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. Our flagship project, LiquidFeedback, incorporates findings from our research collaborations.
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
LiquidFeedback, provides a framework for deliberation and collective decision making implemented as open source software under the same name. The software is published under the permissive MIT license by the Public Software Group and is available for free. LiquidFeedback has been designed with scalability of constructive debates and fair representation of minorities in mind. It is one of the most prominent implementations of transitive proxies, also known as liquid democracy.
As the project's partner for academic cooperation and foreign aid, we support the development of LiquidFeedback by contributing insights from our research collaborations. At the same time, LiquidFeedback serves as a reference implementation for the validation of scientific results. The project's third partner, SME FlexiGuided, conducts application-oriented research, develops software, and provides support for the deployment of LiquidFeedback by civil society organizations and public administrations.
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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, CaliforniaPublications
Videos
YouTube | Liquid Democracy Explained
YouTube | The Origins of Liquid Democracy
YouTube | Liquid Democracy—A Transatlantic Affair
An integral part of informed decision making is deliberation. Structured deliberation can theoretically scale to an unlimited number of participants and allow participants to identify viable voting options. Appropriate algorithms allow for collective moderation by the entire electorate, eliminating the need for dedicated moderators, petition committees, or other gatekeepers. By choosing the right algorithms, minority rights can be algorithmically guaranteed, and deliberative processes can be strengthened against the disproportionate influence of vocal groups, also known as noisy minorities. We have published polynomial-time algorithms for upscaling fair deliberation.
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Ever since Kenneth Arrow published his most outstanding paper on social choice theory, now known as Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, it has been known that well-defined methods of decision making are subject to certain constraints that can be described mathematically. We analyze the consequences of this and other theorems, as well as the tradeoffs that arise when conflicting goals are involved.
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A fair and transparent participation process is paramount for the (further) development of LiquidFeedback as well as for consulting on the implementation and improvement of participation systems in general. After all, in every decision there are winners and losers; the latter are more likely to accept the result if they perceive the process as credible.
Publications
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.
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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.
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