Demoex
Encyclopedia
Demoex, an appellation short for democracy
experiment, is a local Swedish
political party
and an experiment with direct democracy
in Vallentuna
, a suburb
of Stockholm
, Sweden
. It uses the Internet
to make it possible for any member to participate in the local government
. Demoex has a representative in the municipal council, who votes in the council according to a poll that is held beforehand on the website
of the party. This is unlike traditional representatives, who vote according to their own views or their party's views. Every Vallentuna resident older than 16 years can register on the website to vote; anyone in the world can take part in the debates, if they can write in Swedish
. Voters do not have to vote on all issues; the fewer votes on an issue, the more weight each vote carries. To boost participation, the party allows users to choose someone to advise them on a particular topic.
Demoex was founded on March 6, 2002, and won a local election in the municipality Vallentuna that year. The Demoex representative is 19-year-old student Parisa Molagholi, elected on 4 November 2002 with 1.7% of the votes. She began serving as representative in 2003, and was re-elected in 2006 with 2.9% of the votes. Her success has astonished traditional politicians. The party's representative, Per Norbäck, was elected in 2010 with 1.76% of the vote. Demoex intends to become a national party and eventually an international party on the same principles.
The Demoex system is a political
hybrid which uses e-democracy
to inject direct democracy into a system of representative democracy
. This creates a semi-representative democracy, similar to one that has been used in Switzerland
since the late 19th century. In pure direct democracy, there are no representatives, or there are only proxy representatives with limited power. By contrast, in a representative democracy, the elected representatives have all the power to make political decisions. The Swiss Landsgemeinde
is one of the oldest and purest forms of direct democracy. It was originally introduced in the Swiss Canton of Uri
in 1231, and was structured as an open-air gathering, usually in springtime, where votes were expressed by a show of raised hands. This system is still used in the Canton of Glarus
and Appenzell Innerrhoden
.
: To extend the degree of democracy in society. They claim that technological solutions have surpassed the political. With the help of information technology
Demoex wants to create liquid democracy.
If 20,000 people vote in the local election every fourth year, and 50 representatives in the local government vote another 100 times per year on different issues. The total votes a year, then, amounts to 10,000. Suppose that a further percent of the citizens also vote on every issue in the local government ballots. Then the extent of democracy will increase. The total votes a year will multiply to 30,000. This increases the degree of democracy by 300 percent, or from 0.5 votes per citizen to 1.5 votes per year.
and Henri Bergson
about open society
; the vision of a society built on the principle of public access to official records. Demoex strives for increased access and partaking in the politics.
After an internet debate, an oral discussion with local politicians followed. The evaluation showed that students appreciated the speed and the structure offered by the electronic debate system but they felt run over by the traditional oral debate.
From this experience, a handful of students discussed with their philosophy
teacher Per Norbäck the possibility of developing an e-democracy. They decided to register a party and candidate for the local government in September 2002 with only one promise: to inject direct democracy in the representative system.
In January 2002, they started to work on the project. Soon after, they contacted Mikael Nordfors, a pioneer within e-democracy in Sweden. In the early 1990s, Mikael had founded a party with a similar ideology. Mikael offered Demoex to use the software he had implemented through his company.
They made an Internet site, and started to sketch the work flow. Demoex tried to find a way to adopt direct democracy into the existing representative system. The Demoex model became a three-step process:
Thinning out consists of removing any irrelevant questions. In the thinning out process, all the public affairs that the local parliament is dealing with are presented. The voters report (on a scale of 1-5) what affairs they want to discuss and vote for. If an affair gets higher average report than 3.00, there will be a debate and a vote.
In the debates, people argue for or against different political proposals. The debates are the base for the democratic votes. The debate is necessary in order to compare the pros and cons of the proposals. Any participant can contribute arguments to try to convince the other members of the "right" opinion.
The deadline for casting ballots is one day before the meeting of the local parliament. The results of the ballots are transformed into mandates according to statistical distribution. To fulfill the process, a Demoex representative needs to sign a contract with the promise to represent this distribution in the local parliament.
