cah:HULK

South Dakota County Websites

2010-01-30T21:22:00.002-06:00

This is a working list. Note the utter lack of coordination. The South Dakota Association of County Officials keeps track of these as well.

Aurora
Beadle
Bennett
Bon Homme
Brookings
Brown
Brule
Buffalo
Butte
Campbell
Charles Mix
Clark
Clay
Codington
Corson
Custer
Davison
Day
Deuel
Dewey
Douglas
Edmunds

Fall River
Faulk
Grant
Gregory
Haakon
Hamlin
Hand
Hanson
Harding
Hughes
Hutchinson
Hyde
Jackson
Jerauld
Jones
Kingsbury
Lake
Lawrence
Lincoln
Lyman
Marshall
McCook

Swindon UK Builds Municipal Wi-Fi

2009-12-02T10:23:00.003-06:00

Keep building those community-wide public Wi-Fi hotspots! Next up—Swindon in Wiltshire, U.K.. 1400 access points, free 20Mb access for up to two hours a day, all to build a framework for expanding more connectivity for business and government:

Swindon council leader Rod Bluh said the project would lay the groundwork for some exciting potential new ‘wired up’ public services that could be offered by the council and partner bodies in future. “The really exciting part of the project is the applications we can roll off the back of it: business security at a very low cost, energy monitoring services, even medical services. I think this has got the capacity to change the way the public sector does business, and parts of the private sector” [Tristan Parker, "‘Mesh’ Scheme Offers New Model For Free Local Wi-Fi," E-Government Bulletin, 2009.11.30].

Universal Web access means local governments can use the Web more to inform and involve their citizens. I think Jefferson would dig that.

Web 2.0 to Replace Political Parties?

2009-11-18T07:24:00.003-06:00

E-Gov Bulletin from the UK suggests that social networks could sweep away political parties. Dr. Ian Kearns, former Head of the e-Government Programme at the Institute for Public Policy Research, tells the House of Commons' Parliamentary IT Committee that Web 2.0 is giving people the tools to recognize and use their power to organize and campaign.

Dr. Kearns is speaking in the British parliamentary context where third parties have a reasonable shot at making a difference. I'm not sure social networks would have as easy of a time upending one of our two dominant parties. However, his point that parties can (and must!) take advantage of the technology is proven by the Howard Dean and Barack Obama presidential campaigns. The Internet and social apps (plus a good spreadsheet) put as much organizing power in the hands of two local advocates in a back office as could have been mustered by a national campaign office a couple decades ago.

While the technology is powerful, Dr. Kearns emphasizes that the big shift is in how we use the technology, how we expect to be involved in the information process. Yes, it's the consumer-producer-conducer paradigm shift! Politicans need to get out of "broadcast" mode and recognize that politics is much more a two-way, participatory endeavor. The new politics is all about openness and engagement. If you're running for office, you can't just put up a website; you have to invite your voters in to build that website—to build its content—for you.

Electronic Participatory Budgeting: UK Reads Me!

2009-06-05T06:34:00.003-05:00

My MWDSI 2009 paper was a day late and a euro short, thanks to Freiburg im Breisgau, but the U.K.'s Headstar.com still thought my discussion of electronic participatory budgeting was worth reading... and publishing! Editor Dan Jellinek boiled it down to an essay (stripping out all those boring old APA citations) and posted it in Headstar's E-Government Bulletin Live online newsletter. Cool!

Participatory Redistricting in Ohio!

2009-04-10T07:43:00.002-05:00

Check out the Ohio Redistricting Competition: anyone (in Ohio or elsewhere) can log on and try heir hand at setting the boundaries for Ohio's legislative districts. The Secretary of State worked with a couple of legislators and Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, and Ohio Citizen Action to put this contest together. Entrants put together maps that will be scored by these criteria:

Compactness (25 points)
Communities of Interest (25 pts)
Competitiveness (12.5 pts)
Representational Fairness (12.5 pts)

The districts also have to meet legal thresholds of population equality (as close as possible), contiguity (point-contiguity not enough!), and provision of at least one "majority-minority" Congressional district (National Voting Rights Act).

Participatory Budgeting: More Resources!

2009-03-10T12:19:00.004-05:00

Catching up with notes from the Facebook participatory budgeting group:

Beyond Elections: a documentary by Silvia Leindecker and Michael Fox that asks a very simple question: What is democracy? Chapter 1 is all about participatory budgeting:

Open Budget Iowa: Iowa House Democratic Caucus takes a swing at getting some citizen input on the state budget. Pretty straightforward blog, no apparent effort to compile, summarize, or synthesize the citizen input, just posts with long comment lists. New content appears to dwindle; nothing new posted by organizers since end of January. Plus, as I look at the comments, I see lots of citizens dropping suggestions in the box, but not a lot of response from or interaction with legislators.

The UK Participatory Budgeting Unit has its own YouTube channel! See what those clever Brits are up to!

Tiago Peixoto at ConnectedRepublic.org reviews some state-level quasi-PB initiatives in New York, Arizona, Virginia, Nevada, and Minnesota.

Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia has put up a municipal budget cite to inform citizens and solicit their input in the run-up to his presentation of the city budget in mid-March. The site includes various supporting documents and news stories. Four public fora in February around the city drew 1700 participants. But too many PDFs! The project is supported by U Penn's Penn Project for Civic Engagement.

