Happy 2024 everyone! May there be no more wars, no more avoidable suffering, and justice for all. That’s a steep wish-list, but then I am one of those who thinks that giving up is not an option, and that [almost] everyone has opportunities to contribute to make us move into that direction.
In that spirit, I made three resolutions for 2024: one for myself, one for a specific very vulnerable person, and one political resolution, for society at large.
I can already hear the cynic laughing: New Year’s resolutions don’t work! Resolutions are for weak people who could have solved their problems long ago if they were a little more decisive. With New Year’s resolutions we only fool ourselves. The cynic pours himself another drink, and has a good laugh at those who make resolutions.
This hip cynicism underestimates the power of rituals in our lives, including the rituals around intentions to make meaningful changes. Yes, the cynic is right that we can make resolutions on any day of the year. The formulation of a resolution often follows a significant personal experience; I’ve met several survivors of cancer who made big changes to their lives. Or we need a long enough period of peace of mind that allows us to reflect, to look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we want to do differently with our lives. But of course this can also be done at any other time of the year, as long as we first have the necessary mental space. There are plenty of people who return from their summer vacation and resolve to exercise more or find another job. But the period around New Year is also a time of some contemplation for many, and thus an excellent time for reflection on what we would like to see different in our lives.
The cynic is also right that we won’t get there by merely formulating good intentions. It takes more to make them succeed. But it only takes a few minutes to find the recipe for success on the Internet: find out how to turn intentions into a habit; don’t make too many resolutions; translate them into small, concrete actions; preferably carry out your resolutions with others or find another way to get someone to encourage you and keep you accountable; and reward yourself for the behavioural change that is needed.
Usually good resolutions are about ourselves. We want to quit smoking, drink less, lose weight, exercise more, work less, get another job, and so on. But we can also make resolutions that are not primarily about ourselves, even though we remain the person in charge.
Another type of resolution is about doing something for a concrete other person who could use our support. We take that child of friends who has special needs under our wing for a day a few times a year so that this child feels special and less lonely, and their parents can have a day to recover from the burdens of care that special needs almost inevitably bring. We commit to visit that lonely neighbour down the street once a week, or at least stop to have a chat when we meet her in the street. We offer the vulnerable boy next door help in finding a suitable job. In some communities and neighborhoods this may perhaps come naturally, but in less close-knit neighbourhoods this is also possible — simply, because someone takes a first step (as the pub-owner in the most recent Ken Loach film The Old Oak vividly illustrates).
The third group of resolutions are about society as a whole. I would think of them as political resolutions, with ‘political’ very broadly defined. We can’t sit back and hope that 2024 will bring us a better country and a better world: we will have to do that ourselves because in so many countries governments have increasingly become part of the problem (contributing to the restoration of decent governments is of course superimportant too; one way to do so is to join a decent political party).
A political resolution can take many forms – and no doubt there is something suitable for everyone. It can be done through volunteering. By vulnerable donations to charities that strive for social justice. By joining a political party that protects democracy and the rule of law, or organizations that stand up for human rights or other issues we still have to fight for every day. By exploring whether activism is for us and giving it a try. By starting a non-fiction bookclub and thus systematically engaging the conversation about political issues, including with people outside our own circle of friends.
My wish for 2024 would be that those who have been politically active fighting for a better world don’t give up, and that more people who so far don’t do much in terms of political contributions would join the active group. We need everyone to contribute in their role as a member of political communities. The great thing is that such political commitments, that help to make the world a little bit better (or less awful) not only can make our lives more meaningful, but also often lead to close friendships. When I was deeply involved in higher education activism (until 2022), this was one of the comments that my fellow activist Remco Breuker made (Remco is a professor of Korean studies in Leiden). Remco was right. And even the resolutions-cynic can’t argue about the importance of friendship in our lives.
{ 14 comments }
J-D 01.02.24 at 2:02 am
Are you sure that it is, though, really? I can’t think of anything I personally could contribute by joining a political party that I couldn’t contribute without joining the party.
