by Tiago Peixoto
I am currently a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence (EUI). My main research interests are related to identifying factors that contribute to successful policies aiming a... More about Tiago Peixoto
Vote for your Park: nothing but a bad idea?
The London government has launched an initiative called “Vote for your Park”, where Londoners can decide where to allocate ten grants of up to £400,000 for London's parks. Voting can be made through the Internet, SMS and postal voting. Since the launch of the initiative there has been criticism about the security of the system and the participatory design of the initiative.
I do not know very much about local governments in the UK and I am not at all a specialist in security issues for online voting. Thus, concerning this initiative, I am going to make only a few general considerations, having some experience in the implementation / evaluation of some somehow similar initiatives (e.g. online / offline participatory budgeting, participatory urban planning).
The vulnerability to fraud in the system is obvious, and the website does not provide any space for deliberation nor sufficient elements for citizens to reach an informed decision. In terms of participatory engineering the initiative is also flawed, as illustrated for instance by the choice of the issue itself: parks. This is probably one of the issues that are more related to citizens’ immediate and short-sighted perceptions of what local means. In this case, most people are likely to vote for the parks near their houses with the exception of a couple of good Samaritans who will think of the most needy ones. In short, the superficiality of the website and of the participatory engineering of the initiative is striking. This becomes even more evident given the amount of locally available expertise that could have been mobilized to make this initiative much more interesting in every aspect, and the causes for this are rather intriguing.
Is “vote for your park” just bad news then? As an external observer I think not. Rather, I would say that it is a bad start, bearing in mind that a bad start is better than no start at all. On the positive side, the local government has launched an experience where citizens have a say on a subject and has politically bound itself to allocate some funds to respond to citizens’ feedback. Despite all of its problems, I would comfortably argue that there is much more potential in “vote for your park” than in most (but not all) of the online budget consultations* or many other so called “e-participation” initiatives held in the UK and elsewhere that are fairly good in terms of participatory engineering but that fail enormously in delivering substantive results to citizens.
The underlying idea of the “vote for your park” initiative - where citizens are called to decide on the allocation of public budget - is good as a general concept, and it shows some degree of political will in spite of the relatively small amount allocated. There is no doubt that it fails in terms of both security and participatory design. On the other hand, in initiatives where citizens are consulted in an almost perfect participatory design but their feedback is of little or no influence whatsoever, there is a problem of political engagement.
Addressing security and participatory issues is far easier than engendering political will. Those interested in citizen participation in public policies – mediated or not by ICTs - are missing a great point if they underestimate such a fact. If I was to devote myself to a project in public administration, I would prefer to do so where there is a will to deliver substantive results instead of projects with fancy participatory designs and 2.0 websites where the policy outputs and outcomes are most uncertain. I would rather spend my time dealing with politicians, civil servants and IT providers on the design of an initiative than trying to convince them that citizens can actually make reasonable choices.
* This does not mean that all other e-participation initiatives that are not politically / legally binding are a democratic placebo. Of course, if online budget consultations and other participation initiatives (e.g. online petitions) are expected to be taken seriously and have a real effect in policies, security standards should be no different from those initiatives that allocate funds based on citizens’ feedback.
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Comments
Good point!
posted about 1 year ago
I have mixed feelings on this. Like you, I think anything that tries to involve citizens more must be good and allowing them to make real financial decisions means both that there is a real reason to get involved and that involvement has a clear impact. On the other hand, the Park example does illustrate how the process can go wrong. I absolutely agree that they should have done much more to encourage people to make a sensible decision and not just vote for the nearest park (as I must confess I did!), but I don't think the answer is always going to be direct choices by the citizens. Some of the engagement is going to have to involve consultation (and recognise the rights and responsibilities of elected representatives) but hopefully using much better tools than we have seen todate. Better both in terms of being more user-friendly but also more fulfiling for citizens because they can see the impact of their engagement.
posted about 1 year ago
posted about 1 year ago
I would possibly add something along the same lines regarding digital inclusion (or indeed exclusion). Not only would we see tribal voting, but a huge skew in favour of internet voting. I don't have the full background, so not sure what the publicity behind this has been. By this I wonder how much non-internet publicity there has been. For those people who don't have access to an internet connection, or lack the skills to get online, there are two choices. Phone up and get a ballot slip delivered which you then have to post back. I would question how many people are actually going to go through the whole process. Then there's SMS voting. Which is fine if you have the number and indeed you're familiar with texting. Which many older people still aren't
I suspect what will happen is moderate numbers of more affluent people in affluent areas voting for their already well-maintained parks.
posted about 1 year ago
Thanks for all the comments: it is good to write a post that generates a bit more discussion.
First of all, I believed I was clear in underlining the flaws and referring to the initiative in terms of its potential. “Potential”, in this case, refers to the literal sense, as the “capacity to become” and “as opposed to the actual”. In this sense, I would still argue that the potential of the initiative is much higher than many other (but again, not all) initiatives that are highly celebrated in terms of technological and participatory design but that in the end fail to deliver anything substantial to those who participate.
Having said that I do agree that from a city like London one would have expected much better, particularly given the amount of locally available expertise. Furthermore, other cities with much fewer resources (particularly in Latin America) have already addressed such technological and participatory issues with relative success.
