Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life

This book will add one more accusation to the pile: the design of online social spaces has contributed to the atrophy of everyday democratic skills. The diagnosis also bears remedies. More than other explanations of democratic erosion, this account suggests that the future of democracy can begin at the level of ordinary community, wherever we find

Perhaps leaning so hard as I have on democracy will only cause it to snap. Perhaps we need another word; perhaps the word can be refurbished and put to better use. Either way, technology is sure to be drafted in the cause. A further fruit of Langdon Winner’s reflections on artifacts and politics is an observation about the amnesia that surrounds in

One rupture involves initiatives among territorial governments that introduce forms of citizen voice, often with new media in hand. These range from the advent of participatory budgeting processes in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989 to the digital deliberation platforms adopted more recently in places like the city of Barcelona and the national govern

Implicit feudalism enables its admins’ authority while constraining what users in general can practice and even devise. Yet it falls short of affordance status to the degree that it is not something people ordinarily perceive or imagine. Social-media platforms do not advertise implicit feudalism as a feature; users do not often demand or notice it.

Democratic practices can emerge among feudal technologies. Administrators may feel rhetorical or social pressure to respect the values of community members in how they exert their otherwise absolute authority. Feudal networks can thereby exhibit forms of accountability that political scientist David Stasavage calls “early democracy,” resembling the

In both imaginative worlds, play is a bridge between present institutions and future ones,

Reputation became a kind of compensation.

Part of what governable spaces must enable is the ability to craft and practice that accountability.

Philip E. Agre

the hardest step is not getting people to choose the best tools, but inspiring people to want to build something at all.