High-Tech Doesn’t Equal Democracy

One of the challenges of technology related development assistance is always employing solutions that are appropriate for the environment into which they are being introduced.  In democracy assistance we're often faced with a similiar challenge - designing technology approaches that gain administrative or bureaucratic efficiencies at the possible expense of tech for democracy.

This is particularly true in our work supporting parliaments around the world.  The tension between efficiency and inclusiveness, or more generally modernization vs. democratization, will be a running thread and one of the key messages I’ll take to the eDemocracy conference in Macedonia next week as we discuss the important role of technology in a legislature - the main focus of this conference.

One point I’ll try to reiterate will be that tech projects should not only make the legislature more modern and efficient, but also more democratic.

It’s often not enough to just become modern through the introduction of technology-driven systems and upgrades in a legislative environment. Although all legislatures should strive for embracing technologies to become as efficient and effective as possible, it is important that leadership and the organizations that support these legislatures (like NDI) focus on the democratic objectives so that the limited resources are targeted in ways that result in the most democratic outcomes possible.

The key democratic goals to keep in mind would typically be making the legislature and its members more accountable to the public; making the work of parliament and the bill drafting and influence process as transparent as possible; reaching out to citizens and civic groups to ensure their views are heard and reflected in the legislation; or designing tech-enabled programs that help legislatures oversee the national budget and/or service delivery of the executive branch of government.

For instance, as opposed to investing in IT systems that help produce transcripts of past sessions – a common request we receive – we’d advocate for using any available resources to build tools that help citizens and legislators engage meaningfully in the law making process before the bills are adopted. Ways to do this might be opening up public hearings by providing access to schedule information from websites, email updates or social media tools; helping parliament or civic groups clarify where public input is most likely to have an impact in the legislative process and educating civil society groups or citizens on how to engage in these key periods; making the work of legislative committees, where much of the meaningful work on legislation gets done, more transparent and accessible to the public using outreach technologies; and working with committee leadership to ensure that adequate opportunities are made for public engagement using social media, the web or even broadcast media.

Another example might be investing in systems like electronic chamber voting systems that may be very important from a democracy perspective if this system enabled parliament to make the voting records of legislators more publically accessible online. Of course, the political will within parliament for this kind of information sharing must be in place as well – before the project moves ahead. On the other hand, NDI would be less interested in assisting a legislature to modernize their chamber with advanced voting systems if there weren’t a commitment to make member voting records available to the public.

Similarly, many new systems provide legislators with instant electronic access to draft bills, committee documents and related legislative information at their desktop. The NDI approach might seek to push this further by also providing one-click access to the testimonials and other input from civic groups and civic activists, or providing tools that made it easy for legislators to engage directly with citizens on specific pieces of legislation using social media platforms.

As the tech team within a democracy organization, it’s our responsibility not only to find ways to make parliaments more efficient with technology, but as importantly, to make them more democratic by leveraging the democratizing potential of any new technologies we introduce.