Web design Exercise: Raw ingredients
Text 1:
There are two distinct problems in assessing the success of e-consultations:
(1) framing, and (2) measuring.
The framing problem seems more profound. There is a false dichotomy, in
the eyes of the public, media, and even among practitioners, between "sincere"
consultations and "show" consultations. A consultation is seen
as sincere if there is an intent to shape or reshape policy outcomes in
response to the level and tenor of public input. A consultation is seen
as show if it is intended merely to legitimize a pre-existing or pre-planned
policy outcome.
The problem with this dichotomy is that it focuses on only one part of
the consultation mandate: the mandate to inform or shape policy. Even
this mandate is hazy, however. Is the purpose to make polices that are
"better" (in terms of their concrete social, economic, or political
results), or to make policies that are more "representative"
-- and if the latter, representative of whom?
Text 2:
The intuition that consultation can produce "better" policy
outcomes is often an explicit goal for public or community consultations.
The idea is that citizens and stakeholders have certain insights and knowledge
that may not exist within government. Policy consultations provide a way
of tapping into that knowledge, bringing it into the policy process, and
hopefully producing better policy outcomes as a result.
Is it undemocratic to suggest that producing "better" policy
is not necessarily the same as producing policy that is more representative?
Sometimes governments have to choose which of these is more important.
If they focus on consultation as a way of making policies that are more
representative of public opinion, there is still the problem of figuring
out who or what the consultation will try to represent. An article on
teledemocracy in Canada (by Bill Cross, in the 1998 book "Digital
Democracy") suggests that consultations are better at gauging the
intensity of policy preferences than at measuring the overall distribution
of public opinion. In other words, focus on getting a cross-section of
opinions, not a representative sample.
Text 3:
I've now defined a "sincere" consultation as one that endeavours
to reshape policy in a way that reflects the range and intensity of public
opinion, and/or improves policy by incorporating public and stakeholder
insights. This is generally accepted view, which casts any other vision
of public consultation in the role of a "show" consultation.
A "show" consultation is seen as a lesser project, or even
as outright manipulative, because its purpose is to legitimize rather
than to reshape public policy. Unless there is a visible and linear relationship
between consultation inputs and policy outputs, consultations are often
derided as "show" consultations that exist merely to manipulate
the public into feeling it has been heard.
But what is the matter with the public feeling heard? To the contrary,
there is every reason to think that the consultation process is a valuable
end in itself. Recent literature on social capital (following Putnam's
"Bowling Alone") suggests that public engagement is both elusive
and crucial to ensuring social, economic, and political well-being. If
consultations provide a way of galvanizing isolated and withdrawn citizens
into some sort of political involvement, that is already a major accomplishment.
Potential hyperlinks:
Minnesota e-Democracy -- http://www.e-democracy.org/
International Teledemocracy Centre -- http://www.teledemocracy.org/
World Forum on Electronic Democracy -- http://www.issy.com/e-democracy/
Images:
