democracy - Vision the Italian Think Tank

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1. The definition of the political decisions (to be taken by elected assemblies andthe governments);2. the implementation of the decisions taken; and finally3. the communication of the results achieved (which will then be measuredagainst the objectives given in the above first phase during which the politicalproposals were aggregated).Such a description is a simple, rational vision of what is meant by politics. Adescription which is somehow different from reality because reality is, in fact, morecomplex and flexible, capable of channelling ideologies and even of embodyingfeelings and values.In theory (and as we will see soon also “in practice”) globalisation and technologyimply discontinuity along the entire path of forming and implementing political wills.Even more radically, they impose a revision of the process which we have describedabove. We will see that in a ‘network society’, individuals and institutions are nolonger so apart from each other; information flows that transform – in theparticipation phase - people and ideas into governments and programmes, and thattransform such programmes - in the government phase - into decisions and publicinvestments, are no longer a ‘one-way’ flow. In a sense “institutions” dis-integrateand individuals increasingly self govern themselves blurring the boundaries between“participation” and “government”.This is not yet the reality that democratic procedures continue to represent, but it isthe logic where cost of accessing, elaborating and transmitting information has beenreduced of, probably, ten times in less than ten years.In any case our simplification, our, even traditional, scheme could still serve toarticulate an analysis by which understand the health of a system in its components,and identify specific solutions to be experimented.10
The changes of a democracy that ‘reacts’ to the progress (and to the threats) oftechnology can be, then, simplified as follows.DEVELOPING AN INFORMATION BASED THEORY OF DEMOCRACYDemocracy as a process and ICT driven changesModification into the mechanisms of“packaging” and representing individualinterests (political parties, trade unions,lobbies ..)AggregationPartecipationCompetitionQuantic reduction of information costs(elections, ..)SelectionINDIVIDUALSCommunicationTransformationintothe media marketstructure (dynamics between theInternet, TV, newspapers, ..)Transformation into the nature ofinstitutions (duration, scope, dimension,relationships with other bodies, ..)ISTITUTIONSDecisionModification of institutionalcommunication towards citizens(style, contents, dialogue directions,..)Source: VisionImplementationGovernmentICT based process redesign of decisionmaking procedures (parliaments, ..)Nearly all the fundamental vectors along the democratic cycle change. Morespecifically:1. The methods for aggregating and representing (that also work outside ofelections) and the traditional function of the political parties become severelymistrusted; technologies make it possible to communicate (and thereforeaggregate) opinions and people in much more efficient ways than traditionalpolitical parties did for decades; the internet has been, in fact, been longpredicted to be about to take the place of parties meetings; the story has beenmuch more interesting than the internet ‘prophets’ predicted but most recentAmerican elections do show that technologies are here to stay;2. The structure of the political arenas, that confront the different proposalsagainst each other, changes also; some predicted television would have died(after having been a protagonist in the revolution that 20 years ago destroyedthe importance of the ‘piazza’ in which most confrontations took place); theprediction was wrong in not taking into account that old champions do survive11
Page 1 and 2: BACK TO DEMOCRACY 1In progress pape
Page 3 and 4: General elections UKShare of eligib
Page 5 and 6: 2. the inequalities; if we try, mor
Page 7 and 8: The current limits of democracy’s
Page 9: DEVELOPING AN INFORMATION BASED THE
Page 13 and 14: minimum expectations that are assoc
Page 15 and 16: 1. ARE ELECTIONS STILL A LEGITIMATE
Page 17 and 18: Such a loss of information is, in t
Page 19: The issue we are talking about is n
Page 24 and 25: of a much celebrated choice of bein
Page 26 and 27: democracy today and specifically of
Page 28 and 29: decide to divide her/ his own vote
Page 30 and 31: It would then be much more realisti
Page 32 and 33: Iraq). The vote was “obviously”
Page 34 and 35: Similar innovations may then be exp
Page 36 and 37: situations are not equivalent, and
Page 38 and 39: 3. ARE CONSTITUTIONS STILL USEFUL?
Page 40 and 41: 5. DOES TELEVISION STILL MATTER? TH
Page 42: We, in fact, also, think that the d

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