Category Archives for Uncategorized

How New Media has Revolutionized Electoral Politics in the US

This paper [pdf] addresses the impact new media tools have on different segments of the electoral process in the United States. Specifically, it looks at  the impact new media has by providing information, influencing the news cycle and setting agendas, shaping public opinion, providing more fundraising opportunities, increasing political participation and youth voter turnout, and changing election results. This paper does so by drawing on systematic studies, data from the Pew Research Center, and case studies, specifically that of the 2008 Presidential Election. This analysis is unique in that it uses very current information, focusing on the 2008 election, as this was the first election in which new media was fully integrated into campaign strategies. It is also unique in that it analyzes several types of new media including social networks, blogging, campaign websites, and Internet fundraising. These findings suggest that new media does influence and shape the course of the electoral process in the United States through the six aspects of the electoral process presented in this paper.

Aronson, Elise D. (2012) “Cyber-Politics: How New Media has Revolutionized Electoral Politics in the United States,” Colgate Academic Review: Vol. 9, Article 7.

http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=FkSlaczE1vw

Interesting chat between statisticians on big data. From the Simply Statistics blog.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Participation is purposeful; it is intended to make a difference – to the participant, or to the world around them. People who take part in voluntary and community action are looking to fulfill this need. But local democracy has lost its sense of purpose. Politicians are seen as self-serving, local elections written off as a foregone conclusion and engagement is considered a cynical exercise in legitimising decisions already made.

It would be nice to think that social media could solve this problem, but I’m far from convinced. I do not dispute that it can be an excellent tool for engaging with certain groups, and making the business of government more open and transparent. But when people do not trust the messenger or the message, changing the medium is unlikely to make much difference.

Great discussion at the Guardian. Couldn’t agree more with the quote above. 

Would sortition rule out government by the “best”? This question, too, can scarcely be considered with a straight face. We all know what Mark Twain said about Congressmen, and matters have not notably improved since. Besides, as Callenbach and Phillips write, “pure intelligence — if there is such a thing — is certainly not directly related to political wisdom. The only reasonable assumption is that both are broadly distributed through the population.

Great text by George Scialabba at the LA Review of Books. Personally, I’m a strong sympathiser of government by lot. 

SurveyMonkey is inviting survey respondents to help predict the results of the next presidential elections in the US. Looks like an oversimplified version of prediction markets (pdf) for elections. For those who don’t know it, Marquis de Condorcet’s Jury Theorem, over 200 years old, was the starting point for all of this.   

Transparency on the Web: a Democrat(ic) Virtue?

(originally posted at TechPresident)

The study Show Us the Stimulus (July 2009, Good Jobs First) is one of the most comprehensive and systematic assessments of US state “recovery” websites. The authors of the report analyze the effectiveness and transparency of state websites in providing information on the different categories of stimulus spending, the allocation of funds across different areas of the state, and individual projects carried out by private contractors and their respective impact on employment levels.

The study shows that, while some websites achieve satisfactory levels of transparency, others are largely failing to provide online transparency with regard to the use of crisis response funds. Such variance among the websites per se is not particularly surprising. But why do some states perform better than others? Are there any factors that can help to explain these differences?

In a rather exploratory approach, I have looked for a correlation between the transparency scores achieved by each state in the study and factors that could be considered as likely to influence the provision of online transparency.

For instance, one possible hypothesis is that the variance in the provision of online transparency of recovery spending across states is related to the amount of funds received by each state. That is, states that receive more funds would be prompted – or pressured – to make more of an effort to disclose recovery information than those receiving fewer funds. Nevertheless, no statistical relationship can be found between the relative (or absolute) amount of stimulus funds received by each state and the level of transparency of recovery websites.

In a similar vein, it could be hypothesized that a state affected by higher unemployment levels would be more inclined to communicate the recovery efforts being made to its population. However, as illustrated in the figure below, no correlation can be found between the level of unemployment and the transparency offered by the state recovery websites.

