Fetishizing Informality: Comments on Mark Lance's "Fetishizing Process"

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Kristian Williams - Social Anarchism #40 - 2007

Mark Lance's essay, "Fetishizing Process" (Social Anarchism #38, 2005) provides a well-reasoned and astute discussion of the always-contentious question of anarchist decision-making, and it makes an invaluable contribution to the literature on the subject. Anyone mired in a voting-versus-consensus debate would profit from reading his article. [note 1].

However, as insightful as Professor Lance's analysis is, and as persuasive as many of his arguments are, when he attempts (too briefly) to translate philosophical considerations into practical organizational advice, things go profoundly wrong.

Reviewing Lance's Argument

Much of Lance's argument centers on a useful distinction between a group's deliberative practices and its decision-making procedures. Lance writes:

[L]et us call the complex process of discussion - a process about which much can be said, but the proper functioning of which is unlikely to be definable via a set of rules - 'practice'. The set of formal rules that define a method of taking a decision will be referred to as 'procedure'. (5)

He argues, based largely on their own published arguments, that whichever procedure they might favor - consensus or voting - the anarchist advocates of each really value the same sort of features concerning the deliberative practice: that it be inclusive and respectful, that each participant consider the interests of others and of the group as a whole, that dissenting views and minority opinions are taken seriously, and so on. He also offers a logical critique of consensus procedures, demonstrating how they privilege inaction and inertia.

But he goes on to claim, citing anecdotal evidence and his own experience, that where an organization's practices are good, it matters very little what procedures they adopt; and furthermore, when the group's practices are bad, the procedures will not be enough to guarantee fair or rational outcomes. [note 2].

His advice, then, for anarchist organizations:

[D]o not write down any procedure as part of the defining structure of the group! Any procedure you try to legislate is as likely to be abused, as likely to give people a crutch to lean on, or an excuse to avoid careful thinking, discussion, and inclusive labor. No procedure guarantees wise decision making, and a wide variety of procedures can be useful in arriving at wise decisions. So do not privilege one over another in the abstract. (22)

While the distinction between deliberative practices and decision-making procedures is helpful, and the admission that no procedure is foolproof is very welcome, I worry that Lance goes too far toward suggesting that the procedures just don't matter. And, outside of the context of a small-scale affinity group, his advice against codifying procedures strikes me as thoroughly unsound. [note 3]

I will argue against Lance's recommendation for three inter-related reasons:

1. It is easier to agree about the procedure for reconciling disagreements in advance of any particular dispute;

2. Procedures shape practices; and,

3. There is more at stake besides the wisdom of our choices.

I will begin by offering a profile of one organization that erred on the side of informality. And I conclude with a sketch of another organization that - I believe - takes approximately the right approach.

Case One: Portland Copwatch

From 1996 to 2002, I was a member of Portland Copwatch (PCW), an all-volunteer, tax-exempt organization operating in Portland, Oregon. During the period of my involvement, the active membership of PCW hovered consistently in the range of four to eight people, mostly young white anarchists. The work of the organization consisted primarily in monitoring the civilian review board (which oversaw the police) and pressing the city council for policy changes; every so often we would videotape police violence at demonstrations. There was always a wish to do more - organize neighborhood patrols to watch the cops, for instance - but the small size of the group and the measure of work we had already committed ourselves to meant that these hopes were always deferred. In the meantime, wave after wave of volunteers would join, excited by the promise of the organization - but then quickly recognize the limits of its work, lose interest, and drop out.

The existing members became increasingly frustrated, and many saw the need to make PCW more inclusive. But collective self-criticism was never a part of our organizational culture, and so any efforts to re-prioritize our work or re-think our strategy were seen as distractions or disruptions, interfering with the real business of the organization. Even minor changes were often stymied, sometimes by a single member.

The organization's structure and its decision-making procedures were not incidental in this situation; they were, rather, formidable impediments to change and growth. The decision-making process was nominally consensus-based, with a super-majority vote as a fall-back. But implementation of the procedure was always very loose, and there was no clear device for determining when, or how, to use the super-majority alternative. In fact, I don't remember it being used at all - even when consensus failed - during my first five years with the group. Instead, disagreements were settled largely by default. Changes were blocked by recalcitrant members; irresolvable questions became taboo; and, in the absence of true consensus, deference was given to precedent. Tellingly, these all amounted to the same thing: within the organization, the status uo prevailed.

