Web enabled politics and stakeholder engagement

This posting is for those interested in new ways to engage with stakeholders and citizen-engagement in rules-making – in other words, those of you thinking about ways to improve stakeholder engagement in consultation processes and rules development. One of the contributing factors to a fall-off in political engagement over the last few decades is due to individual perceptions of a lack of influence or control. Much of what goes on in democratic processes between elections is led by sectoral interests who achieve power through organising institutionally (the organised few) in contrast to the influence of citizens (the dis-organised many). Well, although it is early days yet – the Obama administration for example is experimenting with different platforms – the web has the potential to change that.

Earlier today I listened to a Radio Berkman podcast on web-enabled political system. Gene Koo, a Berkman Fellow, was interviewed on how the Obama Administration could build on what they have done to bring about a web-savvy democracy based on values of transparency and engagement. One of the advantages of the web is that participation can scale at no marginal cost. Achieving citizen engagement in rules-making sessions would overturn the institutionalised power of a few. Koo talked about the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules-making process and the power of lobbyists to influence how the law gets enforced, and the potential for citizen engagement to participate, in effect contributing the ‘wisdom-of the-crowd’ to EPA rules. I feel there is potential for similar citizen-engagement in Australian rules-making processes…or at least to draw in a wider contribution from those who would not otherwise have the time or the money to participate in institutionalised processes.
 
Last Monday I went to a presentation in Melbourne on engaging stakeholders using Web 2.0 hosted by Futureye and BangtheTable(who claim to be an independent space for discussing public policy). The presenter, Crispin Butteriss, made some useful points about online consultative processes including that they:

•  are accessed by people from work between the hours of 8.00 am – 6.00 pm
• unearth real issues, not necessarily those identified by politicians or bureaucrats
• can shatter myths about what people really think about particular issues or public services
• make it easier for small-sized community groups to participate as well as individuals
• can use a range of tools, although some are better for particular uses (wikis are good for communities of interest; web forums are better for exchanging views, blogs are a useful public relations tool and to record the history of decision-making, mapping tools are good to cluster regional interaction)

Crispin had some hints about managing risks from online participation, such as:

• promoting the site widely so that the process is not hijacked by special-interest groups
• moderate post-comment as people find pre-comment moderation annoying
• once you make the call to start the online conversation, stay with it