”E-Democracy” is only a tool we need -To overcome the double crises of Democracy we

have to realize serious constitutional reforms which provides citizens with more real power

A contribution to the workshop “Opportunities for and challenges to representative democracy“

of the IV. CoE - Forum for the Future of Democracy

by Andreas Gross (Switzerland)Director of the Scientific Institute for Direct Democracy in St.Ursanne

Swiss MP & Leader of the Socialists in the PACE

Madrid, 16th of October 2008

www.andigross.ch info@andigross.ch

The double crises of Democracy means:- Democracy is too representative

- Democracy is too national

1. We have to open indirect democracy with direct democratic instruments:

• Citizen initiated referenda on laws decided by MP’s• Citizen initiated referenda on constitutional or

legislative reform-propositions

2. We have to trans-nationalize democracy:

• European Constitution making with a mandatory European Referendum

• Citizen initiated European Reform-Propositions to the EUCom and EP

Such a new sharing of power between Gov/Parl/Citizens would empower the people and democratize Democracy

To realize such constitutional changes (Citizens must organize and mobilize) and to use the new direct democratic instruments you need modern ICT, but ICT without these constitutional changes does not means more Democracy yet.

High-Tech needs constitutional reforms to trans-form today’s Democracy-light in High-Democracy !

The core idea of Freedom and Democracy:

All those who are concerned by a decision should be directly or indirectly part of the decision making process !

Life is not a destiny !Everybody should have the right, the capacity and the opportunity to act on his and her life together with others.

Education, knowledge, technology, social competences, social and economic progress

created in the last 100 years democratic potentials and citizens capacities, our democratic institutions

today do not realize !

That’s why we have to brake up the national representative chains Democracy is limited to:

• The nature of the problems we have to solve ask for this• The capacities the citizens have and want to use makes

it possible.• The ICT provide us with the technology to overcome

problems of distance and numbers (European Democracy) as well as complexity and the need to

deliberate grounded on knowledge and competence

Nobody wants to replace national representative democracy - we only want to overcome

it’s limits and it’s exclusiveness !

Direct Democratic elements make representative Democracy on the local,

regional and national level more representative.

Transnational Democracy would give citizens back, what the Nation-state lost to the European

polity.

A deepened and enlarged Democracy would enable the citizens and societies to learn more from and for each-other !

A better shared political power would multiply the (real and virtual) communications before real

decisions are made; this increases the learning capacities of all of us and reduces the risk of

errors.

Citizens, who are invited to participate in the decision making processes of the society, feel as

part of the society again and find trust, identity and identification !

Problems of size, numbers, space, distances, different languages can be

overcome for more and better Democracy by ICT/”E-Dem”-Tools

But the will to increase Democracy, to make it stronger, deeper and broader, has to be there or has to be

generated first.

We need to establish a will to share power better !

(A.Mcint:”There has to be some power-sharing”)

That’s why some transformations to include direct-democratic elements in Democracy or to move from a

Treaty to a Constitution on the European level has been and is seen as “Revolution”: Few loose power,

many get some of it !

It might be, that the democratic potentials of ICT/e-Dem-Tools may be evaluated some day by

it’s power to unite and organize citizens in a way that the power was shared in a less

unequal way !

They should help us to establish the pressure from below we need in order to generate the institutional transformations we need on all levels of Democracy.

Democracy can be understood as an ongoing process for a stronger Democracy - being aware that there will never be a perfect Democracy but there are so many

ways to reduce it’s imperfectness !