Democracy Reinvented: Participatory Budgeting and Civic Innovation in America by Hollie Russon Gilman

Author:Hollie Russon Gilman [Gilman, Hollie Russon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Politics, Economics, Civics & Citizenship, Political Science, Business & Economics, Economic Policy, General
ISBN: 9780815726838
Google: GguVCwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 35464260
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Published: 2015-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

Even accounting for local contexts and bureaucratic constraints, human idiosyncrasies in facilitation and deliberation will affect the expression of these values. What if this variance could be reduced? Online tools and mediums provide a plausible alternative to the idiosyncratic personalities of facilitators and others engaged in dialogue. In most districts these tools served as conduits for discussion and decisionmaking (see figure 5-1). Based on my observations, they were used most heavily in District A and they were used least in District D.

District composition, particularly in terms of age, was a determining factor in how readily a district adopted online tools. The least “tech savvy” districts were District D and District C. A binary measure of “online” or “not online” does not tell the whole story. For example, an e-mail list offers one-way communication whereas multifaceted tools can enable two-way participation. This section seeks to describe that varied texture.

Communication

One committee facilitator in District D, a younger woman, created an e-mail list for the committee and sent out e-mails regularly. The median age of parks and recreation committee budget delegates in this district was older than the participants in the corresponding committees in the other three districts. Thus there was a larger “digital divide” to overcome in District D. The majority of delegates appeared to be uncomfortable with ICTs. Many participants were frustrated by and did not use the online tools.

District D used e-mail minimally only to communicate meeting times and locations. Further, committee meetings generally took place at the same time at the same location—in the district office. Thus there was less dependence on e-mails as an information source for meeting times, locations, and dates. District D was the only district that did not keep a blog or use any form of social media. The most popular ICT used in the district was the telephone.

District D's largely older, white, Irish Catholic constituency did not put pressure on the office for more online tools, in part because many participants would not have been able to use them. When online tools were used in District D, they were employed purely for communication rather than to foster additional channels for participation.

Participation

In District A, various online tools were used throughout the process. This included an online interface for project idea submission, Google groups for committees, and Facebook groups. The high penetration rate of online tools in District A raised questions of how online tools alter the processes of deliberative democracy. For example, do people behave differently over a listserv than when deliberating face-to-face? The immediacy of e-mail correspondence coupled with the distancing veil of the Internet created unique dynamics of deliberation and decisionmaking.

The following story is illustrative of these dynamics and questions. The facilitator of the parks and recreation committee in District A sent an e-mail prior to the second-round neighborhood assembly, asking people to vote online about whether to put a somewhat controversial proposal for a dog run on the ballot. The committee had a vocal contingent in favor. However, while the proposal was

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.