Paper by Matt D. Ryan: “This article provides an account of how innovative participatory governance unfolded in South Australia between 2010 and 2018. In doing so it explores how an ‘interactive’ political leadership style, which scholarship argues is needed in contemporary democracy, played out in practice. Under the leadership of Premier Jay Weatherill this approach to governing, known as ‘debate and decide’, became regarded as one of the most successful examples of democratic innovation globally. Using an archival and media method of analysis the article finds evidence of the successful application of an interactive political leadership style, but one... (More >)
‘Turning conflicts into co-creation’: Taiwan government harnesses digital policy for democracy
Article by Si Ying Thian: “Assistive intelligence and language models can help facilitate nuanced conversations because the human brain simply cannot process 1,000 different positions, said Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Digital Minister in charge of the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA). Tang was speaking at a webinar about policymaking in the digital age, hosted by LSE IDEAS, the think tank of the London School of Economics, on 1 December 2023. She cited Talk to the City, a large language model that transforms transcripts from a variety of datasets into clusters of similar opinions, as an example of a technology that... (More >)
Speak Youth To Power
Blog by The National Democratic Institute: “Under the Speak Youth To Power campaign, NDI has emphasized the importance of young people translating their power to sustained action and influence over political decision-making and democratic processes…. In Turkey, Sosyal Iklim aims to develop a culture of dialogue among young people and to ensure their active participation in social and political life. Board Chair, Gaye Tuğrulöz, shared that her organization is, “… trying to create spaces for young people to see themselves as leaders. We are trying to say that we don’t have to be older to become decision-makers. We are... (More >)
Making democratic innovations stick
Report by NESTA: “A survey of 52 people working on participation in local government in the UK and the Nordic countries found that: a lack of funding and bureaucracy are the biggest barriers to using and scaling democratic innovations enabling citizens to influence decision making, building trust and being more inclusive are the most important reasons for using democratic innovations tackling climate change and reducing poverty and inequality are seen as the most important challenges to involve the public in. When we focused on attitudes towards participation in the UK more broadly, and on attitudes to participation in climate... (More >)
Was vTaiwan such a big flop, after all?
Blog by Beth Noveck: “A recent issue of the Daily Beast featured an article about vTaiwan, Taiwan’s flagship crowdlaw project to engage the public in the legislative process, reporting what I long suspected and feared: early success has not translated into lasting impact or institutionalization of public participation in policymaking. “The platform hasn’t been used for any major decisions since 2018” said vTaiwan co-creator and former Taiwanese legislator Jason Hsu. He went on to add that: “since the government is not mandated to adopt recommendations coming from vTaiwan, ‘legislators don’t take it seriously.’” After vTaiwan enabled over two hundred... (More >)
Creating a Citizen Participation Service and other ideas
Paper by Kathy Peach: “…This paper explains how public participation can improve national policy, long-term decision making and increase democratic legitimacy and trust. Taking a practical approach it examines how the wide range of tools available for harnessing citizen’s collective intelligence and explores how, and in what circumstances, they can best be used. Examining how public participation can be embedded in climate policy at a national level, it suggests three models for restructuring central government – a Public Participation Secretariat, new public bodies and at most ambitious, a Citizen Participation Service. Finally, it outlines the contours of a flagship... (More >)
Hopes over fears: Can democratic deliberation increase positive emotions concerning the future?
Paper by Mikko Leino and Katariina Kulha: “Deliberative mini-publics have often been considered to be a potential way to promote future-oriented thinking. Still, thinking about the future can be hard as it can evoke negative emotions such as stress and anxiety. This article establishes why a more positive outlook towards the future can benefit long-term decision-making. Then, it explores whether and to what extent deliberative mini-publics can facilitate thinking about the future by moderating negative emotions and encouraging positive emotions. We analyzed an online mini-public held in the region of Satakunta, Finland, organized to involve the public in the... (More >)
Democratic Policy Development using Collective Dialogues and AI
Paper by Andrew Konya, Lisa Schirch, Colin Irwin, Aviv Ovadya: “We design and test an efficient democratic process for developing policies that reflect informed public will. The process combines AI-enabled collective dialogues that make deliberation democratically viable at scale with bridging-based ranking for automated consensus discovery. A GPT4-powered pipeline translates points of consensus into representative policy clauses from which an initial policy is assembled. The initial policy is iteratively refined with the input of experts and the public before a final vote and evaluation. We test the process three times with the US public, developing policy guidelines for AI... (More >)
Unintended Consequences of Data-driven public participation: How Low-Traffic Neighborhood planning became polarized
Paper by Alison Powell: “This paper examines how data-driven consultation contributes to dynamics of political polarization, using the case of ‘Low-Traffic Neighborhoods’ in London, UK. It explores how data-driven consultation can facilitate participation, including ‘agonistic data practices” (Crooks and Currie, 2022) that challenge the dominant interpretations of digital data. The paper adds empirical detail to previous studies of agonistic data practices, concluding that agonistic data practices require certain normative conditions to be met, otherwise dissenting data practices can contribute to dynamics of polarization. The results of this paper draw on empirical insights from the political context of the UK... (More >)
Why Deliberation and Voting Belong Together
Paper by Simone Chambers & Mark E. Warren: “The field of deliberative democracy now generally recognizes the co-dependence of deliberation and voting. The field tends to emphasize what deliberation accomplishes for vote-based decisions. In this paper, we reverse this now common view to ask: In what ways does voting benefit deliberation? We discuss seven ways voting can complement and sometimes enhance deliberation. First, voting furnishes deliberation with a feasible and fair closure mechanism. Second, the power to vote implies equal recognition and status, both morally and strategically, which is a condition of democratic deliberation. Third, voting politicizes deliberation by... (More >)