Let A Thousand Nations Bloom promotes development of forms of government.
Charter Cities is a concept that enables experiments in government for people who want to choose their form of government rather than simply accept the one they are born into. A Honduran experiment is an example charter city.
The Seasteading Institute has a mission to establish ocean going communities that use their freedom to enable innovation in political and social systems. This Next Big Future article and this technology review article highlight their floating micro-country experiment.
Technocracy is a movement that advocates the use of scientists and engineers to run countries rather than politicians. As scientists and engineers are necessarily experts in their fields, so Technocracy uses the principal idea in Expert Government, and for the same reason. Specifically, that many experts working only within their independent specialism is the best way humanity has yet found to manage complex systems. Advances in civilisation resolve to increasingly sophisticated systems, which are inevitably accompanied by increasing complexity. The four main differences between Expert Government and Technocracy are that: Expert Government generalises the use of specialists / experts rather than requiring scientists and engineers, in Expert Government strategic authority remains with the citizens as whole rather than technocrats, Expert Government does not use energy as a form of currency, and Expert Government provides alternatives for problematic features that remain in Technocracy, such as, and in particular, hierarchical influence structures.
Metagovernment is a project to enable individuals to get involved in government. Its central idea is advancing the democratic principle of placing influence in the hands of the individual, rather than an elite such as politicians. This is termed direct democracy or participatory democracy. Metagovernment acts as an umbrella organisation for a number of projects and movements. Expert Government also seeks to promote the democratic principle by devolving influence to many more individuals in a non-hierarchical structure. However, Expert Government restricts an individual's influence to their area of specialism.
Cyber Democracy is based on the concept that technology can be used to further democratise government by enabling individuals to participate directly through technology, rather than via representatives. A similar concept is used by Virtual Parliament in the UK, and some other organisations promoted by Metagovernment. However, Cyber Democracy focuses on portable technologies such as smartphones and tablet devices "to improve the efficiency and feedback of current organizations, businesses and, ultimately, our representative democratic societies". All networked device based methods to advance direct democracy are prefigured by similar ideas that emerged in the IT industry in Silicon Valley and the West Coast of the USA with the emergence of computer networking. In turn they drew on the ideas in the Californian Ideology. A BBC documentary made by Adam Curtis called All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace highlights this connection.
The Zeitgeist Movement UK is a part of The Zeitgeist Movement, an international movement that promotes a vision of a utopian social order built on the Resource Based Economy concept. The Zeitgeist Movement vision incorporates ideas from The Venus Project and described itself as the activist arm of The Venus Project. While The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project still share a common belief in the Resource Based Economy, a schism has arisen and they have latterly become fully independent.
Republic is a campaign for a British republic through a referendum, replacing the unelected monarch with a directly elected ceremonial head of state.
Unlock Democracy is a campaign for democracy, rights and freedoms. It concerns itself with a number of specific projects to adjust the UK system of democracy. It has a network of local groups.
The Electoral Reform Society is a campaign for better political electoral representation through a fairer voting system. They specify four aims that broadly resolve to notions around vote fairness, representative accountability, representation of electorate opinions, and the balance of representative influence.
The New Economics Foundation aims to improve the quality of life by challenging mainstream thinking on economics, the environment, and social issues.
The Better Government Initiative says it aims to canvass the widest possible range of views, and to publish concrete recommendations that it says will be of practical interest not only to all three major parties, but also to the public more widely. However, its web site only provides an email address to engage with people.
Positive Money is a not-for-profit research and campaigning organisation that advocates changes to the banking system that it says would alleviate a number of social, economic and ecological problems. Its main proposal is that the total amount of money in bank accounts is under the sole control of the Monetary Policy Committee, with no influence from politicians or banks. That main proposal is an application of the most important principle in Expert Government - that only specialists / experts deliberate on their specialism.
38 Degrees is concerned with the democratic principle of empowering ordinary people. It helps to coordinate and fund campaigns for people to take direct action on a matter of shared concern. 38 Degrees is a non-partisan membership organisation that operates within the legal and political systems of the UK. It is non-profit making and supported by a number of donation sources that do not include political parties or big business.
