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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 533
Netizens-Digest Monday, October 20 2003 Volume 01 : Number 533
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream?
Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 20:22:50 -0400
From: lindeman@bard.edu
Subject: Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Howard,
> Thinking about what you are saying, and questions to you and to
> Ronda. If "direct democracy" implies referenda and a voting process,
> should there also be identified a "consensus democracy" that does
> _not_ call for voting? Again, I'm searching for precise definitions;
> it is my sense that consensus models are extremely difficult to scale
> to large populations.
"Consensus democracy" might work. (Some of Ronda's themes remind me of
Jane Mansbridge's "unitary democracy" as opposed to "adversary democracy" --
but these are more philosophical outlooks than government designs.)
In my experience, true consensus models don't scale very well even to rather
small populations, unless they either are pretty uniform or have a strong impulse
to solidarity. My college co-op house of 20 didn't seem, as a practical matter, to
agree on much. (I don't know if this is a pun on your point, but my basic
skepticism here seems worth stating for its own sake.)
> I think we are in agreement. Electronic voting certainly can scale
> immensely -- but how do we make it more deliberative than something
> like a CNN instant poll?
Of course, if we could do without voting altogether, then this problem -- as stated --
would be contrived and irrelevant. But bringing more people into deliberation would
still be an issue.
> >I hope I won't sound like a knee-jerk critic of elected officials
> >when I suggest that
> >sometimes representatives vote neither their conscience nor majority
> opinion.
>
> You mean, "how can you tell an elected official is lying?" "Her lips
> moved."
Well, not exactly. But I mean that elected officials consider their own preferences,
their constituents' preferences, and various interest groups' preferences when
casting their votes. (Not only interest groups who have money, but also interest
groups who perhaps can deliver votes -- for or against the officials -- by other
means.) Not to be too subtle <grin>. I don't think this caveat affects the main line
of your argument.
> There's a news media driven tendency to get "instant opinion polls,"
> which are the antithesis of deliberative. A few days ago, CNN ran
> one along the lines of "do you think Saddam is in Syria?"
Right. Who even cares whether _I_ think Saddam is in Syria? I think you, I,
Ronda, and probably anyone else on the list can agree that this is not a good
model of Internet democracy, deliberation, participation, whatever.
> [...] I often find that the more
> distributed the discussion process, the less clear it is what entity
> will carry out policy -- or if there even is such an entity.
Also the drunker the discussants.
Mark
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 21:16:30 -0400
From: lindeman@bard.edu
Subject: Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream?
Ronda,
An addendum to my previous post -- I'm afraid I skipped something important.
> > In past personal conversations with
> > Ronda, I've never did sort out how she would link democratic deliberation
> > to actual
> > decisionmaking, i.e. government and governance.
> >
>
> I guess I don't quite understand, Mark, why you find it so hard to
> think of how democratic discussion will be able to affect actual
> decision making of government and governance.
>
> The development of the Internet is a model in fact of where
> people would discuss differences and in the process work out the problems
> so that good decision making could take place.
My previous post made clear that I have doubts about how far that "model" is
applicable. But I skipped over an important point of likely (at least partial)
agreement. In no way did I mean to imply, nor do I believe, that democratic
discussion is inherently irrelevant to actual decisionmaking.
You often _seem_ to me to be much more optimistic than I am about how far
democratic discussion can actually supplant existing governmental structures --
and I keep trying to sort out whether that is a real difference of opinion, or more a
difference of focus. When I wrote "how she would link democratic deliberation to
actual decisionmaking," I meant something like "what decisionmaking institutions
she thinks would make optimal use of democratic deliberation" -- _not_ "why on
earth she thinks that democratic deliberation has anything to do with actual
decisionmaking." Maybe my meaning was already clear, but maybe not.
Mark
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 00:23:38 -0400
From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@gettcomm.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
>Howard,
>
>> Thinking about what you are saying, and questions to you and to
>> Ronda. If "direct democracy" implies referenda and a voting process,
>> should there also be identified a "consensus democracy" that does
>> _not_ call for voting? Again, I'm searching for precise definitions;
>> it is my sense that consensus models are extremely difficult to scale
>> to large populations.
>
>"Consensus democracy" might work. (Some of Ronda's themes remind me of
>Jane Mansbridge's "unitary democracy" as opposed to "adversary democracy" --
>but these are more philosophical outlooks than government designs.)
>
>In my experience, true consensus models don't scale very well even to rather
>small populations, unless they either are pretty uniform or have a
>strong impulse
>to solidarity. My college co-op house of 20 didn't seem, as a
>practical matter, to
>agree on much. (I don't know if this is a pun on your point, but my basic
>skepticism here seems worth stating for its own sake.)
