Ideas in the Wild: How Author Saqib Qureshi is Calling on His Fellow Citizens to Make Their Governments More Accountable

A democracy should reflect the views of its citizens and offer a direct connection between government and those it serves. So why, more than ever, does it seem as if our government exists in its own bubble, detached from us? In reality, our democracy is not performing as it should, which has left us fed up with a system we no longer trust.

Moreover, we lack a mechanism to fix what’s broken, because there is no incentive for politicians to make government more accountable, efficient, and representative.

With The Broken Contract, Saqib Qureshi is calling on his fellow citizens to assert their voice in the dialogue of democracy. He puts forth solutions, many involving easy-to-implement technologies. I caught up with Saqib to learn what inspired him to write the book, his favorite idea he shares with readers, and how that idea has impacted his life and career.

What happened that made you decide to write the book? What was the exact moment when you realized these ideas needed to get out there?

That moment was in 2017 during my local community’s interactions with our local municipal government of Markham about the delayed development of a local park. The local government had promised this park a while back, yet demonstrated no remorse or care that despite local residents paying their taxes on time, every time, the park was nowhere to be seen.

Furthermore, the local community’s needs and preferences were repeatedly ignored during the park’s design phase. We could say what we wanted, but the government wasn’t interested.

I then realized that our democracy has forgotten that citizens have drifted far from the center of our political process. I developed an awareness of the political circus around us, one where we mindlessly talk of democracy, but don’t have it. Yes, we have the opportunity to elect people, but democracy is not about elections. It’s about political power belonging to the people. You can have elections and yet have no democracy. And you can have a democracy without elections. And I haven’t even touched upon the reality that 99.5% of our democracy isn’t even elected.

What’s your favorite specific, actionable idea in the book?

Simple: term limits are essential to the preservation of democracy. We have to remember that democracy is not about elections. It’s about people power. And from there, it’s easy to see that what is good for democracy may not be good for an electoral process. We must impose term limits for all people in government — for politicians and longer term limits for civil servants.

Term limits should not be exclusive to the US president’s office. Why? Because first we need a greater number of citizens to participate and take ownership of the influential end of our democracy, and career politicians and lifer civil servants prevent that societal refresh.

Second, a greater churn also allows for a broader spectrum of society to take the reins of political power. We need the influential end of our government to feel a lot more like the people that they are supposedly representing — more ethnic minorities and women for example.

Third, we need competencies beyond electioneering (politicians) and characteristics besides risk aversion (civil servants) to dominate our government. A more balanced set of competencies and characteristics will enable a more rigorous and effective government.

What’s a story of how you’ve applied this lesson in your own life? What has this lesson done for you?

My career has inadvertently been about career limits: three-year stints in investment banking, academia, and management consulting were followed by longer stints in government (six years) and more recently in my multi-track role as an entrepreneur (a decade), writer, community activist and investor. And all of that has been in three continents. I have learned something from each experience: skills, preferences, and self-awareness. That heterogeneity and diversity has been deeply enriching. I can see issues from so many different perspectives simply because I have sat in so many chairs. The flip side of this is to be stuck in one job or industry with a limited growth curve, and far less awareness of how to make things happen, of how to get stuff done, of the implications of specific actions, statements, tones and communication formats.