Digital government through social networks: how citizens can aggregate their money and votes to define digital government

ABSTRACT

Politicians seek only money and votes. Citizens control all the money and votes but have never participated broadly and systematically to allocate their control of those resources to affect governance. North Americans possess a "participatory surplus" fueling open source software and presidential campaigns, energizing millions. Well-understood social networking services could provide a barackobama.com for constituents of any politician and for the stakeholders of any government agency or service. How might campaign web site experts design and host a network to govern governance?

"Surrounded" online by fully empowered and well informed, networked constituencies, our politicians and government employees would be motivated by self-interest to attend carefully to any policy formulations carrying the force of voters' money and votes. Online, a plurality of anonymous but authenticated voters can pledge their future votes and donations contingent on government behaviors. When issues-based commitments to votes and donations are aggregated, published and audited, politicians are likely to behave as if the entire government were online, a stepping-stone to digitizing government itself. A virtual congressional district is the epitome of politician advice and consent, guiding a representative's policies as effectively as an airplane's "trim tab" governs its far more unwieldy rudder. Proponents of Digital Government could use Virtual Districts to break down the resistance keeping the US on paper.

Such a system must engage real-world mechanisms to control the existing levers of government. Politicians are moved not by pure argument or the honest expression of their constituents' preferences, but by their career interests. Any social network aimed at empowering constituents must take those realities into account. The overarching reality is that political power---governance---is regional. Voters' networks for governance must map to voters' real-world, geographical jurisdictions.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

General Terms:
Human Factors, Management, Theory