Updating democracy studies: outline of a research program

Technologies carry politics since they embed values. It is therefore surprising that mainstream political and legal theory have taken the issue so lightly. Compared to what has been going on over the past few decades in the other branches of practical thought, namely ethics, economics and the law, political theory lags behind. Yet the current emphasis on Internet politics that polarizes the apologists holding the web to overcome the one-to-many architecture of opinion-building in traditional representative democracy, and the critics that warn cyber-optimism entails authoritarian technocracy has acted as a wake up call. This paper sets the problem – “What is it about ICTs, as opposed to previous technical devices, that impact on politics and determine uncertainty about democratic matters?” – into the broad context of practical philosophy, by offering a conceptual map of clusters of micro-problems and concrete examples relating to “e-democracy”. The point is to highlight when and why the hyphen of e-democracy has a conjunctive or a disjunctive function, in respect to stocktaking from past experiences and settled democratic theories. My claim is that there is considerable scope to analyse how and why online politics fails or succeeds. The field needs both further empirical and theoretical work

Interacting and representing: can Web 2.0 enhance the roles of an MP?

Several UK Members of Parliament (MPs) have a foothold within a Web 2.0 environment. Some write blogs, such as Labour’s Tom Watson or Conservative John Redwood. Equally, some have joined virtual communities such as the social networking sites (SNS) MySpace or Facebook. Cumulatively this indicates they are exploring new means of promoting themselves, their politics as well as news means for interacting with their constituents or those who share their political interests. The key aspect of Web 2.0 technology that offers potential for MPs is that an architecture of participation is in place where those with Internet access can interact with one another. Apart from the Webmasters, there is no automatic hierarchy within communities and so each page within a community site is produced by its members. In sharp contrast to the ‘we will build it and they will come’ philosophy associated with Web 1.0 and the static website; Web 2.0 users work on a ‘we will come and build it philosophy’. MPs, in using this technology, must relinquish some control over their public representation in order to engage with community members; this papers asks to what extent this is occurring, what functions of an MPs role are enhanced through the use of Web 2.0, and concludes by focusing on the advantages and disadvantages for MPs of pursuing a Web 2.0 strategy. Our research analysed the content of the 42 weblogs and 37 SNS of MPs who advertise these on the personal websites. Our first set of questions related to the extent to which public conversations could take place; so assessing the extent of interactivity between the MPs and the visitors to these weblogs and SNS profiles. Secondly we focused on the extent to which interactivity was potentiated, either through site functions or the language used, such as asking questions; so assessing whether interaction could take place. Thirdly we assessed which of the MPs roles, the policy scrutiny trusteeship role, the party member role, or constituency representative role was being enhanced through Web 2.0 technologies and what relationship this had to interaction gained. Our data suggests that interactivity is taking place. But this can be in a fairly limited form with many visitors being more likely to comment without returning rather than being part of any reciprocal exchange with the MP. In our assessment, this was due to the fact that many blogs and SNS profiles are laden with too much information and insufficient opportunities to enter into conversations on matters of importance to visitors. When focusing on the functions of the MP, it was clear that many used Web 2.0 as a space to promote the party and communicate their thoughts on issues of the day however these tended to gain little interaction. However, those MPs who use Web 2.0 tools to enhance their constituency representative role did find visitors would interact with them. Within Web 2.0 we can also find a further purpose for MPs, offering insights into their background and personal life to offer a more three-dimensional perspective to visitors. Many MPs use SNS particularly in the same way as any other user, as an individual as opposed to as a professional within any particular career. Here we find MPs also benefiting from interaction with visitors and not only those that are within their offline circle of friends and colleagues. Thus we conclude that there is potential for MPs to use Web 2.0 to support their representative function and gain interaction with a broader public than they would normally. Weblogs can be used to build a community of interest around policy areas to some extent, though this is currently limited to a minority. However SNS can be used to enhance the link between constituents and the MP, if only a minority of the constituency, and can widen the MPs circle of contacts. However, the control aspect is clearly a worry for MPs. While outside of an election campaign it may not matter what is said on an MPs’ weblog or SNS profile there are dangers that during an election they can be hi-jacked by opponents. Therefore the calculation will remain one of benefit versus risk and an assessment of whether sufficient constituents can be reached, or significant numbers of contacts be made, to indicate whether Web 2.0 offers huge promise or huge dangers

"If they come they will build it" : managing and building e-democracy from the ground up

The possibilities for using online media to promote deliberative democracy and enhance civic participation have been identified by many. At the same time, the ‘e-democracy score card’ is decidedly mixed, with the tendency of established institutions in both government and the mainstream media to promote a ‘push’ model of communication and information provision, which fails to adapt to the decentralized, networked, interactive and many-to-many forms of communication enabled by the Internet. This paper will discuss the experience of the National Forum, which is building an Australian e-Democracy site of which is the first stage. It aims to be a combination of town-square, shopping centre of ideas, and producers’ co-operative which will allow citizens, talkers, agitators, researchers and legislators to interact with each other individually and through their organisations. Its aim will be to facilitate conversations, and where required, action. This project can be understood from a myriad of angles. At one level it is an open source journalism project, at another it deals with knowledge management. It can also be approached as a forum, an archive, an internet arketing initiative and an eCommerce resource for civil society. Central to the project is the development of feedback mechanisms so that participants can better understand the debates and where they stand in them as well as gauging the mood, desires and interests of the nation on a continuous basis. This paper deals with the practice, theories and economic models underlying the project, and considers the contribution of such sites to community formation and the development of social capital

