Experimenting Liquidfeedback for Online Deliberation in Civic Contexts
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Romanian Political Science Review Vol. XXI, No. 1 2021
Romanian Political Science Review vol. XXI, no. 1 2021 The end of the Cold War, and the extinction of communism both as an ideology and a practice of government, not only have made possible an unparalleled experiment in building a democratic order in Central and Eastern Europe, but have opened up a most extraordinary intellectual opportunity: to understand, compare and eventually appraise what had previously been neither understandable nor comparable. Studia Politica. Romanian Political Science Review was established in the realization that the problems and concerns of both new and old democracies are beginning to converge. The journal fosters the work of the first generations of Romanian political scientists permeated by a sense of critical engagement with European and American intellectual and political traditions that inspired and explained the modern notions of democracy, pluralism, political liberty, individual freedom, and civil rights. Believing that ideas do matter, the Editors share a common commitment as intellectuals and scholars to try to shed light on the major political problems facing Romania, a country that has recently undergone unprecedented political and social changes. They think of Studia Politica. Romanian Political Science Review as a challenge and a mandate to be involved in scholarly issues of fundamental importance, related not only to the democratization of Romanian polity and politics, to the “great transformation” that is taking place in Central and Eastern Europe, but also to the make-over of the assumptions and prospects of their discipline. They hope to be joined in by those scholars in other countries who feel that the demise of communism calls for a new political science able to reassess the very foundations of democratic ideals and procedures. -
Blogger Voice of Young People
TALKING LANGUAGES In Sleepyville, Italy, there is a political conversation going on. The Slovenian minority of the city proposed, that lessons of Slovenian language should be obligatory for all secondary schools in the city. Many parties were against this proposal, since only 20% of the population are Slovenians. Parties proposed many different solutions. For example Italian Pirate party was putting its hopes for the future and proposing that everyone should learn Esperanto. They also suggested that we should form a council of children. The Liberal Economical party wanted us to think about the young people, whom council decision will most clearly affect. Feminist party was mainly happy to see so many female faces in the council and especially the gender of the mayor made them really happy. Italian Nationalists party thought, that if Italian kids would learn Slovenian, it would be easier for criminal Slovenian kids to sell them drugs. Meanwhile, the Workers party was again preparing for the revolution. During their speech, the mayor felt a bit insecure and the security was called. Twice the party members were told to back up from the mayor’s table. This seemed to confuse her so much, that she dozed off in some points of the conversation. Someone also told the Workers party members to smoke less weed. During the coffee brake an interesting suspicion was raised. The member of the APP, Oldrich Justa had been seen talking to the mayor before the council meeting. Some suggested corruption, but when asked about personal relationship between Justa and the mayor, the smile on his face couldn't have been wider. -
The Fluid Mechanics of Liquid Democracy
The Fluid Mechanics of Liquid Democracy Paul Gölz Anson Kahng Simon Mackenzie Ariel D. Procaccia Abstract Liquid democracy is the principle of making collective decisions by letting agents transitively delegate their votes. Despite its significant appeal, it has become apparent that a weakness of liquid democracy is that a small subset of agents may gain massive influence. To address this, we propose to change the current practice by allowing agents to specify multiple delegation options instead of just one. Much like in nature, where — fluid mechanics teaches us — liquid maintains an equal level in connected vessels, so do we seek to control the flow of votes in a way that balances influence as much as possible. Specifically, we analyze the problem of choosing delegations to approximately minimize the maximum number of votes entrusted to any agent, by drawing connections to the literature on confluent flow. We also introduce a random graph model for liquid democracy, and use it to demonstrate the benefits of our approach both theoretically and empirically. 