According to Anne-Marie Slaughter, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, the big political idea of 2013 is ‘government as platform’.
Writing in The Wired World 2013, she describes government’s role as becoming less ‘command and control’ and more about providing the basic hardware and software needed to enable citizen participation, innovation and self-organisation.
This shift is obviously facilitated by information and communications technologies but whilst more power is being placed in the hands of individual citizens, government needs to learn to let go.
The traditional Westminster model has become all about keeping power close to the centre. Whilst the Coalition has made some very welcome moves towards devolution and localism, in essence the shifts so far have been about moving power and responsibility from one level of government to another – Westminster and Whitehall to the Town Hall.
There have been some examples of government crowd sourcing policy initiatives but these have been limited in scope. There has yet to be much of a shift to real people power and whilst petitions can trigger debates in Parliament it is still Parliament (and the government) that controls what is debated and when.
New bodies such as Local Enterprise Partnerships and newly elected mayors in effect have to bid for powers and funding from government rather than there being a presumption of devolution.
Whilst there is an increasing level of community activism taking place the examples are often centred on preventing developments from taking place rather than delivering new services. There are good examples out there but for these to become ‘the norm’ needs government to fully embrace its role as platform.
The platform idea also needs to be embraced by all departments. The implementation of localism has been patchy to say the least with some departments being far from enthusiastic.
Being an effective platform means not just opening up massive amounts of data about spending but helping citizens to navigate the data, ensuring that they have the skills needed to work the information. It means bringing people together, pooling opportunities, putting them in contact with funding opportunities etc. There will be a snowball effect but government has to be part of the initial facilitation.
Politicians also need to view their roles differently – it will become more about facilitation, joining-up local people to opportunities etc and less about ‘simply’ solving problems. Some do this already but it is not the norm.
According to Slaughter, the principles of Government 2.0 include transparency, participation, simplicity, open-mindedness and experimentation. Whilst progress is being made on some, it is obvious that government is currently less willing to look at others.
The sea-changer may be Michael Gove’s free schools. Once citizens see that they can establish their own successful institutions then they may look at setting up other facilities – health or law enforcement, for example.
It has the potential to shake-up central and local government and the traditional way of doing things. If this approach were to become more widespread, then it would also have massive implications for the Labour Party and the trade union movement. The direct power of the state in the delivery of national services would diminish whilst potentially increasing its ability to touch individual citizens – a smarter state and a smaller one.
The question is whether government really can let go and let technology give citizens the power they want.