Research 

For digital democracy to achieve its goal of enabling participatory renewal in our societies, a comprehensive, multi-method research effort is needed to support the development of digital democracy in a democratically principled, empirically informed, and computationally sound manner.

Enabling the Digital Democratic Revival:
A Research Program for Digital Democracy

Co-authored by an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers, this white paper, which emerged from the Lorentz Center's workshop on "Algorithmic Technology for Democracy," presents a long-term scientific vision for the development of digital democracy technology.

Access paper on arXiv | DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2401.16863

Liquid Democracy (Transitive Proxy Voting)

Liquid democracy continues to strike a chord in the field of democratic self-organization. By embracing individual freedom of choice, it seeks to reconcile the idealistic appeal of pure democracy with the practicality of representation. Liquid democracy is of particular interest for democratic governance in civil society organizations, legislative bodies, and cooperatives.

Liquid democracy relies on the notion of the division of labor, which has been part of the success story of the human species. While representative democracy constitutes a clear division of labor in the field of politics, liquid democracy facilitates a dynamic division of labor based on individual choice.

“When you give members of an organization more direct influence, some critical questions arise: Does everyone want to be involved in every issue? What if people are interested in different areas? It's clear that people will have different choices about which issues to have a direct say or representation on. Fortunately, liquid democracy offers a dynamic solution to this dilemma. Basically, you participate in what you are interested in, but for other areas, you give your vote to someone who will act in your interest. In addition, liquid democracy supports the self organization of all factions and subgroups, whether defined by gender, ethnic identity, or even values. Ultimately, liquid democracy allows everyone to participate directly whenever they see fit, without placing too much burden on the participants. Originally, the focus of liquid democracy was on voting. In designing the LiquidFeedback process, we realized that transitive proxies (or liquid democracy) could be used for both deliberation and voting. Consequently, LiquidFeedback uses transitive proxies for participant empowerment during structured deliberation, collective moderation, identification of viable voting options, and final preferential voting.”

Andreas Nitsche at the National Coalition for Equity Impact Summit #2 in Santa Monica, California

Publications

Videos

YouTube | Liquid Democracy Explained
YouTube | The Origins of Liquid Democracy
YouTube | Liquid Democracy—A Transatlantic Affair

Decision Making and Social Choice

Ever since Kenneth Arrow published his most significant publication regarding social choice theory, nowadays known as Arrow's impossibility theorem, it is known that well-defined methods for decision making are subject to certain constraints that can be described mathematically.

The Association for Interactive Democracy analyzes consequences from theorems published in the previous centuries, and also considers real-life consequences arising from employing electronic decision-making systems.

Publications

Integration of Electronic Decision Making in Democratic Contexts

When it comes to applying decision making systems in real-world scenarios, further technical and legal aspects have to be considered.

The Association for Interactive Democracy works on integrating electronic decision-making systems in democratic contexts while keeping in mind limitations inherent to all electronic systems.

Publications

Structured Deliberation and Collective Moderation

An integral part to informed decision-making is deliberation. A structured deliberation can, in theory, be scaled up to an unlimited number of participants, and allow participants to identify viable voting options. Suitable algorithms permits collective moderation by the entire electorate, thus rendering the need for request commissions or other gatekeepers superfluous. Choosing the right algorithms, minority rights can be ensured algorithmically and deliberation processes can be strengthened against disproportionate influence of noisy minorities.

The Association for Interactive Democracy has published suitable algorithms that are computable in polynomial time and empower participants to engage in large-scale deliberation processes with truly equal rights.

Publications

Visualization

Computer-aided democracy brings up certain challenges when it comes to UI design and visualization.

Publications

Blockchain (Distributed Ledger Technology)

With the LiquidFeedback Blockchain, the Association for Interactive Democracy has developed a green ledger that serves as an alternative to proof-of-work based approaches. A working prototype, as well as considerations regarding security and correctability in the context of Arrow's impossibility theorem, have been part of our publications.

Publications

Democratic Knowledge Management

The Association for Interactive Democracy has shown how electronic deliberation and decision-making systems can be used for democratic knowledge management and standardization processes.

Publications

Electronic Accreditation and User Management

Decision-making and online deliberation processes require proper accreditation systems in order to protect against manipulation through sock puppets.

The Association for Interactive Democracy has several publications that deal with these important matters.

Publications

Civic Participation and Engagement

Publications

Polarization, Conflict Management, and Social Cohesion

Democracy appears fragile, and our societies are increasingly polarized to the point of segregation. Yet democracy is resilient as long as we stay vigilant, learn the right lessons from history, prioritize the rule of law and decency over faction and expedience.

The internet and technology, in general, create new challenges for the democratic culture, but also new chances for public debates undertaken with mutual respect and a commitment to truth and facts. We need to listen to one another, allow our ideas to be challenged, and find strength in political difference. In the long run, pluralism, openness, and seemingly inefficient negotiations make our society less susceptible to populism and our democracy more resilient. Just like the Parisian salons in the 19th century, online platforms can expose participants to ideologically cross-cutting content, challenge views, facilitate informed decision making, and be instrumental in the construction of a vision for the common good.

Activities

YouTube | Communicating Across Political Fault Lines – Reaching the 'Unreachable