Veronika Janyrova
Who does not know, the mistrust that arises as soon as politicians show the art of saying nothing? Or if political decisions are once again clearly in the service of particular interests? Although our democratic self-image calls for action, we are finally content because of limited time resources and lack of direct democratic opportunities to pull the politician caste through the cocoa. But does it have to be that way? Is that the last word of democracy? According to the concept of Liquid Democracy, the answer is clear: no.
In 2011 and 2012 the Pirate Party Germany with the concept furore and at that time also made it into four state parliaments. Although the political electoral successes failed to materialize since then, they showed the world how liquid democracy can function as an internal party principle of organization.
To do this, they used the Open source software liquid feedback. It is a participation platform with which as many people as possible can participate in the party work and form opinions. 3.650 topics and 6.650 initiatives are currently being discussed and coordinated by the total of 10.000 members on this platform. All constructive suggestions, ideas or concerns are presented transparently and further developed decentrally. In this way, the Pirate Party Austria, with its currently 337 members, managed to create an extensive party program that went far beyond citizen participation and network politics.
But Liquid Democracy is not just a software or a partisan experiment. Behind Liquid Democracy stands the democracy-political model of direct parliamentarism. It seeks to combine the advantages of the parliamentary system with the possibilities of direct democracy, thereby overcoming the shortcomings of these two systems. Specifically, it is about the weakness of the established direct democratic systems that the political discourse on the legal texts to be agreed only between the initiators and the responsible representatives takes place. In the representative system, it is again reserved for political groups, committees and parliamentarians to participate in political discourse. In direct parliamentarism, on the other hand, citizens themselves decide on which topic and when they would like to actively participate in a discourse. The political discourse is seen as a central prerequisite of legitimate decisions.
This is how Liquid Democracy works
Liquid Democracy is a hybrid between representative and direct democracy, in which citizens can contribute to the political discourse online at any time and participate in the development of legal texts - if he or she so chooses. The citizen not only gives his vote every four to five years, but keeps them "in flux", so to speak, by deciding on a case-by-case basis which questions he would like to vote for himself and with which he would send them to a person (or politician) delegated his trust. In practice, this may be the case, for example, in matters of tax law by the party X wants to be represented, in environmental issues by the organization Y and in family policy issues of the person Z. About the school reform but you want to decide. The delegation of the vote can, of course, be reversed at any time, ensuring effective control of the political system.
For the delegates, this concept provides an opportunity to get an insight into the opinion and mood of the base and to promote their own projects for support and votes. For the citizen it is an opportunity to contribute politically and to help shape political opinion and decision making or just to understand.
Liquid Democracy light
The German associations Public Software Group e. V., the developer of Liquid Feedback, and Interactive Demokratie eV, who advocate the use of electronic media for democratic processes, see the realistic path to greater participation in the fundamental renewal of decision-making processes within parties. Axel Kistner, board member of the association Interactive Democracy eV emphasizes: "The original idea was to use liquid feedback within parties, since the encrusted internal party structures offer their members little or no opportunity to get involved." It was never intended to be used as a direct democratic instrument.
A prominent and much discussed example of Liquid Democracy is provided by the German district of Friesland. He launched the Liquid Friesland project two years ago, introducing Liquid Feedback. So far, the citizens of 76 and the district administration 14 have published initiatives on the platform. Those citizens' initiatives that win their vote in Liquid Friesland, however, serve the district administration only as suggestions and are not binding for them. Nevertheless, the current balance sheet is quite impressive: of the 44 citizens' initiatives that were already dealt with in the district council, 23 percent were adopted, 20 percent adopted in a modified form and 23 percent rejected. Another 20 percent had already been implemented, with 14 percent the district administration was not responsible.
However, Friesland will not remain the only German regional authority that dares to take the step towards digital citizen participation: "Soon two more cities - Wunstorf and Seelze - and another district - Rotenburg / Wümme - will start with citizen participation and use LiquidFeedback", so Kistner.
Will we vote via liquid democracy in the future?
