Decision change is the joint design of a procedure to globally decide on system change. The following is a concise strategic plan, intended for the organization that would set decision change in motion, for example, a professional conference organizer.

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The designers would have to define their own design process. Therefore, the details and cost of the design process would only gradually emerge and are not mentioned below. The bottom of this page refers to an elaborate description of decision change.

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First, the problem is summarized, then decision change is outlined and analysed.

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Ineffective global decision-making on systemic changes

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Procedures to decide on combating the major global crises are insufficiently effective. For example, during the United Nations’ Conferences of the Parties on climate change, any party can veto a proposal. Moreover, the decision-making procedures often are not based on a systems approach to the many related crises, such as climate change and biodiversity loss.

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Decision-Change Program

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The lack of effective global decision-making on systemic changes is addressed by designing an alternative procedure to decide on systemic changes, the decision-change program. The new decision-making procedure would have to be designed by experts in collective decision-making (for example, deliberation techniques, voting mechanisms, and problem analysis) and by auxiliary bodies (comprising lay people) that overview and improve the design process. Collectively, these people constitute the decision-change body. In contrast, a decision-making body would use the resulting procedure to decide on system changes.

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To facilitate the design, a global coordinating team would have to complete the following, mostly administrative tasks.

• Convene independent experts in collective decision-making.

• Collect system-change proposals, first by approaching content experts, then by a public consultation. Collecting and processing these proposals requires a digital infrastructure.

• Assemble auxiliary bodies that safeguard the design process. For example:

  • A verification group to comment on or test the proposed decision-making procedure.

  • An overview board to ensure that the experts are independent and from a great variety of decision-making disciplines.

  • An argumentation council to check consistency and completeness of the design without commenting on its contents.

        In practice, the nature of the auxiliary bodies would be determined by the decision-making 

        experts.

• Arrange that some institution organizes the decision-making on system change -- actually organising it would not fall under the team’s remit.

Publicity campaigns and remuneration of participants may also be needed at all stages.

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The team should be embedded in an organization that guarantees the team’s continuity. It is this organization for which this concise strategic plan is intended.

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Analysis

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The design process is still to be refined, but the decision-change body (the decision-making experts and others) would probably deliver a well-designed decision-making procedure, including the description of a decision-making body. The decision-making body could be conceived as legitimate because it would use a well-designed procedure to decide on a great variety of system-change proposals. However, the outcomes of the decision-making process (the actual measures) would have to be drastic to stand any chance of containing the crises. Therefore, the measures would probably be opposed by a part of the public and vested interests. Despite these challenges, decision change merits implementation because contemporary global decision-making bodies are not equipped to avert a systemic collapse.