Technology, Democracy, and Bureaucracy

Technology, Democracy, Bureaucracy, and Advocacy

Sept. 26 & 29

This lecture is partly about trying to make clear what Ignace Snellen is saying in his article. But it is also about the topic of the social and political role of career civil servants (bureaucrats) in contemporary democracy.

Representative democracy was created to give all citizens an equal chance in participating in the decisions their society makes. Representative democracies were created at the end of the age of monarchies to allow participation in societies that were far larger in size than the ancient democracies (making direct participation of the public impractical).

Snellen notes that people in contemporary democracies are affected by reflections of the opinions they hold. These reflections include national polls/surveys, national on-line forums, public referendums (like the petition to have a recall election in California). People see their opinions are expressed by lots of other people and then they get frustrated when officials running the government don’t do what the people want. This, he argues, undermines the perceived right to make decisions (legitimacy) of democratic governments.

An aside: Loss of legitimacy for a government is a dangerous thing because it can lead to mass disrespect for the law and political violence. But even short of that, the political apathy that more commonly results can lead the majority of people to opt out of politics. In into this vacuum steps more motivated people with extreme political views they’d like to see enforced and people seeking to become richer by manipulating the government to their advantage.

Many advocates of high-tech direct democracy offer this as a reason why we should have direct democracies using things like internet voting coupled with an expanded number of public referendums on important issues. I don’t think that Snellen argues that here, but I do want to say a bit about that position before moving on.

The advocates of those electronic direct democracy proposals have to deal with all the security and voting-rights-equality problems with internet voting. Not only that they also have to address the concerns on the part of some (less populist, more elitist) people that its unwise to leave too many important decisions to people who aren’t adequately informed about the details of many of public issues, nor able to see through deceptive arguments and debating tactics often used when trying to persuade mass audiences.

Snellen instead argues that we need to find ways to make government more aware of people’s concerns (give the government insight into the people’s will). He seems to think this is possible by having many (of the more interested and aware) members of the public inserting themselves in the bureaucratic process of implementing the laws made by elected officials. Those involved members of the public can then put pressure on the way the bureaucrats make decisions and do their jobs, so that the bureaucrats will make decisions and do work that is more in the interests of the people as a whole than has been the case in the past.

Snellen argues further that the laws elected officials make are modified and given force by the bureaucracy. So it is the effects of government’s behavior as expressed through its rules and operations used to carry out the law, which are contrary to what people want, and are undermining the legitimacy of government. He thinks that’s why people need to get politically engaged with the work of the bureaucrats and come to think of doing so as at least as much a necessity as voting.

Snellen thinks this will work because bureaucrats have closer contact with the public than politicians. I’m not sure this is true, at least in the parts of the U.S. government where politicians go out and listen to their constituents frequently, and where people have to deal with bureaucratic rules a bit less than in Europe, where Snellen lives.

Aside: That said, I can imagine that if a member of the U.S. public knew the number of a bureaucrat to call about some issue they were upset about, the person calling would have a much better chance of getting that bureaucrat on the phone than an elected representative in the U.S. Congress. Also note that bureaucrats don’t have to constantly raise campaign donations the way that American politicians do, which might make bureaucrats more available in that they aren’t focused as much on those groups and individuals with money. A good campaign of television ads is both incredibly important at building public familiarity with the candidate. Nobody likes voting for someone they’ve never heard of, and not enough people take the trouble to read about the candidates they don’t see on TV. TV advertising campaigns are also incredibly expensive. And the broadcasting lobby is strong enough (gives enough donations) that they have been able to keep congress from requiring substantial free air time for all candidates. Incumbents also usually have an easier time raising money than challengers, so those who can make laws to reform the system have little reason to change it. Candidates with much more advertising than their opponents generally win. So candidates and their parties in the U.S. have been under pressure to raise ever greater amounts of money to beat their opponents and get/stay in office.

So, what does Snellen think are enables this heightened involvement of the public in bureaucratic politics?

First, contemporary governments use computers and software to do and monitor the performance of their work. This means governments generate and store huge amounts amount of data about what they do.

Second, that data can be analyzed with geographic information system (GIS) kinds of software in order to very quickly discover, and then visually communicate to others via color-coded maps based on selected data, important facts about what the government is doing or not doing.

Third, physical data is already being collected about the world. Data about things the government is supposed to be responsible for controlling: car traffic, pollution levels, etc. One could use this data to argue for better air pollution controls by using measurements of concentrations of certain toxic chemicals in the air at a large number of locations and combining this with data showing higher cancer rates in the same geographic areas with high pollution. One could combine this with GIS tools and summarize the data on an easy to read map.

Fourth, registration data recording certain types of events can be analyzed. Every time people have contact with the health care, legal, or educational system records are created that eventually get aggregated. For example, data is collected on K-12 schools. Data like standardized test scores each year, or number of school building code violations due to poor maintenance. These could each be aggregated by school or district. People could then use pattern made evident by comparisons of such information across years and schools/districts to support their demands for changes by the school board and administration.

Aside: This is fundamentally no different than the case mentioned last week where a group was able to determine which army officials in El Salvador had the most human rights violations in their regions while on duty. The part of that data related to the rights violations had to be gathered from non-government sources at some risk, but the task of preparing a fact-based analysis of government performance based on data is not all that different.

Fifth, Snellen gives the example of being able to measure, using the government’s own data, the exact levels of service people have been getting from government. He suggests finding out how many square feet of housing are given to clients in the public housing system, for example. Schools’ class sizes might also be a good example of this.

