Use of Technology and Direct Democracy in Cities

One of the growing elements that have sprung out of the Occupy Movement and the opposition of representative democracy is the resurgence of the idea of implementation of direct democracy in city government.  The use of technology is key in successful implementation of direct democracy in cities. The primary advocate group for direct democracy is the international Pirate Party which is technology driven and oriented toward the free flow of information on the Internet.  Members of this party have developed software to facilitate decision-making, LiquidFeedback. It allows for the initiation of petitions soliciting votes and consensus building over the Internet.   This holds great potential for augmenting or even replacing representative democracy in cities and other bodies. I am presently investigating this software and its use more carefully and will post more blog entries on this soon.

The following page gives further information about this software: http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback . The software is free and can be downloaded at another location on this webpage.