The Open Government Dialogue here suggests two different takes on how technology changes public governance. The first is that Internet technology makes government more efficient; the second is that technology completely transforms the democratic governing process.
This contrasts 20th century “command and control” with 21st century “open source” government and the best analogy would be Encyclopedia Britannica vs. Wikipedia. EB is (was?) a typical command and control, hierarchical, corporate institution. It provided the capital and coordination required to produce and distribute that physical product of encyclopedic volumes. EB has a CEO, a Board of Directors and an organizational structure of departments under a strict hierarchy. (Much like our federal government and bureaucracy.) It’s a 20th century top-down corporate governance model that reflected the technology of the time.
Wikipedia employs a radically different bottom-up model. It’s content is controlled by its users, there is no CEO or management hierarchy. It is not financed by shareholders or a complex ownership structure, but by grants and charitable contributions. Yet, it supplies the desired good so efficiently that it has obliterated the old model of command and control.
This suggests that eGov will take us far beyond making government more efficient to shifting power away from command and control to users (voters). This should make political leadership, parties, interest groups, etc. less relevant and more accountable to the public will. It also suggests that the current shift to bigger, more efficient centralized government control is a futile attempt to revitalize an obsolete model by tweaking it around the edges. But Wikipedia didn’t make Britannica more efficient – it annihilated it. The ultimate irony may be that the failure of 20th century command and control governance has yielded an odd nostalgia for more of the same. Hopefully the OGD can help us change direction - the debate over universal health care will be the prime test case.
Comments (4)
Problem with Wikipedia is too many destructive trolls. I believe in ALL can create and only MENTORS can destroy. Having said that, I consider your recommendation totally consistent with Epoch B management, which is the last thing this Administration or any other wants--as many will have noticed, there is no substantial difference between Obama and Bush--they are both captives of the Wall Street and industrial ownership of a craven Congress in which both parties have betrayed the public trust. We will not get open government until we break the backs of the two criminal parties and put Independents in the majority in both the Senate and the House.
The problem of abuse is solved if you can require verifiable registration of participants. No anonymity here. It should be like a townhall meeting where if you stand up to speak all your neighbors know. This is solvable. The point is to sanction abuse and reward positive contributions with reputational capital. Eventually your name will become recognizable to the community you live in - and abuse will be quickly remedied. There is nothig wrong with self-interest, as long as it is transparent.
I agree that the politicians will not really welcome this eGov if it constrains their power, which is why I think those who think the Obama administration embraces these efforts are being naive. If this works the politicians become the public servants they were meant to be. Right now they are trying to accumulate as much power as they can.
Party organizations, even independents, are really irrelevant to this. All politicians will take their marching orders from their constituents or lose the next election. That aggregates up to the national level for issues with national breadth.
I'm not sure exactly why people would vote against a "vital discussion" of what the new paradigm is and how it works. It would be nice if those opinions were expressed in comments and arguments.
That is the power of wiki, rather than a simple voting register - which is more like a thermometer of opinion. I thought eGov gets us away from that.
It boggles the mind when you really consider how we could use the Internet to fully participate in governing ourselves. eGov certainly could make a centralized government obsolete, and it needs to happen! We don't really need this website to address these issues. If the central government can't or won't address what needs to be done, then it's best to treat it as a mountain that you go around instead of trying to climb. When large numbers of people get activated to take the situation in hand, then we'll get real change. It won't come from any single person, and I really don't think it will come from those who are presently in power.