Digital Democracy
The “De” In “Decentralization” Stands For “Democracy”
techdirt.com
News articles breathlessly heaped praise on the country’s democratic vibrancy, often citing its groundbreaking foray into digital democracy with vTaiwan. But in reality, the momentum of vTaiwan—and of the country’s digital participation revolution—had fizzled out years earlier. The platform hasn’t been used for any major decisions since 2018, as it was seen as difficult to use and people lost interest, vTaiwan co-creator and former Taiwanese legislator Jason Hsu told The Daily Beast. Since the government is not mandated to adopt recommendations coming from vTaiwan, “legislators don’t take it seriously.”
Rediscovering the Pleasures of Pluralism: The Potential of Digitally Mediated Civic Participation — Digitalist Papers
Alex Pentlanddigitalistpapers.com
Quantitative experiments, sometimes including tens of millions of individuals, have examined inclusiveness and efficiency in decision-making via digital networks. Their findings suggest that large networks of nonexperts can make practical, productive decisions and engage in collective action under certain (1) conditions. (2) These conditions includ... See more
Alex Pentland • Rediscovering the Pleasures of Pluralism: The Potential of Digitally Mediated Civic Participation — Digitalist Papers
Thus, the effectiveness of deliberative processes is threatened by what British political theorist Marit Hammond describes as “processes that may have the appearance of empowerment, but only serve to pacify democratic demands without actually submitting to their bottom-up force.”
Addressing Power Imbalances in Deliberation
However, most of these experiments have been failures. The trouble is that most of these platforms cannot keep the attention of the people who are supposed to use them. Too few of the platforms are designed to make online engagement compelling. So, figuring out how to make online engagement in government fun is actually a serious question for gover... See more
In Online Democracy, Fun Is Imperative
Technology cannot fix the fact that freedom is an endless meeting, but it can make the meetings shorter and less painful with new collaborative tools and by automating the worst of the bureaucracy
With technologies that can now facilitate discussion and decision-making among groups both big and small, we must ask if we can build new kinds of intermediating digital spaces, ones that provide perspective, attention, and action on shared rather than personal problems, while at the same time accommodating discussion and deliberation at local as w... See more