Transparency

In the last post I mused on the notion of separating politicians from ideas in a system that encourages competition in both. This aspect of Interactive Democracy also encourages transparency in that the system would allow you to read what politicians have written on each subject. You may disagree with the proposal yet still appreciate the values, intellect and communication skills of the MP promoting it. You may vote for the MP and against the idea.

Competition

The last post suggested that the ability to change and evolve is an important strength of democracy. Perhaps competition is the key ingredient.
Interactive Democracy could be seen as an ecosystem for ideas, where the fittest survive.
Sure, Parliamentary Democracy also promotes competition but it is far less dynamic, being constrained by the protocol of the Parliamentary life cycle. It also usually ties a politician, and their success, to an idea. ID separates the two, allowing each to be examined independently and directly: the politician assessed for political skills and the idea on its own merits. I expect this would foster greater creative vigour, especially as many ideas would come from those without the burden of cultivating a political career or social standing.

Uncertainty and Doubt

Every political decision, every prediction and plan, involves uncertainty and doubt. It may be impossible to fully understand the probabilities and risks involved, and each provision is also subject to the the law of unintended consequences. We would probably all prefer to trust in a gifted seer or oracle, or own a crystal ball, but unfortunately that's not the way the world works and we have ample evidence that leaders are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. But can crowds do better?
The stock market is an example of a crowd of individuals that try to predict the future. The market sets the price for a stock based on all sorts of analytical information, partial understandings and instincts but the markets are beset by irrational exuberance and paranoia, causing wild swings in valuations: bulls and bears, boom and bust. Is the democratic crowd any different?
Maybe it isn't that democracies make better decisions than dictators or appointed leaders. For example, in recent years the dictators in China have presided over the greatest increase in living standards for the greatest number of people, any time in human history. Maybe it's societies ability to change, evolve and correct its mistakes that's more important.

Climate Change

Climate Change is the big issue. It's complex, scientific, economic and emotive, and involves everyone on the planet. There are evangelists and sceptics. The predictions they make are uncertain and probabilistic. So, if we had Interactive Democracy could the average person be trusted to decide on what is the best thing to do?
What I find inspiring by this debate is that leadership doesn't just come from those that have already decided what is the best course of action (or inaction), it also comes from teachers that show how to decide in an uncertain situation. This video by Greg Craven (with 4.25 million hits) is a great example. He shows a system of how to weight the odds (which you may use to come to your own, opposite conclusion).

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism has developed over the years from Bentham's hedonic ideal, but there has always been a practical problem, how do you decide what decision maximises utility? This may be a simple problem to resolve if we all share common values and tastes but it is clear that we don't. Indeed one person's heaven may be an other's hell.
Interactive Democracy provides a way of gathering details on voters preferences for one thing over another, yet it fails to directly measure the degree of pleasure or pain that each person expects. This is captured by a second, though imperfect, mechanism: those with strong opinions have the opportunity to campaign for their point of view and effect the result of the ballot.
Utilitarianism oft seems to be about the apportion of utility between alternative courses of action but there is more to it than this: Interactive Democracy facilitates the development of new solutions, increasing the overall happiness of voters. Let's call it creative utilitarianism.

Civic Virtue

For Aristotle, in ancient Athens, the concept of Civic Virtue was central to democratic life. It is one of four elements in The Good Life: wealth, honour, pleasure, virtue. I would hope that each voter would bring to Interactive Democracy their own, personal take on what makes the good life, for themselves and others, but what is genuinely good for one, may not be good for another.
Could it be that virtue lies less with the individual but is rather a characteristic of the system?

The virtues of Interactive Democracy:

1. It encourages (but does not demand) involvement
2. It encourages problem solving and creativity
3. It encourages people to explore alternatives and opposite points of view
4. It engenders empathy through personal stories and experiences
5. It draws out underlying value systems
6. It encourages civic responsibility
7. It is a type of education
8. It allows leaders and experts to emerge
9. It involves the day-to-day experience of everyone
10. It subverts political tribalism, without destroying it
11. It fosters transparency and encourages the exploration of data
12. It subverts the bias of money in politics
13. It builds on our democratic and cultural heritage
14. It respects society AND individuality
15. It is meritocratic
    
16. It is pragmatic
17. It is fair

What other virtues would you like our political system to foster?

This post was inspired by Justice: A Citizens' Guide to the 21st Century by Michael Sandel. Please click here to watch on iPlayer.

