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When critically examining the examples presented before, it becomes quite clear how those projects are only smoke in the eyes, a superficial response to a clear demand. Key issue here is the desire for control: governments tend to dismiss the will of the citizens in order to maintain control over the agenda-setting process
E-democracy has been reduced to discussions and proposals which never arrive to the practical level. Direct democracy has been postponed until the moment that politicians declare the will to leave their bureaucratic jungle of power-politics: never in a month of Sundays!
Citizens organise manifestations, they protest, march or yell, but the only thing politicians do is instrumentalising this voice. The more people raise their voice, the more politicians use this voice to keep power.
The Iraqi war could function as an example of how the voice of the people is loud and can become strong and powerful. But looking at the reality of national interests in this war, one sees that in France, for example, a key role has been played by the already signed oil contracts with Iraq. The anti-war manifestations in the streets were ignored. The same line of reasoning can be applied to Russia, Germany and China . A different approach of how direct democracy is only smoke in the eyes nowadays is clearly the USA where many people protested against and declared their aversion to the war (during the first days of war only 40% were pro-war), without politicians taking their opinion into account.
In an era of true direct democracy a clear ,direct consultation of voters would have been followed by a corresponding decision.
This is the ambiguous discrepancy in our current society between political representation and the amount of information that is available to enable citizens to take an autonomous decision.
Let us keep all in mind that the representative system was born in order to allow citizens to commit themselves to earning their daily food without having to take care of technical matters such as politics, of which they did not know much anyway.
Political representatives were their voice while they sold bread and meat in a society where the amount of information available to the people was low and mostly not accessible at all.
Nowadays it is the other way around: information is accessible for all, there is an increasing desire for direct participation in the res publica and mainly the third sector (services) participates in public/private joint ventures. Politicians however do not give up their power positions because they are afraid of seeingheir own powers diminished.
It is time for democracy now to approach its second, more direct, stage: responding to the will of the citizens, fostering citizen participation through polls and government action in accordance with the outcome of those polls.
The reason politicians will respond to these popular demands will mainly be to preserve their own power without eventually carrying out the real will of those citizens who voted them into office. At a first moment there will be a sort of misunderstanding between Political power and citizens will until citizenes take up the challenge and ask for direct power.
So, what is the solution to this problem?
I believe that the described lack of legitimacy should be researched by academia, public sector consultants, ICT professionals and NGOs. In addition, it should be truthfully documented by the media.
These projects could be carried out under the auspices of and with support of a sponsorship programme of those institutions mentioned above to make it clear that the partnership between public and private sector is important.
In this way a platform for a strategy will be created and then research projects can be organised on many different topics such as security issues and voting systems, citizens participation and democratic governance, the sociology of direct participation, the change of the democratic paradigm, and last but not leastthe issue of access to clear and complete information. After a successfully evaluated piloting period we could really start campaigning direct democracy as an effective paradigm for our society.
True direct democracy is about participation, about being listened to and about seeing the will of the electorate be put into practice.
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giuliano gennaio
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