Draft:E-Participative Democracy

Abstract

The recent developments in information technologies have reshaped how governments and citizens interact with each other. One major aspect of this transformation is the capability of making the fulfillment of the right to vote as wide, fast and reliable as necessary for a democracy to thrive and respond to its citizens issues. However, as noted by this article, this by itself is very susceptible to its implementation as possible unintended consequences could result in unexpected changes that prevent the aims to be accomplished.

Going through The Perfect Trustful Society utopia from the development of the statistics, reviewing the advent of the development of the technologies that made E-Participative Democracy viable, all the way to the most recent practical implementations should present sufficiently the nature of this utopia. A relationship with the Information Society is presented to bridge some ideas and concepts with the utopia. Finally, a major and methodical review of some possible issues is presented to further supplement the E-Participative Democracy exposition.

Historical Background

The Playground of Information and Statistics

Since the Treaty of Westphalia and with the birth of modern Nation-States, the necessity of assuring an accurate flow of information to support decision making by the elites was made evident. With these, the first census were carried off in the Roman Germanic Empire and, with there, the development of the theory of statistics as the use of knowledge as matter of national security . On the other hand, the processing of this information was first theorized by Leibniz through algorithms describing processes, resulting in the conception of computers capable of execution for practical ends. For this, he supposed necessary the distillation of the language. These accounted for the flux of information, its processing and incident in the decision making proper of the future democracies.

The Telegraph

As result of the development of some electrical systems, the electrical telegraph came into existence by 1837 by the English inventors Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Sir Charles Wheatstone . Thus, long-range, fast and reliable communication allowed people all over a large country to receive news on certain and relevant issues, form opinions, and communicate them in a cadence fast-enough to influence decision making in the centers of power. This addressed the main objections of Rousseau about the viability of democracies in large territories with disperse people . However, the idea in reality faced numerous challenges. One of them would be the restriction of the codes and "languages of signs" for civilian use by the government .

Mass-communication era

The advent of mass communications brought the develop and deployment of some methods to address the masses. These included printed media (magazines, books, journals) and This was accompanied by the first intensive use of propaganda during WWI by the U.S. to rally support for the mobilization in a context of adversity of the public opinion. For this end, the Committee on Public Information (CPI) was created, making it the first entity of its kind to exert an influence on mass opinion. It must be highlighted that the CPI sent 75,000 men to give "4 minute speeches", where the repeating of symbolic points and key phrases appealing only for emotions rather than rational thoughts .

Commercially, this and the lessons learned during the war would be reflected in the use of marketing of diverse products in an increasingly competitive market across the 1920's . A major addition would be the identification of people with the use of brands and logos as part of the marketing process, and the importance of "repetition, repetition, repetition" as the pivot for convincing people.

After the Second World War, the development of computers brought the capability to, besides transmitting information, process and operate it with algorithms. Cybernetics sciences played with the idea of making computers capable of being mediators and take decisions thanks to their large information processing capability and apparent objectivity. However, during the introduction of TV and personal computers, a new conception of active society came to be. Major decisions would be shaped by the coordination of local actions to "conquest the state central apparatus". The organization of debates, public hearings, and local networks brought the notion of teledemocracy . Finally, the advent of the internet in the 90's allowed for an initial decentralization, massive and friendly access of the network that would open the discussion and its reach regardless of physical boundaries, even between countries .

Implementation in Democratic Life, and the New Dynamics

The further development of the technologies of communication and computation brought the inclusion of these in auxiliary roles in democratic institutions. Regarding the participative processes, it came most notably as the reporting of issues, transmission of debates between different points of view, and the reporting of electoral results. However, with the increased, some incidents illustrated the ability to tamper a democracy and disregarded the argument that real-time information could prevent these situations. For example, during the presidential 1988 election of Mexico, the electronic real-time vote count system suffered a general breakdown. The votes could not be counted properly during the night, and by sunrise, the tendencies were reversed in favor of the official party. This is widely regarded as a major fraud and the basis of distrust up to this day for electronic means of voting in Mexico . However, major democratic developments were also brought to sore by the advent of the internet. The Tunisian and Egyptian massive demonstrations of the 2010's were to be thanks to the exposure of government abuse to the public through social media. This showed the existence and triggered the study of the digital square, and its capability to mobilize the population and easing the exchange of information in spaces that, unlike the traditional means hindered by their authoritarian governments, allowed for the installation of quasi-democratic environments and sentiments.

