Case study by Tristan Dreisback at Innovations for Successful Societies: “In January 2011, mass demonstrations in Tunisia ousted a regime that had tolerated little popular participation, opening the door to a new era of transparency. The protesters demanded an end to the secrecy that had protected elite privilege. Five months later, the president issued a decree that increased citizen access to government data and formed a steering committee to guide changes in information practices, building on small projects already in development. Advocates in the legislature and the public service joined with civil society leaders to support a strong access-to-information policy, to change the culture of public administration, and to secure the necessary financial and technical resources to publish large quantities of data online in user-friendly formats. Several government agencies launched their own open-data websites. External pressure, coupled with growing interest from civil society and legislators, helped keep transparency reforms on the cabinet office agenda despite frequent changes in top leadership. In 2016, Tunisia adopted one of the world’s strongest laws regarding access to information. Although members of the public did not put all of the resources to use immediately, the country moved much closer to having the data needed to improve access to services, enhance government performance, and support the evidence-based deliberation on which a healthy democracy depended…(More)”
Digital platforms and democracy
Ricard Espelt and Monica Garriga at Open Democracy: “The impact of digital platforms in recent years affects all areas and all sorts of organizations: from production to consumption, from political parties to social movements, from business to public administration, trade unions, universities or the mass media. The disruption they generate is cross-section and intergenerational. Undoubtedly, their outstanding assets – at least from a discursive point of view –, are self-management and disintermediation. Today, through technology, people can participate actively in processes related to any particular activity. This is why we often talk about digital platforms as tools for democratizing participation, overcoming as they do the traditional tyranny of space and time. If we analyze them in detail, however, and look at the organizations that promote them, we realize that the improvement in citizen involvement tends to vary, sometimes considerably, as does the logic behind their approach…..
La Teixidora, a democratic digital platform
Being aware now of the risks of partial evaluation of the impact of technology and the key elements to be considered in analyzing it, let us return to our starting point: democratizing participation. Given the importance of local assessment of global digital tools, let us now see the case of the multimedia platform La Teixidora, which allows us to synthesize the aspects which, in our opinion, shape democratic participation.
Platform cooperativism or open cooperativism, whether it focuses on the social strength of cooperative values or on the need to reappropriate common goods, calls for a detailed critical review of the local activity of its digital platforms.
This initiative, launched in 2016 in Barcelona, organizes in real time a collaborative structure with the aim of mapping distributed knowledge generated in different parts of the city during conferences, meetings, workshops and other offline meeting formats related to technopolitics and the commons. To do this, it appropriates several open source tools (collaborative editor, wiki, content storage spaces) and uses a Creative Commons license which, while recognizing authorship, allows anyone to adapt the contents and even use them commercially. Two significant apps illustrate the value of its functionalities in relation to democratizing participation:
- In March 2016 La Teixidora covered, with a team of some twenty people, a debate on Collaborative Economy (Economies Col·laboratives Procomuns). The classified data were then transferred to the Decidim Barcelona platform, which has helped to define, through a broad participatory process, the Municipal Action Plan of the Barcelona City Council.
- At the same time, the tool has been used to monitor the fifteen teams which have been following the economic development program La Comunificadora, whose aim is the promotion of social transformation projects and the advancement of entrepreneurship. Through La Teixidora, the participants have been able to establish a space for exchanging knowledge among them, with the mentors, with the city service managers and with citizens in general. All its contents are open and reusable.
In short, through this platform, both processes have been able not only to contribute proposals, but also to form an open learning space. And by mapping participation, which makes these processes – both of which are promoted by the Public Administration – transparent and accountable, thus improving their democratic quality. At the same time, the information and the learning from their use are helping to redesign the technological platform itself and adapt it to the needs of the communities involved….(More)”.
E-Democracy for Smart Cities
Book by Vinod Kumar: “…highlights the rightful role of citizens as per the constitution of the country for participation in Governance of a smart city using electronic means such as high speed fiber optic networks, the internet, and mobile computing as well as Internet of Things that have the ability to transform the dominant role of citizens and technology in smart cities. These technologies can transform the way in which business is conducted, the interaction of interface with citizens and academic institutions, and improve interactions between business, industry, and city government…(More).
Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence
Paper by John Cook, Stephan Lewandowsky, and Ullrich K. H. Ecker in PLOS: “Misinformation can undermine a well-functioning democracy. For example, public misconceptions about climate change can lead to lowered acceptance of the reality of climate change and lowered support for mitigation policies. This study experimentally explored the impact of misinformation about climate change and tested several pre-emptive interventions designed to reduce the influence of misinformation. We found that false-balance media coverage (giving contrarian views equal voice with climate scientists) lowered perceived consensus overall, although the effect was greater among free-market supporters. Likewise, misinformation that confuses people about the level of scientific agreement regarding anthropogenic global warming (AGW) had a polarizing effect, with free-market supporters reducing their acceptance of AGW and those with low free-market support increasing their acceptance of AGW. However, we found that inoculating messages that (1) explain the flawed argumentation technique used in the misinformation or that (2) highlight the scientific consensus on climate change were effective in neutralizing those adverse effects of misinformation. We recommend that climate communication messages should take into account ways in which scientific content can be distorted, and include pre-emptive inoculation messages….(More)”
Blockchain 2.0: How it could overhaul the fabric of democracy and identity
Colm Gorey at SiliconRepublic: “…not all blockchain technologies need to be about making money. A recent report issued by the European Commission discussed the possible ways it could change people’s lives….
While many democratic nations still prefer a traditional paper ballot system to an electronic voting system over fears that digital votes could be tampered with, new technologies are starting to change that opinion.
One suggestion is blockchain enabled e-voting (BEV), which would take control from a central authority and put it back in the hands of the voter.
As a person’s vote would be timestamped with details of their last vote thanks to the encrypted algorithm, an illegitimate one would be spotted more easily by a digital system, or even those within digital-savvy communities.
Despite still being a fledgling technology, BEV has already begun working on the local scale of politics within Europe, such as the internal elections of political parties in Denmark.
But perhaps at this early stage, its actual use in governmental elections at a national level will remain limited, depending on “the extent to which it can reflect the values and structure of society, politics and democracy”, according to the EU….blockchain has also been offered as an answer to sustaining the public service, particularly with transparency of where people’s taxes are going.
One governmental concept could allow blockchain to form the basis for a secure method of distributing social welfare or other state payments, without the need for divisions running expensive and time-consuming fraud investigations.
Irish start-up Aid:Tech is one noticeable example that is working with Serbia to do just that, along with its efforts to use blockchain to create a transparent system for aid to be evenly distributed in countries such as Syria.
Bank of Ireland’s innovation manager, Stephen Moran, is certainly of the opinion that blockchain in the area of identity offers greater revolutionary change than BEV.
“By identity, that can cover everything from educational records, but can also cover the idea of a national identity card,” he said in conversation with Siliconrepublic.com….
But perhaps the wildest idea within blockchain – and one that is somewhat connected to governance – is that, through an amalgamation of smart contracts, it could effectively run itself as an artificially intelligent being.
Known as decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), these are, in effect, entities that can run a business or any operation autonomously, allocating tasks or distributing micropayments instantly to users….
An example similar to the DAO already exists, in a crowdsourced blockchain online organisation run entirely on the open source platform Ethereum.
Last year, through the sheer will of its users, it was able to crowdfund the largest sum ever – $100m – through smart contracts alone.
If it appears confusing and unyielding, then you are not alone.
However, as was simply summed up by writer Leda Glyptis, blockchain is a force to be reckoned with, but it will be so subtle that you won’t even notice….(More)”.
Beyond Networks – Interlocutory Coalitions, the European and Global Legal Orders
Book by Gianluca Sgueo: “….explores the activism promoted by organised networks of civil society actors in opening up possibilities for more democratic supranational governance. It examines the positive and negative impact that such networks of civil society actors – named “interlocutory coalitions” – may have on the convergence of principles of administrative governance across the European legal system and other supranational legal systems.