Open Budget Index: The Open Budget Initiative focuses on budget transparency. They studied 85 countries and found that 80% of those governments fail to give their citizens enough information to effectively monitor their governments' budgets. The U.S. does at least rank fifth, behind the U.K., South Africa, France, and New Zealand. Brazil, the home of PB, ranks eighth (remember, this is federal level, not municipal, where PB is happening).

838: turning random curiosity into publishable work

2009-02-18T19:33:00.002-06:00

Quick notes, 838, meeting with Amit:

Come up with a clear list of requirements. Don't sweat the existence of other systems. Go ahead, catalog those other systems, but make the system that meets your reqs.
Borrow from large-group collaboration research
--making room for more voices, allowing all to speak: recall the introductory survey/requirement idea
"social phenomenon is PB itself"
education! pre-test and post-test: "What do you think are the key issues in the budget?" test for educating
so these other systems exist -- they haven't been studied yet. The focus that makes the paper worthwhile is studying the system in the context of the constructs.
But what is your theory? What are you testing? You can't just go out, hand out a survey at random, and get a bunch of data. What is your theory? Go look on AISWorld, find the theory list.

Good E-Government Journals

2009-02-18T16:05:00.002-06:00

University of Albany's Center for Technology in Government has a nice list of journals dedicated to digital government research:

CTG also highlights Communications of the ACM, Government Information Quarterly, Information Technology & People, Journal of Government Information, Social Science Computer Review, and The Information Society as good general journals that carry occasional e-gov-relevant research.

Stimulus.Virginia.Gov: Step Toward National Participatory Budgeting

2009-02-11T14:58:00.003-06:00

So I just finished reading Susan Tanaka's (2007) discussion of "Engaging the Public in National Budgeting." She gives a good summary of the challenges of taking participatory budgeting (PB) to a national scale (at some level, you still need to be able to look all neighbors in the eye, Sale would remind us).

Then I crack open today's news and read that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has launched Stimulus.Virginia.Gov, a portal where Virginians (and anyone else interested) can submit ideas for how Virginia ought to use its chunk of the stimulus package (which may arrive on Obama's desk by the weekend).

Gov. Kaine opened the site yesterday. As of 16:08 EST today, I find 763 proposals for all sorts of projects:

#710: Replace the town of Chilhowie's water tanks ($1,500,000).
#725: Keep Aubrey Temple's hardware store open ($50,000).
#753: Every penny to direct tax relief ($TBD).
#759: Subsidize medication for old folks and fix up hospitals ($100,000,000).
#760: resurface roads in Rocky Run ($100,000).
#762: replace an organization's furnace with new green equipment ($3,000).

Dang—don't tell me citizens aren't eager to participate in something this complex!

I also find a nice little "Export to Excel" button that would allow me to download the whole list of proposals and sort them by dollar amount, proposer, etc. Bless you, Virginia.

Now this isn't national PB; this is just Virginia looking for ideas on how to spend its portion. But Virginia's a big state, and this is a truckload of money. Every state should be soliciting citizen input this way.

Tanaka, Susan. (2007). "Engaging the Public in National Budgeting: A Non-Governmental Perspective." OECD Journal on Budgeting (7:2), 139–177.

Public Administration: "Cooperation, Networking, Governance..."

2009-02-06T20:53:00.004-06:00

A little public admin from Frederickson (1999):

"Theories and concepts of the clash of interests, of electoral and interest group competition, of games, and of winners and losers have dominated and continue to dominate political science. Public administration is steadily moving away from these theories and concepts toward theories of cooperation, networking, governance, and institution building and maintenance."

Frederickson totally address Stewart (2007) on his citizen participation game theory. Stewart assumes a competition/conflict is afoot, and often, he may be right. But the public administrator's job is not to play that game, but create a new one in which we operate as collaborators. The evolving mission Frederickson describes justifies offering PA a DSS tool to make that happen.

PB: Justification Chart

2009-01-29T16:10:00.004-06:00

I thought of this while reading Bräutigam (2004): a justification chart, with all the good reasons for doing ePB. Actually, there are a couple areas of J: one for PB, one for doing PB by DSS:

Area	Justification	Source
PB	"consultation with affected groups was thought to influence the sustainability of policies and improve the prospects for their design and implementation"	Bräutigam 2004, p. 656
PB	"shadow of the future": Irish National Economic and Social Council has found that the knowledge that the project continues and that involved parties will be getting together again "has generated an environment of patience and trust" (Bräutigam) which "nurtures reciprocity, facilitates communication, improves flow of trsutworthy information and increase cost of defection" (Robert Putnam, World Bank)	Bräutigam 2004, p. 658
PB	It's our money! Discussing Mauritius: "Here we see a strong link between social expenditures and the revenues that must be generated to pay for them. Ordinary citizens pay taxes... and therefore, because of their revenue role and not just their spending role, have a right to hold the government accountable for its spending."	Bräutigam 2004, p. 663
ePB	"The poorest may not have the resources to participate, and may eb at a disadvantage" says Bräutigam—o.k., hook up a DSS to lower those participation costs!	Bräutigam 2004, p. 663
PB	Transparency can increase tax collections: folks see how their money is being used, "may be more likely to pay their taxes."	Bräutigam 2004, p. 666
PB	more info and transparency => easier to push gov't for pro-poor policy by hold to light gov't's failings	Bräutigam 2004, p. 667
PB	PB "can serve an important public education function" (all the more if ePB!)	Bräutigam 2004, p. 667

See if that helps!

PB for Pro-Poor Policy?

