--- Upon commencing on Wednesday, October 3, 2007 at 2:00
p.m.
MR. VICKERY:
Hello. I propose we start. There are still some people coming in but we
should start so we don’t fall too far behind.
I’m doing the job of the MC in the big room in this small room. But it’s nice to see you all here. It’s very, very good.
We lost one of our speakers over the weekend, our
Mexican colleague. He couldn’t come at
the last minute. So we decided that
because we are trying to encourage as much participation, as much interaction
as possible, rather than try and add another speaker, we decided that we would
actually remain with the three speakers and Ellen. And Ellen was going -- who was the chair and
is still going to be the chair, will also be a speaker.
So we’ve got four speakers anyway and Ellen is going
to do both task. And that should
encourage us to have much more interaction.
So, over to Ellen who is chairing this group.
Thank you.
MS. MILLER:
Thank you very much. This session
has a very hopeful title. I’ll refresh
my memory, Government 2.0. I’m not sure
the American government is in 1.0 yet.
That’s why I think it’s hopeful.
But it is a direction that we need to be talking about, engaging
citizens to deliver better policy in a proved democracy.
I was honoured to be asked to be on this panel and
even more honoured to chair it. And so I
thought I would kick it off and then ask my colleagues, whom I have had the
pleasure of meeting just before the panel, to introduce themselves, very Web
2.0.
But I have a question.
I want to know a little bit more about you. I really am into this participative web
world. So, with a show of hands, how
many people in this room blog?
--- Raise hands
MS MILLER: Oh,
a very small minority.
How many people in this room are on a social
network? You don’t have to tell me which
one.
--- Raise hands
MS MILLER: Aha
(laughter).
How many are on more than one social network?
--- Raise hands
MS MILLER: I’m
very impressed. I’m very impressed. Good.
Well then you understand at least the context of the world in which
we’re operating even if the government doesn’t quite understand that
context.
So, by way of personal introduction -- whoops, I
didn’t mean to go there yet. I’m Ellen
Miller, Co-founder and Executive Director of the
I’ve worked in the public interest field for a number
of decades that I have been in Washington and founded two other NGO’s that are
involved in examining the mix of money and power and politics and influence in
Washington.
The Sunlight Foundation was founded just about 18
months ago to use the power of the internet, new technologies and the
interactivity of the world of the Web 2.0 to create greater transparency for
the operations of the U.S. Congress and to help improve the two-way
relationship between citizens and their elected representatives.
Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding fathers, said
information is the currency of democracy.
So, freedom of information or freedom for information is clearly not a
new idea. But what is different about
information in this day and age is the time in which we operate.
The technologies of communication have changed
dramatically. In the past few years they
changed dramatically at an amazing pace every single day.
Two mottos guide the work of the Sunlight
Foundation. They marry old style
conventional wisdom and new web thinking.
The first is to paraphrase a former Supreme Court
Justice: Sunlight is said to be the best
of disinfectants, electric light the most efficient policeman.
And the second motto that guides our work is that
given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow.
Now, this is a technical term.
But we like to apply it to mean that when citizens are watching and
engaged with politics in the internet, which the internet uniquely allows them
to do, elected officials have to pay attention.
Some have said, I meant that literally, given enough
eyeballs all the bugs are shallow. But
in fact we mean it figuratively about engaging citizens.
We are talking about the potential of a paradigm shift
in how disclosure happens and how information travels, how information is
collected and disseminated and what people can do with it, and particularly the
ways people can use information to engage themselves in the process of
politics, policy, the drafting of legislation, et cetera.
If you go back to the early 1800’s in
But the advances in technology create a very different
world for us.
The
Since then public information has been made available
and it has steadily increased. Not all of
this is thanks to the government. But
with the click of a mouse you can find what congress is discussing and voting
on; the full text of bills; the video of floor proceedings and committee
hearings; who is lobbying and how much they spend on it; who used to work for
what elected official and who they work for now; who gives how much political
money and whether they favour or oppose legislation; what interventions with
regulatory agencies are being made and by whom; how much taxpayer money is
being spent and granted.
