Mayfly politics

The democracy of yesterday was monolithic and happened on a grand scale. Partly as a result of this, our democratic institutions have lost their place in the hearts and minds of those they are supposed to represent. An undeniable and worsening democrat deficit is occurring where more and more people feel excluded.

There are of course arguments in favour of the old ways. They go something like, ‘representative democracy is a good thing' and that ‘control will be lost if the current system changes too much'. Hardly convincing; the system is not just out of date but out of touch. Responsive democracy does not challenge the notion of representative democracy, just the reality of civic disconnection. For many citizens, democracy is already a failed concept but it does not follow that democracy itself is a failure.

It is obvious that new forms of political and democratic engagement are needed to reinvigorate popular debate and this is where technology has a role to play.

Online is touted as removing the scourge of democratic disillusion but of course it won't. It can't: The problem isn't technological it's human. Of itself, lowering the barriers to engagement won't make any long term difference if the perceived outcome is the same (nothing happens). This is a two-fold problem that is partly about having transparent and effective processes but also about building social capital; the networks and goodwill that connect people, keep them connected and make things happen. 

Opportunities for engagement emerge from time to time for different people in different ways. That's a complicated way of saying that most things in personal politics are issues based and that, eventually, we each reach our personal tipping point. Our blood pressure rises such that we feel compelled to get involved or, at least, we are no longer able to sit back and do nothing. eDemocracy reduces the barriers to engagement so that the personal motivation required too get involved falls - the effort to reward ratio.

So what does effective eDemocracy look like? Rather than a few monolithic projects engaging lots of people, it's more likely to be many small, independent projects, each engaging a handful of people on focused, topical issues. Technology is matched to the nature of the issue and local forums emerge so that people can think things out and get to know each other offline as well as online. It's no coincidence that the highlight of Howard Dean's internet campaign was the use of MeetUp to organise physical get-togethers.

This is long tail democracy in action; hundreds, even thousands, of micro-projects, issued based, choosing the right technology. They're temporal; projects come and go. Growth is viral, dynamic, evolutionary and sites have a natural, short lifecycle - mayfly not tortoise. People have multiple and varied roles in many campaigns or consultations and so it doesn't just become noise, all of this is aggregated and listened to where it counts.

Andy Williamson
Director, eDemocracy Programme
a[.]williamson[@]hansard[.]lse[.]ac[.]uk