2009-01-29T15:56:00.003-06:00

Deborah Bräutigam, "The People's Budget? Politics, Participation and Pro-poor Policy," Development Policy Review, Vol. 22, No. 6, pp. 653-668, November 2004.

Big finding: the common factor among various places with pro-poor policy is a pro-poor political party (akin to Baiocchi et al.'s 2004 finding of political party as best predictor of PB adoption).
(654) PB often focuses on spending: should focus on taxing (consider that in design: work on tax assessment model, customize by user income/wealth... although that gets touchy!)
(655) History: early 1990's experts favored exclusionary technocracy: problems more complex, regular folks can't grasp, political pressures push away from difficult choices and well-grounded policy making
Reaction (and J!) from former Brazilian Finance Minister Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira et al.: "if democracy is not to be undermined as a consequence of economic reforms, the representative organisations and institutions must participate actively in the formulation and implementation of the reform program, even if this participation weakens the logic of the economic program or increases its cost"emphasis mine, because that responds to the discussion of the time and expense required to educate and engage lots of citizens
(658) Now remember, the fact that PB doesn't necessarily produce pro-poor policy doesn't mean PB is a bad idea. My skidsteer won't put a man on the Moon, but it's still a darn fine piece of equipment. Be clear on what you're trying to achieve.
PB comes in corporatist and activist models:

activist model: that's Brazil, where everybody can jump in
corporatist model: check out Ireland and Mauritius, with government panels still comprised of and dealing directly with institutional actors

PB Effects on Civil Society

2009-01-29T15:32:00.004-06:00

Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Patrick Heller, and Marcelo Kunrath Silva.
"Making Space for Civil Society: Institutional Reforms and Local Democracy in Brazil."
Social Forces, Volume 86, Number 3, March 2008, pp. 911-936

Notes:

eight-city matched-pair analysis, grids and everything!
still qualitative
looks at eight Brazilian cities, paired by region, one using PB, other not
best predictor of PB adoption: Worker's Party vote share (917)
--fits Bräutigam's (2004) finding that political party is a bigger factor than existence of PB itself in promoting pro-poor policy
found PB fostered some movement toward more engagement
found PB did not move any communities toward greater self-organization among citizens
note these PB efforts came from above, the elected Worker's Party govts.
in one city, Mauá, "civil society experienced a contraction of sorts": less clientelism (good), but autonomy (bad), but they also did PB wrong: consultative rather than fully participatory; lacked transparency, responsiveness to community needs, and decision-making mandate
Happy line for my local research: "...far too little research has focused on local civil societies" (931). Even if I don't cover that element for Baiocchi et al., I provide a case study in that direction, data that can be built on to fill that gap.

ePB and DSS: Reason to Pursue

2009-01-21T19:37:00.003-06:00

In INFS 838, we read Arnott and Pervan (2005), who find DSS research declining and often lacking relevance. One symptom: lack of clear mention of client or user. Check my article: pretty clear who the users are. Focus on that area, make it even clearer, talk about impacts on different specific groups of users within the community.

Video: Us Now -- Collaboration, Government, Internet

2009-01-08T15:30:00.002-06:00

Go watch Ivo Gormley's Us Now. Heck, it's online!

Here's Sophia Parker on participatory budgeting. She works for a UK outfit called (appropriately) Demos, "The Think Tank for Everyday Democracy":

PB and ICT: Belo Horizonte and Ipatinga

2009-01-08T12:36:00.006-06:00

Tiago Peixoto agrees that information and communication technology (ICT) could do a lot to support participatory budgeting. But he finds that ICT in PB is mostly "restricted to the provision of information about the process to the citizens." He sees a trend to do more ICT-enabled PB.

Big example: Belo Horizonte in Brazil. A city of 2.4 million residents (1.7 million voters), Belo Horizonte has been doing PB since 1993. In 2006, they added Digital Participatory Budgeting—e-PB! Participants got to vote for one of four public works projects in each of the city's nine districts. These were no small projects, either: in one district, the choices were a new sports complex, a new library, a big street renovation, and downtown rejuvenation, each tagged at 1.2 million US dollars. (The sports complex won... dang it!) Traditional PB projects in the city were around $(US)340K.

The e-PB included a discussion forum thread for each district. Peixoto considers the total 1210 posts relatively low but notes many more people read than posted (as usual online). Over a 42-day voting period (longer than any one physical PB meeting), the system drew 503,266 votes from 172,938 voters. That's about 10% participation, compared to 1.46% participation in the comparable second round of previous PB efforts. The e-PB budget was one seventh the size of previous efforts.

Thesis thought: We see ICT brought into a situation where PB is already established. Can we use ICT to initiate PB?

Peixoto finds that people kept their votes local—a majority voted only on projects in their home districts. He finds no evidence that richer people participated more often(!). He also says remote voting worked: as many as one third of the votes cast may not have come in if the project had not been online. How's that for boosting participation?

If you're worried about Internet access, Peixoto points out in the comments that "this year's" (I'm unclear 2008 or 2009) e-PB will incorporate phone voting. That doesn't support deliberation, but it brings in the vote. And everybody has a phone.

Down the road in Ipatinga, Teixoto finds Brazilians who've been using ICT in PB since 2001:

Since 2001, the city of Ipatinga has pioneered in using the Internet as a supplementary means for citizens to indicate public works that they wish to see submitted to vote at PB (offline) meetings, where the use of the Internet is correlated with an increase in the level of attendance of women and younger citizens at these face-to-face meetings.

