Liquid Democracy in Loomio
Jeff Swift
Public
Seen by 476
I've been doing some research into various kinds of democracy, and I'm intrigued by the idea of "liquid democracy." This might have already been discussed here, but I wanted to see if anyone else would be interested in this sort of thing.
The basic idea is a democratic system in which most issues are decided (or strongly suggested to representatives) by direct referendum. Considering nobody has enough time and knowledge for every issue, votes can be delegated by topic. Furthermore delegations are transitive and can be revoked at any time. Liquid Democracy is sometimes referred to as Delegated or Proxy Voting. source
So, as I understand it, liquid democracy is somewhere between representative and direct democracy, leaning toward direct democracy. I'm intrigued by this idea of being able to "delegate" the weight of my support on particular issues to particular people. So, if I trust my friend on environmental issues, I can give her my support on those specific issues. This will free me up to focus on the issues and deliberations that I am more knowledgeable about and interested in.
I could see this being a useful addition to the Loomio system for a number of reasons. Personally, I'm not able to keep up with all the different conversations going on at any time, and even if I were able to read them, I wouldn't be able to engage in the background reading needed to really be able to contribute meaningfully. So, either I skim most of the discussions, or I just ignore them.
If, however, I were able to indicate my support for an individual in some way on a specific issue, and that support were made visible to others in the discussions where that issue was being discussed, then at least I would know my support is playing a role in those deliberations even if I wasn't personally engaging in them.
I would imagine this would start very small, a few individuals delegating specific things to close friends. It's a new and odd way of thinking about deliberations. But, eventually, I could see a robust system of liquidity, where support is extended and withdrawn and deliberations are more productive and engaging for everyone.
It would require a system for people to "delegate" their votes, and vote-recording system, so that people can track how their "delegates" vote and make sure they still deserve that support. It would also require some kind of system for people to see how much "support" each person has about specific issues. There would surely be other issues, but these seem like the biggest ones.
But, like I say, I'm only now exploring these theories. Here are some more sources I've been looking at: The Wikipedia article on liquid democracy, Der Spiegel on the German Pirate Party's use of this model, Community Wiki notes on the idea.
So, what do you say? Would this work with the overall goals of Loomio? Could this be implemented in such a way that it takes advantage of both direct deliberative democracy?
Nicolas Wormser Mon 22 Jul 2013 10:11AM
Argh, no time now, but that looks like very hot stuff and I don't want to miss out! I'll come back to it as soon as I've got time!
Maybe we need a “star discussion” feature for this? (don't answer here)
Ricardo Araújo Wed 24 Jul 2013 11:08PM
I've been doing some work with some teammates in a political project that joins representative democracy, delegative democracy, liquid democracy and direct democracy all in one. There is not yet a english translation but is the is a relevant interest i may do it soon or explain it directly to someone via skype.
You can see the most important diagram here: http://movimentocdp.wordpress.com/organizacao/organograma/secretarias/
Loomio may be adapted to include those kind of democracy models and a way to build a organization structure, which is very importante for groups with an hierarchy to use loomio in a efficient way.
Josef Davies-Coates Thu 25 Jul 2013 11:34AM
@strypey says:
"Loomio is a tool for finding consensus, and recording the chain of deliberation by which a consensus was reached. "
That may be what you want to use it for, and what it is currently designed for, but that isn't how the purpose of Loomio is actually described here:
https://www.loomio.org/discussions/5200
The actual purpose is defined far more broadly:
"Loomio exists to create a world where it’s easy for anyone to participate in decisions that affect them. "
@strypey also write:
" it's better for people to just ignore discussions that don't affect them, rather than trying to have a controlling say in everything"
I don't get why you describe someone wishing to have the opportunity participate in decisions that affect them via a Liquid Democracy style processes as "trying to have a controlling say in everything"?
