New Tools of democracy

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The BeyondVoting Wiki

- key pages -

Preface - what's a wiki?

BeyondVoting - overview

Opportunities for Change - summary of possibilities

New Tools for Democracy - plugging Plato into the net

Impact on Existing Institutions - from local civics to city hall

Experiments are underway in towns, cities, states, and nations around the globe to find better ways to ascertain and reflect the people's will in government policy and programs. The BeyondVoting Wiki's mission is to highlight worthwhile efforts which might work in New York City, provide resources to reconfigure these as apropos for the city's residents, or to develop new ones. BeyondVoting refers to these new techniques and technologies as the "New Tools of Democracy." The following describes some of those experiments and the concepts and technologies that support them.

Page Index

1 New York City Based "New Tools" Efforts
2 The Classics
3 Technologies & Techniques
4 Open Source Governance Technologies
5 Democracy Development Sites
6 Public Engagement
7 Governance Accountability
8 Networks of Note

[edit] New York City Based "New Tools" Efforts

Until recently New York City was a doldrum for improved governance efforts. But in the past few years several democracy improvement efforts have sprung up.

Campaign for Community-Based Planning - The Community-Based Planning Task Force is leading the campaign to create a more meaningful role for communities in New York City's planning and decision-making processes. Based on the premise that the people who live and work in a neighborhood are among the best-equipped to plan the neighborhood's future, the Campaign for Community-Based Planning is laying the groundwork for the formal adoption of community-based planning as official New York City policy. See the CC-BP's wiki.

Gateway to Gov - This organization's mission is to create an electronic public square that promotes civic engagement by enhancing communication between constituents and their elected officials. By providing a non-commercial, non-partisan, neutral platform, G2G hopes to bring a wide range of individuals with differing political opinions and socio-economic backgrounds together. See the Gateway to Gov wiki.

lowercased.org - This effort exists to facilitate the drafting and adoption of a city charter amendment that will add the initiative to the city's democracy tool chest. See lowercased's website.

The Campaign for the .nyc TLD - The .nyc TLD (other Top Level Domains are .com, .org, .edu, .gov...) promises to provide New York City's small business operators, civic groups, residents, and other organizations with Internet names that provide identity, and the opportunity to engage residents and the world in exchanges of ideas, services, and products. For a presentation of the public interest benefits that arise with Connecting.nyc Inc.'s development of the .nyc TLD, see the Towards City TLDs in the Public Interest white paper Towards City-TLDs in the Public Interest. For more on the Campaign for .nyc see the Campaign's website, wiki, and blog.

The Open Planning Project - TOP believes a more informed and empowered populace will effect real change. To that end TOPP builds technology to enhance the role of the citizen in democratic society, tools that enhance government transparency and provide opportunity for citizen participation in shaping society are a particular focus. See TOPPs website and the tools its developing.

Personal Democracy Forum - There's a contest starting on April 9, 2008 to design a "killer app" for democracy. Called Rebooting Democracy, the contest is worth a look - or two.

[edit] The Classics

In selecting and fashioning new governance features, various perspectives about civics, representation, and democracy must be considered. For whatever we do, will be built on the foundations created by people and documents like the following.

Plato - The complete works of Plato.

Thomas Hobbes - His complete works.

John Locke - The works.

Thomas Jefferson - The works.

Federalist Papers - Considerations raised by James Madison in the Federalist Paper #10 and access to the other seminal Papers.

For a thorough and seemingly endless discussion on the many forms and varieties of democracy, see the presentation in Wikipedia.

[edit] Technologies & Techniques

Blogs - Individual blogs and the blogosphere provide a rich environment for proposing and vetting ideas.

Blog & Wiki = Tip & Berg - While the wiki allows for collaboration, it makes it difficult for the observer to follow developments. Thus the idea for using a blog as the tip of the wiki iceberg. Makes sense to me. What blog software for the BeyondVoting Wiki?

Citizen Juries- "Though they can take very different forms from each other, a citizens' jury generally aims to provide an opportunity for people to express an informed view on a subject according to their own principles."