1 Introduction Liquid democracy is a potentially disruptive approach to democratic decision making. As in direct democracy, agents can vote on every issue by themselves. Alternatively, however, agents may delegate their vote, i.e., entrust it to any other agent who then votes on their behalf. Delegations are transitive; for example, if agents 2 and 3 delegate their votes to 1, and agent 4 delegates her vote to 3, then agent 1 would vote with the weight of all four agents, including herself. Just like representative democracy, this system allows for separation of labor, but provides for stronger accountability: Each delegator is connected to her transitive delegate by a path of personal trust relationships, and each delegator on this path can withdraw her delegation at any time if she disagrees with her delegate’s choices. -
Interactive Democracy Blue Sky Ideas Track
Session 29: Blue Sky AAMAS 2018, July 10-15, 2018, Stockholm, Sweden Interactive Democracy Blue Sky Ideas Track Markus Brill TU Berlin Berlin, Germany [email protected] ABSTRACT approached this question by developing an app, DemocracyOS [48], Interactive Democracy is an umbrella term that encompasses a va- that allows users to propose, debate, and vote on issues. Democ- riety of approaches to make collective decision making processes racyOS is only one example of a quickly growing number of ap- more engaging and responsive. A common goal of these approaches proaches that aim to reconcile established democratic processes is to utilize modern information technology—in particular, the with the desire of citizens to participate in political decision mak- 1 Internet—in order to enable more interactive decision making pro- ing. Another example is the software LiquidFeedback [6], which is 2 cesses. An integral part of many interactive democracy proposals developed by the Association for Interactive Democracy. Currently, are online decision platforms that provide much more flexibility these tools are mainly used for decision making within progressive and interaction possibilities than traditional democratic systems. political parties [9, p. 162] or in the context of community engage- This is achieved by embracing the novel paradigm of delegative ment platforms such as WeGovNow [10]. A common goal of these voting, often referred to as liquid democracy, which aims to recon- approaches, often summarized under the umbrella term Interac- 3 cile the idealistic appeal of direct democracy with the practicality tive Democracy (henceforth ID), is to utilize modern information of representative democracy. The successful design of interactive technology—in particular, the Internet—in order to enable more democracy systems presents a multidisciplinary research challenge; interactive decision making processes. -
Review of the EU Copyright Framework
Review of the EU copyright framework European Implementation Assessment Review of the EU copyright framework: The implementation, application and effects of the "InfoSoc" Directive (2001/29/EC) and of its related instruments European Implementation Assessment Study In October 2014, the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) requested from the European Parliament Research Service (EPRS) an Ex Post Impact Assessment on Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (InfoSoc). This EPRS publication was originally commissioned in the context of JURI's own- initiative implementation report, which was adopted in Plenary in July 2015, Rapporteur Julia Reda MEP. However, it is also relevant to the work of JURI Committees' Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights and Copyright (CWG), chaired by Jean Marie Cavada MEP. Furthermore, this request was made in the wider context of the Commission's review of the EU legislative framework on copyright, and the ensuing legislative proposals, which have been a long time in the planning and which are now expected for the 4th quarter of 2015. The objective of these proposals is to modernise the EU copyright framework, and in particular the InfoSoc Directive, in light of the digital transformation. Accordingly, in response to the JURI request, the Ex-Post Impact Assessment Unit of the European Parliament Research Service decided to produce a "European Implementation Assessment on the review of the EU copyright framework". Implementation reports of EP committees are now routinely accompanied by European Implementation Assessments, drawn up by the Ex-Post Impact Assessment Unit of the Directorate for Impact Assessment and European Added Value, within the European Parliament's Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services. -