The book takes two main controversial aspects into account: the first relates to the convergence between administrative rules pertaining to different supranational regulatory systems. Traditionally, the spread of methods of administrative governance has been depicted primarily against the background of the interactions between the domestic and the supranational arena, both from a top-down and bottom-up perspective. However, the exploration of interactions occurring at the supranational level between legal regimes is still not grounded on adequate empirical evidence. The second controversial aspect considered in this book consists of the role of civil society actors operating at the supranational level. In its discussion of the first aspect, the book focuses on the relations between the European administrative law and the administrative principles of law pertaining to other supranational regulatory regimes and regulators, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Asian Development Bank, and the Council of Europe. The examination of the second aspect involves the exploration of the still little examined, but crucial, role of civil society organised networks in shaping global administrative law. These “interlocutory coalitions” include NGOs, think tanks, foundations, universities, and occasionally activists with no formal connections to civil society organisations. The book describes such interlocutory coalitions as drivers of harmonized principles of participatory democracy at the European and global levels. However, interlocutory coalitions show a number of tensions (e.g. the governability of coalitions, the competition among them) that may hamper the impact they have on the reconfiguration of individuals’ rights, entitlements and responsibilities in the global arena….(More)’
The Next Great Experiment
“A collection of essays from technologists and scholars about how machines are reshaping civil society” in the Atlantic:” Technology is changing the way people think about—and participate in—democratic society. What does that mean for democracy?…
At the same time, we are living through a period of profound technological change. Along with the rise of bioengineering, networked devices, autonomous robots, space exploration, and machine learning, the mobile internet is recontextualizing how we relate to one another, dramatically changing the way people seek and share information, and reconfiguring how we express our will as citizens in a democratic society.
But trust is a requisite for democratic governance. And now, many are growing disillusioned with democracy itself.
Disentangling the complex forces that are driving these changes can help us better understand what ails democracies today, and potentially guide us toward compelling solutions. That’s why we asked more than two dozen people who think deeply about the intersection of technology and civics to reflect on two straightforward questions: Is technology hurting democracy? And can technology help save democracy?
We received an overwhelming response. Our contributors widely view 2017 as a moment of reckoning. They are concerned with many aspects of democratic life and put a spotlight in particular on correcting institutional failures that have contributed most to inequality of access—to education, information, and voting—as well as to ideological divisiveness and the spread of misinformation. They also offer concrete solutions for how citizens, corporations, and governmental bodies can improve the free flow of reliable information, pull one another out of ever-deepening partisan echo chambers, rebuild spaces for robust and civil discourse, and shore up the integrity of the voting process itself.
Despite the unanimous sense of urgency, the authors of these essays are cautiously optimistic, too. Everyone who participated in this series believes there is hope yet—for democracy, and for the institutions that support it. They also believe that technology can help, though it will take time and money to make it so. Democracy can still thrive in this uncertain age, they argue, but not without deliberate and immediate action from the people who believe it is worth protecting.
We’ll publish a new essay every day for the next several weeks, beginning with Shannon Vallor’s “Lessons From Isaac Asimov’s Multivac.”…(More)”
Lobbying for Change: Find Your Voice to Create a Better Society
Book by Alberto Alemanno: “Don’t get mad – get lobbying! From the Austrian student who took on Facebook to the Mexicans who campaigned successfully for a Soda sugar tax to the British scientist who lobbied for transparency in drug trials, citizen lobbyists are pushing through changes even in the darkest of times. Here’s how you can join them.
Many democratic societies are experiencing a crisis of faith. We cast our votes and a few of us even run for office, but our supposedly representative governments seem driven by the interests of big business, powerful individuals and wealthy lobby groups. All the while the world’s problems – like climate change, Big Data, corporate greed, the rise of nationalist movements – seem more pressing than ever. What hope do any of us have of making a difference?…..
