Citizen participation and digital tools for upgrading democracy in Iceland and beyond

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Robert Bjarnason - citizens.is

NCDD Tech Tuesday - February 2018

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Þingvellir, Iceland

Site of the worlds oldest parliament founded 930

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Typical methods of transport to �voting polls 100 years ago in Iceland

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Women got voting rights in Iceland 1915 formation of first women's party

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The car becomes popular in the 1930´s

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First computers arrive in the1960’s

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Access to the web is opened in Iceland 1993

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Access to the web is opened in Iceland 1993

But the democratic system has not evolved much

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Photo: Þórgnýr Thoroddsen

Pots & Pans Revolution in 2008. Citizens Foundation begins its work

Citizens Foundation Vision

For there to be trust

citizens must have a strong voice �in policymaking with �formal and persistent participation �in the political process

Open democracy solutions

• Idea generation, policy crowdsourcing and debate with Your Priorities

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• Budget voting and civic education with Open Active Voting

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• Empower citizens with Artificial �Intelligence with Active Citizen

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Better Alamance

Idea generation, policy crowdsourcing and debate

With Your Priorities

Your Priorities

• Idea and debate platform which helps people to have real influence

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• Allows large groups to speak with one �voice and organise around ideas

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• Open source participation software with �free hosting for your group at yrpri.org

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Why Your Priorities?

• To build trust between citizens �and government authorities

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• Enable better decisions by crowdsourcing policy �with the cooperation of citizens and government

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• Easy to use and combines play and civic �work in a meaningful context

Your Priorities highlights

• Over 1.5 million unique visitors since 2008

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• Scales well to big and small projects

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• Estonia, Australia, Scotland, USA, UK, Romania, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, Iceland and more

Debate and prioritization

• Citizens add ideas and points
• Inform others with structured debate points and �become better informed in the process

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• Ideas and points are voted on by citizens
• The best ideas and points for and �against them are visible to everyone

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Better Alamance

Interface inspires debate

• Points for and against are in different columns which makes it hard to argue

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• This encourages rational debate and positive points instead of negativity and personal attacks

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• Minority and majority views have equal �weight which helps facilitate consensus

Focused output

• Best ideas and solutions of participants
• Also other useful, crowd-sorted and debated ideas

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• Increased civic knowledge of participants

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• Higher public acceptance and satisfaction �levels with use of citizens ideas and work

Example Projects

Better Reykjavík

• Opened a week before the 2010 elections in Reykjavik, independent of political parties

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• Over 40% of voters participated, 8% added �content and over 1000 ideas were created

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• The Best Party needed real policies and said: �‘Come to Better Reykjavik help us make policy’

From jokes to mayor

• The Best party (Jón Gnarr) was topping in polls �when they saw Better Reykjavik

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• Saw a solution for their lack of policy and used supporters to help create platform

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• Many ideas became part of the �coalition agreement

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Reykjavik City collaboration

• Formal collaboration with the city of Reykjavík since 2011, hundreds of approved and realized ideas

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• Over 70.000 people have participated with new ideas being processed every month

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• Currently working with Reykjavik City �on the future of our citizens participation

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Education policy until 2030

• Reykjavík is currently shaping a new education policy

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• Purpose is to get citizens' views on what should be the most important skills and qualifications for an 18-year-old

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• Citizens in Reykjavik have opportunity to �participate directly in formulating city policy

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Estonian law reforms

• After political scandals in Estonia in 2012 grassroots NGOs and President of Estonia lead a law reform project

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• 50.000+ people took part and sent in over 2000 proposals with Your Priorities

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• 7 of the 15 top ideas are now part �of Estonian law

Examples of law changes

• Reduced the number of members required for the establishment of a political party and candidate deposit

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• Stricter sanctions for accepting prohibited donations

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• More authority to the Political Party Supervision Board

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• 1000 citizens can now send issues to �parliament which must process them

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Malta / Forza Nazzjonali

• Launched 4 weeks before a snap election in Malta. FN then won close to 44% of the vote.

