The Infrastructure of Democracy

This is being posted elsewhere, but David Weinberger has co-written a little manifesto on the infrastructure of democracy for a conference in Madrid on terrorism, security and democracy.

I especially like this line:

I agree with that and then some. The internet may form an important piece of the infrastructure of democracy, but this principle applies to all processes and techniques that humans use for communicating and collaborating, including conversational processes.

Over the last week in Prince George I did a two day Open Space practice workshop with some young women (formerly drug addicted and/or street involved) and some service providers. We were looking at the the four essential practices that are required for Open Space Technology facilitation: inviting, opening, holding and practicing. The conversation about practices of opening yielded a great list of practices including appreciation, saying “I don’t know”, asking questions, offering, giving, being silent, listening and so on. To me these are the essential personal practices that can then work within an infrastructure of democracy that supports openness.

Technorati Tags: democracy, citizenship