Want politicians to involve people more? Here’s how you can help.

By Jon Alexander and Omezzine Khelifa

We often hear our political systems aren’t working for the people. In many ways they’re not working for politicians either.

We can think of a few politicians who aren’t representing us the way they should, but we also know that not all politicians are the same. Many are crying out for new ways of addressing the 21st century’s biggest problems and are very much open to involving citizens as they do so. For some reason, though, it's just not happening—at least not on the scale it needs to.

This is why we came together as a democratic innovation practitioner (Jon) and former politician (Omezzine) in a year-long project to explore the barriers politicians face embracing processes that could see them working more closely with citizens—like citizens’ assemblies, participatory budgeting etc.—and how we could help them be overcome. 

Now we want to invite you to join our efforts to close the gap between politicians and citizens by sharing our Circular Power Politics guide with as many political leaders as possible. We’ve made it easy by drafting an email for you to send to your elected representatives. You can use or adapt it as you please.

Our exploration found evidence of a huge latent opportunity. On one hand, there is a large and growing set of case studies, from Taiwan to Nigeria, from Ireland to Morocco, that between them represent a whole range of ways in which politicians can work more closely with people. Together, these demonstrate real potential to rebuild trust and regenerate our democracies. On the other hand, there is also a hunger on the part of many politicians for exactly this kind of new approach. But for reasons that are largely rooted in misconceptions and miscommunication, few politicians are yet to take up these opportunities. 

We have brought these findings together and developed two new outputs in response: a report sharing the insights from the interviews we conducted, called Leaders or Latecomers? Exploring the role of politicians in democratic innovation; and an orientation guide to this space for politicians, called Circular Power Politics: A Politician’s Guide to Five Opportunities to Lead With and For the People.

In Leaders or Latecomers?, we share eight key insights as to why this potential for a more participatory politics has not yet been fulfilled, derived from 14 in-depth qualitative interviews with politicians from across the world and across the political spectrum. The objective is to share these with practitioners from across the world, equipping them to consider how they might frame their outputs to best engage politicians. Some of our findings are quite fundamental. For instance, we found that the term “democratic innovation” itself at best fails to communicate the urgency and power of this work to politicians, and at worst leaves them confused.

In Circular Power Politics, we start to put these insights into action ourselves. We introduce the concept of “circular power politics,” using it to distinguish this work from both conventional “linear” politics, which sees people vote for politicians and then largely leave them to it; and from populist politics, which seeks to exploit the resulting separation between people and politicians often for the benefit of autocrats and authoritarians. The concept of circular power politics instead highlights the opportunity of establishing ongoing cycles of engagement between politicians and citizens, reframing the role of politicians as working with citizens, not just for them.

We are hugely excited by the potential of this work. We hope you are too. Do let us know in the comments if you send an email about circular power politics to your representatives. Thank you for being part of the movement to update political leadership for the 21st century. 

• Omezzine Khelifa is a former Tunisian politician and former Executive Director of our Apolitical Foundation Accelerator. 
• Jon Alexander is the author of Citizens, Co-founder of the New Citizenship Project and one of our global advisors.