As a one-time chemist, I really don't like the term "litmus test".
Litmus has long been obsolete in laboratories with pH meters.
Nevertheless, it persists in American politics.
One issue that is a very frequent "litmus test" for elections,
nominations, etc., is the issue of abortion. While I certainly am not
proposing to discuss that issue here, I think that such an issue is a
good test of a proposed decisionmaking system.
Very few issues have been discussed as much in the US political
system, and it seems fairly obvious that people on both sides of the
issue have entrenched standa and are quite unlikely to chnage those
positions. Would any type of Internet-based political communications
cause the populace to come to consensus on this issue?
>
>> I think we are in agreement. Electronic voting certainly can scale
>> immensely -- but how do we make it more deliberative than something
>> like a CNN instant poll?
>
>Of course, if we could do without voting altogether, then this
>problem -- as stated --
>would be contrived and irrelevant. But bringing more people into
>deliberation would
>still be an issue.
>
>> >I hope I won't sound like a knee-jerk critic of elected officials
>> >when I suggest that
>> >sometimes representatives vote neither their conscience nor majority
>> opinion.
>>
> > You mean, "how can you tell an elected official is lying?" "Her lips
>> moved."
>
>Well, not exactly. But I mean that elected officials consider their
>own preferences,
>their constituents' preferences, and various interest groups' preferences when
>casting their votes. (Not only interest groups who have money, but
>also interest
>groups who perhaps can deliver votes -- for or against the officials
>-- by other
>means.) Not to be too subtle <grin>. I don't think this caveat
>affects the main line
>of your argument.
>
>> There's a news media driven tendency to get "instant opinion polls,"
>> which are the antithesis of deliberative. A few days ago, CNN ran
>> one along the lines of "do you think Saddam is in Syria?"
>
>Right. Who even cares whether _I_ think Saddam is in Syria? I think you, I,
>Ronda, and probably anyone else on the list can agree that this is not a good
>model of Internet democracy, deliberation, participation, whatever.
My concern with that sort of widespread demand for instanteous
opinions is that it contributes to a popular mindset that is the
antithesis of deliberation. Political advertising often focuses on
name recognition, and that name recognition often comes to the
candidate with the largest media budget.
I suppose the debacle of the California gubernatorial recall is more
participatory than a totalitarian takeover, but was there any
substantive discussion? Anger, far more than issues, drove much of
the process.
[I freely admit that California, by definition, is a special case.
For list members outside the US, my advice is not to think about
California. It's...very strange.]
>
>> [...] I often find that the more
>> distributed the discussion process, the less clear it is what entity
> > will carry out policy -- or if there even is such an entity.
>
>Also the drunker the discussants.
In vino veritas, but we Internet technologists have found no good way
to transmit it electronically. :-(
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 09:16:27 -0400
From: lindeman@bard.edu
Subject: Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Howard,
> As a one-time chemist, I really don't like the term "litmus test".
> Litmus has long been obsolete in laboratories with pH meters.
> Nevertheless, it persists in American politics.
>
> One issue that is a very frequent "litmus test" for elections,
> nominations, etc., is the issue of abortion. While I certainly am not
> proposing to discuss that issue here, I think that such an issue is a
> good test of a proposed decisionmaking system.
>
> Very few issues have been discussed as much in the US political
> system, and it seems fairly obvious that people on both sides of the
> issue have entrenched standa and are quite unlikely to chnage those
> positions. Would any type of Internet-based political communications
> cause the populace to come to consensus on this issue?
Yes, I agree that the abortion issue is hard to beat, in the United States, as
an instance of an intense and intractable conflict of deeply held values.
That isn't to say (and you didn't say) that Internet-based political
communications are useless here, but we'd both be more than shocked if
consensus somehow emerged.
Incidentally, the budget process seems to defy consensus-building (and
other rational ideals of decisionmaking) in a different way. Abortion is
largely a one-dimensional debate, i.e., there is one primary policy
dimension (should abortion be legal, and under what circumstances).
Budgets involve many dimensions of decision.
> My concern with that sort of widespread demand for instanteous
> opinions is that it contributes to a popular mindset that is the
> antithesis of deliberation. Political advertising often focuses on
> name recognition, and that name recognition often comes to the
> candidate with the largest media budget.
I'm going to quibble about the first sentence, just a bit. There is a lot of
speculation about how various substantively meaningless "quickie polls"
affect public discourse, but I've seen no evidence that they actually make
much difference. (I know this puts me at odds with Arianna Huffington, but
by golly, sometimes a person has to take a stand.) I'm not defending
quickie polls; possibly I'm registering a limited defense of the "popular
mindset."
Fun fact: Larry Bartels found that U.S. presidential incumbents, regardless
of party, enjoy about a 4-point advantage compared to how they would fare
if all voters were well-informed. It's hard to say why, but name recognition is
probably huge.