Hack

In light of the ongoing fall-out of the Clive Goodman case should the Police be investigating other suspects? Why haven't they? Is it that the police need to protect a working relationship with the media? Are they enthrall? Or do they believe that those who have been hacked have been too lax with their own security and don't deserve an expensive investigation? Have senior policeman been hacked too? Is the government scared of taking on the press barons and have they asked the police to back-off?
The latest is that Murdoch's News International Group is doing its own investigation, promising compensation, sacking and police involvement if anything incriminating is found. They suggest that other news organisations should do the same, hinting that the deception may be common.
This is an worrying attack on the democratic process, law and order.
Hack: a journalist.
Hack: to steal electronic information.
Hack: cutting blows.
Hack: make common, hackney.

Going for Bust

Despite their being no guillotine (time limit for debates) in the House of Lords, it seems that the Labour Peers are intent on filibustering the electoral reform bill. Their monotone may yet succeed in lulling the House to sleep.
While Labour support AV they don't want the electoral boundaries tampered with as they suspect the coalition of gerrymandering. Yet, according to the above graph, both the Conservatives and the LibDems won fewer seats, in proportion to their votes, than Labour, which seems to hint that the latter are more concerned with protecting their own bias than establishing a fair "one vote equals another" system. Do politicians always favour power over fairness?
Fairness and transparency are essential elements of Interactive Democracy.
This post on automatically morphing electoral boundaries suggests how technology could be applied to make drawing boundaries fair and unbiased.
More from the Guardian on-line, here.

The Net Delusion

The Net Delusion, a book by Evgeny Morozov, provides a repost to the notion that today's Internet benefits democracy. Despite the role of Google, Facebook and Twitter in democracy campaigns in Iran and China he points to those governments exploiting the same technology for their own ends.
According to john Kampfner, writing in The Sunday Times, "... this is a valuable contribution to a debate in which Morozov has become a leading figure. In the new world after Wikileaks, two bulls are locking horns - the neo-anarchic view that all governments are bad and all information is good, versus the increasingly intolerant approach by governments (including now America) to Internet freedom. The bit in the middle, mediated journalism, NGOs and other institutions, is being dangerously squeezed."

Making it Better: A Simple Thought

Farming is a good thing and technology has made it better.

Transport is a good thing and technology has made it better.
Entertainment is a good thing and technology has made it better.
Education is a good thing and technology has made it better.
Health care is a good thing and technology has made it better.
Democracy is a good thing, how can it be made better? Can the Internet be utilised for the advancement of democracy or will it remain separate?

Catching Cheating Scientists

In The Sunday Times, 09/01/11, Brian Deer, who exposed the MMR fraud case, advocates random checking of research data by a professional body to ensure there's no cheating by scientists. Having been peer reviewed twice himself, he feels that that process isn't stringent enough: "Such reviews check plausability, not the truth of the claims."

When science is presented in support of policy change perhaps rigorous checking should be mandatory.

Debate, Hate

The attempted killing of Congresswoman Gifford has caused some consternation about the way political debate has been conducted in America. Some pundits have pointed to Sarah Palin's website, where cross hairs were used to target seats, as encouraging violence. On the other hand the Arizona Massacre may be blamed on the lunacy of the gunman. Nevertheless, this raises the question: Would intense involvement of the general public in the Interactive Democracy system lead to more hate and hate crime?

ID should quell these fears:

• It empowers individuals, potentially reducing the need for acts of rebellion
• Is designed to extract rational argument (plus, minus and interesting points and values)
• Illuminates with evidence and personal experience
• Is a web system that encourages debate but rules against swearing and verbal aggression
• Is supported by laws against threatening behaviour, religious hatred and encouraging violence.
  

Expert Influence

We don't all have the time or capacity to become experts. Most of us know a little about a lot of stuff and would like to listen to experts before deciding, so how are experts identified and who should we listen to?
The following brief talk about the Koran may illustrate the point: Lesley Hazleton was "approved" by TED to give a short (10 min.) talk; their website provides some background about her; her talk explains the research that she has done and touches on her relevant experience; and what she says may be corroborated if you want to look into it. These are the sorts of ingredients needed to trust an expert.


The Interactive Democracy model should allow MPs, from both sides of The House, to recommend experts, giving them "air time" on the ID website. Voters, debating the point on the same site, may also point to other experts other publications.

Effecting Currency

This article, from Money Week, explores the effect of politics and uncertainty on the currency markets. Would Interactive Democracy undermine these markets, and the countries international trading prospects, by begetting uncertainty?

Who knows? But Switzerland has operated Direct Democracy for many, many decades and is renown for its stability and economic success. Is this due to a culture of conservatism (as opposed to radicalism) or is it a function of a political system that balances power between leaders and voters?

de Bono on Ayer

The recent Radio 4 Head to Head programme reviewed the 1976 debate between de Bono (who I have previously cited on this blog) and A.J. Ayer, about democracy.

