Government - Written Wednesday, July 7, 2010 by Thomas Gegenhuber - 6 Comments

When lobbyists don’t matter

When governments think about using crowdsourcing instruments like the participatory budget model of Freiburg or platforms like Manorlabs one of the biggest concern is: How can we prevent that lobby groups or the opposition uses this tool for their purposes?

First, the extent of this concern is dependent on the environment in which the government operates. In local governments in Europe, like in Austria and Germany, political parties play a major role. In North America, party politics play a less significant role on local level. However, the bigger the city, the more important the issue of partisan politics and the interests of lobby groups become. Well organized, lobby groups and opposition can make mountains out of molehills on a crowdsourcing platform. A government, which refuses to take care about an issue that has gained acceptance on a crowdsourcing platform, is likely to be grilled by the media. The headline: “Government does not listen to ordinary citizens”. Subhead: “Electronic participation served solely PR interests of government”. So my first answer would be: In an environment where a government or the ruling party fears that crowdsourcing could be exploited by the opposition for partisan politics there is one remedy: The activists of your own party should be active on the platform as well. Fight out the competition of ideas on the platform.

Continue…