Consensus is defined in English as, firstly - general agreement and, secondly - group solidarity Social solidarity refers to the integration, and degree and type of integration, shown by a society or group with people and their neighbors. It refers to the ties in a society - social relations - that bind people to one another. The term is generally employed in sociology and the other social sciences of belief Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true or sentiment. It has its origin in a Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native speakers, a small number of scholars can fluently speak it and it continues to be taught in schools and universities and has been, and currently is, used in the process of word meaning literally to feel together.[1]
The formal process of achieving consensus ideally requires serious treatment of the considered opinion An opinion is a subjective statement or thought about an issue or topic, and is the result of emotion or interpretation of facts. An opinion may be supported by an argument, although people may draw opposing opinions from the same set of facts. Opinions rarely change without new arguments being presented. However, it can be reasoned that one of each group In the social sciences a group can be defined as two or more humans who interact with one another, accept expectations and obligations as members of the group, and share a common identity. By this definition, society can be viewed as a large group, though most social groups are considerably smaller member: those advocating the adoption, say, of a particular course of action, genuinely wish to hear those who may be against the proposal, since discussion, it is supposed, can only enhance ultimate consensus. The hope is that in such circumstances action, or the adoption of group opinion, without resolution of dissent Dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or an entity (e.g. an individual or political party which supports such policies). The term's antonyms include agreement, consensus (when all or nearly all parties agree on something) and consent (when one party agrees to a proposition made by another) will be rare. A consensus rather than a voting Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. It is often found in democracies and republics process is often employed with this intention, as well as to minimize any possible damage to interpersonal relationships An interpersonal relationship is an association between two or more people that may range from fleeting to enduring. This association may be based on limerence, love and liking, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. Interpersonal relationships take place in a great variety of contexts, such as family, friends,.
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Consensus as collective thought
A close equivalent phrase might be the "collective agreement" of a group, keeping in mind that a high degree of variation is still possible among individuals, and certainly if there must be individual commitment to follow up the decision with action, this variation remains important. There is considerable debate and research into both collective intelligence Collective intelligence is a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals. Collective intelligence appears in a wide variety of forms of consensus decision making in bacteria, animals, humans, and computer networks. The study of collective intelligence may properly be considered a subfield of and consensus decision-making Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections. Consensus is usually defined as meaning both general agreement and the process of getting to such agreement. Consensus decision-making is thus concerned primarily with.
This article focuses strictly on the idea of consensus in the abstract, not on the implications of consensus for politics or economics, where follow-up action is required.
Consensus usually involves collaboration Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social within a, rather than compromise To compromise is to make a deal where someone gives up part of, or all of its demand. In arguments, compromise is a concept of finding agreement through communication, through a mutual acceptance of terms—often involving variations from an original goal or desire. Extremism is often considered as antonym to compromise, which, depending on. Instead of one opinion being adopted by a plurality, stakeholders are brought together (often with facilitation) until a convergent decision is developed. If this is done in a purely mechanical way it can result in simple trading—we'll sacrifice this if you'll sacrifice that. Genuine consensus typically requires more focus on developing the relationships among stakeholders, so that they work together to achieve agreements based on willing consent.
Models of consensus
The most common and most successful model of consensus is called the prisoner's dilemma The prisoner's dilemma is a fundamental problem in game theory that demonstrates why two people might not cooperate even if it is in both their best interests to do so. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence payoffs and gave it the ".[citation needed] An introduction and discussion of this concept can be found in any contemporary introduction to political science Political science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. Political scientists "see themselves engaged in revealing the relationships underlying political events and conditions. And from these revelations they attempt to construct. This approach might be called "algebraic" as opposed to analytic, within mathematics, because it represents an agent by a symbol and then examines the algebraic properties of that symbol. For example, the question, "Can two agents be combined to make a new agent?" sounds like an algebraic question. (More formally, "is the operation of consensus closed in the domain of agents? Is there a larger domain of "abstract agents" in which this operation is closed?")
In a more analytic style, we might naively start by envisioning the distribution of opinions in a population as a Gaussian In probability theory and statistics, the normal distribution, or Gaussian distribution, is an absolutely continuous probability distribution whose cumulants of all orders above two are zero. The graph of the associated probability density function is “bell”-shaped, with peak at the mean, and is known as the Gaussian function or bell curve:[ distribution in one parameter. We would then say that the initial step in a consensus process would be the written or spoken synthesis that represents the range of opinions within perhaps three standard deviations of the mean opinion. Other standards are possible, e.g. two standard deviations, or one, or a unanimity minus a certain tolerable number of dissenters. The following steps then operate both to check understanding of the different opinions (parameter values), and then to find new parameters in the multi-dimensional parameter space of all possible decisions, through which the consensus failure in one-dimensional parameter space can be replaced by a solution in multi-dimensional parameter space.
