The “digital democracy” refers to a new phase of democratic practice, led by innovations aim at improving politics´ capacity to deliver practical solutions to concrete problems, using the new information and telecommunication technologies.
The wave of protest demonstrations around the world and the growing number of self-declare “outraged” points to such democratic deficit, increasingly perceived by a growing number of citizens.
In recent years there was much talk about a “democratic recession” dominating world politics, a concept first coined by Larry Diamond in 2009. Much had happened since then
The latest report from Freedom House (2022) states that “…present threat to democracy is the product of 16 consecutive years of decline in global freedom…60 countries suffered declines over the past year, while only 25 improved. As of today, some 38 percent of the global population live in Not Free countries, the highest proportion since 1997. Only about 20 percent now live in Free countries.”
No surprise then, societies around the world are trying democratic innovations. It is the same idea we promote from this blog and the pages of “Argentina 4.0 The citizens Revolution” (2013), under the concept of “Digital Democracy”, referring to the potential contribution new technologies could offer for democratic renewal, in an era dominated by digitalization of every aspect of our life.
Most efforts are focus on strengthening decades old community engagement programs, leveraging them on the possibilities offer by new technologies.
Indeed, “citizens assemblies” and “panels” have been there for a while. They are now regularly implemented through stratified selection techniques, to give all citizens equal chance of participation and secure representation from diverse sectors of society. Its debates are very structured around present remits or elaborate formal institutional processes.
At the heart of these processes lies the need to educate the sovereign, at least on the subject under discussion. This is precisely the concept embodied in the citizens jury approach, built on the idea that groups of everyday citizens can create powerful solutions to today’s biggest challenges, when given the knowledge, resources, and time
The Center for New Democratic Processes (former Jefferson Center) pioneer the concept, structuring it around phases including: a) understanding the challenge; b) design the processes; c) invite the community; d) select participants; f) provide information; g) facilitate deliberation; h) create recommendations and i) amplify and share
These “democratic innovations” are tried mostly on western democracies. An interesting project run by the European Democracy Hub (reported by Carnegie Europe) explore innovations tried beyond the western world, “grouped into three clusters: 1) efforts to extend democratic participation within existing consultative processes; 2) more open forms of participation that involve relatively large numbers of citizens; and 3) attempts to connect citizen participation to other political actors.
Among the first, for example, the report quotes “online petition process” that, although they do not include deliberative instances, facilitate citizen participation in the construction of the public agenda (South Korea) or participative bodies and platforms to allow citizens participation and deliberation on priorities and government performance at municipal level (Georgia and Nigeria).
Under the second, open participation mechanisms somehow loose the boundaries of to stratified selection techniques (mentioned above) to create a wider space for interaction between governments and civil society organizations (CSOs) (mostly in Latina America and India).
The last cluster refer to programs focus “on fostering more systematic interaction between online citizenship and public-authority decision-making”, including citizens jury’s (Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, South Korea, Taiwan, North Macedonia, Latin America).
Citizens Assemblies on Social Care, counties rural Climate Dialogue, citizens Jurys on artificial intelligence or pandemic data sharing, all-inclusive village parliaments, social audits and other innovations are building a body of new democratic experiences. They are valuable experiences to the extent it aim at strengthen democratic representation rather that to substitute it.
While we may be still quite far from closing the gap between citizens and its representatives, a strong and renew “technology-driven” citizens participation drive is forcing political elites around the world to innovate and facilitate common people engagement.
As projected in decade-old writings (including Argentina 4.0 The Citizens Revolution) local governments are taking center stage in the process and remain the best hope for a genuine and lasting democratic renewal.
