merely to make people’s lives more convenient but to make their lives richer, including their ability to contribute to the common good.

Democracy is—and always will be—a work in progress. It is by definition imperfect. At its core it is an artifact of rules and procedures animated by human beings. It is necessarily both open and closed, constrained and free. It necessarily includes non-sanctioned activities such as peaceful protest and civil disobedience. Let’s use Shapiro’s ideas as provocations, hypotheses, or proposals as we move forward. But if we use the ideas and approach he proposes and advocates in his “Point” column (or any single proposal) as the blueprint, we will miss the opportunity to improve the governance approaches we need for current and future realities. It is a critical time for this community to engage in deep and ongoing discussion and activism on the roles of computers—and computer professionals—in society.

 

References

1. Barber, B. Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. University of California Press, 2003.

2. Davies, T. and Gangadharan, S.P. Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice. University of Chicago Press, 2009.

3. Dias, N. Hope for Democracy: 25 Years of Participatory Budgeting Worldwide. In Loco Association, São Brás de Alportel, 2014; https://bit.ly/2Jw4hdy

4. Fishkin, J. S. and Luskin, R. C. Experimenting with a democratic ideal: Deliberative polling and public opinion. Acta Politica 40, 3 (Mar. 2005), 284–298.

5. Foa, R. S. and Mounk, Y. The democratic disconnect.

Journal of Democracy 27, 3 (Mar. 20106), 5–17.

6. Kang, C. F.C.C. repeals Net neutrality rules. The New York Times (Dec. 14, 2017); https://nyti.ms/2Ck TbRR

7. National Constituent Assembly France. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789); https://bit. ly/2uJrA8A

8. Schuler, D. Creating the world citizen parliament: Seven challenges for interaction designers. ACM interactions 20, 3 (May+June 2013).

9. Schuler, D. Cultivating society’s civic intelligence: Patterns for a new ‘world brain’. Information, Communication, and Society 4, 2 (Feb. 2001), 157–181.

10. Smith, G. and Wales, C. Citizens’ juries and deliberative democracy. Political Studies 48, 1 (Jan. 2000), 51–65.

 

Douglas Schuler ( [e-mail]) is faculty emeritus at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, USA.

Copyright held by author.

system based on a set of requirements and switching it on. Democracy requires participation and the design and development of participatory systems are best undertaken with participation. He suggests “e-parties” will “export their participatory practices of their inner workings to real-world governments” but this is a narrow view of social innovation (and our experiences with e-parties thus far have not been entirely reassuring). It is relevant to note that women in France—but not all—were only granted voting rights in 1944, a full 155 years after the 1789 Declaration that asserted the equality of all.

Conclusion

I appreciate Shapiro’s focus on foundations. My critique could be seen as providing additional foundations including political realities, critique, and provisos. I fear Shapiro’s discussion on technologies goes beyond the foundation orientation into the realm of technological determinism or fetishism. Thinking that democracy can be reduced to a computer problem can be a dangerous distraction. The reality is that many of the “answers” we seek can only be determined through seeing how new systems are used, and this use is likely to vary from cultural context to cultural context.

But this critique is not intended to discourage new citizen approaches, including ones that use the new affordances the Internet provides. On the contrary, many initiatives such as participatory budgeting, 3 deliberative polling, 4 online deliberation, 2 citizen juries, 10 and many others suggest promising directions for transforming our democratic systems incrementally.

To get this right we must experiment. Our systems must evolve and this means engagement with real people.

While the technological contribution
is necessary, civil society, librarians,
artists, government officials, activists,
and “ordinary” people must also as-
sume important roles. In an article I
wrote for ACM Interactions, 8 I proposed
a “global parliament” as a suitable
grand challenge in which the commu-
nity of computer professionals could
collaborate with many others to design
and build a system (or systems) that
facilitated global citizen communica-
tion. Computer professionals need to
keep in mind the broad social goals—
foundations—such as strengthening
social and cultural support and inter-
est in democracy; increasing access to
information and dialogue and deliber-
ation; and giving voice to marginalized
people. This means working to ensure
the right mixture of people, policy, in-
stitutions, processes, education, and,
of course, technology.
The media landscape at the time of
the Declaration bears little resemblance
to the ubiquitous, monopolistic digi-
tal empires of today with their global
reach, massive data mining, and influ-
ence on public opinion. And govern-
ments of the 18th century did not hire
hackers and digital mercenaries. Thus
more control over the existing media
and more access to and support for
publicly owned media will be neces-
sary for genuine democracy in the 21st
century. I agree with Shapiro that Face-
book is not an appropriate platform for
this, nor could any for-profit, propri-
etary, closed system. A project of this
magnitude requires a deep, long-term
commitment by civil society, govern-
ment, professional societies, and oth-
ers. The first principle of the ACM with
its “obligation to protect fundamental
human rights” suggests it should be in-
volved. And a project of this magnitude
would require sustained support.
Good democratic governance
should not be confused with “thin
democracy,” 1 where citizens assume
minimal roles. We need systems that
help people be more engaged, better
informed, and more adept at public
problem solving, a capacity I refer to
as civic intelligence. 9 The point is not
Technology is
embedded within
social contexts
that cannot be
separated from
the technology
in use.