Through Liquid Democracy to Sustainable Non-Bureaucratic Government

Abstract

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.

Disrupting governance with blockchains and smart contracts

“…One suggested solution to this disenchantment is liquid democracy, a form of democratic governance whereby an electorate vests voting power in delegates rather than in representatives, and allows for differentiation in the powers delegated (Ford, ). In this way, liquid democracy is a way of making collaborative decisions, which does not depend on elected representatives, but rather on the transient delegation of votes (Paulin, ).…”

The democratic interface: technology, political organization, and diverging patterns of electoral representation

“…It is difficult to design platforms, processes and infrastructure that incorporate specific values such as ideal deliberative standards (Borge & Santamarina, 2016;Haberer & Peña-López, 2016); appropriate expertise (Paulin, 2014); or 'open' spaces (Husted & Plesner, in press). Observers note that even in connective parties with horizontal aspirations, the invitation to broaden input is often limited in practice to pre-defined alternatives or particular areas (e.g., local issues but not national), and even then, there is little connection to executive outcomes (Della Porta et al, 2017;Rendueles & Sola, 2015).…”

“…Both participants and platforms may become overwhelmed when numbers increase. The German Pirate Party suffered collapse after its 'liquid feedback' and 'liquid democracy' platforms became overwhelmed with input that magnified differences and offered little mechanism for their resolution (Haberer, 2017;Paulin, 2014). Such issues make it difficult for parties to deliver on promises of unmediated or unfiltered processes.…”

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

“…La propuesta nació de las inquietudes para obtener un método capaz de seleccionar a los mejores candidatos, conseguir la representación más justa y también la defensa de las preferencias minoritarias. Otros autores (Paulin, 2014) consideran que la Democracia Líquida, bajo denominaciones como democracia deliberativa o votación por proxy, nació en 1912 cuando William S. O'Ren demandó una representación interactiva al exigir ponderar la cantidad de votos a cada representante proxy. El método de ponderación fue diseñado por Gordon Tullock en 1967, quien además propuso la participación directa mientras los debates parlamentarios deberían transmitirse por televisión.…”