This was presented by Nele Leosk from the European University Institute at the Impacts of Civic Technology Conference (TICTeC2016) in Barcelona on 27th April. You can find out more information about the conference here: https://www.mysociety.org/research/tictec-2016/
Beyond digital crowdsourcing - how the Estonian People’s Assembly solved a crisis of democracy
1. Beyond digital crowdsourcing -
how the Estonian People’s
Assembly solved a crisis of
democracy
Nele Leosk
Alexander H.Trechsel
European University Institute
April 27, 2016
3. Crowdsourcing
is defined as a public invitation by an actor
or a group of actors for any person or
organization to participate in a process
geared at finding solutions to a societal
problem
(adopted Brabham 2008; Howe 2006; Landemore 2014)
4. Contributions
• Staging the process
• Impact analysis
- Inclusiveness
a) Preconditions
b) Who gets involved?
c) Whose voice is heard?
• Political outcomes
- institutional changes
9. Topics
• Financing and financial reporting (of political
parties)
• Political parties and party system
(establishment, membership)
• Public participation in policy making between
the elections (open policy making, petitions,
etc)
• Electoral system regulation
• Political patronage and corruption
• Varia
23. Representation at the DDay
Participants Population
1. Gender (n=299)
Male 45% 45%
Female 55% 55%
2. Age (n=294)
18-35 18% 34%
36-55 32% 34%
56+ 50% 32%
3. Education (n=299)
Elementary 4% 17%
Secondary 18% 27%
Vocational 26% 33%
Higher 52% 24%
4. Living place (n=296)
Town 64% 70%
Country 36% 30%
24. Transparency
• Guaranteed at most stages
- Transparent at the initial crowdsourcing and
the final Deliberation Day phase
- failed at the ideas systemisation and
analysis phase
• National public broadcasting company as media
partner
- local media less involved
• Mainly new technologies and social media
dependent: People’s Assembly portal, online
streamings, FB
25. Inclusion
• Aimed at all inclusiveness
• Random, targeted and self-selection
mechanisms used
• Politicians, experts (public officials,
representatives of civil society
organisations, academia), and the public
involved at all stages
- Yet, not equal at all stages
• Full representativeness not reached
26. Political outcomes
• Out of the 15 presented ideas:
– Two fully implemented (regulation on popular
initiatives, lowering the no needed for
establishing a pol. party)
– Four partly implemented
– Three included in the Coalition Agreement of
the Government (assumed office March 2014)
Longer term impact:
- Vabaerakond established in 2014 with 650
members, 8 seats in the Parliament (2015)
- www.rahvaalgatus.ee (2016)
27. Some conclusions
• Crowdsourcing suitable for addressing
highly salient societal issues:
– tensions smoothened by involving the
public;
- can have considerable political impact
• Various selection mechanisms needed to
improve representativeness (gender and
age)
• Cooperation betw. different societal
groups