World-Wide E-Democracy Projects Page

Note: This is a mirror of a page maintained by Scott Aikens, Ph.D student at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Scott was the Minnesota E-Debate Coordinator in 1994 and is the scholar in on-line residence with Minnesota E-Democracy :-).

Introduction:

This non-partisan Web Page is designed to promote a conception of participatory democratic theory made possible by the development of the Internet. At the foundation of this conception of participatory democratic theory is an emphasis on the importance of "democratic dialogue" in the political process. By "dialogue" we mean political discussion of, for, and by the people. Such "dialogue" becomes "democratic dialogue" when such political discussion is conducted in the context of the political process, most importantly during the campaign process when citizen's elect their representatives. "Democratic dialogue" is created, for example, when a public discussion is linked to a candidate debate. For a discussion to be public, it is argued here, it must, at its foundation, be facilitated by an open subscription, open submission listserv. In other words, if dialogue is censored it is not a public dialogue and is not democratic dialogue. This does not mean that there can not be multiple lists some of which are heavily moderated. It just means that, at root, every citizen must possess the opportunity to participate.

Here's a successful example of what we're talking about:

It's too early to tell, but here are some projects in the United States that look like they have potential to involve democratic dialogue in 1995 and/or 1996.

Here's an interesting project being organized by a fellow working in State government, Texas Comptroller John Sharp. While the project is deserving of praise, there are serious questions about government offices hosting electronic democracy projects rather then civic organizations.

Here are some national projects in the United States where you can participate in dialogue about democracy, if not in democratic dialogue itself.

Here are some European e-democracy projects:

Here's some interesting information on a movement called "civic journalism", where people in the press seek greater citizen involvement in media. The folks in this movement our just beginning to perceive the Internet is an extremely powerful tool that will assist "civic journalism" in untold ways. It will be enjoyable to track the development of this synergy:

Here's the Internet site for H. Ross Perot's United We Stand America. It's interesting because H. Ross was the first to bring major publicity to the electronic town-hall concept, although he was suggesting that citizens ought to become legislators, which is a bit unworkable at this point, in our opinion. Anyhow, here's his first effort at an electronic town-hall:

Here are a couple projects that are gearing up for the 1996 presidential primaries in New Hampshire and Iowa. These projects are censored and , therefore, arguably don't represent anything terribly new in the field of participatory democratic theory. Of course, it is our belief that a true democratic dialogue is more difficult to achieve as the scale of a political campaign increases; thus it is near impossible in context to a Presidential election.

Interestingly four New Hampshire newspapers have started a service similar to NHPrimary. This service costs $350. I'm sure the political elites who can afford access will find it valuable, even if the rest of the citizen-body won't be able to afford the service:

Here's some information about debates from the League of Women Voters. It will give you some insight into how debates are organized traditionally, without the public participation the Internet offers. These kinds of debates can be really constraining, in our opinion, allowing politicians an incredible amount of control over their images. We're happy to say, the League of Women Voters is investigating the role of public participation in political debates, given new communications technology. In fact, the Minnesota Chapter of the League sponsored the MN E-Democracy Project E-Debates 1994..

Here's a project that seeks to coordinate what it calls "teledemocracy" projects. Teledemocracy means the use of telecommunications technology to increase democracy and has a fairly close connection to a conception of direct democracy which would replace representative democracy:

Here's a section of a project run by Miles Fidelman of the Center for Civic Networking in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which also deals with issues of dialogue and participation:

Here's a project hosted by Mark Bonchek at MIT that is interested in political participation:

last updated September 17, 1995 by G Scott Aikens (gsa1001@cus.cam.ac.uk)