Note, 1st December 1997. This is the draft of a paper with similar title which will appear shortly in The Bulletin of the European Institute for the Media (Duesseldorf FRG).
The spread of information and communication technology (ICT), especially personal computers and wide-area networks such as Internet, has provided rich opportunities for people to contact and influence their fellows, be they politicians, public officials or "ordinary" citizens. Through electronic systems, information about public affairs is easier to get, e.g. from government sources (1), policy recommendations may be more rapidly formulated (e.g. by parliamentary lobby groups), campaigns may be more easily set up, election programmes of political parties and candidates for public office (and their sources of finance) may be more readily scrutinised by voters. New social-political paradigms such as the Agenda21, originating from the United Nations conference on environment, Rio 1992, which calls for enhanced local community action with global aims, may be accelerated, perhaps even made successful, by novel applications of ICT (2). Because living conditions, as well as the spread of ICT, are very different in different parts of the world, the following remarks only apply to the so-called "rich" western-style democracies (compare 3). Also, it seems likely that communication within governments (between ministries etc.) and between governments of different countries will be improved by ICT but that is not our theme here. Rather we will focus upon:
- how ICT can help citizens, voters, constituents to know about politics and to better exercise their rights
- how citizens can take a more meaningful part (beyond voting once in several years) in deciding about and running their own (public) affairs, become more involved in governance, help to refresh and renew democracy.
(Note.The term "governance" will refer here to a process which involves citizens, parliamentary representatives, delegates, departments of government, public administration and many public institutions. Systems of representative democracy, direct democracy (citizens' law-making initiatives, referenda etc.) and mixed systems are covered by the term.)
Which electronic systems have or may be used for these purposes? Secondly: are there cases, in which applications of ICT have proved helpful?
Electronic-mail is widely regarded as the most important tool for political work. It allows:
- cheap and easy letter-writing (graphics, videos, long texts etc. may be sent as "attachments" to an e-mail message)
- "one to many" mails, e.g. from co-ordinators to members of governmental or non-governmental organisations, participants in "electronic town-meetings" etc.,
- discussion and action groups to communicate "many to many" much more rapidly than before - compare examples below, and proposal "Open Forum: Citizens Resolve"(4).
- e-mail is quite difficult to hinder or censor. This is especially important where censorship or repression of democratic behaviour is commonly practised.
The World Wide Web. This is, in theory, an excellent way to accelerate and increase publishing, education and distribution of materials for work all essential to political communication. (I say "in theory" because the WWW is plagued by slow transmission, caused partly by huge increases in commercial and entertainment traffic, but also because not enough bandwidth is available.) Mixed systems, e.g. introducing e-mail, conferencing, audio features are available.
"Mirror" systems can broadcast announcements and allow discussion by automatically distributing e-mail messages to the "list" of all users or members who have subscribed (this may also be automatic). "List servers" may use systems such as "Majordomo" which enable people who have no time to go to meetings, or who are geographically far apart, to exchange information, to discuss and maybe decide upon issues of common interest.
Usenet and newsgroups.
This system, older than the Internet, allows electronic discussion groups to be set up, in theory by anyone anywhere who can connect (usually via modem and telephone) to a "server" computer with access to the system. Often there is a democratic vote about whether to accept a new discussion group, of which there are probably over 15,000, on almost every imaginable topic. Many have social and political themes, e.g. human rights, regional politics, environmental issues, gender issues. Requests for help or information often get a positive response, although discussions may become heated, and commercial mass-mailing ruins some groups. Often these "newsgroups" resemble a debating club or an evening in the local pub they have little relevance to governance, although that may change see for example "govnews*". This is an ambitious attempt to provide information about government departments and agencies with a tree-like system of many "newsgroups", and to assist communication between departments etc. Although based in the USA, other governments are invited to take part, the newsgroup system being globally accessible. Citizens may join electronic discussion groups on specified topics, although just now the project appears to be in a "pilot" stage with little serious debate going on.
Other ICT systems have been applied to aspects of governance. Internet Relay Chat, which allows real-time conversations of a fairly small group, has been used to help organise election campaigns (helpful when supporters are many miles apart), or to allow politicians to "chat" with constituents. On-line "mass-meetings" have been attempted with hundreds, even thousands of participants. Sometimes sophisticated, although experimental software has been tested, aiming to aid reaching a decision or to gauge opinion on multiple points in detail. Mass voting, with debate on the issue at stake aided by television, has already been tried (5). If digital TV catches on, and access to Internet is included, then further possiblities for citizens' political communication will be opened up.
"Ordinary" citizens can start political initiatives from scratch with the aid of ICT. A small group of California activists opposed a 1995 ballot initiative on immigration reform. Within three days of setting up an e-mail 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 organised on college campuses around the country (6). (See also Citizens for Local Democracy, Toronto, Canada*) A pro-democracy initiative, based in Germany, which successfully uses ICT is Mehr Democratie e.V.* This group aims, with some success, to promote direct democracy such as citizens' law-proposals (for debate and voting in parliaments) and citizen-initiated referenda. They run an informative and educative WWW site, list-server discussion groups (one for members, one open to the public) and an on-line journal. There are somewhat similar initiatives in France*, Germany*, Netherlands*, Britain*, Switzerland*, Canada*, Korea*, and Peru*. In the light of these recent initiatives, and considering the potential of ICT, the reader may ask:
We have seen that ICT can contibute to:
- helping to alert and inform about public issues and associated law-making, also facilitating debate (e.g. citizens can be in a better position to intervene by approaching their MP before a bill comes to the vote).