This procedural sloppiness was typical of the organization as a whole; similar flaws marred the deliberative practices and the overall structure as well. Discussion was often unfocused, and decisions were commonly left vague. Even the concept of a "member" was unclear. Technically, anyone who donated some nominal sum of money or did ten hours of volunteer work was a full member - meaning that dozens of people were members of the organization and never knew it, while the same four or five people came to every meeting and did the vast majority of the work.

The gap between theory and practice was pronounced: In theory, Portland Copwatch was almost utopian in its commitment to inclusiveness and democracy. In reality, it was a confused mess which even the most involved members were unable to effectively shape. The main element that made this duality possible, and which partly hid it, was the organization's overarching informality.

It was thought - or rather, hoped - that this informality would be an advantage. By keeping things loose, we could concentrate on getting the work done rather than being bogged down with a bunch of structural or procedural nonsense. And our talk-and-nod, no-need-to-vote style should seem friendly and inviting to those interested in joining. The reality turned out to be very different: Newcomers were frankly baffled by our meetings. There were token efforts made to include them, but no real means for incorporating them into the process, or for teaching them the decision-making procedure - not that we could have. Even long-standing members like myself sometimes found the process mysterious. If asked to explain it, I doubt I could have come up with more than "We just talk things out." The result was that the input of newer members was minimized, or sometimes ignored. (And don't think they didn't notice.)

In at least one sense, though the formal procedure was almost irrelevant. Labor was distributed according to a principle of extreme voluntarism, with the result that one member in particular - who for our purposes will be called "Ted" - did far more than his share of the work. Ted did not need a regular, paying job, so he devoted himself instead to running PCW. He was also one of the founding members, and thus the person with the most history in the organization. His long involvement and committed work led to a sort of expertise and a sense of ownership - in both the positive and the negative regards. One could almost always find him in the office, and the organization's records, computer files, and supplies were all organized according to his own idiosyncratic system. In effect, Ted served as the umpaid administrative director for PCW - answering the phones, checking the mail, balancing the books, filing records, scheduling meetings, making photocopies, and so on. Ted also served as the institutional memory for the organization: he knew how we did things, and he understood why things were organized the way the were. Almost nothing could get done without him, producing a perverse, vicious cycle: interested volunteers (or even members) sometimes literally could not help because Ted was unable to incorporate them into his routine.

For these reasons, among others, the work that Ted thought was important (like the civilian review board) became the organization's de facto priority, and those projects that he deprioritized (patrols) received inadequate support or attention. For the most part, this was not an intentional scheme of Ted's. What happened was exactly what we should have known would happen: the weakness of the formal structure allowed an informal hierarchy to set in.

There was also a large element of inertia at work: we kep working on what we had been working on, if only because we had invested so much work already; this left little in the way of energy or resources to put toward new projects. The trouble was, we lacked the critical practices that would lead us to re-evaluate our work, and we lacked the procedures that would let us re-prioritize or change course.

All of this produced and oddly conservative organizational culture, in which the very informality of the process and the very nebulousness of the structure served to deflect internal criticism and frustrate change. In principle, we were all equal and worked by consensus. In fact, however, some members were more equal than others, and "consensus" often meant mere deference to established precedent. Because each of us was free to work as much (or as little) as we liked, it was hard to complain that Ted's tireless devotion bought him additional influence. In effect, this informality meant that social privileges (like Ted's financial independence) could translate into power within the organization. Likewise, because no clear procedure existed for making decisions when we could not achieve consensus, there was little incentive to raise issues that were likely to be contentious, and when disagreements arose, they were generally resolved by making proposals increasingly vague and general. The default, it seemed, was always some version of what we had done before.

In 2002, a faction of the Portland Copwatch membership (a faction of which I was a part) set out to put the organization on a different path. Politically, we felt that the civilian-review strategy had gone as far as it could go, and furthermore, we worried that by prioritizing policy analysis and advocacy, we were becoming both less radical and increasingly isolated from the community. By this thinking, our lack of growth required that we change our approach; but a change in strategy required a change in structure.

