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The Ecology of Democracy

Understanding the wellspring of self-rule


By David Mathews

The Kettering Foundation gains insights about what it takes for democracy to work from observations of what citizens are doing in communities in the United States and other countries. We see democracy functioning at two interdependent levels: one being the more familiar institutional level of governments and elections and the other being more organic in what we have been calling the wetlands of self-rule. This article elaborates on these wetlands and the role they play in the political ecosystem.

The importance of the political wetlands was made vivid in what we learned from communities that were devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. What we saw on the Gulf Coast was more dramatic, yet still consistent with what we have seen elsewhere when communities have faced wicked problems, rather than a natural disaster. Following Katrina, except for needing immediate supplies of water and food, residents of many of the hard-hit towns on the Gulf weren’t primarily asking for services, expertise, or technical assistance. They wanted to come together as communities to rebuild their communities. And they wanted to build a greater civic capacity for resilience because they realized that their survival depended on what happened in the first 72 hours after disaster struck. Outside relief probably could not reach them because roads were blocked and power lines were down; they were dependent on what their fellow citizens did in the most basic kind of politics.

The more we have seen of politics in its most fundamental form, the more we have come to believe that we are observing something more political than civil society and yet more civil than grassroots political organizing.

We don’t think we are seeing an alternative political system like direct democracy but rather the wellspring, or roots, of self-rule. What we have seen reminds us of what goes on in the wetlands of a natural ecosystem.

In the political wetlands, as in institutional politics, problems are given names, issues are framed for discussion, decisions are made, resources are identified, actions are organized, and results are evaluated. In politics at both levels, power is generated or lost; change occurs or is blocked. We aren’t watching perfect democracy in the political wetlands because there isn’t such a thing. But we are seeing ways of acting, of generating power, and of creating change that are unlike what occurs in institutional politics.

Recently, we have been calling these characteristics “organic.” Like any generalization, this one has its drawbacks. Still, we were drawn to the term, in part, because it doesn’t have the varied meanings of words like “civic” and “public.” The word “organic” connotes things that are natural or close to ordinary life, things that are human and function like living organisms. That which is organic is also loosely structured, more like a blob than a square or, in political terms, more informal than formal. There are other qualities that seem to be unique to organic politics:

  • Citizens are defined by their relationships with other citizens rather than with the state.
  • Relationships are not the same as those of family and friends, yet they are unlike those in institutional politics, which may be based on patronage or party loyalty. Organic relationships are pragmatic or work related. They form when people coalesce in order to rescue and restore during a disaster, when they build houses for the homeless, or when they assist the police in watching for drug dealers in their neighborhoods.
  • The names people give to problems reflect the things they hold dear and their basic concerns—their highest hopes and deepest fears as human beings. Safety from danger. Being treated fairly. The freedom to act as they see best. These names are different from those that people use when they are acting as professionals and politicians. For example, citizens want to feel that they are safe in their homes, and this feeling of security is less quantifiable but more compelling than the statistics professionals use to describe crime.
  • The knowledge needed to decide what to do about these problems is created in the cauldron of collective decision making. It is formed by the interaction of people with other people, by the comparison of experience with experience. This knowledge is different from the way scholarly knowledge is created, which is through rigorously disciplined science.
  • Decisions are based on the recognition that concerns are interrelated as well as competing, which is not the assumption in majority voting. Organic decision making is deliberative. Deliberation involves carefully weighing possible actions against what people consider most valuable, which has to be determined in a specific context. Institutional decision making can also be deliberative, although it is more often based on negotiation and bargaining.
  • The resources needed to implement decisions in the wetlands come from citizens’ innate abilities, abilities that are magnified when people join in collective efforts. Citizens’ resources are often intangible, such as commitment and political will. These are different from the resources of institutions, which tend to be material and technical.
  • People act in a variety of ways; their actions are loosely coordinated by a shared sense of direction. Actions taken by institutions are usually uniform and directed by a single plan or central agency.
  • The commitment of resources to action is enforced by covenants or the promises people make to one another. Institutional commitments are enforced by legal contracts.
  • Power comes from the ability of citizens to make things through their collective efforts and from the relationships forged in these efforts, rather than from institutional authority.
  • Change comes about through collective learning and the innovation it generates, rather than from modifications of law and policy.


Organic politics has its own structures: not board tables but kitchen tables, not assemblies like legislative bodies but common gatherings, once found in post office lobbies but now on the Internet. These structures are more like sand than concrete. Ad hoc groups and alliances form, then fall away as a project is completed, but then reappear when another task is at hand.

Unfortunately, because politics in the wetlands appears insignificant or deficient by institutional standards, professional staffs tend to colonize democracy at this level and remake it in their own image. The mechanisms for doing this are well intended and familiar: empowerment projects, participatory mandates, accountability standards, and engagement campaigns. These build support for deserving institutions (like public schools), promote better understanding of government agencies, and provide institutional legitimacy. Their goal is to connect citizens to institutions; yet, in the rush to do this, the need for citizens to first engage one another is often overlooked. As a result, involvement efforts run the risk of missing the contributions that might come out of the ecosystem of democracy.

Kettering is certainly not the only organization to sense that there is more to democracy than contested elections to create representative governments. We are eager to learn more about what goes on in the wetlands, especially because what happens there appears to have a great bearing on the ability of government and other institutions to function as they should.

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