Policy & decision making
Decision-making arguments
There are many views about how decisions should be made in SSF. There's even some question over whether decisions can be made at all by the SSF as a whole.
A look at the original World Social Forum Charter of Principles is useful:
6. The meetings of the World Social Forum do not deliberate on behalf of the World Social Forum as a body. No-one, therefore, will be authorized, on behalf of any of the editions of the Forum, to express positions claiming to be those of all its participants. The participants in the Forum shall not be called on to take decisions as a body, whether by vote or acclamation, on declarations or proposals for action that would commit all, or the majority, of them and that propose to be taken as establishing positions of the Forum as a body. It thus does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the paarticipants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for interrelation and action by the organizations and movements that participate in it.
7. Nonetheless, organizations or groups of organizations that participate in the Forums meetings must be assured the right, during such meetings, to deliberate on declarations or actions they may decide on, whether singly or in coordination with other participants. The World Social Forum undertakes to circulate such decisions widely by the means at its disposal, without directing, hierarchizing, censuring or restricting them, but as deliberations of the organizations or groups of organizations that made the decisions.
The key points here are that the WSF was specifically designed to not be a corporate organisation, that binds its members to decisions, as is the case in (for example) unions. Everyone involved, according to this approach, should be free to make their own choice about what they contribute to.
There are two things to note:
- How did the World Social Forum decide its Charter of Principles? In an organising committee. How democratic was this? Not very.
- When it comes to local social forums, it becomes a little more tricky, since decisions do have to be made about things like when to have events. Thus, some thought has been going on about how to make such decisions, whilst still sticking to the ethos of the World Social Forums.
Possible methods of making decisions include:
What does it mean to be a member of the Sheffield Social Forum?
Follow this link for some ramblings on the subject.