1. Introduction
1.1 pre-amble.
In prevailing systems of government, citizens are allowed to participate only by voting once in several years, politicians are remote from their electors. Incompetence of politicians, corruption and bribery are not seldom and vital decisions are made behind closed doors. In some countries the introduction of citizens' rights to initiate laws, to call referenda and to be consulted on (mainly local and minor) decisions has gone some small way to compensate for these deficits of "representative" democracy.
The ideal that all members of a community or "polis" should be able to participate in reaching common decisions has often been dismissed as impractical (especially where large populations are concerned, also for other reasons). A "town meeting" for Moscow, even for New York, is dificult to conceive. With modern technology it is theoretically possible to allow all citizens to inform themselves about public issues and to vote on them electronically. This was a dream since the early days of telecommunication and has been proposed in detail (Etzioni 1972). For the citizen, modern ICT, especially computer networks such as the Internet, have vastly increased the speed and volume of communication, and the ease of access to information. Internet discussion fora and the World Wide Web contain much political information and analysis. There is much talk "on- and off-line" about chances to improve citizen participation in political life, aided, even made possible, by ICT. (Pl@net 1996).
For purposes of this article I will concentrate on potential reform of the "rich", western-style democracies.
1.2 personal interest - a remark about assumptions.
First, a remark about assumptions underlying this short paper (a "declaration of interest" touching on the author's personal views and values). I take the view that, in all contemporary countries and governing systems, improvement in quality of collective decison making and policy steering is possible and desirable. I assume for the purposes of this paper that
a) if constituencies (citizens) are better informed about circumstances, options (etc.) on matters of public concern then they may make better decisions than those taken before. "Better" here means "more in the public interest" and "supporting sustainability" through promotion of peaceful human progress and (local and global) environmental safety.
b) regarding quality of debate and deliberation on public problems: I assume that these are capable of being improved beyond present levels and that by broadening and intensifying involvement of citizens that fairer and indeed better decisions may be reached.
c) both of the above statements contain the word "may" - they are conditional. Improved quality depends on moral status, conscience, altruism, education, opinions and assumptions, (etc.), not forgetting wisdom of constituencies.
1.3 a methodological note
Many observations and remarks in this paper are based upon the "Internet" impressions of the author during 1995 and 1996. These impressions were gained in the follwing ways:
- searching using "Internet search tools" on terms such as "citizen", "participation", "democracy", also using the equivalent German key-words. Then reading the electronic "pages" received mainly from World Wide Web, Gopher and Usenet systems.
- identifying ICT projects which aim to inform about politics and public issues, or which aim to promote and enable communication between citizens, including politicians and officials, or which aim to allow or demonstrate improved participation of citizens in collective, political decision-making. Evaluating these projects, mainly found reported in the Internet, few in the academic literature.
- "subscribing" personally to Internet-based electronic fora about democracy, political participation, political science research and ICT, reading and storing the communications of forum participants on themes related to citizen involvement in politics.
- actively taking part in the electronic fora mentioned above, aiming to promote public debate on themes related to freedom and accessibility of political information, about possibilities to make government more transparent and "citizen-friendly", about ways to aid citizen empowerment with ICT, raising questions about citizens' responsibility for public affairs and problems, and about her ways and means to contribute. Some of the author's contributions to the above debate and replies of correspondents may be easily found in the "electronic archives" of the e-fora referred to, which included
# Cornell University Participatory Action Research Network Partalk-L,
# Massachusetts Institute of Technology Political Participation Project PPP, run by Mark Bonchek (NOW DEFUNCT)
# European Commission's Information Society Project Office (ISPO) discussion lists on Electronic Democracy (el-democracy) and the ISPO discussion list on "Information Society" ISPO
# Political Science Research and Teaching PSRT-L
(SEE NOTE I BELOW)
Also see collected correspondence, literature, debate at Democracy in Action, a WWW presentation hosted by John Gotze, Technical University of Denmark server (Macpherson 1995-1997).
- searching for, collecting and evaluating journalistic and academic writing about citizen participation in politics and ICT. (Many of these articles are very recent and may (to date) only be found "published" in the Internet, usually as pages in the WWW.)