More recently, the advent of social media has exacerbated the post-truth phenomena in the political context, as demonstrated by the crescent nationalism sentiments and identity politics: appeal to emotion and identity, not logic nor strategy. Nowadays few platforms, such as Twitter/X or Facebook, function as nodes of control where the algorithm and mediation can influence greatly the popular opinion, just as former major news broadcasting corporations used to. However, the appearance of certain self-control behaviors, neutral-territoriality, and public information registry and consultancy have nourished new ways of interaction within a democracy . As argued by Paul Korvela, the internet has allowed for easier fact-checking of politicians and major entities of power (e.g. companies, state officials, syndicates), and thus allowing for major accountability. This englobes an "Anti-Orwellian citizen surveillance" .

Finally, major advancements have been made on the E-Governing side. Electronic voting of participatory budgets, consultations that raise the legitimacy of government decisions, electronic petitions processes have all showed effective ways of penetration of technologies in the democratic life. These have had a focus on a local level by increasing the transparency, the level of public services, the speed of responsiveness and cooperation between agencies.

Utopia regarding the Information Society

The reach of the Security vs Trust of the Information Society can be broken down in some disputes, such as:

1. The degree on which the people, for using the E-Participative mechanisms, should trust a third party for hosting, operating, influencing, etc. these systems.
2. The amount of commodities and corners cut to ensure that their process of informing, communicating and deciding is not tampered maliciously by other actors.

The utopia, by itself, can be regarded as that society which trusts completely on a third party to manage their information, be it to transmit it and/or process it to and from themselves without any tampering or censorship for their benefit. These concepts have their roots in the realizations of Francis Bacon in the use of knowledge as matter of national security, reflected in the utopia of Bensalem Island of New Atlantis, where explorers are dispatched all over the world to gather the best knowledge, so that they return to the island and improve the society. Hence, once more, the trust is deposited in a third party to organize the information to benefit everyone. O'Neil argues that the internet, by its nature, requires the active decision by the users to give faith while managing the e-goverment, e-commercial or other activites on it. This depends on a wide range of actors, including the users themselves, institutions, and the third parties which receive and/or manage the data and processes.

However, this trust also reaches the systems themselves. During the mandate of President Salvador de Allende in Chile, a major nationalization process exposed the necessity of supervising the increasing public sector to placate the pending scarcity crisis, result of the disorderly and abrupt transfer of private companies to the government. With this in mind, the development of a cybernetic system would take place to transmit data in real time to major "Cybersyn Operations Rooms" to support decision-making in the transition and operation to a socialist economy .

Considering these utopic scenarios, the implementation of the E-Participative democracy may require some compromises. This entails the constant negotiation between the allowance, support and offering of freedom and rights on the exercise of rights, or securing the process and end results of it. This negotiation by itself, as argued by O'Neil, may not be based on the knowledge of the people but the conformity of the system with a certain set of beliefs. This may produce, at the implementation level, numerous discrepancies between nations.

On the other hand, it should be noted that most of the benefits of these technologies would only focus on the plebescite democracy, as they enhance the equal reach and access to the mass of citizen's opinions exchange, debate as well as their voting.

Dystopical Aspects

Democracy?

As argued by Ess, the most likely benefited aspect of the E-Participative Democracy is the plebescite aspect. Viewed as the direct voting of issues by as many citizens as possible, it stresses on the individual autonomy within the democratic way of life. However, this aspect may derive on the tiranny of the majority as it fails to consider the rights of the minorities, even threatening individual rights as plebiscites are often used by authoritarian systems to legitimize decisions and their source of power.

