Part 5, part 6, glossary and references
5 remarks
5.1 gender and access issues
These are recognised as highly important but will not be dealt with in detail in this paper. It is known that fewer women are Internet users but this seems to be in flux. Whether women will use ICT for political purposes more or less than men remains to be seen. This author would predict a proportionate increase in female political participation owing to spread of ICT.
Citizens' participation in collective decision-making can be facilitated by ICT, so access to computer terminals etc. is crucial. This is touched upon in the short items about ICT assisted community programmes and "digital cities" (3.8, 3.9) and in the Rand group paper (Anderson 1995).
5.2 learning
Projects have been designed to "educate" citizens about their society and its politics, some link to information about other countries and general matters such as economics. Learning to use ICT can open doors to untold information sources. Many citizens, especially the young, need to have opportunities to learn how complex decisons are made. ICT can assist learning in ways superior to traditional school lessons, to newspapers, radio and television. Learning to participate can be facilitated and political competence raised with asssistence of ICT.
Politicians and officials need to learn too. Although formally delegated by their constituents, many adopt the behaviour and attitudes of rulers. Authoritarian traits among citizens and politicians and the formation of hierarchies among the elected (e.g. governments and cabinets often become autonomous of parliaments) reinforce these patterns. In order to promote improved participation by citizens, perhaps aided by ICT, politicians must learn to consult, debate with, and better follow the wishes of their constituents.
5.3 motivation, interest, skills, time
Are citizens interested to participate more in deciding what happens in their societies, or even at the supra-national level? Generally, commentators have pointed to a lack of interest in politics, disillusionment about the integrity of politicians and falling election turnouts. The experience of many cyberprojects offering information about candidates and public issues is the opposite - many thousands have "visited" their Internet sites. It must be admitted that these are not representative findings, in any case until now only a minority of citizens is connected to the Internet, and even less use its facilities.
The chance to participate in making real political decisions, should it be offered, would probably attract many who had not previously been involved in politics. The "user friendliness" of ICT systems is increasing so computer skills become less important. Skill in handling and understanding complicated information, themes and problems remains necessary.
Trends such as those towards greater automation of work, production and organisation, reduced working hours and working at home mean that more "free" time will become available. Some of this could conceivably be used for "ICT-assisted" politics.
5.4 freedom of information - the struggle
To some extent developments in ICT have forced this issue upon unwilling governments, parliaments and official organisations. Commercial enterprises are largely "sealed boxes" to citizens who may have legitimate concerns about their activities. It is some years since the US Congress made some of its proceedings publicly available "on-line" (the system is called "Thomas") but the British government (at the time of writing) has failed to act similarly. In Britain, oft cited as "land of the free", every official document is effectively secret unless otherwise ruled by the government. Citizens complain that even the USA, with its "Freedom of Information" laws, is not doing anything like enough towards "open government", much information about e.g. parliamentary proceedings remaining effectively inaccessible. Governments and parliaments vary widely in the extent to which they inform about their activities (Macpherson 1997). The question arises that, if governments, parliaments and official bodies (ministries, bodies such as the Federal Drug Administration or offices for environment), make much of their archives and proceedings available electronically, then, who will have the time and resources to search through and who will use all of this information? See comments on "self-organisation for rights to participate and direct democracy", below.
5.5 self-organisation for rights to participate and direct democracy
Looking at co-ordination of social functions. At present this is usually done by institutions known as government, public administration with "quangos" (quasi-non-governmental-organisations, usually non-elected semi-autonomous bodies, paid from the public purse). A gradual transformation away from remote, self-reproducing elite decision-making to monitored, open, citizen-guided and citizen-run "government" of own affairs", ICT assisted, can be envisaged. Citizens must work to make transformation happen. Early approaches could include for instance:
"Watch Politics"
- process of government is monitored and criticised by (possibly representative) panels of citizens (e.g. finance watch, military affairs watch, social services watch). There would need to be specialised sub-groups. (Note: Electronically assisted cross-fertilisation among citizen-watch groups would put them collectively way ahead of government, which is hopelessly segregated into "ministries" and bureaucracies designed in the last century or even older.) To avoid fatal boredom and allow experience of different areas to accumulate, citizens' panels could rotate 5 yearly.
"Group around problems"
- in selected areas of public concern, citizens form "task groups" (again, these could be representative "samples" of a constituency, region,
country or larger polity e.g. Europe) , e.g. on health care, foreign aid, environment. Task groups could propose laws and policy, or propose solutions to problems. They could work through an exisiting power centre (e.g. a parliament) and/or by-pass it by appealing to the whole electorate, e.g. by initiating a referendum or by publishing recommendations for action by citizens. A difference between these "task groups" and existing grass-roots and lobby organisations is that they aim to evolve into forms and processes which allow all citizens to participate directly in self-government.
"Watch abuses"
- citizens in relatively stable and free systems must support (a) struggles for freedom from oppression (compare Amnesty International) (b) efforts to introduce democratic systems, especially citizens' rights to participate, in all regions of the world.
6. Conclusions
6.1 Concluding remarks
How could citizens rule? I prefer to "let the question answer itself". Let's leave it to them - the citizens: perhaps they will one day, acting in large numbers, put "the system" on the public agenda.
A few thoughts may be offered.
