Connecting Institutions and Citizens in the Digital Age

                This post is a summary of the report published in the final of the World Forum for Democracy in November 2013 at http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/news/wfd/2013report_en.pdf

              Global trends point to a worldwide decline in the level of trust in democratic systems. Voter turnout rates and party membership are falling across the world. What we are witnessing is not only political apathy but a sense of betrayal felt by ordinary citizens towards their leaders. The World Forum for Democracy reviewed the potential of Internet-based democracy applications to restore citizens' trust, making government more open and transparent and to increase motivation for political participation by shifting power from organisations (parties, NGOs, trade unions, traditional media) to individuals. The internet makes possible for ordinary citizens to voice their concerns and express their vision for society through content sharing on social media. It also enables individuals to mobilise support and resources for various causes and makes activism safer. The interactive nature of the internet stimulates citizens-driven solution journalism to promote and harness new ideas and solutions emerging outside institutional channels and enables deliberation on a large scale of shared positions on complex issues. While the balance of power still remains within institutions, their functioning is to an ever greater extent subject to scrutiny, influence and input from citizens empowered through e-participation tools. However, tech developments in the fields of democracy raise a number of concerns: Liquid democracy needs to be framed by a common understanding of democracy in general, for example about which subjects should be decided by public referendums and which areas should be reserved to representative institutions. The increased the effectiveness of e-petitions systems requires a formal response from the public authority or to develop public e-petitions systems. The engagement of elected representatives with citizens is motivated by elections and rarely lasts throughout the political cycle, this failing to restore the eroded trust in elected institutions. Political parties will not cease to exist because of liquid democracy, rather they will have to reinvent themselves. They need to become more flexible, less hierarchical and more open to input on policy proposals from members and society at large. Democracy is work in progress, as a system of governance it need to continuously evolve and improve to keep up with a world that is changing faster than ever before, liquid democracy and e-participation are a part of this evolution. The interplay between digital participation and real-life participation is essential. Tech is not sufficient to enable real impact of citizens' voices, even in the digital age. Political actors and institutions need to stimulate greater participation of citizens in more classical forms of political life. Mary Kaldor, professor at the London School of Economics, stated that social life is currently in the midst of a profound transition. As governng institutions fail to adapt to these profound changes, there is a need to rethink democracy, in particular in terms of the digital age. She distinguished between formal and substantive democracy. The former describes objective values of democracy such as the rule of law, freedom of speech, or civil society. Whereas the latter refers to subjective values, as for example the societal condition, the "habits of the hearts" and the ability to influence political decision-making. There is a global increase in formal democracy which corresponds to the higher level of interconnectivity among states. However, formal democracy does not correlate with substantive democracy. This create a democratic gap. It doesn't matter so much how we use the internet but what we use it for. Professor Kandor concluded by depicting two scenarios. In a dystopia, the internet is used for mass surveilance, to control people, to maintain market discipline, and to increase authoritarianism. In a utopian world, the internet offers greater accountability and increases citizen participation. Bill Gates predicted that the digital age will change representative democracy. The way politicians act has also changed: they need to react instantly and be more responsive. Moreover, the rise of e-petitions is transforming the relation between government and citizen. Robert Walter, chairperson of the European Democrat Group of the Council of Europe. recognised that there is a crisis of confidence and that representatives need to improve the way they engage in order to strengthen transparency. Online consultation is giving people an excellent way to participate in legislation-procedures and offers a platform to introduce new topics. The political dialogue created on e-petition platform is a huge step forward in the relation between officials and citizens. However, as the majority of people is not in the position to fine-tune the details of policy-making, the need for solid parliamentary debate remains. Tools of liquid democracy could also reduce the feeling of alienation from politics, which many citizens share, by improving the flow of communication as well as the substance of debate between citizens and their representatives. Open government initiatives, often referred to as e-government, e-parliament or democracy 2.0, aim to establish the link between citizens and officials by increasing transparency and collaboration. They create spaces for citizens to share their vision for society and debate policy choices or to oversee the integrity of democratic insitutions and the quality of public services. Several conditions for the successful implementation of e-democracy project need to be in place. First of all, the existence of political will. The will should extend to the actual reform of local government. In this relation, e-democracy is a good way to test the public opinion and gain the support of citizens, therefore it should not only be applied during election perioods. the aims of the project have to be clear and correspond to citizens' concerns. Another important key for success is accessibility, in order for people feel encouraged to participate, it is useful to make the work behind the project visible and understandable for them. Something to be careful about is ensuring the representativeness of the debate. Readily available access to the internet is a pre-condition for e-participation, but not a sufficient condition, people need to be motivated by guarantees that their participation will make a difference in policy and practice. Direct democracy can be, under certain conditions, a way of dealing with the citizen's disengagement from representative politics. A range of other ways of involving citizens in governance has emerged, fuelled by web and social media: participatory budgeting and crowdfunding, for example, give community members a voice in the fiscal decision-making processes and invite them to deliberate on the local authorities' financial decisions. Are these phenomena confined to a few pioneering cities or are they heralding a shift towards participatory democracy? Thanks to e-participation platforms run by local authorities and NGOs, citizens have more opportunities to participate in the decision-making and improve governance at local level. What are the lessons learnt and the obstacle to such approaches? What kind of platform would be the best to improve citizen participation at local level? E-government is supposed to improve the quality of government by providing public information and services online but is often conceived in a top-down way with little scope for citizen input and influence. Online tools now make it possible for citizzens and services users to keep service providers in check by using collective intelligence and public presssure. Education for democratic citizenship and through active participation from an early age is a key issue for sustainable democracy. New technologies can facilitate this, even in countries with autocratic regimes, democratic online technologies give people opportunities for learning skills of democracy, they would not have offline considering the repressive political system. There must be consideration of the relationship between the state and the individuals as simultaneously free and social beings in a digitally literate society, moving away from emphasis on control of digital lives and instead promoting the values of respect and fairness in the online domain. There must be investment in research and development of innovative forms of democracy. This innovation must be conscientious in promoting equal empowerment of all citizens. And it must be willing to truly think outside the box, challenging ingrained conceptions of political parties and electoral processes. developing new democratic models replace the principle of competition with the principle of cooperation. Governments need to be more assessable, responsive and accountable. They need to respect citizens' rights both online and offline. The Snowden case has shown that citizens believe strongly in the rights of privacy and protection of data. The internet should be used to strengthen communication and partnership between officials and citizens. New technologies can help to revitalise democracy which should remain the only system of government for nations.