Ushahidi is concerned with building tools for democratising information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to communicate. Expert Government also mandates transparency in government and information democratisation.
The Singularity Institute is concerned broadly with the challenges facing humanity as addressed by the evolution of human cognitive ability. Expert Government is a rational and meritocratic form of government, so it too tries to make use of the best human cognitive ability, but in the narrower concern of governance.
The Independent Network is a non-profit organisation supporting independent candidates i.e. those who are not members of political parties. While this helps some individuals gain influence and so diminishes the influence of party politics, it does not change the core operating methods of government and so still suffers most of the same drawbacks. Expert Government requires that all members of government apply for positions and act as individuals, i.e. it requires individual agency and prevents special interest groups applying collective influence.
The Institute for Citizenship aims to promote informed active citizenship and participation in democracy and society through a combination of projects, events, research, education and debate. The rights and responsibilities of citizens and government are central to the Covenant in Expert Government. Only individual citizens are allowed to provide strategic direction for government by controlling the content of that Covenant.
Openly Local is a project to develop an open and unified way of accessing Local Government information for the UK and Ireland.
The National Pensioners Convention seeks to promote the welfare and interests of all pensioners.
The British Prime Minister’s Office includes sections on news and policy. A section on transparency is intended to help locate information about activity in government.
The Bank Of England website provides a variety of information, including statistics, financial and economic news, and an RSS stream of publications.
The UK Parliament website contains information on what parliament is doing, including the activities of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. This site also contains educational material and links for social networks.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) claims to be "the UK’s leading progressive thinktank", researching "innovative policy ideas for a fair, democratic and sustainable world". It lists the following as its objectives: combating inequality, empowering citizens, promoting social responsibility, creating a fair and sustainable economy, revitalising democracy.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) claims to be "Britain's longest established independent economic research institute". It says its work falls into three distinct fields: economic modelling and macro analysis; education, training and employment; the international economy. It further clams that it is independent of all party political interests. It issues a free monthly email newsletter.
Amnesty is an international membership organisation that campaigns "to protect individuals wherever justice, fairness, freedom and truth are denied". Amnesty recognises that abuse of influence is at the heart of these difficulties, and that hierarchical influence structures exasperate that problem. This is also a key concern of Expert Government, which rather than continuously confront problems emerging from the abuses and faults of hierarchical influence structures, instead advocates change to a specialism structured government. A very important feature of specialism structured government is that it has a non-hierarchical influence structure that is inherently less open to abuse.
Liberty is concerned with civil liberties. It is a non-partisan membership organisation focused on fundamental rights and freedoms in England and Wales. Liberty work within the existing political and legal systems, campaigning, lobbying politicians, testing matters of law in court, and providing free advice and information. Liberty recognise the significance of influence, but like Amnesty continuously confront problems emerging from the abuses and faults of hierarchical influence structures in our existing form of government.
Knowing your rights is Liberty's guide for individuals and organisations wishing to understand and enforce their rights under the Human Rights Act 1998.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance is an independent British campaign for lower taxes through reduction of waste, inefficiency, and the size of government. They oppose all tax rises and EU tax harmonisation. Like Liberty, they engage in a constant war with the existing system of government, rather than advocating a new system of government.
The Corruption Monitor produces articles, and publishes complaints and letters about corruption in all countries. It provides tools to help file complaints and write letters of complaint to government officials.
Transparency International is a global coalition against corruption. Includes regional information and a news room with an RSS feed of international press releases. It produces a range or reports, and in its policy and research work analyses corruption for practical actions to combat it.
The UNCAC Coalition is a global network of over 240 civil society organisations (CSOs) in over 100 countries, committed to promoting the ratification, implementation, and monitoring of the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).
The UK National Statistics publication hub links to the Office for National Statistics, which produces independent information to improve understanding of the UK's economy and society, and the UK Statistics Authority, which has the statutory objective to promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good, as well as the quality and comprehensiveness of official statistics. This RSS feed lists the latest UK National Statistics releases.
The BBC. Concise and current with a comment system.
The Telegraph. Deeper analysis. It also has a good and well used open comment system for engaging in active dialogue.
The Guardian. Good analysis. Also has a comment system.