In retrospect it seems we were too ambitious - seeking at one stroke to formalize the group's processes, democratize its structure, revise our strategy, and prioritize work that would build a constituency in the community. The short-term result was disaster. The organization was immediately polarized, with those in the middle becoming utterly alienated, and leaving soon thereafter. The crisis brought latent conflicts - some ideological, some personal - rushing to the surface. The organization effectively broke down, and there was no procedure for resolving the conflict and moving forward. After several bitter months, the organization finally split. A group of four - at that point, all of the active members under 30, myself included - left to form Rose City Copwatch (RCCW), receiving some start-up funds and other resources from PCW.[note 4] The other group (Ted and two more) kept the name Portland Copwatch, continued in the work around the civilian review board, and retained most of the organization's resources. Within three months Portland Copwatch had split again, strictly along gender lines: the two women involved left to form Pdx Copwatch (which dissolved altogether a few months later). At last, Portland Copwatch really was Ted's group.[note 5]

There are innumerable lessons to be drawn from this sadly rather absurd story, but the main point here is that the crisis took the form it did in large part because the organization's process could not address the actual political questions it was facing. PCW had managed to limp along for years, mostly because there was an implicit agreement on the overall direction the group should take, and a general willingness to defer to precedent (in effect, to Ted) in getting it done. Once a substantive challenge arose to our presumed strategy, the arrangement fell apart, and the informal structure offered no way forward. The fault lines turned out also to be lines of social privilege - age in the first split, gender in the second.

The implications for what follows are, I think, clear enough. The lack of established procedures made it impossible to resolve disputes once the conflicts arose. Procedural sloppiness contributed as much to our bad discursive practices as did anything else, including any personal shortcomings on the part of the members. It especially limited the involvement of new members, discouraged the discussion of uncomfortable or contentious issues, and allowed for informal hierarchies to develop, and unexamined habits to become entrenched. And finally, in all these ways, our bad processes had consequences far beyond the immediate exercise of decision-making. They limited the organization's growth, its ability to strategize and learn from its mistakes, and ultimately led to its fragmentation.

Agreeing in Advance

It is certainly true, as Lance suggests, that a good procedure is not enough. And it is also true that solid discursive practices can take the pressure of the formal decision-making procedure. When things go really well, the final vote or assent (or whatever) can be reduced to a mere formality. And conversely, when things go really badly in the run-up to a formal decision, there may be no way to invest the final outcome with the necessary sense of legitimacy. These complementary observations lend some weight to the idea that it is the practices, and not the procedures, that matter. But this conclusion really makes too much out of the extreme examples, when most situations fall somewhere in between. This Lance acknowledges, though he stops short of saying how to handle these in-between cases. He writes:

So if procedure is completely beside the point for fully virtuous groups, and helpless in the face of highly vicious groups, when is it useful? Well, clearly for those groups that are somewhere in between. We rightly fall back on procedure precisely when a group that is generally respectful and non-manipulative is running into local restricted problems....We adopt procedures as a pragmatic tool for getting around a concrete problem in the course of our discussions...[and] the usefulness of any procedure will vary widely with context. Since there exists an enourmous range of ways that things can go wrong in a group, we have no reason to find one all-purpose procedure to fall back on....Thus, what we need is not a procedure, but a well-stocked tool kit of ways to deal with the sorts of difficulties that come up within generally well-functioning, but fallible groups. (19)

This is right, for as far as it goes. And surely no one means to suggest that their preferred mechanism for finalizig a decision should replace tried-and-true techniques for getting discussions back on track - techniques such as go-arounds, or inviting those who haven't spoken to make a comment, or taking a fifteen minute break. But the question remains as to what we should do, not when the discussion has gone wrong, but rather when the discussion has gone quite well and the disagreements remain.

Conflicts inevitably arise, and they cannot always be resolved through discussion. Sometimes people just disagree, and any organization that wants to make decisions at all has to confront this basic fact. These disagreements may center on matters of fundamental principle, values, and ideology; or they might involve minor questions of tactics, style, or emphasis; and, they can bring out very different perspectives based on the political experience, cultural backgrounds, or the various levels of social privilege enjoyed by the individuals involved. But whatever the source or nature of the dispute, when it interferes with the work of the organization, some way must be found to move forward.

In the midst of a conflict, even a very minor conflict, it can be difficult to agree on what would count as a fair outcome. And it is not always any easier to agree on what would count as a fair process for reaching that outcome. In fact, it can become very hard to evaluate the fairness or rationality of a suggested procedure without prejudice as to whether it will lead to one's own preferred result. In practice, arguments about process often become the first stage of, or sometimes stand in for, the substantive dispute. As a practical matter, then, it would seem wiser if we could agree, in advance and without reference to any specific case, how such disagreements would be handled. If we can agree in principle on a procedure for resolving disputes, then we can at least fall back on that pre-established mechanism when disagreements become intractable.

If such an in-principle agreement is possible, there is no reason not to establish the procedure in advance, but there are some very real reasons not to try to do it on the fly. (I've already noted one; the pressure of time is another.) On the other hand, if no such in-principle agreement is possible, then the organization's chances for surviving a substantive controversy are practically nil.

