Crunch.gov: “Taxpayers are sometimes the best people to decide how their money gets spent — sounds obvious, but usually we don’t have a direct say beyond who we elect. That’s changing for San Francisco residents.
It intends to be the first major US city to allow citizens to directly vote on portions of budget via the web. While details are still coming together, its plan is for each city district to vote on $100,000 in expenditures. Citizens will get to choose how the money is spent from a list of options, similar to the way they already vote from a list of ballot propositions. Topical experts will help San Francisco residents deliberate online.
So-called “participatory budgeting” first began in the festival city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989, and has slowly been expanding throughout the world. While major cities, such as Chicago and New York, have piloted participatory budgeting, they have not incorporated the modern features of digital voting and deliberation that are currently utilized in Brazil.
According to participatory budgeting expert and former White House technology fellow, Hollie Russon Gilman, San Francisco’s experiment will mark a “frontier” in American direct democracy.
This is significant because the Internet engenders a different type of democracy: not one of mere expression, but one of ideas. The net is good at surfacing the best ideas hidden within the wisdom of the crowds. Modern political scientists refer to this as “Epistemic Democracy,” derived from the Greek word for knowledge, epistēmē. Epistemic Democracy values citizens most for their expertise and builds tools to make policy making more informed.
For example, participatory budgeting has been found to reduce infant mortality rates in Brazil. It turns out that the mothers in Brazil had a better knowledge of why children were dying than health experts. Through participatory budgeting, they “channeled a larger fraction of their total budget to key investments in sanitation and health services,” writes Sonia Goncalves of King’s College London. “I also found that this change in the composition of municipal expenditures is associated with a pronounced reduction in the infant mortality rates for municipalities which adopted participatory budgeting.” [PDF]”
The Tech Intellectuals
New Essay by Henry Farrell in Democracy: “A quarter of a century ago, Russell Jacoby lamented the demise of the public intellectual. The cause of death was an improvement in material conditions. Public intellectuals—Dwight Macdonald, I.F. Stone, and their like—once had little choice but to be independent. They had difficulty getting permanent well-paying jobs. However, as universities began to expand, they offered new opportunities to erstwhile unemployables. The academy demanded a high price. Intellectuals had to turn away from the public and toward the practiced obscurities of academic research and prose. In Jacoby’s description, these intellectuals “no longer need[ed] or want[ed] a larger public…. Campuses [were] their homes; colleagues their audience; monographs and specialized journals their media.”
Over the last decade, conditions have changed again. New possibilities are opening up for public intellectuals. Internet-fueled media such as blogs have made it much easier for aspiring intellectuals to publish their opinions. They have fostered the creation of new intellectual outlets (Jacobin, The New Inquiry, The Los Angeles Review of Books), and helped revitalize some old ones too (The Baffler, Dissent). Finally, and not least, they have provided the meat for a new set of arguments about how communications technology is reshaping society.
These debates have created opportunities for an emergent breed of professional argument-crafters: technology intellectuals. Like their predecessors of the 1950s and ’60s, they often make a living without having to work for a university. Indeed, the professoriate is being left behind. Traditional academic disciplines (except for law, which has a magpie-like fascination with new and shiny things) have had a hard time keeping up. New technologies, to traditionalists, are suspect: They are difficult to pin down within traditional academic boundaries, and they look a little too fashionable to senior academics, who are often nervous that their fields might somehow become publicly relevant.
Many of these new public intellectuals are more or less self-made. Others are scholars (often with uncomfortable relationships with the academy, such as Clay Shirky, an unorthodox professor who is skeptical that the traditional university model can survive). Others still are entrepreneurs, like technology and media writer and podcaster Jeff Jarvis, working the angles between public argument and emerging business models….
Different incentives would lead to different debates. In a better world, technology intellectuals might think more seriously about the relationship between technological change and economic inequality. Many technology intellectuals think of the culture of Silicon Valley as inherently egalitarian, yet economist James Galbraith argues that income inequality in the United States “has been driven by capital gains and stock options, mostly in the tech sector.”
They might think more seriously about how technology is changing politics. Current debates are still dominated by pointless arguments between enthusiasts who believe the Internet is a model for a radically better democracy, and skeptics who claim it is the dictator’s best friend.
Finally, they might pay more attention to the burgeoning relationship between technology companies and the U.S. government. Technology intellectuals like to think that a powerful technology sector can enhance personal freedom and constrain the excesses of government. Instead, we are now seeing how a powerful technology sector may enable government excesses. Without big semi-monopolies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft to hoover up personal information, surveillance would be far more difficult for the U.S. government.
Debating these issues would require a more diverse group of technology intellectuals. The current crop are not diverse in some immediately obvious ways—there are few women, few nonwhites, and few non-English speakers who have ascended to the peak of attention. Yet there is also far less intellectual diversity than there ought to be. The core assumptions of public debates over technology get less attention than they need and deserve.”
