Democracy 2.0 - Because we need a new system to cope with today’s new challenges
March 16th, 2009 by xavier
“Democracy: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives”
Today we are facing challenges that are bigger than us: the climate crisis and the financial crisis. Our governments are mainly unable to cope with these new challenges. For the majority of them, they are stuck with short term decisions. They spend tax payers’ money to save failed industries.
We need to rethink our democracies
Our Occidental democracies are based on paper. Political parties are sending their program on paper. Citizens vote on paper. But paper is expensive. Paper takes time to be printed and more importantly paper are essentially a one-way communication channels.
As a result, citizens can only vote every 5 years or so. In the time in between, they have little interaction with their representatives. As our memories used to be short, they can basically do whatever except during the last 6 months before an election.
Voting paper can’t be personalized
On top of that, paper cannot be personalized. Every single citizen, whether he is a worker or a non-worker, a youngster or an old person, get the same paper. They all have to answer the same questions. They all have to vote for the same people. And as every human, these people are good for some subjects but can’t be good for solving all the different issues we are facing as a society.
I would love that our governments ask us much more our thinking. But they can’t do it on paper. It is too expensive and they would need to spend too much time to educate the whole population to make sure they can take a good decision (look at all the debates about the European Constitution in France!).
What I want is a clever democracy. I don’t wanna be asked about what to do regarding agriculture policies (I’m not a farmer), I don’t wanna be asked about what to do regarding education at this time (I’m not a teacher, I have no kids). But, I do wanna be asked about what to do to foster entrepreneurship, about what to do make our institutions more efficient. For the rest, I trust my fellow citizens who are more directly impacted or have time to dig into the subject.
You can’t ask to everybody their thinking about everything. But this remains unthinkable in our current democracies.
It’s not about left and right wing anymore, it’s about communities
People used to gather behind this simple paradigm: you are whether a socialist (left wing) or a liberal (right wing). But this leads to useless competition and decisions based on the politic party you support instead of your real skills to fit the job as a leader.
This means that our leaders don’t have to collaborate with the best people out there to make our society work better. They have to compete, they have to be winners and make the other lose next elections.
From parliament members to community managers
What we need is leaders that will collaborate with people expert in their field. We need leaders who won’t pretend to be able to give answers to all subjects of our society. Tomorrow’s new leaders need be closer of their communities. They need to foster the debates, be more transparent, in one word; they need to be “Community managers”.
Democracy 1.0 relies on paper, Democracy 2.0 will use the Internet as the new paper
Today we have a new technology at hand: The Internet. For the first time in human history, we can put together a majority of citizens through a two-way communication channel. Why not using this to build a new paradigm of democracy?
It is cheap and it allows personalisation. Citizens would be able to choose in which subjects they are mostly interested. They will not be bothered with unfamiliar topics. But they will have a lot of things to say to things which would impact them directly.
Salut,
J’ai essayé d’envoyer un email sur webmaster@tribal.be et on ne m’a pas répondu .. Je viens encore d’essayer à nouveau …
J’ai perdu un mot de passe, j’essaye de le réinitialiser mais ça ne fonctionne pas .. Impossible de me connecter sur mon compte tribal …
alerte !!
Merci de m’aider
Cordialement,
JM
For MEPs to become community managers, they should engage much more closely with their electorate in the 1st place. I mean, the MEPs don’t have a tribe. They have been chosen by people that don’t know them. Contrary to what you’re envisaging — that people should not vote left or right — this is still what happens, especially for European elections. The voters mostly don’t know the MEPs. They just vote for the same parties that they vote for at national/regional level. It’s somehow careless, lazy and traditional. Maybe we will see some change with the upcoming European elections, but I am not confident. This being said, I subscribe to your vision. The question is, how to “work” the different levels to get them engaged in the change? And that includes the MEPs as much as the voting public, which may be massively on the internet but not into Gov2.0 I’m afraid…
@cdn
All right, I think I get your point.
The current system has many shortcomings, granted.
However changing it is more complex than it seems. More interaction would be good. But does it have to be with legislative power (MEPs), or with the administration (that’s more eGov) ? It depends on the issues at hand.
I do not fully agree that some debates should be reserved or of concern to only those impacted. I can have opinions on the importance of education even without having kids. Or do you leave immigration policy only to immigrants ?
A *representative* democracy is precisely that : you entrust MEPs to have sufficient understanding and judgement to have a sound opinion on various issues, with the help of experts (or a tribe, ok).
There are many examples we can pick up from the Obama administration, especially the change.gov transition site (”Your seat at the table”, etc.)
An interesting idea - electing ministers individually by portfolio.
I sometimes wonder what politics would be like without the party political system (which is what you seem to be proposing). What would happen if a government was chosen minister-by-minister through democratic elections? Would government still function?
I think this may be a long-term project, though. How could change possibly be brought about?
Perhaps politics should first be strengthened at the local level, through the application of web 2.0 technology. I’d love to see more politicans getting into direct contact with voters.
Joe
[…] Verkiezingen 2.0. Omdat ook ik Europa belangrijk vind Ingedeeld onder: Uncategorized — janien @ 10:09 am Tags: Campagne 2.0, discussie, Europa 2009, Europese parlementsverkiezingen, Jan Peter Balkenende, verkiezingen 2.0, web 2.0, Xavier Damman Verkiezingen 2.0: Europa 2009. Op het web op weg naar democratie 2.0: Democracy 2.0 – because we need a new system to cope with today’s new challenges … (Xavier Damman) […]
I agree to some extent.
My main considerations are:
1. On the way to Democracy 2.0, you must ensure that all voters have access to the Internet. Democracy 2.0 would never be truly democratic otherwise.
2. Should it be restricted to voters in the first place ?
3. It is very likely that participative people will consider their own area of expertise as a priority. I can foresee a lot of argues upon voting the budget. Which area of our social life should prevail over another when it comes to funding ? This is where the real political debate will occur to my opinion.
4. I wonder how the actual belgian legal system can implement the principals of Democracy 2.0. Besides regular elections, two options exist today for participative citizenship: the Referendum (which results are mandatory to elected representatives) and People Consultation (which results are NOT mandatory to elected representatives). How do we go from here to there ?
5. Democracy 2.0, as described in your post, assumes that a consensus is reached by the community everytime on every matter. We witness in real life that experts often disagree. If they do, who will settle ? In the end, the burden of making a decision stays on the representative’s shoulders alone.
Why so serious?