Liquid Democracy Research Articles

Електронна демократія: трансформація осмислення

The paper deals with the analysis of changes in the interpretation of the e-democracy concept main provisions. The author compares the formulations of ‘e-democracy’ definition, which have been proposed by reputable researchers over the past 20 years. The paper considers the peculiarities of interpretation of e-democracy’s essence at the main stages of its development, which were connected with the improvement of information and communication technologies (ICT). The author summarizes the opinions of scientists that at the present stage, which is defined as a network society, e-democracy is the main tool that ensures the effectiveness of democratic procedures and the quality of political decisions. It is predicted that the next stage of development will be AI-democracy (artificial intelligence democracy). The paper considers the basic principles and functions of e-democracy, which were established by the EU legislative acts. The main directions of the impact of new ICTs on democracy are shown, and the peculiarities of their implementation in different basic models of democracy are described too. The author analyzes the submodels of ‘wikidemocracy’, ‘liquid democracy’, ‘bubble democracy’, and ‘algocracy’, which are proposed by modern researchers. The paper outlines the latest threats to e-democracy. It highlights the negative changes in the perception of social media’s political role and shows how these changes have influenced the transformation of the understanding of e-democracy. The author illuminates the critique of the instrumentalist approach to the assessment of the essence and prospects of digital technologies implementation in the processes of political communication and participation. The paper presents the achievements of researchers who focus on the ethical aspects of ICT development. The author concludes that in order to restore the truth to democratic values, it is necessary to replace the instrumentalist approach with an axiological one. This transformation is especially relevant in terms of prospects for the transition of e-democracy to the next stage of its development – AI-democracy.

Liquid democracy of the Internet age

The rapid development of information and communication technologies and the permanent task of improving modern democracy have prompted the modern world public to search for ways, forms and mechanisms for attracting Internet technologies to solve problems of improving the modern democratization process. A critical analysis of the shortcomings of classical forms of democracy, namely direct democracy and representative democracy, has accumulated attempts by the creative Internet-community to search for new conceptual solutions of the perennial question of improving the democratic mechanism for the most complete consideration of the proposals, interests and opinions of each citizen when solving socially important problems both at the local and regional levels, as well as at the national level. The article presents a new concept of democracy by B. Ford. As conceived by its author and his followers, this concept is able to accommodate all the positive aspects and overcome all the shortcomings inherent in the classical forms of democracy. An important aspect of the presentation of this concept in the Ukrainian and Russian language discourse was the analysis of the terminological diversity that defines this phenomenon in modern scientific literature — flexible, moving, transparent, fluid, smooth, negotiable, liquid, fleeting, unstable, delegative, cloudy, self-organizing democracy etc., as well as the search for the most informative, given the social context, terminological definition of this concept in the Ukrainian and Russian language sociological scientific environment. The article analyzes the differences between the new form of democracy proposed by B. Ford and previously known delegative democracy. The need for such an analysis was due to fact, that in his early works B. Ford designated liquid democracy precisely as delegative, which entailed a certain scientific and terminological confusion in scientific discourse. The article discusses the features of a new form of democracy that are associated with the possibilities of using modern information and communication technologies and make liquid democracy an attractive element of the democratization process. The article also defines democratization potential of information and communication technologies.

On Rational Delegations in Liquid Democracy

Liquid democracy is a proxy voting method where proxies are delegable. We propose and study a game-theoretic model of liquid democracy to address the following question: when is it rational for a voter to delegate her vote? We study the existence of pure-strategy Nash equilibria in this model, and how group accuracy is affected by them. We complement these theoretical results by means of agent-based simulations to study the effects of delegations on group’s accuracy on variously structured social networks.

Liquid democracy: the option of ICT to incorporate citizen participation in representative institutions

The state of the art of democracy in the digital age presents the following issues: what are the digital conditions to empower citizens and make their political participation effective? How to reconcile individual participation with representative institutions? What is the transformation of democracy in the era digital? In response, I argue that the Liquid Democracy, with the contributions of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), achieves the dialectical synthesis of representative and direct democracy. In the argument I review the foundations and risks of direct democracy, the limits of representative institutions and the possibilities of citizen participation. Second, I describe Liquid Democracy and refer to the emerging empirical cases that have overcome the inadequacies of traditional models (Obstacles to demographic extension, complexity and specialization of public affairs). The Liquid Democracy includes deliberative action too. However I also evaluated the digital optimism from theory and practice to show their challenges and progress.