An alternative, qualitative, mathematical description is to say that there is an iterative process through (m+n)-dimensional parameter space, starting from initial guesses at a solution in (m)-dimensional parameter space, which tries to converge to find a common solution in (m+n)-dimensional parameter space.
A criticism of such modeling is that the opinions or agreements are only theoretical, and that the strength or degree of conviction as measured is not closely correlated to the willingness of any given individual to take action. In direct action Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. Direct action can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action participant. Examples of nonviolent politics, the consensus is constantly tested by asking those who agree to immediately place their own bodies 'on the line' and in harm's way, to actually demonstrate that they are committed to a consensus. The ecology movement The global ecology movement is based upon environmental protection, and is one of several new social movements that emerged at the end of the 1960s. As a values-driven social movement, it should be distinguished from the pre-existing science of ecology, peace movement A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace. Means to achieve these ends usually include advocacy of pacifism, non-violent resistance, diplomacy, boycotts, moral, and labor movement The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour relations. Trade unions are collective organizations have historically required such demonstrations of commitment. Some have disdained any attempt at formal models or methods, but others have prepared extensive documentation on both formal and informal consensus decision-making Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections. Consensus is usually defined as meaning both general agreement and the process of getting to such agreement. Consensus decision-making is thus concerned primarily with processes.
Typically, the usefulness of formal models of consensus is confined to cases where follow up action is closely and centrally controlled, e.g. in a military hierarchy or a set of similar computer programs executing on hardware that it completely controls. The idea of consensus itself is probably quite different when considering action by a group of independent human agents, or considering action by those taking orders and committed to executing them all without question, or suffering great harm or exile for any disobedience.
Consensus upon a particular formal model of consensus can lead to groupthink Groupthink is a type of thought within a deeply cohesive in-group whose members try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. It is a second potential negative consequence of group cohesion, by making it harder for those who reject that formal model (and using informal or different models) to be heard. This recursion suggests the extreme complexity of reasoning about consensus in a political context. An example is the peace movement A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace. Means to achieve these ends usually include advocacy of pacifism, non-violent resistance, diplomacy, boycotts, moral's objection to the game theory Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that is used in the social sciences, most notably in economics, as well as in biology , engineering, political science, international relations, computer science, and philosophy. Game theory attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, or games, in which an individual's success logic of mutual assured destruction Mutual assured destruction is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order during the Cold War The Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition existing after World War II (1939–1945), primarily between the Soviet Union and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, particularly the United States. Although the primary participants' military forces never. Peace activists, objecting to military goals and spending found the formal models of the military to be major obstacles. As they had not mastered game theory models they simply were not heard.
In democracy
As this example suggests, the concept of consensus is a particularly important one in the context of society A society or a human society is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations such as social status, roles and social networks. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture and institutions. Without an article, the term refers either to the entirety of and government A government is the organization, or agency through which a political unit exercises its authority, controls and administers public policy, and directs and controls the actions of its members or subjects, and forms a cornerstone of the concept of democracy Democracy is a political form of government where governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek: δημοκρατία – (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) &. Democracy, in its most essential form, direct democracy Direct democracy, classically termed pure democracy, is a form of democracy and a theory of civics in which sovereignty is lodged in the assembly of all citizens who choose to participate. Depending on the particular system, this assembly might pass executive motions, make laws, elect or dismiss officials, and conduct trials. Direct democracy, has been criticized by a significant number of scholars since the time of Plato Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Plato was originally a as well as adherents to strict republican Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context. The sometimes contrary definitions are all covered in this article principles, and is sometimes referred to as the "tyranny of the majority The phrase tyranny of the majority , used in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule, is a criticism of the scenario in which decisions made by a majority under that system would place that majority's interests so far above a dissenting individual's interest that the individual would be actively oppressed, just like the oppression by", with the implication that one faction of the society is dominating other factions, possibly repressively.
Others, however, argue that if the democracy adheres to principles of consensus, becoming a deliberative democracy Deliberative democracy, also sometimes called discursive democracy, is a system of political decision-making that relies on popular consultation to make policy. In contrast to the traditional theory of democracy, in which voting is central, deliberative democracy theorists argue that legitimate lawmaking can arise only through public deliberation, then party or factional dominance can be minimized and decisions will be more representative of the entire society. This too is discussed in depth in the article on consensus decision-making Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections. Consensus is usually defined as meaning both general agreement and the process of getting to such agreement. Consensus decision-making is thus concerned primarily with, with many actual examples of the tradeoffs and different tests for consensus used in actual societies and polities.