What is at issue, really, is not just the question of whether procedures matter, but how they matter. Lance and I agree that a procedure's value is instrumental, and not inherent in the mechanism itself. He argues, however, that its value is therefore entirely contextual, and thus, that it is a mistake to specify a procedure in advance rather than adopt one provisionally, based on the needs of the immediate circumstance. I have argued, on the contrary, that since the immediate circumstance will sometimes be one of conflict, it is better to establish a procedure in advance that the means for settling a dispute will provide a point of agreement rather than a source of further friction. I don't see this as making a fetish of the procedure, but rather, as establishing procedural norms as a part of good process - not the only part, for sure, but an important part nevertheless. A good procedure will not every guarantee a good practice, or a good outcome - but it may sometimes make virtuous practices and wise outcomes possible.

Procedures Shape Practices

As useful as the conceptual distinction between practice and procedure clearly is, we need to remember that the two aspects of decision-making are not (and ought not be) unrelated. Obviously, there would be little point in careful, rational deliberation if the final decision would inevitably be made by flipping a coin, or engaging in a duel. The question-settling procedure must in some sense reflect the ideals of ethicality and rationality underlying the group's deliberative practices. And, more to the point, the decision-making procedure will always shape the deliberative practices.

For example, consider the difference between the role of a decision-maker and that of an advisor. In democratic organizations that are both deliberative and participatory, we are called on to be advisors and deciders, more or less at once. Our arguments inform the views of our decision-making peers, and their advice affects our own position. In representative systems, or under conditions of arbitration, the ultimate decision is in the hands of a small minority; most people merely advise. In intensely authoritarian systems, we are denied even that role: Shut up and do what you're told.

When the advising and deciding roles are divided, the responsibility for decisions - and the ownership of mistakes - is very different depending on the person's position. Even if her advice is taken, even if her view prevails, an advisor's responsibility is less pronounced than that of the decision-maker. Whereas in deliberative, participatory democracies, even the out-voted minority will generally feel some responsibility for the behaviour of the group (that, after all, is part of why we care so much about what the group does), and in perfectly functioning organizations, they would help to enact the decision despite their own reservations.

Furthermore, while both participatory and representative (and, for that matter, purely authoritarian) organizations may be deliberative, the practices of deliberation are typically rather different depending on the organizational context. Since a representative or an arbitrator makes a decision on his own, those offering advice will tend to engage in dialogue with him, rather than with each other. This is precisely the point of some types of arbitration, as when it has become impossible for clashing parties to even carry on a civil conversation. Such an arrangement may make certain unacceptable forms of discourse less likely - name-calling, or other provocations - but it also limits the chances (and often, the willingness) for each party to acknowledge the other's point of view, to seek out common ground, and to offer compromises or form new opinions.

On the other hand, a participatory procedure in which everyone helps make the final decision will tend to put the various factions more in dialogue with each other. (It makes no difference here whether it operates by consensus or by majority rule.) They do not need to convince the one arbitrator, but rather, they need to convince their peers. So they must, at the very least, appeal to those who are undecided, and preferably, also to those who initially disagree with them. Of course, Lance's point still stands: no procedure guarantees good practices (or good results). And yet, some procedures do tend to encourage good behavior, or accommodate bad, more than others do.

In the real world, it becomes difficult to say exactly where procedures begin and practices end. It's not as though practices rule for the first 45 minutes of a meeting, and then procedures take over for the last 15. By and large, the mechanics of a meeting - from setting the agenda, to putting forward, criticizing, and amending proposals, even to deciding when it's time to quit - can never be either strictly procedural or purely practical. Any procedure is, in one sense, composed of a whole set of techniques, sub-routines or mini-procedures, which structure the overal process. (This is part of why Lance's remark about the meeting tool kit is largely right, but also why it rather misses the point.) These procedures may unhelpfully constrain us, ruling out creative solutions and suffocating debate - or they can provide that minimum of structure necessary to get the deliberative process going in the first place. Sensible procedures, then will provide a framework for the exercise of the good practices, and we can evaluate our procedures in part according to whether they do, in fact, encourage such practices.