Regardless of the inspirational power that the Liquid Democracy concept may spread, its practical use will likely remain largely limited to citizen participation, as well as intra-party decision-making and decision-making. On the one hand, there are still many unsolved questions for the practice of democracy policy. On the other hand, the majority population seems to be totally unenthusiastic about the idea of being politically involved or even voting on the internet.
The unresolved issues include the holding of secret elections and the associated security and manipulation risks. On the one hand, a secure, secret, but still comprehensible "digital ballot box" would have to be developed that will ensure the identity of voters and verify their eligibility, but at the same time make their decision anonymous and subsequently make this procedure comprehensible. Although this could sometimes be accomplished technically by the presentation of a citizen card and programming by means of an open source code, there is still an undeniable risk of tampering and the traceability is probably only reserved for a small group of IT-savvy people. In addition, a secret vote is also in clear contradiction to the transparency postulate of Liquid Democracy itself. The developers of Liquid Feedback for this reason, 2012 also publicly distanced themselves from the use of their software in the Pirate Party.
Electronic superiority
Another dilemma is the question of whether the liquid voting results should be binding or mere suggestions. In the former case, they must be justified in criticizing that they would favor people with greater Internet competence and affinity in the political decision-making process and mistakenly consider the results of an online discussion to be a representative opinion average. In the latter case, if the voting results are not binding, the direct democratic potential of this concept is simply lost.
Another common criticism is the low level of participation that digital direct democratic tools generally achieve. In the case of the successful Liquid Friesland project, the participation is around 0,4 percent of the population. In comparison, participation in the petition to clarify the Hypo-Alpe Adria scandal last year was 1,7 percent and that in the referendum “Education Initiative” in 2011 was 4,5 percent. However, this is not surprising, since online political participation is also new territory for western democracies. Nevertheless, e-democracy is simply rejected by a majority of the population.
"The extension of the citizen-state relationship to the digital space is not a panacea against political disenchantment."
Daniel Roleff, political scientist
According to a study by the SORA Institute for Social Research and Consulting e-democracy and e-participation are still in their infancy in Austria. "Digital elections are viewed critically at all: Both experts and the majority of the population cite lack of transparency and manipulation security as the most important points of criticism", according to the study by Mag. Paul Ringler. In Germany, too, the assessment of citizens is no different. In 2013, the Bertelsmann Foundation asked 2.700 citizens and 680 decision-makers from the relevant municipalities by telephone about their preferred forms of participation. As a result, 43 percent of the citizens surveyed declined online participation, and only 33 percent were able to gain something from it. For comparison: 82 percent held elections to local council elections and only 5 percent rejected them. The Bertelsmann Foundation's conclusion: "Even if the younger generation rates significantly better here, the new forms of network-based participation still have a comparatively poor reputation and have so far not been able to establish themselves as a recognized instrument of democratic participation."
The conclusion of the SORA study is again: The Internet revolution does not promote political interest on its own, but makes it easier for politically interested people to inform and participate. "This assessment is also shared for example by the German political scientist Daniel Roleff: "The extension of the citizen-state relationship to the digital space is not a panacea against political disenchantment."
Liquid Democracy - Where is the journey going?
Against this background, Peter Parycek, head of the project group E-Democracy at the Danube University Krems, sees the biggest potential of Liquid Democracy in a new form of cooperation project between citizens and the public administration. For example, he refers to the current investment project Digital Agenda of the federal capital Vienna. Citizens are invited to help develop a digital strategy for Vienna. "What's important is that there is both a virtual and a real dialogue between the administration and the citizens," says Parycek. "The Liquid Democracy software offers promising opportunities to gather ideas and organize an open innovation process," says Parycek.
In order to rebuild citizens' trust in politics, he believes that one thing above all else is needed: greater transparency in public administration and politics. "The pressure on the political parties to become more transparent is increasing. Sooner or later they will open, "says Parycek. In fact, political parties will no longer be able to deny greater transparency and internal democratization for long, because the base of the established major parties is already seething and the call for more co-determination is getting louder. Liquid Democracy may not revolutionize our model of democracy, but it does show a way in which participation and transparency can work.
Photo / Video: Option.