A major cornerstone of the Westminster System The Westminster system is a democratic parliamentary system of government modelled after the politics of the United Kingdom. This term comes from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is Cabinet Government A Cabinet is a body of high-ranking members of government, typically representing the executive branch. It can also sometimes be referred to as the Council of Ministers, an Executive Council, or Executive Committee. All Cabinet decisions are consensual collective and inclusive, a vote is never taken in a Cabinet meeting. All ministers, whether senior and in the Cabinet, or junior ministers, must support the policy of the government publicly regardless of any private reservations. If a minister does not agree with a decision, he or she may resign from the government; as did several British ministers over the 2003 Invasion of Iraq Invasion – Post-invasion – Battles and operations – Bombings and terrorist attacks. This means that in the Westminster system of government the cabinet always collectively decides all decisions and all ministers are responsible for arguing in favour of any decision made by the cabinet.
Drawbacks
Business and political analysts have pointed out a number of problems with consensus decision-making Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections. Consensus is usually defined as meaning both general agreement and the process of getting to such agreement. Consensus decision-making is thus concerned primarily with. A too-strict requirement of consensus may effectively give a small self-interested minority group veto A india, Latin for "I forbid", is the power of an officer of the state to stop unilaterally a piece of legislation. In practice, the veto can be absolute or limited (as in the legislative process of the United States, where a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate may override a Presidential veto of legislation) power over decisions. Decision by consensus may take an extremely long time to occur, and thus may be intolerable for urgent matters, e.g. those of executive decisions. In some cases, consensus decision-making may encourage groupthink Groupthink is a type of thought within a deeply cohesive in-group whose members try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. It is a second potential negative consequence of group cohesion, a situation in which people modify their opinions to reflect what they believe others want them to think, leading to a situation of pseudoconsensus in which a group makes a decision that none of the members individually think is wise. It can also lead to a few dominant individuals making all decisions. Finally, consensus decision-making may fail in a situation where there simply is no agreement possible, and interests are irreconcilable.
Examples within computing
Within the Internet Engineering Task Force The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite. It is an open standards organization, with no formal membership or membership requirements. All participants and managers are (IETF), the concept of "rough consensus Rough consensus is a term used in consensus decision-making to indicate the "sense of the group" concerning a particular matter under consideration. It has been defined as the "dominant view" of a group as determined by its chairperson. The term was first used by the Internet Engineering Task Force in describing its procedures and running code" is the basis for the standardization Standardization or standardisation is the process of developing and agreeing upon technical standards. A standard is a document that establishes uniform engineering or technical specifications, criteria, methods, processes, or practices. Some standards are mandatory while others are voluntary. Voluntary standards are available if one chooses to process. It has proven extremely effective for standardizing protocols for inter-computer communication, particularly during its early years.
In computer science Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems. It is frequently described as the systematic study of algorithmic processes that create, describe, and transform information. Computer science, consensus is a distributed computing Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal. A computer program that runs in a distributed system is called a distributed problem in which a group of nodes must reach agreement on a single value. Achieving consensus is a challenging problem in distributed systems, particularly as the number of nodes grows or the reliability of links between nodes decreases.
"Consensus" may also refer to the Consensus theorems in Boolean algebra Boolean algebra is a logical calculus of truth values, developed by George Boole in the 1840s. It resembles the algebra of real numbers, but with the numeric operations of multiplication xy, addition x + y, and negation −x replaced by the respective logical operations of conjunction x∧y, disjunction x∨y, and complement ¬x. The Boolean.
Examples of non-consensus
The peer review Peer review is a generic term that is used to describe a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals with the related field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance, and provide credibility process in most scientific journals In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past . Most journals are highly specialized, although some of the oldest does not use a consensus based process. Referees submit their opinions individually and there is not a strong effort to reach a group opinion.
See also
- Collective intelligence
- Consensus based assessment (CBA)
- Consensus democracy
- Consensus theory of truth
- Contrarian
- Copenhagen Consensus
- Facilitation
- Libertarian Socialism
- Major consensus narrative
- Nonviolence
- Participation (decision making)
- Polder model
- Social representations
- Truth by consensus
- Tyranny of the majority
- Unanimity
References
External links
- Theory of Consent - in a natural order philosophy (from an anarchocapitalistic point of view)
- Shared Path, Shared Goal - a short pamphlet on consensus
Categories: Core issues in ethics | Group processes
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Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:37:00 GMT+00:00
on austerity measures Xinhua ... business world and labor unions on Thursday, seeking consensus on his government's austerity policies, as Greek economy and people face a harsh autumn. ...
Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 PDT
fixes. Although most Democrats do not think it's perfect, there is a growing consensus that it is as good as it's going to get. Nancy ... cbsnews.com.
Dan Yurman
Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:32:00 GM
Nuclear industry group leads efforts to overcome regulatory barriers to commercial success.