There Is More At Stake Besides The Wisdom Of Our Choices

Lance seems to have a single criterion for judging a decision-making process - namely, the quality of the decisions it produces. This is what allows him to argue that

[if] everyone is virtuous - respectful of others yet committed to arguing for the truth as they see it, listening carefully and critically, well-informed and sharing of information, interested in what is best for the group, its members, and society as a whole [-then] in a situation like this, just about any procedure will do. It could be the 'let Lelia decide' procedure, because Leila, being virtuous, won't decide without going through the whole open and inclusive discussion with her comrades...and at the end of the discussion, when the best position - as far as we are able to determine in this context, with this information, given our level of intellectual skill - emerges, she will choose that position, as would anyone else in our perfect community. And exactly the same choice would result from voting, consensus, etc. (18-19).

Perhaps the same choice, but hardly the same general effect.

Lance's implicit assumption is that if each procedure would lead to the same choice, then any one is equally as good as any other. It would follow from this that, if Lelia's judgment really is as good as the group's collective judgment, then there is no reason to reserve the "Let Lelia Decide" procedure for troublesome cases; we could just as well adopt a "Lelia Always Decides" principle - assuming, of course, that Lelia remains perfectly virtuous and continues to engage in open and inclusive discussion with her comrades. In all likelihood, however, Lance's saints would soon become far less saintly - beginning with Lelia. For decision-making procedures don't just produce wise or foolish decisions; they also distribute power and responsibility within a group. Anarchists, of course, favor procedures that tend toward an equal distribution of power, because real-world despots are rarely very enlightened, and no one should trust in a dictator's benevolence.

So clearly, in addition to the quality of decision, there are other criteria to consider. A good process does not just produce a good choice. It also builds the organization by contributing to the individual members' sense of involvement, developing the practices that make the process laudable, by encouraging the virtues that underlie those practices. In other words, consistently applied over the long term, a good process will reduce the inequality within the organization while simultaneously enhancing its collective wisdom and promoting the members' sense of responsibility and commitment. Ultimately, these sorts of criteria are probably more important than whether or not the organization makes the best choice in any particular case - since, first of all, we have already agreed that no process is infallible, and secondly, because an organization's learning will usually be the result of its mistakes. It is striking, in Lance's essay, how much he expects from good practices and how little he says about developing them. He does note that

A key goal of any anarchist strategy must be the development of discursive, social, and rational virtue in each other. [And] Any viable anarchist society must institutionalize things like schools, discussion forums, and critical process discussions, which will allow us to form and maintain such virtues. (22)

But somehow, these concerns fail to register in his specific recommendations for those forming anarchist groups.

As things now stand, many of us learn these skills and develop these virtues primarily in the course of struggle and through our engagement with social movements. The rest of our lives do little to prepare us for participation in genuinely democratic organizations - which means that those organizations have to do the job themselves.

In other words, we don't just want our decision-making processes to produce good decisions, we also want them to empower the participants, and to instill in us the virtues associated with good practice. If our organizations are to draw from outside the narrow anarchist milieu (which they must, if we want our movements to grow), then they need to incoroprate this educational aspect into their practices, and the procedures they adopt must not themselves present a barrier to the participation of novices. Obviously, inordinately complex or cumbersome procedures can be intimidating and alienating - but so too can a norm of total informality or the lack of any procedure whatever. If our procedures are to take their educational role into account, they need to put a premium on clarity and simplicity.

Also, if we want to be inclusive and avoid clique-rule, we need to be able to explain, in a relatively straight-forward manner, how our organizations work and how one can participate in them. At a minimum, an organization must be able to answer questions like: how do I introduce a subject for discussion? How do I suggest a course of action? Who do I ask if I don't understand something about the process? When is it appropriate to express my concerns about a proposal? What do I do if I think some people at the meeting feel ignored or bullied? When is the debate over? How do we share responsibility for enacting our decisions? - and of course, the big one: how do we settle disagreements? It is not enough, as Professor Lance suggests, to say "our group will atempt to take each other seriously, to look at issues rationally, to engage in careful, respectful, critical, rigorous analysis and argument, and to arrive at the wisest and most just decisions on all issues before us" - even if this statement of principles is followed by "an ever-growing list of useful techniques." (22)

it's true that no formal system will guarantee civil and rational discourse - but it should, at least, stop us from interrupting each other, and make it clear when a decision has been made and any further argument should probably take place over beer. In other words, the decision-making procedures should establish minimal conditions for good practices to take hold, and for the democratic virtues to develop and thrive; but they should also leave room for some decisions to be made even when things are going badly - when time is short, stakes are high, people aren't at their best, and serious disagreements threaten us with paralysis. It is too much to expect that any procedure would be invulnerable to the worst sorts of abuse, but it is also too much to think that any group's virtue, or deliberative ethos, can sustain itself without the support of some procedure or other.

