3 some projects and proposals which may improve citizen participation.
3.1 The California Online Voter Guide
The California Online Voter Guide (CVF), founded circa 1993, is mainly concerned with informing and, as their own description reads, "educating" citizens about matters closely related to the California state and United States federal elections. They write "In providing this service, CVF sought to increase voter participation in the1994 election, and in future elections, and to give voters greater confidence in their ability to make informed choices", while at the same time develop a prototype of an online voter guide which could be used in other countries, states, and communities. The Guide was also designed to be used as an educational programme for schools.
The project was founded by a former state politician and is apparently run by one full-time worker and one Internet specialist.
Relatively simple but important matters such as how to register as a voter and how to vote are explained.
Information about election candidates, campaign funding, public issues (controversies) in state and federal elections and also in state-referenda, candidates for official positions such as judges of law, are offered. For example, candidates were asked to provide biography and list their qualifications for office, press releases, endorsements (statements of support by other persons or groups), statements of policy, speeches, and finally detail of how to contact the campaign for more information, or how to volunteer for campaign work! A randomly chosen "candidate's page" (author of this paper visited via WWW) revealed that he had supplied almost none of the requested information. Other politicians, according to the organisers, cooperated closely with the requests for information.
Although primary focus of this project is electoral politics, a useful feature is the "meta" section, which via Internet can link citizens to a stimulating spectrum of social, political and international information sources. Here is further promise for general improvement in levels of political knowledge and competence among citizens.
A detailed evaluation of the project was conducted by Kim Alexander, project director, which showed that over 14,000 people consulted the California Online Voter Guide in the period around the 1994 elections. Citizens who visited the Guide, having been asked for their opinion, often requested that more independent analyses of campaign issues, rather than candidates' press releases, should be made available.
It is noteworthy that CVF won the cooperation of a large commercial telecommunications concern, which seconded a consultant to work with CVF on building the political information base.
Between 1994 and 1996 the volume of information has apparently been greatly increased. Questions must be raised about how citizens can deal with all of this information.
3.2 British on-line democracy project
From their own description the organisers aim:
"to provide a World Wide Web site through which to present political
information to the public, as well as two separate streams of online
political debate.
"The first stream of debate, for politicians only, will be a forum which
addresses questions posed by the public and would be monitored but not interrupted by the public online audience. This would therefore provide politicians with the unique opportunity to present and rebut each others views without an interviewer, without interruption and without editing. This is a facility not currently available in any other medium.
"The second stream, will be a structured facilitated forum for members of the public to participate in what could become a national management plan and in which they will be able to express their own visions for a better society, discuss their proposed solutions to political issues and respond to the politicians' online debate (see above). For easy reference, this forum would be regularly summarised by an independent coordinator and provide politicians with an invaluable resource by which to gauge public opinion.
"It is important to note that experience in the US has shown that this two stream approach to online debate avoids any possibility of politicians becoming unwillingly embroiled in heated discussion directly with members of the public although, of course, there would be nothing to stop them participating in the public debate if they so wished."
Citizens may participate in an electronic forum described as follows:
"(...) you can participate in any ongoing political discussion topic, you can start a new one or just (...) read what others are talking about. The topics that become sufficiently popular will go forward into their own Focus Group for more in-depth discussion and so that you won't have
to (read many) Open Group topics that don't interest you."
This project is at present in a pilot (launching) phase. Some topics have been suggested by the organisers, for example, the bovine spongioform encephalitis (BSE: "mad cow") crisis; gun control; the national lottery.
There will be a "virtual" library of political information, including an on-line version of Hansard, the proceedings of British (Westminster) parliamentary debates.
At the time of writing there is a hot debate going on among organisers and supporters of the British on-line project (again - a private initiative) about whether users will be required to register (provide personal details such as real name, address, telephone number etc.) or whether access to citizens' elecronic debates and to information banks etc. will be completely "open". An iteresting component coould be the participation of citizens of countries other than Britain.
3.3 Choosing Our Future (COF)
Choosing Our Future (COF) working in the San Francisco Bay Area in California developed a pilot Electronic Town Meeting in cooperation with the ABC-TV station in San Francisco and the League of Women Voters in the nearby Bay Area. The Electronic Town Meeting, held already in 1987, and presumably relying on voting by telephone, enabled a pre-selected, scientific sample of citizens to cast six "votes" during the hour-long television program that was seen by over 300,000 persons.
