Mark Mellman: Democracy and the Internet

American politics has long navigated uneasily between two forms of democracy: Republicanism and mass, or direct, democracy. 

Journalist and labor leader J.W. Sullivan, whose 1893 book Direct Legislation by the Citizenship Through the Initiative and Referendum influenced Western progressives to champion those measures, described the contrast: “There is a radical difference between a democracy and a representative government. In a democracy, the citizens themselves make the law and superintend its administration; in a representative government, the citizens empower legislators and executive officers to make the law and to carry it out. … In other words, democracy is direct rule by the majority, while representative government is rule by a succession of quasi-oligarchies, indirectly and remotely responsible to the majority.”

{mosads}While our system contains elements of direct democracy, and the idea retains a hold on the public mind, America is largely republican (small r).

Advocates of direct democracy see the Internet as the tool that will give direct effect to their vision, curing defects in our democracy.

The evidence isn’t really on their side. 

Of course, we do suffer defects.

Participation, for example, even when measured by the least demanding criterion — turnout in national elections — is often weak at best. Many developing countries outpace the U.S. on this measure. 

But the hyper-connectivity brought about by the Internet is hardly a cure-all. 

Iceland’s so-called “crowdsourced constitution” was one of the great experiments in this vein. Three novel features defined the process. 

The first was a national forum — an initial consultation among a group of 950 randomly sampled citizens who gathered to list the principles and values they wanted enshrined in the country’s constitution. 

The second unusual element was an assembly of 25 elected constitution drafters, selected from a pool of 522 citizens who nominated themselves. 

Third, these 25 constitution drafters decided to use social media to open up the process to the rest of the citizenry and gather input on 12 successive drafts. Anyone could comment on the draft using tools like Facebook and Twitter, or by regular email and mail. 

Among the suggestions was a constitutional right to the Internet, which resulted in Article 14 of the final proposal.

As exciting as it sounds as a way to use technology to reinvigorate democracy, it too suffered some failings: participation and efficacy, to name two.

To get the random 950 members of the constitutional assembly, 5,000 had to be recruited. Just 20 percent of those invited to be part of this unique national effort to write a constitution were willing to spend a day doing so. 

Turnout to elect the 25 drafters was 36 percent, far lower than the 80 to 90 percent achieved in most Icelandic elections. 

More important, not much of a crowd showed up for the crowdsourcing. It’s hard to measure precisely, but consider two metrics. About 4,000 people “liked” the constitution drafters Facebook page. An even smaller number of suggestions were submitted — 3,600 — and because some were from the same individuals, less than 1 percent of Iceland’s citizens actually participated in the drafting process.

But if participation is one critique of Iceland’s crowdsourcing attempt, the other is effectiveness. The whole process was necessarily outside the domain of traditional politicians and, in the end, Iceland’s parliament simply said, “No, we are not going to adopt that constitution.” 

Was there electoral retribution? Well, the Independence Party, which had opposed the process from the beginning, increased its share in the next parliament.

While Iceland’s experience is hardly dispositive, it does represent both a step forward as well as a cautionary tale.

There is wisdom in crowds, especially diverse crowds, and harnessing that wisdom is part of the genius of democracy. While technology gives us the opportunity to call upon that wisdom like never before, that mere possibility does not create the reality of mass participation.

Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the minority leader of the Senate and the Democratic whip in the House.