In 2005, Ipatinga added some phone/SMS voting and outreach. The telemarketing worked: "96.8% of citizens who picked up the phone waited until the end of the mayor’s message before hanging up." Areas that got phone calls saw participation at PB meetings go up; areas with no telemarketing saw participation go down.

Teixoto emphasizes that he doesn't want to see online PB replace offline PB. He does suggest it would be interesting to see if online PB can encourage people to participate in the more costly offline PB. Really good stuff to build on!

London Parks PB "Bad Start"?

2009-01-08T11:59:00.002-06:00

Tiago Peixoto gives a thumbs mostly down to London's "Vote for Your Park," a participatory budgeting project to allocate ten grants of up to £400K. (The Wandle Valley with St. Helier open spaces, looks like a worthy project.) On the bad side, says Peixoto (a fellow doctoral student in Italy!), the site has no security and no means for discussion. On security, I note the site asks for first and last name, a description of where participants are voting from (home, friend's home, school, Internet café, etc.) and post code, although there the instructions say that visitors to London may enter the post code of the place where they are staying. It thus appears that the system not only does not block votes from non-residents but invites them. Interesting. The Greater London Authority does say it will allow one vote per person and disregard apparently inappropriate votes.

To the good, Peixoto says the local authorities have committed to base funding decisions on the results of the publci input. Peixoto also says that "a bad start" to participatory budgeting "is better than no start at all." London's fault is in design and execution, not in philosophy. Peixoto says working to change design is much easier than working to change philosophy.

E-Gov: Innovation Comes from Local Level

2009-01-07T10:43:00.003-06:00

from Ellen Perlman, "Wish Lists for Washington," Governing: Technology, 2009.01.06:

Governing talks to tech managers about what Obama's promised CIO might be able to do for states and locals:

Alan Shark, executive director and chief executive officer of the Washington, D.C.-based Public Technology Institute, which assists local governments:

"The simple answer is 'not much,' according to an informal PTI survey of many influential CIOs and CTOs in city and county government across the nation. Most believe, like me, that true innovation is more likely found at the local level, not the federal or state levels. And since we can't print money, our greatest obstacle is in finding funding and other resources [emphasis mine].

Captology -- Persuasive Technology

2008-12-29T21:28:00.002-06:00

Persuasive technology can refer to any technology used to shape beliefs and actions. Captology is the term the folks at the Stanford University Persuasive Technology Lab use to describe the study of computers as persuasive technology. Their blog pays some attention to the Obama campaign's use of technology (e.g., Facebook, cell phones) to mobilize voters and volunteers.

B.J. Fogg is the director of the show at Stanford UPTL.

Leela Damodaran -- All About Citizen Participation

2008-10-21T16:14:00.003-05:00

She cites Mumford! She studies local e-government! She is Professor Leela Damodaran, and she is the heat when it comes to participatory e-government. Check out this abstract:

Enid Mumford championed an ethical, socio-technical, and participatory approach to the design of ICT systems. In this paper, we focus on the development of e-government as an example of such a system. First, we present an extension of Mumford's ideas about the benefits and process of participation, based on an analysis of recent citizen engagement initiatives. We then examine the extent to which e-government reflects the principles she espoused. The evidence collated indicates that e-government development is currently characterised by a technocentric approach with minimal engagement of citizens. We discuss the implications arising from this analysis, and explore the benefits that governments could achieve from adoption of a socio-technical, participatory approach to e-government development. The crucial enabling role of capacity building is highlighted. Providing citizens with the necessary skills and capabilities to engage effectively offers the key to the successful development of systems such as e-government which impact our lives in the 21st century Information Society.

[Damodaran, Leela and Olphert, Wendy (2008) "Citizen Participation and engagement in the Design of e-Government Services: The Missing Link in Effective ICT Design and Delivery," Journal of the Association for Information Systems: Vol. 8: Iss. 9, Article 5.
Available at: http://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol8/iss9/5]

Victorian Public Sector Continuous Improvement Network

2008-09-23T00:16:00.002-05:00

Chadwick (2008) pointed me toward this one: every public employee in the state of Victoria, Australia, can join VPSCIN.org and blog away. Over 3000 members working to "promote continuous improvement (CI) through leadership and practice." Directed more internally than externally, though we can all read what's going on there.

And they use Wordpress.

Blog That Matters: UK Foreign Secretary Miliband Online

2008-09-21T20:46:00.002-05:00

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband blogs. Boy, does he blog! The secretary talks about visiting with the new president of Pakistan. He talks about an important dam project in Afghanistan. He cites Fareed Zakaria on Russia's adventure in Georgia to call the invasion "Not a clever day's work." Is that cool or what?

Here's Your Speeding Ticket -- How's That for Customer Service?

2008-07-25T07:35:00.003-05:00

Larry Grant, "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Regulatory Policy Comes Home," Government Reinventors, 2008.06.17:

"customer" doesn't make sense in regulatory situation
suppose cops gives you a speeding ticket; you aren't exactly a customer
note that Grant still looks for a "customer" in the relationship; he suggests in regulatory situations, the regulated are "compliers," while the general public is the "customer" receiving the benefit of government protection

California State Government Best Practices Wiki

2008-07-25T07:17:00.003-05:00

State of California Best Practices Wiki:

in-house: only state employees can add content, though public can read
created this year
focused right now on five areas: correctional healthcare, customer service, Green California, HR, and IT
"powered by crowd-sourcing"
monitored by Calif. State Library staff, "who will edit material for defamatory, illegal or otherwise inappropriate content"
code of conduct: "respect your fellow State employees"
supervisor approval for submissions not required, but wiki encourages letting supervisors know what you post in order to spread the word about the site

Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau "Tap the Power" Bibliography

2008-07-25T07:12:00.003-05:00

Heck of an idea: the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau ("a non-partisan agency serving the Wisconsin Legislature since 1901") publishes Tap the Power, an online bibliography on major issues. Each issue bibliography is compiled and posted by an LRB staffer. Tap the Power also includes an apparently annual "Favorite Books" feature, listing books recommended by legislators and staff.

