[open-government] UK Government transparency update (anddemocracy?)

Thu Dec 9 21:09:40 UTC 2010

Luigi, Paola,

I have not commented on this list before but i think the whole deal with open data is about a stronger, more ground-up democracy. If this is not being discussed already then I am maybe part of the wrong list!!!!

Regards
Stephen

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-----Original Message-----
From: Luigi Selmi <selmi_luigi at hotmail.com>
To:  <paoladimaio10 at googlemail.com>
Cc:  <open-government at lists.okfn.org>

Sent: 09/12/2010 20:17:03
Subject: Re: [open-government] UK Government transparency update (anddemocracy?)

Hi Paola,

I was at the OGDCamp in London but don't think to be the one that gave 
you a card since I do not have cards. It is true that the term 
'democracy' doesn't come up very often when talking about transparency. 
Maybe it is because there are a lot of people that comes from 
governments and institutions that are more interested in the functioning
 of the current practices and do not pay attention to what happen 
outside, to all the events that send us signs of a crisis of the 
representative democracy. I live in Italy and we have been experimenting
 for more than 16 years all the issues about that. The last of these 
days is the of deputies' votes shopping to support the current 
government. We are at the far edge of the representative democracy 
crisis but also in the US and other western countries there are a lot of
 issues that come up every time and cannot be solved within the current 
model of democracy. We need transparency because we need the knowledge 
to intervene every day not just to chose someone to go in the parliament.

Best Regards

Luigi Selmi

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 17:51:17 +0000
Subject: Re: [open-government] UK Government transparency update (and democracy?)
From: paola.dimaio at gmail.com
To: selmi_luigi at hotmail.com
CC: open-government at lists.okfn.org

Luigi
I obviously agree with you, and became terrified when I found out that democracy, according to some working in the OGDCamp, is just an optional
(will send you a copy of the relevant snippets of email exchanges separately, if you are interested)

What some of us defend and uphold by default  - democratic principles and civil liberties as the foundation for good governance, including self-governance - does not  always seem to be reflected in the philosophy of current open government initiatives - quite the contrary, to my worry.

Democracy should never be taken for granted, but unfortunately  self organisation is sometimes used as an excuse to justify the chaos where  great inequalities, deliberate omissions and lack of democratic processes become hidden and take place without anyone noticing. 

Until we no longer can tell who is running the show, using what rules of the game.
Perhaps at the next Camp we should propose this topic for discussion,  and find a way to demand that the agenda is managed transparently and fairly.

I will analyse the ODGCamp corpus when its published to see if we find any instances of the word democracy that I may have missed on the day
PDM
(are you the Luigi who gave me his card? i am still going thru my notes, will catch up soon)

On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 4:29 PM, Luigi Selmi <selmi_luigi at hotmail.com> wrote:

If 'transparency of information' is not related to democracy I wonder why bother about it ? Open data and open government are steps towards a new kind of democracy, more partecipatory, something that goes beyond the representative democracy without falling into populism and plebiscitaniarism.

Luigi

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 16:09:17 +0000
From: paola.dimaio at gmail.com
To: javier at openrightsgroup.org

CC: open-government at lists.okfn.org
Subject: [open-government] UK Government transparency update (and democracy?)

Javier
thanks for the update
one the words that I have not seen come up much at the OGCAMPis 'democracy', in fact some people cringed when I dared mention it

Some 'activists' seem to take the view that 'democratic process' is not that much relatedto 'trasparency of information'
Let us know when you hear of something in that respect

cheers
PDM

2010/12/7 Javier Ruiz Diaz <javier at openrightsgroup.org>

Dear all
It seems they were listening during the OGD camp.

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/about-cabinet-office/plans-performance/transparency-privacy-data.aspx

Tentatively good news, lets see the details in the next few days.
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