The Political Web: Media, Participation and Alternative Democracy
New book by Peter Dahlgren: “As democracy encounters increasing difficulties, many citizens are turning to the domain of alternative politics, and in so doing, making considerable use of the Web and other new communication technologies. Clearly this is having significant impact, and we see that new modes of political participation and even political cultures are emerging. Yet, we would be foolish to expect some simple ‘techno-fix’ for democracy; its problems are more complex than that. This volume analyses various factors that shape such Web-facilitated participation, including features of the Web itself as well as broader societal realities. Avoiding simplistic optimism or pessimism, the discussion highlights the tensions and force-fields that impact on participation. The presentation also addresses several key topics in regard to citizens’ engagement, such as civic subjectivity, web intellectuals, and cosmopolitanism. While anchored in an extensive literature and wide theoretical vistas, the book is written in a clear and accessible style.”
Creating Networked Cities
New Report by Alissa Black and Rachel Burstein, New America Foundation: “In April 2013 the California Civic Innovation Project released a report, The Case for Strengthening Personal Networks in California Local Governments, highlighting the important role of knowledge sharing in the diffusion of innovations from one city or county to another, and identifying personal connections as a significant source of information when it comes to learning about and implementing innovations.
Based on findings from CCIP’s previous study, Creating Networked Cities makes recommendations on how local government leaders, professional associations, and foundation professionals might promote and improve knowledge sharing through developing, strengthening and leveraging their networks. Strong local government networks support the continual sharing and advancement of projects, emerging practices, and civic innovation…Download CCIP’s recommendations for strengthening local government networks and diffusing innovation here.”
Assessing Zuckerberg’s Idea That Facebook Could Help Citizens Re-Make Their Government
Gregory Ferenstein in TechCrunch: “Mark Zuckerberg has a grand vision that Facebook will help citizens in developing countries decide their own governments. It’s a lofty and partially attainable goal. While Egypt probably won’t let citizens vote for their next president with a Like, it is theoretically possible to use Facebook to crowdsource expertise. Governments around the world are experimenting with radical online direct democracy, but it doesn’t always work out.
Very briefly, Zuckerberg laid out his broad vision for e-government to Wired’s Steven Levy, while defending Internet.org, a new consortium to bring broadband to the developing world.
“People often talk about how big a change social media had been for our culture here in the U.S. But imagine how much bigger a change it will be when a developing country comes online for the first time ever. We use things like Facebook to share news and keep in touch with our friends, but in those countries, they’ll use this for deciding what kind of government they want to have. Getting access to health care information for the first time ever.”
When he references “deciding … government,” Zuckerberg could be talking about voting, sharing ideas, or crafting a constitution. We decided to assess the possibilities of them all….
For citizens in the exciting/terrifying position to construct a brand-new government, American-style democracy is one of many options. Britain, for instance, has a parliamentary system and has no constitution. In other cases, a government may want to heed political scientists’ advice and develop a “consensus democracy,” where more than two political parties are incentivized to work collaboratively with citizens, business, and different branches of government to craft laws.
At least once, choosing a new style of democracy has been attempted through the Internet. After the global financial meltdown wrecked Iceland’s economy, the happy citizens of the grass-covered country decided to redo their government and solicit suggestions from the public (950 Icelanders chosen by lottery and general calls for ideas through social networks). After much press about Iceland’s “crowdsourced” constitution, it crashed miserably after most of the elected leaders rejected it.
Crafting law, especially a constitution, is legally complex; unless there is a systematic way to translate haphazard citizen suggestions into legalese, the results are disastrous.
“Collaborative drafting, at large scale, at low costs, and that is inclusive, is something that we still don’t know how to do,” says Tiago Peixoto, a World Bank Consultant on participatory democracy (and one of our Most Innovative People In Democracy).
Peixoto, who helps the Brazilian government conduct some of the world’s only online policymaking, says he’s optimistic that Facebook could be helpful, but he wouldn’t use it to draft laws just yet.
While technically it is possible for social networks to craft a new government, we just don’t know how to do it very well, and, therefore, leaders are likely to reject the idea. In other words, don’t expect Egypt to decide their future through Facebook likes.”
From Machinery to Mobility: Government and Democracy in a Participative Age
New book by Jeffrey Roy: “The Westminster-stylized model of Parliamentary democratic politics and public service accountability is increasingly out of step with the realities of today’s digitally and socially networked era. This book explores the reconfiguration of democratic and managerial governance within democratic societies due to the advent of technological mobility. More specifically, the traditional public sector prism of organizational and accountability – denoted as ‘machinery of government’, is increasingly strained in an era characterized by smart devices, social media, and cloud computing. This book examines the roots and implications of the tensions between machinery and mobility and the sorts of investments and initiatives that have been undertaken by governments around the world as well as their appropriateness and relative impacts. This book also examines the prospects for holistic adaptation of democratic and managerial systems going forward, identifying the most crucial directions and determinants for improving public sector performance in terms of outcomes, accountability, and agility. Accordingly, the ultimate aim of this initiative is to contribute to the formation of intellectual foundations for more systemic reforms of public sector governance in Canada and elsewhere, and to offer forward-looking trajectories for government adaptation in shifting from a traditional prism of ‘machinery’ to new organizational and institutional arrangements better suited for an era of ‘mobility’.”