A fourth transformation of democracy? Liquid democracy, supra-national democracy and the fate of participation

ABSTRACT Liquid democracy is defined as a cyber democracy that combines representative democracy and spontaneous direct democracy by using technologies of the web 2.0. In recent years, some political theorists and actors have been optimistic that liquid democracy could make a more participatory and direct democracy possible to fulfil the democratic promise of freedom and equality of the people. One could even ask if a supra-national system could become a democratic option by using digital technologies for discussions and deciding. After the historical transformations of democracy, from the Greek city state via the nation-state to a global or supra-national unit, and the second and third ones came or come with a loss of participation, there could be, according to net-optimists, a fourth and more participatory transformation of democracy. This article doubts the emancipatory and participatory potential of liquid democracy (especially for a supra-national system), and I choose the classical theoretical perspective of democracy's ancient core elements of free and equal participation. By analysing the arguments of net-optimists the problems for participation in a political sphere are shown. The point the paper wants to make is that under the circumstances of a (digital) oligopoly-capitalism, fragmentation, and digital divide, or in short, the omnipresent influence of big social inequalities, a cyber-democracy is an unlikely ideal. Keywords: Civic participation, ICT, Global democracy, Liquid democracy, Republicanism transformation

До питання делегованої демократії: переваги, недоліки та перспективи розвитку

До питання делегованої демократії: переваги, недоліки та перспективи розвитку

Liquid Democracy: An Algorithmic Perspective

We study liquid democracy, a collective decision making paradigm that allows voters to transitively delegate their votes, through an algorithmic lens. In our model, there are two alternatives, one correct and one incorrect, and we are interested in the probability that the majority opinion is correct. Our main question is whether there exist delegation mechanisms that are guaranteed to outperform direct voting, in the sense of being always at least as likely, and sometimes more likely, to make a correct decision. Even though we assume that voters can only delegate their votes to better-informed voters, we show that local delegation mechanisms, which only take the local neighborhood of each voter as input (and, arguably, capture the spirit of liquid democracy), cannot provide the foregoing guarantee. By contrast, we design a non-local delegation mechanism that does provably outperform direct voting under mild assumptions about voters.

Binary Voting with Delegable Proxy: An Analysis of Liquid Democracy

The paper provides an analysis of the voting method known as delegable proxy voting, or liquid democracy. The analysis first positions liquid democracy within the theory of binary aggregation. It then focuses on two issues of the system: the occurrence of delegation cycles; and the effect of delegations on individual rationality when voting on logically interdependent propositions. It finally points to proposals on how the system may be modified in order to address the above issues.

The Liquid Democracy: Requirement of the Eco-Political Sustainability.

Se pretende demostrar por que la Democracia Liquida es exigida por la sustentabilidad necesaria a la eco-politica. Las premisas de argumento son: la justicia global y la soberania ciudadana son exigencias de la sustentabilidad eco-politica y, a su vez, la Democracia Liquida es el modelo que por excelencia promueve la justicia y la soberania. El corolario es que la Democracia Liquida es la modalidad idonea para la consolidar tambien al eco-desarrollo. El argumento obliga a explicar conceptos medulares: sustentabilidad, uso de recursos, sentido del consumo. Para lo cual se destacan apreciaciones axiologicas de la biosfera: desde la teologia hasta la economia. A su vez, el debate sobre el consumismo se enmarca en la sustentabilidad ampliada mas alla de los limites de la ecologia. Todo lo anterior suma argumentos a favor de la eco-politica ejercida con la Democracia Liquida como la mejor instancia para la elaboracion de las politicas ambientales.

Liquid planning, wiki-design—Learning from the Case Pispala

As the key aspects of theories of complex systems have been established, the premises for academic research on planning and on planning praxis still necessitates the development of novel planning tools and approaches to address inevitable urban self-organizing transformations. We have accepted that cities emerge from bottom up. However, planning methods simulating this emergence are still limited. Progress has been made in recent decades and many systemic, evolutionary, and computing based planning approaches have been proposed. The work here builds on these premises. Network theoretical, computational, and democracy discourses have proposed proxy or liquid approaches as for genuinely democratic forms of decision-making. More importantly, they enable information organization from bottom up in a digital platform. This process actually follows the very principles of self-organization of information in information or cognitive sciences: entropy decreases as the “bits” of information self-organize into coherent classes. These principles are also applicable in bottom-up planning. Hence, and to bring this discourse closer to the planning realm, I compared the conceptualized structures of Liquid Democracy, SIRN cognitive model and prior self-organizing planning proposals in a bottom-up planning experiment in Pispala neighborhood, Tampere, Finland. I evaluated its capacity for self-organization of information and hypothesized that the case provides a frame for a new self-organizing planning method. Based on this evaluation a structure for a digitalized Liquid Planning procedure is suggested and discussed.

