Public Administration Pay

Public administration is often performed by public servants who have never been elected. They may be foreign diplomats or city managers and they work in the name of the public at every level from local to national. This public administration degree site gives a more complete explanation of the roles and professions these bureaucrats perform in government. Recently, the BBC's Panorama programme looked at the pay of top public servants, many of whom earn more than the Prime Minister. I wonder if Interactive Democracy would enable votes 'for' or 'against' top notch pay packages and if the ensuing debate would clarify the benefits that senior employees bring?

Rational Decisions?

This entertaining lecture, by Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert, highlights some ways in which we make daft decisions.

"I'll pay less, thanks for asking."

This article, published by the BBC in 2002, reviews the results of Council Tax referendums. Not everyone wanted to pay less tax: in 1999 Milton Keynes voted to increase tax but other majorities chose the least expensive option. In subsequent years the idea of asking voters has been abandoned possibly due to the low turnouts and high admin costs. Croydon Council spent £150k on a referendum on two issues but to put that in perspective it costs about £60 million a year to run the House of Lords.

If Interactive Democracy were in place, utilising secure web sites, the cost of each referendum would be very small indeed. I wonder if ease of access would also boost voter involvement.

Spending Challenge

The Government asked for ideas on cutting public sector spending, in order to reduce the deficit, and then asked you to vote on them. According to their site 45000 ideas were submitted and 250000 votes cast. Unfortunately the process has now closed. Why can't this be an ongoing system? It could easily be part of the ID web site.

Peer Review

The scientific process - observation, hypothesis, experimentation and new hypothesis - isn't the end of the matter. Peer review involves a whole raft of knowledgeable and motivated people in considering the truth of scientific papers. In the initial stages of this review process are editors who send papers out to their selected reviewers before they commit to publishing.

Could this process become part of democracy?

Central to the notion is that editors are able to choose experts who have a greater say over the progress of ideas than anyone else. It is entirely feasible that a cross party committee of MPs could assess the qualifications of people who put themselves forwards for this role, based on academic qualifications or direct experience. These reviewers (who are unlikely to be politicians) could be given the privilege of being able to express themselves on "Experts" pages attached to each issue on the ID website, which voters could then read and judge. This would ensure expert leadership were brought to the fore without undermining the power of voters. It would also form another counterbalance to the power of the press.

Data Democracy

In this TED Talk, David McCandless presents some ideas on data visualisation and shows how it can lend perspective to the raw numbers, present vast complexity in a simple form and illuminate patterns. It could be an asset to democratic debate.
As part of his lecture he also presents a diagram of the left and right in politics, maintaining a balanced approach.


Data images are available from David's website - here.

Choices, Choices...

In the following lecture by Sheena Iyengar, from Colombia Business School, the cultural differences between how people deal with choices is explored. Sheena's work may be relevant to democracy and how it is applied in different cultures (Switzerland? Afghanistan?). She also touches on the relevance of choice to performance and happiness.

Within the proposed Interactive Democracy system, choices are effected by debate, leadership and data. The politicians may act as expert advisers and those that don't want to choose may devolve their vote to other people within the liquid leadership system.

Evolved to be Wrong

Laurie Santos runs the Comparative Cognition Laboratory at Yale. In this video she explains how monkeys make the same mistakes as humans and suggests that our decision making may have evolved to make poor decisions many millions of years ago. Interactive Democracy involves many people in collective decisions, avoiding some of the bias that may be inherent in small groups, but if we all have the same problem behaviours hard wired into our brains by evolution, maybe other decision making systems are required? For example, the theory/experiment approach of science or the 6 Sigma methodology of Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control.

Three Coalition Policies

Three items from the Coalition Government paper:

"We will give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue.

"We will bring forward early legislation to introduce a power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP is found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing and having had a petition calling for a by-election signed by l0% of his or her constituents.

"We will ensure that any petition that secures l00,000 signatures will be eligible for formal debate in Parliament. The petition with the most signatures will enable members of the public to table a bill eligible to be voted on in Parliament."

Happiness

Research in Switzerland has indicated that Direct Democracy can contribute to happiness. The following lecture, by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, explores the notion of happiness in more detail, contrasting what we remember with what we experience and the difference between happiness and well being. Finally it briefly examines US poll data and the correlations between income and happiness. This shows that incomes above $60k don't add any more happiness, but incomes below $60k rapidly erode happiness.