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• Over 30.000 visited the website, over 10% of �Malta’s voting population

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• Over 2.700 ideas added and over 4.000 �registered users

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Forbrukerradet

• “Mine idéer” is a pilot project by Forbrukerrådet in Norway

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• Norwegian Consumer Council is testing different participation methods using Your Priorities

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• 5 different subjects of participation

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French Parliament

• Two French senators in the majority are using Your Priorities

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• The senators select the two most discussed questions to ask government each month

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• And follow up on answers to make sure�they are adequate and informative

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Girraween Public School

• A class of 11 year olds has free time every week

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• They used Your Priorities to collect ideas �from class who also vote on the ideas

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• Top idea is done in next free school time

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• ‘It allows people to be heard’

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Budget voting and

civic education�with Open Active Voting

Open Active Voting software

• We use a specially designed software for the voting process, Open Active Voting

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• It’s also open source, it has to be �if the process is to be trusted

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• Our new version is mobile friendly, �fun to use and play with

Why Open Active Voting?

• Give citizens direct influence on part �of a local government budget

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• Educate citizens on how much things cost and �what it means to have a budget

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• Build up trust and make better �decisions in cooperation with citizens

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Our PB projects in Iceland

• Better Neighbourhoods in Reykjavik from 2011 - 2018

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• Our Kópavogur 2016 - 2018
• Record 18% participation rate

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• Our Mosó 2017
• Over 14% participation rate

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Better Neighbourhoods

• Participatory budgeting (PB) in Reykjavik, capital of Iceland from 2011 to 2017

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• 3 million Euro budget in 2017

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• Ideas from citizens on projects to improve �the neighbourhoods of Reykjavik

What is it and how does it work?

• The mission is to improve the city of Reykjavik according to the wishes of its citizens

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• Each voter has the same budget amount as the total and chooses which projects she wants to vote for

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• Open Active Voting teaches �citizens the realities of budgeting

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Best Practice Award 2015

Better Neighborhoods won the Nordic Best Practice Challenge in category 1 "Public Communications"

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“The aim of the project is to improve the quality of the inhabitants surroundings. Through this inventive project, the residents are offered influence beyond what is normally seen in a representative democracy.”

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Better Neighbourhoods process

1. Citizens submit their ideas
2. City of Reykjavik evaluates their cost
3. Citizens vote on the ideas
4. City of Reykjavik executes them
5. Citizens use the results

In general

• 608 ideas have been approved by citizens in Better neighborhoods from 2012 - 2017

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• The vote is electronic, binding and secure

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• All neighborhoods of Reykjavik have been �improved visibly through Better �Neighborhoods

Better Reykjavik PB Ideas

Participation statistics

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• Needs photos from executed projects, collage in one slide

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Other PB projects in Europe

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• Fife, Dundee, Drammen and more

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• Maribor, Slovenia

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• Decide Madrid, Spain - Consulting

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• Miskolc, Hungary

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• Pula, Croatia

Empower citizens with Artificial Intelligence

With Active Citizen

Why Active Citizen

• Empower citizens democratically with �Artificial Intelligence

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• Fight filter bubbles and bias to help citizens deal with their life based on their real needs

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• Empower citizens with relevant knowledge

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Active Citizen AI Notifications

• Reduce participation friction by sending citizens notifications on relevant issues

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• Helps citizens to serve their democratic interests online, notify them about opportunities to participate

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• Informative, useful but not intrusive

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Active Citizen Recommendations

• Gives users recommendations based on what they have liked or disliked before
• In a similar way that Facebook creates your feed

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• Recommendations are not the main way users are delivered ideas in order to minimize filter bubbles

Active Citizen - Deep Linking Youth

• The DEEP-Linking Youth project brings the voices of young people to policymakers

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• On the subjects of youth mobility and Erasmus project

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• Uses Deep Learning Neural Networks to �filter relevant discussions on social media

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Final words

Participation must be fun

• Fun, easy, informative and educational

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• If it’s not ‘fun’ people will rather go on Facebook, �play computer games or watch a movie

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• We live in a world with endless possibilities for �fun activities, civic work competes with that

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Reward your citizens

• Use the best citizens ideas on a regular basis, not only talk about it but do it

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• Use examples of successful projects to show �value, build trust and increase participation

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• If citizens don’t know the results it will be �hard to get more participation from them

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Communication is key

• Good communication is the key to success

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• We must use good, modern tools for �this but tools alone are not enough

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• If you listen to the people �the people will listen to you

Public and not for profit

• There is a danger of privatization in the evolution of democracy online

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• Trust is a major problem in democracy today and for-profit democracy in the cloud is not the solution

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• Open source software, decentralization and �publicly operated servers are key for trust

Citizens Foundation’s Support

• Your Priorities hosting for idea generation and crowdsourcing projects

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• Support for setting up secure budget voting locally with high credibility and clear sovereignty

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• Customizations for Your Priorities �and Open Active Voting

Thank you

Róbert Bjarnason - robert@citizens.is

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