Vision of a CyberState…

Posted on April 3, 2007
Filed Under Deep Thought, Politics, Rants, Reccommended Reading, Web 2.0 stuff

The Process of Cyber Government

The infrastucture, software, and most important of all the people, are there for true ‘government for the people, by the people’ to exist today. The social web or ‘Web 2.0′ has brought to the fore uses for the internet which have never been considered before. The various applications available would be applicable to government with a little adjustment. Lets follow a policy proposal through the system of cyber-government from conception to enactment:

The conception: Mr. (or Mrs.) Smith has an idea for a way that the government could do something and posts it on the policy forum. The forum is only accessible from within the UK by UK citizens entered on the electoral roll. A discussion of the idea’s merits and drawbacks ensues.
The discussion hones the idea until it is ready to present for a vote. There could possibly be some kind of rating system built into the forum so that a proposal has to get above a certain rating before it is allowed before the people. Mr./Mrs. Smith has had to explain their idea to others and through this has gained a greater understanding of their idea and its ramifications. Other people on the forum will have put their two cents in and thought of things which Mr./Mrs Smith hadn’t.
Upon recieving the required rating the policy goes to the people for a vote. Voters recieve daily updates of new policies via email or text message and are informed of how long voting on the policy is open. Voting can be done either via the web, email, phone, or text message. Only one vote per person will be allowed though I’m unsure as to how this is to be enforced. Matters deemed to be urgent, such as some military decisions, or responses to natural disasters and other emergencies will be flagged as such by the relevant department of the civil service and a separate email and text message is sent regarding these flagged decisions and a response will be expected within a shorter timeframe. There should be more than just two options when voting for a policy, for , against, or review.
Once the voting period expires the policy is either enacted, dropped, or sent back to the forums for review depending on the results of the vote. If the policy is carried, the civil service provides a report as to how they will achieve its enactment, the costs involved, where they want to get the money from and how the funding will affect other already extant policies. This then goes back to the people for approval (a yes or no vote only, carried by a majority of the population, no results in it going back to the civil servants for a rethink). The civil servants cannot change the policy, only how it is to be achieved.
Upon the approval of the enactment plan by the people the policy is transferred to the statute books and becomes law.

This is just a rough idea of the processes involved in enacting a policy in the proposed cyberstate. It relies upon the current model of a centrally directed government remaining in place, however it may be more efficient and effective to allow local authorities some regional autonomy, with only national issues going through the national process and local issues being decided locally. This would reduce the load on the national server and allow some economic or even political diversity to develope at the local level.

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