Mike,
What your paper does not seem to recognize is that government does not
usually respond to the public as a whole, but to particular groups and
interests within the public. This is not inappropriate if one views
democracy as being founded on two often contradictory principles:
recognizing the public interest as a whole; and protecting the rights and
interests of individuals and groups. Bringing the public as a whole into
policy formulation via a medium such as the internet might, if the
initiative were genuine and sincere, satisfy one of these principles but
could violate the other.
Much of my experience in government and outside of it as a consultant has
been with aboriginal issues. The content of these issues is complex. One
has to become very deeply immersed in them before one really gets to
understand them to the extent of being able to make an effective
contribution to policy. I would question the willingness of most of the
public to put enough time into developing an appropriate level of
understanding. Moreover, aboriginal people have a longstanding proprietory
interest in aboriginal policy making. They would strenuously resist an
encroachment on this interest by the public as a whole. I would refer to
the recent angry babble out of British Columbia on the Nisga settlement to
illustrate what I'm saying.
Other fields of policymaking would encounter similar problems. Could a
life-long Toronto urbanite really understand the problems of marginalized
prairie grain grower or the social devastation currently being faced by
communities based on mining? Perhaps the role of the internet here is to
educate -- to put the farmer or miner into direct contact with the urbanite
so that he can then go after his MP. But to expect the urbanite to be
sympathetic or even objective without such education is expecting too much.
The role of government as cathedral is to try to balance a great variety of
often mutually exclusive and mutually incomprehensible interests. I've
worked in the cathedral and like the idea of the bazaar, but I quite
honestly can't see how it would work. I read parts of the paper on the
development of the Linux system. I came away with the impression that
widespread input to the development and debugging of that system worked
because everyone who contributed had a pretty good idea of what it was about
and how it worked. I honestly cannot feel the same way about the
development of Indian policy or many other issues government must try to
resolve.
Ed Weick
(This is a draft of a paper that I'm developing that might be of interest
in this context. Contents, criticisms, "hacking" is welcomed.
Distribution (with attribution) is encouraged.)
Etc.
