Citizen participation in politics and the new systems of communication.
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 following 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).
2 The communication and information offers of ICT: Potential aids to citizen participation
This is a layperson's guide to the citizen participation-potential of ICT, written by an ICT layperson.
2.1 Electronic mail
"e-mail" allows faster and so more intensive communication in modes of one to one, and one to many (multiple recipients may be addressed in one message). Thus in principle human written communication (other modes are possible too, e.g. graphic, audio) has been increased by ICT, and will increase further. Exchange of opinions and knowledge, friendships, enmities, group formation, group communication, group identities, social and political movements, can be built and dissolved over longer distances and more rapidly than ever before. Collective processes may more easily involve more people, may allow more time-efficient communication and decision-making, arguably may promote qualitatively "wiser" decisions. Also, by increasing feed-back between those affected by and those taking decisions or enacting policy it is theoretically possible to increase such things as constituent satisfaction and integrity of the physical environment. Compare a WWW article based on his recent book, NetActivism (Schwartz 1996).
Learning to use e-mail is arguably the best and most fundamental way to "jump" into the global electronic network system (See Rand group report on community Internet access (Anderson 1995)). It allows the new user to obtain rapid "human" feed-back to a "letter" sent in an otherwise perhaps hostile new environment of the global networks and computer systems known as "cyberspace". Skills required for use of more complicated systems such as World Wide Web, newgroups, conferencing or Internet Relay Chat can be acquired by using e-mail, which may often be integrated as part of these systems. People and groups encountered in real life or in any of the "virtual" rooms and fields of cyberspace can be contacted rapidly and reliably by e-mail.
2.2 "Newsgroup" electronic discussion fora.
The system of "Newsgroup" electronic discussion fora allows informal and formal groups to "come together" (form) and communicate across the world. The user must be able to connect her computer directly or indirectly to newsgroup host computers, e.g.via MODEM linking to a server computer (often owned by a third party "provider"). Anyone with access to the system can view all newsgroups which have been "subcribed to" by her provider, then select by topic which Newsgroup or groups she wishes to "visit". Then she can read recent messages sent by others and can send messages to the group. Messages appear listed by e.g. topic or date. A series of messages on a single topic, usually from two or more authors, is referred to as a "thread". Graphical and "audio" files may be "posted". Sometimes messages are archived, providing a historical record and information resource. There are thousands (1000s) of Newsgroups on almost every subject imaginable. Obviously, there is huge potential for communication of many sorts, including that related to politics and towards increasing the contribution of citizens to collective decisions. Reportedly, many advances in computer programming were assisted by specialist newsgroup discussions. Expected (and unexpected) dyadic and group dynamics are seen, including a readiness to give free help and advice, admittedly also some aggression, often across boundaries of background and country.
The Usenet system, which offers many newsgroups, deserves a special mention in relation to democratic decision-making and ICT. The Usenet system pre-dates the Internet. It consists only of a set of rules and is run by a group of volunteers. (Krol 1994). Anyone (in principle, anywhere in the world) can propose a new Usenet discussion topic. This proposal is then publicly posted in an "announcement" Newsgroup. After a certain time has elapsed and discussion has occurred, assuming that a number of users are interested, there is an open vote for or against the establishment of a new discussion topic.
Newgroups, or the computer programmes which enable access to them, usually require that the user actively "dials in" to discussions, whereas in other systems such as "Lists" (see below 2.3) messages arrive automatically in the subscriber's electronic mailbox.
A classification system for Newsgroups contains branching and further branching "domains" such as "soc" (social issues), soc. culture., soc.culture.german, soc.culture.bosnia, "sci" (scientific research), "rec" (hobbies, arts etc.). A proposal has been made to establish a "gov" domain, which will contain information provided by international organisations, national, regional and local governments. Citizens will be able to initiate discussions groups on political themes, and government institutions and workers will be able to communicate laterally too. If this system works well, and is not abused, then it holds great promise for improved function of government, and for citizen participation in politics. One of the founders of this proposal, Carl Hage writes: "In November 1994 and May 1995, the US government hosted a pair of electronic town hall meetings, which made use of email lists, WWW servers, and alt newsgroups. Because no gov newsgroups existed, alt ("alternative") newsgroups were created for the conference, but since the alt newsgroups are not within the "official" organized set of newsgroups, many news sites did not have these conference groups available. As a result, many people used the email and WWW to access the discussions. The email and WWW servers quickly overloaded due to the large number of participants. Having a reserved set of official newsgroups which are widely supported will permit even larger conferences without the problem of backlogged central servers. (GOVNEWS Archive, Hage 1996).
2.3 mailing list servers, bulletin boards and similar systems
A list-server is a computer programmed to "organise" exchange and discussion among, or announcements to, groups of users. The server computer is commonly "on-line" (plugged into the Internet) most of the time. Server programmes may perform numerous automatic functions, e.g. accept new users and arrange to cancel subscriptions, send an explanation of functions, supply list of users, provide data from archives. Content which is distributed to users may be moderated by automatic means or by a human being i.e. censorship and control may be built in to the system or not. According to Krol, (p.128) "system administrator privileges" are required in order for a person, group or institution to be allowed to set up a "mail reflector" such as a mailing list server (Krol 1994).
