I am seeing hints of a new form of governance that may be used for Occupy Wall Street. Conversations online are asking folks to take a look at this proposal:
The Occupied Wall Street Spokes Council Proposal submitted by the Structure Working Group
The Structure Working Group does not want to replace the General Assembly, nor the morning check-ins or the occupiers' meeting, but they want to find a way to maintain the direct democracy gains they have made while allowing the movement to grow.
If you are like me, you have never heard of the Spokes Council. Come join me below for a brief overview and for discussion of the pros and cons of the new proposal.
What is a Spokes Council?
A spokes council is a structure that has been used widely by democratic movements since the Spanish Revolution and draws inspiration from many indigenous struggles such as the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. It was used effectively for many years in Anti-Nuclear (80's) and Global Justice (90's and 00's) movements in the US and internationally. The beauty of a spokes council is that it allows large numbers of people to participate in directly democratic decision making, united in their desire for accountable, transparent and horizontal relationships. It is called a spokes council because it is structured like the spokes of wheel.
When you read the proposal, you will recognize a lot of terminology we already use to in most forms of governance - there are still working groups and they would be required to submit charters that would be published in a public forum. The Spokes Council would be responsible for approving new Working Groups. Thematic working groups would not be a part of the Spokes Council though they are encouraged to engage in other Working Groups as they deem appropriate (before you panic, see Caucus Clusters, below).
Each Working Group would have autonomy and they would be expected to communicate with other Working Groups outside of the Spokes Council.
Then there are the new terms. If Working Groups have goals that intertwine, they will be required to work together and form a Working Group Cluster. Each cluster would have one spoke person (not spokesperson) for each meeting of the Spokes Council. The Spokes Council would also help new Working Groups find an appropriate Working Group Cluster with which to work.
Another important aspect of the Spokes Council would be Caucus Groups:
A Caucus is a self-determining group of people that share a common experience of being systemically marginalized in our society based on their real or perceived race, gender identity, sexuality, age, or ability.
As with working groups, Caucus Groups would also write charters to submit to the Spokes Council and work within the system much like Working Groups do. They will be highly encouraged to work with other Caucus Groups to form Caucus Clusters. Caucus Clusters differ from Working Groups in that:
"...they have the ability to halt a proposal they deem to have potentially disproportionately adverse consequences for their constituencey, and allowed reasonable time to bring the issue to their Caucus for deliberation."
A point that seems very important to highlight:
It is not the responsibility of a Caucus to educate others about oppression.
In the minds of many of you, you are already picturing a typical meeting where we send representatives of a group and that representative is granted permission to make decisions for the group - not unlike how our government already works. You couldn't be further from the truth. Take a look at the picture above. These meetings take place with the entire Group or Caucus in place. A single person sits in the Spokes Council but they are backed by their Group or Caucus. That single person cannot make decisions for the group. They are there to speak for the group. At times, they will need to confer with their group and then to reflect the "collective sentiment" of the group back to the Spokes Council. This individual can be changed in the middle of the meeting as the group s/he represents can chose to recall them at any time. And this individual should never be the same person time after time, meeting after meeting.
One of the benefits of this model is that if a Block exists within a group or cluster, the block must be addressed at that level first. If the group or cluster agrees with the block, then it would go forth. If not, it would remain at group level and the larger Spokes Council could continue with the business at hand.
If a Spokes Council would have been in place in Atlanta when Representative John Lewis wanted to address the General Assembly, the block against his speaking may not have gone further than the individual. If the block had gone forward, it would not have appeared to be as racist divisive as it did - a young, white* man preventing an older African American from speaking - because the voices that demand the block would have come from a diverse group rather than a single individual. Of course, this example is somewhat exaggerated because this occurred at a General Assembly, which would not work on the Spokes Council model but it gives us an example to consider and to better understand the benefits of the process.
One of the potential disadvantages of this system is that a single person can't sit with multiple clusters so it you identify with multiple groups, you would be forced to chose a single one to sit with during meetings. That means your voice can only be heard within a single Working Group Cluster or Caucus Cluster, not both. This can limit participation of minority voices, especially those who feel strong ties with several chartered groups.
To better understand exactly what the Spokes Council would address, here are the four types of decisions that they would attend to:
- Decisions related to the functioning and well-being of the occupation
- All budgets and capital expenditures
- Working Groups and Caucus Charters and their affiliation with the Spokes Council
- All declarations that propose to represent OWS as a whole (principles of unity, demands, etc.)
As the proposal currently exists, a spoke will be given to the Occupiers Meeting for those that are camping but do not belong to any formal Working Group.
Just so you know, this proposal has already undergone several revisions. The folks working on this have taken into account a wide range of opinion and includes the hard work from the Facilitation Working Group, the General Assembly itself, 2 large public meetings and 3 structure working group meetings.
There are people that would like to see this proposal pass as is and manage any more fine tuning within the Spokes Council process.
Although I have done my best to highlight the most important aspects of the Spokes Council, you should definitely visit the main proposal page itself. It would be good for the General Assembly to see a few more page hits anyway!