4.0. American Democracy's Alter Ego Emerges

Contents - Index

4.0.   American Democracy's Alter Ego Emerges                          (Top)

4.1.    Vocabulary for a New Stage of Democracy

4.2.    Citizens Take to Cyberspace

4.3.    Emergence of a Public Interest Network

4.4.    A New Political Institution?

Previous Next

Materials

Bill and Wes,
As you know, I have expressed my feeling that supporting our objectives in the eDem project is ultimately going to rest a good deal on old fashioned argument. That does not mean that we don't have a lot of empirical work to do. However, unless we get some funding, we are not going to be able to do all that we would like to do either. What we do will be primarily exploratory, case study, and archive analysis, so there will not be much statistical inference involved. However, my suggestion as the proposal reflects, is that we lay out a full-scale research plan and set priorities as we go.
In the meantime, I think we have made good progress in laying out our argument. I have been writing and re-writing as new insights and useful ways to put things come to me. And this stuff is going to change again.
Recently, I was going to suggest adding a section before or after the Global implications for the implications of A-Net technology for local politics. The general idea is that local can affect national and global, as in the Texas power grab and the California power grab.
But, now I see something much more significant about local politics to the question of what the A-Net phenomenon IS and why it should last. Because of our focus on the national level we have been observing the antithesis of participation. That is, people don't participate in national politics because it is too difficult, impossible, or seemingly meaningless. But, that is not the state of affairs at the local level, where participation is alive and well. In this context, we can see that the great Internet grass roots rebellion did not come out of nowhere. The Moveon technology tore down the barrier between participation in local and national (and global) politics. In other words, IT was there all the time - albeit silenced by the national political system. Interestingly, I kept using the words "grass roots" to draw the distinction between spontaneous and planned. But, here the whole time the political disposition emerging in national politics really does emerge from or is part of the same disposition found at the grass root taken in a literal sense. In an important sense, the Moveon technology made a village of national politics.
Benjamin Barber is a political scientist at Maryland University. He has been around a long time and has been a strong advocate for participatory democracy. As you might expect, he has also been called a hopeless idealist and dreamer and all of that. But, he has persisted and has a big following. His 1984 book is in our bibliography. It is called "Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age." As you know, many if not most theorists argue that "democracy" (equality and participation) is an enemy of "liberal institutions." Barber argues the opposite. That is, "an excess of liberalism has undone our democratic institutions."
But, of most immediate significance is his perspective on local versus national politics and local and national levels of participation. This is worth a quote from his preface to the fourth printing of "Strong Democracy."
"It is almost as if there are two democracies in America: the one defined by national parties and presidential politics and bureaucratic policies, a remote world circumscribed by Washington's beltway, walling in the politicians even as it walls out the citizens; and the other defined by neighborhood and block associations, PTAs and community action groups, an intimate domain no larger than a town or a rural county where women and men gather in small groups to adjudicate differences or plan common tasks. With something of a pejorative sneer, we call the first "politics," cynical about the corruption of politicians, skeptical about the competence of voters or about the possibilities of participation in affairs so complex and institutions so bureaucraticed. But about the second we wax exuberant, celebrating its spirited good-neighborliness and restless activity, though we scarcely associate it with politics or democracy at all"
At the publication of this book, Barber could not have known what was to come with the Internet, so he must be interested in what could be an affirmation of his perspective and tenacity. For us, it is the missing piece. Where was this great reservoir of potential public activism before Moveon? It was with us the whole time. You recall that we attributed the rebellion to the large and rapidly growing army of educated and informed techno-people - which is true. But, this insight about local activism reveals that it indeed is there and has been there for a long time.
Barber has an interesting Website at http://www.benjaminrbarber.com/ and is involved with the New Citizenship movement, which appears to be closely aligned with neoprogressivism. Another popular work of Barber is An Aristocracy of Everyone, in which he makes a solid argument for public schooling and refutes Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind.
He also is centrally involved in the "Democracy Collaborative" that brings together an international consortium of the world's leading academic centers and citizen engagement organizations. One of their project caught my eye because of the "software" component.
"Democracy and Technology: a project to design and implement web-based deliberation and collaboration software based on the principles of participatory democracy in order to foster communication on a global scale. The result is a virtual space where communities can self-moderate discussions, configure agendas, debate and vote on issues, collaborate on documents, and teach one another in real time."
I am not sure what "software" for participatory democracy would look like, but ProtoGenie provides tools that might be useful and could be adapted to such applications as deliberative surveys and deliberative juries. In fact, I already have a challenge project like this mentioned in the ProtoGenie home page.
This whole thing suggests to me that Barber may be a good person to communicate with when we have something relatively tidy to share.
Regarding Research
I still have a lot of research and writing of this kind to do, but we can move on other fronts too. My personal preference is to wait on creating questionnaires until I feel more comfortable that I understand the problem and the argument. But, it would not hurt to start asking Wes some questions - if he is agreeable. This would be pretty much exploratory and preparation for subsequent research. How about Bill and I taking our long inventory of questions and ordering the top 20 and then comparing our lists and settling on the top 20. Then we can ask Wes the questions for substance while he weights them in relevance and importance. He can also add the questions that he thinks are relevant and important - some of which he would like the answers himself.
Larry