COF claim that their method has been applied in "real" politics. This seems to be a unique precedent and so the following description - from TAN+N (see glossary) - is reproduced verbatim:
3.4 A political party closely guided by citizens' opinions?
"In keeping with their electoral promises of 1992, when they won about 15% of the seats in Parliament, the national Reform Party of Canada decided to experiment with an "electronic town meeting" (ETM) in
Calgary in the fall of 1994 on (an important public) issue (...). There were some highly innovative aspects to this ETM. Here is the design:
There are five parliamentary districts in the Calgary area represented by members of the Reform Party. They all agreed to pick a random sample of at least 400 constituents from each district and to ask them
to become televoters in an ETM to be broadcast on TV on the next Sunday. Each televoter got a set of 8 telephone numbers to call: 1 for yes, 2 for no, and the other 6 were for the degree of agreement or
disagreement. They also received a brochure with some information about the issue and the voting procedures.
"Perhaps the major innovation in this project was that each Reform MP stated in advance of the process that if a significant consensus of their constituents voted in favor of (the selected) issue (...) that even though these MPs were personally opposed (...), they would be bound by the vote of their constituents.
"That Sunday, there was a debate on the issue with experts from all sides of the issue. Preston Manning, President of the national Reform Party, plus 4 other Reform MPs took part, but did not dominate the
debate. At one point, the Televoters from all districts were asked to vote by phone, which they did. The results were that approximately 70% of the Televoters in every district were in favor of the proposition,
(...) This, plus similar results from other polling methods used by the Reform Party in these districts, were sufficient to bind the MPs to this position.
Vote in Parliament: up to March, 1996, that vote had not yet been taken."
Some Canadian academics view the Reform Party's project critically (Barney and Laycock 1995).
3.5 Legislator/parliamentarian consults all constitutents (Reform Party of Canada)
In a further trial of direct citizen opinion testing by a member of parliament (M.P.), again a legislator of the Reform Party of Canada, fulfilling an election promise to consult, asked his constituents, in this case all of them and not only a sample, to vote on some public issues which were (or were expected to be) on the parliamentary agenda. This was made possible by means of an electronic teledemocracy system operated by a telephone company. Each registered voter in the M.P.'s constituency was sent a confidential Personal Identification Number aimed to guarantee the voter's identity. Prior to voting, each citizen was supplied with information and alternative points of view about the issues, and they were encouraged to discuss the matters with family, friends and colleagues. The M.P. promised that his voting in parliament would be guided by the opinions of his constituents which had been gathered electronically. (Information from TAN+N,)
3.6 Decision-Maker/Teledemocracy: an ambitious model from The Netherlands
An ambitious "model for teledemocracy", which may soon be applied in a "real life" experiment has been developed at the Dutch Institute for Public and Politics by Marcel Bullinga. The proposal has five elements. The organisers write: "Decision-Maker/Teledemocracy" is a large-scale project, ultimately designed - after 10 years or so - to connect all of the Dutch citizens (about 9,5 million voters) to the Internet for the purpose of digital debating and voting. As of January 1996 we begin a small-scale experiment in the province of Noord-Brabant (Holland). An actual environmental problem will be used to provide "Decision Maker/ Teledemocracy" with a "real-life" case."
One problem with direct democracy is that many citizens for one reason or another may not wish to or be able to participate fully. To allow "opting out" a new form of delegation is proposed. "Decision-Maker/Teledemocracy" uses a general trusted third party model, in which citizens can choose any organiziation or person they like to hand over their vote to. This trusted party can basically be anyone: an individual person with a public opinion about the topic, a government, an action group - or a political party indeed. These trusted parties can do what they want with the votes that are thus trusted (given away) to them.
The five elements of the Dutch "model for teledemocracy" are described as follows:
<quote> STEP 1: INFORMATION
Starting point: a concrete proposal, probably by local or national
government, about a certain topic, like building a new highway or cutting down a forest or whatever. Plus independent background information on this topic, including pro's and con's as uttered by all parties involved, like governments and action groups and individual citizens. For this part of the information, the editors are responsible. They provide also links to all existing sources of information available on the Internet on the topic, being supplied by the parties involved. For the content of these sources, the editors are not responsible.
