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Think tank: Time for democracy to click into place
Dan Sullivan gets himself into The Sunday Times, calling for the internet to connect citizens to a more meaningful democracy. Its an argument I agree with wholeheartedly myself. Have a read and let him know what you think.
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Dan,
I read your very fine article in the ST and enjoyed it very much (I did a piece for the ‘think tank’ column myself a couple of weeks ago, so let’s say your’s was the best piece I’ve read in there since my own!)
On a serious note, I think your discussion on the internet and how e-comms should fit into the political process is a very important issue; given that the internet is only in its infancy and we can have no idea how things may develop in the decades ahead. Obama seems to be the first politician who ‘s got the internet down pat; knows how to use it; understands how it can be used by friend, foe or those of independent mind; has incorporated it into his campaigning in a way that complements the other elements of his campaign yet never swamps them.
As you point out in your article, use of the internet as a comms tool by our politicians and agents of politics in this state is really quite lamentable; certainly the case in the last general election. As for the cringe-making sites of individual members of the Oireacthas, the incredibly boring and self-serving party political sites and the Lisbon campaign efforts, perhaps the less said the better except for one thing: the central flaw with all of them is that they lack any interest in generating any genuine interaction with the user.
In my experience, most PQs asked in the Dail are inspired by constituents or interest groups or even the media, on occasion. There was a famous instance a few years ago where a certain newspaper prompted politicians to ask questions in the Dail, using parliamentary privilege, to elicit information that they could not have otherwise published subsequently without being sued.
I agree that the rules and procedures for debate in the Dail and Seanad are badly in need of reform; but I’m not sure I would go so far as you suggest in extending public participation via internet-based communication. I think that the reason why representative democracy works is precisely because it is representative – by and large most of us have no interest in becoming public representatives but we’re happy enough to elect people to do that job for us and wish to heaven that they would just get on with it (which they don’t, admittedly, a lot of the time!) since that’s what we pay them for.
Also, I think you hit the nail on the head with your point about ‘e-mob rule’, which is a concern I would have. Especially about some of the so-called politics sites in which partisan commentators, who very often don’t have a clue what they are talking about, simply engage in gratuitously offensive exposition of their own prejudices about poltiical figures or political issues and rapidly degenerate into abusive name-calling etc., yet persist in the delusion that they are ‘debating’ politics and making a contribution to political discourse. If the ‘internet’ component of representative democracy was comprised of such cohorts then I think it would just end up a complete mess. I think the e-comms model should develop separately and in a way that complements our existing institutions; though I have to admit I don’t know how it could or should be achieved.
I think your article provides much food for thought and it would be interesting to see what other people who blog on irishelection.com made of it.
Veronica, apologies for not coming back in this sooner but I’d not noticed there as a response to Cian’s post.
The article was kind of condensed so some of the points might not quite have come across as I intended. I will post the longer version here and on my own blog over the next week and hopefully it will address some of what you’ve mentioned and might prompt some discussion. It’s a pity that my stuff doesn’t come through via politicsinIreland anymore but that’s the price of coming up getting on the wrong side of some of the Bishops of Irish Blogging.
Dan,
I’m intrigued by your last comment and I hope you don’t mind my asking: who are the ‘Bishops of Irish Blogging’?
I only started blogging on this site in the past year or so, mainly for fun, but also because I think this particular site always has interesting discussions on the issues of the day, especially some of the bigger things we need to be talking about in this country irrespective of our individual political leanings. As for understanding the protocols, decorum, even the politics of a politics website, I ‘m a bit of a female Daniel in the lion’s den (no offence intended on the name thing!)but I’m curious that in the so-called free range area on blogging that already a hierarchy might have emerged.
Look forward to reading the full article you wrote for the ST in due course.
I’m hoping to post it here in the next while (once my spondolicks from the ST have come to a safe resting place in my account). For now you would have to read the longer, more rambling version over here
http://dansullivan.blogspot.com/2008/11/think-tank-lets-all-have-vote.html
It had to be tidied up from what is above to fit in with the format that the ST favours. As for the last line, that is in reference to the fact that one would normally expect that political related posts would appear in the politicsinireland aggregator (a plug in of which features here on this site and on many others). Sadly, my content has been barred from said aggregator since I got on the wrong side of the person who runs it. All part of silencing me. See political diversity to some means tolerating only what they feel like agreeing with. It’s not a matter of anything I said but who I had the temerity to say it to. I’d be genuinely miffed if I thought the powers that be here were even aware of it. As it is I don’t think they are and I’m really not one to make a fuss.
Don’t know who the bishops are, but I’m fairly sure Mulley must be the Pope, and as Pope he should probably know who the bishops are. Ask him.
Oh my! For all the flaws of the institutional church, the Pope is elected by his peers. But in the blogosphere, you’re telling me, the Pope is self-appointed, most likely selects the Bishops like any good Pope would do and issues the decrees that must be obeyed by the blogosphere faithful or they get cut off at the knees, metaphorically speaking, like Dan has done?
I’m a little bemused, given all the roaring and shouting among our so-called political bloggers about democracy and free speech and all of that sort of stuff.
Whatever happened to the decent old principle of ‘I don’t agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’?
Niall, the pope is just the bishop of Rome. As it is for the mother church so it is in this case.
Veronica, “Whatever happened to the decent old principle of ‘I don’t agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’?” I don’t believe the person involved believes in that principle but rather has been very successful in convincing people otherwise.
I’d be genuinely miffed if I thought the powers that be here were even aware of it. As it is I don’t think they are and I’m really not one to make a fuss.
If I be considered a power that be. I did not know anything about it.
Right then! Time for rebellion, I think.
I think this particular emperor has too many young apprentices at this time for any rebellion to risk a frontal assault. However, I’ve been given to understand there are plans on their way to us via a diplomatic mission.
A frontal assault? Nah. I had a much better idea than that.