JMDiMicco: Embedding Values in Tech

2008-05-13T21:21:00.002-05:00

IBM's Joan Morris DiMicco talks about a talk by Warren Sack on evaluating software. He speaks of needing "criteria of democracy and the public good." She interprets and agrees that "we embed our values into the technology we design," cites object-oriented programming as a manifestation of our embrace of "modern top-down, distributed corporations."

Anthony Williams on Government 2.0

2008-04-21T15:47:00.003-05:00

Paula Klein, "How Web 2.0 Can Reinvent Government," CIO Insight Weekly Report, 2008.04.01. URL: http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Expert-Voices/Web-20-Reinventing-Democracy/

Anthony Williams co-wrote Wikinomics with Donald Tapscott. He says collaborative tech is changing business; gov't needs to catch up!

Q: Are there many differences between Web 2.0 use in the public and private sectors?

Williams: Perhaps the obvious difference is that businesses have customers and employees, but the public sector also has citizens, who are much like shareholders. Citizens and shareholders are similar, but the citizen relationship is arguably deeper: It implies a set of rights and freedoms, as well as a set of obligations and responsibilities to the state. [emph mine]

--government moves more slowly, more cautiously: always an opposition party waiting to pounce; less tolerance for risk than in business
--government "silo" structure like old (in Friedman terms) business structure: time to flatten the world, horizontally integrate

Spectacular list of "G-Webs":

Intellipedia: Wikipedia for spooks!
Politicopia: Utah Rep. Steve Urquhart's experiment in a do-it-yourself CLDS
Neighborhood Knowledge Los Angeles (and statewide counterpart NKCA): big data portal for community improvement activists -- lots of public data and maps intended to help people get info about their communities without sifting through tons of docs at the courthouse. Sure, it's more the government service provider model, but it's providing information with the idea that "consumers" are going to use the info for their own political decision-making and action. It's not G2C; it's G2G!

Top-down management mindset may hold back Govt 2.0 -- those guys don't want to give up their authority. Plus...

[Williams]: There’s considerable skepticism about the role citizens should play in policy-making. Do they have the time and expertise to make meaningful contributions to complex policy deliberations? This debate goes back centuries. In the early 20th century, journalist Walter Lippmann questioned the competency of average citizens, comparing them to a deaf spectator in the back row. By contrast, [philosopher] John Dewey argued against “an oligarchy managed in the interests of the few” and was a proponent of greater citizen participation and democratic education. That debate continues.

What’s different is that citizens now have unprecedented tools to inform themselves, to reach out to others with like interests and to organize as never before. Politicians have tools, too. There’s no excuse not to use them. The infrastructure is there. It’s about political will and a willingness to be open and to incorporate feedback and put it into practice. At the same time, digital communications make geography less relevant and reinforce the need to open up the policy-making process to global participation.

On legitimacy: go 2.0 or die! Seriously!

[Williams]: Governments that choose not to open up or those that fail to foster active participation in governance will eventually lose legitimacy and authority. Citizens increasingly self-organize to provide their own entertainment, media and services. Is it a stretch to imagine a self-organized open-source approach to government? Governments can either be active participants in this process or unwilling bystanders.

But is Govt 2.0 practical? Can we actually involve all of us South Dakotans in a policy debate?

[Williams]: Software developers have already figured out how to scale up collaboration technologies to support global business enterprises, so I see no reason why Web 2.0 could not support hundreds of thousands of people in a real-time policy debate. [emph mine]

My Papers and Presentations

2008-03-26T14:45:00.000-05:00

Papers by CA Heidelberger:

"Citizens, Not Customers: Transforming E-Government," INFS 614: Intro to Research MEthods, DSU, 2007.12.09. formats: Word | PDF
"Citizen-Legislator Discourse System: Toward Neohumanist E-Government," INFS 805: Design Research Methodology, DSU, 2007.11.15. formats: Word | PDF

Presentations by CA Heidelberger:

"Improving E-Government: Citizens as Participants, Not Consumers," Student Research Initiative Poster Session, State Capitol Rotunda, Pierre, SD, 2008.02.20. formats: Publisher | GIF | JPG
"Improving E-Government: Citizens as Participants, Not Consumers" [PowerPoint], INFS 890 Spring Seminar, Dakota State University, Madison, SD, 2008.03.26.