However, my modest opinion is that by simply dismissing the initiative, the wrong signs might be sent to the government, apparently suggesting the discontinuation of the initiative instead of its future improvement. In this respect, I believe that the best way forward is not to simply dismiss the initiative but to simultaneously criticise and present alternatives to the administration, pressuring for improvement. Simply critisising the initiative – which, I repeat, has great potential - is in my view, a very, very bad strategy. We might remember this as a missed opportunity.
Ps.: As a provocation, and playing the devil’s advocate, one could say that the link between the flaws in the security aspect of the initiative and the “cavalier” attitude of the government towards money is not as straightforward as it seems if we take as true the government’s argument that the parks selected are “the most needy” ones. In an extremely pragmatic – and somehow cynical - approach it could be argued that, despite its flaws, the “vote for your park” system is better than having civil servants flipping coins in their offices or politicians allocating the money solely based on electoral interests.
updated about 1 year ago, posted about 1 year ago
Wow - you have actually written something that has caused me to sign up to a site so I can post a comment! It is Ruth, by the way, but I am writing on behalf of the PBU.
We have really mixed views about this. On the one hand, as you say, they are doing something and involving people so in that respect maybe it's better than not involving people.
But then the way that they have involved them has the potential to be quite detrimental to PB and to put people off PB completely rather than just trying to improve the system. People mistake PB for TV voting shows where you see the person or people and vote for your favourite one. This is not really true of the best PB. PB should involve deliberation and a real understanding of the issues at stake - which requires sufficient information. And people may say, well if that's PB (ie voting for parks) then I don't want to do it because it's not inclusive, it's open to abuse and it doesn't inform or provide sufficient debate and discussion - and so in that respect it is not empowering at all.
Also, I attempted to vote and found that I could (I am in Manchester) just by finding a random London post code off the internet. I couldn't in all faith go through with it and cast my vote but I did want to see if I could. I also tried to vote on an e-voting initiative in Buenos Aires and found that I couldn't as I needed a citizen id - electoral number or similar.
I do agree, maybe we should be encouraging Boris Johnson to improve the process and the system rather than just criticise it. But in some ways it does demonstrate the worst of these kinds of mechanisms.
We have been thinking that rather than simply saying it's rubbish we should really counter it by developing some good practice e-voting PB initiatives in the UK. We haven't yet really started any but we do feel that providing evidence of good practice is better than constantly being critical. That way we can raise the bar on what can be achieved and provide good answers to people's concerns.
PS. I've never come across a public sector officer who allocates a budget by flipping coins! It might work out better though if they did!
posted about 1 year ago
This calls to my mind some research about collective action in Brighton and Torbay which found that protest campaigns involved greater numbers of less committed individuals in the case of parks than in the case of air and beach quality issues in the same cities (PENNINGTON, M. & RYDIN, Y. (2000) Researching social capital in local environmental policy contexts, Policy & Politics, 28, pp.233-49).
So on the plus side parks are probably a good choice of issue if the idea is to promote the idea of eParticipation (certainly in a British context).
However, the authors of that study went on that it was the 'locatedness' of parks that was key, because it enabled highly targeted outreach (knocking on doors of immediate residents) and persistent peer influence, thus mobilising the “dense iterative social situations” that occur in the parks themselves. This, they argued, created the social capital necessary for collective action. I wonder if Vote for your Park will induce a similar process? If so it will make a great case study of the intermingling of online and offline social processes, and it would partially counteract the fears about digital inclusion expressed by DanD (neighbours with computers acting as proxies for those who haven't).
But I suspect it would then be especially vulnerable to one of the dangers Tiago points to: people mobilising around their own local park but not giving much thought to the city or borough as a whole (a case of IMBYism, you might say;-)
posted about 1 year ago
Thanks again for the comments and thanks to Simon for the reference to this great article. It is also great to see Ruth here and have the views of the PB Unit expressed so clearly. I agree that the vote for your park is far from being a PB, and as far as I could see the city government has not referred to it as such. So, to a certain extent, I believe there is a low risk of people associating the vote for your park initiative with PB.
As to the provision of evidence of good practices of the use of ICTs in PB processes, I know that the ePB of Belo Horizonte does not really convince Ruth, and she is not the only one. Very recently I came across an Argentinean model that seems to address most of the flaws (e.g. low deliberative level) that PB pundits have underlined in the Belo Horizonte case and I believe it tends to point in the right direction. I shall write about it sometime later this week and, once more, I look forward to everyone’s feedback.
posted about 1 year ago
For those who have not seen yet, here are the results of the rather polemic "Vote for Your Park" initiative.
http://www.london.gov.uk/parksvote/results/
updated about 1 year ago, posted about 1 year ago
Tks, Tiago. It would be interesting to see a more detailed breakdown of the voting and hopefully someone will do an analysis of what the winners have in common. My local park (Crane Park) won in the South West competition, but it is hard to assess whether that is the best public outcome or not!
posted about 1 year ago
The numbers seem quite small to me, when you consider the population of London. Daily polls in newspapers can get well over 10,000 votes. Is that a sign of a relative lack of interest, or a sign that the process demanded a certain amount of time/trouble? (which could be a good thing, if only to ensure that most votes are authentic votes).
posted about 1 year ago
I would really like to hear more about your experiences in participatory urban planning. I agree with your idea that its basically just a bad start. I think the website flaws are due only to laziness, in this case. I do commend London for having a desire to actively engage common people in budget allocating. Maybe the awareness would get more people out of the tanning bed and into the parks. The system certainly needs work, but its a step in the right direction, no?
updated about 1 month ago, posted about 1 month ago
GOOD
updated 19 days ago, posted 19 days ago