Voting for Democracy: The Obama Vision of Open Government and Public Engagement

Lost in our understandable preoccupation with a host of immediate crises might be the fact that the Obama platform holds out the promise of an unprecedented revitalization of American democracy. If you're inclined to take Senator Obama's advice and vote hopes rather than fears, you ought to go to his platform on "Technology," scroll down to the section called, "Create a Transparent and Connected Democracy," and then download his position paper on technology and innovation.

The stakes here are hard to overstate. Americans have within their grasp a host of communication tools that could sustain a robust democratic culture of sharing, creativity and participation. It is so easy now to feel powerless, cynical, alienated from government, and distrustful of all public institutions. Senator Obama, however, is promising to lead a transformation in our political life. Imagine how people's attitudes would change if citizens felt they could actually insist upon and then see results from the government's embrace of fact-based solutions to the critical problems that individual citizens cannot conquer entirely on their own.

Such a transformation can pervade our economic and social life, with enormous impacts on our productivity, competitiveness, and individual and collective problem-solving. Widespread collaborative interaction with new tools and resources for information and deliberation can spread throughout both the public and private sectors, as people's expectations expand for what they can accomplish both for themselves and their fellow citizens. A new culture of democratic action holds forth the prospect of not only engaging people in activities with concrete, tangible payoffs for personal success and community empowerment, but also proliferating values of tolerance, respect, and mutual engagement that have been the themes not only of the Obama campaign, but of Barack Obama's entire public life.

The Obama platform is something of a "Top Ten" list when it comes to proposals for federal leadership in revitalizing democracy through technology. He would "make government data available online in universally accessible formats to allow citizens to make use of that data to comment, derive value, and take action in their own communities." He would establish pilot programs to open up government decision-making to meaningful public input. He would require heads executive departments and agencies to conduct significant public business in public and in venues that can be watched online.

Obama promises to employ current information technology to permit citizens to participate in public meetings from a distance. He promises "a web site, a search engine, and other web tools that enable citizens easily to track online federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials." He would solicit public comment on the final drafts of all non-emergency legislation before he signs it into law.

A President Obama would require cabinet officers to have national "town hall meetings" online. He would improve government decision-making through Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs and wikis. He would recommit the federal government to providing access to public records. He will pursue both universal broadband and open networks to give every person in America genuine access to the tools of 21st Century democratic participation.

If you're a "fear" voter, then the only two words you need to remember on Election Day, are "Supreme Court." But if you're allowing yourself the audacity of hope, remember Alexander Hamilton's words: "It has frequently been remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government by reflection and choice." Senator Obama apparently believes in an affirmative answer to that question and has promised to do whatever the federal government can do to empower American citizens to make that vision a reality.

Comments

[NationalTreasure]

this open transparency is a crock of crap

since the eighties when the republicans began to privatize the running of our government and to turn as much of our government over to contractors spending has gone out of control

what good is transparency when the way a contractor manages the way the spend out money for example Haliburton/KBR and companies like Blackwater

it is not the lack of transparency it is the lack of accountability and the fact that vast parts of our government is now run by contractors and no one is accountable or effecting oversight

[Peter M. Shane - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree that transparency without accountability would be of limited value, but accountability without transparency seems to me to be a complete impossibility!

[Rhuaidhri]

I love that Obama isn't afriad to to say you can't expect a great education unless your also willing to become involved in your childrens education.

You can't expect a great education, health service, environment, community, government unless your willing to pay more than lip service to your responsibilites in these areas.

We are not entitled to these things just because we pay our taxes and maybe vote.

We expect good health are unwilling to take ourselves and our environment. We expect law and order but are unwilling to do our civic duty. We expect good government but are unwilling to make the sacrifices our leaders ask of us.

Our public servants deserve more than a decent wage if they do a good job, they deserve our respect and support, indeed a little bit more respect and support to each other could go a long way.

In Ireland there has been a huge increase in the Standard of Living while the Quality of Life has fallen sharply, precisely because we have adopted an "American" culture. Blind ambition is admired while more caring values are mocked, success is measured only by wealth and not by the better yardstick of happiness.

Call me a hippy, but I didn't always think this way, it's a lesson I've taken from life. I might be preaching to the converted but if you are one of the converted, do you spread the message and lead by example?

[shamanbart]

Obama's definitely moving us in the right direction -- transparency and participation. Part of what makes participation meaningful is when the public "gets the facts", i.e., gets accurate statistics, gets accurate voting records, gets accurate and concise information about bills being proposed, etc.

The problem with government transparency is that the average voter needs a law degree and P.I. training to dig through the available data. Bills need to be boiled down into exactly what effect the measure will have. Example -- "Patriot Act". About 20 bullet points might have told people that it wasn't the most Constitution-friendly bill in the world to support.

Likewise, when congressmen and senators vote on bills, amendments, riders, etc., a summation of what the net effect of the voting was -- i.e., if a senator voted against war funding with a timeline but voted for a similar bill without a timeline. Basically some non-partisan, trustworthy analysis is needed so people can keep track of this stuff accurately. And go back to call it up again later.

Technology makes information available, but information without interpretation is just meaningless data.

[tmaleone]

this is one of the main reasons he got my vote! I think that allowing the public to be interactive with the government is going to make people feel like they matter again. That they have a real place to seek knowledge and give personal input. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea of holding meetings live on-line I think this could cut corruption down so much. Time to turn eyes on the people our tax dollars are employing. Politicians are public servants after all.

[FederalistElephant]

First, Peter, Obama and others would do well to remember we are a Republic. This one thing gets under my skin more than any, when the sheeple continue to say we live in a Democracy. Peter please explore past Nations who were Democracy governments and I think you will find they all ended up as Dictatorships, as well as Democracy is bad in general for individuals as a whole because it forces the opinion, morals, and ideas of the majority onto the minority something our Founding Fathers specifically wished to prevent. Democracy's generally tend to take the slow decline to Socialist Societies prior to one individual rising up proclaiming they can raise the country up from its calamity(sound familiar?) who then proclaims they need singular power to accomplish this task and eventually become the Dictator.

Please dont try to "sell" me on changing our current form of government to a Democracy Mr. Obama, although even as President, I doubt it possible, as the President is but one Man, who must still get the Congress to go along. I find laughable all of the sheeple who believe he will be able to exact so much "Change".

[Peter M. Shane - Huffpost Blogger]

Yours is a thoughtful comment, but I think you are drawing a false dichotomy. I do not think Obama equates "democracy" with "direct democracy." He surely believes, as do I, in representative government. But the quality of representation we enjoy can be dramatically enhanced if members of the general public were more involved in conveying to the relevant decision makers both their perspectives and the facts they have available about how current and potential public policy affects their lives. Representative government could be vastly improved if the electorate could hold its representatives to more meaningful account through easier access to information about their decision making and their sources of support. The morning news indicates that the third quarter of 2008 marked the worst downturn in our GDP since 2001, but Exxon-Mobil's most profitable quarter ever. Our system of government is actually verging on "petrocracy," and more democratic participation is the cure. I think more public attentiveness and participation would strengthen, not weaken our republican institutions.