One could reasonably expect that a state with a more developed e-government structure would be more likely to convey more online transparency with regard to recovery spending. However, state governments that perform better in terms of the general delivery of online information and services are not necessarily providing the best online means for monitoring recovery funds. The same absence of correlation is identified when considering other factors such as the level of Internet access in a state, tax systems, per capita income, population and size of economy (GSP).

If most of the factors I have looked at have proven to be uncorrelated to the transparency of recovery websites, partisanship has shown itself to be correlated to transparency. More precisely, it is possible to identify a positive and significant correlation between the transparency of recovery websites and the percentage of seats held by Democrats in the lower house of state legislatures. In other words, the more seats held by Democrats in a state legislature, the more likely the state recovery website is to be transparent.

The scatter plot below illustrates this correlation. The horizontal line inside the diagram indicates the average (mean) transparency score of each state, with the points above the horizontal line representing the states scoring above the average and vice-versa. The vertical line divides those states with Republican (left side) and Democrat (right side) majorities in each lower house.

As the diagram illustrates, with the exception of only two cases (Virginia and South Carolina), all of the recovery websites scoring above the average in terms of information provided belong to states with a democrat majority in the lower house. This relationship holds true and statistically significant even when controlling for other factors such as the size of the state economy, e-government readiness and levels of Internet access. The results indicate that there is a less than 0.3% chance that this relationship is spurious.

Nevertheless, such a relationship is by no means perfect. For instance, it is possible to identify a large number of states with a Democratic majority in the lower house that present low levels of transparency (bottom right corner of the diagram). In this case, two outliers stand out: Illinois and Hawaii. With regard to the state of Illinois, despite the high percentage of democrat legislators in both houses, its recovery website scores no points whatsoever.

Even though it is not my intent to find a definitive explanation for outlying cases, it is important to remember that the evaluation of the websites was conducted just a few months after the political turmoil that led to Blagojevich’s removal from office (July 2009). With regard to Hawaii’s case, the only notable factor from a party perspective is that despite having a majority of Democrats in the state legislature, the state’s governor is a Republican. However, even if we choose to disregard these two cases, the pattern of the relationship between partisanship and transparency exposes other outliers, suggesting the obvious: a high level of Democratic control in a legislature is not the only factor affecting transparency levels of state recovery websites.

To conclude, the causation mechanism linking partisanship and transparency deserves further study. For instance, if recovery efforts were to be launched by a Republican President, would we see a different picture, with states of republican legislative majorities offering more transparent recovery websites? Or is transparency more of a democrat virtue?

(Note: These findings are, of course, incipient results of a broader study looking at factors that might influence transparency policies at the macro and micro-levels. Suggestions of other factors I should be looking at are very welcome.)

Territorial representation and ideational e-constituencies

(originally posted here)

It is easy to identify an existent and increasing disjunction between representation based on territorial constituencies and the preferences of citizens that, many times, are not circumscribed by any territory. In practice, such a fact leads to a representation deficit, where elected representatives fail to represent – or even to contemplate – preferences of constituents.  In that case, preferences that are dispersed and not contained within a territory have little or no chance of being formally represented. The history of recurrent legislative redistricting ( and gerrymandering) in the U.S is the most visible and institutional acknowledgement of difficulties related to territorial representation.

Such difficulties related to territorial representation tend to become even more present in a context of an interconnected society, where a growing number of old and new interests that were once latent and isolated, become expressed with much more intensity and well beyond geographical limits. Among other reasons, the aggregative possibility that information and communication technologies (ICTs) have given to interests that were previously dispersed renders the gap between constituents’ preferences and the policy outputs of legislatures even more evident.

The bad news is, in such a context, standard solutions such as redefinition of territorial constituencies as a means to deal with the limitations of territorial representation are no longer an option. Moreover, even if some interests can still be represented through territorial constituencies, it is increasingly difficult to claim primacy of territory-based preferences over non-territorial interests.  In short, liberal democracy’s fixation with territorial representation – together with partisan competition – as the only provider of legitimate links between citizens and public authorities is significantly challenged.

