Rebuilding the ship: a new model of democracy in emergence

Abstract

[Extract from Introduction]: In this paper the authors will analyse in some detail the anarchist techniques and organisational practices which have been dismissed by political theorists as unworthy of further attention, and show that anarchist movements in the past anticipated and developed solutions to many of the dilemmas only now being discussed by theorists promoting deliberative democracy. We rely on both theoretical arguments as well as internal organisational evidence available to us from our personal involvement in green politics, especially the Australian Greens, to show that these solutions have been rediscovered and successfully adapted and adopted in Green movement and Green party organisational structures.