The Times. Useful but paid for content.
The Independent. Articles and dialogue.
Project Syndicate provides macro scale views on politics, economics, science, and culture by eminent professionals from around the world. Its proprietary comment system asks for a disconcerting amount of information.
The Adam Smith Institute promotes free markets, limited government, and an open society. It is active in generating reports on a range of topics, reporting news, and commenting on current affairs. It has a good open comment system.
The World Affairs Board is a set of forums for discussing pressing geopolitical issues of our time.
TheyWorkForYou promotes awareness of the activity in Parliament, including information on the activity of MPs and Peers.
openDemocracy publishes news analysis, debates, and blogs about the world and the way we govern ourselves. It is committed to human rights, democracy, and open dialogue accessible to all. Otherwise it claims to have no specific policies to promote. It also has an active forum.
politics.co.uk is a hub for UK political current affairs. It includes news, comment, analysis, reviews, interviews, and lists of events and organisations. It also has links to a numerous political and legislative resources, as well as political blogs. It allows site visitors to comment on the site comments, but no has forum.
UK government data services. Data accessible by multiple criteria, data tools, a forum, blogs, and a wiki.
This portal to all UK public services provides access to government services via categories and search.
US government data services. Data accessible by multiple criteria, and data tools.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) promotes policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. It provides a forum for governments to work together on solutions to common problems. Includes a section on statistics and a newsroom. It also has numerous RSS feeds.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research provides independent economic forecasts and analysis to private, public and third sector organisations. It aims to use an understanding of economics to help improve organisational performance.
The Guardian data blog with RSS feed. An eclectic compilation of fact heavy articles about world news with a UK focus. Helpful for finding facts on current issues.
Wikipedia provides a concise definition of government, drawing the important distinction between 'a government' and 'the state'. Briefly the state is the system within which a government operates, where a government is the organisation of people in power. Wikipedia also lists forms of government which may be used to delineate the state, although Expert Government does not currently have an entry. Expert Government is a form of technocratic democracy, because of its wide distribution of influence to specialists / experts, but without the need for them to be members of any group. It is also a meritocracy in that it selects experts over specialists. An important feature of Expert Government is that it obviates dogma, so it can also be seen as an expression of progressivism. Expert Government has an egalitarian based Covenant that consequently associates it with egalitarianism.
Wikipedia provides a concise overview of Technocracy, which uses the principal idea in Expert Government, but without extending it to the same conclusion.
In the BBC Radio 4 Iconoclasts programme (series 4, episode 1) Gordon Graham highlights some concerns noted on this site regarding democracy. He goes on to describe a framework for government that Expert Government would fit into. The episode starts with a statement from Gordon Graham who is Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at the Princeton Theological Seminary, USA. That is followed by a moderated discussion with Edward Lucas - International Editor of The Economist, David Chandler – Professor of International Relations at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster, and Robert Hazell – Professor of British Politics and Government at UCL.
Prof Graham notes that the state can easily be demonstrated as injurious to the individual, but it is less easy to demonstrate its advantages. This it seems is designed to demonstrate how important the state is, but how badly it has been implemented. He asks the question - does authority in a democracy reside with the voter and should it? He observes that each vote is not influential, so voting does not empower the individual. He also observes that research has regularly demonstrates that the electorate is on the whole ignorant and prejudiced. He further contends that, historically voting has not correlated with better government, noting egregious actions by democracies. Lastly he contends that voting provides only illusory control that winning an election is invoked as conferring political legitimacy on actions that would otherwise not be deemed acceptable.
Prof Chandler says the struggle for democracy is linked with the struggle for freedom. He thinks that Graham's view underrates democracy and so freedom by insisting voting is an individual's view rather than a collective decision.
Mr Lucas notes that many new democracies are by the standards of others not very democratic, giving as examples Russia, Kazakstan, North Korea, Ukraine, and the former East Germany (GDR). Consequently, in his view, democracy as a label is too vague and unhelpful - something noted on this site and accommodated by equating it with pure democracy where authority is invested directly in the individual. He goes on to say that democracy is invoked too readily, meaning different things to different people. He suggests we should be more concerned with if those elected care about what the electorate think of government actions. He thinks that voting is important to make citizens feel engaged with their countries progress.