Senator On-Line
is an Australian political party which proposes to have no platform but rather to act based on online polls.
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
experiment, is a local Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
and an experiment with direct democracy
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
in Vallentuna
Vallentuna
Vallentuna is a bimunicipal locality and the seat of Vallentuna Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 26,500 inhabitants in 2005. It stretches over two municipalities in Stockholm County, in the Roslagen region. Vallentuna is also a suburb of Stockholm...
, a suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
of Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. It uses the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
to make it possible for any member to participate in the local government
Local government
Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...
. Demoex has a representative in the municipal council, who votes in the council according to a poll that is held beforehand on the website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
of the party. This is unlike traditional representatives, who vote according to their own views or their party's views. Every Vallentuna resident older than 16 years can register on the website to vote; anyone in the world can take part in the debates, if they can write in Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
. Voters do not have to vote on all issues; the fewer votes on an issue, the more weight each vote carries. To boost participation, the party allows users to choose someone to advise them on a particular topic.
Demoex was founded on March 6, 2002, and won a local election in the municipality Vallentuna that year. The Demoex representative is 19-year-old student Parisa Molagholi, elected on 4 November 2002 with 1.7% of the votes. She began serving as representative in 2003, and was re-elected in 2006 with 2.9% of the votes. Her success has astonished traditional politicians. The party's representative, Per Norbäck, was elected in 2010 with 1.76% of the vote. Demoex intends to become a national party and eventually an international party on the same principles.
The Demoex system is a political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
hybrid which uses e-democracy
E-democracy
E-democracy refers to the use of information technologies and communication technologies and strategies in political and governance processes...
to inject direct democracy into a system of representative democracy
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
. This creates a semi-representative democracy, similar to one that has been used in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
since the late 19th century. In pure direct democracy, there are no representatives, or there are only proxy representatives with limited power. By contrast, in a representative democracy, the elected representatives have all the power to make political decisions. The Swiss Landsgemeinde
Landsgemeinde
The Landsgemeinde or "cantonal assembly" is one of the oldest forms of direct democracy. The first historically documented assembly took place in 1294...
is one of the oldest and purest forms of direct democracy. It was originally introduced in the Swiss Canton of Uri
Canton of Uri
Uri is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and a founding member of the Swiss Confederation. It is located in Central Switzerland. The canton's territory covers the valley of the Reuss River between Lake Lucerne and the St. Gotthard Pass. German is the primary language spoken in Uri...
in 1231, and was structured as an open-air gathering, usually in springtime, where votes were expressed by a show of raised hands. This system is still used in the Canton of Glarus
Canton of Glarus
The Canton of Glarus is a canton in east central Switzerland. The capital is Glarus.The population speaks a variety of Alemannic German.The majority of the population identifies as Christian, about evenly split between the Protestant and Catholic confessions.-History:According to legend, the...
and Appenzell Innerrhoden
Appenzell Innerrhoden
Appenzell Innerrhoden is the smallest canton of Switzerland by population and the second smallest by area, Basel-City having less area.-Foundation:...
.
Ideology
Although Demoex does not stand for any defined policy, it has a clear ideologyIdeology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
: To extend the degree of democracy in society. They claim that technological solutions have surpassed the political. With the help of information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
Demoex wants to create liquid democracy.
What is the extent of democracy?
A simple measure: The number of democratic decisions multiplied with the number of voters.If 20,000 people vote in the local election every fourth year, and 50 representatives in the local government vote another 100 times per year on different issues. The total votes a year, then, amounts to 10,000. Suppose that a further percent of the citizens also vote on every issue in the local government ballots. Then the extent of democracy will increase. The total votes a year will multiply to 30,000. This increases the degree of democracy by 300 percent, or from 0.5 votes per citizen to 1.5 votes per year.
Open society
The ideology is based on the thoughts from Karl PopperKarl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
and Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
about open society
Open society
The open society is a concept originally developed by philosopher Henri Bergson and then by Austrian and British philosopher Karl Popper. In open societies, government is purported to be responsive and tolerant, and political mechanisms are said to be transparent and flexible...