With this in mind, the enhancements brought by the electronic mediums are always subject to the belief system of the parties involved (i. e. culture), proving that a democracy may not be always the end result of E-Participation. This is widely reviewed in the Frankfurt School as the relativism of the Enlightenment values that gave shape to democracy (i.e. worth of the individual, freedom).

Control choke-points on the communication architecture

As previously stated, the implementation of the participation mechanisms could undermine the desired results. For example, the first telegraph network built in France forced all communications to go through Paris, make them deciphered there before being able to be re-transmitted to its final destination. This architecture granted a major influence over large sections of the network for whoever controlled the Paris hub, allowing for tampering or censoring of messages. Similar buildup in the E-Participative mechanisms could be leveraged, anytime, by a non-benevolent actors, thus compromising the quality or even the nature of the democracy itself. As seen in recent decades, the companies that hold most of the public debate in the internet can easily be coerced by authoritarian governments or self-interest to manipulate information and sell mass-behavior data that ultimately hinders democratic life.

Facilitated Mass-Control

Related to the architecture implementation, a major player could take over the nodes allowing for the control of the mass opinion. In George Orwell's 1984, the "2-minute hate" is an episode of induced hysteria facilitated by the means of communication, showing that overall trust in the E-Participative Democracy may not be the problem, but the systems that must be created for it to exist could become problematic if exploited.

Sentimentalism

As already exposed, the appeal to emotions has largely overtaken marketing and it has already permeated on the current political landscape of many democracies. The absence of deliberation based on logical arguments may hamper the quality of democratic life and, in a worst case scenario, limit the effectiveness of decision making and formulation of long-term strategies necessary for the needs of the population.

Eclipse of the Individual Agency

As political life is further discharged into the cyberspace, the necessity of a collective action requires of either spontaneous grouping (for which a major concordance of beliefs, impressions and environment is more difficult to occur), or some traditional leadership that canalizes the public sentiment. This could mean the necessary adherence to a third party and suppose a dilution of personal or even local incidence on major issues, if not already the means of mass control.

Minorities Exclusion

Some countries account for reserved spaces in government for minorities, as a way to prevent the "tyranny of the majority". However, in large-scale basis the E-Participative Democracy could not consider this mechanism and effectively dilute the defense of the minorities' rights. Alternative implementations, as a swing to "pluralism" were the focus would be in the negotations between groups of power rather than the plebiscite approach, could also end in mere interest-based power dynamics rather than extensive deliberation and consensus and/or the community assistance that raise the qualities of the democracy.

Irrelevant Consultations

As an scapegoat, governments could differ attention to minor issues or those which do not influence effectively on the life of its citizens. Coupled with other methods, such as banning and surveillance, it would be a textbook example of what is exposed in the book 1984 as doublethink: votes are held, but decisions not made.

Technology Access Limitations and their Consequences

The rollout of the voting rights could include and enforce some requirements, such as internet connection and proficiency in countries where it is not widespread, a special set of social score to be cleared. This can limit the voter pool, and swing the decisions against those groups without consideration, effectively locking the democratic process to few people.

The Disruption of AI

In recent years, the development of AI has sparked a debate about the disruptions it could convey if it were to rise against its creators. A major consensus is the susceptibility of the cyberspace and electronic systems in general. In a democracy which depends of these systems to function, many listed problems could worsen if AI is to influence or even take over the democracy. Just as 1984, it could risk to become so ubiquitous to shape or take advantage of human reactions to behave as required. While the outcome highly depends on the extend of responsibilities delegated to AI, it is very likely that they involve the buildup of massive State capacities prone to hijack and abuses, or in some way degrading people's participation to mere respondents of stimuli or curated guidance . Whatever scenario considered, the quality of democracy is severely compromised as debate and deliberation are not made significantly anymore by the human citizens, effectively handing over the power to artificial citizens.