Several factors can contribute to achieving a balanced negotiation:
· The negotiations must be conducted at the appropriate level of subsidiarity (6.6.2).
· The impact of a decision can be weighted in relation to the number of people involved and the importance of the issue to them. It is possible to apply a weighted decision matrix, such as the one described by airfocus.com. The weightings themselves are subjective, but the process adds clarity to the decisions reached.
· Consultation, with everyone affected by a decision, can be used to counterbalance the pressures put on politicians by people with specific interests (6.5.3). A balanced negotiation is not possible unless everyone has been consulted in some way.
· Individual politicians who have received donations can be barred from sitting on decision-making committees related to the donor’s activities. This would avoid a conflict of interests and reduce the impact of money on politics.
· Independent assessments can be made of the future consequences of a decision, to deflect leaders from choosing short-term populism.
The main requirement is to ensure that some attempt has been made to apply a weighting to the different interests.
(This is an archive of a page intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. The latest versions are at book contents).