Welcome! The Digital Democracy group is for those interested in using modern information technologies to broaden political participation.
Our objective is to nurture inexpensive and people-powered ways of using the internet in order to enhance community cohesion and political deliberation/participation. In this way we hope to contest the control which oligarchs have over our government due to the money they spend on our Representatives.
What is Digital Democracy?
Digital Democracy (or equivalently e-Democracy or Internet Democracy) does not have a single definition, but here is a broad description:
The concept of Digital Democracy is associated with efforts to broaden political participation by enabling citizens to connect with one another and with their representatives via modern information and communication technologies.
Digital Democracy initiatives can involve relatively minor changes such as governments putting information online, or major changes such as the creation of two-way information links which allow citizens to have meaningful input on policy issues.
For a good and precise definition of Digital Democracy I recommend reading this essay.
For an inspirational article focusing on deliberative e-Democracy I recommend this short (15 page) pamphlet by Steven Coleman available here.
I also recommend his 2009 book The Internet and Democratic Citizenship for a good overview including a history of what has been tried in the past.
Digital Democracy's Unrealized Promise
The internet's potential for improving democracy has been debated for over 20 years. There have indeed been significant Digital Democracy advances, but these mainly have to do with information provision (managerial in nature) and delivery of public services (consultative). Successful projects incorporating political dialogue (deliberative) have been few and far between.
So although the internet has revolutionized many aspects of society, its impact so far on politics - particularly politician behavior - has been comparatively disappointing.
This group is for those who believe the internet has great untapped potential to change our democracy for the better, and that ordinary citizens can work together to help make this change happen.
Group Agenda
It is my expectation that group members will take part in actions as well as discussions. We should:
- identify specific actions which should be more common in our democracy,
- brainstorm novel, inexpensive and effective ways to make them easier using the internet, and
- take part in projects to implement the best of our ideas.
Fortunately, e-democracy projects do not have to be big to make a difference.
I will conclude this introduction by giving three examples of Digital Democracy projects, one each in the categories of Civic Education, Civic Engagement and e-Government.
Example 1: Civic Education (Completed)
In recent years there has been a lot of great work helping to publicize U.S. campaign finance records, for example by the archivists at OpenSecrets.org. However, voters have to discover where this information is located, and the database interfaces can be confusing.
The Greenhouse browser extension (discussed in this DailyKos diary “16 yo kid has just changed the game”) makes learning about donations much easier. After installation, the names of Representatives are highlighted where they appear, and mousing over them produces a pop-up listing their biggest donors.
This successful e-democracy project, which is currently used on over 70,000 Chrome browsers alone, was conceived of and coded by Nicholas Rubin when he was 16 (well before he could vote!).
Example 2: Civic Engagement (Proposed)
A particular interest of mine is deliberative e-democracy projects which would enable ordinary citizens to have regular and meaningful online interactions with their representatives. The idea is to work toward a more conversational democracy, as described in Steven Coleman's pamphlet.
Setting up a simple conversational democracy forum along the lines of an improved Reddit-style Ask-Me-Anything would be an interesting group project that would not require much in resources. I have sketched what such a project would look like in my diary “Bernie Sanders Doesn't Need Big Media to Talk Directly with US”.
Significantly more ambitious conversational democracy things we could try are sketched in my diary “Don't Mourn Our Democracy, Organize!” It is possible that a simple Ask-My-Anything forum could evolve to include these additional features.
Example 3: e-Government (Proposed)
Having voters cast informed votes is crucial to democracy. An obvious requirement for this to happen is the timely publication of sample ballots listing the candidates and measures to be voted on. Ideally, this sample ballot would be available online, would be customized depending on your address, and would include candidate statements and campaign finance information.
Sample ballot creation is the responsibility of state-level officials. Washington State has a great online sample ballot (MyVote) which they have continued to improve. In contrast, most other states have terrible sample ballot services - so bad that there is no doubt that turnout suffers as a direct consequence. This outcome is probably considered a feature rather than a bug by some state officials.
An interesting group project would be to organize a campaign to pressure the worst offending states to follow the lead of Washington State. We could start by exploring whether the WA state government would make its sample ballot software (which I’ve heard was created by Microsoft, presumably pro bono) available to other states. If so, the laggard states would have to be creative to find excuses for not doing their job.
Thanks for Reading!
To sign up for the Digital Democracy group, send me a PM or leave a comment below.