The objective editorial information should be provided by independent
information-brokers. People like university-professors, judges or
journalists. This could even be a new profession, the "referendarists",
people not being tied to government or to commerce and analyzing local and regional problems and their possible solutions. They would formulate the referendum questions and construct the voting options.
STEP 2: DEBATING
Mailing lists and news groups about the current topic. Everyone concerned can join the debate. Possibilty to bring up new alternatives for the current proposal. Also - possibility to bring up new topics for new teledemo-debates/votings. Before a topic is accepted, the one who proposed it must raise a basic amount of people supporting the proposal, in order to prevent a flood of voting-demands that can not be handled.
STEP 3: INDIVIDUAL VOTING-ADVICE
The current topic is cut into several sub-questions or sub-aspects by the
editorial team, which the voter answers off-line or on-line, stating his view on the importance and ranking of these sub-aspects. The answers are clustered by fuzzy logic or expert system and turned into an individual voting-advice, getting back on screen on-line, consisting of detailed sentences, each representing a cluster. Basically it is an overview of voters' values on the subject. It is his/her importance ranking of the underlying issues at stake, like being more concerned about preventing environmental damage or being more concerned about cutting costs. Including an advice as on how to vote regarding the proposal at stake (which may be ignored of course).
STEP 4: COLLECTIVE VOTING-ADVICE
All individual voting-advices of all voters are clustered into graphics,
showing how many and what kind of people agree with or oppose the current topic and why. For example: a majority of voters in age-group 35-45 years and zip-code 1000-1200 is againt the proposal because they think environment is going to be damaged in the current proposal.
This step is accomplished using pseudo-identities from which the personal information is stripped away, leaving only the essential general data such as postal code and age-group. This procedure allows for use in governmental decison-making without violating indivual privacy, that is, without revealing individual voting behaviour.
STEP 5. VOTING
Voter is granted permission to the Web-page, c.q. authenticated to vote on the current topic, by his/her passport-data. The city he lives in gives him a public key for voting-rights. A permanent voting-key is made out of this data, using the pseudo-identity idea developed by DigiCash among others. This process garantees that the the voting-system knows that the voter is permitted to vote but that the system does not know what the voter votes.
Ther voter can change his vote within the time-limit of voting, for example: debate and voting is open during 1 month.
Voter can vote yes / no / don't know / no vote / or can elect to give his
vote away to a trusted party. (...)
Passion-option: the voter can place a double weight on the current topic if he wants his opinion have extra emphasis this time. This option may only be used in 50% of the cases. <unquote>
3.7 The Citizens Jury Process, Jefferson Centre Minneapolis.
From the Jefferson Center's own introduction:
"The Citizens Jury process was created to generate public opinion that is
both representative and informed. (...)
A Citizens Jury project (...) consists of two basic parts: selecting a microcosm of the public to represent their community on the panel, and educating the group to make informed decisions on a public
policy issue. The goal is to demonstrate what the public would really think about an issue were they given the time and resources to thoroughly examine it.
"We randomly select between eighteen and twenty-four people to serve on the jury. The group is balanced on six demographic variables. The variables usually include: age, race, gender, education level,
geographic location and attitude toward the issue of the day. The group then meets for five full days of expert testimony on the issue. The Jefferson Center takes great care to balance the testimony and
incorporate a variety of points of view. The panel of jurors is assigned a "charge" to answer, (asked to make a decision or recommendation - Ed.) however they are empowered to answer it in their own way, and to supplement it with additional recommendations.
"We have discovered a couple of interesting results. First, the process tends to increase the level of trust between policymakers and the public. The structure is unlike most public hearings, in that the average
citizens direct the dialogue. Whereas the experts usually sit behind the table and the citizens appear as petitioners, Citizens Jury hearings are structured so the citizens are seated behind the table and the
experts appear as petitioners. We've also found that the process provides a neutral forum where experts learn from each other as well.