Case Two: Rose City Copwatch

I have, thus far, argued in rather abstract terms for a certain level of formality in decision-making. I have offered some reasons why formality is to be favored, and have suggested some criteria by which the success of a procedure may be judged. But I have not, to this point, said very much about what I think a decision-making process should look like.

Despite my critique of his final conclusion, I actually favor a formulation that Mark Lance offers early in his essay:

[I]t turns out that the right answer to how we ought to structure ourselves - around a norm of consensus or a norm of majority rule - depends crucially on whether we are talking about procedure or practice. In short, and rather misleadingly, procedures should be closer to majority rule, but only in the serivce of a practice which is geared around a deep commitment to consensus. (6)

This, I think, is exactly right. In the broadest terms, the process ought to draw from and resemble the practices of consensus: everyone is heard, their concerns taken seriously, and their participation valued; disagreements are handled respectfully and with an eye toward finding mutually agreeable solutions. In the narrowest sense, however, the decision-making mechanisms should borrow from the procedures of majority rule: both the process and the decisions are clear;it is easy to discern when a decision has been made; every person's vote is given equal weight; it leaves room for dissent without succumbing to minority obstructions. When done well, this approach combines the virtues and avoids the flaws of both consensus-based and vote-based processes. Still we cannot rely too much on the process itself. While good procedures may encourage good practices, and good practices will help a well-designed procedure to operate smoothly, good outcomes will still depend on the people involved doing the hard work of reasoning together.

Professor Lance, however, makes a further move, from the privileging of (value-laden) practice over (purely instrumental) procedure, the suggestion that procedures ought not be codified at all, but should only be adopted provisionally when the need arises. I've argued against this solution because, just as rigid proceduralism can impede an organization's functioning, so can a mushy reliance on informal practices.

Earlier in this essay, I sketched an example of an organization whoe informal process was very ill-suited to the internal political problems it faced. There were surely other factores, besides this that led to the balkanization of Portland Copwatch, but the process itself - especially the lack of any well-established procedure - did undoubtedly add to the difficulties. It was, after all, the membership's perceived inability to steer the organization that led to the crisis in the first place; and, once the crisis was underway, the informal practices largely broke down and the nominal procedure offered little guidance for resolution or recovery. Better practces were needed, for certain, but better procedures were needed as well.

An established procedure would have given us something to fall back on once the crisis was in full bloom, whereas in actuality arguments about how to resolve the dispute added greatly to the tedium and trauma of those last few months. Likewise, had some minimally democratic formal procedure been in effect all along, it would have done much to encourage better practices - self-evaluation, mutual criticism, and strategic thinking, to name a few. And a series of minor shifts and incremental changes - were such possible, given the recalcitrance of a powerful minority - may have put the group on a different course without member dissatisfaction ever rising to the point of mutiny.

Those of us who left Portland Copwatch have done our best not to repeat these mistakes. In January 2003, five former PCW members joined together with two other activists to form a new organization, Rose City Copwatch. Our first organizational retreat that same month was devoted primarily to questions of structure and process. We designed a general framework that weekend, and started using it at once while also beginning the work of the organization - offering trainings, fundraising, copwatching at a strike action, and so on. Meanwhile, over the next several months, we drafted, edited, and revised a set of documents to clearly explain the structures and processes we were using.

RCCW's standard decision-making procedure is notable mostly for its simplicity:

A. Decisions are made at meetings.

B. Regular decisions are to be made by simple majority of members voting yes or no.

This procedure is supplemented by slightly more involved mechanisms for making decisions that change the structure of the organization and for making emergency decisions between meetings.

The documents also include a great deal of detail about how meetings are conducted - setting out a standard agenda, minimum requirements for attendance, and guidelines for taking minutes and facilitating. None of that is particularly noteworthy or inspired. What is remarkable, however, is how much attention the ostensibly procedural documents give to issues of practice.

Repeatedly, over the course of three brief pages, one encounters descriptions of the ethos underlying the procedures. The decision-making document begins "Rose City Copwatch is committed to the practice of participatory democracy. The membership as whole is responsible for setting the organization's direction, both in terms of long-term strategy and in regard to day-to-day business."