Sixth, data collected in the course of government doing its job is more likely to be objective and non-controversial than data originally collected by outside groups with a pre-determined agenda. Arguments based on them could end debates sooner.

Aside: I’m not sure I totally agree with this. For example, law enforcement officials may be under politically pressure to make it look like they’ve been lowering crime rates. Or they may be under pressure to under-report crime in places very sensitive about their reputation because of high property values. This can influence decisions they will have to make about how to tally certain kinds of cases which may affect the numbers they end up with. Conversely, bureaucrats who are given the use of public money and legal powers to solve a problem may find it in their interest to exaggerate the extent of that problem so as to get more money and power next year. (see Murray Edelman’s book, Constructing the Political Spectacle)

Thus, Snellen argues, people can use computers, government data, and software for analyzing data to help hold bureaucracies and elected officials responsible.

Of course, this assumes people will be able to get the data from the government. Snellen points out that the more political power that can be produced with information, the more those in power will try to limit access to the information for their own ends. Some of the “Trusted Computing” technologies currently being developed for preventing computers from making illegal copies of music, movies, and programs may make also prevent government employees from “leaking” government data. See: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

Snellen expects there will be many struggles in the future over what politically useful data the government must share with the public and what the government can keep it secret. We are beginning to see this with claims of executive privilege by the Bush administration to keep secret not only what was said at the meetings, but also who was at the meetings where that administration created its energy policy. The one of the two Bush administrations fired a federal civil service employee (who did not work in the intelligence sector) for answering a reporter who asked for an estimate of the number Iraqis killed in one of the wars with Iraq. I think Snellen believes democracy will depend on the public having access to the aggregate data government collects.

Of course the British, who don’t have a free speech amendment or a Freedom of Information Act, have been long been subjected to their government calling some politically embarrassing information “state secrets” and having publishers restrained from publishing it. It would be a good thing if we don’t wind up in the same situation.

One other issue that Snellen doesn’t mention is that the people who have most of the skills of policy analysis or knowing where to find government data useful for making a case that the government should do something already work for governments or groups that lobby the government. So it’s not like the just created single-issue citizen’s group which wants to become a player on policy debates doesn’t face competition in providing interpretations of facts from both inside and outside the government.

Note my mention in the previous lectures about technocracy. Technocracy can be thought of as rule by those who understand technologies over those who not understand how important systems work and who depend on the technocrats to keep the system running. The concentration of the ability to analyze government performance, both within the government and the better funded special interest groups that regularly lobby the government, is bad for democracy. It is bad because if most people lack the skills to demonstrate how the government is doing a bad job and what the government should change, then they may be ignored when important decisions are made which concern them. People simply voting for one politician over another, or even occasionally writing a letter to their representative doesn’t solve that problem.

Snellen seems to argue that we need an idea of democracy not satisfied by merely electing people. Instead we need an ideal of becoming really informed about the issues where government policy affects our lives. Then, he would argue, we need to learn how to use the tools he talks about to make fact-based arguments to the administrators whom we will have to deal with under ordinary circumstances when we need something from the government.

Aside: Note how I mentioned in my “Ironies of Information Technology” that groups outside the government have to be extremely accurate and careful with their claims or they could lose precious credibility. Other groups like them also have to live up to a certain level of quality in their work analyzing data and its presentation. If such groups do not, opposing groups on the other side of the issue may gain a big advantage when trying to persuade government officials. So there is pressure on groups wanting to persuade officials with claims of facts, to back their claims up with increasing amounts of good data and easy to understand presentations of their conclusions based on the data. Don’t let this discourage you from trying to learn about the issues and express your desires for change to those in power, just make your requests and the reasons for it as persuasive and clear as possible.

In the meantime while more of the public learns how to make the kinds of arguments Snellen writes about, there are some other things people can do to help reduce the concentration of power in the hands of those in government and make democracy stronger.

1) Tell your representatives or their staff when you really don’t like something that an agency they oversee is doing. Firmly but politely let the politician know if they want your vote and your saying nice things about the official to your friends, that they should personally look at what the agency is doing wrong and give the agency the motivation to change, and keep you informed about what’s happening on the issue. It may help if you can get some other people to do the same thing with the official.

2) If there are already groups with the kinds of expertise described above that do lobby regularly in ways you like on the issues you care about, then support them. Fundraise for them. Volunteer your time. Recruit for them. If you’re not sure if you like the ways the group lobbies on issues important to you, read some of the reports they prepare for government officials. These kinds of groups often have lawyers on staff and can get the court system involved when an agency of the government does something that violates the word or intent of the laws (and constitution) that agency is supposed to operate within.

3) If you have the ability to produce fairly professional looking video programs and you know how to use words and images to persuade, you can try and use humor and/or emotional appeals to fairness or compassion to try and explain why you think there needs to be a change in policy. Web sites are one way to get your programs seen, if you can get enough people to visit it. If you don’t have your own site, there’s plenty of other sites run by people of all political leanings who don’t have your skills who are looking for content. Arranging well-publicized viewings in places where people meet in your community is another alternative. Just make sure people know what they can do to help by the end of your program.

4) Direct protest and personally becoming a public organizer/advocate of a policy can be ways of getting attention for your issue when you think press coverage will help. If you have an extroverted personality and public speaking/interviewee skills, or you just really need your grievance to be heard and you’ve been unsatisfied with the above alternatives than this may be a good alternative.