Nesta have organised a substantial event in London next Monday called Reboot Britain, which is about how we can
'punch through the gloom and take advantage of the radically networked digital world we now live in to help revive our economy, rebuild our democratic structures and improve public services.'
Paul Evans has organised a stream of sessions on political innovation. I'm speaking at one of these, alongside Nick Booth, William Perrin and Edward Welsh, which is on the broad-enough topic of Locality: Councillors, Journalists, 'active citizens', community websites and local government communications.
I think I'll focus on the ‘active citizenship’ part of the topic, keep the tech at a respectful distance, and ask ‘What's needed to stimulate active citizenship at local level?’
It'll need a rough distinction between informal and social participation on the one hand, and formal civic and political participation on the other. We need the former in order to stimulate the latter. (Well I know some people do political participation without doing social participation: I've even met folk who voted for them, but we won't have time on monday for the nuances).
To my mind, it doesn't work to suppose that people can be prodded and coerced into civic or political participatory roles when their experience of social participation is impoverished. So it would help if we can develop a thriving communication ecology at neighbourhood level, and get some conversational democracy we can depend on.
In the nick of time, with local democracy gagged and tied to the tracks and the train of public spending cuts thundering down the line, along come gallant dynamic al-action neighbourhood online networks. Hurrah. Let's get out of this metaphor and ask a few questions:
Does the economic logic of these nets imply a more appropriate geographic scale for democratic involvement than currently exists? (Consider, for example, how much difficulty some authorities have in trying to establish meaningful area forums).
Does the inbuilt interactivity imply more conversation?
Does online conversation stimulate offline activity?
Should local authorities be enabling the development of these networks? (Dunh?)
