Toward a theory of IT mediated politics
From:
Michael Allan
Date:
Jul 29 09:55 UTC
Short link
I've just come from discussions in a couple of other mailing lists
(URLs at bottom). We've discovered what appears to be a "missing
link" in the connection between IT and politics. See if you agree.
Consider this scenario:
(S). The young people in a certain neighbourhood wish to make
improvements to their local playground or park. They come up with a
plan and begin to promote it locally. Some of them are in
disagreement and propose alternative plans. They all have access to
a new kind of electoral medium. They use the medium to highlight
their differences and to resolve them one by one. Eventually they
reach a general agreement on a consensus plan. The City sends a
safety inspector to the site, and trucks in some sand. With a
little help, the young people complete the improvements to the park.
The technology to enable this is not the issue. The original concept
of the electoral medium came out of discussions in the APSA_ITP
mailing list (August 2007). It has since been coded and beta trials
are pending. The technical side is well enough known. But the
societal effects have always been unclear. They now appear to be a
little clearer, or at least easier to talk about. I will argue that
the following predictions are warranted:
i) a structural transformation between the public sphere and
government, in response to
ii) the decentralized composition and promulgation of norms, and
iii) the decentralized coordination and application of political
power.
All of these changes are operative in scenario S. The supporting
arguments will follow, based on the schema below. (To see this, you
may need a fixed-width font.)
Interchange Relations between the Public Sphere and Government
from the Perspective of Government
1a)
M'
- - - - - - - - - - >
Taxes
P
< - - - - - - - - - -
Organizational
accomplishments
Public Administrative
sphere 2a) system (government)
P
< - - - - - - - - - -
Political
decisions
P'
- - - - - - - - - - >
Mass loyalty
M = money medium, P = power medium. From Habermas. The Theory of
Communicative Action. Vol 2.
(i). The main argument is that the institution of the new electoral
medium (in the pattern of scenario S) is going to cause a structural
transformation of the public sphere. This will affect the citizenship
interchange (2a). Decision making will be transferred from government
to the public sphere, resulting in a modified interchange:
2a')
P
< - - - - - - - - - -
Political
action
A'
- - - - - - - - - - >
Political
decisions
A = assent medium, M = money medium, P = power medium
The old input of "mass loyalty" mediated by power (2a) is here
replaced by one of "political decisions" mediated by assent (2a').
Its overall operation is simple. Whenever the public sphere has
reached consensus on a political decision, government accepts that
decision (input). If the decision is immediately actionable, then
government acts on it (output). Otherwise, the reasons for inaction
are made known, and further communication occurs between the two sides
(back and forth). Details of this operation are clarified below,
first with respect to norms (ii), and then power (iii).
(ii). With respect to norms (laws, plans, policies), I will not go
into complete details. The main outlines are already documented for
project Votorola (link at bottom). And it is clear enough in scenario
S, at least, that both the composition (formal plan) and promulgation
(actual work) of the park improvement have been distributed throughout
the local community, entirely in response to the *pull* of local
interest. The central government was largely bypassed.
(iii). With respect to power, the probable effects of the medium were
never understood until now. These effects can be illustrated by
introducing a few characters (M, H and W) into scenario S.
(ad S). M is a community leader in the neighbourhood. She has a
large share of the votes as a local delegate in the open election
for Mayor. When she learns of the plans to improve the local park
she takes an interest. She speaks to another person in the
neighbourhood (H). H is a local delegate in the election for Public
Health Officer. M asks H to look into the safety issues of the
proposed plan.
H agrees to M's request. He takes the lead in drafting the safety
amendments for the plan. Seeing this, many of the parents in the
neighbourhood cast their votes for H. These votes are numerous, and
they ensure that safety concerns are going to feature prominently in
the plan.
The young planners have questions about the delivery of the sand, so
they approach W. W is a local building contractor who is always
active in the election for Public Works Officer. W explains that
several types of sand are available from the City yards. He says
that delivery will depend on budgetary approval. So they add "sand"
to the budget section of their plan.
Later, when it appears that a consensus is likely to form, M
requests approval for the plan. She does not speak directly to the
City, rather she speaks to her own delegate - the person she is
voting for in the Mayoral election. In reply she receives a signed
email from the Comptroller of the Parks Department, authorizing a
preliminary safety inspection of the site. M forwards the
authorization to H, who arranges for the actual inspection. When
the inspector arrives, H guides her to the site... And so on.
This illustrates how the interchange (2a') functions with respect to
power. It shows that the medium of assent - particularly the pattern
of vote flow - is the structural *guide* for both the inputs and
outputs of the interchange. This voting pattern guides:
a) communication of actual need (input to government)
b) delivery and application of actual power (output)
Communication of need depends on local connections among the
peripheral delegates M, H and W. More problematically it depends on
remote connections with the center of power - M can effectively lead,
for example, only if she can communicate with City Hall. The people
in the neighbourhood are voting for her because she has proven
*ability*. She turns and uses those votes as leverage to open a
communication channel to central power. She votes for a
super-delegate who has the ability to keep that channel open. In this
way, the structure of assent "feels its way" toward the center, guided
by the structure of power.
Formal power rests with the executive. But that power cannot be
maintained except through the operation of (a) and (b). The Mayor can
effectively govern only if she can coordinate with local needs
throughout the city. The city has thousands of local leaders such as
M, each highly attuned to the needs of their constituencies, and each
receiving hundreds of votes apiece. No Mayor could be elected without
their support. Being unable to communicate directly with them, the
Mayor can only reach out to them by delegating her power to
lieutenants. She carefully selects these lieutenants in consultation
with the central delegates (her immediate voters), each carrying
50,000 or 100,000 votes of assent. And so on - the imperative is
recursive - the central delegates too must delegate their power. In
this way, the structure of power will "feel its way" outward from the
center, guided by the structure of assent.
This assent-mediated coordination of norms (ii) and power (iii) is the
cause of the structural transformation of the public sphere, and of
the modified interchange with government (2a'). The similarities in
their coordination and transformation are striking. Despite their
elemental differences, both norms and power:
* dissolve in the same, simple medium of continuous cascade voting
* break apart and re-distribute outward until they assume the
population structure of the community: the norm into a multitude
of variant textual copies; and power into a multitude of local
leaders (M)
* self-organize into what Abd ul-Rahman Lomax calls "fractal
democracy", a hierarchy of miniature replicas in which every
constituency of interest has its own legislator, and every
neighbourhood its own administration (M, H, W)
Together these arguments (i, ii, iii) seem to indicate a theory of IT
mediated politics. In fact, they seem to be its main pillars. I
guess that's what prompts me to post - whatever flaws or gaps are
found in these arguments, whatever questions they pose, the whole has
a kind of coherence and symmetry - it seems to hold together.