WHIG ROUNDTABLES

“We shall have made such a blaze that men will remember us on the other side or the dark.” (Rosemary Sutcliff, ‘The Road to Camlann: The Death of King Arthur’)

Leadership and Community Roundtables are, in many ways both a concept and a process: a way of framing issues and concerns for discussion, and a methodology for working issues with a view toward producing, at some point, either concrete actionable proposals or ideas to further the improvement of a community, social institution, government at any level or even the country itself. They’re highly flexible and adaptable and can be used in a number of ways and in a range of contexts.

Leadership Roundtables form around ideas. Most often it’s a specific policy proposal or a particular reform one of our members has developed, but not always. Leadership Roundtables are also useful as a place to discuss a specific area of interest, anything from constitutional law to the proper organization of a just society to the latest technological innovation.

The focus of Community Roundtables is on a specific place — a town, neighborhood, city, county, state, school district. They’re a kind of standing committee where local Whigs can get together and talk about the important local matters which most impact their daily lives.

There are two ways for a Leadership or Community Roundtable to form. One is for the Institute itself to create it top-down. The other is for an Institute member request a Roundtable in order to address a specific subject or proposal they have in mind in a Leadership Roundtable or serve as an ongoing discussion board for a particular geographic area in a Community Roundtable, at which point one is set up and handed over.

The Institute also maintains a general discussion Roundtable on each of our primary social media platforms, Facebook and LinkedIn. The Facebook Roundtable is restricted to Institute members only; the LinkedIn Roundtable is open to all LinkedIn users. Both are simply places for Roundtable members to talk about whatever is on their minds, post interesting articles, comment on each other’s posts and generally participate in our own corner of the Great American Conversation.

We also have, over time, developed a formal methodology for Roundtables to use if they so choose; think of it as our version of Robert’s Rules of Order. The process is almost wholly related to Leadership rather than Community Roundtables, which are inevitably run in a more casual discussion format. Moreover, when it comes to member-generated Roundtables it’s entirely up to the members themselves whether to follow it. We provide it here as a helpful guide and to serve as an insight into the Whig Way, but our members can run their Roundtables as formally or informally they see fit.

So, for example, the members of a Community Roundtable may wish to use it simply as a vehicle to organize local civic action or discuss local issues (zoning, for instance) without creating any concrete policy proposals. That’s a perfectly acceptable use of the platform. Likewise, a Leadership Roundtable may choose to limit its output to a list of bullet points for consideration by our membership and the public at large, or create nothing at all other than ideas among its members; that is also perfectly acceptable.

The following process is designed for the generation of white papers for official publication under the Modern Whig Institute name, for public consumption. It is only mandatory for Roundtables which are created for that purpose.

To be clear, the Institute will only publish Roundtable work product which has been created using this methodology or, alternatively, formally submitted for full Editorial Review. In either case the research and editorial standards are exactly the same, and anything falling outside the editorial process cannot be offered to the public as a research paper under the Modern Whig Institute label.

We maintain our Members Blog as the outlet for member-produced content created under less stringent standards. And the purpose of our National Gazette is to serve as a kind of house newspaper of the Modern Whig movement, with a focus on general interest articles geared toward the general public.

With that, here is the Whig methodology:

PROCESS

There are three stages to a Roundtable. All of the stages are collaborative and require a vote by the members of the Roundtable before any proposal can advance to the next stage. After the stages are completed, the proposal is submitted for a formal Editorial Review and final approval for publication by the Institute.

Stage One: Idea Definition. 

This stage may best be understood as a brainstorming session. In the case of proposals which arise out of a general Roundtable, much of the initial work will have already been done in the ongoing discussion. Where an individual member applies to have a specific proposal treated by a Roundtable, the work begins after the membership of the Roundtable is established.

A formal Roundtable is considered constituted once a private group has been created. At that point the individual making the proposal is named as the Moderator. (Where a proposal arises from general discussion without an individual Moderator the Executive Director will recruit one.) Another member of the Roundtable will then be designated by the Executive Director as the Provisional Referee. In all cases the Moderator and the Referee cannot be the same person.

Membership in any Roundtable is by invitation, and is determined through a collaboration between the Moderator, the Provisional Referee and national leadership. In some cases a Moderator may already have the necessary participants in mind; in others they may need assistance in recruiting the right people.

In all cases, once the roster is complete the Executive Director will approve the Roundtable and name a permanent Referee, who must then be approved by a majority vote of the Roundtable membership. Should the vote fail, any member of the Roundtable other than the Moderator can then be nominated by the other members (except the Moderator) and approved by a two-thirds vote.

Once the Roundtable is fully established the members can get to work. Almost all Roundtables will be created in a private social media group, but in the rare event it proves more useful and convenient to use a different platform the Executive Director and the Institute must be allowed access to all research materials (it’s important for fact-checking and verification before publication).