Choiceranke - A vote transfer system under development by Craig Simon.

Collaboratorium - An MIT effort developing a new class of web-mediated discussion and decision making forum using an innovative combination of internet-mediated interaction, collectively generated idea repositories, computer simulation, and explicit representation of argumentation to help large, diverse, and geographically-dispersed groups systematically explore, evaluate, and come to decisions concerning systemic challenges. Users will be able to share ideas, raise issues, specify options for these issues, analyze these options using simulation tools, discuss the relative merits of different options, and converge on collective decisions concerning which options to adopt. Tools for registering endorsements, maintaining reputation information, and identifying well-reasoned lines of argument will help users separate the wheat from the chaff.

Consensus Polling - A method of adducing consensus for a given proposal, using a structured polling method which can easily indicate how many people are in support of a proposal, and how many people are not yet in support of a proposal. A consensus poll is not a vote, that is there are no winners or losers; rather a consensus poll is a measure of approval.

Debatepoint - Click into one of the debates to see the simple interface.

Debate Wiki - A way to facilitate debates on a wiki.

Decision Support Systems - Software that organizes and facilitates decision making process.

Delegated Voting - Imagine delegating your vote on health issues to a trusted family physician. And that she gives all the votes delegated to her second year medical ethics professor. And by checking on your physician's web page you can see how your vote is being exercised on stem cell research, on liability insurance... And when you feel strongly about an issue, you can rescind your delegation with a click. It's called delegated voting and a prime innovator is Vivarto. Vivarto also presents a community organizing feature.

Deliberative Polling - Deliberative polling provides a method to subject issues to a thorough review process. Like Athenian democracy, it brings a select group together to discuss and deliberate over an issue. A sophisticated version of this was developed by Professor James S. Fishkin. His Deliberative Opinion Poll that begins with a scientific sampling of the population that brings a selected group together to deliberate on an issue. A start poll discerns their initial opinions. Over a period of 2-4 days the group (300-400 in several instances) is briefed on the issues. They break up into small groups to discuss specific materials then report back to a plenary. This process is repeated on different issues. Finally an impact poll is taken. Here's an 87 minute lecture by Professor Fishkin on his experiences with DOP. Knowledge Network used Web TV to do deliberative polling online.

e-Liberate - Based on Roberts Rules of Order, e-Liberate is designed to support online deliberation.

Extreme or Emergnet Democracy - "A political philosophy of the information era that puts people in charge of the entire political process. It suggests a deliberative process that places total confidence in the people, opening the policy-making process to many centers of power through deeply networked coalitions that can be organized around local, national and international issues. The choice of the word "extreme" reflects the lessons of the extreme programming movement in technology that has allowed small teams to make rapid progress on complex projects through concentrated projects that yield results far greater than previous labor-intensive programming practices. Extreme democracy emphasizes the importance of tools designed to break down barriers to collaboration and access to power, acknowledging that political realities can be altered by building on rapidly advancing generations of technology and that human organizations are transformed by new political expectations and practices made possible by technology."

Giki, the Government Wiki - A wiki to capture the structure, purpose and performance of your government and help improve it.

GIS Email Alerts - A UK project sending email alerts about planning issues affecting your neighborhood.

Groups & Technology - In this paper Beth Noveck asks, "Is cyberspace changing the ability for groups of ordinary people to own and sell assets, solve problems, make decisions and govern themselves?" She explores the legal foundation of group action and suggests techniques such as citizen juries and deliberative bus stops.

Local Security & Planning - Two articles bring to mind the need for careful planning of local communications networks. One by Howard Rheingold presents the necessity of having more open disaster communications systems, incorporating things like text messaging. The other, by Michael Gurstein, suggests that traditional technologies sometimes provide the best "last mile" connection for disaster situations.

Metagovernment - A global project to create an open system of governance in which anyone may contribute to the governance of any community. The objective is to remove all politicians from the governance of all communities (not just governments) and instead allow the entire community to directly participate in governance. While the project is global, the initial targets are very local: they are starting with very small communities and intend to scale from there as those experiments teach them what further development needs to be done.

