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From Internet, Law & Politics 2007

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"In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better."

The foregoing statement needs some unpacking.

In a system that does not yet have a democracy, the citizens are probably used to being told what to do, and don't even think of themselves as agents of governmental power.  Unless the dictator decides to cede power to a democratic government (which is exceedingly rare), or a foreign nation decides to "liberate" the nation and impose democracy (which is becoming less rare), the people are going to have to take power for themselves.  While a few highly motivated individuals can start the movement, they must have support from a critical mass of the population.  So, in that democratic revolutions need ideological (and sometimes physical) armies to succeed, more engagement by citizens is better.

On a related note, once a nation transitions into democracy, the citizens have to care enough to maintain it.  Experience shows that democracy tends to devolve back into dictatorship if the leadership is left to itself. (See: [http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/1/18/211119.shtml?s=lh] Chavez in Venezuela])  If citizens fail to demand that their leaders act in a democratic fashion, those leaders will be happy to take power from the people.  More mature democracies need less vigilance than nascent ones, but not much less.  So, in that democracies need individual citizens to jealously guard their right to be governed by a democracy, more engagement by citizens is better.

Even a healthy democracy needs an engaged citizenry.  When citizens become too comfortable and leave governing to others, democracy slips into oligarchy.  Theoretically, the reins of power are still available to the masses if they care to take them up, but in reality that's probably not entirely true.  While the masses were busy with their own pursuits, the small cadre of engaged citizens could have entrenched their own interest groups and solidified their hold on power. And from oligarchy, it's only a few more steps on the spectrum before the nation finds itself with a dictatorship.  If citizens don't demand that their government take care of them, their government won't.  Conversely, those who demand attention from the government will receive it.  So, in that citizens lose their political power through disuse, more engagement by citizens is better.     

Of course, one might believe that more engagement by citizens is bad.  The argument might be that most people are stupid or selfish, or that they just don't know what's best for themselves.  Less insulting is the argument that most people simply don't have the time to really become educated on all sides of a policy issue, and that it's better for everyone if they just stay out of it rather than meddle in government with incomplete information.  It would be bad if citizens became used to demanding immediate results on issues they don't understand, because leaders will succumb to political pressure and give the people those results, even if that's not really the best plan.  Sound bites could be used to rally people into a furor, and the sober politician who tries to educate citizens about the better course will be unpopular.  In other words, one might believe that the more a democracy is representative rather than direct, the better it is.  So, in that citizen involvement could lead to emotional and ill-conceived rule by the mob, more engagement is bad.     

Whether you believe more engagement is good or bad for participatory democracy depends on how you view citizens.  Are they essentially stupid and ill-informed, or are they capable of ruling themselves?  That's a deeper political philosophical question than we have space to ponder.  But we are operating on the assumption that even if people are ill-informed, the proper course is to educate them and encourage their engagement, not to keep them in the dark and lead them around like lemmings.  It's true that democracy could devolve into mob rule if citizens become too engaged.  But looking around the world today, it seems that the greatest danger to democracy comes from less engagement, not more.  

So, for the foregoing reasons, we believe that more citizen engagement is better than less, and that where the internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and can enable those who are active to be more effective, the internet strengthens participatory democracy.
Return to Note 2.
Retrieved from "http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ilp2007/Note_2"
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From Internet, Law & Politics 2007

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