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Cause Caller
: An Empirical Test of A ParticipatoryDemocracy Technology
www.causecaller.com
Fred Benenson
Interactive Telecommunications ProgramTisch School of the ArtsNew York University
fcb@fredbenenson.com
ABSTRACT
The promise of a truly participatory democracy has neverbeen clearer than digital media has made it today. Theunique distributive nature of the Internet provides a plat-form that has the potential to deliver on this promise byfacilitating better group action at lower cost, thereby en-couraging actual participation in democracy. There havebeen many meaningful developments in bringing better in-formation to citizens looking to use digital networks to servetheir political needs, but many useful tools and databasesremain proprietary and costly while others remain too gen-eral or ineffective for political action.This paper will highlight some of those achievements, butmore substantially, it will discuss potential for future devel-opments in facilitating a participatory democracy through
Cause Caller.com
, a Semantic Media Wiki and Asterisk basedvirtual phone bank application. I hope to show that a toolsuch as
Cause Caller.com
represents a new kind of platformfor participatory democracy; one that can not only enablespecific applications like virtual phone banking software, butalso one that can cultivate a participatory democracy onlineand off.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
K.4.1 [
Computing Milieux
]: Computers and Society-PublicPolicy Issues
General Terms
Participatory Democracy
Keywords
Asterisk, Semantic Media Wiki, Semantic Web, RDF, Wikis
CC
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1. INTRODUCTION
By lowering the cost of action the Internet has fundamen-tally transformed the nature of speech, society, and govern-ment. These consequences are not unlike those of demo-cratic revolutions; a significant corollary that has lead toan innumerate amount of conversations, papers, blogs postsand books parading the virtues, achievements and structuresof the Internet as being in-line, if not synonymous with thoseof democracy.The hope is that the Internet will actually bring us one stepcloser to a “participatory democracy” and there is substan-tial areas dedicated to this service that I’ll take a look at inthis paper.The first area is the creation and maintenance of reposito-ries of information relevant to democratic action. The sec-ondary area regards specific actions performed by distinctgroups using technological tools; actions which we can con-sider instances of participatory democracy, but which aretoo narrow to enable to a larger scale participatory democ-racy. The third and final area that I’ll examine is that of tools which enable distinct instances of participatory democ-racy, but which are too “general” or too ineffectual to beseen as specifically delivering on the promise of a participa-tory democracy through technology.Ultimately this paper will argue that the needs of a par-ticipatory democracy are just beginning to be fulfilled, andprojects utilizing open standards and software will bring useven closer. I hope to demonstrate that my thesis project,
CauseCaller.com
and its underlying wiki is one of thoseprojects and will help deliver on the promise on a partic-ipatory democracy.
2. HISTORY
Benjamin Barber’s
Strong Democracy
describes strong democ-racy as a “distinctively modern form of participatory democ-racy.”
1
For the purposes of this project, it is worth high-lighting Barber’s most basic points about strong democracywithout going into too much detail for it better illustrates hislater perspective on technology and its promise for democ-racy.Barber’s essential point is that a strong democracy shouldbe a response to a thin democracy, whcih is the state hehad observed ours to be in while writing the book. A strongdemocracy’s intentions are informed by the original moti-vations and goals of pure democracy as instantiated by theancient Greek polis. Barber believes that
strong democracy
is at odds with representative government and the “instru-mentalism” of a liberal democracy. To Barber, the politicsof liberal democratic pluralism are “nothing more than thechambermaid of private interests.”
2
He goes on to arguethat transformation is at the heart of a strong democracyand that a public language needs to be created that can re-align private interests in terms of public good. He believesthat a strong democracy can be the only remedy for theperils of modern politics.Barber’s argument ends with the basic imperative that pol-itics must become more direct in order for a strong democ-racy to be realized. We must ween ourselves off of a rep-resentative democracy and replace representational politicswith direct, citizen-to-government involvement. Each actionand responsibility of a given citizen should, in Barber’s opin-ion, bare consequence on each other so that politics becomesa way of living, not just a way of life.
3
One of the ways hebelieves this is possible is through investment in telecom-munications infrastructure. Barber’s ruminations on howtelecommunications could benefit a participatory democracyare his most significant contribution to a current survey of participatory democracy, and considering the date at whichhe made them (1984), his most prescient.In a section titled “Institutionalizing Strong Democratic”Talk Barber bemoans that a “uniform nationwide system of local participation has [n]ever been instituted or even con-sidered.”