Ingrid Robeyns 01.02.24 at 8:48 am
J-D – perhaps it depends on the context. In countries with multi-party systems (more than 2 big parties), and where parties receive government subsidies as well as overall budget relative to the number of members, and there isn’t an influence of Big Money, the number of members is an important factor for how strong a party is, that is, what it can do in terms of activities etc. SO you may be right that in some countries (like the US) joining a democratic, rule-of-law abiding party doesn’t make a difference; I should have qualified this as applying to a restricted set of contexts. Thanks for pushing me to qualify this :)
J-D 01.02.24 at 11:11 am
Thank you for responding, Ingrid, but I’m afraid I still don’t get this.
What are the party activities for which number of members is important?
Perhaps I should add that, not being an American, I didn’t particularly have the US context in mind. Never mind any US exception: What are the party activities in my country for which number of members is important–or in your country–or in any country?
Ingrid Robeyns 01.02.24 at 3:16 pm
J-D, this is how I understand this, at least for my own country (The Netherlands, but I would think this would hold at least in a larger number of countries):
(1) additional members bring in money in two ways: by membership fees, and by the fact that the number of members is a parameter determining the public funding of political parties;
(2) political parties can undertake several activities that can help to spread their views, develop their views, increase discussions on the things they care about, etc, such as: organising events in neighbourhoods, online presence, inviting international speakers (e.g. The greens and Labour Party in The Netherlands had Bernie Sanders over – I am sure organising that must have cost some money), organising rallies etc. For many of those activities, they need staff that can organise these things.
(3) the money collected in (1) helps to fund activities under (2).
(4) in addition, members might not just be dues-paying, but (eventually) also become active, volunteering for all sorts of activities, including going door to door.
Does this still make no sense to you? If so, I’d love to hear from you (and others) whether they also think this makes no sense, and why.
engels 01.02.24 at 3:25 pm
What are the party activities for which number of members is important?
Door-knocking’s a big one.
engels 01.02.24 at 8:51 pm
You might also join a party because you want to influence its policies and leadership, not just make it more effective: you have much more opportunity to do that from the inside because parties are internally democratic to some degree.
J-D 01.03.24 at 12:28 am
Again, thanks to Ingrid for the further exposition.
It hadn’t occurred to me that political parties might receive public funding based on numbers of members. My information about my country is that public funding for political parties is election-related and based on numbers of votes received, not numbers of members. I occasionally reflect consciously on the fact that when people cast their votes for a party, they are (among other things) directing public funding to them (whether they know it or not). I agree that if you live in a country where political parties receive public funding based on membership numbers, joining a political party makes sense as a way of directing some (admittedly small) amount of public funding to that party.
On the other hand, when it comes to your own money, if you want to use it to support a political party, you can achieve that by donation without becoming a party member. This is not an argument against joining a political party, but the question in my mind is about what I can do for a political party as a member that I couldn’t do without being a member, and ‘giving it my own money’ doesn’t fall into that category. If the suggestion ‘contributing to the restoration of decent governments is of course superimportant too; one way to do so is to join a decent political party’ were instead ‘contributing to the restoration of decent governments is of course superimportant too; one way to do so is to donate money to a decent political party’ it would make more immediately obvious sense to me.
Something else which is likely to vary between countries is parties organising people to go from door to door: to what extent do parties do this? what kind of effects does it have when they do (if a political party asked me to go from door to door I couldn’t help wondering ‘Why do you want me to do this? What makes you think it’s efficacious?’**)? but also, of particular relevance to the question in my mind, do they organise only party members to do this, or do they also employ volunteers (or, for that matter, people paid for the job) to do this? I’ve never heard of people who are not members of political parties going door to door on behalf of those parties, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
For what it’s worth, in my own country it has never happened to me that somebody campaigning on behalf of a political party has come to my door, or I suppose I should say that it’s never happened when I’ve been home, but I suppose that isn’t strong evidence about the frequency of the practice.
** It occurs to me just now that going from door to door to get people to register and vote would make a lot more sense in most countries than it would in mine, where the laws about compulsory registration and compulsory voting (not a unique feature in the earlier sense of the word, although it is in the sense now becoming current***) are more rigorously enforced**** than even in other countries which have similar laws.
*** It would not surprise me to be told that ‘unique’ is now more frequently used as a synonym for ‘unusual’ than in its earlier sense.
**** I have (admittedly only once) had the experience of somebody coming to my door to check that I was registered on the electoral roll, not as a representative of a political party but as somebody employed by the Australian Electoral Commission.