> I suppose the debacle of the California gubernatorial recall is more
> participatory than a totalitarian takeover, but was there any
> substantive discussion? Anger, far more than issues, drove much of
> the process.
Actually, I think there was rather a lot of what might be called substantive
discussion, although probably not very balanced! I'm guessing that
conservative talk radio was a non-trivial part of the discourse, and I'm sure
that anger was expressed in many other forums -- but at the end of the day
I'm reluctant to attribute the result to unreasoning anger. Voters thought
they had heard compelling arguments for voting Gray Davis out. (And
unfortunately for him, Davis didn't have many admirers.) Again, I know this
point of view is somewhat contrarian, especially among liberal academics,
but there it is.
Anyway, I'm quibbling again; whatever happened in California, I think
probably you and I and Ronda and others can agree that -- the Internet can
contribute to (1) reasoned, substantive democratic deliberation, (2) _really_
stupid flame wars, and (3) exquisitely meaningless (or perhaps actually
harmful) expressions of instantaneous "opinion" -- and that (1) is good,
while (2) and (3) are not especially good. I'm still trying to sort out where
the disagreements may be.
Mark
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 11:29:51 -0400
From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@gettcomm.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
>
>
>Yes, I agree that the abortion issue is hard to beat, in the United States, as
>an instance of an intense and intractable conflict of deeply held values.
>That isn't to say (and you didn't say) that Internet-based political
>communications are useless here, but we'd both be more than shocked if
>consensus somehow emerged.
>
>Incidentally, the budget process seems to defy consensus-building (and
>other rational ideals of decisionmaking) in a different way. Abortion is
>largely a one-dimensional debate, i.e., there is one primary policy
>dimension (should abortion be legal, and under what circumstances).
>Budgets involve many dimensions of decision.
Then we have two reference issues to use when seeing if any model for
participation can handle all matters.
>
>> My concern with that sort of widespread demand for instanteous
>> opinions is that it contributes to a popular mindset that is the
>> antithesis of deliberation. Political advertising often focuses on
>> name recognition, and that name recognition often comes to the
>> candidate with the largest media budget.
>
>I'm going to quibble about the first sentence, just a bit. There is a lot of
>speculation about how various substantively meaningless "quickie polls"
>affect public discourse, but I've seen no evidence that they actually make
>much difference. (I know this puts me at odds with Arianna Huffington, but
>by golly, sometimes a person has to take a stand.) I'm not defending
>quickie polls; possibly I'm registering a limited defense of the "popular
>mindset."
>
>Fun fact: Larry Bartels found that U.S. presidential incumbents, regardless
>of party, enjoy about a 4-point advantage compared to how they would fare
>if all voters were well-informed. It's hard to say why, but name
>recognition is
>probably huge.
We agree that name recognition is a factor. Do we agree that it
often is more important than candidates' positions? In other cases,
endorsements or party affiliations play a major role. Again
recognizing I'm talking about the current system with Internet
enhancements, there is a very significant difference between
strategies for winning primaries and winning general elections.
Vitriol is often a logical strategy in a primary, because your goal
is often to maximize turnout of the "true believers".
The California recall election doesn't really correspond to either
case, but name recognition and candidates' recognition of anger
clearly were important.
>
>> I suppose the debacle of the California gubernatorial recall is more
>> participatory than a totalitarian takeover, but was there any
>> substantive discussion? Anger, far more than issues, drove much of
>> the process.
>
>Actually, I think there was rather a lot of what might be called substantive
>discussion, although probably not very balanced! I'm guessing that
>conservative talk radio was a non-trivial part of the discourse, and I'm sure
>that anger was expressed in many other forums -- but at the end of the day
>I'm reluctant to attribute the result to unreasoning anger.
Oh, not completely. I happen to think that Arnold is more capable
than most people believe him to be, based on knowledge of his
consensus-building and management skills in fields other than
politics. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that celebrity didn't play a
major role in his win (subtly different than recalling Davis).
>Voters thought
>they had heard compelling arguments for voting Gray Davis out. (And
>unfortunately for him, Davis didn't have many admirers.) Again, I know this
>point of view is somewhat contrarian, especially among liberal academics,
>but there it is.
>
>Anyway, I'm quibbling again; whatever happened in California, I think
>probably you and I and Ronda and others can agree that -- the Internet can
>contribute to (1) reasoned, substantive democratic deliberation, (2) _really_
>stupid flame wars, and (3) exquisitely meaningless (or perhaps actually
>harmful) expressions of instantaneous "opinion" -- and that (1) is good,
>while (2) and (3) are not especially good. I'm still trying to sort out where
>the disagreements may be.
