarely by the population.
Today we face the challenge of organising this shaping process democratically ourselves: this requires people who are not only experts in politics or law, but who, as artists and designers of social and political structures and the culture of democracy, are well-versed in these areas and organise them through co-creative processes. People who understand political systems as processes that can be shaped. I call them governance designers. And even if this profession does not officially exist – the practice has long been in place. It takes place in civil society, activism, academia, the arts and public administration.”
In this evolve LIVE! seminar, participants will explore together with Jascha Rohr how we can all engage in democratic processes, which inner qualities can support us in doing so, and what is needed to facilitate encounter, co-creativity and decision-making in dialogical processes. In doing so, the dialogical process will be explored in depth as a means of experiencing creative shaping power together.