Research about how people use Internet and ICT, and this applies especially to political use by citizens, is rare. Academics do not know which methods to use, so exploratory research and testing of different methods is called for. Citizens, of course, especially on sensitive issues like political behaviour, may not wish to be studied by academics! Some researchers have commented on these difficulties, as follows:
The Rand group, whose work on electronic community networks is cited below, state that their method "follows a case-study-like approach that RAND researchers have used successfully in other settings where contextual characteristics are complex and where there is a paucity of prior research on which to build" (They give references) (Anderson 1995). The author of a study into development of Internet and its implications for politics in China, Russia and elsewhere comments: "Given more time and more money, this research would have benefited from the use of standard user accounts in each of the countries, a survey of systems administrators and users, and day to day participation in the numerous listservs and Usenet groups devoted to these topics." (Klearman 1996)
In other words, simply by collecting and reading documents from the Internet, produced by the actors, who are commonly service providers and officials rather than "ordinary citizens", will produce incomplete and biased impressions. As in this and other fields of human social action and conflict, no research can hope to be adequate if it does not consider and begin to understand the complete environment (including now the "cyberenvironment") of the persons and groups involved. Concerning a psycho-ecological approach to studying and working through societal trauma, as well as citizen participation in politics and function of democracy in different countries, see "Integral Studies". (Macpherson 1995-6).
NOTE I
See for example the following electronic archives:
ISPO <http://www.ispo.cec.be/ispo/lists/ispo/index.html>
Electronic Democracy by thread:
<http://www.ispo.cec.be/ispo/lists/el-democracy/index.html>
Political Participation Project: <http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/ppp/home.html>
1.4 citizen participation and ICT in the context of debate about democratic systems
A description and evaluation of citizen participation and the new electronic communication media may usefully be placed in the context of debate about democratic systems in general. (Many of the controversies in this debate are old or very old, some have been re-activated because of developments in ICT.) Firstly, the tension between representative (I prefer to use the term "delegatory democracy": delegates or elected groups may represent their electorate well or badly.) and direct democracy. It has often been asserted that in social groups which are or become larger than a village or small town then it is impractical, inefficient, not feasible or even impossible to design and operate a system in which every enfranchised person has the right to co-decide on issues of public concern, e.g. policy, laws, implementation of decisions. Before the emergence of ICT these arguments against direct democracy seemed more convincing, especially for very large units such as cities or states. Without wishing to consider the controversy about direct versus delegatory democracy at length here, I offer the following. (Note: No doubt there are "hidden agendas" behind some of the different proponents' cases. For instance, politicians in favour of innovations may judge that electronic voting and easier communication with voters would enable them to more readily raise a majority for their own personal campaign. Others, opposed to innovation, may fear for their autonomy of rule or that their failures may be revealed. Lobby organisations or populist politicians or political movements may believe that it would be easier to convince a broad public to support their cause, were it to be formally empowered in a direct form of democracy, than it would be to persuade parliamentarians or government ministers.)
The delegatory model is by far the most prevalent. It appears that elites and publics, quite unthinkingly, support a "representative" system as the only possible democratic form. Why is it seldom put into question? Often this form arose in direct or indirect continuity with monopolies of power of one sort or another, which had been originally established (maybe centuries ago but in some cases recently) by violence, war and conquest, corruption, trickery, treachery or heredity (e.g. monarchies and aristocracies, juntas of one sort or another, leaderships of revolutionary parties). It may appear natural, having moved a little away from some type of dictatorship or other, and perhaps having struggled for more freedom and justice, to support a "new" system in which leaders may from time to time be rejected and replaced by popular vote. But many of the old institutions and hierarchy, usually patriarchy as well, have been taken over and accepted. Critically seen, the party system in modern democracies may be regarded as a form of government in which the people are allowed to choose a regime, effectively consisting of a few dozen, or less, prominent leaders (or, in those countries in which the parliamentary system works well, perhaps a few hundred leaders). Having been elected, this "regime" is often criticised for being mainly responsive to its "entourage" (in modern times the powerful financial, industrial, sometimes religious lobbies) with the voter having almost nothing to say, with no effective contact to
government, parliament or executive in the periods (during which all supposedly collective decisions are made) between infrequent elections. (For historical perspective on modern democratic systems see, regarding Britain, Ascherson 1994 and, regarding the United States of America, Costello 1996.)
My above picture has been painted in a "polarised" way for purposes of illustration. For instance, the partial, mediating, balancing role of organisations to which the interests of sectors of the community are delegated (e.g. trade unions), the specialised lobbies (e.g. to protect environment; for guns) and existing elements of direct democracy (e.g. referenda, mentioned elsewhere) have not been brought in. I leave the reader to judge whether the picture reflects her or his experience.