Could it be that Direct or Interactive Democracy would naturally adjust policy to achieve the greatest total of happiness in society, given that the greatest number of citizens have lower wages and would benefit most from policies that improved their wealth while richer people may not gain happiness from greater wealth?

(This idea doesn't necessarily point towards wealth redistribution; it may just as easily point to wealth creation via capitalism. I note that Switzerland has the highest per capita income of any country in Europe.)

German Referendum on Smoking Ban

Posted to Usenet groups uk.politics.constitution, scot.politics July 2010
Bavaria once had some of the toughest smoking restrictions in Germany.It eased them last year, allowing smoking in one-room bars of up to 800square feet and in beer tents. The referendum approved Sunday overrides that. Those who want to light up in restaurants, bars, cafes or even beer tents will have to go outside instead. A referendum requiring that was approved Sunday by voters in Bavaria. (Associated Press, July 4, 2010)

The new constitution of post-world-war-II Bavaria guarantees citizens the right to propose and obtain a legally binding referendum in the Land(state of the federation). The people have used this right several times, for instance to introduce regulations for direct democracy in cities, towns and districts, also to abolish the second chamber of parliament (Senat). In order to obtain a referendum, 10 percent of voters must endorse the proposal. If the proposal is rejected by parliament then a referendum must be held. A majority of votes cast is needed to approve the proposal as law.

Thanks to INIREF for this post.

Motivated Reasoning

In his book "Kluge", Gary Marcus, Professor of Psychology at NYU, writes:

Our tendency to accept what we wish to believe (what we are motivated to believe) with much less scrutiny than what we don't want to believe is a bias known as "motivated reasoning", a kind of flip side to confirmation bias. Whereas confirmation bias is an automatic tendency to notice data that fit with our beliefs, motivated reasoning is the complementary tendency to scrutinize ideas more carefully if we don't like them than if we do.

Are the political elite better equiped to avoid such traps or can democracy do it better?

Picture the Data

How information is presented can have a significant impact on the debate. This image, produced by The Guardian, is an excellent example (apologies for the small scale). If you look at it with a view to reducing our budget deficit perhaps it will clarify your values: perhaps you will want to compare the value and cost of the Department for International Development and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Will other voters agree? Will it cause an analysis of the benefits from each department?

The Lost Art of Democratic Debate

In this entertaining lecture, Michael Sandel, teacher of Political Philosophy at Harvard, highlights the importance of morals and values in democratic debate.

Thanks to TED for this lecture.

Formulating the Problem

"The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution...." So said Albert Einstein.

Could it be that Interactive Democracy would benefit from a "Problem Page": somewhere people could register their complaints about government or society, without having to come up with a solution. Perhaps it would also have a vote facility, to provide an indication of the numbers of people sharing that point of view, and each problem may initiate a thread to enable others to re-frame it. The site may also enable suggestions as to how to solve the problem, which in turn could be voted on and would feed into the ID process for generating reform.

Californian Referendum on Cannabis

A referendum on legalising and taxing cannabis in California is expected in November. The referendum was given the green light after 694000 people signed a petition calling for the question to be added to the states general election ballot paper. According to some reports this could save $200million in public order costs and reap $1.4billion in taxes. The debate on this contentious issue is also likely to cover health issues, use while driving and the slippery slope argument. The details of the Initiative can be read here.

More from The Telegraph here.

Two Wolves and a Lamb

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding on what to have for dinner."

This quote, sometimes attributed to Benjamin Franklin but more likely from James Bovard, succinctly captures the "tyranny of the majority" argument. But people aren't wolves. Nevertheless, to stretch the analogy, thousands of years ago human hunters began to domesticate animals for their food supply. They realised that short term satisfaction doesn't always lead to long term gain. And today, many vegetarians would avoid slaughtering animals on moral grounds. Foresight, morality and empathy apply just as much to democratic decision making.

"Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" is the second oft quoted follow on sentence. It highlights the ethic of fighting for freedom and justice that underlies our society. But it doesn't encompass all the elements of law and order in modern democracy; it ignores the firmly established laws and independent institutions, including the police and the courts, that help to avoid tyranny and underpin our way of life.

