A participatory protocol for collective decision-making in cultural organisations

This research experimentally tests a protocol for participatory decision-making in cultural organisations. The protocol involves an “anonymous” stage in which members engage in a two-step “proposal-then-Borda voting” process. Each member’s proposed agenda is the ideal combination of traits of a project to be developed by the group. Once all the proposed projects are received and anonymously presented to all participants, a Borda voting rule is applied to select the “winner” project. A brainstorming session follows, where members publicly discuss the winning project and propose variations or major modifications until a unanimous decision is reached. This protocol was tested in three real-world collective decision-making sessions during participatory workshops among cultural organisation members in Dijon, Athens and Berlin. The protocol enabled members to shape decisions openly and democratically, combining (i) endogenous project agenda formation, which translates individual preferences into sets of alternative solutions, (ii) a Borda rule-assisted collective choice, where members vote the most preferred solution, and (iii) consensual brainstorming deliberation, where the winner of the preceding proposal and voting stages serve as a starting point. The protocol can be used to support modes of democratic management in cultural organisations, by assisting a decision-making practice that enables members to learn their own and others’ preferences while navigating complex, multidimensional choices across organisation strategy, programming and day-to-day operation problems.