1.4.1 debate about the form of delegation (including representation); the constitution of state, parliament and government; and the electoral system.
Another overlapping area of debate concerns the form of delegation (including representation), the constitution of state, parliament and government and the electoral system. This debate is beyond the scope of my essay. (There are aspects of parliamentary reform in the Dutch "teledemocracy" project, below. See also "Forms of societal decision making" (table)). Suffice it here to say that some electoral and government systems appear to be more representative than others of citizens' general views or of their wishes about particular issues (e.g. proportional allocation of votes as in FRG appears better in this respect than first-past-the-post. The latter may mean that a ruling party can be elected by a minority of voters, as has often happened in Great Britain.) And, the amount of attention which governments and delegates pay to citizens' opinions between elections - the verity of representation - varies from country to country and issue to issue.
1.4.2 intra-governmental and parliamentary reform; relations between legislative and executive; "informatisation" of government and administration and its implications for the citizen
Also, capacity of parliament to control government, and the degree of independence of MPs from party discipline (in some systems imposed by members known as "whips"!) varies fom country to country. Like the questions of democracy reform and electronic democracy, these problems of government and electoral systems may of course become very well disseminated and debated in computer networks, whose users, "netizens", may be particularly receptive to proposals for reform as well as being potential multipliers in communication and public discourse. Matters of intra-governmental and parliamentary reform, and relations between legislative and executive, will not be treated at all fully here. Suffice it to say that ICT may change the ways in which government works (van de Donk 1995), and may alter the relationship between elected representatives and administrations, as illustrated in a Finnish municipality (Asunmaa 1996). Also, the "informatisation" of government and administration has considerable implications for the citizens who are the "consumers" and "owners" of these organisations. There may be some benefits in terms of ease of citizens' access to delegates, officials and to some forms of public information. There will also be increased difficulty for "outsiders" (most citizens) because of increasing complexity of the information and the ICT systems used to store and manage it. The "corridors of power" (from the title of a well known book by C.P. Snow), already locked to the ears and eyes of most citizens, perhaps "Kafkaesque", become increasingly "virtual". Also, this informatisation of government and public administration (not to mention private and corporate information gathering) makes central control and manipulation of citizens and populations potentially much easier. There is the danger of "the glass human-being" (German: der glaesernde Mensch) and a system of "Orwell in Athens" (van de Donk1995). This pithy book title implies that ICT can bring benefits but also dangers for freedom and democracy.
1.4.3 elements of direct democracy
Elements of direct democracy are already practised. Only brief comments can be offered here. The rights of citizens to propose laws in parliaments, also to initiate and take part in referenda on local or national issues, and to be consulted about community planning etc. vary widely from country to country. Suffice to say that should the practice of calling referenda already exist then it would be relatively easy to introduce electronic voting and also to enrich the processes of information, discussion and deliberation about the issue in question, during the run-up period to the referendum vote.
Note that high barriers to referenda are often set, or they may be allowed only when called by the ruling group. Consultation of constituents has usually only been possible in small units e.g. villages, towns, small districts, and often limited to relatively minor issues (e.g. tax and financial questions may be excluded). Also, referenda and results of consultation may be only advisory, not mandatory on officials or delegates.
It is of interest to note that in Bavaria, Federal Republic of Germany, a movement to introduce the citizens' right to call referenda organised a referendum (already allowed by the Bavarian constitution) on this question at federal state level. A law allowing community (city, town, district) referenda was successfully passed, against the wishes of the ruling political party. Secondly, although there are strong components of direct democracy in Switzerland, the Swiss government recently rejected a proposal to introduce the option to vote electronically in elections and referenda. The proposal was rejected because it was felt that security of voters' identity could not be guaranteed. (Personal communication, H. Burkert, source: NZZ International edition August 21, 1996 p.25)
1.5 pre-conceptions about collective decision making in democracies.
Many projects which aim to improve democratic systems, including some referred to in this paper, emphasise the role of centralised government. There is little to be said against trying to improve existing systems. But ICT appears to offer the chance for citizens to begin to take over more responsibility for collective decisions, so reducing the need for indirect representation and allowing decisions, whether they be delegated or taken directly, to reflect more closely the will of constituents. How exactly the new models will look can only be surmised. Some possiblities may be discerned in the decription of, and discussion about, participation projects and models of citizen participation, below (Section 3).
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