Examining ways to improve the current best-in-class social state through the adaptation of information sharing technologies and corresponding behavioral and procedural change
Liberal/Western-Christian democracy appears today to be the most desirable system of government, for those who value personal freedom, civil law, tolerance, welfare, intellectual curiosity and cultural diversity. Indeed, it appears eminently sustainable by allowing expression of dissent and consequent change, independent check-and-balance mechanisms to prevent blatant abuse of power with impunity, access to the highest social distinctions through formal education, opportunities for the creation of wealth and by membership of strong military and economic partnerships to defend against threats from extremist political and religious forces.
Examining contemporary democracies
So conducive to peace and routine is it, that alone the term democracy has become holy. To invoke the name is enough to prove a position and inveighing against it considered a sign of either inferior education or of naïveté. However, democracy is not democracy, nor has it ever been. There are four chief reasons for this apparently oxymoronic assertion.
- Firstly, one votes for representatives and not directly on issues, in the majority of cases.
- Secondly, the right to vote is not universal, historically being clearly restricted to a specific gender, certain ages, castes, religions and races, land-owners, non-slaves and residents etc., and more subtly so by inaccessibility of voting mechanisms, because of complexity of use, main force and distance etc..
- Thirdly, even this vote takes place once in many years, time enough for policies and actions to have far-reaching consequences.
- Fourthly, a lack of an informed opinion, the inability to form such an opinion, and, in some cases, the lack of any such desire, out of indolence or pessimism, detracts from the theoretical value of the common election process.
The New Deal
However, as the information age matures, and online social networking and continuous and immediate access to, and exchange of, data become a matter of rote, there is a clear way forward to countering these deficiencies of democracy.
To start with, the absolute transfer of voting power for years at a stretch, except in the case of referendums, in contemporary indirect democracies is implicitly accepted as a must, primarily on account of logistical costs. There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but (to extend the analogy) one might do well partake of the breakfast buffet when included in the price of the night's stay, even if includes the marginal extra cost of showing up on time.
Harry Potter and the Portal of Governance
Consider a governance portal, broken down perhaps by region, with secure log-on for each citizen, and a set of sub-regional feeds, some initially assigned and some self-chosen. These "feeds" may represent various aspects of government policy, such as those commonly found on constitutional "lists", as a means to divide subjects between the federal and provincial governments, and also more specific issues, e.g. schools, education, public transportation, environment, maintenance of a certain park, city regulations pertaining to smoking in bars etc.. Citizens then take decisions, i.e. vote on prescribed options, perhaps suggesting some of their own, perhaps rating different options with weighted votes, on points related to these feeds.
What is the main challenge here? That there might be an overflow of information? This is a valid concern, but nothing an intelligent search function cannot handle. Either in terms of locating keywords of interest to a citizen (in the sense of someone participating in civil society; not exclusively a passport holder), or to examine whether a particular decision will affect (especially, if said effect is an adverse one) a given region.
Imagine contributing roughly two hours a week, every single week, to be devoted to actively participating in government, as opposed to thirty minutes (including the trip) every four years (not counting occasional protest marches, support vigils or letters to the editor). Of course, those who wish to improve the quality of this political engagement will wish to spend some additional time informing themselves of the range of opinions and even forming their own, as opposed to, say, reading newspaper reports of missing schoolchildren or illegally captured dolphins, many thousands of miles away.
Another concern is that decisions may be delayed on account of insufficient attention paid to them. One way out of this is to allow the bureaucracy to set up default decisions for most administrative issues, an even a time horizon, with an independent watchdog and the courts (implying that appropriate legislation has been enacted enabling the judiciary to take punitive and corrective measures after the act, or non-act) to ensure that relevant matters are indeed highlighted and have no default decision attached to them.
The social networking factor
Citizens can use the same governance portal to debate on local issues, to suggest their own initiatives, and to gather support for decisions they wish to see taken. This online canvassing and debate should be shareable across existing social networking arenas – everything to make social and political engagement easy.
The Wikipedias-of-this-world effect
One of the classical criticisms of democracy (rule of the mob, if one wishes to be disparaging) is that is the victory of opinion over knowledge. However, with easy access to multiple and hopefully independent sources of information, freely available repositories of knowledge (scientific research, philosophical position and historical tradition), the opinion of the mob can swiftly become a reasonably educated one, in any sphere of human undertaking.
On the secret ballot
One possible orphan to the new paradigm of online participation is the secret ballot. A political stance should be considered private information, inaccessible to the general public, much like one's address, one's date of birth and home telephone number etc.. There is no reason it should be secret, in a society that affords reasonable guarantees of safety to its citizens. Indeed, one measure of a healthy, functioning democracy might be the percentage of voters who change their opinions, as expressed by their stance concerning a given issue, over time (data presented anonymously), as opposed to the unwashed masses who, anecdotally, at least, vote for the same fat cats, the same slogans of tribal brotherhood and cheaper bread, election after why-is-everyone-surprised-that-nothing-has-changed election.
On compulsory voting
Two of the disadvantages of compulsory voting are the increased probability of invalid votes and of people voting for the first name, party or option on the list etc.. Online voting, be it for representatives or issues, does away with these two pitfalls, by designing the portal to only accept valid votes and by randomizing the order in which options are presented. This is not to suggest that compulsory voting is a good idea, but that the advantages now can put up a better show against the disadvantages.
Feasibility
The infrastructure that one may take for granted in the West, for instance, or in urban centres, is not universally (well, across all human populations) and reliably available. However, mobile, fibre and broadband penetration is increasing, as is smartphone usage, and as search and categorization algorithms become ever more sophisticated, this sort of online government portal, accessible through mobile devices, public internet booths (much like the phone booths and post offices of today) and in residences, should become easily achievable. The use of the online portal should be supplementary to elected representatives, in the initial stages. When critical decisions are not taken by the populace, they must then be presented to an elected body (not that it is unusual for members to stay away from meetings of the legislature).
In conclusion
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