Despite the obvious signs of fatigue from liberal democracy (decreasing levels of turnouts, partisanship affiliation) there is also a noticeable renewal of politics  (e.g. activist groups, single-issue coalitions) that are by no means seized by the traditional framework of liberal democracies.  Even if nonterritorial interests are not new to democratic theorists, undoubtedly one can identify the rise of organized interests propelled by the use of ICTs and particularly the Internet, has taken an impressive step –both quantitatively and qualitatively – from the mid 1990s on.

Interesting is to notice that recent researches show that through the use of ICTs – particularly weblogs – MPs are increasingly relating with “e-constituencies” that come well beyond their territorial limits. A research by Nigel Jackson, for instance, suggests that MPs that are using weblogs tend to develop broader, virtual constituencies that are highly interested in politics and that are in competition with the geographic constituency of these MPs who are not and cannot be elected by these “e-constituents”. Such a fact, rather than anecdotal, illustrates well the limits of territorial constituencies. While it stops citizens preferences from being aggregated around one representative, it also inhibits representatives from acting on behalf of an electorate that maybe has more affinity with his preferences than those of his territorial constituency.

One fact is evident and inevitable: the ever growing access to ICTs challenges current representative democratic practices and traditional forms of political participation, with new non-territorial citizen networks, fluid publics and affinity groups constituting major elements of contemporary democracy.  Can ideational e-constituencies complement the system of territorial constituencies as we know it? Maybe not for now, but it is something to think about.

Serendipity for Online Deliberation?

(originally posted here)

I was going to reply to Paul’s comment and this actually became a post.  Having suggested the idea of inversed tag clouds as a means to enhance serendipity, Paul pointed out two cases in which serendipity can be desirable: 1) where you know that all the entries are of a certain standard and 2) where the most popular ones are likely for that reason to be less interesting.

In this respect, I would like to speculate to what extent serendipity can be desirable in large-scale deliberation processes, and how this serendipity can be induced online. To give it a fancy name, “induced redistributive serendipity”.

To make my point simpler, let’s think for instance of a cloud based on the number of views that an article / argument receives. In this case, the most viewed articles / arguments (or their respective tags) become more visible as more people view them, generating a snowball effect of intuitive mimesis.

This is more or less what happens in flawed models such as the ranking system of phase 1 of the “Open Government Initiative”, where interventions at the initial stage can (and often do) produce huge variations in the outcome. In this case, for instance, the idea of an inversed cloud could neutralize these undesirable effects.

Now, consider an online deliberation where, at least in theory, all the arguments are important and should be objects of consideration. Here, a traditional tag cloud could have disastrous consequences for the quality of deliberation. Once more, an inversed cloud based on the number of times an argument is viewed (the least viewed become more visible) could be useful for the purpose of online deliberation.

This could be particularly applicable for large-scale online deliberation. Given that people rarely take the time to go over most of the arguments that are available, an inversed cloud could have a redistributive function. As the most read arguments become less visible and vice-versa, one would expect a better distribution of the number of views each argument receives. Finally, for the participants, this could lead them to come across information that they were not looking for in the first place.

In other words, my question is: could this “induced redistributive serendipity” be used in large-scale online deliberation?

When Desperate Times Call for Participatory Measures

(originally posted here)

41 U.S. states currently face budget gaps, and judging by the forecasts of even the most optimistic specialists, such a situation is far from being substantially changed in the near future. In this context, it is particularly interesting to highlight the few ICT mediated initiatives that are starting to take place at the subnational (state) level in the United States, aiming – at least supposedly – to get citizens involved in the budgetary process.

For instance, in November, the state of New York launched a website (reducenyspending) that provided citizens with a budget calculator that focused on reducing spending: citizens were allowed to cut expenses and reallocate budgets. Once citizens had eliminated the state’s $12.5 billion General Fund budget gap, they were able to submit their budget proposal online. The government of Arizona, similarly, in the framework of its Openness and Savings Strategies (AZ-OSS) website, invited citizens and state employees to participate in the budgetary process and submit their proposals for making savings. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the governments of Arizona and New York took specific action based on citizens’ input.