4
He then explicates how
neighborhood assemblies
should be introduced as a way to bring democracy closerto citizens’ every day lives. He outlines a multi-phaseddevelopment for these assemblies, where the second phasewould have the assemblies become “.. voting constituenciesfor regional and national referenda ... and possibly act ascommunity units in systems of civic telecommunications.”
5
Barber’s predictions of the effect of telecommunications ina strong democracy are both grandiose and shortsighted –almost all of his ideal scenarios depend on democracy asmediated through television and cable networks. While theInternet existed at the time of his writing, it was in its in-fancy and few had begun to explore its potential for democ-racy. This doesn’t stop Barber from understanding a more
1
Barber, 117
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid., at 118
4
Ibid., at 268.
5
Ibid., at 270general point about technology: “the capabilities of the newtechnology can be used to strengthen civic education, guar-antee equal access to information, and tie individuals andinstitutions into networks that will make real participatorydiscussion and debate possible across great distances.”
6
Oneparticular prediction Barber seems to be quite certain of, orat least quite interested in realizing, is a process that wouldlater be named “E-Rulemaking.” The idea of giving citi-zens direct access to creating legislation is a simple and easymanifestation of a strong democracy. Given Barber’s feel-ings towards representative democracy as essentially a co-cospirator of private interests, it comes as no surprise thathe distrusts the current legislative process. Direct influenceby citizens on the rulemaking process is a realistic solutionto ending the corruption that he sees endemic within democ-racy.Over 20 years later Cary Coglianese of the University of Pennsylvania Law School wrote an article revisiting andevaluating “techno-optimist” predictions of the future of democracy as mediated by technology. Coglianese’s focusis Barber’s specific prediction that E-rulemaking would be-come a feasible and realistic model for participatory democ-racy but Coglianese remains unconvinced of its viability. Heconcludes that “..even with the Internet significant barri-ers to ordinary citizens’ engagement in rulemaking will re-main.”
7
Coglianese’s point, though multifaceted, is essen-tially a simple one: rulemaking, and the legislative processin general is too sophisticated, complex, and confusing forthe average citizen. The knowledge and skills required tocompetently draft legislation remains an expertise for thosedeeply entrenched in the field.But Coglianese still believes technology holds much poten-tial for the future of democracy, just not in the ways orig-inally predicted by Barber. Under the auspices of “plu-ralism,” Coglianese believes technology can help individualand independent groups inform regulators in valuable ways.He gives the intuitive example of a local sanitation engineercontacting with the EPA to give better insights on futureregulations relevant to his work. While technology may notbe able to advance a strong democracy for any random se-lection of citizens, Coglianese believes it can certainly facili-tate better action by individuals who are interested in givinginput on particular issues that they know and care passion-ately about. He concludes by arguing that “[a]n open andnetworked regulatory process can thus expand the potentialinformation that comes to regulators’ attention.”
8
In developing Cause Caller I’ve focused my attention onCoglianese’s exact point that technology has the ability tohelp varied interests inform the democratic process ratherthan constitute it itself. While once I shared Barber’s op-timism that laws could be drafted in the very same waye-mails are on the Internet, eventually my optimism gaveway to Coglianese’s skepticism. Giving citizens the tools toparticipate in democracy, even if it is merely as simple asmaking a telephone call easier to dial, or an e-mail easierto write, is at the heart of a participatory democracy. It
6
Ibid.
7
Coglianese at 23
8
Ibid., at 25
is with Barber and Coglianese’s perspective in mind thatI feel Cause Caller’s functionality demonstrates a commit-ment not just to strong or participatory democracy, but tothe institution of democracy in general.But before I introduce Cause Caller and explore its impli-cations for participatory democracy, it will be worthwhileto identify some current projects in the space that seek toinstantiate Barber’s optimism coupled with Coglianese’s re-alism.
3.