References: INFS 890 Seminar

2008-03-26T11:24:00.002-05:00

presented 2008.03.26

AMCIS 2008 Conference: E-Government mini-track. URL: http://www.business.mcmaster.ca/amcis2008/MT/amcis-pr-069-2008-File001.pdf
ACSI (2006). "ACSI Methodology," About ACSI. American Consumer Satisfaction Index. Downloaded 2008.03.21. URL: http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=41
Baum, C., and DiMaio, A., "Gartner's Four Phases of E-Government Model," Gartner, Inc., Research Note, Tutorial TU-12-6113, 21 Nov 2000
Benkler, Yochai (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University.
Birdsall, Stephanie (2005). 'The Democratic Divide," First Monday (10:4).
Butler, Patrick, and Collins, Neil (2004). "Citizen as Consumer." In Neil Collins and Terry Cradden (Eds.), Political Issues in Ireland Today. Manchester University Press, 135-148.
Borland, John (2007). "Online Voting Clicks in Estonia," Wired.com, 2007.03.02. Downloaded 2008.03.19. URL: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/03/72846
Fornell, Claes (2007). "Government Satisfaction Scores," ACSI Scores and Commentary, 2007.12.17. Downloaded 2008.03.21. URL: http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=176&Itemid=62
Gibson, Rachel (2001). "Elections Online: Assessing Internet Voting in Light of the Arizona Primary," Political Science Quarterly (116:4), 561–583.
Keating, Michael (1995). "Size, Efficiency, and Democracy: Consolidation, Fragmentation, and Public Choice." In David Judge, Gerry Stoker, and Harold Wolman (Eds.). Theories of Urban Politics . Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage Publications, 117–134.
Lourenço, Rui Pedro, and Costa, João Paulo (2007). "Incorporating Citizens' Views in Local Policy Decision Making Processes," Decision Support Systems (43:4), August, 1499–1511.
Martinelli, Nicole (2008). "In an Internet First, Americans Abroad Cast E-Votes in Democratic Primary," Wired.com, 2008.02.05. downloaded 2008.03.19. URL: http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2008/02/primary_evote
OMB E-Government Task Force, "E-Government Strategy: Simplified Delivery of Services to Citizens," Office of Management and Budget, United States Federal Government, 27 Feb 2002.
Osborne, David, and Ted Gaebler. 1992. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Newman, J., "Issue Brief: Electronic Government," Bureau of Information and Telecommunications, State of South Dakota, Nov 2003.
Ryan, Neal (2001). "Reconstructing Citizens as Consumers: Implications for New Modes of Governance," Australian Journal of Public Administration (60:3), 104-109.
Rehg, William, McBurney, Peter, and Parsons, Simon. (2005). "Computer Decision-Support Systems for Public Argumentation: Assessing Deliberative Legitimacy," AI & Society (19), 203–229.
Turoff, M., Hiltz, S.R., Cho, H.-K., Li, Z., and Wang, Y., "Social Decision Support Systems (SDSS)," Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii international Conference on System Sciences, 2002, pp. 81–90.

ACSI, E-Gov Performance, and Customer Loyalty

2008-03-21T10:28:00.005-05:00

Stowers, Genie N.L. (2004). "Measuring the Performance of E-Government," E-Government Series, IBM Center for the Business of Government. March 2004.

ACSI (2006). "ACSI Methodology," About ACSI. American Consumer Satisfaction Index.

A quibble I'm not sure will stick, but interesting: Stowers (2004) points to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) as a good tool for evaluating the effectiveness of e-Government. But check out the ACSI methodology:

See that little bubble at the end: "Customer Loyalty"? ACSI says this about that:

Customer loyalty is a combination of the customer's professed likelihood to repurchase from the same supplier in the future, and the likelihood to purchase a company’s products or services at various price points (price tolerance). Customer loyalty is the critical component of the model as it stands as a proxy for profitability.

"The critical component" -- so how do we apply "customer loyalty" to e-Government? How many customers dissatisfied with their e-Government experience are going to move to another country? How many people dissatisfied with the Department of State website will get their passports from France instead? The ACSI appears to measure consumer satisfaction in the context of a competitive market, a condition that simply doesn't apply for most of what we turn to the government (and e-government) for.

Now Stower (2004) suggests an out (p. 25): in e-govt, "customer loyalty" may simply refer to the user's willingness to use the site again, not move to Canada. Still, there's a difference. There's only one agency I can get my driver's license from. Whether I go online or to the courthouse, my loyalty doesn't have much room to roam. I'm still dealing with the government. That's very different from the private sector situation, where I can stop buying books from Barnes and Noble's website and from their stores and do all my book shopping through Amazon.com.

American Consumer Satisfaction Index -- E-Gov Improves Service

2008-03-21T10:11:00.005-05:00

Stowers, Genie N.L. (2004). "Measuring the Performance of E-Government," E-Government Series, IBM Center for the Business of Government. March 2004.

Fornell, Claes (2007). "Government Satisfaction Scores," ACSI Scores and Commentary, 2007.12.17.

Stowers (2004) directs me toward the application of the American Consumer Satisfaction Index to e-Gov. In a way, this tool just feeds the "citizen as consumer" paradigm.

But if we accept the paradigm, we could conclude that e-Government is achieving its goals of improving customer service. Fornell (2007) finds that while the federal government overall scores 67.8 on the 100-pt ACSI, federal e-Gov scores 8% better at 73.4, almost as good as the private sector services rating of 74.0. (Fornell also notes the only private sector services scoring worse than the USFG are newspapers, airlines, and cable/satellite TV.)

New Public Management vs New Public Service

2008-03-19T21:23:00.002-05:00

Cornell website points to New Public Service as a response to New Public Management. Note that the discussion takes place under the heading of "Restructuring Local Government."

