Here are ten quick ideas for the coming Obama administration. The GSA commissioned this article last year. A PDF version and looong version with international examples is available.
Ten Practical Online Steps for Government Support of Democracy
By Steven CliftChair, E-Democracy.Org and Ashoka Fellow
This article will appear in the upcoming Intergovernmental Solutions newsletter of the U.S. federalGeneral Services Administration: http://tinyurl.com/2dhl9s
Does e-government have anything to do with democracy and citizen participation? Let's getstraight to the point - not yet.
Should it?
Yes. Government should be leading a charge into the increasingly and fundamentally interactiveweb.
Information access, considered the safe starting point for government accountability online nowmostly presents the public a daunting needle in a huge haystack. This system is so complicatedthat the valuable and substantive information that government produces is often ignored in theincreasingly interactive public lives of active citizens. . The lack of real and effective online accessto governance will substantially increase cynicism about and distrust in government among apublic that demands a more participatory representative democracy.
A bit of context: I coordinated e-government for the State of Minnesota in its early days. As acitizen, I independently started E-Democracy.Org which created the world’s first electioninformation and discussion website in 1994. When “services first, democracy later” envelopedmost e-government projects, I went independent in late 1997. Since then, I've spoken andconsulted across 26 countries on "e-democracy.”
Here are the 10 things I would do in government at every level to help rescue our democracy inthe information age.
1. Timely, personalized access to information that matters.
Government decision-making information is not really public or relevant if people cannot act on itwhen it still matters. Give people tools like personalized e-mail alerts based on keywords,location, etc. and eliminate the "nobody told me" backlash government often receives due topoor public outreach. Every government needs a “what’s new” democracy portal or a thematicsection covering all democratic processes as part of their main website.
2. Help elected officials receive and sort, then better understand and respond to email.
E-mail overload is the number one complaint I hear from elected officials around the world. Mostwant to respond effectively, but simply aren't being provided the tools they need. If there everwas an opportunity for open source collaboration among governments, this is it. In general, ourrepresentatives and representative institutions must start to invest in the online infrastructurethey need to connect directly with the public they represent.
3. Dedicate at least 10% of new e-government developments to democracy.
Let’s define democracy starting with public input. In an e-service initiative, the 10% should startwith citizen focus groups to guide the design of the service, usability testing and studies togenerate user input and accountability, and post-transaction user surveys. If the investment is anew content management system for information access, then use the 10% to addpersonalization and survey input features or democratized navigation (those nifty menus thatshow you the top ten articles viewed that day or week).
4. Announce all government public meetings on the Internet in a uniform manner.
All public meeting notices, agendas, handouts, and digital recordings must be online. The systemshould be standards-based and tie state-by-state systems into a national network coveringfederal, state, and local government public meetings. This is the only way for people to ask to bepro-actively notified of any government public meetings within a certain geographic areaaddressing specific topics that interest them.
5. Allow citizens to look-up all of their elected officials from the very local to nationalin one search.
Along with the ability to look-up all public meetings, Americans should have the right to easilydetermine who all the elected and appointed officials are who represent them currently. Justbefore elected and appointed officials assume office, every government unit should be requiredto submit contact information for those officials into a national database.
6. Host online public hearings and dialogues (or “e-consultations” as they are knownoutside the U.S.)
As in-person public meetings begin to incorporate live online features, envision more deliberateonline exchanges to improve the outcomes of the decision-making process. If your governmentagency hosts three public hearings across the country or your state, host the fourth hearingonline over a week or two and improve the format in the process. In 10 years, the legislatures,commissions and city councils not holding hearings online will be in the minority.
7. Embrace the rule of law by mandating the most democratically empowering onlineservices and rights across the whole of government.
Technology itself is not forcing real institutional democratic change. I estimate that 90% of thedemocratic innovations online that really share power are based on a political tradition or lawthat existed before the Internet arrived. If we want all citizens to benefit universally from a morewired democracy, then now is time to update our legal requirements and fund core onlinedemocracy services.
8. Promote dissemination through access to raw data from decision-makinginformation systems.
Let’s explode decision-making data, like Congressional information and rulemaking relatedcontent into bits via XML and open standards and make it easy to re-use public government datafrom many sources to create views and searches that provide insight, understanding, andaccountability. Think “Web 2.0” interactivity built on top of government data by those outside ofgovernment.
9. Fund Open Source sharing internationally across e-government.
Sharing and supporting open source software takes resources – a consortium of nationalgovernments need to step up with collaborative funding. The new and less cluttered area of eparticipation tools are an ideal starting point within e-government to reduce technology costs andbuild systems for use by multiple governments.. Efforts to place modules and customizations outfor community use will be key. Government and its vendors must contribute code back for thewheels of reciprocal value to start turning.
10. Local up – a strategic approach to building local democracy online.
To build e-participation momentum, citizens need to experience results they can see and touch.By investing in transferable local models and tools, more people will use the Internet as a tool tostrength their communities, protect and enrich their families and neighborhoods, and be heard ina meaningful way. Every community needs an “online town hall,” E-Democracy.Org calls themIssues Forums, for agenda-setting discussion of public issues. Comparative evaluation of accessand participation related online service and content indicators will introduce efforts for an online"Democracy Tune-up." This same tune-up concept should be applied at the state and federallevel as well.
Conclusion
In the early days, folks thought the Internet was inherently democratic. Parts of it are, but thatmistaken sense of technological determinisms has not carried over to make constitutional andlegally-ground representative processes more open and responsive. Today, “politics as usual”online may actually make things worse. Civically conceived e-participation efforts need to countersuch negative trends rather than being viewed as an extra option. Ultimately, each generationneeds to rebuild democracy with the special tools of their time. Our tools are online and ourdemocracy needs us.
Steven Clift leads the “Online Consultation and E-Participation” online community of practice atDoWire.Org and shares numerous articles on e-democracy from Publicus.Net. An extendedversion of this article with specific examples is available from that site.