A.J. Ayer is famous for logical positivism in which he identifies empirical data as being essential for knowledge and debate. On the other hand, de Bono is famous for his understanding of creative thinking, introducing a whole wardrobe of techniques. I think that both should be part of Interactive Democracy.

Social Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory is neatly summarised by the notion that the flap of a butterfly's wings may result in a cyclone thousands of miles away. It is the idea that even when all the variables are fully understood, small perturbances in their values can result in wildly different results. If we apply this idea to human systems, where the rules of the game feed into changing people's attitudes and behaviours, we may see that the advantages of social science and the types of policy experimentation I have advocated here, may be limited. Nevertheless, chaos theory also explains that patterns can emerge.

Information

"Information is the currency of democracy." Thomas Jefferson.

Hacktivists

Could hacktivists attack the Interactive Democracy system? Could foreign governments attack it? We are, perhaps, seeing the emergence of cyber wars, cyber terrorism, cyber vandalism, cyber coercion.

The main threat to ID wouldn't be the obvious attacks, we can just press the re-set button and vote again, it would be the unnoticed corruption.

Apart from a wide range of technical defences, each individual should monitor their own ID account, much like we monitor our bank accounts, looking for spurious transactions.

In(form) The Public Interest

Wikileaks is at the centre of an international storm of power brokers. Governments condemn, Paypal and Mastercard cut-off, hacktivists attack, courts subpoena, Twitter squawks, journalists blush, pundits pronounce and editors select. Or so it seems.

To my mind this highlights the relationship between information and power and the essential tension between opposing forces that is crucial for democracy: governments versus opposition versus media versus voters, prosecution and defence. To allow one faction to dominate is rarely in the public interest.

"Watergate" is a prime example, one of many, where journalists have taken on governments, but Wikileaks operates beyond democratic boundaries. It is shining a light on an international game of poker.

In a democracy, who decides what's in the public interest? Based on what information?

Google

MoneyWeek reported: "EU competition authorities plan to investigate allegations that Internet giant Google has abused its dominant position in the online search market. One complaint is that it deliberately pushes rivals' sites down its list of search results. It also allegedly prevents advertisers placing certain types of advertisements on other sites."

This highlights the power that search engines and web masters could have in Interactive Democracy, if they weren't supervised by Parliament.

Civil Service Values and Ethics

The Civil Service "supports the government of the day in developing and implementing its policies, and in delivering public services." The core values are Integrity, Honesty, Objectivity and Impartiality.

I think it would be fair for civil servants to contribute to Interactive Democracy while applying these core values to the way they conduct themselves in debates and how they support the government as it implements policy. I don't see a problem with them declaring their employment position, or a conflict between their sworn support for the government and their democratic rights. But I can imagine, given human nature, that to avoid conflict in the work place, they may want to remain anonymous.

For The Civil Service Code please click here.

Time is Power

A criticism of Direct Democracy could be that votes are cast most frequently by those with time on their hands. Busy people are less able to consider the issues and vote. So, the argument goes, it is fairer to allow democratically elected expert politicians to make the decisions, partly because we give them the time to consider the issues.

The Swiss may disagree with this argument as their Direct Democracy has proven successful over many, many years.

Interactive Democracy provides an alternative route for involving people in direct democracy because it facilitates quick and simple voting and research via the Internet. However, the schedule should also allow plenty of time to consider the issues, listen to the radio debates, watch TV documentaries, read the papers and chat with friends.

Change the Party

Some would argue that today's politics works because anyone can join a party and change it from within, by the power of their arguments. Therefore, they may say, Interactive Democracy is not necessary.

The problem with this is that it doesn't seem to recognise a number of retarding factors inherent in all political parties:

1. Group think


2. Entrenched attitudes and philosophies; dogma


3. Established power bases within the party and its funding mechanisms


4. Pecking order


5. The difficulties of gaining credibility


6. The limits of trying to persuade one party when you may be able to persuade parts of other groups - the constraints of loyalty

Happiness Survey

The government is seeking to understand the nation's happiness, or well being, by instigating a survey. Some have criticised the cost of such an initiative. The Interactive Democracy web site could ask people to complete questionnaires on this issue or any other and would be an efficient method given its low cost, potentially large sample size and demographic accuracy. More here, from the Guardian.

It's also interesting to note that, according to one academic survey, direct democracy enhances the happiness of the Swiss, presumably by giving them the feeling of greater control over their lives.

More on Happiness here.

Many-festos

With coalition governments, does it becomes harder to hold politicians to account for their promises; does proportional representation make coalitions more likely and further reduce the relevance of the manifesto? I think it probably does. Yet, even with a majority government election promises aren't always kept. The solution could be Interactive Democracy.

More here, from Reuters, on Student Fees and the LibDems.