I imagine you’d organise it the same way you’d organise any other national democratic organisation in the US—through representative structures, regional chapters, online participation options, and other standard approaches that democratic organisations use to manage scale and geography.
I asked Claude for examples:
The American Medical Association has around 270,000 members across all states and manages democratic governance through state medical societies that send delegates to their annual House of Delegates meeting, plus online voting for leadership positions. Professional engineering societies like IEEE operate similarly with over 400,000 members globally—they use regional sections, online balloting for board elections, and hybrid conferences. Even academic organisations like the American Psychological Association coordinate democratic decision-making across their 120,000+ members through divisional representation and electronic voting systems.
I assume each of the AMA, APA, and IEEE have substantial barriers to entry (e.g., professional education and/or licensing) that serve the screening-for-investment function Julia describes.
I also would not assume these organizations do a good job at representing their populations—e.g., about 75 percent of US physicians aren’t members of the AMA, which isn’t a big vote of confidence.
I think you’re right about the limitations of these examples, but this feels like we’re getting lost in the weeds. The original point was about travel costs making democratic decision-making processes suboptimal in large countries. These examples show that’s not true—organisations routinely manage democratic processes across large geographies.
I imagine you’d organise it the same way you’d organise any other national democratic organisation in the US—through representative structures, regional chapters, online participation options, and other standard approaches that democratic organisations use to manage scale and geography.
I asked Claude for examples:
I assume each of the AMA, APA, and IEEE have substantial barriers to entry (e.g., professional education and/or licensing) that serve the screening-for-investment function Julia describes.
I also would not assume these organizations do a good job at representing their populations—e.g., about 75 percent of US physicians aren’t members of the AMA, which isn’t a big vote of confidence.
I think you’re right about the limitations of these examples, but this feels like we’re getting lost in the weeds. The original point was about travel costs making democratic decision-making processes suboptimal in large countries. These examples show that’s not true—organisations routinely manage democratic processes across large geographies.