Local Democracy – TWC Interactive

Bigger is Sometimes Worse

Isaiah Ritzmann June 2, 2019

The amalgamation debate in Waterloo Region has sparked passionate arguments for and against combining our communities into one, big city. Despite the strength of both arguments no one is addressing a vital, underlying assumption: that bigger is better. The amalgamation side builds their case on the idea that bigger, more centralized government will be more efficient. Those against amalgamation question whether local democracy is a worthwhile price. The problem is that the shared, underlying assumption is an unwarranted one: bigger is only sometimes better. Sometimes bigger is actually worse.

Belonging and L’Arche – Belonging is the Language of Local Democracy

Fr Murray McDermott C.R. March 2, 2017

I believe that there is a universal cry within the human heart to belong. Belonging is so important to the human heart and the human soul. When we feel that we belong, when we believe that we belong and when we are affirmed in our belonging, we can begin the journey of discovering that we are loveable, that we are beautiful and that we have a meaning and purpose in life.

Humanities101: Access to University Learning

Trish Van Katwyk March 1, 2016

Education occurs always and everywhere. Each time we encounter something, we learn and are changed, even in the smallest way, changed by the impact of that encounter. When education becomes intentional, it is as if the change is being embraced, paths cleared to accommodate the change.

The exciting thing about The Working Centre’s Local Democracy Diploma is that the change that is embraced is personal, and also about your neighborhood and your community. It is about this world we share.

Defining Local Democracy

The Working Centre September 1, 2015

Editors Note: Participants in the 2015 Diploma in Local Democracy class chose to write a joint final paper that summarizes what they learned about Local Democracy. What is local democracy? When we first began the class we saw it for its failures. We weren’t quite sure what local democracy was but we knew what it was not and where it did not exist. As the class progressed this changed. We learned from each other’s experiences to better recognize democracy when it was present. It became more about looking for the light that does shine, the democracy that does exist, than the darkness that seeks to overwhelm the light. As we come to the end of this year’s class we risk a definition of what local democracy is, to summarize where this pilgrimage of a class has taken us.

Living-Right Movement

Isaiah Boronka June 2, 2014

Our Local Democracy project, for me, has been a lens on understanding the relationship between political movements, democratic politics and what I call the living-right movement. It is well known that the early ‘democratic’ republics reserved political rights exclusively to white men with considerable property. During these early years slavery was entrenched, women were denied their rights and the poor were treated unfairly. Democracies talked about ‘equality’ while masking, what seems obvious now, undemocratic relationships.

Engaging in Local Democracy

Joe Mancini December 1, 2011

Local Democracy is a practice we can cultivate by thoughtful engagement and practice. The course that The Working Centre offers in Local Democracy serves as a grassroots forum for debating and discussing how democracy can be extended into everyday relationships through work, community building, education and family life. We worked hard this fall to fill up our fourth offering of this course. We see it as a way to counter the growing reality that large scale institutions are increasing their power over people’s daily lives.

Towards a Philosophy of Citizenship

Joe Mancini September 1, 2010

The Diploma in Local Democracy is a 14 week course that helps you develop, sort out and think through your own Philosophy of Citizenship. At the final session of last year’s local democracy class, Ken Westhues suggested that the most important part of a course such as this, is the ability to write some reflections on how the course material relates to your personal life. This is a way of understanding, “here is where I am and this is where I am going”. The course is a means to develop an anchor, a clear sense of where you want to go.

In a Democracy Citizenship Means More than Voting

The Working Centre September 1, 2008

The Diploma in Local Democracy project has completed two sessions involving 35 participants over the last two years. The course focused on the practice of local democracy as perceived and experienced by the participants.

Disability Studies – Fertilizer for Cultivating Local Democracy

Myroslava Tataryn March 1, 2008

Local democracy may be less about structured democracy and more about things that happen at the community level that connect people and cultivate sharing. Yet, even within this movement dedicated to inclusive community, people with disabilities are typically left out. What assumptions allow for the continued systemic marginalization of people excluded from generalized public considerations of “all people”? What ideas and principles of local democracy can help us to move away from this cycle of discrimination? How can Disability Studies deepen our understanding of concepts such as dependence, interdependence and reciprocity? And how can a social model of disability inform the development of democratic communities?

Local Democracy as Response to Specific Situations

Ken Westhues December 2, 2005

The biggest challenge for an educational program in local democracy is how to avoid contradicting the topic in how the program is organized. One cannot learn about small-scale democracy except by practicing it. An authoritarian structure for the program would subvert its purpose. We would not be smarter by the end, but stupider. Fortunately, the twenty participants in this inaugural offering of the Working Centre’s Diploma Program in Local Democracy bring such rich and diverse backgrounds of democratic thought and action that they would not tolerate anauthoritarian program structure anyway.

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