At the conclusion of Stage One the Roundtable must agree on the text of the proposal -- it should just be a few lines, beginning with “RESOLVED … “ -- at which point the proposal is put to a vote. Upon majority approval the proposal proceeds to the next step, but only if the Moderator is a member of the majority. Should the Moderator veto the final proposal it goes back for review, or the membership can request the Roundtable be dissolved and the proposal be put in reserve for a minimum of 90 days before being reconsidered. 

Stage Two: Debate and Collaboration.  

We can think of Stage One as the “why” of the Roundtable process. Stage Two is the “who, what, where and when” -- the point where the details of the proposal are hashed out and put into a useful and understandable form. The end result will sometimes be a written report or white paper which will ultimately be published by the Institute as a formal recommendation for government action. In other cases, it could be a single page of bullet points for consideration by the general Roundtable.

How debate is structured within any particular Roundtable is up to the members of that Roundtable themselves. Some may prefer a more formal style of handling debate. Others may prefer something far more casual. The only requirement of the Institute is civility: debate must be conducted without vitriol and personal attacks.  

At the end of this stage the Roundtable should have a draft of their white paper or other form of work product complete, along with all the relevant research and documentation. Just as with Stage One, a vote is then taken to approve the draft and move it to the third and final stage. Again, approval is by a simple majority, but the Moderator must be in approval or the proposal cannot advance. Should the vote fail the Roundtable will be asked to reconsider the matter for 30 days to see if edits can be made to the majority’s satisfaction. If a second vote fails the Roundtable will be suspended and the work product held on file for reconsideration after 90 days.

Stage Three: Approval and Publication

Once the work product of a Roundtable is complete and approved by the Roundtable it is submitted, along with all relevant research and documentation, to the Executive Director for formal Editorial Review. If it’s a white paper, the first step of the review process is a survey for coherence and readability, and then a check of the sources for the submitted evidence and research to ensure their validity.

Should a final paper have been approved unanimously by the Roundtable, the Executive Director has the authority to publish it at their discretion. Should the final vote be less than unanimous, the paper will be submitted to an Ad Hoc Review Committee specific to that Roundtable and named by the Executive Director (who cannot be a member), or to a Standing Review Committee in the case of papers of greater length and detail. 

Should any designated committee unanimously approve a paper after submission by a Roundtable, it will be published immediately. Should the approval be less than unanimous, the paper will be reconsidered by the Executive Director and either published or returned to the Roundtable for further consideration for a period of 10 business days. If at the end of that period the Roundtable stands by its work the Executive Director may publish the paper at their discretion, submit it to a second committee for further review, or reject it for cause.

Rejected papers are automatically submitted to a Standing Appeals Committee which is authorized to overrule the Executive Director and publish the paper. The Standing Appeals Committee must vote unanimously to overrule.

PROCEDURE

As mentioned earlier, there are two avenues to the creation of a Roundtable. One is by the Institute itself, in which case the formal process is followed. The other is by member request, at which point the Executive Director will work with the requesting member to establish the Roundtable.

How a member-generated Roundtable proceeds largely depends on its purpose, intent and ultimate goal. The only hard and fast rule has to do with the publication of any materials under the aegis of the Institute: it can only be done with the express, written permission of the Executive Director. While there is some flexibility in the creation and approval process, in the end the final public release of any reports, statements, proposals or any other work product of any kind is wholly and completely at the Institute’s discretion.

Only members of The Modern Whig Institute who are in good standing are eligible to participate in the Roundtables.  

A FINAL WORD

At the top of this page we mentioned how flexible and adaptable Roundtables can be. In no way, shape or form have we covered everything here, and the concept is always evolving.

The key takeaway is the potential of bringing multiple stakeholders together in a process intended to produce a result, whether it’s a formal white paper on a pressing national issue or some verbal suggestions at the next local school board meeting. Ultimately, collaboration in the name of public service is what this aspect of the Modern Whig Institute is all about. And we believe the best policies actually work their way from the grassroots up, rather than from the other direction.

One last thing: while we are utterly opposed to knee-jerk dogma, that doesn’t mean we don’t have a philosophy of our own; we most certainly do. While debate, discovery, collaboration and cooperation are central to our project and our movement, we’re very clear on the way we see government, society, the Constitution and the character of the American nation. Our respect for multiple viewpoints doesn’t mean we’re willing to accept anything and everything anyone has to say.

In all things and at all times the Modern Whig Institute will remain faithful to our most fundamental values and principles.

Figuring out how to best apply those values and principles today, tomorrow and for the future of our Republic — and the world — and promoting those views is the true core mission of the Institute.