Taking the Public Trust: How a New York Real Estate Developer Is Threatening State Governments in the West

A wealthy New York developer coordinated an $8 million campaign to enact state ballot initiatives that would eviscerate state environmental safeguards in four Western states and threaten to bankrupt the state treasuries.Organizations connected to Howie Rich have primarily funded the initiatives to allow individual landowners to claim compensation from state and local governments for any decrease in property value as a result of planning, environmental or other government protections. They will be on the ballot in four states on Election Day: Arizona (Proposition 207), California (Proposition 90), Idaho (Proposition 2) and Washington (Initiative 933).Similar initiatives were bounced -- in full or in part -- from ballots in Oklahoma and Nevada because courts there found that the structure of the initiatives violated those states' requirements that ballot initiatives embrace only a single subject. In Montana, a court found that proponents engaged in massive fraud in the petition drive to win a spot on the ballot.The campaigns falsely advertise the initiatives as necessary to prevent governments from condemning property owners' land, but they instead are intended to serve as cash cows for developers. If approved, they would leave governments with an unacceptable choice between rolling back decades of environmental protection rules -- such as those to combat sprawl, protect wetlands and preserve clean air and clean water -- or paying bounties to developers as compensation for restrictions on using their land however they please

Balance of power, democracy and development: Armenia in the South Caucasian regional security complex

Since 1991, three regional security complexes have emerged on the Eurasian geopolitical extension if the former Soviet Union in Europe, Central Asia and the South Caucasus. The pattern of enmity/amity, well as the nature of a regional security complex (RSC), created the structural context of each of the above-mentioned complex. In addition to the crucial factor of “foreign penetration, ” the process of state building including the transition from Communism to democratic rule and free-market economy played a central role in the formation of the new Eurasian regional security complexes. This essay uses the RSC analytical framework to look closely to the interactions between the three South Caucasian republics. It sustains that the dominant patterns in South Caucasus are those of rivalry and enmity. Foreign penetration, on the other hand, is high. Relations of balance of power, hence, would characterize the South Caucasian Regional Security Complex. How in conditions of a balance-of-power situation is possible development? What are the dilemmas to confront? What role does democracy plays in maximizing development in a balance-of-power situation? These are the questions among others that this essay, focused on Armenia in the context of the South Caucasian Regional Security Complexes, addresses

E-democracy and values in information systems design

In this paper I demonstrate the utility of a Values in Design (VID) perspective for the assessment, the design and development of e-democracy tools. In the first part, I give some background information on Values in Design and Value-Sensitive Design and their relevance in the context of e-democracy. In part 2, I analyze three different e-democracy tools from a VID-perspective. The paper ends with some conclusions concerning the merits of VID for e-democracy as well as some considerations concerning the dual tasks of philosophers in assessing and promoting value-sensitive technology design

Online engagement from the grassroots: Reflecting on over a decade of ePetitioning experience in Europe and the UK

The official published verison of this chapter can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2012 SpringerExtensive debate on Internet and formal politics has concentrated on whether authorities should focus their efforts on high-volume activities such petitioning or crowdsourcing. Those engagement tools seem to be consistent with the ambition of many networked citizens to influence policy making through ad hoc and mostly single-issue movements. Therefore, certain interesting questions emerge: can authorities organise their engagement activities to respond and act upon this call? Can citizens in-deed influence policy making in a few clicks? This chapter draws together material from different uses of ePetitioning tools in Europe, mainly focusing on the integrated UK experience at national and local level. The analysis suggests that those initiatives can provide valuable feedback to authorities and be effectively complemented by other forms of deeper engagement. Yet, political organisations should pay close attention on how the public views such exercises and be prepared to support partici-pants in different ways and on a regular basis

clicktatorship and democrazy: Social media and political campaigning

This chapter aims to direct attention to the political dimension of the social media age. Although current events like the Cambridge Analytica data breach managed to raise awareness for the issue, the systematically organized and orchestrated mechanisms at play still remain oblivious to most. Next to dangerous monopoly-tendencies among the powerful players on the market, reliance on automated algorithms in dealing with content seems to enable large-scale manipulation that is applied for economical and political purposes alike. The successful replacement of traditional parties by movements based on personality cults around marketable young faces like Emmanuel Macron or Austria’s Sebastian Kurz is strongly linked to products and services offered by an industry that simply provides likes and followers for cash. Inspired by Trump’s monopolization of the Twitter-channel, these new political acteurs use the potential of social media for effective message control, allowing them to avoid confrontations with professional journalists. In addition, an extremely active minority of organized agitators relies on the viral potential of the web to strongly influence and dictate public discourse – suggesting a shift from the Spiral of Silence to the dangerous illusion of a Nexus of Noise