2.4 WWW and similar "publication", interaction with other ICT systems.
World Wide Web is a system which allows a computer to be telematically linked to another, if suitable fitted out with WWW or similar software and "on-line", anywhere in the world. Documents and files on another computer may be contacted by entering their URL (universal resource location, a sort of unique address) in an appropriate computer programme, usually called a "browser". Data may then be transferred, viewed or read and optionally "loaded down" onto own computer hard-disc.
WWW commonly applies a system known as "hypertext" which allows the URL of another document (even on a distant computer) to be reached by "clicking" with a "mouse" or otherwise activating an icon, word or phrase on the own computer screen. Hypertext may thus be used for rapid cross-referencing (also within a single document).
Computer users who are linked to the Internet may be able to install a "home-page" on their local server computer. A document which has been produced in or converted to a special form (known as HTML, hypertext mark-up language) may be "sent" online from a personal computer to a server, commonly using FTP (file transfer protocoll). Depending on the amount of disc space on the server which is available to the user, and maybe upon the cost of renting this electronic space, a user may install several or many files and documents, linked to her homepage, on the server. This data, which may be text, graphic, audio or video material, is then in theory accessible to all Internet users possessing a WWW browser, estimated to be many millions, across the world. Search programmes allow key words, parts of words, names and phrases to be used in seeking desired information from WWW sites. Tens of millions of documents are currently available. Cross linking into other data systems such as Gopher (data banks) and Telnet (e.g. to search library catalogues online) increases the total amount of and types of data available.
Whereas e-mail, newsgroups and mailing list servers are mainly used for communication and exchange, WWW's main function is to provide information. See for example the application of WWW by California Online Voter Guide (CVF) and by the UK-online project to provide information about politics and candidates for election, and the work of TAN+N which offers an e-zine (online magazine) about teledemocracy via WWW (links to these sources provided below).
Technical progress in Internet systems is blurring distinctions. For example, WWW browsers may allow a user to send mail directly to the "owner" of a home-page. Search systems allow seeking a topic or "string" of symbols in newsgroup correspondence as well as in WWW. Some service-providers combine functions of WWW and mailing lists, so offering back-up information for on-going or forthcoming e-discussions. (E.g. British politics-on-line project 3.2)
2.5 IRC (chatting), conferencing and related systems, interviews (e.g. citizens interview politician or official)
A number of ICT/Internet systems allow multiple users to participate on-line in a discussion or game. e.g. IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Access to the system allows the user to seek others who are simultaneously online. Lists of existing discussion-topics may be browsed to help the user find a group with similar interest to her own, and any user may propose a new topic. Remarks and sentences may then be typed online and are readable by all in the group, who may all reply if they wish. IRC has been used by political groups to permit discussion of members who may be geographically far apart. Other related systems may bring in visual experience, have been used for group game playing, and may have social or political applicability e.g. MUD (multiple user dungeon), MUSH (multiple user shared hallucination (!)), MOO (object orientated MUD).
Software exists which can allow private on-line conferencing (for public conferencing see 2.6), via local networks or via wide area networks such as Internet. Of course, these systems may be used for political work.
Communication between politicians and voters, constituents and public has been carried out via Internet, the politician (or perhaps one of her assistants) typing answers to questions. On these occasions it has sometimes been necessary to mark the computer keyboard with a few easily understandable symbols, to help the politician, a computer illiterate, through his initiation into cyberspace.
2.6 Mass meetings, electronic town halls, opinion gathering.
ICT may facilitate or allow "one to many" and "many to many" communication in novel ways.
Projects and proposals described below illustrate that on-line meetings and discussions involving hundreds of people are technically feasible, see for instance the Town Meeting project "Choosing Our Future" (3.3) and the "popular" democratic innovations of the Reform Party of Canada. (3.4 and 3.5).
The Decision-Maker/Teledemocracy proposals, from the Netherlands (3.6), present a sophisticated ICT system for opinion gathering and evaluation as well as increased participation of citizens in parliamentary decision-making, and the possibility that all citizens may vote electronically on many parliamentary issues.
An experiment in mass-participation was recently organised by workers of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The authors write: (quote) An asynchronous collaboration system was developed for Vice President AL Gore's Open Meeting on the National Performance Review. The system supported a large online meeting with over 4000 participants and successfully achieved all its design goals. A theory for managing wide-area collaboration guided the implementation as it extended an earlier system developed to publish electronic documents. (...) The users participated in policy planning as they discussed, evaluated, and critiqued recommendations by linking their comments to points in the evolving policy hypertext. (unquote) (Hurwitz and Mallery 1995)
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.
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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
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URL of this document is <http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/CP/sec1.html
for links to GLOSSARY and RFERENCES