Towards a manifesto

Why win-win democracy is desirable

• More people have their needs met
• It counters the polarisation of destructive win-lose politics
• It creates healthier relationships. People who think they disagree have to talk to each other constructively  and understand each other in order to find win-win solutions
• It is more fun, more creative and more appealing than the way we do democracy at present

Why win-win democracy is possible.  Our research, over a decade and more, has produced examples from a range of sectors, contexts and countries. 

Why win-win democracy is practicable. Weare developing our own format, the Win-Win Workout, which mainly uses role play and a consensus approach. There is a six minute video about our first trial, on the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, here. We are also strong believers in preference voting, and have developed our own form, called Crowd Wise. And we have tested a well-established approach called Q Methodology.

Our research across the world has also identified two other outstanding approaches, pol.is and the Polarity approach. We plan to test both.

Why win-win democracy could be permanent, could simply be the way we do democracy. We will start the next phase by seeking to institutionalise the approaches described above in one sector. This might for instance be the parish and town councils that follow the Flatpack Democracy model. We will then begin to imagine and to realise what this would mean for all the processes and structures of democracy.

Come and join us

If you are interested in win-win democracy, especially if you would like to try it out, contact Perry Walker.

You can read more about the Win-Win approach here. Two of the decision-making methods we use are Crowdwise and the Wye Method.

Try these two situations at home

Here are two real situations. In both cases, one of the parties found an elegant and creative solution that worked for everybody. If you can think of such a solution, let Perry Walker know and we’ll tell you what actually happened.

• In one children’s ward, all the children were given a teddy bear. They became very attached to their bears, and when they left hospital insisted on taking them home. The hospital was breaking its teddy bear budget. What did the staff do?
• John Humes, US ambassador to Austria, was given several boxes of Havana cigars. The USA’s relations with Cuba meant that he couldn’t be seen to accept them. But he didn’t want them to go to waste. What did he do?