But to find all that information you have to go to a
myriad of websites and you have to know precisely what you’re looking for. The advances made in this arena still lag
behind the technological developments by leaps and bounds.
This is a slide that shows THOMAS, the government’s
official online database for Congressional information. It is difficult to navigate, poorly organized
and often doesn’t contain what the researcher might be looking for. But it’s there and it was a start.
Even worse than not having access to Congressional
information, the text of bills, et cetera, is that other important information
like committee hearing transcripts, Congressional research reports and
chairman’s lists of earmarks, specially appropriated projects, are not
available or are available way after the fact in which someone would be
interested in.
Even members of Congress and their committees have
failed to use their official websites as information centres for their
constituents. This is known as the slide
of the boring website.
Believe it or not we have found that the vast majority
of members of Congress failed to list even what bills they sponsor, let alone
what votes they take or who they meet with on their websites.
While some members are beginning to reach out and to
begin to think about how to use their websites as interactive and use them to
offer transparency for their activities, most are letting this revolution pass
them by.
Aside from the shortcomings of already available
databases, Congress also fails to disclose important pieces of
information. Earmarks, personal
financial disclosure, travel reports and other documents are still not put
online in a searchable database even after the most recently passed ethics
reforms.
The U.S. Senate still refuses to disclose its campaign
finance reports electronically. In fact
that piece of legislation has been block anonymously for the past six
months. The perpetrator of the hold on
the legislation just recently came forward.
And so the funders of political campaigns remain
hidden in many cases until after the election day.
While we wait and push for Congress and the rest of
the government to catch up with online information and the environment in which
information is being made available, public information and public
participation will rely on a convergence of government institutions and NGO’s
in the U.S.
Congressional information is now being developed and
mashed up and made user friendly on a variety of non-governmental sites, many
of which the Sunlight Foundation has funded or operates all in the last 18
months. I calculated a few days ago that
in our 18 months we have created as many databases and website to display
government information.
There are also
projects underway that emphasize public participation in ways that rely on
cooperation between members of Congress and outside groups. A terrific example is this one.
In
late July and early August a top Democratic leader in the U.S. House, Senator
Richard Derbin, from
He
was on the website on a regular basis over the course of a week, he developed
videos, joint discussions and then promised to use the ideas that were
generated by citizens and lobbyists and interested parties to draft a bill,
which he will then post online for further comment before he introduces it in
congress. He called this Legislation
2.0.
And
we are quite intrigued by it because it seemed to work in a very positive and
respectful way and we think that there are other legislators who want to begin
to develop their legislation in the same way and, in a sense, garnering citizen
support and input at a time at which it had never been solicited before.
We
have also launched at the Sunlight Foundation a variety of experiments in
engaging the public to help shine a light on the darker corners of
congress. This is an example of
something we launched about 10 days ago, maybe just a week, working with
another NGO called Taxpayers for Common Sense.
This
website, where anyone can investigate the details behind thousands of earmarks
that are in two current pending legislative bills, a defence bill and a health
and human services bill, and it is a fairly complex effort in which we ask
members of the public to dig in and do some research for us. Who are these companies? What is their website? What is the purpose and what can you find out
about what they will be making for the federal government?
And
more than 500 citizens have engaged in this process, which we find, in a week’s
time, rather heartening.
At
present, however, this kind of interactive internet-powered participation is
very limited in the
Let
me close by just saying that Teddy Roosevelt, our twenty-sixth president,
claimed that the best citizen in a democracy is one who is actually in the
arena. As more and more citizens seek
not to just sit and watch the show, but to enter the game, just to step in and
step up, they will need to use the weapon of choice in the legislative and
political process and that is accessible and accurate information.
Where
legislators have had access to critical information, so should citizens. Only then will an informed citizenry be able
to act.
Now,
I would like to turn this over to our first panellist and I would like to ask
each of the panellists to do their own personal introductions, just pretend you
are blogging.
MR.