"Lastly, many group activities and educational processes lead to changes in attitudes, but the Citizens Jury process does so in a particularly compelling way. The frequency with which jurors are able to see
another point of view continually reinforces our faith in the process. Critical to this realization is that the jurors have time to think things through and trust that they are operating in an unbiased setting."
3.8 Grass-roots and citizens' lobby groups
In a euphoric atmosphere of potential electronic democracy, it is easy to overlook the importance of "old-fashioned" citizens' movements such as those promoting peace, human rights, womens' rights or safer environment. Groups such a "Computer Programmers for Social Responsibilty" and many other computer experts who belong in spirit should be counted among these movements, indeed, there is much "cross-membership", individuals over time being active in more than one area of "creative social action" (Macpherson 1995-1996). These and other, often voluntary and dedicated people, activists, have played a vital role in making ICT, especially the Internet, available and easily useable for millions of fellow citizens across the world. The Association for Progressive Communications, based in Brasil, links networks of ecologists, health workers, human rights, labour and peace activists across the world. Many of these networks are linked to projects which support citizen participation and democracy, both in less and in highly developed countries.
It seems that some established citizens' initiatives such as pro-environmental groups have not fully grasped the promise of ICT. They may have an Internet presence in the WWW but little useful information is supplied. To help save the environment, it is essential that citizens become as well informed as possible. There must be no monopoly or "hogging" of information critical to human and planetary well-being and survival. Also, a cooperation between democratic reform groups and environmental organisations could be fruitful (see Netherlands Teledemocracy project).
It may be said that, fed and stimulated by the communication offers of ICT, there is a global movement to promote citizen participation in managing public affairs (see Citizenpower at TAN+N) (Becker 1996).
Some recent examples, provided in a workshop report (Notes from the Virtual Activist Workshop, by Audrey Krause) show that citizens, at least in the USA, are beginning to use ICT, especially e-mail, for political organising and lobbying. (Krause 1996).
Extracts from workshop report:
"First, organizations and campaigns have tried using the Internet for general public relations and outreach. Organizations have experimented with different approaches to online PR (Ed.:public relations).
"Second, organizations have experimented with using the Internet to reach out to their existing activist network and/or to recruit new activists, as well as to communicate with less active members.
"Stein said that general public relations efforts on the Internet have not
been particularly effective for activist organizations, but that the
technology has been useful in building activist networks and enabling
organizations to communicate with their members. Activists are beginning to identify specific technology tools that are useful, Stein noted. Fax servers on Web pages are increasingly popular with activist organizations, as are privacy tools such as encryption that enable members to send secure credit card donations.
"Stein said activists should be asking themselves three questions:
1) To what extent are activist agendas reflected online?
2) What technology tools are activists using, and are they meeting their needs?
3) What technology tools do activists want to see developed?
According to Stein, activists are better off combining Internet technologies than focusing on the World Wide Web. For example, if the goal is to get members to attend a rally or give a donation, email is a better outreach tool than the Web. (.....)
"Newman described the experience of California activists who opposed a
1995 ballot initiative on immigration "reform." Within three days of setting up an email list service, the activists had 600 subscribers. Within a week, the list had grown to over 1,000, and within three weeks, there were 40 rallies being organized on college campuses around the country.
"Wickre reported: ...
when the Christian Coalition initiated a campaign to pressure the Disney Corporation to reverse its decision to offer health insurance coverage for domestic partners, gay and lesbian activists inundated Disney officials with E-mail messages thanking them for making the health insurance
coverage available to domestic partners. The large volume of E-mail in
support of the health insurance policy convinced Disney to go ahead with the plan despite the right-wing pressure to drop it."
END OF EXTRACT FROM WORKSHOP REPORT.
3.9. Electronic community neworks, digital cities.
The term "community network" may not be easily defined. Anne Beamish offers the following:
<quote> a community network is always a
network of computers with modems that are interconnected via
telephone lines to a central computer which provides:
* community information; and
* a means for the community to communicate electronically.