The Fluid Mechanics of Liquid Democracy
The Fluid Mechanics of Liquid Democracy Paul Gölz Anson Kahng Simon Mackenzie Ariel D. Procaccia Abstract Liquid democracy is the principle of making collective decisions by letting agents transitively delegate their votes. Despite its significant appeal, it has become apparent that a weakness of liquid democracy is that a small subset of agents may gain massive influence. To address this, we propose to change the current practice by allowing agents to specify multiple delegation options instead of just one. Much like in nature, where — fluid mechanics teaches us — liquid maintains an equal level in connected vessels, so do we seek to control the flow of votes in a way that balances influence as much as possible. Specifically, we analyze the problem of choosing delegations to approximately minimize the maximum number of votes entrusted to any agent, by drawing connections to the literature on confluent flow. We also introduce a random graph model for liquid democracy, and use it to demonstrate the benefits of our approach both theoretically and empirically. 1 Introduction Liquid democracy is a potentially disruptive approach to democratic decision making. As in direct democracy, agents can vote on every issue by themselves. Alternatively, however, agents may delegate their vote, i.e., entrust it to any other agent who then votes on their behalf. Delegations are transitive; for example, if agents 2 and 3 delegate their votes to 1, and agent 4 delegates her vote to 3, then agent 1 would vote with the weight of all four agents, including herself. Just like representative democracy, this system allows for separation of labor, but provides for stronger accountability: Each delegator is connected to her transitive delegate by a path of personal trust relationships, and each delegator on this path can withdraw her delegation at any time if she disagrees with her delegate’s choices. -
Liquidfeedback in Large-Scale Civic Contexts: Framing Multiple Styles of Online Participation
Journal of LiquidFeedback in Large- scale Civic Contexts: Framing Social Multiple Styles of Online Media for Participation Giulia Bertone, Fiorella De Cindio, Organizations Stefano Stortone Volume 2, Number 1 Published by the MITRE Corporation Journal of Social Media for Organizations ____________________________________________________________________________________________ LiquidFeedback in Large-scale Civic Contexts: Framing Multiple Styles of Online Participation Giulia Bertone, [email protected] Fiorella De Cindio, [email protected] Stefano Stortone, [email protected] ABSTRACT Growing distrust in government is accompanied by new opportunities for civic involvement through online technological platforms. LiquidFeedback is one of the most interesting, as it embeds innovative features to support online deliberative processes. Designed as an intranet tool for closed, homogeneous groups, the software has also been used in large civic contexts involving citizens at large. This paper presents and analyses two large-scale deliberation projects where thousands of Italian citizens used the LiquidFeedback platform. The analysis aims to understand how well this software serves as a platform for people to gather ideas, draft proposals collaboratively, and then rate them by degree of consensus. We consider the political context for these field cases and their socio-technical design choices, look at how LiquidFeedback enables citizen participation, discuss politicians’ accountability in terms of online activity, and report participants’ assessment of the two projects. Our analysis adapts existing frameworks that match different participation styles to profiles of activity in online communities. KEYWORDS LiquidFeedback, large-scale ideation and deliberation, online deliberation, democracy, civic participation. INTRODUCTION Manuel Castells, the well-known sociologist and author of The Rise of the Network Society (Castells, 1996), recently studied protest movements worldwide that arose in the wake of dramatic economic crisis. -
Digimag46.Pdf