NPS is a direct reaction to NPM from authors Janet and Robert Denhardt, who "offer a synthesis of the ideas that are opposed to the New Public Management" in their 2002 book The New Public Service (Cornell says 2003; see also 2007 edition)

Seven principles of NPS (quoted from Cornell web):

Serve citizens, not customers
Seek the public interest
Value citizenship over entrepreneurship
Think strategically, act democratically (In comparison to Osborne and Gaebler, Denhardt and Denhardt assert that there is a difference between “thinking strategically” and “entrepreneurial government.”)
Recognize that accountability is not simple
Serve rather than steer (This involves listening to the real needs of the people and the community, not just responding in the manner that a business would to a customer.)
Value people, not just productivity

The Denhardts see public administrators as more than managers doing cost-benefit analysis. Administrators are participants, just like citizens:

The public manager’s job is not only, or simply, to make policy choices and implement them. It is also to participate in a system of democratic governance in which public values are continuously rearticulated and recreated (Reich 1988, 123-24, quoted in D&D 96).

Note that NPS sounds less well developed than NPM; shorter bib, at least, on Cornell site.

Rehg, McBurney, and Parsons (2005): Big Methodology, Two Extant Systems

2008-02-12T19:29:00.002-06:00

Rehg, William, McBurney, Peter, and Parsons, Simon. (2005). "Computer Decision-Support Systems for Public Argumentation: Assessing Deliberative Legitimacy," AI & Society (19), 203-229.

"decision-support systems for public policy argumentation" so far focus more on reasoning, and inference -- the dialectic process -- than rely on knowledge database; thus "argumentation systems" rather than "knowledge systems"
CAH hits the bullseye: "If appropriately designed, such systems should be able to assist debate by tracking various claims and arguments, by searching databases for relevant information, and by continually updating and assessing the overall state of the debate." (204)
gaps between formal design and practice show that AI researchers need to "engage in interdisciplinary experimentation;" hang with the poliSci, Soc, and other social scientists; and participate in the public discourse system themselves (205)
Zeno system

EC-funded, GMD urban planning
developers (Gordon and Karacapilidis) call it "mediation system"
formalized IBIS (issue-based information system) model (Rittel & Webber 1973)

issue: topic ("Where should we put the airport?")
position: some relevant statement ("We should put it in Bob's cornfield.")
argument: statements for or against positions ("Bob's cornfield is too close to the hospital.")

actually labels positions as acceptable or not based on established constraints
supports real-time debates
intuitive, graphical interfaces

Risk Agora (McBurney and Parsons)

Proposed for scientific debate "over the potential health and environmental risks of new chemicals and substances and the appropriate regulation of these substances" (207)
like Zeno, labels arguments, seeks to give snapshot of overall status of debate
not meant for real-time
no intuitive, graphical interfaces

Three key roles for argumentation systems:

support participants (help citizens, mediators, decision-makers find info)
serve orrery role (keep records)
provide forum for dialogue
systems not close to being participants or decision-makers

Problem with evaluation of SDSS: how do we know it's producing any better decisions than the old way? How do we measure the effectiveness of the old decision-making process? "The precise problem that interests us here, however, is the lack of an inherent, or independently accessible, standard of truth or correctness for urban planning decisions" (212) or any social decision, for that matter. Closely tied to our political biases!

Think of it this way: plug in the CLDS, let it run for five years. How can I tell if Russ is making better decisions now than he was pre-CLDS?

Standards from Schmidt-Belz et al. (1998)

efficiency
transparency
non-coerciveness
equality of participation

Legitimacy: Four dimensions of "reasonable deliberative transformation"

"self-transformation"

deliberation central, not bargaining (the latter is the "conventional pluralist model")
delib focuses more moving people from self-interest to conception of common good; bargaining about maximizing util.
participants willing to share info, learn from each other, even change (transform!) position (negotiators usu. hold some info back)

substantive dialectical quality

"truth" a bad measure!
address all relevant information
arrive at msot justifiable/reasonable outcome
combination of expertise and values

inclusiveness
non-coerciveness

not enough to give everyone access; you also have to make sure there's not some aspect of the system that limits some users ability to have their say and to learn from other participants
watch those mediators!

formal procedures can be coercive, inhibit knowledge flow! Check with these three questions, based on the above roles:

"Do the participant-support mechanisms favor some parties over others?"
"Is the tracking or record keeping genuinely neutral -- that is, can each stakeholder perceive that the system has represented his or her or its position, interests, calues, and arguments accurately?"
"And does the forum structure (e.g., the sequencing of links at the user-interface) give some participants greater opportunity to influence the deliberation?" (222)

Note that determine whether there is coercion, the researcher must become a participant, talk to the other participants, understand things from their context

McBurney and Parsons (2001): Methodology Fodder!

2008-02-11T17:29:00.000-06:00

McBurney, Peter, and Parsons, Simon. (2001). Intelligent systems to support deliberative democracy in environmental regulation. Information & Communications Technology Law, 10(1), 79-89.

Ugh! Abstract only, no full text! Get it!

Among normative models for democracy, the Deliberative Model suggests that public policy decisions should be made only following rational, public deliberation of alternative courses of action. This article argues that such a model is particularly appropriate for the assessment of environmental and health risks of new substances and technologies, and for the development of appropriate regulatory responses. To give operational effect to these ideas, a dialectical argumentation formalism for an intelligent system within which deliberative debates about risk and regulation can be conducted is proposed. The formalism draws on various philosophies of argumentation, scientific and moral discourse, and communicative action, due to Toulmin, Pera, Alexy and Habermas. (!!!)

