001 - When Power Recentralises.

How uncertainty pulls decisions inwards and why participation can pull them back out.

Every time uncertainty hits - a crisis, a market shift, a leadership change. There’s a voice, whether posted on billboards or primed in our subconscious that demands: “We need to get control back.”

It sounds sensible. It feels responsible. But it’s also the beginning of a pattern. One that pulls decision-making away from people

Uncertainty is uncomfortable. When we can’t predict outcomes, we retreat to control. This is especially true when coupled with a perceived threat to security. Policies tighten, decisions centralise, and conversations shrink. It happens in governments, organisations, and small teams.

One way to contain the risk is by containing participation. Falling back on the old adage that too many cooks... Instead taking comfort in a single voice of reason. But this often leaves a bitter taste. Especially if that voice is more used to stoking fires than seasoning.

The paradox is that this containing participation often creates more fragility, not less.

Because when information, creativity, and judgment all flow upward, the system loses its ability to adapt. And when people are excluded from the process, trust corrodes.

The high processed carbs of control can never supplement the hearty sustenance of shared power.

In deliberative settings, this is especially visible.

A council may commission public dialogue during calm periods, yet suspend it when stakes rise, precisely when diverse judgment is most needed. Uncertainty should invite participation, not suppress it.

When power recentralises, three things happen:

1. Information bottlenecks. Data is filtered through narrow channels. Complexity becomes invisible.

2. Reduced participation. Decisions are made by fewer people, under greater pressure, with thinner perspectives.

3. Erosion of resilience. Systems that depend on central certainty collapse when that certainty fails.

In practice, the cost is not just inefficiency. It’s disengagement. People stop showing up because they stop being asked. And that trust is easy to erode and difficult to restore.

Well designed deliberative and participatory approaches offer a different logic: distribute judgment, not just responsibility.

When uncertainty rises, we can:

• Share information openly. Make visible how decisions are formed, what trade-offs exist, and whose voices are shaping them.

• Distribute decision-making. Early experimentation and institutionalisation of rotating facilitation, sortition or devolved governance mean local actors are primed and can respond with agility even as the situation becomes more precarious.

• Adapt collaboratively. Create structures that can learn in public. Iterating through dialogue, not decree.

Participation doesn’t eliminate uncertainty. It gives it structure. It turns chaos into collective sense making.

“Deliberation isn’t slowness — it’s speed that’s grown up.”

Next time your team or community group faces uncertainty, resist the impulse to “tighten control.”
Instead, ask: What would it look like to widen the circle?
Host a deliberative session. Invite the outliers. Map the unknowns together.
Because when people help make sense of uncertainty, they also help carry it.

Power recentralises when we mistake control for certainty. But the future will belong to those who can talk through uncertainty. Together.

I’m continuing to explore the where power is decentralising and where it’s quietly being pulled back. Often this analysis is stuck at the societal level. To me, it is the local picture which gives more clues to the possibilities and trends of the future.
If you’ve witnessed this in your own organisation or community, I’d love to hear from you.
How do you see participation responding to uncertainty?

Until next time — stay curious, stay collaborative.

Ben