Open Space and political parties

[Chris Corrigan]

A plan I have had for recent local political elections...

Here in Canada during election season we usually have "All-Candidates" meetings whereby local candidates for office stand in front of a roomful of people, outline their ideas, tear each other apart and try to emerge the victor.  The meetings are rarely participatory and serve to reinforce petty meanness and closed minded debate.

So the design we are using for meetings on Bowen Island is the "All-Citizen Meeting" whereby we host an Open Space session around the question of, if elected, what would YOU want to make happen on Bowen Island?  Of course everybody is welcome to come and post topics and meet with others across the political spectrum to figure out how they would get their pet issues on the table and implemented.  

And of course political candidates are welcome to come to and see what their people are saying.  

We did this once in 2002 and it was a disorienting experience at first for the politicians but they quickly forgot themselves and joined in the fun and got a good sense of what thoughtful citizens working together could produce.  

I have worked with many, many elected politicians in Canada, from all levels of government.  They all have liked Open Space, so you should have no trouble using it within the political party structures for policy development.

The only place I know for sure that has used Open Space actively within the political party structure is the Green Party in Estonia.  You should contact Mikk Sarv or Toomas Trapido in Estonia.  Mikk was a long time participant on this list (and may still be), and Toomas is a current sitting MP and is working to improve and reform the Estonian Green Party using Open Space.  I spent some time with both of them in December.  Lovely men, deeply committed to their work and skillful in the use of Open Space for this kind of change.

Chris


----
Chris Corrigan
chris at chriscorrigan.com
http://www.chriscorrigan.com


On 2010-04-21, at 6:35 AM, Galina Tsarkova wrote:

> Dear Carol.
>  
> we had experiences with tow political parties in Russia from 2004.
>  
> We had one for 6 hours during election campaign with 170 people; one day  promote some insight programmes for 103 or more people from all regions of Russia; for 37 regions annalists for create of local election programmes; for Administration of President of Russia for one of the political party to solve the problems if sustainability.
>  
>  
> All best Galina Tsarkova,
>  
> Moscow
>  
> 
> 2010/4/21 Carol Loughrey <loughrey at nbnet.nb.ca>
> I have been approached by a political party to use open space in their policy development process both inside the party and with the general public.  If anyone has any experience with this and any wisdom to share it would be appreciated.  I have always wanted to use OS in this kind of environment.  Has anyone done work of this nature and if so is there any advice?
> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Have a nice day!
> Tsarkova Galina,
> CA BOSCA Director-General,
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