The paper arguments that a design approach will be essential to the future of e-democracy and e-governance. This development is driven at the intersection of three fields: democracy, information technology and design. Developments in these fields will result in a new scale, new complexity and demands for new quality of democracy solutions. Design is essential to answer these new challenges. The article identifies a new generation of design thinking as a distinct new voice in the development of e-democracy and describes some of the consequences for democracy and governance. It argues that, to be able to design new solutions for e-democracy successfully, current approaches may be too narrow and a broader critical reflection is necessary for both designers and other stakeholders in the process.
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To stimulate democratic competences through teaching, it is necessary to have an understanding of actions and behaviors that are considered effective in teaching methods. In this study, we investigated these actions and behaviors, referred to as classroom practices, by interviewing 20 expert teachers of democracy in the Netherlands. We identified six relevant practices: meaningful embedding, providing multiple perspectives, thinking about solutions from divergent perspectives, independent information collection and presentation, taking socio-political action, and critical reflection on subject matter. We show how these practices are associated with democratic competences and provide examples of how the practices are implemented in teaching methods.
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What options are open for peoplecitizens, politicians, and other nonscientiststo become actively involved in and anticipate new directions in the life sciences? In addressing this question, this article focuses on the start of the Human Genome Project (1985-1990). By contrasting various models of democracy (liberal, republican, deliberative), I examine the democratic potential the models provide for citizens' involvement in setting priorities and funding patterns related to big science projects. To enhance the democratizing of big science projects and give citizens opportunities to reflect, anticipate, and negotiate on newdirections in science and technology at a global level, liberal democracy with its national scope and representative structure does not suffice. Although republican (communicative) and deliberative (associative) democracy models meet the need for greater citizen involvement, the ways to achieve the ideal at a global level still remain to be developed.
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Democracy is still organized according to an ancient model. Democracy has become a tradition where populists feel at home. Real politicians (game changers) must also dress up as puppets, so that they too can enter the populist political puppet show with one-liners and clinchers during election time. Technology could help liberate democracy from tradition and thus from populism: digital voting per theme. In the Netherlands almost all have one or more themes that are important for the future of our country, our continent and / or our planet. Or maybe a combination: digital voting on themes and 1 vote for or against a profiled politician?
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We don 't accept a doctor to be stupid. Populism is a form of stupidity, and stupidity is the biggest plague of contemporary democracy. We could have every populist statement analyzed by a jury of both professionals and laymen. It is an expensive means, but if we leave complex issues such as European unification or climate measures to the public, we can be sure that many cannot follow the discussion. Populists make use of this by giving the public the feeling that they are being understood. They then explain it "delicately" from their over-claimed and therefore illusory knowledge. And a party without populism is chased away and voted out. No exit democracy!
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Philosophy for Democracy is a research project that aims to examine whether and how Philosophy with Children contributes to the development of democratic skills and attitudes. In the Netherlands, as in almost all Western countries, Philosophy with Children is linked with the movement for citizenship education. This article reports the research on the practice of Philosophy with Children. Sixteen philosophical inquiries by children in the classroom were recorded, transcribed and analysed. The analyses show that children develop relevant reasoning skills and advanced dialogical skills. The study shows that embedding Philosophy with Children in a democratic practice is necessary for contributing to a critical-democratic citizenship development. The study also shows that Dutch children often give their opinion, but are not often involved in inquiring their own opinions. From a pedagogical point of view, we think that in Dutch culture and in Dutch schools it would be important to stress more a dialogical – community-based – inquiring attitude. Om het artikel te lezen moet het gekocht worden: http://tandfonline.com/eprint/rGysRMaKEaXew7veJphB/full
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Effective teaching for democracy requires an understanding of the teaching methods and educational characteristics that are effective in interventions. In order to address this requirement, we conducted a systematic literature review. We used an extensive search syntax and snowballing method that allowed us to find n = 2093 unique publications. After a screening process, we have included 54 interventions in 51 different quantitative effect studies written between 2010 and 2020. We categorized these interventions into five types of teaching methods: instruction, small-group work, assignments, projects, and democratic decision-making. We analyzed what the educational characteristics (i.e., subject matter, classroom interaction, classroom management) of these interventions were and for which democratic competences (i.e., knowledge, attitude, skill, behavior) they were effective. Our results show that teaching methods have differential effects on democratic competences. We also discuss the robustness of these results. Our study shows that there is still much to be gained in terms of research designs, the conceptualization of democratic competences, and the description of teaching methods.
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The question can be raised whether the principal effect of interactive policy development is to shore up a (creaking) democratic system or to destabilize its very foundations. In this article, a framework is presented for assessing the democratic credentials of interactive policy development. It is based on four views on how a democracy should work: instrumental or substantial democracy and direct or indirect democracy. Critics and advocates differ in their confidence that the intended aims can ever be realized. Based on extensive case study material of interactive local policy development projects collected between 1997 and 2001, the validity of the various arguments for or against interactive policy-making is analysed. The analysis indicates that whether interactive policy development undermines or sustains democracy depends principally on the extent to which divergences in the expectations of the various groups are made explicit and unrealistic or mistaken expectations are dispelled.
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This extended abstract introduces the work of the Netherlands AI Media and Democracy lab, especially focusing on the research performed from an AI/computer science perspective at CWI, the Netherlands National Research Center for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam. We first provide an overview of the general aims and set-up of the lab, and then focuses in on the research areas of the 3 research groups at CWI, outlining there are of research and expected research contributions in the areas between AI and media & democracy
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