Governing Democratically in a Tech-Empowered World
NDI's Governance and NDItech teams are co-convening, with illustrious partners (Omidyar, International IDEA, CDDRL at Stanford University, Google.org, and other) a conference in the next few days on how democratic institutions respond to and more effectively to a global citizenry that is empowered with technology in unprecedented ways. Democratic institutions -- parliaments, parties, and governments - are under pressure to perform more efficiently and effectively, to open their often opaque ways, to be more accountable to their citizens - in short, to govern better. Around the world, established and emerging democracies are struggling to adapt to citizens who are mobilized with phones, tweets and Facebook pages. They are often slow to change and reluctant to give up old paradigms of power and access to (or withholding of) information.
The conference "Governing Democratically in a Tech-Empowered World" comes at a critical and historical juncture. The Arab spring is largely behind us and the messy, and hard work of governing has just begun there. Parliaments are trying to figure out how to open their processes and become more responsive to citizen input while citizens are organizing, monitoring, and building alternative parties and movements. Governments are under pressure to open up all kinds of data with citizen groups scraping, API-ing and using and re-using governmental data to make it more usable and applicable to everyday citizens.
Those with vested power are learning that the gatekeeping functions such as access and control of and to information is no longer possible in a socia media and tech-empowered world. At the same time, there is a contraction of civil liberties and freedom of expression online and tech is being used against democratization efforts. One participant describes this as a "cut and paste" movement of autocratic governments learning online from each other on how to surveil, restrict, and limit their citizenries with technology.
One #tech4dem participant put the challenge well: "The game has changed. You can not find the existing reality, you have to come up with a new one."
The event at Stanford University for the next two days is bringing together the best minds in this space - from governments, civil society organizations, academics, and the technology innovators who had done much to empower individuals but have less tended to how tech can strengthen democratic institutions as well.
The goal of the event is to explore uses of tech for democratic institutions, address the challenges these institutions face, and build the beginnings of a global community of engaged techies, politicians, donors, and civil society activists focused on balancing individual empowerment with and by tech with the challenges of governing democratically.
Only a few portions of the event are streamed as it is operating under Chatham House rules but the twitter stream at #tech4dem is active with conversation and conference themes and resources.