LENIHEN: Hello, everybody. My name is Don Lenihan. I am the President of something called
Crossing Boundaries. In a nutshell,
Crossing Boundaries is a national network of politicians and public servants
and others across the country who have worked together over 10 years in various
forums and ways exploring the impact of information technology on government
and governance and how governments should respond.
I
am actually here today in a related, but slightly different capacity. In the last year I have been asked to serve
as the advisor to the Government of New Brunswick -- for those of you not from
So
I want to talk about that a little bit.
And I want to say to you in advance that what I am about to say to you I
usually say in three hours, so I will give you a thumbnail sketch of I guess
where our thinking is going. I am
heading about five pilot projects there that are meant to experiment with
different aspects of the public, some are the general public, some are
stakeholders, and I will speak a little bit about the process a little bit
further on.
I
guess what I do want to say is that this, in my mind, is far more about
engagement than technology. Technology,
to me, has always been an enabler, it is a huge and powerful one, I am part of
that chorus of people that says it is that transformative force out here that
is bringing us into another era, but it is not clear to me what that future era
looks like. And I think unless we do a
lot of thinking about how we use the technology and what we use it to do we may
go to a place we don’t actually want to be in.
So
let me tell you about the thinking we have been doing about engagement before I
tell you a tiny bit about how we see the technology actually taking us forward
on that.
I
have put up here on the screen something we call The Engagement Continuum. And I want to say something about what it
means in my mind for governments to engage the public and what I think they
need to do to change how they engage the public. If we want to improve democracy and the
relationship between government and the public, there are big changes that are
necessary.
First
of all, voice, decision, action, these are fancy words for a very simple, very
deeply human process around problem solving. It works something like this. If you are with some people and you have got
a problem, first of all you sit down and everybody gets to put their stuff on
the table, let us call that voice. What
do you think, what do you think, what do you think, what do you think? And we have been doing this since we were
sitting around the campfires in the caves, right? There is nothing new about this, it is deeply
human.
Once
we sit around the table and say what do you think, what do you think, what do
you think, then we sort of say about the problem. So who is right? And we start trading ideas and comparing
evidence and exchanging things or maybe sometimes we make compromises, it
depends what the problem is we are trying to solve. But we move along and we make some
decisions. We think through, we exchange
ideas, we make some decisions about what we think.
And
sometimes it stops there but very often we need to go another step. Because once you sort of figure out the
problem, well here is what we all said at the beginning and here is what we now
sort of thing together is our diagnosis of the problem. What is the third step? And so what are we
going to do about it? Let us move to
action.
And
again, I want to underline this as a deeply deeply human process, we are all
affected by it, you go through it with your kids and your families and your
colleagues and all sorts of stuff. But
let me say this, when we talk about governments engaging in the public this is
not what governments do. Governments go
the first stage and they rarely get beyond the first stage. So the engagement
from most governments is what I would call consultation.
And
what is consultation? It looks a lot
like this, somebody stands up at the front of the room, usually behind a table,
and a bunch of the public stands on the other side of the room, usually lining
up at microphones or handing briefs or whatever it may be and you come up and
you get to say what you think,, right. So
we listen dutifully if we are from government or wherever it is. And you come up one at a time and you say I
think this and I want you to do this.
And somebody comes up and says, oh no, I think this and I want you to do
this. I think C, I think D, I think
E. And we go through the whole long list
of people and we travel around the country or the province or wherever it may
be and we take all our stuff and we go back home or sit in our room as the
committee and we review all this stuff, right.
And
after we have reviewed all this stuff, we make our decisions about what we
think and then we make our recommendations to government. We go through decision making and ultimately
government probably make some decisions and acts on them and gets a plan and it
goes through action.
So
government’s relationship to the public is largely one of voice. We ask what you think. There’s nothing wrong with that, consultation
has been with us for a very long time and it probably will be. Here is what I want to suggest is why would
we think that everything fits into one box?
Why do we think that consultation is the only answer to engagement?