Does the Digital Age Require New Models of Democracy? – Lasswell’s Policy Scientist of Democracy vs. Liquid Democracy

This essay provides a debate about Lasswell’s policy scientist of democracy (PSOD, 1948) in comparison to the model of liquid democracy (21 st century) based on the question if the digital age requires new models of democracy. The PSOD of Lasswell, a disciplinary persona, is in favour of an elitist approach to democracy including elite decision-making, as well as the values of wealth and power. Liquid democracy, on the other hand, emerged from the notion that the Internet provides a vast amount of possibilities for a mix between direct and representative democratic aspects. The term liquid democracy describes a more “fluid and responsive participation of citizens in the democratic process through the use of both online and offline networks” (david, 2013). In general, one can say that both models have their drawbacks and benefits. Since there are new technologies available in the digital age, we should make use of them for the public good, but in order to not exclude anyone, there should be a mix between traditional and technology-based methods with regard to democracy.

Liquid Democracy: Potentials, Problems, and Perspectives

Pirate Parties are suggesting a solution to citizens’ dissatisfaction with representative democracy that seeks to remedy the system from within. By combining direct democratic participation with a highly flexible model of representation, liquid democracy promises the best of both worlds: Citizens can freely choose to either vote directly on individual policyissues, or to delegate their votes to competent representatives who vote on their behalf. This delegation is policy-area specific and can be retracted instantly. So far, democratic theory has neglected this model of democratic decision-making. This article fills this gap. We first define the basic model of liquid democracy. We then defend two theses: First, liquid democracy mobilizes more political expertise than purely representative democracy; second, liquid democracy is more egalitarian than the latter. We draw on social epistemology, arguments from collective intelligence, and empirical research on voter competence to argue that we can expect ordinary citizens to master their tasks in a liquid democracy. Finally, we discuss two problems affecting the basic model of liquid democracy: a problem of unequal voting power, and a problem of policy-inconsistency. They can be addressed by combining liquid democracy with a trustee model of representation, requiring decision-makers to adhere to deliberative norms, and balancing liquid decision-making in legislatures with an executive that reviews the formal feasibility of policies and moderates package deals between proposals from different policy areas. Acknowledgments The original ideas for this paper were developed during a workshop on liquid democracy that was organized by the authors at the University of Cologne in spring 2012. We are indebted to all participants of the workshop, but in particular to Saskia Ruth, Holger Reinermann, and Gregor Zons for their contributions during the inspiring discussions we had. We would further like to thank Rene Roderstein for giving us the opportunity to present insights from the workshop to members of the Cologne Pirate Party and receive their feedback. Previous versions of this paper have been presented at the PDD Specialist Group Conference, 9-11 July 2014, Newcastle, England and at the 4th Global International Studies Conference, 6-9 August 2014, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. We wish to thank Sergiu Gherghina, Bob Goodin and three anonymous referees of the Journal of Political Philosophy for their excellent comments that have helped us improve this article. Both authors wish to acknowledge financial support received from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation while drafting the manuscript.

¿La democracia líquida como alternativa a la política clásica? Un estudio contextual

Desde hace tiempo se habla de la (re)construcción de la cuestión democrática mediante la utilización de sistemas de democracia participativa. La democracia líquida se sirve de la tecnología y de internet para intentar construir una nueva manera de entender la política ciudadana. La delegación del voto y la instauración del Parlamento virtual representan dos de los elementos para llevar a cabo los criterios de la democracia líquida. Este trabajo, abordando el estado de la sociedad del conocimiento, que es donde se desenvuelve la democracia líquida, intenta analizar una realidad que aún no plenamente madura puede tener la capacidad de revisar novedosamente el concepto de política participativa.

Płynna demokracja w programie Partii Piratów

Falling participation, which involves less and less legitimacy leads to increased dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy. New communication technologies in the area of policy by many was considered a remedy for the problems. Pirate parties present in dozens of countries postulate to return democracy to the citizens. One of the instruments is the Liquid Democracy, which can be found in their political agenda. This solution is not merely a theoretical construct, because for two years it was implemented in one of the German counties. Although Liquid Friesland met with massive public interest in the county of Friesland, the level of participation did not differ from other projects to participate in a digital democracy.

Criminal Risk, Media Representation and Role of the Criminal Law Culture

First of all, the essay is about the media’s redundant emphasis on risks and the elitist specious creation of collective worries, in particular with relation to the criminal phenomenon, presenting the results of criminological researches that validate the empirical demonstration of the media representation’s artificiality of criminal risk. The second part of the essay is dedicated to the influence of the media representation on the legislative choices of criminal politics, in particular in the actual contexts of the so-called “liquid democracy” developed around the new media, focusing the attention on the risks that it might involve with reference to the violation of some fundamental principles in the democratic modern systems. The conclusion is dedicated to the criminal law culture in a possible process of criminal-political paideia adapted to democratic and mass media postmodern needs, trying to track the ontological content of the minimum levels of knowledge of the citizens, such as the internalization of those fundamental values that constitute the ethos of the contemporary civil society.

