Political Crowdsourcing - Time to Rethink
The UK Conservative Party has taken the crowdsourcing of political ideas further by asking for public opinion to improve proposals of a leaked Labour Government document.
Now, that would be original, if it was. But it isn’t. The same has been done, not only in the UK, but in other countries, even in Greece. And it has several pros and cons. Being the Devil’s Advocate almost by profession, here are just four of the cons:
· Many opinions don’t equal good opinions.
· It looks like the opposition party doesn’t have any position on the issue on its own.
· Who’s opinion can one really trust?
· In the end, it’s still the centre that decides, the crowdsourcing provides the illusion of democracy.
It is obvious to most that everyone’s friend is no one’s friend, really. But crowdsourcing in politics may leave the impression that everyone’s voice is equal even though it isn’t. We should look at the available tools, approaches and existing cases to develop some sort of best practice for this type of outsourcing of work which traditionally was done by politicians and their teams. Before the peer-to-peer policy making gets out of hands and an illusory perception of well-founded positions, which in reality have no accountability, settle, some generally accepted rules might make balance and checks easier.
It is likely that crowdsourcing is well on its way to become a permanent feature of open Government and opposition process, but some bells should ring when policy-makers refer to impartial and non-partisan process. Many politicians are idealists, but ultimately all of them want the power to decide.