And
not only that, let me tell you what it is starting to do. As I would argue to you, that engagement is
actually -- or that consultation on that model is starting to become hugely
destructive to democracy. What we don’t
seem to realize or we are beginning to realize is it divides the public against
itself. If I’m the voice of authority
who is going to make the decisions and you are out there and you want me to
make your decision, look at the person next to you who is next to get up to the
microphone and tell me their story.
Remember,
there is going to be 40 people after you and I am going to listen to them all
and I have got to make a decision. So it
is in your interest to try to get me to listen to your decision and the person
next to you is a competitor, they are not your friend. That means, you start to think how do I
actually outwit that person? How do I
make my story more compelling? How do I
manufacture a crisis, provide exaggerated facts and figures, make this person
look not very credible, etc.? And we see
more and more of this.
In
many cases there are lots of people out there who make a very good living advising people how these squeaky wheels so that
ultimately they get the grease when it comes around to influencing government
decision_making processes of this type.
I think we
see this all over the place. I'm not
saying it's the only way it happens, but that's the dynamic that we are
creating in many places.
And not only
that, not only does it divide the public against itself, it divides the public
against government. Remember, I've got
to go __ especially if I'm an elected guy; right? I've got to go away and make a decision. You guys have given me a list of 45 options,
three of which might actually fit together.
The rest of
you, when I come back, your ox is going to get gored; right? You are probably not going to be pleased with
me, and that's not going to make me very happy.
I might be looking for your vote next time around.
So
ultimately it's an increasingly uncomfortable process that creates not very
useful solutions, that divides the public against itself and that ultimately
divides the public against government.
I guess what
I want to say is if we are tired of the process, if the process is not working
very well, what is the answer? Change
the process; right? Change the process.
We need to
get beyond simple consultation, at least for many things.
So why
wouldn't we do something like this. Why
wouldn't we allow me as government to sort of say: You know what, I'm tired of being the
decision_maker here. Why don't I become
the facilitator? Why don't I get you
guys to put your chairs in a circle and start talking to each other instead of
talking to me?
Let's see
what you have to say to one another instead of lining up and giving me your
grief. Tell each other what you think
about the issue. Tell each other what
you think your solution is; compare your evidence and start arguing with each
other. And I will facilitate that
dialogue.
Let's see
where you get. Let's see if we can break
down some of the differences between you.
Let's see if we can find some common ground, some common solutions, some
common objectives, some compromises and arrive as close as we can to something
that looks like a position we can all live with.
I'm not
saying it's going to be easy. I'm not
saying it's always going to work. I just
believe we can do a whole lot better at this.
And the way
to do it is ultimately to give the public more space to work with itself. Government can actually be a player at that
table. It can be a participant.
People don't
get to make crazy decisions. Ultimately
government gets to say, like any other player at the table: You may be asking us for money, but I'm here
to tell you we don't have it. We just
don't have it. So let's go down another
road.
So you can
have that dialogue with the public.
I want to go
one step farther and say sometimes you only need to go to decision_making, but
sometimes __ and I think we are only beginning to realize this with the public
__ you need to go a lot farther. You
need to go to action.
Let me give
you one example.
We hear over
and over and over again, rightly, that obesity is the new smoking. Obesity is not only a bad thing, it's going
to put huge pressure on our health care costs, it slows down people. It's a problem, a social problem. It's the new smoking. It's the social problem of the future.
What I want
to suggest to you is that governments can't solve that problem on their
own. I mean, how could they. Right?
Or if they could, it's a world I don't want to live in. Maybe they are going to regulate what you eat
to the point where you don't get to choose.
Ultimately
if we want to solve a problem like obesity, governments may have a very
important role to play but in the end individuals are going to have to
essentially take responsibility for some very important part of that
problem_solving. We have to divide up
the responsibilities differently.
Government,
as I always say, can build you a bicycle path.
Government cannot make you get on your bicycle, at least not in any
world I want to live in.
So what we
really ought to be doing is saying in areas where the public requires some kind
of change in attitude and behaviour in order to solve the problem we are
dealing with, we are going to have to move beyond simply discussion and
deliberation. We are going to have to
get them to form and commit to an action plan and transfer some of that
responsibility to them.