A resident of a town or city uses the system by dialing into a
central computer with their personal computer and modem. A series
of menus appears on the screen and the user selects the
information or communication services they would like. They pick
up information provided by city hall, a business or social service
provider, participate in a public discussion on a local issue with
others in the community, or communicate via e-mail with others in
the community (Ed.: references given)
Unlike the similarly named "on-line communities" or "virtual
communities" (Ed. see XS4ALL and Internationale Stadt, below) community networks are based in a physical place. What participants have in common are their cities and neighborhoods. <unquote>
Community network projects commonly aim to provide improved access of citizens to information about their locality, town or city. E.g., some present an "electronic town hall" which allows users to "meet" political representatives, and to "visit" administrations e.g. education, transport, health and policing authorities, and find services e.g. legal advice, sports facilities, cultural sites and events. Some community networks enable and possibly encourage citizens to contact local officials and politicians and a few provide a framework for electronic exchange "horizontally" among citizens, usually on topics of local significance. Compare a report of the RAND's Center for Information Revolution Analyses (CIRA), which presents a survey of communuty neworks in the US (Anderson et al 1995).
The "digital cities" attempt an ambitious presentation of "virtually" all aspects of city life. See possibly the first of these projects, based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, XS4ALL, a humorous spelling of "access for all" (XS4ALL 1996). Also compare a project based in the new capital of the German Federal Republic (Internationale Stadt Berlin1996). Organisers and promoters of these projects often show awareness of inequality in citizens' ability or financial means to participate in electronic community networks. One answer has been to propose public access points, such as in libraries, schools and other public places.
Another approach to community networking is to promote "access for all" (Anderson 1995). Also, universal access for all citizens of a region, probably using a glass fibre loop, is currently being debated among citizens and local government in Palo Alto, California (Imsong Lee 1996).
Community network projects may be initiatives of independent citizens' groups, of groups receiving official funding (e.g. US government, European Union) or they may be intiatives of (usually local) governments. These differences are sometimes blurred, as when citizens lobby a local council to set up a project.
Community networks may be set up to emphasise particular aims, e.g. creating local jobs, reviving culture and identification with a region or locality, see e.g. Amager Kulturpunkt (Amager is a city district of Copenhagen, Denmark.) (Wired Amager! 1996)
Even community conflict resolution, in Northern Ireland, has been tried. See "On-line Preferenda" and the "Revelations Cybercafe" (Newman 1996).
These features described above, and other effects of community networks may of course influence the political process. But, until now, it does not seem that community networks have led to much increase in direct participation or involvement of citizens in government. One attempt to involve more people in "local and global" politics is the Agenda21 (proposal of the 1992 Rio di Janiero UNO conference on environment) programme, which emphasises the application of electronic media (Howells 1996).
TABLE
Functions of projects to improve citizen participation in democratic systems.
€ provide basic information about for citizens about rights and responsibilities of citizens
€ inform and educate about politics and about issues of public concern
€ help voters to make up their mind about candidates, parties and issues in election process
€ promote/offer opportunities for citizens to deliberate on public issues, on draft (in preparation) laws, social problems (allow experience of analysing complicated issues). Participation in reaching a decision may be included (citizens' decision or recommendation is usually of no "official" significance. Decision-making may be with or without ICT assistance)
€ promote/offer communication between citizens and politicians
€ guide citizen through growing jungle of publicly available government and other official information
€ offer participation of citizens in real decision-making.
_____________________________
TABLE
Information and links provided, or potentially provided, by cyber-participation projects.
political information and issues for public debate
a) electoral system (local, regional, national, supra-national)
b) political candidates (e.g. biography, policy support, campaign finance, "political literacy test")
c) process of parliamentary legislation revealed in its various steps (e.g. committee resolutions and much other procedural detail), draft laws.
d) broader issues such as social violence, commerce and finance, work, and general debate on e.g. (aspects of) international, environmental, military, economic policy; ethics and moral issues. Also, when parliaments have debates, enquiries, commissions on various issues, then the public can be better informed with assistence of ICT.
e) government and ministries - staff, activities
d) other administration, quangos, public offices present their work
f) aids to political action, e.g contact to delegates, to public bodies and to officials.
links
a) to mass media (press, local radio, citizens' television, general)
b) lobby groups (e.g pro-environment groups, specialist groups (e.g. public finance), trade unions, political parties, political and social reform groups.
c) reference sources e.g institutes of learning, critical centres such as World Watch, libraries
________________________
URL of this document is <http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/CP/C.html