Building consensus online
From:
Miles Fidelman
Date:
2008 Feb 06 17:06 UTC
Short link
Simon Smith wrote:
> Miles Fidelman wrote:
>
>> Has anybody seen any approaches - online or NOT online - for building
consensus among groups of any size?
>>
>> There are many participatory techniques which are designed to do this, some
>> of which have already been mentioned by others things like consensus
>> conferences, citizens' juries, deliberative polling, citizens' panels and
>> charettes. One thing they have in common is that participation is controlled
>> participants are either selected randomly or they are supposed to be
>> representative of the entire interested public. That seems to be key in
>> terms of fairness and legitimacy.
>>
it also seems like these have another thing in common: operation within
some established framework that gives them legitimacy - e.g., a jury
operates within the context of the larger justice system -- some
official body is convening the jury, citizen panel, etc.
which is a bit different than building consensus among a group that does
not have an official charter of some sort
>> On that note, let's compare the processes described by Pedro, Michael and
>> Steven, in terms of who's involved at each stage (David was less specific
>> about this).
>>
>>
<snip>
>> Steven had:
>> Stage 1 *a few* experts draft alternative
>>
<snip>
>> Pedro described:
>> Stage 1 *one or two people* identify the issues, *cascading to others* via
>> a campaign-like process
>>
>>
<snip>
>> Michael had a more organic process of building from *individuals'* proposals
>> to a *wider consensus* modelled on political campaigning.
>>
>>
It seems to me that the initial question is: how does an issue get
raised, and how does that initial group get convened.
If we're talking an officially sanctioned process, as in convening
juries, this is easy: a recognized, legitimate authority raises the
issues (cases) and selects the juries/experts (or conducts polling, or
what have you) - and either mandates participation (e.g., jury duty) or
solicits and vets volunteers. If the authority acts in good faith, then
the results of the process get funneled into decisions and actions.
If we're talking a grass roots or other effort, then there seem to be
two different situations, each warranting different models, and for
which different tools might be appropriate:
A. Issues where some individual, small group, or organization raises the
issue; self-defines themself(ves) as experts, frames the discussion and
then goes public. In this situation, it seems like we're talking about
the "marketplace of ideas" - where competing ideas vie for attention
and validation/support from the broader public. Legitimacy comes from
a combination of the message, the folks associated with the message, and
ultimately how well it's presented to and received by the broader
public. The political campaign metaphor is a pretty good one -
particularly when viewed through the lens of ballot initiative
campaigns. Other models that seem to apply are: form an organization,
solicit membership, contributions, grant funding, etc. Turning an idea
into a commercial product or service is another way of bringing ideas to
the public (think about investment funds focused on social interest
investing, for example). There are probably some good lessons to be
learned here from the Dean campaign and MoveOn, not to mention open
source software efforts (Apache, and various Linux efforts are good
models for how large groups of people converge around projects and
actually get real work done, mostly mediated by software tools).
The more interesting, and challenging case - and the one I think we're
grappling with in this discussion - is:
B. Emergent issues, where nobody is driving the train, but lots of
people are starting to think about an issue - and maybe the case where
or lots of people are driving related trains, but with little or no
coordination. Global warming and changing energy use patterns comes to
mind as a good example. Here the question is: how can all this
amorphous activity be channeled toward some form of consensus, leading
to action - rather than remaining amorphous and possibly canceling out
by working at cross purposes. (Or maybe the question is: how do we move
forward rather than achieving gridlock).
There seem to be (at least) three answers, two of which are the ones
discussed above:
- a formal process and authority takes up the issue
- one or more groups take up the issue and compete in the marketplace of
ideas (and/or the marketplace), and hopefully the good ideas win out,
the bad ones die out (one can see a hybrid as well, where formal
authority creates a marketplace - e.g., the government increasing funds
for climate change grants)
> My main concern would be over how realistic it is to get those numbers
> involved in an intensive consensus-building exercise, particularly if they
> are to be recruited to represent the spectrum of social interests and
> demographic groups in the population. In reality we often have to rely on
> advocates for certain groups, especially deprived groups, such as the
> community organisations or service providers that work with them
The third possibility is creating some kind of process that forces
discussion, leading to consensus. And here's where the question of
tools linking large groups becomes particularly interesting. "Smart
mobs," rating systems (e.g., slashdot, digg), and other tools that
channel conversation toward convergence, and then into action.