Queen's Speech

The government sets out its agenda for the next parliament in the Queens Speech, which is really nothing more than a grandiose rubber stamp, all pomp and ceremony. This wouldn't be necessary in the Interactive Democracy system because each new Bill would be driven by voter demand: voters would set the agenda, not the politicians. ID is different to the Swiss system of Direct Democracy which allows the government to play its own tune unless a petition greater than 50000 voters demands change.

You may assume that ID subverts the role of the Queen, but that's not the whole picture. The royals can continue to have a role under ID, much as they do today. They may even expand their remit and initiate their own petitions for change, being well positioned to garner public support.

Kluge - Gary Marcus

Gary Marcus writes in his book "Kluge",

"Humans can be brilliant, but they can be stupid too.... Every one of us is susceptible.... as books like Jerome Groopman's "How Doctors Think" and Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly" well attest."

One of the great strengths of the parliamentary process is its ability to reduce the risks of mistakes that a small autocracy of similar people are likely to make. Direct or Interactive Democracy can further reduce those risks by the pressure it puts on MPs and by opening the debate to an enormously varied population.

Dan Ariely - Dodgy Decisions

Behavioural economics shows that man isn't quite as rational as perhaps Adam Smith thought. In the following video Dan Ariely shows that how our options are laid out effects our decisions. It hints at the corruptibility of referendum.

In Interactive Democracy I would expect Parliament to argue over the options and layout of referendum, ensuring a debate on what goes before the public.

New Zealand Electoral Reform

New Zealand has shown how to choose a new electoral system in a more democratic manner. In 1992 the people of New Zealand were asked (a) if they want a change then (b) which of four electoral systems they would prefer! The systems considered were: Mixed Member Proportional, Supplementary Member, Single Transferable Vote, or Preferential Voting. This resulted in 70.3% voting for Mixed Member Proportional according to this report.

In one way the ConDem (and Labour manifesto) proposal to hold a referendum on the electoral system is a step forward because the right of a people to decide on matters of constitution is implicitly acknowledged. But the sophistication of the ConDem referendum plans (AV or bust) is far removed from the New Zealand process.

Thanks to INIREF for their contribution to this post.

Safe Seats and Thrones

Nick Clegg claimed that safe seats beget a tendency to dodgy expense claims. Channel 4 Fact Checked it, clarifying that there were twice as many expense villains in the seats with the strongest majorities than in those with the weakest. That's not to say that one causes the other, but it is an interesting result. I hope it is an indication of the power that voters wield.

Safe Seats are allocated by parties to those politicians with the potential to sit on the front bench, indicating the power that parties wield in the careers of candidates and the tension between loyalty to the party and loyalty to the constituency.

You can read the Channel 4 Fact Check here.

Declarations of Bias

In the lead up to election day, Britain's national newspapers declared their support for one party or another. This could be understood as declaring their bias and you may assume from this that their reporting is less than balanced. On the other hand, some papers seem to have switched their allegiance from one party to another, indicating that they are in no party's pocket, and the very fact that they declare where they stand gives readers the chance to factor that into their decisions. More here from Yahoo News.

I'd expect papers to be just as biased about single issues raised through Interactive Democracy and their contribution to the debate is both welcome and worrying, as they may have an all too powerful impact on referendum results. This power can be balanced in two ways:

1. legal punishments for printing falsehoods;
2. presenting all sides of the arguments on the interactive web site used for voting.

Alternative Vote Plus

Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, chair of the Independent Commission on the Voting System, proposed this system be put to the electorate. It is not used anywhere else in the world. AV+ is a mixed system, using AV to elect local MPs with an additional selection from a list to rebalance the outcome to become proportionally representative. More here.

Referendum on Electoral Reform

Negotiations over who forms the next coalition government have seen both Labour and the Conservatives offer a referendum on the Alternative Vote, not the Lib Dems preferred Single Transferable Vote. Why, because AV is most likely to benefit the larger parties and STV is most likely to benefit the minor parties.

They could offer a referendum on two or three plans for electoral reform from the three main parties and, to my mind, offering a referendum only on AV is a cynical attempt to disenfranchise voters. It says that they really don't trust voters to make a fair and considered decision about the merits of each system, after hearing a broad debate.

Democracy? What democracy?