- improving knowledge about candidates for parliaments and other public jobs, e.g. revealing their qualifications for office and political knowledge, their previous performance on election promises, campaign finance, which interest group they support (e.g. business, religion, "worthy causes" such as natural environment or political party).
- allowing the voter to vote in a more informed and critical way.
- enabling the citizen between elections to join in a public debate more easily, to intervene by writing to newspapers etc., even to start campaigns aimed at influencing public opinion and parliamentary decisions and to monitor election promises.
- allowing members of political parties to judge better the performance of their own delegates and candidates for public office
- encouraging and helping to empower citizens to be pro-active. Forms of expression may be: lobbying MPs, public officials and commercial enterprises; informing and educating others, publishing with WWW; moral appeals; protest and social movements, "non-governmental" organising; starting referenda or citizens' law-making; promoting the renewal of democracy itself.
The ease of communication and access to information now and in the near future has led some observers to predict that a new public arena or "agora" will emerge to aid collective decision-making. Some developments during the coming few decades may be:
- closer guidance of MPs and governments by public will, especially in the legislative periods between elections - compare "A political party guided by constituents?" (7).
- direct decision-making by citizens on at least some issues. Gradual transformation of representative "delegatory" democracy into a process with more deliberation and more involvement of citizens.
- electronic voting (a) to select candidates in elections (b) on laws and public issues, with direct decision-making by constituents on some issues.
Of course, deep changes in established systems of governance should not occur too rapidly and are unlikely to do so. However, many citizens do wish to participate more in matters which greatly affect their lives and the future. Information technology can help, although many other factors are important too (8).
References
1. FRG government publications <http://www.bundesregierung.de/>
British parliamentary proceedings Hansard UK <http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm/cmhansrd.htm>
Thomas USA Congress and Government, <http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/thomas.html>
G7 Government Online and Democracy White Paper (in preparation) Editors: Gotze J. <itsjg@unidhp.uni-c.dk> and Clift S.
2. Kremers, Horst Hrsg. Materialien des Arbeitkreis Kommunale
Informationssysteme: Information fuer Agenda 21. Zu bestellen von Horst Kremers
<http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Horst_Kremers> Postfach 20 05 48, 13515 Berlin
3. Das Internet und die 3. Welt /Internet and the 3rd world <http://www.rz.uni-osnabrueck.de/rz/special/misc/>
4. Proposal "Open Forum: Citizens Resolve" <http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/prop2.html > (english).
Buerger/innen Beschließen: Vorschlag fuer eine neue Buergerpolitik und
Offenes Forum. <http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/offenes-forum.html >(german)
5. Becker Th. TAN+N Teledemocracy Action News and Network
<http://www.auburn.edu/tann>
6. Krause A. Notes from the Virtual Activist Workshop. Nov 1996.
NetAction Web site at: <http://www.netaction.org>
7. "A political party guided by constituents?" See Macpherson 1996 "Citizen participation in politics ..." Section 3 <http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/CP/cp.html> english
<http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/res.html> spanish
8. See paper cited (7.) "Citizen participation in politics and the new communication media". Partly translated into german in Kremers: Materialien des Arbeitkreis Kommunale
Informationssysteme: Information fuer Agenda 21.(op. cit. above) and on-line: Buergerbeteiligung in der Politik und die neue Kommunikationssysteme.
http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/CP/cp.de.html
_______________________________________
* ON-LINE DEMOCRACY PROJECTS
Belgium http://www.axismundi.org/cybercrate
Britain http://www.democracy.org.uk/
Federal Republic of Germany http://www.ulm.de (Telebus), http://www.mehr-demokratie.de/
Netherlands http://www.xs4all.nl/~roesderz/english/
Switzerland politics.ch contact: "Andreas B. Bucher" <andreas.bucher@tamedia.ch>
France http://www.globenet.org/vecam
"Democracy in Action" http://www.gbar.dtu.dk/~itsjg/macpherson.html
INTEGRALSTUDIES: citizen, society, polity
http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/init.html
Canada http://community.web.net/citizens/join.html
Peru http://www.protelsa.com.pe/kybernesis/
Korea http://forum.nca.or.kr/edem/index.htm
California Voters Guide http://www.calvoter.org/
GOVNEWS http://www.govnews.org/govnews/govnews.html
Minnesota http://freenet.msp.mn.us/govt/e-democracy
TAN+N Teledemocracy Action News and Network
http://www.auburn.edu/tann
____________________________________
contact:
Dr. Michael Macpherson, Psycho-Social and Medical Research (PSAMRA)
e-mail: mjm@berlin.snafu.de
www address of this document (URL): http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/CP/cp2.html
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