This is not just rhetoric; the documents represent an effort to formalize our commitment to good deliberative, democratic practices. The statement of this commitment does not, on its own, guarantee that we will live up to our own standards. But it does help to identify what those standards are, and the adoption of the document signals an agreement about how we will go about doing things. It can, and has, been used to good effect when things go awry - when disagreement threatens to become divisiveness, when tempers become short and patience grows scarce. Such a statement of principles can serve to remind us of our better selves, and it can help us remember why it is important that we listen and consider, and search for creative solutions - even when it is tempting to push ahead without regard for the doubts and disagreements.

It is a testament to our success in this regard that our discussions - about strategy, priorities, and the mundane business of running an organization - are generally quite robust, though almost always respectful, more robust, and more respectful, than almost any other organization whose meetings I've observed. Voting is used, but it is used carefully. A great many (perhaps most) of the decisions we take are unanimous, and even when they are not, the final tallies are rarely very close. Prolonged debates do sometimes occur, and agreement is not always possible - but in these cases it has almost always been the minority that proposes we end discussion and move to the vote. More than once, I've heard a member say words to the effect of,

"I think this discussion has taken us as far as it can. I feel like my concerns have been heard, and I think I've understood the reasons behind the proposal. I don't think we're going to be able to convince each other. But we don't all have to agree. I'd like to move to the vote."

We vote, and the issue is settled. The majority does not have to dilute its position for the sake of one or two hold-outs, and the minority does not have to capitulate or "stand aside" while others make decisions for them. Everyone recognizes the procedure is fair, since they agreed to it in advance. When this works - and it usually does work - voting becomes less a mark of division than an opportunity for reconciliation. Success depends on wedding a good practice to a fair procedure.

Rose City Copwatch's decision-making document takes pains to demonstrate just this sort of connection between our standards of good practice and the formal procedures that are intended to encourage them. At every opportunity, the attention is returned to the norms governing the practice of deliberation, which the outlined procedures are meant to support. For instance:

In general, debate should be treated as a valued part of the decision-making process, not as an obstacle or a distraction between the proposal and the vote. Thinking and discussing together allows us to improve our understanding, correct for individual biases, and refine our ideas. Disagreements will inevitably occur, and should be seen as a valuable aspect of the democratic process. Our willingness to respectfully consider diverse opinions, to both offer and accept criticism, will be a mark of our commitment to democracy.

Imperfect Conclusions

It is in the spirit of both offering and accepting criticism that I make these remarks - not to lionize Rose City Copwatch, or to bash Portland Copwatch, or to show up Professor Lance.[note 6] And I have not gone into such detail about RCCW's process because I think it is perfect. Rather, I wanted to supply an example of an organization that has, I think, successfully found a middle path between the mistaken fetishizing of procedures and the equally mistaken fetishizing of informality. RCCW sought to preserve what is best of the deliberative practices of the consensus model, but also built a majority-rule procedural framework to support it. Undoubtedly, our solution has its faults, and we have made our share of mistakes. But we didn't set out with the idea that we would design a perfect process or create a perfect organization. Instead, we're determined in each regard simply to do our best, realizing that we are occasionally going to mess it up. And wehn we do, we want to learn from our mistakes, fix the problems, improve our practices. Hopefully our agreed-upon procedures will help us to do that, to move toward the ideals we seek to realize.

Democracy is always a work in progress.

Notes

1. full disclosure: I studied for a year in the philosophy department at Georgetown University, where Mark Lance teaches. Though I never studied under him, we did each work on a campaign to end Georgetown's role in the sweatshop economy.

2. This is necessarily an imcomplete synopsis of a 19-page article, which is itself drawn from a much longer book still in progress. Again, I urge the reader to review the original. [which can be found on line by doing a search on the title, "Fetishizing Process"]

3. My remarks here largely presuppose a particular type of organization - one that is engaged in above-ground activities intended to promote social change. But I do not mean to suggest that all organizations - childcare collectives, labor unions, study groups, football teams, and guerrilla armies - need to adopt the same procedures.

4. I am a member of Rose City Copwatch, but I am not writing here as a representative of the organization. The opinions expressed in this essay are my own, and I am solely repsonsible for them.

5. An earlier draft of this article was made available to Portland Copwatch, and to each of the three members who remained with the organizations after the split (including those who later formed Pdx Copwatch). None of them offered substantive corrections, though two did stress that they would tell the story very differently.

6. In writing this article, I have benefited from the advice and criticisms of may people, including some with first-hand knowledge of the cases I discuss. Thanks are owed to Chris Borte, Emily-Jane Dawson, Jamie Dawson, Candace Larson, Sara Libby, Geoff McNamara, Alan Rausch, Missy Rohs, Josef Schneider, Clayton Szczech, and Tamara Wallace.

