Reboot asks: are we ready for more open and transparent government?

July 1st, 2009

Micah L. Sifry writing in the Independent, explores this idea,

On his first full day in office, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive memorandum that may someday be seen as signaling the most important shift in how government works in America since the rise of the New Deal.

His subject? Not jobs or health care or the environment, but transparency and open government. In five succinct paragraphs, he promised to create an “unprecedented level of openness in government”, arguing that it would: “strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.”

Most significantly, and in what can only be understood as an explicit tip-of-the-hat to Web 2.0 thinking, he declared that in addition to making government more transparent, it should become more participatory and collaborative.

In a post entitled Obama = Engagement, I cited Henry Jenkins

What Obama embodies is something different — a networked model of the relations amongst all of us who are involved in the process of transforming American society. The differences between Obama and Clinton have less to do with issues of policy but rather differences in process, in notions of governance, in cultural style, though the subtle differences in policy may reflect differences on these other levels, as when Clinton wants to require everyone to buy health insurance (top-down) and Obama seeks to make insurance accessible to everyone (bottom up). Those of us who are passionate about Obama (and yes, I’m an Obama boy) are responding to an alternative vision of the country — one based less on fragmentation around identity politics or partisan differences than one which values diversity of perspectives as opening up the possibility of refining our collective organization and enabling us to solve problems together which defeat us as individuals.

And this is what Barack had to say

“Public engagement enhances the government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information? Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector.”

Micah explores then the realities of realising what some might view as rather ambitious goals, both in terms of the promise made good or indeed – what happens when we all join in? That’s a lot of people – right? And on top of that what happens when we don’t agree?

The more difficult issue for advocates of opening up a process of ‘co-creating’ government is what might happen when newly empowered citizens inevitably collide with entrenched interests.

Good question?

But the evolving history of the social web, says Michah offers one encouraging hint. From Wikipedia to Craigslist to Amazon to Google, the web keeps rewarding those actors who empower ordinary users, eliminate wasteful middlemen, share information openly, and shift power from the centre to the edges. And why is that? well lets rewind a little bit.

Demokratia
– is a feminine noun, with strong feminine connotations. John Keane remarks that it takes some imagination to comprehend a world that was itself surrounded by a family of corresponding nouns that are grammatically feminine. Think about it Keane says, “imagine how our perceptions and feelings for such democratic institutions as press freedom, and periodic elections might be altered if, we presupposed that they embody life-giving ‘feminine qualities’”.

We all gratuitously point to Athena as the birthplace of Democracy. Yet in fact John Keane in his recent book The Life and Death of Democracy shows us it was the Phoenicians who understood the importance of democracy – why? Because the Phoenicians were a seafaring culture and they had learnt through hard won practical experience that it is only through the cooperation of people collaboratively working together to; build boats, sail them, sail through raging storms in them, fight in them, and trade via them.That they understood that Democracy by assembly was the best model to allow us all to get along.

It was Cleisthenes from Athena however, who had the epiphany that Democracy by assembly must include people from all walks of life (much to the disgust of some of ruling elite, who believed that the great unwashed had no right to govern, something that in fact is still practised today) – and the Agora – the open space in the middle of Athens where the Demos performed their daily Democratic duties was designed and conceived that all people were equal. Indeed Keane says the Agora was their Viagra. In extensive detail Keane takes us through how Athenians managed their Democracy via the agora. Keane mentions a word aidós= meaningful well-being and mutual respect. As I immersed myself through this fascinating story I reflected on our recent past – the banking crisis, the political furore over MP’s misuse of the expenses system, and the political tug-of-war over whether the British inquiry into the Iraq War in should be conducted in front of – in the public realm – or behind – opaque closed doors.

Three things occurred to me. [1] That you cannot run successful and thriving Democracies on the cheap [2] That Twitter in some respects is representative of the Agora of Athens – an open public space where people are engaging with each other. And Barack Obama’s rise to the Presidency and his ongoing Town Hall engagement project echoes this and [3] That we face a stark choice – either we all become political agents – who demand and exercise our political responsibility. Because if we don’t – we give up the right to our freedoms and we pass them to those that would want to rule us in less Democratic ways, the BNP for example in Britain spring to mind. Remember you don’t leave nothing in a vacuum.

Also it seems to me that we need to rescale the management society to a human level, devolving beauracracy and governance where Democracy is practised by us, where we are all individually and collectively responsible to each other. You might say well, we do that already – but I think we are so far removed from this practise that we have walked away from what we see is our metaphorical Agora, the House of Commons and quietly seethe with anger about our disenfranchisement.

Reboot is a event happening next Monday [6th July @ the Savoy Place] exploring what and how Britain in the networked society could be and should be like. You should come along!

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