We can shape and change policies. How? Not via more referenda and direct democracy, as the populists are arguing, but by becoming ‘citizen lobbyists’ – learning the tools that the big corporate lobbyists use, but to advance causes we really care about, from saving a local library to taking action against fracking. The world of government appears daunting, but this book outlines a ten-step process that anyone can use, bringing their own talent and expertise to make positive change…
10 steps to becoming an expert lobbyist:
- Pick Your Battle
- Do Your Homework
- Map Your Lobbying Environment
- Lobbying Plan
- Pick Your Allies
- You Pays?
- Communication and Media Plan
- Face-to-Face Meeting
- Monitoring and Implementation
- Stick to the (Lobbying) Rules
If you’re looking to improve – or to join – your community, if you’re searching for a sense of purpose or a way to take control of what’s going on around you, switching off is no longer an option. It’s time to make your voice count….(More)”.
How Your Digital Helper May Undermine Your Welfare, and Our Democracy
Essay by Maurice E. Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi: “All you need to do is say,” a recent article proclaimed, “’I want a beer’ and Alexa will oblige. The future is now.” Advances in technology have seemingly increased our choices and opened markets to competition. As we migrate from brick-and-mortar shops to online commerce, we seemingly are getting more of what we desire at better prices and quality. And yet, behind the competitive façade, a more complex reality exists. We explore in our book “Virtual Competition” several emerging threats, namely algorithmic collusion, behavioural discrimination and abuses by dominant super-platforms. But the harm is not just economic. The potential anticompetitive consequences go beyond our pocketbooks. The toll will likely be on our privacy, well-being and democracy.
To see why, this Essay examines the emerging frontier of digital personal assistants. These helpers are being developed by the leading online platforms: Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, Facebook’s M, and Amazon’s Alexa-powered Echo. These super-platforms are heavily investing to improve their offerings. For those of us who grew up watching The Jetsons, the prospect of our own personal helper might seem marvelous. And yet, despite their promise, can personalized digital assistants actually reduce our welfare? Might their rise reduce the number of gateways to the digital world, increase the market power of a few firms, and limit competition? And if so, what are the potential social, political, and economic concerns?
Our Essay seeks to address these questions. We show how network effects, big data and big analytics will likely undermine attempts to curtail a digital assistant’s power, and will likely allow it to operate below the regulatory and antitrust radar screens. As a result, rather than advance our overall welfare, these digital assistants – if left to their own devices – can undermine our welfare….(More)”
Can Democracy Survive the Internet?
Nathaniel Persily in the Journal of Democracy: “…The actual story of the 2016 digital campaign is, of course, quite different, and we are only beginning to come to grips with what it might mean for campaigns going forward. Whereas the stories of the last two campaigns focused on the use of new tools, most of the 2016 story revolves around the online explosion of campaign-relevant communication from all corners of cyberspace. Fake news, social-media bots (automated accounts that can exist on all types of platforms), and propaganda from inside and outside the United States—alongside revolutionary uses of new media by the winning campaign—combined to upset established paradigms of how to run for president.
Indeed, the 2016 campaign broke down all the established distinctions that observers had used to describe campaigns: between insiders and outsiders, earned media and advertising, media and nonmedia, legacy media and new media, news and entertainment, and even foreign and domestic sources of campaign communication. How does one characterize a campaign, for example, in which the chief strategist is also the chairman of a media website (Breitbart) that is the campaign’s chief promoter and whose articles the candidate retweets to tens of millions of his followers, with those tweets then picked up and rebroadcast on cable-television news channels, including one (RT, formerly known as Russia Today) that is funded by a foreign government?
The 2016 election represents the latest chapter in the disintegration of the legacy institutions that had set bounds for U.S. politics in the postwar era. It is tempting (and in many ways correct) to view the Donald Trump campaign as unprecedented in its breaking of established norms of politics. Yet this type of campaign could only be successful because established institutions—especially the mainstream media and politicalparty organizations—had already lost most of their power, both in the United States and around the world….(More)”