THE STATE OF THE UNION:
PARTICI-PATORY DEMOCRACY NOW
There are numerous projects that are generally consideredto be part of the movement to create tools for a participa-tory democracy. As I’ll argue below, most of these tools areill-suited for general activism for a number of reasons. Thefirst set of tools comprise information repositories. Theseare sites that host vast database of publicly available infor-mation about politicians, laws, and records. While these aresome of the most valuable resources available in a participa-tory democracy, it is wrong to thing of them as fully robusttools for a number of reasons.The second set of tools are highly effective, but relativelyclosed for general purpose activist work. These includecampaign-specific tools as well as tools that are prohibitivelycostly to most activists and campaigns.The third and final set of tools are those that we are alreadyfamiliar with but whose scope is too general for true politicalactivism.By outlining these various projects successes as well as theirdeficiencies, I hope to demonstrate that there is a legiti-mate demand for specific tools that allow citizens to not just be mere researchers or spammers but to participate indemocracy as be activists using digital networks and media.Ultimately I’ll show that while all of these projects have in-dividual characteristics that will help define a participatorydemocracy tool, not one individual project exhibits all of the characteristics that we should look for in participatorydemocracy tools.
3.1 Information Repositories
For the purposes of this paper I’ve chosen to evaluate thevarious information repositories in the participatory democ-racy space across a number of criteria. I’ll first look at thedata served by the particular repository, and then the for-mat in which that data is presented, how it is maintained,and finally, the freedom of that data and its software. Ul-timately, I’ll analyze how much closer a particular projectbrings us to a participatory democracy.While there are many projects being developed in the par-ticipatory democracy space, I’ve chosen only a couple thatI believe highlight the successes and challenges faced by thecurrent set of tools offered to citizens interested in digital ac-tivism and participatory democracy. I believe that each oneof these projects demonstrate features that I’ve attemptedto combine into Cause Caller’s fundamental makeup as wellas deficiencies I’ve tried to avoid.
3.1.1 GovTrack.us
For most intents and purposes GovTrack.us is the most sub-stantial effort in the current participatory democracy space.Joshua Tauberer’s site contains data about virtually everypolitician to ever grace the halls of the House or the Senate,as well as full text analysis of every bill considered, votedon, or made into law within the last decade. GovTrack.usalso makes its information available under what Taubererconsiders “Web 2.0 principles and open data.”
9
For the most part, GovTrack.us’s data is up to date andhighly reliable as it is automatically harvested from the fed-eral government’s official legislative database called
THOMAS
10
that is run by the Library of Congress.Since computers are rarely as competent as humans are atdistinguishing good or valid information from bad or non-sense information, this leads to the potential of noise in Gov-Track’s signal. Trauberer is the first to admit this potentialproblem and acknowledges that there may be errors in someinformation available on the site. He points out that is thisis largely due to the fact that the US Government has yetto make it easy to fetch the information using automatedprocesses. He subsequently urges users to contact the main-tainers of THOMAS to encourage adoption of standardizeddata formats.Understanding the need for standardized data has obviouslylead Trauberer to create the robust services available onGovTrack.us. Data on the site is available in a number of formats including RSS, XML, and RDF.For example, for any given bill on the GovTrack.us system,Trauberer has created a RSS feed for information about thebill. This RSS feed is updated at any point informationabout the bill changes, such as when it becomes law or whenmodifications are made to its text. This functionality is alsoprovided for any legislator in the system.GovTrack.us also provides a sophisticated backend for usersto interface applications. Along with supplying a GoogleMap interface of congressional districts, GovTrack.us pro-vides a SPARQL
11
query interface so that users can extractRDF data from the site’s database. RDF is a particularkind of XML file that is designed to be a part of the se-mantic web. Each serialized XML entity in a RDF file isa “triple”
12
relating a subject to an object via a predicate.RDF files on GovTrack.us contain triple statements similarto “Politician Y voted for Bill X” or “Bill X is up for voteon Day Z.”
13
GovTrack.us’s SPARQL query interface allows powerful query-ing of information about the congress using knowledge state-
9
Trauberer, Joshua. “About Us.” GovTrack.us. 8 May 2008
http://www.govtrack.us/
.
10
Library of Congress, “THOMAS.” 8 May 2008
http://thomas.loc.gov
.
11
SPARQL is the SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Lan-guage. It’s a standardized query language designed to enablequery of RDF data.
12
A triple consists of a subject, predicate and object thatdescribes a relationship between the three.
13
An RDF file is a serializd XML file containing triples
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