The Metaverse - A phrase Neal Stephenson coined in the science fiction novel Snow Crash (1992), metaverse was Stephenson's vision of a virtual reality-based Internet. Second Life and There are two popular metaverses. Additionally, there's an Open Source Metaverse Project on Sourceforge.

Moderation Techniques - Slashdot has a well developed system of moderation and meta-moderation. With thousands of postings per day, some method of determining quality postings was needed. What developed is a system where postings are rated by fellow users. Postings receiving positive ratings are made more visible to fellow users, and the opposite. Contributions by "raters" with perceptive reviews are highlighted. On Secondlife there's a discussion comparing the rating systems on Slashdot, Ebay, and Secondlife.

Open Source Software - SourceForge is the starting point for open source tools and features that enable collaboration.

UnChat - A new approach to chat sessions.

Wikimocracy - A wiki which allows everyone to vote and contribute to the debate on topics of their choice.

[edit] Open Source Governance Technologies

Advokit - An application available for free to any organization doing community organizing.

Civicspacelabs - Based on Drupal software, this project offers a multi-featured civic atmosphere.

ideologi - An open source project to develop an evolutionary form of online collaboration.

Metascore - Software from the Metagovernment project, currently in the developmental stage. Allows anyone to directly participate in governance of any community.

Metaverse - There's an Open Source Metaverse Project on Sourceforge.

Wiki - Look here for the MediaWiki software. This is the software that runs the BeyondVoting Wiki and Wikipedia.

Video Tools - This site presents info in the video web.

[edit] Democracy Development Sites

The following sites provide lessons and insights on the design and development of governance systems.

Accurate Democracy explains different kinds of voting systems (such as Condorcet or approval voting) where people can prioritize and select among candidates, budgets or agendas. Includes Excel spreadsheets to actually run the different voting mechanisms.

The Canadian Deliberation Experiment

Citizens Handbook - Provides guidance on starting a movement. This is probably the best quick guide to community organizing on the web. Like a lot of good stuff about online communities, this comes from Vancouver.

The Communisphere Project - The focus is on integrating technology into the traditional governance processes.

Democracy Design Workshop - Several projects are underway at the Institute for Information Law and Policy, New York Law School.

Collaboration - The Collaboration Wiki is be to the place where collaborators collaborate.

The Journal of Community Informatics - Community Informatics (CI) is the study and the practice of enabling communities with Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs). The Journal of Community Informatics aims to bring together a global range of academics, CI practitioners and national and multi-lateral policy makers policy makers.

Deliberative-Democracy Consortium - "The Deliberative Democracy Consortium (DDC) is a network of researchers and practitioners working together to strengthen the field of deliberative democracy. The Consortium seeks to support research activities and to advance practice at all levels of government, in North America and around the world." See 400 articles about deliberative democracy here.

The Democracy Collaborative - The Collaborative works to strengthen democracy and civil society locally, nationally, and globally.

E-democracy.org - Steven L. Clift at Publicus has an ever expanding library of democracy experiences and tools. Minnesota E-Democracy was his base, but you'll find an assortment of links and reports reflecting his 10 years experience with the issues. The Local Issues Forum Guidebookis another worthwhile document to review.

E-Democracy in Great Britain - The official UK site for e-democracy issues.

e-Innovations - From the Office of the Prime Minister in Great Britain comes e-innovations, aimed at local governance. Its goal is to "encourage practical examples of new and innovative approaches to joined-up working, effective service delivery and community engagement which are sustainable in the long term."

EU Government and Governance and Open Source - "It uses the opportunities offered by information and communication technologies to encourage and support the delivery of cross-border public sector services to citizens and enterprises in Europe, to improve efficiency and collaboration between European public administrations and to contribute to making Europe an attractive place to live, work and invest."

Electoral Reform Wikia provides information and resources on all major voting systems and the campaigns to change them.

IOG - The Institute on Governance explores good governance practices in Canada.