Bill,
I agree that these are potential targets of our research. I will review the time frames I proposed and see how they fit. Frankly, I forget what is was thinking already. I will get back on this aspect.
More directly in response, I am not sure how we might use the Vietnam history. Certainly it is demonstration of the fact that people will participate when the push (thrust) is great enough or when the barriers are reduced enough (friction or drag). It was the former in the case of Vietnam. It is both in the case of our Internet rebellion.
To make comparisons, we could try to get numbers and types of political activism, but it is not clear to me yet how to do this. For comparisons with the contemporary movement we need a standard unit of measurement for a "political act." The Sanctuary Movement was pre-Internet too, so we have the same problem.
The other day I started thinking about the measurement problem and the only thing that seemed to have possibilities is some information on acts of participation from the American Voter surveys or other polling data. I checked the recent edition of the American Voter by Warren Miller and Merrill Shanks and there was no mention of participation other than voting that I could find. However, I suspect there were relevant questions (for example, Did you ever write your Representative?) in the national surveys - and if not there in commercial polls. I will be talking to Merrill Shanks about ProtoGenie and at some point I would like to tell him about our project. Actually, I believe one can reach the political archives at UCB or Ann Arbor via the Internet.
We also want to be able to say that a political act now is easier and faster by a factor of X compared to 1985, 1970, pre-1970 and so forth. Again, we need a measure. I have been assuming that we can do it if we put our clever hats on. In any case, it will be really rough and ready, but if it is reasonable and it very conservative, it will do the job. One implicit kind of comparison we can make is ex-post-facto. What we need to do is produce evidence of massive quantities of political acts on the Internet. We know there were no political acts on the Internet before it was invented.
As we have talked about, we are in the middle of natural experiments. The California recall is a good case because the polling data showed Davis so far behind and Swartz--- so far ahead immediately prior to Moveon's last minute big campaign. If Davis is not recalled or if the election is much closer than the polls said, then one could argue that Moveon had a significant impact on politics and the argument that it would have happened anyway is less strong. But, again no single case like this is going to make the argument one way or the other. It will be a pattern and trend and consistency - in other words a compelling story. So, one thing we want to get from our interviews and surveys of leaders are campaign success stories and also behind the scenes anecdotes about the deterrent effect of advocacy nets on political actions and actors.
This is off-the-top-of-the-head stuff, but no harm in starting into it.
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Boyd
To: LAWRENCE BOYD
Cc: dominopita
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 11:03 AM
Subject: other stuff
I am sure we have discussed these matters along the way, but I have been thinking we should do some research on the Viet Nam anti-war protests with a view to some determinations about their effect on the pull out. Maybe stuff on the Berrigans would be revealing.
I also was wondering about the Sanctuary Movement in the 70's and what, if any, effects it had.
Lastly, we also should look at more recent protests directed at the WTO and GATT, etc., especially as these protests have been organized using the Internet and cell phones.
Bill
Hi Bill,
What your describe are case studies of events and processes and that is a perfectly good objective and approach - but a substantial undertaking. It would certainly provide some context within which to think about the Internet movement. There must be tons of material on the movements and events you mention, so the problem would be how to sort through them. Generally, one needs a plan of some kind. It sounds like the mapping of events with some implicit measurements in mind to identify critical points, such as your tipping point, is a good approach. There have been studies like this. Some are like decision analysis, some us content analysis of some kind, like the occurrence or non-occurrence of something in the major newspapers (or TV news programs).
I would be interested in how Smart Mobs came to the conclusion that protests would not have happened without the Internet and wireless? I suspect that our arguments will be of the same order - if their arguments are at all rigorous.
Regarding progress, I think we have made wonderful progress and we have had a really good division of labor and collaboration process. I know you have learned a fantastic amount about democratic issues and processes. This is a huge undertaking with no staff and no funding. To me, this was the gearing up and exploratory phase. It has been very short given the task. In the exploratory phase I don't expect to know how to lay out specific tasks yet. We could have pushed it if that helps motivate effort, but motivation is of not concern in this project. If you recall, there have been more than one outline and the research plan in the proposal has not inspired a sense of direction. My sense of direction is in the proposal and the to-do list I proposed. After we know what our argument is, specifying hypotheses is an important step. Until we have the hypotheses specified it is difficult to know what specific tasks should be. I have been pushing to get to this the last couple of weeks, but I am simply not there.
I hope you are not disappointed with our progress and our work together so far. I feel like I am not going fast enough for you and that you want to do something, I am not sure what. A face to face conference would be great and useful I'm sure. I am wide open to your suggestions, but the simple fact is I need more time for the longer term project that I thought we were talking about. If you have a pressing target date, then we will have define what it is you want by then and scale down what we are doing and focus just on that.
