The Governance of e Democracy: From Consultation to Participation John Morison Connex Seminar , QUB 23 rd September 2005

The Governance of e Democracy: From Consultation to Participation 1.

2.

3.

Consultation imperatives Government consultation practice Better consultation - a recommendation

1. Consultation Imperatives

c.

a.

“Crisis” of democracy b.

Modernisation New protocols for decision making

a. Crisis in Democracy: A disconnect between formal electoral process and democracy    Perceived irrelevance of state structures Reduced use of formal democratic process – election turnouts of less than 40% Marginalisation of minorities, sense of disempowerment

Democracy and decision-making Distinctions between: 1.

Traditional, incumbent democracy 2.

Radical, transformative democracy “democracy is a struggle over power, and as such, it provides an entirely different experience to those who hold power and those who do not”

Traditional, incumbent democracy Aggregative Procedural Top-down Formal and electoral Blind as to informal inequalities Justificatory and legitimising “thin”

Frameworks

Radical, transformative democracy Integrative, Direct, Bottom-up, Aspirational, Informal and substantive Challenging and empowering “thick”

process

e democracy as “widening and deepening” democracy?

From simple e-voting to an electronic agora?

b. Modernising Government in the Europe (and beyond) An international phenomenon OECD Briefing on P

ublic Sector Modernisation

(2003) http://www.oecd.org/publications/pol_brief

Big-scale changes in the “project of government” “Steering not rowing” D. Osbourne and T Gaebler

Reinventing Government (1992)

“Government to Governance”   Globalisation – multiple sites of government, nodes in a network rather than layers of a pyramid Multi-format government public, private, civil society, partnerships etc.

“The restructuring of government should follow the ecological principle of ‘getting more from less’, understood not as downsizing but as improving delivered value” A Giddens,

The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy

(1998) at p. 74.

Modernisation in the UK

a style

of government aimed at - reinvigorating public services - introducing new concepts of efficiency including elements of private sector efficiency, but without ceding control to the same extent as with earlier versions of privatisation - Ensuring that the public sector will operate in a way that is “as efficient, dynamic and effective as anything in the private sector”

Modernising Government: Key ideas  Consumer focus measuring outputs, targeting resources, monitoring satisfactions benchmarks and good practice codes Cost transparency  Cross-cutting joining up government project based Multi-format, (public and private and Vol.) partnership ethos

Modernising Government: Key ideas  Central coordination/control Cabinet Office, PM’s Delivery Unit, Office of Public Service Reform  Developing ICT Online services Consultation mechanisms

Modernisation as a “brand for other reforms   PSAs, “Best Value”, Beacon Councils and “earned autonomy”, duty to promote “community well-being”, “community plans” Health – foundation hospitals , Compacts with Vol. sector providers, Civil Society as a “space of dialogue and debate”

Modernisation – next phase

“it is by embracing customer satisfaction as the key driver for public services – finding out what people actually want from their services and using that information to drive change programmes – that we can help public services catch up with the best on offer in wider society”.

Public Service Reform: The Key to Social Justice

. A Speech to the Social Market Foundation by the Rt Hon John Hutton MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office on 24th August 2005 (available at http://www.smf.co.uk/index.php

).

Engine for modernisation = www.ukonline.gov.uk

- Online Services - 100% target - Consultation mechanisms - fine-tuning market led service delivery mechanisms

c. New Protocols for decision making: evidence-based policy making

2. Government Consultation – existing practices in the UK

Consultation register

A .pdf!

A managed process

Can we do better?

Democracy and the nature of decision-making

Technologies of communication

Technologies of Democracy: Modelling

democratic

decision making

Democratic sufficiency

1. Support

dialogue

(i) a) Two way communication

Support dialogue (ii)…. ii. Hearing many voices

2. Hear all voices – software that explores problems/plans solutions

3. Sharing information for informed decision-making

3. Count each voice equally measuring needs and preferences b

4. Share the authorship of outputs – writing documents

Example: Simultaneous global teamworking

Design an open, equal democratic space integrated systems for this are coming soon…

Recommendation: online civic debating systems  Funded by Government  Independent  Citizen orientated  Sufficient cheap bandwidth for useable ICT information support

A neutral public space for endogenous, genuinely participative decision-making

HEA e-consultation project http://www.e-consultation.org/ .

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