Consensus decision-making
Consensus decision-making, as a self-described practice, originates from several nonviolent, direct action groups that were active in the Civil rights, Peace and Women's movements in the USA during counterculture of the 1960s.
[5] Consensus spread abroad through the anti-globalization and climate movements, and has become normalized in anti-authoritarian spheres in conjunction with affinity groups and ideas of participatory democracy and prefigurative politics.
Early SNCC member Mary King, later reflected: "we tried to make all decisions by consensus ... it meant discussing a matter and reformulating it until no objections remained".
[12] This way of working was brought to the SNCC at its formation by the Nashville student group, who had received nonviolence training from James Lawson and Myles Horton at the Highlander Folk School.
[11] However, as the SNCC faced growing internal and external pressure toward the mid-1960s, it developed into a more hierarchical structure, eventually abandoning consensus.
Eleanor Garst (herself influenced by Quakers) introduced the practice as part of the loose and participatory structure of WSP.
Occupy Wall Street (2011) made use of consensus in combination with techniques such as the people's microphone and hand signals.
This book on Parliamentary Procedure allows the structuring of debate and passage of proposals that can be approved through a form of majority vote.
[22]To ensure the agreement or consent of all participants is valued, many groups choose unanimity or near-unanimity as their decision rule.
In the spokescouncil model, affinity groups make joint decisions by each designating a speaker and sitting behind that circle of spokespeople, akin to the spokes of a wheel.
[29] In Designing an All-Inclusive Democracy (2007), Emerson proposes a consensus oriented approach based on the Modified Borda Count (MBC) voting method.
[20][36][37] The Quaker model has been adapted by Earlham College for application to secular settings, and can be effectively applied in any consensus decision-making process.
Some decision-making bodies rotate these roles through the group members in order to build the experience and skills of the participants, and prevent any perceived concentration of power.
Cory Doctorow, Ralph Nader and other proponents of deliberative democracy or judicial-like methods view explicit dissent as a symbol of strength.
[57] They may be symptoms of a systemic bias, a rigged process (where an agenda is not published in advance or changed when it becomes clear who is present to consent), fear of speaking one's mind, a lack of creativity (to suggest alternatives) or even a lack of courage (to go further along the same road to a more extreme solution that would not achieve unanimous consent).
It has disadvantages insofar as further disagreement, improvements or better ideas then remain hidden, but effectively ends the debate moving it to an implementation phase.
Majority voting is regarded as competitive, rather than cooperative, framing decision-making in a win/lose dichotomy that ignores the possibility of compromise or other mutually beneficial solutions.
[59] Carlos Santiago Nino, on the other hand, has argued that majority rule leads to better deliberation practice than the alternatives, because it requires each member of the group to make arguments that appeal to at least half the participants.
The result of this reduced commitment, according to many consensus proponents, is potentially less willingness to defend or act upon the decision.
[61][31][30] Some formal models based on graph theory attempt to explore the implications of suppressed dissent and subsequent sabotage of the group as it takes action.
This is a potential liability in situations where decisions must be made speedily, or where it is not possible to canvass opinions of all delegates in a reasonable time.
[69] In the Xulu and Xhosa (South African) process of indaba, community leaders gather to listen to the public and negotiate figurative thresholds towards an acceptable compromise.
[70][71] In Aceh and Nias cultures (Indonesian), family and regional disputes, from playground fights to estate inheritance, are handled through a musyawarah consensus-building process in which parties mediate to find peace and avoid future hostility and revenge.
[72][73] The origins of formal consensus-making can be traced significantly further back, to the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, who adopted the technique as early as the 17th century.
The lack of legitimate consensus process in the unanimous conviction of Jesus by corrupt priests[77] in an illegally held Sanhedrin court (which had rules preventing unanimous conviction in a hurried process) strongly influenced the views of pacifist Protestants, including the Anabaptists (Mennonites/Amish), Quakers and Shakers.
Japanese companies normally use consensus decision-making, meaning that unanimous support on the board of directors is sought for any decision.
[81] The IETF has studiously refrained from defining a mechanical method for verifying such consensus, apparently in the belief that any such codification leads to attempts to "game the system."
The United States Bureau of Land Management's policy is to seek to use collaborative stakeholder engagement as standard operating practice for natural resources projects, plans, and decision-making except under unusual conditions such as when constrained by law, regulation, or other mandates or when conventional processes are important for establishing new, or reaffirming existing, precedent.
[86] Due to excessive use and sabotage from neighboring powers bribing Sejm members, legislating became very difficult and weakened the Commonwealth.
[88] It is slightly different in that broad support for a proposal is defined as the lack of disagreement (sometimes called 'reasoned objection') rather than affirmative agreement.
