Tag Archives: #LOTE2

#LOTE2 gearing up: can citizens do actual policy design? (Italiano)

Designing policy
Non vedo l’ora che cominci #LOTE2. Parteciperanno alcune delle persone più interessanti che conosco: e se non bastasse, stiamo montando un bellissimo programma, interattivo e no-spectator-allowed. La mia parte preferita è la Policy Hero Challenge: l’idea è di prendere alcune delle raccomandazioni generate dal progetto Edgeryders e dare loro la forma di politiche pubbliche. Processi possibili, seri, compatibili con la normativa, accountable; roba che potrebbe essere presa così com’è e portata in Parlamento – o diventare una decisione amministrativa di qualche dirigente. Di solito i cittadini – anche quelli molto intelligenti – non sono in grado di fare questo. Quindi, a ogni sessione parteciperà almeno una persona che lavora nelle istituzioni. Il suo compito è è non permettere alla sessione di assumere un atteggiamento semplicistico.

Lasciatemi fare un esempio. Abbiamo una sessione su “ricablare le politiche per l’innovazione”. Molti edgeryders pensano che le politiche europee dell’innovazione si perdano l’occasione di sostenere persone innovative: non le vedono nemmeno, perché sono concentrate le organizzazioni. Come potrebbe essere una politica per l’innovazione centrata sugli individui? Immagino che la sessione comincerà circa così:

“CITTADINO: “I governi vogliono solo dare grandi progetti a grandi imprese high tech. Tutti sanno che non sono questi i soggetti più innovativi. Dilbert lavora per una grande impresa high tech! Stiamo davvero dicendo che ha senso finanziare il capo di Dilbert per produrre innovazione?”

POLICY MAKER: “Piano. Dobbiamo rendere conto di ogni centesimo, e questo è bene. Ora, le grandi organizzazioni sanno fare a spendere denaro del contribuente: hanno sistemi di contabilità sofisticati e possiedono beni di valore – quindi, se non producono risultati, possiamo sempre fare loro causa e recuperare il denaro. Per esempio, nel 2009 c’è stato un episodio sgradevole in cui alcune piccole imprese hanno montato una specie di truffa […] Certo, se avessimo indicatori affidabili della qualità dei progetti ex ante, potremmo correre qualche rischio in più sull’amministrazione in cambio della certezza di sostenere i progetti migliori, ma misurare la qualità di un’innovazione a priori è molto difficile. Ecco perché: […]

Alla fine è questo: se vuoi fare politiche pubbliche, devi misurarti con la loro piena complessità. Le versioni annacquate non funzionano: almeno, a me non viene in mente un modo di fare queste cose senza trattare tutti come adulti pensanti, e senza pretendere che tutti si comportino come tali. E a pensarci è un’idea bellissima. Esige completa onestà e trasparenza da parte dei policy makers; rigore intellettuale e duro lavoro dai cittadini; e rispetto reciproco da tutti. Porta alla luce il meglio di ciò che ciascuno ha da dare. E potrebbe funzionare.

Sono molto curioso di fare l’esperimento, e molto orgoglioso. Sono orgoglioso della comunità di Edgeryders che fa lo sforzo di autoconvocarsi (Dio sa che molti di loro sono poveri, e il loro investimenti di tempo e denaro per venire a Bruxelles a fare queste discussioni è un dono generoso); orgoglioso dei nostri policy makers, Prabhat Agarwal e i suoi colleghi alla Commissione Europea DG Connect, Justyna Krol e la sua unità a UNDP-CIS; super-orgoglioso dei miei colleghi al Consiglio d’Europa – Gilda Farrell, Nadia El-Imam, Malcolm Cox, Noemi Salantiu, Andrei Trubceac, Joel Obrecht – per sostenere l’evento anche se non è un evento ufficiale del Consiglio d’Europa

E sono orgoglioso di tutti voi, umani come me, così ben rappresentati a #LOTE2. Dopo tutti gli errori nella lunga, sanguinosa storia di ciò che oggi chiamiamo governo; dopo tutte le false partenze, le promesse infrante, le ideologie false, i leaders visionari traditi dai mediocri intorno a loro (e non parliamo nemmeno della roba davvero pesante dei Gulag e delle polizie segrete); dopo tutto questo, sembra che siamo abbastanza intelligenti da guardare la verità in faccia; abbastanza forti da perdonarci a vicenda; e abbastanza pazzi per riprovarci, e perfino per pensare che, questa volta, potremmo riuscire.

Se vuoi partecipare a #LOTE2, leggi qui.

#LOTE2 gearing up: can citizens do actual policy design?

Designing policy
I am looking forward to #LOTE2. Some of the most interesting people I know are coming: as if that were not enough, we are also coming up with a really great, interactive, no-spectator-allowed program. My favorite part is the Policy Hero Challenge: the idea is to take up some of the recommendations generated by the Edgeryders project and hammer it into policy. Real, solid, compliant, accountable, honest-to-God policy; the stuff that could be put before Parliament, or just be signed into existence by a senior bureaucrat as is. Of course citizens – even very smart ones – typically cannot do that. So, we are deploying professional policy makers in each session. They are tasked with not allowing the session to be simplistic.

Let me give you an example. We have a session on rewiring innovation policy. Edgeryders think innovation policy in Europe is missing the opportunity to support innovative people, as it simply can’t see beyond organization. So, how would innovation policy that targets individuals look like? I can imagine the conversation starting like this:

CITIZEN: “Governments only like to give big money to big tech companies. Everybody knows these are not the most innovative players! I mean, Dilbert works for a large tech corporation. Are you really giving taxpayer euro to Dilbert’s boss to innovate?”

