4 ms·
Amazing paper. Thanks so much for contributing this work. I work in civic tech and am very focused on trying to improve the gov system we have through technolog
by akouts 11y ago
Amazing paper. Thanks so much for contributing this work. I work in civic tech and am very focused on trying to improve the gov system we have through technology. Are there any representatives you have seen recently that are doing a particularly good job gauging the pulse of their constituents? AND/OR is there an ideal scenario you have imagined that is left out of the paper?
As an aside, as someone who has started one company in the space of citizen engagement and been in product exec roles at two others, I wonder whether or not rep engagement with constituents is a problem that can be solved with technology or if it is cultural in nature and requires more individual leadership to right the ship. I have met with a large number of reps from city, state and federal levels in order to build an understanding of the strategic problems that are top of mind for them. I have found (generally) that much more effort is paid in "dealing" with inbound messages and heading off harsh judgement in the court of public opinion than procuring good data.
TL;DR tech is important but far from a panacea and something reps don't really think about.
- dbroockman 11y agoThere's two assumptions many in the civic tech space seem to share that I don't think are so obvious (not that I think they are wrong, just that I think they're not obvious): A1: The world would be better if politicians paid more attention to public opinion or knew more about it. I don't think this is so clear. Citizens support many policies not in their interest, don't know everything that experts do, etc. Most democracies reflect a tradeoff between popular control on the one hand and expert judgment / elite control on the other. I don't think either extreme is the best, and don't know where we are on that continuum relative to the ideal. But for what it's worth, my sense is that citizens actually understand this to some extent and ofter defer to legislators' judgments: http://stanford.edu/~dbroock/papers/broockman_butler_legislator_experiments_2014.pdf http://stanford.edu/~dbroock/papers/broockman_butler_legisla... A2: In order to increase citizen engagement, we should focus on lowering the cost of acquiring information about politics, the cost of participation, or the cost of providing information to representatives. I think this misses the real challenge: increasing people's motivation to participate and the benefits to participation. It's never been easier to participate in myriad ways -- the cost is epsilon. But if people see the benefits as zero, which many seem to, they still won't engage. I don't think the cost side of the equation is where the action is.
- vinhboy 11y agoI would add to A2 - Decrease the benefit of being a politician. So even if the populace is apathetic, at least they can't be taken advantaged of.