That's not a
small task but it's doable. In fact, I
would argue if it's not doable, we are in a lot of trouble because it's true on
the environment, it's true on literacy, it's true on obesity, it's true on 25
issues I could name you very easily.
So how do we
do that? How do we do that?
Let me
quickly recap where I am and then just say a tiny bit about what we are trying
to do in
In a
nutshell, again I think the whole thing is about transferring responsibility or
sharing responsibility between governments and citizens __ and not just
citizens; it can be stakeholders. Let's
just say the public in various forms.
And
ultimately if you want to engage the public, you need a process by which they
will begin to actually work through the issues themselves together, with the
facilitation of government or others, and even arrive at a point where they
accept responsibility for new action and form a plan of action that they are
going to deliver on for obesity or literacy or environmental issues, or
whatever it may be.
So how do we
get there?
There is no
magic bullet here but I want to show you my second slide.
There are
not a lot of bells and whistles here. I
think the basic idea is meant to be pretty simple. It's how do we take a process and map it onto
that thing that I just gave you?
This process
can be infinitely flexible. There's all
kinds of different ways we are using it.
Sometimes we are using some to intersect others.
I just want
to make a couple of points about it.
That's all I have time for here.
Here is what
we would have done.
I've been
doing processes now for 20 years and here is what we did in many, many cases in
the past when we wanted to talk to the public.
You see
those round circles? Let's call them
roundtables. I've done more roundtables
than you can shake a stick at. Maybe
some of you were at some of them. Maybe
some of you wish you weren't. Maybe some
of you have held your own.
The bottom
line is if you bring a bunch of stakeholders or whoever it may be to a series
of three or four roundtables, especially in a country the size of
The bottom
line is in a case like that, you don't really get much of a discussion
going. It tends to be a
consultation. And that's not a bad
thing. But what we do is we hear what
others think and some of us dutifully take notes and then go away and try to do
the best we can in synthesizing this and maybe we send the report out for
comment from them.
What we
don't get is we don't get them really deeply discussing with each other,
working through the issues, and beginning to take responsibility for solving
some of those problems and then forming an action plan for the simple reason
that it takes too long.
And this is
where, frankly, I think the Internet __ and let me make this really simple; the
technology we are using in these processes right now is very simple __ is
potentially a bit of a miracle. Maybe a
big miracle.
It suddenly
makes it possible, especially in a country the size of Canada, to not only have
essentially a few roundtable processes where you bring people together
face_to_face and they can talk to each other, you can connect them together in
this period of time (off microphone)
And that's
what we are doing. It's very
simple. We are just using basically a
website where I can moderate a discussion and the 30 or 35 stakeholders in the
process will come together online whenever they want __ it's 24/7; it's
password protected __ and essentially they get to start blogging, dialoguing,
use the word you like, with each other.
But they are
not just doing it freely. They are doing
it in a structured process and there are questions they have to answer and they
have to work with each other to work through a process.
Just to give
you one example, we have a process right now which is on skills
development. We brought together 35
stakeholders from across the
What that
means is they have to sit down and at the first roundtable they have to name six
issues that they think that group of 35 people is well positioned to
solve. And government is one stakeholder
at the table.
Then what
they have to do is take those issues one at a time and work through them
together online as a group and decide what's the issue here. Do we have it framed right? What's the solution or the strategy we all
think is the right strategy to solve this problem? Who is best positioned to do that? And ultimately is that person or persons
ready to do it? Until we get an accumulated
list of 10 or 12, whatever it may be, actions at the end.
And the real
point that I want to make to you is when people go through that process, it is
back to that decision_making process, they think through the issues. They become committed to them. They take responsibility for them and they
sign off on an action plan that is their own.
And that's a
very different way for governments to do business. It's not the government's action plan; it's
theirs.
I guess in
the end what we are aiming at in this process really is a much more effective
way of collaborating, that transfers responsibility to a group of people and
lets them seriously work together and solve problems together.
Let me just
say in conclusion three simple things about the way I look at this process as
evolving. I think this is an enrichment
of democracy. We are doing things with
the general public as well.