POLICY MAKER: “Not so fast. We are required to account for every penny, and that is a good thing. Large organizations can show us how they spend taxpayer money: they have sophisticated accounting systems and they own large assets – so, if they don’t deliver, we can always sue them and get the money back. For example, in 2009 there was a really nasty episode with some small firms that put together a scam […] Of course, if we had reliable ex ante project quality indicators, we could take more risks on the accounting as long as we would be supporting the best projects, but measuring the quality of an innovation project a priori is a very hard problem. Here’s why […].”

It boils down to this: if you want to make policy, you have to take on board its full complexity. A dumbed-down version just won’t work: at least, I can’t think of any way to do this without treating everyone as an intelligent adult, and demanding everybody behaves like one. And when you think of it this is a really beautiful idea. It demands full honesty and transparency from policy makers; intellectual rigour and hard work from citizens; and mutual respect from everyone. It brings out the best everyone has to give. And it might work.

I am really, really curious to run the experiment, and very proud. I am proud of the Edgeryders community for making the effort (God knows many of them are broke, and investing time and money to come to Brussels to have this kind of discussion is a really generous gift); proud of our policy makers, Prabhat Agarwal and his colleagues at the European Commission’s DG Connect, Justyna Krol and her unit at UNDP-CIS, Anna Maria Darmanin at the European Economic and Social Committee, Amelia Andersdotter at the European Parliament; super-proud of my colleagues at the Council of Europe – Gilda Farrell, Nadia El-Imam, Malcolm Cox, Noemi Salantiu, Andrei Trubceac, Joel Obrecht – for supporting the event even though it is not an official Council of Europe one.

And I am proud of you all, my fellow humans, so well represented by the wonderful people at #LOTE2. After all of the screwups in the long, bloody history of what we today call government; after all the false starts, broken promises, bogus ideologies, visionary leaderships betrayed by mediocrity (and don’t even get me started on the really heavy stuff of Gulags and secret police), it looks like we are still smart enough to look truth in the eye; strong enough to forgive each other; and crazy enough to try again, and even think that, this time, we might get it right.

If you want to participate to #LOTE2, read this.

Open government Xtreme: when public policy takes to the streets

Photo by Bridget McKenzie
The Council of Europe has a project called Edgeryders (info). Just as it is drawing to a close, it seems to hold a piece of the future; never before, in my experience, had a rather technical project born of a public institution (producing recommendation for a reform of European youth policy: hardly the stuff of dreams) driven so much citizen engagement, and even ownership.

As part of the project, we organized a conference called Living On The Edge (#LOTE to the initiates), that took place in Strasbourg in June 2012. To my great surprise, about a month ago the Edgeryders community practically summoned itself to Brussels for a #LOTE2 (info), to take place on December 6th to 9th. And here’s what’s happening:

  • people are paying out of their own pocket to participate. Since edgeryders tend to be young and strapped for cash, the community is trying to come up with ways to support each other. Those of us who leave in Brussels are opening their homes to host fellow #LOTErs.
  • the European Parliament stepped in to provide a room for free for one of the days – credit must go to 25-years-old Amelia Andersdottir, MEP for the Swedish Pirate Party, and to her assistants
  • a local artist offered to rent us studio space for very cheap for the remaining days – the poorest edgeryders can camp there, too.
  • one particularly enterprising member of the community picked up the phone and called AirB’n’B. They, too, stepped in, offering a €25 voucher to #LOTErs wishing to stay with an AirB’n’B host in Brussels. Intrigued by the project, they are also sending their experts on community building to the event.
  • all organization is run by members of the community who volunteered. The result is an amazing rainbow of generous, skilled young Europeans. Asta (Icelandic) is sorting out logistics. Noemi (Romanian) and Andrei (Moldovan) keep the website updated and makes sure no one falls through the crack. Giovanni (Italian) acts as media liaison. Matthias (German) Michal, Petros, Mike (Poles) and Eimhin (Irish) are writing specifications and getting geared up to redo the Egderyders website according to the community’s requests.
  • institutions are taking notice. Senior officers engaged and provide suggestions of people to invite. Every day we receive new offers and helpful suggestions.
  • meanwhile Elena – a 23-year-old Russian woman who lives in Sweden – inspired by the project has started Edgeryders Sweden, reusing the Edgeryders name, aesthetic, visuals and mystique (it’s okay – everything is licensed under creative commons). Elena has not participated in Edgeryders – she learnt about it from an acquaintance.

This is a taste of what might happen if we ever got serious about involving citizens in public policy. The Council of Europe is holding its own at its center. But its stake in #LOTE2 has become a strange creature: on the one hand its leadership on Edgeryders as a source of inspiration is recognized by all. On the other hand, however, it has little choice but to go along. The community has pretty much put together a zero-budget event: paradoxically, if the Council of Europe were to disassociate itself from this meetup, #LOTErs would probably shrug it off and go ahead. And why not? “We should think of government as platform”, open government people like to say. And platforms don’t make decision: they enable people to do whatever they want to do in the name of the common good.

It could be the future of government: build platforms for collective actions, then step back and accept that you, as an elected representative or a civil servant, should make as few operational decisions as possible, and let yourself be overridden by ordinary citizens in most situations. On the other hand, it could also be just a golden moment, the last autumn glow: that’s what it will look like, retrospectively, if European institutions don’t see the potential of all this goodwill to generate more goodwill and creativity, or simply can’t bring themselves to give up control for citizens to take ownership. In that case, the system will revert by default (without even needing to decide to) to an administration-driven, top-down mode. Which does not work – just ask disgruntled European citizens what they think of the effectiveness of their common institutions – but is so much more reassuring.