How Collective Intelligence Could Transform Politics

By Beth Simone Noveck

Originally appeared in print in Der Tagesspiegel (in German) on June 24. Read it online here

With the start of the current legislative session there will be important innovations in the Chancellery. With the new department for political planning and digital politics, the opportunity — nay, the imperative — will arise under the fourth Merkel government to take the lead in using the Internet to bring the collective intelligence of the German and global public to bear to make policies that are more innovative and effective.

The idea of what I am calling “crowdlaw,” namely engaging with the public at every stage of policymaking via the Internet, differs in quantity and quality from earlier forms of public participation. It is not merely a form of better opinion polling but designed to make our public institutions smarter by obtaining more expertise.

The arc of the policymaking cycle begins, first, with the identification of problems, which can benefit from diverse and large-scale input from those with lived experience. In fact, it is an optimal time to learn about the problems as experienced by diverse members of society, especially those who are the most disadvantaged and may otherwise lack ways to inform the lawmaking process. This is already happening in Taiwan. The vTaiwan experimental e-consultation platform enables the broader public to participate in an ongoing process of problem identification. vTaiwan is method for enabling people to flesh out and define a problem posed by the government. So far, 26 national issues, including the regulation of telemedicine, online education, telework, company law and Uber, have been discussed with over 200,000 people participating.

But, solving problems once identified, requires a different form of know-how. It demands innovative and creative and workable solutions. Here credentialed expertise from diverse sources might come more into play (as well as the value judgment about which solutions to prioritize). Better Reykjavik is an open forum web platform for “idea generation” and “policy crowdsourcing” for citizens to present and discuss ideas related to the services and operations of the City of Reykjavik. The website, which has been used by 20% of Iceland’s population, and over half of those registered on the site use it regularly.

Producing a written policy proposal demands a different skill set and those with talent for, interest in and ability to write, which need not necessarily be the same people as those who want to spot problems or imagine solutions. France wrote its Internet law in 2015 with online public collaboration. The Secretary of State praised the quality of the opinions submitted to the Government and the collaboration with the administrative authorities during production of the bill.

Policymaking often ends with enactment. Yet the Internet offers a way to engage the public in evaluating what’s working. In Brazil, a decree passed in 2007 ensures that public schools have the autonomy needed to spend funds assigned to them by the federal district for maintaining and operating the school. Yet, audits conducted in random municipalities by the national comptroller have shown that there are deficiencies in school infrastructure quality across the country. Therefore, in 2016, the comptroller launched an experimental project called the Projeto Controladoria na Escola to engage students in 10 public schools in Brasilia in the process of auditing school infrastructure, mapping commonly raised issues and fostering civic education in schools. In one school alone, the students identified 115 issues and within just 3 months 45% of the issues were fixed either by the department of education or, where possible, by the students and school management themselves.

Over the next fifty years, we will face challenges greater than any previous generation, and we will need to run our institutions differently if we are to be able to respond quickly and effectively. People may not be conversant in the politics, but they do possess expertise in spades. Those who govern need to tap into that know-how, not occasionally, but continuously, using crowdlaw processes to make use of our collective intelligence at every step of the way to transform governing from a political sport into a practical exercise in problem-solving.