IMG#09

Associative Principles and Democratic Reform 21

We now tum to examine how associationalist and corporatist writers developed these principles and how they may be given expression today. This discussion is the core of our exposition of the specifically political institutions of associational govemance.

Three principles of associationalist political organization

Primary associations as democratic governance

The conception that voluntary self-goveming associations become the primary means of democratic govemance of economic and social affairs involves two processes. First, that the State should cede functions to such associations, and create the mechanisms of public finance whereby they can undertake them. Second, that the means to the creation of an associative order in civil society are built-up, such as altemative sources of mutual finance for associa-tive economic enterprises, agencies that aid voluntary bodies and their personnel to conduct their affairs effectively, and so on. This is not intended to be a once-and-for-all change, but a gradual process of supplementation, proceeding as fast as the commitment to change by political forces and the capacity to accept tasks by voluntary associations allows. This development can be seen in two ways, as a necessary means of reforming representative de-mocracy, and as a desirable method of organizing economic and social affairs in and of itself.

The principal aim of an associative supplement to representa-tive democracy is to reduce both the scalę and the scope of the JSe affairs of society that are administered by State agencies overseen kg by representative institutions. Existing legislatures and elected grcj govemment personnel are hopelessly overburdened by the sheer IS) size of modern bureaucratic big govemment, and the multiplicity of the functions of social provision and regulation undertaken wT by modem States. The result is to undermine representative de-mocracy, weakening accountability to the people through their ęp    representatives of both policy-making and the delivery of services.

|g§) Associational governance would lessen the tasks of central gov-Bf ernment to the extent that greater accountability both of the