A particularly interesting initiative is “stimulus.viriginia.gov” launched last Tuesday (January 11th) by Virginia’s governor Tim Kaine. The main driver behind the initiative is to provide an online tool that enables citizens, groups, localities and others to propose project ideas for potential funding from the federal stimulus package. By entering a valid email address into the platform, citizens receive a link to a section where they can propose their projects, which once posted are made available to the general public. It is worth noting that apart from the fact that these demands are made public, thus enhancing the general transparency of the process, the proposals are also registered under a creative commons 3.0 license, which allows the public to share and to remix the ideas, in the best spirit of web 2.0. Considering that it was launched just a few days ago, the number and the overall quality of proposals is quite impressive.

As to the legislative branch, having gone over all of the 50 websites of US state legislatures in the last months, I have found a few cases of the use of ICTs as a means to get feedback from citizens on the allocation of budgetary resources.  For instance, Nevada State Legislature has made available on its website a link to a section called “Public Suggestions Concerning Budget Reductions”. According to the website “The Legislature would like to invite the public to submit comments and suggestions for budget reductions and savings.” The Minnesota House of Representatives website has also set up a section where citizens are able to suggest alternatives on how to confront Minnesota’s budget deficit. However, in both of these initiatives no information whatsoever is provided with regards to the budgetary conditions of the state. The fact that these legislatures ask the general public to come up with suggestions concerning budgetary resources when no substantive information on the budget and its process is provided raises the question of to what extent these initiatives are being taken seriously by those who design them (if one can talk about design in this case).

Another initiative of this kind is the “Minnesota Senate Budget Discussion” website, where the state faces a deficit of more US$ 4.8 billion dollars over the next two years. Launched at the beginning of this year (January 15th), an initial message describes the website as an online community where citizens contribute their ideas on the state budget, helping the Senate to “develop a budget that reflects the values and needs of the communities”.

On the website citizens are able to post their comments on different budget issues such as higher education, environment and transport. In order to allow citizens to inform their comments and discussion, for each budget topic a small text and charts provide basic information, complemented by links to relevant documents and websites.  A glossary section is also provided, where more technical terms are explained in accessible language to the broader public.  Furthermore, citizens are encouraged to contact their local senators and member s of the respective committees responsible for each of the budget topics, with links to the different committees and list of senators. Furthermore, a map indicates the origin of the comments and ideas posted, geographically representing where the inputs on budget issues come from (a functionality that should be particularly interesting for those to whom citizens’ input is directed).

Finally, it is also possible to identify some evidence of a positive degree of reactivity by those responsible for the “Minesotta Senate Budget Discussion” concerning the actual use of the website by the citizens. For instance, given the website users’ particular interest in the “Health and Human Services Budget” topic, a specific section was added with information on the basic costs of Minnesota’s public health and welfare programs.

These times of crisis seem to call for participatory measures. In times of budget cuts and shortfalls governments have an extra incentive to engage in participatory processes in the allocation of budgetary resources: they may engender better allocation of resources and increase the legitimacy of difficult decisions that are not always very popular. Even though the initiatives mentioned above vary enormously across states in terms of prospects and limits (e.g. Nevada and Minnesota), they are illustrative of initiatives that are taking place where ICTs are used to support citizens’ participation in the process of budget allocation at a higher governmental level. In their embryonic stages, the flaws in terms of participatory and technological design – in some cases more evident than in others – could be addressed relatively easily.

However, apart from matters of design, the desirable outcomes that these kinds of initiatives may engender are only possible when governments are able to present substantive results to the citizens that are willing to contribute with their time and ideas. For instance, experience has shown that Participatory Budgeting initiatives have been successful only when governments have been able to deliver results in a timely manner and have taken specific actions to ensure that citizens are aware of these concrete outcomes. Even though these exercises are not Participatory Budgeting experiences – this was never their intent – they  are doomed to fail if the citizens that engage with these initiatives do not have enough evidence that their contribution is seriously taken into account.