Given that there are only limited numbers of citizens who can and do act on any social matter or issue of apparent public concern, then the few active people need to be selective on issues, avoid getting bogged down in low-priority matters, or lost in a "morass" of administrative and political themes. Limited aims, some first steps, could include better liaison among citizens' initiatives and (looking critically at established grass-roots groups, social movements and some NGOs) more openness and sharing of knowledge and skills. Pilot projects, aimed to improve exisiting systems of public decision-making and citizen-politician communication should be suported and tried out in more countries and regions.
There are some challenges to be faced. Citizens, with enormous advantages brought by ICT, can work to abolish starvation and poverty, to drastically reduce human use of energy and throughput of materials, consumption and pollution. (For much of that citizens do not need government, only to convince enough fellow-citizens to change their lives.) They can improve and guarantee education, housing and health care (pressurising money holders and governments to help).
6.2 Concluding points
A. Relevant to increasing participation of citizens in social and political decision making, ICT can provide new means of political communication, increased access to information (if allowed by laws and conditions) and improved data handling.
B. Via the Internet there is much independent political information available. So, it is to be expected that the quality (at least in the sense of being better informed) of decision-making by citizens will increase. Until now, this applies mainly to voting for (choosing) delegates (representatives, parliamentarians), because direct democracy is relatively rare. General "political culture" of persons and societies may be expected to improve.
C. Projects and intitiatives of private and academic groups show that
(a) citizens from all walks of life can evaluate and reach coherent conclusions about complex public affairs and (b) there is strong interest among citizens of the general public to learn more about political issues and candidates, with a view to making better informed choices. ICT can assist here.
D. Improved information by governments and politicians can help citizens to decide which parties or candidates to chose, and to decide on public issues. This assumes that the quality and accessibilty of information is high.
E."Real" examples in which ICT has helped to increase participation of citizens officially in political decision-making are very rare. These innovations have apparently allowed in one case that constituents could influence how their delegate voted in parliament and in one case mandated his choice.
F. Direct ICT assisted decision-making by large constituencies (the electronic Agora) has not on a regular basis been introduced into politics as yet.
G. ICT as instrument(s) of politics will develop further. Citizens may organise, e.g. to protest against injustice in distant lands, or widely and rapidly spread information to gain support for political ideas (e.g. against Internet censorship, EZLN in Chiapas). The organisation of citizens to take more power via direct democracy and participation, assisted by ICTs or otherwise, is minimal at present, partly because, except in a few countries, effective (competent) access to ICT is percentually very low.
H. The lobby for democratic reform in general is weak, although probably growing, in the rich "western-style" democracies.
I. The problems faced by humanity are so great and urgent that, if citizens do not asume greater responsibility to seek wiser collective decisions and ensure their implementation, further catastrophe looms. ICT may possibly help to increase "collective human intelligence".
J.ICT applied in existing power structures and by private and commercial interests carries dangers for freedom and self-determination of citizens everywhere.
CVF California Voters Foundation
ETM "electronic town meeting"
EZLN Ejército Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional
FTP (file transfer protocoll).
HTML hypertext mark-up language
ICT information and communication technology
IRC internet relay chat
ISP Internet Service Provider
MODEM Modulator-Demodulator, connects computer to telephone system.
MED Minnesota Electronic Democracy
<http://freenet.msp.mn.us/govt/e-democracy>
NGO non-governmental organisation
TAN+N Teledemocracy Action News Network, in WWW <http://www.auburn.edu/tann>
URL Unique resource location (e.g. a "home page" in the WWW)
WWW World Wide Web
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Etzioni A. Minerva: An Electronic Town Hall. Policy Sciences 3, pp. 457-474, 1972.
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Hage C. <carl@chage.com> Re: Participation (Messsage to electronic forum Electronic Democracy and Elections <edem-elect@freedom.mtn.org> Thu, 14 Nov 1996 18:46.
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Krol E. The Whole Internet: User's Guide and Catalogue (2nd edition) Sebastopol, California, 1994
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Macpherson M.J. INTEGRAL STUDIES (World Wide Web "home page") [DOCUMENT TITLE: study and outreach in self- and social change]
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Newman D. E-mail <d.r.newman@qub.ac.uk>.
Pl@net: das Internet Magazine <http://www.zdnet.de> Virtuelle Politik. (Four articles in German on politics, social action and "cyberspace"/Internet.) Volume 9, pages 24-41, September 1996
Robbins M. Conference paper: "CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN RESOURCE ALLOCATION DECISIONS: THEORY AND CRITIQUE". ANNUAL MEETING OF THE URBAN AFFAIRS ASSOCIATION. APRIL, 1996.
NEW YORK CITY. Available from Mark Robbins, Syracuse University, e-mail <mdrobbin@mailbox.syr.edu> 1996.
Schwartz 1996. "The Internet's Engine for Politics - Email" (An article adapted from the book NetActivism: How Citizens Use the Internet, O'Reilly, Sebastopol California 1996)
van de Donk W.B.H.J., Snellen I.Th.M. and P.W. Tops (Eds) Orwell in Athens. A perspective on informatization and democracy. IOS Press New York/Amsterdam 1995
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XS4ALL. <http://www.xs4all.nl/> 1996.
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Habitat/Participation/participation-ch2.html> 1996
http://www.city.palo-alto.ca.us/palo/city/pacomnet/welcome.html.cgi
E-mail contact: <akrause@igc.apc.org>
NetAction Web site at: <http://www.netaction.org>.
<http://www.snafu.de/~mjm> See (BACKGROUND to) INTEGRAL STUDIES
<http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/integral.studies.html> and PROPOSALS <http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/prop.html> 1995-1996.
<http://www.btwebworld.com/communities/Reports/ed.html> 1996.