DIGICULT Digital Art, Design & Culture Founder & Editor-in-chief: Marco Mancuso Advisory Board: Marco Mancuso, Lucrezia Cippitelli, Claudia D'Alonzo Publisher: Associazione Culturale Digicult Largo Murani 4, 20133 Milan (Italy) http://www.digicult.it Editorial Press registered at Milan Court, number N°240 of 10/04/06. ISSN Code: 2037-2256 Licenses: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs - Creative Commons 2.5 Italy (CC BY- NC-ND 2.5) Printed and distributed by Lulu.com E-publishing development: Loretta Borrelli Cover design: Eva Scaini Digicult is part of the The Leonardo Organizational Member Program TABLE OF CONTENTS Marco Mancuso Persepolis 2.0: Creative Support To Iran .................................................................. 3 Mark Hancock Vlogging, Networked Cinematic Poetics ................................................................. 9 Marco Mancuso Pirates At The Parliament: The Big Dream?! .......................................................... 14 Davide Anni A New Center For Art and Technologies ............................................................... 24 Loretta Borrelli Hackmeeting 2009: Meeting With The Debian Community .............................. 27 Philippa Barr Alessandro De Gloria, From Child’s Play To Serious Games ............................... 33 Alessio Galbiati Rip: A Remix Manifesto. A Specter Wanders In The Net .................................... 39 Silvia Casini The Ethics Of Gaze: Raymond Depardon and William Kentridge ...................... 43 Giulia Baldi Soundclusters: -
A Look at the New European Parliament Page 1 INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMITTEE (INTA)
THE NEW EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT KEY COMMITTEE COMPOSITION 31 JULY 2019 INTRODUCTION After several marathon sessions, the European Council agreed on the line-up for the EU “top jobs” on 2 July 2019. The deal, which notably saw German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU, EPP) surprisingly designated as the next European Commission (EC) President, meant that the European Parliament (EP) could proceed with the election of its own leadership on 3 July. The EPP and Renew Europe (formerly ALDE) groups, in line with the agreement, did not present candidates for the EP President. As such, the vote pitted the S&D’s David-Maria Sassoli (IT) against two former Spitzenkandidaten – Ska Keller (DE) of the Greens and Jan Zahradil (CZ) of the ACRE/ECR, alongside placeholder candidate Sira Rego (ES) of GUE. Sassoli was elected President for the first half of the 2019 – 2024 mandate, while the EPP (presumably EPP Spitzenkandidat Manfred Weber) would take the reins from January 2022. The vote was largely seen as a formality and a demonstration of the three largest Groups’ capacity to govern. However, Zahradil received almost 100 votes (more than the total votes of the ECR group), and Keller received almost twice as many votes as there are Greens/EFA MEPs. This forced a second round in which Sassoli was narrowly elected with just 11 more than the necessary simple majority. Close to 12% of MEPs did not cast a ballot. MEPs also elected 14 Vice-Presidents (VPs): Mairead McGuinness (EPP, IE), Pedro Silva Pereira (S&D, PT), Rainer Wieland (EPP, DE), Katarina Barley (S&D, DE), Othmar Karas (EPP, AT), Ewa Kopacz (EPP, PL), Klara Dobrev (S&D, HU), Dita Charanzová (RE, CZ), Nicola Beer (RE, DE), Lívia Járóka (EPP, HU) and Heidi Hautala (Greens/EFA, FI) were elected in the first ballot, while Marcel Kolaja (Greens/EFA, CZ), Dimitrios Papadimoulis (GUE/NGL, EL) and Fabio Massimo Castaldo (NI, IT) needed the second round. -
Review of European and National Election Results Update: September 2019
REVIEW OF EUROPEAN AND NATIONAL ELECTION RESULTS UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 2019 A Public Opinion Monitoring Publication REVIEW OF EUROPEAN AND NATIONAL ELECTION RESULTS UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 2019 Directorate-General for Communication Public Opinion Monitoring Unit May 2019 - PE 640.149 IMPRESSUM AUTHORS Philipp SCHULMEISTER, Head of Unit (Editor) Alice CHIESA, Marc FRIEDLI, Dimitra TSOULOU MALAKOUDI, Matthias BÜTTNER Special thanks to EP Liaison Offices and Members’ Administration Unit PRODUCTION Katarzyna ONISZK Manuscript completed in September 2019 Brussels, © European Union, 2019 Cover photo: © Andrey Kuzmin, Shutterstock.com ABOUT THE PUBLISHER This paper has been drawn up by the Public Opinion Monitoring Unit within the Directorate–General for Communication (DG COMM) of the European Parliament. To contact the Public Opinion Monitoring Unit please write to: [email protected] LINGUISTIC VERSION Original: EN DISCLAIMER This document is prepared for, and primarily addressed to, the Members and staff of the European Parliament to assist them in their parliamentary work. The content of the document is the sole responsibility of its author(s) and any opinions