Online Deliberation Conference 2005 - Held at Stanford University in May 2005, the conference focused on ways to improve deliberations. While it zeroed in on the online, other aspects of face-to-face were considered. Todd Davies, a conference organizer and researcher from Stanford, offers several papers on voting theory, and of special interest to BeyondVoting. Look at the "deme" deliberations software that was honed for groups with face-to-face relationships that predate internet use.

Queens Community Board 3 - Community Boards are the grassroots governance level in New York City. One of 59 such boards in the city, Board 3 has a Technology Advisory Committee that reviews and implements beneficial governance technologies. The committee's chair founded the BeyondVoting Wiki. He invites the world to see the current state of local governance on board 3's site and pitch in with comments, suggestions, etc.

The Virtual Agora - Virtual Agora represents a multidisciplinary effort to identify how information technology can best be used to support "electronic democracy" and to demonstrate the value of computer-mediated communication for building a widespread and inclusive political community. A project at Carnegie Mellon University.

Victoria E-Democracy- The Victorian Parliament is holding an inquiry into electronic democracy, and wants you to be a part of visioning the future for our democracy.

[edit] Public Engagement

When we've successfully installed the appropriate gadgets and gizmos discussed above, we'll remove several time, physical, or social barriers and ease the public's access to the governance process. This will enable a small group that's currently willing but unable to participate, to do so. There are those who believe Americans are by nature opposed to participation in the governance process, finding it distasteful Hibbing and Theiss-Morse.

A recent paper by Peter Muhlberger, "Stealth Democracy, Apathy Rationales, and Deliberation" provides insight on the basis of the apathy and dis-engagement and methods that might correct what he calls "linear reasoning."

But how do we attract more of the public's ideas and energy into the governance process? Can we expect to divert residents from their engagement with sports and entertainment? Efforts like [Games for Good] and [Games for Governance] are beginning to address the need for interactive social engagement techniques that make participation in governance more desirable, even fun.

The following describes some traditional and not so traditional engagement efforts.

Breaking the Game Symposium - Based in Ghent, this effort looks to digitize apples and oranges.

Citizen-Planners - The role of the professional urban planner is changing as new tools provide more residents with the tools and opportunity to engage in the planning process. Some have suggested that community planners is transforming in to that of a facilitator rather than expert.

Public Engagement Matrix - 17 Techniques for Online Public Engagement develped by Lars Hasselblad Torres, Researcher, AmericaSpeaks.

ican - The BBC's ican features provide a hint of what's possible in a local activist site.

Envisioning Governance - One goal of Envisioning Governance is eliminating the black hole that too frequently serves as the government's suggestion box by introducing a clear and transparent tracking system. Another is to integrate game elements into the governance process to effectively compete for the public's attention with alternatives like sports. Making governance more fun than baseball is a key engagement goal of Envisioning Governance.

Futarchy - "Put your money where your mouth is" would be the motto of this concept for a new decision making process. "In futarchy, democracy would continue to say what we want, but betting markets would now say how to get it. That is, elected representatives would formally define and manage an after-the-fact measurement of national welfare, while market speculators would say which policies they expect to raise national welfare. The basic rule of government would be: When a betting market clearly estimates that a proposed policy would increase expected national welfare, that proposal becomes law."

Games for Change - Games For Change brings together non-profits and their partners to explore the use of digital games to advance organizational mission and societal change.

Ideologi - A collaborative "brainstorming" process being developed by Michael Johnson.

Public Deliberation: A Manager’s Guide to Citizen Engagement - Thi is a thorough review of the art of public engagement. Prepared by the Americaspeaks team for IBM, the Guide's focus is on the federal government's requirements, but broadly applicable to all public engagement situations.

Should these IT engagement techniques prove effective, the question will arise as to the impact of having the formerly non-engaged involved in the governance process. But the argument for excluding these tools would seem reminiscent of the poll tax or outright ban of those of a particular race, sex, or age.

[edit] Governance Accountability

They Work for You - This UK based project is a non-partisan, volunteer-run website which aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their elected representatives.

[edit] Networks of Note

Milan - The Milan Community Network originated in 1992. It is currently in a technology transition.