As to #2, I've seen many cases where "hecklers" can disrupt sane
discussion, even ignoring the people (e.g., alt.tactical.syntax) that
simply make a sport of disruption. The IETF, for example, will, as a
last resort, censor an individual from open mailing lists. There is
written procedure for this, and it is a rare sanction -- but it has
been used where individuals send 20 or more largely or completely
irrelevant messages to a mailing list within one day.
Flame war isn't quite the case here, because such individuals'
position tends to be ignored -- but their sheer volume can make the
list hard to read. The analogous real-world situation is much like
someone yelling in a town meeting and constantly grabbing the floor.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 14:07:08 -0400
From: lindeman@bard.edu
Subject: Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Howard,
> Then we have two reference issues to use when seeing if any model for
> participation can handle all matters.
Agreed. Except that we really should have a third that starts with C --
abortion, budgets, and... umm... oh, never mind. (I'm not _totally_ kidding: I
have a nagging feeling that there's a third kind of issue we could consider,
although not because it starts with C. Maybe it will come to me.)
> We agree that name recognition is a factor. Do we agree that it
> often is more important than candidates' positions? In other cases,
> endorsements or party affiliations play a major role. Again
> recognizing I'm talking about the current system with Internet
> enhancements, there is a very significant difference between
> strategies for winning primaries and winning general elections.
> Vitriol is often a logical strategy in a primary, because your goal
> is often to maximize turnout of the "true believers".
>
> The California recall election doesn't really correspond to either
> case, but name recognition and candidates' recognition of anger
> clearly were important.
Yes, name recognition is often more important than candidates' positions --
and party affiliations are (not surprisingly) the single strongest predictor of
vote choice across elections. And of course you're right about the
difference between primary and general elections (although I'm not sure
that your claim about "vitriol" has been tested as a generalization -- but it is
a very plausible corollary).
Choosing between candidates is, for most people, an especially low-order
cognitive undertaking. People's responses to presidential approval
questions are also low-order, and tend to bounce around quite a bit in
response to recent events. (OK, let's be fair: people's responses to _any_
survey questions are pretty low-order, although their expressed policy
views tend to be more stable than their expressed evaluations of officials
and candidates.) So, a political discourse that is limited to choosing the
best representatives is likely to be pretty darn trivial.
> >[...] at the end of the day
> >I'm reluctant to attribute the result to unreasoning anger.
>
> Oh, not completely. I happen to think that Arnold is more capable
> than most people believe him to be, based on knowledge of his
> consensus-building and management skills in fields other than
> politics. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that celebrity didn't play a
> major role in his win (subtly different than recalling Davis).
Certainly. And beyond that, his campaign very effectively tapped one of
the IMHO silliest prevailing ideas among American citizens: that electing
Outsiders who aren't Beholden to Special Interests will somehow fix the
system. (Not that people had to take this idea literally in order to think that
he was preferable to Gray Davis. I believe that this idea is widely held
based on other evidence, and certainly Arnold talked as if he thought so
too.) It's striking that he campaigned not only as an outsider but as a
moderate -- so, he seems to have played to a somewhat different kind of
anger than we saw in the "Republican Revolution" of 1994. (Sorry, folks, I
do have fun talking about American politics, but I know it's mostly off topic.
However, people's interpretations of what is wrong with the political system
do have some bearing on the Internet's potential to improve matters.)
> As to #2, I've seen many cases where "hecklers" can disrupt sane
> discussion, even ignoring the people (e.g., alt.tactical.syntax) that
> simply make a sport of disruption. The IETF, for example, will, as a
> last resort, censor an individual from open mailing lists. There is
> written procedure for this, and it is a rare sanction -- but it has
> been used where individuals send 20 or more largely or completely
> irrelevant messages to a mailing list within one day.
>
> Flame war isn't quite the case here, because such individuals'
> position tends to be ignored -- but their sheer volume can make the
> list hard to read. The analogous real-world situation is much like
> someone yelling in a town meeting and constantly grabbing the floor.
And we've often talked about the disruptive effect of spam. Clearly there is
a distinction to be made between deliberative discourse and, umm,
mayhem. (Although it's also clear that whoever has the power to decide
what is outside the bounds of "deliberative discourse" _could_ have a
dangerous degree of agenda control.) The Internet, like the rest of the
world, seems to have generated multiple discursive formats to serve
various needs or tastes.
OK, too much fun. Do we have a task? Let me ask you this (but you can
ignore the question): do you suppose that the Internet offers some
underexploited potential contributions to democratic process that haven't
emerged in the 'debate' between Hauben and Horvath, or in our
subsequent rambles? I'll try to ask myself the same question, when I'm not
grading midterms.
Mark
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End of Netizens-Digest V1 #533
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