democracy - Vision the Italian Think Tank

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VISION’S APPROACH, THE QUESTIONS AND THE LIMITSOF THE ANALYSISOur research will start from a framework we developed in order to structure ouranalysis. The approach we are going to use will make explicit a number of limitationsof the study that we will are going to gradually lift.The frameworkHow can we distinguish between substantial modifications in the performance ofdemocracy from the “rumour” that surrounds the concept of the “decline” ofdemocracy itself? How do we distinguish the concrete changes in a debate that ispolarised into the ‘doom-mongers’ (that maintain democracy is no longer tenable in aworld dominated by financial oligarchies) and those expecting miracles fromtechnology?Perhaps we should start from the beginning, by trying to describe what, in itsnarrowest sense, is a democratic ‘processes’. This is the basis for then understandingwhere and in what channels, lies the greatest potential and the biggest hope forchange.We mentioned earlier that democracy is an ‘information process’: this definitiondescribes one part of what democracy is but above all it describes the aspects that aremost striking and distinctive. Information are, then, the many single individualpreferences that together form the collective will that then becomes governmentlegislation and investment decisions. Such an activity, therefore, is a process in thesense that embodies a series of distinct moments meant to transform, in an orderedway (because it is regulated, therefore, legitimate and accepted) individual opinionsinto political actions, that then come back to the citizens in the form of services,rules, incentives.8
DEVELOPING AN INFORMATION BASED THEORY OF DEMOCRACYDemocracy as a process and ….PartecipationCompetitionAggregationSelectionINDIVIDUALSISTITUTIONSCommunicationDecisionImplementationGovernmentSource: VisionThe diagram shows the “value chain” that articulates the ‘policy’, or rather, theprocess of constructing and implementing policy (so called ‘policy making’). Sowhen we talk about collective choices and about policy, we are discussing activitiesthat are different from each other.There is therefore:1. A mechanism for aggregating individual preferences into collective decisions(thus, in parallel, a transformation of individuals into “communities” foundedon ‘social contracts’) and2. a procedure of translating such collective wills into government legislationmeant to impact the well-being of the society and in the last instance of theindividuals.Our way of viewing policy would be to segment the first activity into three phases,being the first:1. The aggregation of individual ideas and of people into fewer proposals that canbe presented as the available political options; followed then by2. the competition between such political products in some form of arenaa, andthen finally3. an election phase, choosing which proposal to adopt.But also the second activity can be divided into three steps9
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: The current limits of democracy’s
Page 11 and 12: The changes of a democracy that ‘
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

democracy - Vision the Italian Think Tank

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