Are “the people” a problem for technology to solve?
One of the benefits of the Internet has been the increased ease with which citizens can learn about their governments. Just as important has been the increased opportunity to tell elected representatives and public officials, along with their hired guns in federal, state, and local bureaucracies, just what they think.
Technology has given democracy a second lease on life.
But that doesn’t mean that politicians aren’t fighting back. And finding service providers and consultants to help them.
According to Michael Cohen, co-founder of Peak Democracy, Inc., online public comment forums can have awful consequences for politicians. They may fall prey to the dreaded “Referendum Effect.” This malady, Cohen explains, is
the loss of decision-making autonomy that government leaders incur when a community expects decisions to be based solely on the majority opinion of public feedback. More specifically, the Referendum Effect occurs when public feedback usurps the decision-making independence of government leaders.
Note the assumption here: government leaders should be “independent” of the voters.
Another way he counsels the International City/County Management Association “to minimize the Referendum Effect is to exclude the word ‘vote’ from the user interface – as the ‘v‑word’ can create an expectation that feedback with the most votes wins.”
Cohen ends with an offer: “To learn more about the Referendum Effect and ways to prevent it, contact Mike@PeakDemocracy.com.”
Cohen is more than willing to advise how to keep pesky citizens from actually having an effective voice online. If you want to keep yours, meet his e‑realpolitik with e‑vigilance.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Note: Robert J. O’Neill, Jr. (roneill@icma.org) is the executive director of the International City/County Management Association, which published Cohen’s comments.