Reinventing Government and Democracy for the Digital Age

           This post is a summary of two reports. The first was published with the title above in 2004 at http://canadiangovernmentexecutive.ca/reinventing-government-and-democracy-for-the-digital-age/. The second was published in 2013 https://www.utwente.nl/bms/vandijk/research/itv/itv_plaatje/Digital%20Democracy-%20Vision%20and%20Reality.pdf

           The push for government cutbacks is running up against growing public expectations about what government should be and do. They should offer better services, healthcare, safety and provide stability for our troubled economies. So while cost-control measures may be necessary they are clearly insufficient. We can no longer tinker with government, we need to reinvent it. Even though it is 21st century, most government still reflect industrial-age organizational thinking, based on the same command-and- control model as industrial-age enterprises. These bureaucracies operated like individual "stovepipes" with information only flowing vertically and rarely between departments. During the last forty years, governments, like corporations, applied computers to their work. The result is that old procedures, processes and organizational forms were just encoded in software. This is not sustainable. Governments face a reality in which they are more and more dependent for authority on a network of powers and counter-influences of which they are just a part. The first-wave of digitally-enabled "e-government" strategies delivered some important benefits. It made government information and services more accessible to citizens while creating admnistrative efficiencies. But too many of these initiatives simply focused on automating existing processes and moving existing government services online. It is the next wave of innovation that presents an historic occasion to fundamentally redesign how government operates, how and what the public sector provides, and ultimately, how governments interact and engage with their citizens. This second wave of innovation are beginning to appear in cities around the world. Knowledge, information, talent and energy are being moved, shaped and channeled in brand new ways, inside and outside of the boundaries of government. A growing number of governments understand the need to distribute power broadly and leverage innovation, knowledge and value from the civil society and private sector. There is a new kind of public sector organization emerging: open government. This is government that co-innovates with everyone, harnesses the power of mass collaboration, and behaves not as an isolated department, but as something new: a truly integrated organization. Thanks to the internet, government is becoming a stronger part of the social ecosystem that binds individuals, communities and businesses, not by absorbing new responsibilities or building additional layers of bureaucracy, but through its willingness to open up formerly closed processes to broader input and innovation. In other words, government becomes a platform for the creation of public value and social innovation. It provides resources, set rules and mediates disputes, but allows citizens, NGOs and the private sector to do most of the heavy lifting. We need to reinvent e-government must take place within the context of a new vision for democracy. In Western countries a growing number of citizens can not be bothered to vote. Many do not care who is power, since they feel the end result will be more of the same. they question the legitimacy of public insitutions. Opposition parties champion a more 'participatory democracy,' but it rarely happens. What we end up with is what I call 'broadcast democracy.' Citizens listen to speeches, debates, and television ads. They vote. But when it comes to having input into policy and real decision, they are relegated to the sidelines. The first era of democracy was once appropriate because public policy issues were simple and evolved slowly. The public did not have the education, time, resources or communication tools to participate more fully. This is no longer the case. The policy advisers on the government payroll can barely keep pace with defining the problems, let alone craft the solutions. Today, information networks can enable organizations to tap the insights of large numbers of people to arrive at decisions and outcomes that are could be superior to those presided by individuals and small groups of advisers. The second era of democracy requires governments to create opportunities for sustained dialogue between voters and public officials. We need ways to allow citizens to contribte ideas to the decision-making process. When citizens becomes active, good things can happen. We all learn from each other. Initiatives get catalyzed. Public office holders need to embrace integrity, which is basically about doing the right thing. Politicians know that negative advertising is toxic to democracy, poisons reasoned political debate and dumbs down the discussion. We also need fuller transparency. Everything should be done in the light of day. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and the internet is the perfect vehicle to achieve this. Post online all government activities and financial transactions. Municipal corruption in Quebec would have been thwarted if Quebec citizens could have compared the cost of construction contracts with similar work in Toronto or Vancouver. To restore democracy requires stronger, more open institutions, active citizenship and a culture of public discourse and participation. This will change the nature of democracy and the relationship between citizens and the state for the better.

                With the arrival of PCs and the internet on a massive scale in the 1990s these media immediately appealed to the imagination of future scientists and the early adopters of these media. The effects of digital democracy were often framed in the perspective of a democratic revolution in politics and public governance. They were also seen as instruments that only by sing them would overturn institutional politics and modes of policy making. This is the assumption that a medium such as the internet is democratic in itself. Opposed to these utopian visions of digital democracy, some scientists and politicians defend dystopian views considering these visions to be a threat to democracy as we konw it. Others have defended 'syntopian' views of diigital democracy, highlighting both opportunities and risks. A closer analysis of the calls for digital democracy reveals that in fact different views of democracy are behind these calls. It is very important to make these views evident from the start. Six views of democracy can be distinguished in two dimensions: 1) Government-centric view - The classical Western view on democracy is legalist democracy. In this view, the lack of information gathered and distributed by the state is the most important problem to be solved with the aid of digital media. Digital media should be used for information campaigns, information retrieval by citizens and information gathering among citizens. The second conception of democracy in the government-centric dimension is called competitive democracy. It is mainly supported in countries with a two-party system. According to this view, parties and leaders compete for the support of the ellectorate. This rather elitist view of democracy emphasizes representation decision-making by leaders. Digital media are foremost used for information and election campaigns. 2) Citizen-centric view - Four other view of democracy have a different strategic orientation. Supporters of these views aim for a socialization of politics. This implies a more prominent role for social organizations and individuals. The assumption is that internet will enable them to have an influence on politics and even to bypass institutional politics or replace it with their own political relations. Here the most radical view is plebiscitary democracy. According to this view, political decisions have to be made through plebiscites. This implies a preference for direct democracy. Another alternative view is pluralist democracy. In this view, opinion formation within and between social organizations is emphasized. It is a combination of direct democracy and representative democracy. Digital media offer numerous opportunities for pluralism in debates.  So-called deliberative democracy also belongs to this view. It emphasizes discourse in free and open debates. The fifth view is participatory democracy. Its supporters promote a socialization of politics, encouraging active citizenship. The emphasis lies on the broadest possible opinion formation on a combination of direct and representative democracy. If the digital media are to play a positive role in enabling these instruments, access for all is vital. The last view has appeared as a dominant model among the pioneers of the internet. The libertarian democracy emphasizes on autonomous politics by citizens using computers networks and in this way bypassing institutional politics. eParticipation is most used in the first phases of the policy process: agenda setting and policy preparation. Policy evaluation is a second area, mostly visited on the initiative of citizens. At the end of the 1990s many governments were experimenting with online consultations that were disappointing in terms of participation. Now ePetitions, eVoting and eComplaints are more popular than the online consultations and official online discussions of those days. These applications of eParticipation might be popular, but this does not mean that everybody is able to use them. They require a number of digital skills added to the traditional skills of citizenship. These skills are: 1) operational computers skills. 2) skills for searching information on the web. 3) strategic skills for using internet applications. However, the decisive touchstone of eParticipation is the influence on political decisions. Few decisions of government, representatives and civil servants have changed on account of the input of citizens in eParticipation. Few decision makers are prepared to accept the direct inroad of eParticipation on their decisions. Therefore, it is no surprise that governments and public administrations have problems with the incorporation of the initiatives and results of eParticipation in their operations and models of governance. So, in terms of democracy the sober conclusion is that "most administrations do not yet have mechanisms and capacities in place to cope with a significant increase in participation."