I personally have much less faith in the power of voting as the main/core/fundamental (whatever-metaphor-we-want-to-use) mode of ensuring a just, fair, and functioning society. Maybe because I am German and we did vote the Nazi party into power.

Therefore, I focus on trying to understand how different political mechanisms (right metaphor?) are impacted by peer-to-peer media and digitization, however, I do believe the job you do, by thinking through one aspect (voting) and then pushing this in the public discourse is very valuable.

Hi All!

Terrific discussion! E-technology is forcing a complete re-conceptualization of the political system. What potential does the new technology implicate for the way government operates, and how it relates to its citizens?

Philipp’s idea for a new open statecraft model is sure to stimulate interesting debate.

Sebastian and I seem to be at opposite poles. I don’t see how “open statecraft” can be fully realized in a vacuum. He writes, “by including e-voting as a form of direct democracy into e-participation, we would be having a completely different debate.
e-participation as practiced in most places has nothing to do with direct democracy.”

I disagree.

If one of the primary intentions of e-participation is to empower, and therefore de-alienate, the people governed, then the citizenry must not only be involved in a “problem solving capacity,” but must have actual “decision making authority” by the power to elect their representatives. Unless those representatives are directly beholden to their constituents for the offices they hold, those representatives will be significantly disconnected from their constituents. For example, in the US our elected officials are directly connected with their principle campaign contributors, and only indirectly connected with their electorate.

How can the ideal of open statecraft ever be realized in this political environment? The legislative and administrative cultures in the US are oriented towards servicing the contributing class much more so than serving the public interest. Just look at the recent health care debate, and the legislation that resulted.

As to the “managerial aspects” of government, which is Phillip’s main concern in the essay, the agenda of management is oriented by the existing power structure. As long as elites control the choice of elected officials, the management of government will be oriented towards servicing their interests. In the US, for example, the regulation of the financial industry is stricter under Democratic Party administrations than under Republican Party administrations. The IRS under Bush was reputed to be tougher on middle class folks and kinder to the wealthy, than it was under Clinton.

Managers take their cues from elected officials, who owe their offices a) to their campaign contributors, and b) to their electorate.

Indeed, the process of “value creation” in any political system is going to be largely, if not wholly, dependent upon who puts officials in office. If the king’s power depends on the military’s enforcement, then all values will be oriented to the interests of the generals before the interests of the people. If the election system is dependent upon the campaign contributions of “fat cats,” as it is in the US, then the value orientation of public policy will be what the fat cats want it to be.

Much of “social networking” in the US is simply busy-ness, which gives the illusion of e-participation and open value creation, but which has little actual policy effect. For Open Value Chains to be the actual cause of policy, and not merely manufactured illusions, elected officials must be directly dependent upon the electorate for their positions, and not indirectly dependent, as in the US.

Internet voting, properly organized, can neutralize the power of the contributing class and place all elected officials directly dependent upon the electorate. That would cause an earthquake of a shift in value creation. Openness can only be fully realized when the locus of power is in the people; for, that is when the government has nothing to hide.

wjk

can't say it all here, but check it out at http://ssrn.com/author=1053589 and
http://internetvotingforall.blogspot.com/

But expanding broadband in the US would make e-gov easier.

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.

1. I really love your idea of thinking open government as a constitutive principle of our society – you must write a blog-entry for me on that! The “man and women are created equal” analogy is powerful. However, we are still far away from even the consensus that such a principle should apply and we will have to give up several constitutive principles that have become dear to us (e.g. territorial sovereignty or representative democracy as we know it, privacy as we know it, administrative discretion, etc.).

2. In this entry, I focus on open statecraft as the managerial aspect of open government, in a way as a perspective and approach for those who want to create open value chains. I think you add a more comprehensive approach to open gov as a set of shared core beliefs that needs to be fleshed out…

http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=98164…
ilename=981647049.pdf

Tom Steinberg originally expected more direct democracy through the internet tools he developed. Yet it turned out, that the representative democratic system seems to improve due to the new communication channels, enlarged transparency and accountability.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J7EKYWQLRU