Comments on: CPD Insight: Upgrading Democracy

By: Deslivres

Deslivres — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:03:47 +0000

Sounds good. I would suggest this amendment – for appropriate conversations, include a mandatory school feed-in stream, and include such participation in the national curriculum, for primary and secondary levels.

By: John D

John D — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:10:03 +0000

The “randomly selected microcosm idea” seems a good start. It deals with the issue of max group size capable of running a good conversation. However, there is still the issue of exclusion. If people are only in a microcosm once every blue moon it doesn’t satisfy our desire to have a say. There is also the expertise issue. In many cases the workable microcosm formrd by random selection may not have anyone with the expertise needed for a useful discussion.
Perhaps we need something along the lines of cascade democracy. (A number of small base councils each elect delegates to the next level council etc. until you reach the council level that runs the whole country.) In our case what we might be looking at is:
1. People register general interest in being involved in conversations (Plus areas of expertise?)
2. These people are emailed whenever a new topic comes up. They register interest if they want to be involved. Email may ask for topic specific expertise as well.
3. Workable size discussion groups formed. People with relevant expertise may be allocated to a specialist group as well as a general group if willing.
4. Discussions run over the internet for a while. People from outside the group can monitor any discussion they like but only people within the group comment.
5. After a while groups nominate a few people for the next level groups. Expert groups may be retained at each level if appropriate.
6. Next level groups go through discuss and nominate cycle. Delegates can refer issues back to their group if they this will help.
7. Process contiues creating higher levels until a single workable group is reached. Final group submits ideas, recomendations etc.

If senate submissions are a guide many discussions may take place at one level only. However, others may need more. As a guide, a system based on groups of 50 with 5 delegates per group could handle 500 with 2 levels, (10xlevel 1 plus 1xlevel 2) 5000 with 3 levels etc.

What is suggested here deals with both the need to include all those who want to be included as well as the issue of expertise.

By: Deslivres

Deslivres — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:52:53 +0000

….Another way to do it – addressing John D’s point, is to adjust the role of MPs – ie their offices, so as to include being information shepherds/wranglers.

By: Deslivres

Deslivres — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:47:46 +0000

The deliverative democracy does seem to be about crowd sourcing (using Rewi’s proposed definition) and assuming that the response will be a sufficiently small self-selected population.

I love Ron’s randomly selected microcosm idea. I once served on a jury, and the different approaches and processing of information by the group members was fascinating.

By: Rewi

Rewi — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:43:15 +0000

Ron, could you explain what you mean by ‘crowd-sourcing’? Is it as simple as asking everyone’s opinion about everything?

By: Ron Lubensky

Ron Lubensky — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:29:56 +0000

JohnD, unfortunately all this talk about online public engagement has incorrectly presumed that everyone should be crowd-sourced. But stakeholders and partisans will still dominate. Miriam mentions deliberative democracy, but it isn’t just about public processes that encourage civil behaviour and reasoning. It’s also about inviting a randomly-selected microcosm of the population to decisions in the public interest, to guarantee both diversity of perspective and healthy group dynamics. Archon Fung calls these “mini-publics”. That’s what Jim Fishkin does with his Deliberative Polls. That’s what the justice systems in most countries do with impanelled trial juries. Randomly-selected Citizens’ Juries are an adaptation which have demonstrated a capacity for creative recommendations for local governments here and elsewhere. The challenge remains to model this in an online environment.

By: John D

John D — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:48:37 +0000

The problem with any form of conversation with the government is that it is hard to see how this would work if a serious number of people were involved with a particular issue. How do you find the good ideas? How do you get people who really have something to contribute conversing? How do new people with good ideas get to be heard.
Conversations work on LP because most posts are commented on by much less than 100 people. (And much fewer actually converse.) How do you conduct conversations when 1000 people want to be there? Or 100,000. (The recent senate climate enquiry had over 10,000 submissions.) How to you find the good ideas, new arguments etc?
Even with LP one wonders how many people read the comments as distinct from reading the comments? Perhaps commenters would feel that they are being heard more if the post writer or someone else summarized the intersting bits and issued the summary as a separate post?

By: Deslivres

Deslivres — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:55:41 +0000

In my experience in Australia, there is actually an inverse relationship between politicisation and socio-economic status. People from more privileged backgrounds tend to be less politically engaged. What is wrong with wishing that Australians were more politically engaged across the board?

I’d be interested to know how anyone could participate on a web forum without a computer and a modum. Please enlighten me.

I am going to take the comment about “privalege” personally, and respond to it directly. Born in Canberra – definitely an advantage – the ACT school system. I’m Anglo – an advantage. Participated in protests etc and youth activism from the age of 15. Prohibited from watching TV until grew up and moved out. Does that point make me more or less advantaged vis a vis cultural discourse? Earned my living from the age of 18. Supported myself through university. Got a full-time job afterwards.

At the age of 17 I moved into a house full of working-class marxists in Sydney, and got a full-on education in marxist social-class analysis. I was an active anarcha-feminist at the time, so debate was lively. Marx’s class-analyses still affect my world view.

I think political engagement is a good thing. I think Australia would be a better place if Australians as a whole were politically engaged – and I mean “political” in the broader sense. Hence I believe all Australians should be more politically engaged then they are. So sue me.

By: furious balancing

furious balancing — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:07:27 +0000

“I’ve been telling some of my web forumly friends about LP and other political blogs – so far the best response I’ve had from one of them was about the fact that people can tell each other to get fucked on it.”

What a pity, insensitive and ignorant provocations should be given equal treatment everywhere. People may need to develop thicker skins if they want genuine democracy, privileged voices tend to be a little insular and seem to naively believe that the people they make snarky, judgmental commentaries about aren’t equipped with a laptop and a modem.

By: Deslivres

Deslivres — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:48:54 +0000

I just had a quick look at the submission, pondering where Web 2 had got to on the hype cycle in Oz(?still climbing up the Peak of Inflated Expectations?). I thought the Fundamental Issue (as I see it) was articulated perfectly in the John Chen article: Political Conversation is a DECLINING activity in Australia.

Having said that, perhaps web 2 adoption by Government (she types, as she starts to ascend the peak herself) might con the populace into citizen engagement with their own government. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if kids who are rattling away on TV show web forums, found it natural to do the same on idea/government policy forums? And continued to do so?

To me, the digital divide is not the threshold issue – wholesale citizen disengagement and disempowerment is.

I’ve been telling some of my web forumly friends about LP and other political blogs – so far the best response I’ve had from one of them was about the fact that people can tell each other to get fucked on it. You can’t do that on the Idol forum apparantly.