Democracy

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:21:16 -0400

Is it time that we revisit how democracies work?

A fundamental notion of the modern democracy is the idea of an elected government, with elections to choose the government taking place once every 4-6 years. While I haven’t really researched the reason for elections to be held only once in 4-6 years, my guess would be that this time period would ensure that each government would have a sufficient amount of time to accomplish its stated goals. I’d also expect it to be too expensive to hold elections more frequently.

However, I believe that it’s not time rethink this notion. The emergence of cheap telecommunication and Internet has fundamentally transformed how much influence the common man has on matters ranging from media to education. The notion of Web 2.0 is a good embodiment of this emerging bottom up influence, as contrast to the top down governance largely dominant in the preceding centuries. Technology now enables people to speak their minds, and let their opinions be known instantaneously.

It’s time that we use such technology to have greater control over our destiny. While it’s probably still sensible to conduct elections once every 4 yrs, wouldn’t it be nice to referendums more often? How about using the modern telecommunication infrastructure to ask people they really want to fight the war in Iraq?

A framework needs to be defined that would spell out the type of questions which would require a referendum. All decisions that the governments makes to run the country on a day to day basis do not and should not have to be passed through this referendum. Fool-proof technology to enable this would need to be developed as well.

If I can give my opinion on who the next American Idol should be, shouldn’t I be allowed the opportunity to have my say on more important things? Like global warming? Or health care?

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Democracy