; the vision of a society built on the principle of public access to official records. Demoex strives for increased access and partaking in the politics.
Statistical distribution
Demoex uses statistical distribution. It means that the purpose of Demoex representatives is to reflect the members' opinions as the online statistics indicate. If Demoex had 5 mandates and 60% of the users' votes for a proposal, then three of the representatives would vote "yes" to that proposal. The rounding follows according to mathematical principles. If it becomes impossible to reflect the members' opinions appropriately in one question, then one representative would give a blank vote. Statistical distribution is used because it gains democracy. In every question, there ought to be only one democratic election. Many sub-elections on the same issue can easily put the majority principle aside.Grass-roots initiative
The idea for Demoex began at Vallentuna upper secondary school, on 3 October 2000. The municipality organized a theme day on "IT and democracy," and the question emerged why so few young people are politically active. Some students answered that they did not approve of choosing between ideologies. They expressed that their points of view were impossible to place on a political right-left scale. Other students were pessimistic about the aspects of political influence. They argued that "decisions are made from above". Others answered they had no time to be involved in politics. Others again thought of politics as boring, tiring, and insignificant.After an internet debate, an oral discussion with local politicians followed. The evaluation showed that students appreciated the speed and the structure offered by the electronic debate system but they felt run over by the traditional oral debate.
From this experience, a handful of students discussed with their philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
teacher Per Norbäck the possibility of developing an e-democracy. They decided to register a party and candidate for the local government in September 2002 with only one promise: to inject direct democracy in the representative system.
In January 2002, they started to work on the project. Soon after, they contacted Mikael Nordfors, a pioneer within e-democracy in Sweden. In the early 1990s, Mikael had founded a party with a similar ideology. Mikael offered Demoex to use the software he had implemented through his company.
They made an Internet site, and started to sketch the work flow. Demoex tried to find a way to adopt direct democracy into the existing representative system. The Demoex model became a three-step process:
- Thinning out
- Debate
- Cast ballot
Thinning out consists of removing any irrelevant questions. In the thinning out process, all the public affairs that the local parliament is dealing with are presented. The voters report (on a scale of 1-5) what affairs they want to discuss and vote for. If an affair gets higher average report than 3.00, there will be a debate and a vote.
In the debates, people argue for or against different political proposals. The debates are the base for the democratic votes. The debate is necessary in order to compare the pros and cons of the proposals. Any participant can contribute arguments to try to convince the other members of the "right" opinion.
The deadline for casting ballots is one day before the meeting of the local parliament. The results of the ballots are transformed into mandates according to statistical distribution. To fulfill the process, a Demoex representative needs to sign a contract with the promise to represent this distribution in the local parliament.
Rules and advertising
The founding activists of Demoex also made rules for all participants to follow. They believed that the rules were necessary to avoid chaos. After they had set the rules and found an accurate work flow, they had to advertise the concept. They distributed leaflets in the local postboxes, made Demoex t-shirts, and borrowed a house van as base for the electoral campaign. A certain interest from the media gave Demoex some attention. Though the advertising campaign was small and cheap, it was enough to win the first mandate of a direct democracy party in Europe.Similar initiatives
Lista Partecipata is an Italian initiative using a similar concept as Demoex. Their slogan is "The control of government in the hands of the citizens (and not only at election time)".Senator On-Line
Senator On-Line
Senator Online is a registered Australian political party that contested the 2007 Federal election. In the five states the party contested, it received on average 0.06% of the vote with the greatest success in Victoria where it received 0.09% of the vote Senator Online (Internet Voting...
is an Australian political party which proposes to have no platform but rather to act based on online polls.
See also
- Collaborative governanceCollaborative governanceCollaborative governance is a process and a form of governance in which participants representing different interests are collectively empowered to make a policy decision or make recommendations to a final decision-maker who will not substantially change consensus recommendations from the...
- Direct democracyDirect democracyDirect democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
- Delegated voting
External links
- Demoex
- Demoex info-page in English
- Demoex - think global, act local, on the Utopian World Championship
- Related projects list from the Metagovernment