The first
thing is I think this is a way of genuinely enhancing our ability to
collaborate across organizational boundaries, not just governments; governments
and stakeholders, governments and the general public.
Second,
there is no guarantee. I've heard so
many times that people say the technology, the technology is inherently
democratizing. It's going to democratize
us all. I'm a deep sceptic about
that. I think it could do lots of
things, good or bad. It's neutral. It's an enabler.
I think we
have to think as much about how we use those processes, that technology, to
transform and strengthen the democratic processes we have as just assuming that
the technology will do it of itself.
There is no guarantee in my mind that that is true at all.
The last thing I want to say in
closing is we are using very simple technology here, with small numbers of
people. We want to learn a lot about the
processes, about the engagement process, about transfer of responsibility. But the expectation is if we get good at
this, five or ten years down the road we could use much
more powerful technology that would engage hundreds or thousands of people
potentially online in dialogues that are much more sophisticated than these and
that would really move the yardsticks on democracy.
So let me stop there and thank you very much for the
time to make those comments.
--- Applause
MS MILLER: Thank
you. A remarkable condensation if that
is down from three hours. Thank you,
Don. I have lots of questions but let’s
go through the rest of the presentations.
Quitterie.
MME DELMAS : Bonjour à
tous.
Je suis Quitterie Delmas. Je suis Parisienne, Française. Je suis très heureuse d’être parmi vous, avec
vous.
Nous sortons, en France, d’une campagne
présidentielle, et ça fait du bien de pouvoir voyager et de se ressentir,
enfin, une citoyenne du monde et pas que dans ses problèmes franco-français.
Je suis ici pour vous
apporter un témoignage sur ce qu’on a pu vivre, notamment, dans la partie
blogger.
Alors, je me présente rapidement. Donc, je suis une bloggeuse politique. Il n’y a pas encore beaucoup de femmes qui
sont des bloggeuses politiques, mais pour moi, c’est une bonne manière de
s’investir en politique quand on a, notamment, une famille et un travail, de
pouvoir partager et porter ses convictions.
Je suis également rédactrice sur un nouveau média qui
s’appelle AGORAVOX, qui a été lancé il y a deux ans, qui a un million de
visiteurs par mois, et qui, en fait, est né face à la défiance que les Français
avaient vis-à-vis des grands médias classiques, les journaux télévisés, et qui,
en fait, quotidiennement, il y a des articles de rédacteurs qui soient simples
citoyens, donc, un peu de journalisme d’opinion, mais aussi des experts, des
avocats, des médecins, des chercheurs, et toute une partie d’enquêtes qui se
font à partir de données qui sont offertes par des internautes et qui sont ensuite
traduites, et où il y a des comptes rendus faits par des journalistes.
Également, je me suis occupée de la campagne d’un
candidat à l’élection présidentielle en France qui s’appelait François Bayrou,
qui a commencé la campagne à 6 pour cent, qui l’a finie à 18 et demi pour cent,
et lui aussi a réussi à émerger grâce à internet.
On ne peut pas ne pas parler de la campagne aussi
réalisée par Ségolène Royal, qui a aussi perdu, comme François Bayrou, mais qui
a été très innovante dans la pratique de la démocratie participative,
notamment, dans la première partie de la campagne, sur justement Désirs
d’avenir, qui était son site internet et qui a posé des questions aux citoyens,
qui ont pu participer à l’élaboration de son programme.
Pour re‑situer le contexte, donc, en France, il
y a une grande défiance face aux politiques en général, qui ne sont pas
aujourd’hui très représentatives de la population puisqu’on a des politiques
qui sont vieillissantes, qui sont essentiellement masculins et essentiellement
dans la fonction publique, et qui, donc, ne sont pas représentatives.
On a aussi un problème avec nos grands médias
classiques, comme je l’ai déjà dit, et effectivement, internet est une bouffée
d’air frais pour tous ceux qui ont envie d’avoir de l’information juste.