Josef Davies-Coates Thu 25 Jul 2013 11:37AM
PS (if only I could edit comments and not have to do a PS ;) )
For the record, the longer and I assume more official version of Loomio's purpose is:
Creating a world where it’s easy for anyone to participate in decisions that affect them.
With the right collaborative process, groups generate better ideas, decisions and actions than any individual would by themselves.
Loomio breaks down the barriers to participation in decision-making at every level: in neighbourhoods, community organisations, businesses, social movements, and local and national governance.
Collaborative decision-making balances individual autonomy with the collective good.
Richard D. Bartlett Tue 30 Jul 2013 9:15PM
Great thread! I am very interested in the various options for facilitating mass collaboration, be it liquid democracy (push or pull), parpolity (i.e. spokescouncils), or some other novel mechanism.
In my opinion, whatever mechanism in use to inform the recommendations/delegations/representatives, there's likely to be a relatively small group of people at the top of the pyramid/nexus of the network/innermost circle who will have to decide things deliberatively.
For the forseeable future at least, I'm thinking about Loomio as the place where that deliberation happens, and for it to be 'agnostic' as to what mechanisms and processes are feeding into it.
I.e. I can imagine an ecosystem of interoperable tools that allow different groups to vote/delegate/rank/filter/sort using the mechanism of their choice, which will then feed into a Loomio thread and a final decision point (which I imagine to be something like consensus).
Torsten Fischer Fri 2 Aug 2013 12:29PM
Hey. A very necessary discussion. I am a member of the Pirate Party here in Berlin. Since the last election 2011, there are 15 pirates representing Berlin, all of them officially committed towards Liquid Democracy. Principally everyone can take part in any decision, create own motions and so on, or delegate his/her voice for a certain section or in total to another user. After almost 2 years, the results so far are not that motivating:
Many members do not have a working account, even amongst those who do there are few very active and due to the delegation system very powerful users, whereas the most mostly stands aside and interact rarely. The problem with delegation is, that the raising power of one user deminishes the others´. If one only assumes that engagement will be fruitless due to a powerful opponent (i.e. s.o. with many delegations), the effect on motivation are devastating. Also I personally find that delegating lead to the believe that one is engaged without really engaging. Atm it is true what you say, @jeffswift that it can be hard to follow all discussions. This though only indicates that a tool like loomio can only be functional until a certain level of complexity, but I find this is a very good thing, since small things tend to be much more human than big ones.
Josef Davies-Coates Wed 7 Aug 2013 10:43PM
Hey @torstenfischer thanks for sharing your experiences. I think a big mistake was made when adopting for delegative/ proxy voting (push) vs vote recommendations (pull). Also, publishing who has lots of power is also a big mistake. People should issue vote recommendations and who is accepting them (or not) should not be public. This would hopefully keep more power at the edges and motivate people to think and vote for themselves a lot more.
Deleted account Thu 22 Aug 2013 3:33AM
On another list I am on I just noticed the following message. I suspect some of you may be interested:
Hi all,
I've just finished the first version of a (simple but attractive) online tool allowing communities/groups to practise liquid/delegative democracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy
You can find it at http://liquidocracy.com/. Let me know if you want an invite to a test community.
Best,
Steve
(day job at the new economics foundation, twitter @wordsandwriting)
max noble Sat 14 Sep 2013 1:13PM
Have you guys seen the way China is doing democracy right now. Its the best system in the world! its a hybrid of computer data and high level decision making.
Danyl Strype · Mon 22 Jul 2013 9:47AM
Loomio is a tool for finding consensus, and recording the chain of deliberation by which a consensus was reached. It is not a voting tool. Instead of trying to make Loomio a decision-making swiss army knife, think it would be better to keep it focussed on facilitating consensus, and maybe create a fork of Loomio which meets the needs of organisations which using voting to make decisions.
For consensus, I agree with @miguelpradosrodrig that it's better for people to just ignore discussions that don't affect them, rather than trying to have a controlling say in everything through any kind of proxy, even the liquid "pull" kind that @josefdaviescoates mentioned.