Keating (1995): technocratic approach 1960s & 1970s

2008-02-11T17:17:00.001-06:00

Keating, Michael (1995). "Size, Efficiency, and Democracy: Consolidation, Fragmentation, and Public Choice." In David Judge, Gerry Stoker, and Harold Wolman (Eds.). Theories of Urban Politics. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage Publications, 117-134.

technocratic, "service-delivery" perspective frequent in 1960s and 1970s, too, "leaving democratic participation as an afterthought" (128)

Livingstone et al. (2007): "Citizen-consumer" in UK discourse, problems remain

2008-02-11T16:51:00.001-06:00

Livingstone, Sonia, Lunt, Peter, and Miller, Laura (2007). "Citizens and Consumers: Discursive Debate During and After the Communications Act 2003," Media, Culture & Society (29:4) 613-638. Abstract only -- not Mundt-avail! Rats!

The regulation of media and communications in the UK has recentlybeen subject to reform resulting in the creationof the Office of Communications (Ofcom). This statutory body, established by an Act of Parliament, is anew, sector-wide regulator, protecting the interestsof what has been termed the ‘citizen-consumer’.This article charts the discursive shifts that occurred during the passage of the Communications Act throughParliament and in the initial stages of itsimplementation to understand how and why the term ‘citizen-consumer’ came to lie at the heartof the new regulator’s mission. By criticallyanalysing the various alignments of ‘citizen’and ‘consumer’ interests within the debates, the underlying struggles over the formulation ofpower, responsibility and duties for the newregulator and for other stakeholders – industry, governmentand public – are identified. The articleconcludes that the legacy of these debates isthat regulatory provisions designed to further the ‘citizen interest’ contain significant and unresolveddilemmas.

Butler & Collins 2004: Citizen as consumer -- Ireland

2008-02-11T15:53:00.000-06:00

Butler, Patrick, and Collins, Neil (2004). "Citizen as Consumer." In Neil Collins and Terry Cradden (Eds.), Political Issues in Ireland Today. Manchester University Press, 135-148.

Citizen as consumer has advantages for improving efficiency, but also threatens democracy (135) -- very much as Ryan (2001) says.

"Citizen as consumer" comes from New Public Management (NPM): movement across Western democracies

big role for marketing
"focus on market operations and management of customer service" (135)
see Osborne and Gaebler (1993), "the American NPM gurus" (146)

"The ultimate paradox is that better utilisation of managment technologies may damage political processes and institutions, because treating citizens as consumers involves both positive and negative outcomes.... Problems associated with the separation of politics and administration are raised in this context. Initiatives relating to the provision of government services by electronic means (often called 'eGovernment') that primarily emphasize customer service delivery will also be vulnerable to such difficulties" (emphasis mine, 135-136).
NPM-CAC perspective appealing -- "How could anyone not want better service?" (140) and "We should run government like a business" (143) -- but weakens sense of corresponding rights and social responsibilities/duties/obligations. Govt must be "guided by objective policies aimed at meeting social rather than personal needs" (142, quoting Humphreys, 1998:19).
Elaborates on Ryan (2001), notes that consumer mindset lessens sense of collective responsibility: we can't have a system where only the direct "consumers" of higher education get a say on higher ed policy; the whole community gets to take part
Again summarizing Ryan (2001): "...the market model implies that the production of public services is a technical rather than political process..." (143)
"Market-driven managerialism is primarily based on happy customers rather than involved citizens" (144).
Market research (focus groups, surveys, etc.) may actually keep the public at a distance (145)

Well, that's problematic for my methodology....

They include "principles guiding Civil Service Customer Action Plans" which refer to "customers"

Ryan 2001: Citizens as Consumers = Bad Perpsective

2008-02-11T12:33:00.001-06:00

Ryan, Neal 2001 Reconstructing Citizens as Consumers: Implications for New Modes of Governance Australian Journal of Public Administration 60:3 104-109

Nail on the head: the market model of citizens as consumers is bad. Great advocate for CLDS.

1980s-1990s: emphasis on improving service by creating markets: privatize, make government compete

inadequate model for regime of partnerships and cooperation
inadequate there isn't real competition for services

"citizen as consumer" hurts citizen-govt relationship

redefines relationship as "passive commercial transaction rather than an interactive political engagement" (105)
emphasizes "sovereignty of the individual over the public good" (105)
market mindset breaks down if market forces (competition, consumer knowledge, etc.) don't apply
oversimplifies relationship: often not voluntary; not simple reciprocation of services for taxes/payment; ignores mutual commitment" (107)

Implications

"public confidence in government is likely to be higher in circumstances in which there are high levels of participations, engagement and knowledge" (107)
surveys great, do more, but don't allow them to replace real political engagement: ranking preferences on a filtered list of choices created by a pollster still isn't as good as taking the floor and presenting your own original idea
"focus on individual satsifaction diminishes the contribution of public services to building the social capital that may result from a focus on collective relationships" (107)
"the language of producers and consumers contributes to notions of elitist government"!!! (107) contributes to impression of govt as "high value producers of services" filled with experts whom the rest of us mere mortals have to sit back and trust and not presume to bother with our humble opinions

Google Partners with States on Gov2.0

2008-02-06T11:57:00.000-06:00

Google press release, "Google and Four US States Improve Public Access to Government Websites," April 30, 2007

Lots of govt info on databases not accessible to search engine crawlers, thus harder to find
state tech managers working to increase amount of govt info available to Google searches
Sitemap Protocol is key

produces list of all pages on website
automatically sends list to search engines

see case study on Arizona and press info

Arizona: less than 50 tech staff hours >> implementation on eight major databases, "made hundreds of thousands of public records and other pages 'crawlable'"

Started with CA, AZ, UT, and VA
added MI, FL