On a vu l’influence de l’internet dans deux
événements. Le premier, c’était le
référendum sur le Traité constitutionnel européen, qui a été rejeté par les
Français, alors que tous disaient au début de la campagne qu’il allait avoir 90
pour cent des Français qui allaient voter oui, 90 pour cent des parlementaires
votaient oui, les grands médias disaient qu’ils allaient voter oui, et c’est
sur internet via des blogs de particuliers qui ont démonté point par point la
constitution, que, finalement, le non a gagné.
C’était quelque chose qui n’était pas organisé mais qui s’est, en tout
cas, révélé dans les urnes.
Le deuxième grand moment d’internet, c’est normal,
c’est des grands moments de questions nationales, c’était la campagne
présidentielle, et je retiens quelques souvenirs.
Le premier, c’est l’impact sur les citoyens. On a vu que les citoyens, ce sont eux qui ont
été les grands vainqueurs de cette campagne présidentielle puisqu’ils ont
réussi à s’informer et ils sont devenus acteurs de leur information. Ils ont pu comparer leurs sources et
vérifier, finalement, qu’il faut avoir plusieurs prises sur une même
information pour se forger sa propre opinion.
Donc, on a vu un nombre de personnes incalculable se
rendre sur internet, que ce soit des très jeunes ou que ce soit aussi des très
vieux retraités, qui ont pris l’habitude, comme ils ont du temps, pour aller se
renseigner sur internet. Ils sont, donc,
devenus eux-mêmes acteurs de leur propre information. Ils ont aussi pu se former et aussi comparer
les différents programmes.
Un nombre de sites incalculable sont sortis sur la
comparaison des programmes, et finalement, qui ont permis aux citoyens d’au
lieu de se référer par rapport à l’étiquette dans laquelle vous êtes né... vous
naissez parfois à gauche, parfois à droite.
Eh bien, finalement, c’est en regardant les programmes qu’on sait vers
quel candidat se tourner, et ça aussi beaucoup joué pour le candidat François
Bayrou qui était au centre, donc, ni à gauche, ni à droite, et qui, finalement,
a pu faire entendre son projet via internet.
Il y a eu aussi une capacité de fédérer les gens sur
internet, les citoyens, qui se sont rencontrés sur des thématiques communes,
notamment, sur la thématique du développement durable, qui était vraiment au
premier plan de cette élection présidentielle, et on voit que cette
problématique du développement durable a une capacité à fédérer de façon
beaucoup plus large que les appareils politiques dont on a l’habitude.
C’est aussi ce qui explique la diminution du parti des
Verts et le fait qu’ils aient fait un score très, très petit.
On a vu aussi qu’il y avait, évidemment, un
contre-pouvoir, internet étant un contre-pouvoir pour les citoyens qui
n’arrivent pas à s’exprimer, notamment, dans leur ville. On voit parfois qu’on a quelques petits
problèmes démocratiques pour l’opposition dans certaines villes des
Hauts-de-Seine, et c’est intéressant de suivre des expériences locales.
Alors, si vous avez l’occasion d’aller voir des sites
comme MonPuteaux, qui est une ville un peu fermée, ou MaLuempe (ph), où on voit
qu’il y a aussi une voix qui peut être entendue grâce à internet et à des
internautes.
On voit très clairement aussi l’influence de
l’internet sur l’exercice législatif, mais pour l’instant, ce n’est pas du tout
organisé, et c’est un peu triste. C’est
ce qui me fait dire que les candidats à l’élection présidentielle se sont
servis de l’internet comme un média classique pour faire du marketing comme si
on vendait une lessive. Donc, on a vu
leurs programmes déversés du haut vers le bas.
Donc, ça, ils ont bien compris l’intérêt, notamment, Nicolas Sarkozy.
En revanche, pour faire remonter, on peut dire que
François Bayrou a essayé de le faire, Ségolène Royal aussi, mais il n’y a
encore pas du tout de concrétisation dans la vie publique et politique
quotidienne. Notamment, sur le site de
l’Assemblée nationale ou du Sénat, aucun effort n’a été fait.