expressed herein should not be taken to represent an official position of the Parliament. TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIAL 1 1. COMPOSITION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 5 DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS OVERVIEW 1979 - 2019 6 COMPOSITION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT LAST UPDATE (31/07/2019) 7 CONSTITUTIVE SESSION (02/07/2019) AND OUTGOING EP SINCE 1979 8 PROPORTION OF WOMEN AND MEN PROPORTION - LAST UPDATE 02/07/2019 28 PROPORTIONS IN POLITICAL GROUPS - LAST UPDATE 02/07/2019 29 PROPORTION OF WOMEN IN POLITICAL GROUPS - SINCE 1979 30 2. NUMBER OF NATIONAL PARTIES IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT CONSTITUTIVE SESSION 31 3. -
(1) Email from Julia REDA to the Cabinet of the Commisioner Maryia Gabriel (Copyright Academic Studies), 08/08/2017, (Ref. Ares(
Ref. Ares(2017)5138443 - 20/10/2017 ANNEX 1 (1) Email from Julia REDA to the Cabinet of the Commisioner Maryia Gabriel (copyright academic studies), 08/08/2017, (Ref. Ares(2017) 3952025) (3) Email from Julia REDA to the Commisioner Maryia Gabriel, 20/08/2017 (Ref. Ares(2017) 4911834) with attachment: (a) Better regulation for copyright - Collected submissions by the academics (Pdf Format) available at https://juliareda.eu/events/better-regulation-for-copyright/ 1 Doc.1 Ref. Ares(2017)3952025 - 08/08/2017 From: REDA Julia <[email protected]> Sent: 08 August 2017 10:13 To: CAB GABRIEL CONTACT Cc: REDA Julia (EP) Subject: Copyright- academic studies overview Dear Commissioner Gabriel, dear Team, following your discussion with Ms Reda, I'm sending you the academic studies evaluating different parts of the European Copyright reform proposal. Kind regards, Eszter Bakó *General - EU copyright reform An academic perspective on the copyright reform Stalla-Bourdillon, Sophie, Rosati, Eleonora, Turk, Karmen, Angelopoulos, Christina, Kuczerawy, Aleksandra, Peguera, Miquel and Husovec, Martin http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0267364916302394/1-s2.0-S0267364916302394-main.pdf?_tid=77e880e0-7b52- 11e7-b15e-00000aab0f26&acdnat=1502098158_4c1e2fb3827d46003b80f52612adeafc *article 11 **A publisher’s intellectual property rightImplications for freedom of expression, authors and open content policies Prof. dr. Mireille M.M. van Eechoud, Institute for Information Law, Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam http://www.openforumeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/OFE-Academic-Paper-Implications-of- -
Does the Five Star Movement Deviate from Its 'Democratic Formula'?
Innovative Politics: Does The Five Star Movement Deviate from its ‘Democratic Formula’? Anna Grazia Napoletano S4609301 16 November 2017 Comparative Politics Master thesis Supervisor: Dr. Maurits J. Meijers Nijmegen School of Management Radboud University Nijmegen Word count. 33, 759 Table of Contents 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………. 3 1.1 Innovative politics: from a minimalist concept of democracy to a complex one……….. 8 1.2 Innovative politics: Pirate Party, Geenpeil and the Five Star Movement……………….. 12 2.The Five Star Movement: History and organization……………………………………... 15 2.1 Italian political context:……………………………………………………………… 15 2.2 From a website to a Movement: The Five Star Movement’s embryo stage………….. 18 2.2.1 Anti-media………………………………………………………………………….. 19 2.2.2 Meetup……………………………………………………………………………… 21 2.3 From a Movement to a party…………………………………………………………. 24 2.3.1 Current structure……………………………………………………………………… 27 2.3.2 The Five Star Movement manifesto and its system of checks and balances…………. 28 2.3.3 Staff…………………………………………………………………………………… 30 2.3.4 Financing……………………………………………………………………………… 30 3. Divergence from the Five Star Movement’s Democratic Formula………………………. 31 3.1 The FiveStar Movement democratic formula: direct-participatory, transparent and deliberative………………………………………………………………….. 31 3.2 Direct and Participatory Democracy……………………………………………………. 32 3.3 Transparent Democracy…………………………………………………………………. 35 3.4 Deliberative Democracy………………………………………………………………… 35 3.5 Deviations from the Five Star Movement’s democratic formula……………………….. 36 3.6 Expectations regarding the Five Star Movement’s divergence from its “democratic formula”……………………………………………………………………………………… 38 3.6.1 The massive organization of internal democracy and “the Iron Law of Oligarchy”….… 38 3.6.2.The Lack of ideology: Delegation Vs. Representation and Taggart’s protest politics….. 41 4. Methodology……………………………………………………………………………… 46 4.1 Exploring the world of the Five Star Movement………………………………………….