I am in the process of releasing to the world the product of a five year plus research and development effort in ProtoGenie and I am really nervous about it. I have not done the work that needs to be done before release and I can't pay anyone else to do it (beyond Scott and Steve). I can push it back once more, but I have no funding and so it is getting very expensive. Nevertheless, the democracy study is very important to me and I want to fit in every minute I can. So, it looks like the rational thing for me to do is to make clear that I have to cool it and work at my own speed and direction. Frankly, I don't think we are far away from being able to nail down hypotheses, methods, and tasks. Please be patient.
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Boyd
To: LAWRENCE BOYD
Cc: Wes L Boyd ; dominopita
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 5:28 PM
Subject: Re: Our Measurement Problems
You are the expert on measurement and the problems associated with it, so I defer to you here. I guess what I had in mind was learning enough about some of these protests and political action movements to be able to glean some of the salient features of those that had some "success" (or did not have success) and speculate about whether the Internet would or could have made a difference (or the Internet coupled with changing demographics and income and education levels). For example, would it be possible to "map" significant events over time and make some informed judgments about when a tipping point was reached (or not) and what may have accounted for it? I am sure that an array of forces and events (activism, protest, body bags, TV revelations, etc.) converged to tip the scale on Viet Nam. But, I am less clear whether McCarthy and later Bobby Kennedy influenced events or rather were smart enough to read the public sentiment (somewhat as Dean has done as to Iraq).
According to Smart Mobs, the large scale protests directed at WTO and IMF would not have happened without the Internet and wireless communications. Question: Did the Cancun talks fall apart because of these protests or because the lesser developed counties were emboldened by the protests sufficiently to stand up to the economic powers?
Sorry, I know I am rambling but this stuff fascinates me and I am struggling to get a handle.
Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: LAWRENCE BOYD
To: Bill Boyd
Cc: Wes L Boyd ; dominopita
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 4:21 PM
Subject: Our Measurement Problems
Bill,
I agree that these are potential targets of our research. I will review the time frames I proposed and see how they fit. Frankly, I forget what is was thinking already. I will get back on this aspect.
More directly in response, I am not sure how we might use the Vietnam history. Certainly it is demonstration of the fact that people will participate when the push (thrust) is great enough or when the barriers are reduced enough (friction or drag). It was the former in the case of Vietnam. It is both in the case of our Internet rebellion.
To make comparisons, we could try to get numbers and types of political activism, but it is not clear to me yet how to do this. For comparisons with the contemporary movement we need a standard unit of measurement for a "political act." The Sanctuary Movement was pre-Internet too, so we have the same problem.
The other day I started thinking about the measurement problem and the only thing that seemed to have possibilities is some information on acts of participation from the American Voter surveys or other polling data. I checked the recent edition of the American Voter by Warren Miller and Merrill Shanks and there was no mention of participation other than voting that I could find. However, I suspect there were relevant questions (for example, Did you ever write your Representative?) in the national surveys - and if not there in commercial polls. I will be talking to Merrill Shanks about ProtoGenie and at some point I would like to tell him about our project. Actually, I believe one can reach the political archives at UCB or Ann Arbor via the Internet.
We also want to be able to say that a political act now is easier and faster by a factor of X compared to 1985, 1970, pre-1970 and so forth. Again, we need a measure. I have been assuming that we can do it if we put our clever hats on. In any case, it will be really rough and ready, but if it is reasonable and it very conservative, it will do the job. One implicit kind of comparison we can make is ex-post-facto. What we need to do is produce evidence of massive quantities of political acts on the Internet. We know there were no political acts on the Internet before it was invented.
As we have talked about, we are in the middle of natural experiments. The California recall is a good case because the polling data showed Davis so far behind and Swartz--- so far ahead immediately prior to Moveon's last minute big campaign. If Davis is not recalled or if the election is much closer than the polls said, then one could argue that Moveon had a significant impact on politics and the argument that it would have happened anyway is less strong. But, again no single case like this is going to make the argument one way or the other. It will be a pattern and trend and consistency - in other words a compelling story. So, one thing we want to get from our interviews and surveys of leaders are campaign success stories and also behind the scenes anecdotes about the deterrent effect of advocacy nets on political actions and actors.
This is off-the-top-of-the-head stuff, but no harm in starting into it.
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Boyd
To: LAWRENCE BOYD
Cc: dominopita
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 11:03 AM
Subject: other stuff
I am sure we have discussed these matters along the way, but I have been thinking we should do some research on the Viet Nam anti-war protests with a view to some determinations about their effect on the pull out. Maybe stuff on the Berrigans would be revealing.
I also was wondering about the Sanctuary Movement in the 70's and what, if any, effects it had.
Lastly, we also should look at more recent protests directed at the WTO and GATT, etc., especially as these protests have been organized using the Internet and cell phones.
Bill

References

(Top)