Prof Hazell agrees with Prof Chandler in that democracy is about collective action backed by the legitimacy provided by election.
Prof Graham reframed his earlier observation asking if the people are empowered in some important way, but Prof Chandler says the problem is about public engagement not about some perceived deficiency in democracy. Mr Lucas restates that there is too narrow a focus on universal suffrage; that it is more important what happens between elections.
Several interesting emails are read out that note democracy and freedom are not synonymous and that party politics attenuates individual political expression so weakening the democratic principal.
The BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme 'Do Leaders make a Difference?' explores the question “do we over-attribute power to individuals”.
They interview specialists that offer evidence that events are often out of the control of individuals and that collective action can achieve results in spite of the views and actions of supposedly powerful individuals. Clearly there is a balance of influence here, but is seems like we may be inclined to think that people in authority have more efficacy than they in fact do.
A natural consequence of Expert Government assigning authority to specialists is that authority is divided between many individuals, rather than a few. Also, it explicitly prevents authority hierarchies. Every specialist has equal authority. This should change the attribution of power to the individual.
Thomas Thwaites gives an entertaining talk at TED on his 'toaster project', in which he made a basic toaster himself. It was inspired by a quote from Douglas Adams implying how dependent we all are on one another. It clearly demonstrates how specialisation has enabled the products and services that are intrinsic to advanced civilisation. This is the principal concept used in Expert Government. We all depend on specialisation to build our sophisticated and complex world. We can depend on specialisation to manage it too. As the effects of government policy are so important, we should aspire to employ experts, not just specialists.
Professor Paul Romer of Stanford University talks at TED outlining the vision of Charter Cities that enable experiments in government. During his talk he recognises the value of collaboration and freedom from dogma which are important principles in Expert Government.
Prof Romer asserts that "bad rules" hold back economic development that is enabled by the "market model", which by implication he believes has better rules. It is not explicitly stated, but it seems he is referring to free market economics. However, he notes the importance of choice to evade problems arising from the transition to a market model. Prof Romer also notes the need to allow partner economies to set-up Charter Cities, increasing the credibility of the project and the resources available to it. He further notes the need for rules to change rules, which seems to be an oblique reference to freedom from dogma.
He explains how Hong Kong is a good pattern for development of a market model that was instigated by Britain and was perpetuated by China as an option rather than an obligation. He notes that rules in China held back its economic development until the late 1970's when the pattern provided by Hong Kong was copied to selected zones on mainland China, again retaining choice.
He makes the interesting observation of the dichotomy between North Korea and South Korea. At the fracture the two parts were essentially identical, but now are economically disparate. He uses this to justify his assertion that changing the rules can make a difference.
For his proposition he asserts that a city is sufficiently big to enable the market model to prosper. He proposes to bring this model to more under developed economies to their benefit and the general benefit of mankind.
Prof Romer does not discuss the possibly that free market economics is not appropriate at every stage of economic development. Recent events in developed economies have highlighted problems with the free market model. More people are now beginning to consider that this model may not have infinite potential. Free market economics is a simple model, but we live in a complex world. Can this discord exist successfully? Does a complex world require more sophisticated moderation in its economics?
Here Prof Romer discusses the Charter Cities concept with Dr Carlos Sabillon. It demonstrates some of the difficulties of understanding economics.
This talk to The Thiel Foundation by Patri Friedman, who is Executive Director of The Seasteading Institute, outlines a project to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems. He disparages the rate of development so far in forms of government relative to other fields, and points out the possibility of using an innovation model from business.
Tim Harford talks at TED on the value of 'trial end error' in solving problems in complex systems. Tim recognises 'the god complex' causes people to overlook the value of 'trial and error'. This is something we all need to guard against.
Devolution is the basis of pure democracy, i.e. the distribution of influence over government policy. For a long time pure democracy has been subverted by old forms of government. In his talk Yochai Benkler recognises the power that large numbers of organised people can have. He is noting that modern technology is re-enabling the individual to wield influence. If that influence is organised correctly it can be decisive. Expert Government recognises that pattern, organising many experts into specialisms, rather than empowering a small elite.