The initiatives of New York and Arizona seem to have already failed in that respect. Let’s hope the ongoing initiatives do a bit better. Otherwise, they will just join the long and embarrassing list of initiatives that have only generated skepticism and frustration amongst those who were initially enthusiastic about engaging with their governments. In this case, citizens will not be so keen next time.

Let’s see…

***

Ps: Susana Haas Lyons has made a few of suggestions on how the stimulus.gov initiative could be improved.

Pps: Other initiatives are taking place at the local level, such as in Philadelphia and the Town of Cary (thanks to Stephen Kleinschmit for sending the Cary case).

Find the comments and the references at the Facebook Participatory Budgeting group.

 

Participatory Budgeting and e-Democracy (Part 1)

(Originally posted over 3 years ago here)

Participatory Budgeting (PB) can be broadly defined as the participation of citizens in the decision-making process of budget allocation and monitoring public spending. Participation may take various forms, from effective decision-making power in the allocation of resources to more modest initiatives that confer voice during the development of the budget.

Added to the normative claim that PB gives citizens the opportunity to participate in decisions that directly affect them, it is expected that citizens as end-users of public services are the most suited ones to identify public demands. In this perspective, citizen participation in PB should naturally lead to a better allocation of budgetary resources and there is some evidence that, when implemented properly, this may be the case.

The first PB was implemented in 1989 in Porto Alegre in Brazil, and in 1993 the number of initiatives had reached 140. Currently in Brazil the estimated number is between 300 and 350 PBs.  Such increasing trend is also identified in Europe, where the numbers of PBs jumped from 6 in the year 2000 to 55 in 2005. I have been making some estimates on this growth and my estimate agrees with those from other experts in PBs in Europe that claim that there should be around 150 cases in Europe right now. This number still tends to grow, particularly owing to the initiative of the UK government that expects to have PBs implemented at all administrations at the local level by 2012. In regions like Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe numbers are also growing, especially due to the efforts deployed by the World Bank and the UN. In 2006, the estimated total number of PBs in the world was around 1.200, and these numbers are expected to be high er today.

In terms of sustainability, there is significant evidence that once administrations implement PB there is a general trend of continuity of the experience due to, among other factors, the political costs that are associated with the extinction of PBs.  Adding to that, there are a number of countries that are inserting PB in their juridical framework, making PB a compulsory practice for local governments, such as Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela and Dominican Republic.

Concerning results, I believe that Participatory Budgeting has a great virtue that lacks in most e-democracy initiatives implemented so far: it is directly linked to the delivery of visible and quantifiable public services that have direct impact in citizens lives, such as the renewal of a school or the building of a health center.  Also, there is strong evidence that participatory budgeting may lead to citizens’ empowerment by acquiring skills and competencies (e.g. budget literacy, networking). Such type of empowerment we cannot expect at the same degree from, for instance, signing a petition.

Nonetheless, despite all these virtues, most PB experiences reach a very low level of participation, with most initiatives reaching participation levels between 0.5 and 2 percent of the population. Such a fact is not inherent to PB: surveys in democratic countries have repeatedly shown that very few citizens are willing to participate in political life in ways other than voting.  Thus, for those who are looking for means to increase citizen participation, we should start looking (among other things) for solutions with low costs of participation (e.g.time, transport).  If variance in costs is not the sole explanatory factor for level of participation, by holding all other factors constant one should expect that citizens’ participation would be inversely proportional to the costs of participation.

In this respect, ICTs may play an important role by decreasing the costs incurred by citizens when taking part in PB processes. For instance, instead of having to attend a face-to-face meeting at a certain place and a certain time, ICTs may enable citizens to participate from virtually anywhere at any time in the process by deliberating and casting their votes in the allocation of budgetary resources.  Nonetheless, most of the use of ICTs concerning PB practices so far has been restricted to the provision of information about the process to the citizens. At the same time, it is easy to identify an increasing trend in the use of ICTs in PB practices as means to increase participation (e.g. Internet voting) and to enhance online deliberation.  In the next post I shall look at the e-Participatory Budgeting of the city of Belo Horizonte (Brazil), which is without any doubt one of the most significant e-democracy exercises ever conducted.