This article isn't without

This article isn't without value in considering questions facing small organizations of volunteers.

The problem with this article is it reveals the typical limitations, biases and ignorance of many of today's self proclaimed Anarchists , especially N. American anarchists. These orbit around this problem-these people have little social analysis and so fall back on innermost questions of formal process and organization. The content of social struggle is missing, the reasons for the organization and social situation it was born of are missing.

I assume thats why the author thinks copwatch was an anarchist organization, simply because it contained self-proclaimed anarchists. An organization that monitors the police on a legal and human rights basis is actually more like an NGO or opposition party, from the perspective of the social reality in our countries. In some countries they would be massacred, but in others they would be paid by the state. Whatever its value, there was no really radical content to copwatch, and this flows from its origins and constituency, its role and ideology, not just from its organizational problems.

Copwatch was not a result of the self organization of people typically victimized by police, or tied to any other ki.d of self organization of local exploited people. In every city I have seen Copwatch in, it was a mini populist (though it is not too popular) meets student-type human rights group, with a few paranoid privacy activists thrown in. Throw in a bit of social work-since they do hit the streets and advocate.

The anarchist members of copwatch seem unperturbed by the fact that copwatch indirectly enforces the law, and fights (though ineffectively) against corruption in policing-and (unlike the black panthers for example) that's pretty much it.

The implications of this are serious. Anyone with some class/historical analysis can see that the legal system is ALREADY, by definition and origin, an abuse of the exploited in society, and that policing is as well-IN ITS LEGAL FORM. Copwatch is unconsciously fighting for the US to become like Denmark, or similar countries with extremely low police corruption-where police screw everyone and enforce class scoiety by the letter of the law. This article should be of more value to volunteer groups, non profits, ngo, co-ops, grassroots lobbies etc.

What other type of anarchist

What other type of anarchist is there besides a "self-proclaimed" one? Is there an official certification process I haven't heard about? And Kristian Williams never, at any point in this article, described either Portland Copwatch or Rose City Copwatch as anarchist organizations. Finally, I would like to know if anon can give an example of what he or she considers a true anarchist organization, and explain why Williams' (and Mark Lance's) analysis of process and practices doesn't apply to it.

1. If you don't know, then

1. If you don't know, then guess what? You're not an anarchist.
Ok here you go...most but not all anarchists are self proclaimed. But some are only self proclaimed. The latter are what I refer to.

2. Sorry,or if you like-don't worry- nothing like that is available.

3. In order:
"Mark Lance's essay, "Fetishizing Process" (Social Anarchism #38, 2005) provides a well-reasoned and astute discussion of the always-contentious question of anarchist decision-making,"
and.."His advice, then, for anarchist organizations:" and.."I will argue against Lance's recommendation..." then.."I will begin by offering a profile of one organization that erred on the side of informality. And I conclude with a sketch of another organization that - I believe - takes approximately the right approach."

Stated outright? no. Implied-yes.

4. You are basically asking me to write an article. The box said "comment". Thats all, I'm willing to do in the comments section at the bottom of a stub on a webpage. Sorry. Others have already gone into more depth, with more dynamics, subtlety, and examples anyway, than a comment box format or my poor style allows for. If I have time I can find and post some links for you. I will say, if I didn't make it clear, that the article ISN'T irrelevant to anarchists or anarchist organizations, but that it is more relevant to the kind of organizations profiled in the article, which at worst, are at odds with anarchist practice.

Your style is, indeed, poor,

Your style is, indeed, poor, and there is little substance to your comments either. You still have not made any attempt to explain how an anarchist could be anything orher than "self-proclaimed" (i.e., self-identified), unless you mean that some people who claim that label don't fit your expectations of what an anarchist should do or believe. If that is what you mean, fair enough; I am also suspicious of a number of people who claim to be anarchists.

As for Kristian Williams' piece, you have not even come close to making it clear why it would be any less relevant to a specifically anarchist organization than it would to any other, whether it be Copwatch (which is the only organization profiled in this article), an NGO, volunteer group, or whatever. However, Willimas did say the following in a footnote:

3. My remarks here largely presuppose a particular type of organization - one that is engaged in above-ground activities intended to promote social change. But I do not mean to suggest that all organizations - childcare collectives, labor unions, study groups, football teams, and guerrilla armies - need to adopt the same procedures.

Groups such as Food Not Bombs, the IWW, anarcho-communist federations, etc., could probably all benefit from paying more attention to process, and asking themselves how certain structures might promote, or discourage good anarchist practice.

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