How the Internet Can Open Government
Ben Rooney in the Wall Street Journal: “Given the response to previous attempts at opening up democracy, maybe his distrust in participatory democracy isn’t unreasonable. On coming to power in 2010 the coalition government launched a website to ask the public to nominate what laws it wanted repealed. But there was no promise that its choices would be enacted. Perhaps as a consequence there was a campaign to demand the overturning of the second law of thermodynamics. The website has since closed….
There is a precedent for this, according to Beth Noveck, who led President Obama’s Open Government Initiative. Speaking to an audience in Edinburgh recently, she pointed to the invention of the jury system by Henry II, a king of England in the 12th century.
This was a “powerful, practical, palpable model for handing power from government to citizens. Today we have the opportunity, and we have the imperative, to create thousands of new ways of interconnecting between networks and institutions, thousands of new kinds of juries…we are just beginning to invent the models by which we can cocreate the process of governance.”
We the People Update
Washington Post: “The White House launched the We The People petition site in 2011 as a way for Americans to get their government to respond to their calls for action. On the digital platform, people can create and sign petitions seeking specific action on an issue from the federal government. In theory, once a petition has garnered a certain number of signatures within a certain time frame, it is reviewed by White House staff and receives an official response.
But that’s not always what happens.
Now a new site, www.whpetitions.info, takes its own tally and highlights petitions that have received enough signatures but have not received responses. By its count, the White House has responded to 87 percent of petitions that have met their signature thresholds with an average response time of 61 days. But the average waiting time so far for the 30 unanswered petitions is 240 days. And six of them have been waiting for over a year.”
Why Contests Improve Philantropy
New Report from the Knight Foundation: “Since 2007, Knight Foundation has run or funded nearly a dozen open contests, many over multiple years, choosing some 400 winners from almost 25,000 entries, and granting more than $75 million to individuals, businesses, schools and nonprofits. The winners believe, as we do, that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. The contests reflect the full diversity of our program areas: journalism and media innovation, engaging communities and fostering the arts. Over the past seven years, we have learned a lot about how good contests work, what they can do, and what the challenges are. Though contests represent less than 20 percent of our grant-making, they have improved our traditional programs in myriad ways.
A 2009 McKinsey & Company Report, “And the winner is…, ” put it this way: “Every leading philanthropist should consider the opportunity to use prizes to help achieve their mission, and to accept the challenge of fully exploiting this powerful tool. ” But of America ‘s more than 76,000 grant-making foundations, only a handful, maybe 100 at most, have embraced the use of contests. That means 99.9 percent do not.
Sharing these lessons here is an invitation to others to consider how contests, when appropriate, might widen their networks, deepen the work they already do, and broaden their definition of philanthropic giving.
Before you launch and manage your own contests, you might want to consider the six major lessons we ‘ve learned about how contests improved our philanthropy.
1. They bring in new blood and new ideas.
2. They create value beyond the winners.
3. They help organizations spot emerging trends.
4. They challenge routines and entrenched foundation behaviors.
5. They complement existing philanthropy strategies.
6. They create new ways to engage communities.
…Depending upon the competition, the odds of winning one of Knight’s contests are, at their lowest, one in six, and at their highest, more than one in 100. But if you think of your contest only as a funnel spitting out a handful of winning ideas, you overlook what’s really happening. A good contest is more a megaphone for a cause.”
Eduardo Paes on Open Government
Eduardo Paes, Mayor, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the Huffington Post: “The Internet revolution has transformed the way knowledge is disseminated and how people unite over causes. Social networks are playing a key role in this movement, just as books and the press have done over the last six centuries. During the recent demonstrations in Brazil, approximately 62 percent of the people were informed of the event via Facebook, a much higher rate than TV, which was first source of information to 14 percent of attendees, according to Ibope Institute. Three out of four agitators used social networks to round up support. As generations succeed and the digital gap narrows, these statistics could possibly rise.
This revolution is also accentuating the imperfections of the representative democracy, the only plausible alternative, as Churchill famously said. We live in an era of “Liquid Modernity” as defined by sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, which describes the ephemeral nature of contemporary social interactions. Bauman says that these days society, in a similar manner to liquid, adopts various unstable forms under small amounts of pressure. They are incapable of stabilizing in a consistent form, which results in consequences to social relationships and politics. Meanwhile, political parties, bureaucracy and institutions seem to remain firmly in the 17th Century.
Democracy has to reinvent itself in accordance with this new “liquid society” where collaboration happens between many millions of people directly. Leadership is not vertical, as in the past, but horizontal. Nowadays some say following is more important than leading. Cyber culture understands open code as a principle, something the music industry has reluctantly had to learn. There is no time and space limitation for public accountability on the Internet. Creative commonality is standard and does not resemble the authoritarian style of the dead communist experience. It seems that it is no longer society’s obligation to understand legislation, it is a duty for governments to be understood by their people.”