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DGII/Inf(2014)3 World Forum for Democracy, 27-29 November 2013 Connecting institutions and citizens in the digital age Final report Document prepared by the Council of Europe Secretariat 2 CONTENTS I. Executive Summary ...................................................................................................... 4 II. Background study ........................................................................................................ 7 III. Forum presentations and discussions ..................................................................... 19 Opening session – 27 November 2013 ............................................................ 19 Debate on citizen participation in the digital age: trends and prospects 27 November 2013 ........................................................................................... 20 Plenary debate “Democracy in Motion” – 28 November 2013 .......................... 22 LABS ................................................................................................................ 23 Closing debate 29 November 2013 .................................................................. 62 Closing address by Thorbjørn Jagland - Secretary General of the Council of Europe ............................................................................................................. 64 IV. Forum conclusions ..................................................................................................... 67 Appendices ........................................................................................................................... 70 3 “Where knowledge is open there are systemic changes. All we need is willingness to innovate and allocating the time and staff to adoption” Dr. Vanessa Liston, Co-founder of CiviQ “Democracy of the future is not a question of majority” Mr Stefan SCHENNACH, Member of Parliament, Austria, Member of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe “Information is the currency of democracy” (participant from the audience) “The internet is not a silver bullet, it is a hornet sting which is supposed to nail any dictatorship in the world” Mr Mikhail FEDOTOV, Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the Council of the President of the Russian Federation on Development of Civil Society and Human Rights “We live under a constitution from the Guttenberg age, but it is actually the Zuckerberg age out there” Mr Mikhail FEDOTOV, Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the Council of the President of the Russian Federation on Development of Civil Society and Human Rights “Education is the key to democracy” Ms Irina YASINA, Journalist and Civil Society Activist “Access to the internet should become a human right” Mr Adam NYMAN, Director of Debating Europe “On Facebook, civic space taking place in private gardens” Ms Lois Beckett, Reporter ProPublica. Formal democracy does not always correlate with substantive democracy. Decisions that affect citizens are not taken at the national level anymore, and governments are not able to correspond to popular demand. There is a need to establish a link between global institutions and citizens.” Ms Mary KALDOR, Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics “Citizens communicate with elected officials with 21st century means. However, the governments use 20th century tools to listen to the citizens and only 19th century methods for governing.” Ms Lois Beckett, Reporter ProPublica. Globalisation and the impact of corporations give politicians less influence. Therefore, there is the need for a global democracy which goes hand in hand with globalisation. Mr Robert Bjaransson, Co-founder of Citizen Foundation Iceland. 4 I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Global trends point to a worldwide decline in the level of trust in democratic systems. Voter turnout rates and party membership are falling across the world. What we are witnessing is not only political apathy but a sense of betrayal felt by ordinary citizens towards their leaders. The World Forum for Democracy reviewed the potential of Internet-based democracy applications to restore citizens’ trust by making government more open and transparent and to increase motivation for political participation by shifting power from structures and organisations (parties, NGOs, trade unions, traditional media) to individuals and ad-hoc groups. The e-democracy applications and initiatives discussed at the Forum are in an early, experimental stage of development but seem able to revitalise democracy on certain conditions. These include the emergence of a new generation of political parties whose leaders and representatives are accountable to members on an ongoing basis, and the widespread use by parties of online tools to brining elected representatives in an on-going and direct contact with citizens. Other promising developments are collaborative platforms involving citizens in law- and policy-making to enhance problem-solving and pooling of expertise and crowdsourcing applications which increase the transparency of political processes and decisions (election violation alert systems, whistleblowing, big data applications). The Internet makes it possible for ordinary citizens, especially the young, to voice their concerns and express their vision for society through videos and other content sharing on social media. It also enables individuals and small organisations to mobilise support and resources for various causes (e-petitions, crowd-funding) and makes activism safer in authoritarian regimes (safety of activists enhanced by digital alert applications). The interactive nature of the Internet stimulates citizen-driven solution journalism to promote and harness new ideas and solutions emerging outside institutional channels and enables deliberation on a large scale and the emergence of shared positions on complex issues through the use of algorithms. While the balance of power still remains within elected institutions, their functioning is to an ever greater extent subject to scrutiny, influence and input from citizens empowered through e-participation tools. However, technological developments in the field of democracy raise a number of concerns: Liquid democracy needs to be framed by a common understanding of democracy in general, for example about which subjects should be decided by public referendums and which areas should be reserved to representative institutions and processes. While e-petition platforms have enabled citizens to influence government or local decision- making, the movement has also given rise to charges of slacktavism, an easy, feel-good civic engagement without real commitment; private e-petition platforms also raise concerns about the utilisation of users’ data. The increased the effectiveness of e-petitions system requires a formal response from the public authority or to develop public e-petitions systems. The engagement of elected representatives with citizens is motivated by elections and rarely lasts throughout the political cycle, this failing to restore the eroded trust in elected 5 institutions. Therefore, institutional back-up for e-participation initiatives is a key factor for success. It is crucial and probably one of the biggest challenges to convince the civil servants and political leadership to interact more actively with the citizens in order to improve the quality of the work of the authorities; E-democracy applications operating globally (eg. e-petitions, crowd-sourcing) are often proprietary with rules about authentication, content restrictions, data protection and privacy being determined by a legal regime chosen by the owner, making oversight and redress across borders difficult. E-participation tools with weak authentication lack democratic legitimacy but strong authentication raises fears about control, freedom of expression, and surveillance. De-territorialisation of internet-based applications and social media undermines the connection between demos and power – global media shape a global public opinion; citizens and corporations carry out transactions globally while power remains territorially limited while global institutions have little democratic legitimacy. E-consultation and e-deliberation initiatives are often disconnected from decision-making, leaving citizens disillusioned and frustrated; Online political debate is skewed by hate speech and semantic polling techniques. Technological solutions exclude those with no access to internet or mobile devices; e-democracy and participatory tools (eg. participatory budgeting) operate on a small scale and concern marginal decisions – internet has not yet challenged old elites at the centre of power; Online citizens journalism raises issues with accountability, verification, transparency, objectivity and credibility. It leads to a greater information democracy but requires new guarantees for protecting citizen-journalists. The development of new e-democracy prototypes and initiatives, especially by local authorities, should be encouraged, and successful ones should be supported in order to each the critical mass necessary for social change. Political parties will not cease to exist because of liquid democracy; rather they will have to reinvent themselves. They need to become more flexible, less hierarchical and more open to input on policy proposals from members and from society at large. If traditional forms of democracy and participatory democracy
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