Политические амбиции европейских “пиратов”

The paper thoroughly examines the ideological essence, political goals, structure, electoral achievements and international protest activities of the Pirate Movement, consisting of national Pirate Parties worldwide and the Pirate Parties International. The Pirate ideology arose in mid-2000s in response to information society biases, and is paying special attention to the freedom of non-commercial information exchange in the Internet, individual privacy, transparency of state politics and direct citizens' involvement with flexible Internet-tools (Liquid Democracy concept). This relatively new political force has made a vivid progress in electoral field within a short time (since 2006 till present). The representatives of the most successful Pirate Parties (in Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Spain, Croatia and Iceland) hold deputy's seats in municipal, regional, national and supranational state agencies, including the European Parliament. In many other countries of the world the "Pirates" are also registered officially and participate in elections; in some countries the Pirate Parties are active, though not yet registered. Except for electoral activity, the Pirate Parties organize joint protest campaigns against national laws/state programs and international agreements that violate the information freedom and civil rights (i.e. PRISM, ACTA). These campaigns also serve for unification and growth of the international Pirate Movement. The Pirate Parties have quickly transformed from populist groups into a political force aspiring to equitable participation in political process along with traditional political parties, challenging them in a certain way. The Pirate ideology will be in demand as long as it will give a resultative solution for specific problems of a post-industrial society in the context of democracy.

Through Liquid Democracy to Sustainable Non-Bureaucratic Government

We summarize the concept of Self-Service Government (ss-Gov) as presented earlier and explore how the principles of Liquid Democracy (LD) can be applied in ss-Gov for collaborative decision making. We provide a thorough insight into the history of LD and summarize its recent developments. By combining ss-Gov and LD, we develop the concept of Sustainable, Non-Bureaucratic Government (SNBG) as a novel, blank-slate approach to government of eligibilities within- and towards governmental systems. We argue that such entanglement of LD with ss-Gov results in a closed-circuit system that can provide end-to-end self-management of jural relations. Thus, we argue, SNBG is a vision concept capable to enable morphable self-managed government which requires virtually no mediatory human agents for government. We discuss the feasibility of such approach based on a Gedankenexperiment featuring a modern parliamentary decision-making process.

La democrazia digitale nella sfera pubblica globale

The aim of this article is to put in evidence the relationships between the digital democracy (e-democracy) and the rise of a global sphere. To study the implications of the diffusion of the web based tools in democratic processes we need to analyse the technologies capacity of regeneration and reshaping of institutions and procedures of liberal democracies, including their potential to give new opportunities for political inclusion: from the e-voting technicalities to the web-based platform for civic participation to the creation of a new sphere centred on discursive and participatory/deliberative practices (della Porta, Rucht 2013). This article frames the e-democracy and the open government processes within the perspective of the public horizons (Volkmer 2014), a concept more undefined but in the same time more functional than that of the sphere. The article also provides an overview of the different experiences of e-participation and digital democracy, identifying the participatory democracy and the deliberative practices as social processes, suitable to overcome the ambiguous concept of liquid democracy.

Through Liquid Democracy to Sustainable Non-Bureaucratic Government

We summarize the concept of Self-Service Government (ss-Gov) as presented earlier and explore how the principles of Liquid Democracy (LD) can be applied in ss-Gov for collaborative decision making. We provide a thorough insight into the history of LD and summarize its recent developments. By combining ss-Gov and LD, we develop the concept of Sustainable, Non-Bureaucratic Government (SNBG) as a novel, blank-slate approach to government of eligibilities within- and towards governmental systems. We argue that such entanglement of LD with ss-Gov results in a closed-circuit system that can provide end-to-end self-management of jural relations. Thus, we argue, SNBG is a vision concept capable to enable morphable self-managed government which requires virtually no mediatory human agents for government. We discuss the feasibility of such approach based on a Gedankenexperiment featuring a modern parliamentary decision-making process.

«Подвижная демократия»: за и против

The paper suggests the general analysis of the so called liquid democracy – the newest political concept which combines the elements of direct (deliberative) and representative democracy forms, by means of the modern information-network technology (based on internet). Brief historical review of the world democratic developments emphasizes the continuity of democratic forms from ancient to present times in all parts of Europe, including Russia. The modern liquid democracy theory is analyzed concerning both its strengths and weaknesses. As far as it unites direct and representative democracy concepts, it contains the advantages of both, but at the same time, multiple theoretical and practical problems need to be solved, many technical solutions are to be found to make the concept work. The main question raised in the article is: should this new concept be regarded as a real practical solution to improve the present-day state of world democracy, or is it just another utopian idea?