Who can benefit from using Liquid Democracy and why?
Since direct democracies aren’t easily scalable, we can explore ways to create more effective and intelligent forms of representation. Liquid democracy offers a promising solution through vote delegation, enabling individuals to entrust their vote to a knowledgeable expert who can represent their views.
In this discussion, we’ll examine the core paradox of representation, delve into theoretical frameworks supported by models and case studies, and conclude with a curated set of tools and resources.
Middleman paradox
The power of the democratic majority arises from the fact that every individual is assumed to be competent to guide his own life and is politically equal of every other individual. In this situation, the greatest legitimate power will always be with the majority.
But the voters might not always be knowledgeable on the matter being discussed. That is why today, many governments use a form of representative democracy, where people vote on representatives they trust who will represent them when voting on policy decisions.
As the Internet removes the need for dumb middlemen, it creates the need for smart middlemen. The producers have removed links in the chains separating them from consumers, but consumers are slotting new links back in. As we get swamped by more and more information and more and more choices, we’re going to need more and more help filtering the data and making our choices: which cars should we buy, which holidays we should go on, which people we should hire and which news stories we should read. It’s a paradox: the more we can remove middlemen, the more we need them.
According to Tocqueville, these “intermediary” institutions that exist in aristocracies serve as a “dike” against the force of dominant political power and a vital protection for human dignity and liberty. Because democracies lack such intermediary institutions, they have “no lasting obstacles” in the way of the opinions, prejudices, interests, and momentary passions of the majority and tends towards an unthinking despotism over unpopular minorities.
Liquid Democracy (LD)
So far as we know, the idea of Liquid Democracy dates as far back as Lewis Caroll’s Principles of Parliamentary Representation (1884).
Liquid Democracy is the combination of networks and democracy
- a fast, decentralized,
- collaborative question-answering system,
- which works by enabling chained answer recommendation
- is designed to ensure that the things we all hold in common stay properly maintained.
The voter can decide whether to delegate her vote to a representative on a given issue or simply vote on her own.
Say you’re an expert on education, wouldn’t it be great if you could have your representatives vote for you on all health care issues, but when it came down to education issues, you could cast your own vote? This is what liquid democracy attempts to do.
Best of both direct and representative democracy
"Liquid Democracy is the combination of networks and democracy. It is a term designed to capture a more fluid and responsive participation of citizens in the democratic process through the use of both online and offline networks. Votes flow through networks of trusted relationships and in this way a range of types of “delegation” can be created, from forms we are familiar with such as conventional representative democracy, to fluid parties and direct democracy."
Promise of LD
Towards the enhancement of e-democracy: identifying the notion of the ‘middleman paradox’ Harald Mahrer* & Robert Krimmer† (2005)
Application
When most issues are decided (or strongly suggested to representatives) by direct referendum.
When nobody has enough time and knowledge for every issue, votes can be delegated by topic.
When furthermore delegations are transitive and can be revoked at any time.