Ingrid Robeyns 01.03.24 at 1:17 am
J-D – thanks for this – very interesting. You have started to make me doubt that state funding is relative to members; you are probably right it is relative to voters. And hence also right that it making a donation is, if one considers it purely in financial terms, equally effective. Though perhaps in practice giving initially the same amount of money via membership might in the end lead to more, since as a member one might receive further communication (emails, letters, phone calls) to be invited for further involvement.
I still have an intuition that we can’t have strong democracies without well-functioning and sufficiently supported democratic parties, and that these need enough members. But clearly active party membership is not for everybody. I also mentioned in the OP the idea of setting up (or joining?) a nonfiction book club, and think that this might also be a way to strengthen de democratic fabric of society. We need to be informed, we need to be connected, and we need to talk about politics with each other – so thank you for doing that here ;)
nastywoman 01.03.24 at 7:51 am
WARTE WARTE NUR EIN WEILCHEN…
‘BERLIN
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Tuesday marked a 37% surge in party membership from last year.
In a statement, the AfD said its membership has climbed to 40,131, or a 37% rise from 2022.
The party got 10.3% of the vote in the 2021 general election, but in polls it has doubled its vote share since then, benefiting from broad dissatisfaction with the coalition government’s policies.
According to recent surveys, the AfD is polling between 21% and 23%, making it the second-strongest political party in Germany after the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
It also made huge gains in October’s regional elections to become the main opposition party in the federal states of Hesse and Bavaria.
Last month, an AfD candidate was elected mayor of the town of Pirna in the eastern state of Saxony, marking the first time that a candidate of the Islamophobic AfD was elected mayor of a German town’.
nastywoman 01.03.24 at 7:59 am
and in Sachsen – the AFD already is FIRST with a projected 37 percent of all voters –
who
instead of joining one of the old ‘mainstream parties’
are voting for the even older utmost ‘mainstream German Party
on
THE RIGHT.
AND
we can blame it (nearly) all on ‘trump’ –
(the Worlds ne name for the utmost ‘Right Wing Racist Science Denying Sex Abusing Liar)
engels 01.03.24 at 3:24 pm
What makes you think it’s efficacious?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/12/labour-knocking-on-doors-jeremy-corbyn-momentum
J-D 01.03.24 at 11:37 pm
I know as a matter of historical fact that there have been political parties which operated on a non-membership model: indeed models without a membership structure are a good deal older than models with a membership structure. I can’t say that the systems in which these parties operated were strong democracies, but then I can’t say that there are any strong democracies, so I remain uncertain about the importance of party membership to democracy.
I am grateful for the suggestion of a non-fiction** book club, which is something I have never tried. I am also grateful for the suggestions about volunteering and charitable donations, both of which are things I already do, although probably not as much as I should.
** I recall hearing or reading that the most popular non-fiction books–or rather, simply the most popular books–are books about gardening and books about cookery. I’m pretty sure that if somebody did set up a non-fiction book club, nobody would expect it to be devoted to either of those kinds of books (I expect there are clubs related to gardening and clubs related to cookery, but not book clubs), but now I do wonder which kinds of non-fiction books form the focus for non-fiction book clubs.
hix 01.04.24 at 1:34 am
“In a statement, the AfD said its membership has climbed to 40,131, or a 37% rise from 2022.”
That’s nothing, unless you want to compare numbers with the PVV. Considering AfD MPs are not expected to do any real work or have any of the basic skills one would usually expect from someone in that position, that’s even a make an easy no work career level of membership.
Don’t know about joining a party. Did that a year ago. Suppose it is good I show up on occasion, so that the Social Democrats see a poor person with a serious kronical long term mental illness. Doing more was never all that realistic, but it sure was not made easy by the bureaucratic structures and utter lack of representation of disadvantaged groups within such a left wing party either. Getting a closer look at who ends up in parliament, beating whom and why did not improve my outlook on the world. There are more than enough motivated and technical qualified people to do basic campaigning or fill municipal parliament seats. They are left wing enough, but rather homogenously in limited need of all too left wing politics themselves. Sometimes it shows.
Ingrid Robeyns 01.04.24 at 6:57 pm
J-D @12 – with non-fiction books, I mean the subset of non-fiction books that focus on societal and political issues, e.g. accounts/views/histories of migration, the politics of large companies, housing policies and practices, the climate movement, brave journalists, the societal impact of AI, the enduring challenges of those providing informal care, etc.
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