This is clipped from an article explaining how Sociocracy works and why we need it.  You can read much more here at their website.

Who decides?  How does it work?

Everything that needs care in an organization is divided into domains. Each domain is taken care of by a group of people (called a ‘circle’).

For example, a membership circle takes care of the membership domain, making decisions and policy about members and membership. A Website Circle makes all the decisions about the website domain. A Marketing Circle takes care of the marketing domain and makes all decisions and policy needed along the way. Makes sense, right? 

Note that these circles actually have all the authority (and responsibility!) in their domain. The Website Circle doesn’t need to ask anyone for permission on their decisions on the website. There is no central power making decisions while the rest just carries out as they are told. That’s why we call this system decentralized or distributed authority. All we need to do is make a system so we can decide who decides and then many people can make many decisions in many different places.