Liquid Democracy in Loomio
Jeff Swift
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I've been doing some research into various kinds of democracy, and I'm intrigued by the idea of "liquid democracy." This might have already been discussed here, but I wanted to see if anyone else would be interested in this sort of thing.
The basic idea is a democratic system in which most issues are decided (or strongly suggested to representatives) by direct referendum. Considering nobody has enough time and knowledge for every issue, votes can be delegated by topic. Furthermore delegations are transitive and can be revoked at any time. Liquid Democracy is sometimes referred to as Delegated or Proxy Voting. source
So, as I understand it, liquid democracy is somewhere between representative and direct democracy, leaning toward direct democracy. I'm intrigued by this idea of being able to "delegate" the weight of my support on particular issues to particular people. So, if I trust my friend on environmental issues, I can give her my support on those specific issues. This will free me up to focus on the issues and deliberations that I am more knowledgeable about and interested in.
I could see this being a useful addition to the Loomio system for a number of reasons. Personally, I'm not able to keep up with all the different conversations going on at any time, and even if I were able to read them, I wouldn't be able to engage in the background reading needed to really be able to contribute meaningfully. So, either I skim most of the discussions, or I just ignore them.
If, however, I were able to indicate my support for an individual in some way on a specific issue, and that support were made visible to others in the discussions where that issue was being discussed, then at least I would know my support is playing a role in those deliberations even if I wasn't personally engaging in them.
I would imagine this would start very small, a few individuals delegating specific things to close friends. It's a new and odd way of thinking about deliberations. But, eventually, I could see a robust system of liquidity, where support is extended and withdrawn and deliberations are more productive and engaging for everyone.
It would require a system for people to "delegate" their votes, and vote-recording system, so that people can track how their "delegates" vote and make sure they still deserve that support. It would also require some kind of system for people to see how much "support" each person has about specific issues. There would surely be other issues, but these seem like the biggest ones.
But, like I say, I'm only now exploring these theories. Here are some more sources I've been looking at: The Wikipedia article on liquid democracy, Der Spiegel on the German Pirate Party's use of this model, Community Wiki notes on the idea.
So, what do you say? Would this work with the overall goals of Loomio? Could this be implemented in such a way that it takes advantage of both direct deliberative democracy?
Jeff Swift Fri 19 Jul 2013 4:47PM
@josefdaviescoates, that's a really interesting distinction, let me see if I grasp it. So vote recommendation in liquid democracy is that I go to my five smartest friends who knows about the environment and get their advice on how I should vote. And then I vote however I want to.
Vote proxying, on the other hand, is that I go to them and say "here's my vote" and then move my vote later if I need to.
Is that the difference?
Chris Taklis Fri 19 Jul 2013 5:04PM
That in my opinion is more negative than positive.
And if it some day become reality on loomio there should be an option to disable/enable it for those groups which don't want or want it .
And in the last congress of the German Pirate Party they expell the liquid feedback for the reason that has delegation and couldn't disable it. And that happened because there were over 3.000 members and only voted no more that 300.
Also in Pirate Party of Greece that has the same problem with delegations is a war between members because 5 people vote for 40. That means 1 person has a lot of delegations can take the poll where he/she wants.
Josef Davies-Coates Fri 19 Jul 2013 5:10PM
Just turned that into a blog post feel free to spread the word and comment! :P
http://uniteddiversity.coop/2013/07/19/liquid-democracy-is-not-delegative-democracy/
Josef Davies-Coates Fri 19 Jul 2013 5:16PM
@christaklis neither parties were actually using/ practicing liquid democracy as originally conceived. See my blog post.
@jeffswift not exactly, you don't go to them, the (and everyone who wants to) issue vote recommendations which you apps would automatically know about (like an rss reader gets rss feeds for you, you don't have to manually go and get them). Then you could either decide to go with what the majority of the people you trust on a particular subject want, or just one, or none. The power stays with you. You'd be able to set-up all sorts of clever rules like: if 75% of people I trust on x subject agree, vote that way, if not, email/ text me etc etc
Miguel Prados Rodriguez Fri 19 Jul 2013 5:41PM
Liquid Democracy is just another type of representative democracy, I do not fancy it at all, same dog with a different collar.
Josef Davies-Coates Fri 19 Jul 2013 7:00PM
@miguelpradosrodrig imho Liquid Democracy is fundamentally better and more flexible than the form of so-called representative democracy (that is neither representative nor democratic) that dominates politics in most of the so-called democratic world.
If you so choose, you get to vote on everything yourself, just like direct democracy. If, on a particular subject, you don't trust yourself or have neither the time nor inclination to actively participate, you can accept the vote recommendations of those people you trust in the relevant context. That is a world apart from delegating your votes in all issues to one person (normally the person who didn't actually vote for) for many years.
Miguel Prados Rodriguez Fri 19 Jul 2013 7:21PM
@josefdaviescoates it is basically representative democracy, no change.. Collective Intelligence studies shows that it is better not to give an opinion rather than delegate yours in someone, please see "Effects of Social Influence on the Wisdom of Crowds" in http://arxiv.org/html/1204.2991v1
Josef Davies-Coates Fri 19 Jul 2013 8:32PM
@miguelpradosrodrig I'll have a read of that, thanks! :)
Chris Taklis Fri 19 Jul 2013 8:44PM
I say only if that is available on the future give the opportunity to disable it for those groups who don't want it and don't make it compulsary.
Josef Davies-Coates · Fri 19 Jul 2013 4:04PM
I love liquid democracy!
And I'd love Loomio to evolve into a tool that makes it possible!
A very important point by the original coiner of the term is, however, sadly almost universally missed, and that is the different between vote delegation/ proxies and vote recommendations.
See here http://seed.sourceforge.net/ld_k5_article_004.html where he writes:
“Other systems similar to LD have been designed, but as far as I know they employ vote proxying, rather then answer recommendation”
And here http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Liquid_Democracy where he re-iterates the same thing (I previously had to revert that wiki page to an older version to include it)
“i’d just like to stress the difference between vote proxying and vote recommendation. one’s “pull” and the other’s “push”, and that’s a big part of what makes liquid democracy unique. with liquid democracy, people can request recommendations from multiple people, and from there they can do all kinds of things – take the average, ignore some recommendations, ignore all the recommendations and vote their unique conscience, etc. with proxying, you can’t do that, and that’s why proxying isn’t enough. “
He doesn't spell it out, but vote recommendations also keeps the power at the edges where it belongs, and makes it harder for people to become too influential.