LiquidFriesland

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LiquidFriesland was an online platform of the district of Friesland , through which a new form of citizen participation was to be realized. What was new about LiquidFriesland in particular was the linking of forms of online democracy with the municipal constitution prescribed by state law . The public participation platform started on November 9, 2012.

With the help of the LiquidFeedback program , the process of democratic decision-making and decision-making should be supported. Citizens of the district of Friesland were able to get personal access to the program from the age of 16 and take part in discourses on projects for which the district is responsible as a regional authority, as well as in votes on these projects.

Liquid Friesland was the council of the district at the initiative of the district administrator sven ambrosy ( SPD voted unanimously). The district council fell back on a model of democracy from the USA, which was first discussed in Germany by parts of the Pirate Party Germany . This discussion was the reason for the independent development of the LiquidFeedback software by Public Software Group e. V.

On September 3, 2015, Stephan Eisel , an employee of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , stated that the civic participation platform LiquidFriesland had not registered any activities since April 10, 2015. At the end of April 2016, the barely used platform was switched off. The restart took place on December 1, 2016. Since then, LiquidFriesland has served as the Friesland district's online platform where citizens can express their suggestions, ideas and criticism .

Procedure

The process of participation follows the rules of Liquid Democracy : Citizens can either cast their votes themselves or delegate them to a person they trust in the sense of delegated voting . This person can increase their voice weight in this way.

In the "project description" (see web links), the procedure is illustrated using a concrete example:

“28 citizens have registered as members of the topic 'Transport' (and thus basically signaled their interest in individual topics from this area). 15 non-members of traffic are also interested in the specific topic. The total population is then 43. 5 supporters / potential supporters are required for one of the initiatives in order to bring the entire topic (and thus all initiatives) into the discussion. In the case of the initiative quorum ('2nd quorum') in this example (provided the population has not changed in the discussion process) 5 supporters are required so that the respective initiative can be voted on. "

The original use of the software was modified for LiquidFriesland: It was initially intended for the formation of will within parties and other organizations, but not for use in municipalities . LiquidFriesland is the world's first example of such a use of a Liquid Democracy tool. On the other hand, LiquidFeedback was originally only intended to enable bottom-up decision-making , as is also possible at LiquidFriesland in the form of citizens' procedures. In addition, in the LiquidFriesland version of LiquidFeedback, the possibility was implemented of asking citizens about administrative projects in a top-down procedure (administrative procedure).

Legal classification

Due to the requirements of the Lower Saxony municipal constitution Liquid Friesland can no instrument of direct democracy be, so no public petition and no referendum replace. Only these instruments can lead to legally effective results that can also invalidate a vote by the district council. Voting results by LiquidFriesland legally have the character of a suggestion within the meaning of Section 34 of the Lower Saxony Municipal Constitutional Act in citizens' proceedings ; in administrative proceedings, section 35 of the Act is applied analogously by collecting opinions. The members of the district council of Friesland assured, however, that they would take the citizens' votes into account in their votes.

Opinions

The reaction of German pirates to the LiquidFriesland project is causing irritation. Janto Just ("pirate" who moved into the district council of the district of Friesland on the list "Citizens for Citizens") initially complained that LiquidFriesland had nothing to do with the direct democracy he was aiming for. After the project began, he criticized that " the usual suspects romp around "and finally at the turn of the year 2012/2013 declared the success of the project as the success of the Pirate Party. Just's initial assessment contradicts large parts of his own party and calls for the support of local pilot projects for digital participation based on the example of LiquidFriesland. So put Christopher Lauer , leader of the Pirate Party in the Berlin House of Representatives , already on 15 August 2012 states:

“The district of Friesland, for example, is currently making a revolution. That's where the mail goes. They started Liquid Friesland. This is a concept with which the citizens of this district can totally get involved online. I say with envy: They are the avant-garde of Liquid Democracy in Germany. The pirates are still lagging behind. "

Practical experience and future expectations

LiquidFriesland started on November 9th, 2012. The test phase ended in autumn 2013. By May 16, 2013, 706 access codes to LiquidFriesland had been sent by the district administration. Of these, 473 were converted into active accesses. The number of users participating in the final votes was up to 50 users. For initiatives by citizens, the average participation in voting was 22.07 users, for initiatives by the administration it was 27.86 users. A representative of the district CDU announced at a district council meeting that he would only agree to a continuation of the project if at least an average of 100 to 200 users regularly take part in the votes by the end of the test phase.

In May 2014, Stephan Eisel published his analysis "Liquid Friesland - a failed experiment", referring to the extremely low level of public participation in the platform, which sparked heated discussions. In 2015, Eisel even rated LiquidFriesland as an “internet corpse”.

In response to the evaluation report from September 2014, the press spokesman for the district of Friesland, Sönke Klug, stated that success cannot be measured by the number of users: “Around 550 people who are interested in district politics who are informed by newsletter are significantly more than beforehand, who actively exercise their civil rights. From our point of view, this is a great success. ”Apart from that, District Administrator Ambrosy had already argued at a meeting of the District Council of the District of Friesland in September 2013 that rights should not be deleted if they were not (sufficiently) used. Because a democracy lives from the possibility. Their essence is that they grant rights - which one exercises or does not exercise. In October 2015, the SPD / Greens group in the district assembly of the district of Friesland, together with District Administrator Ambrosy, announced that the LiquidFriesland platform should be "reanimated".

Günter Hoffmann from the Wiener Zeitung pointed out in February 2015 that digital top-down procedures (not only in the Friesland district) had proven to be a successful model. That doesn't surprise him, because the investment platforms originally came from industry. They are used there by IT companies in particular in product development, in order to bundle the idle and partially decoupled knowledge of employees who work separately and to incorporate it into product development. At other companies, the software is used to increase customer involvement. In this way, trends can be identified at an early stage and innovation cycles can be shortened significantly through continuous feedback, and possible errors are often discovered and rectified more quickly. This development is now also reaching those responsible in the municipalities. Every fourth authority wants to involve its citizens more closely in administrative decisions and is therefore investing in dialogue. According to Hoffmann, small municipalities in particular wanted to improve public participation in political and administrative decisions via electronic interactive platforms.

Participedia recommends: "In order to have a future and to be a role model for other projects of a similar nature, Friesland must look for ways to make participation attractive for other user groups and over a longer period of time." To increase the attractiveness of LiquidFriesland should From 2015, all accredited participants will be given digital access to all documents that are presented to the district council members for deliberations in public meetings.

In the open-ended examination of the question of whether LiquidFriesland is a model worth emulating for it, the district of Görlitz emphasizes that "the analysis of existing participation formats with regard to their degree of effectiveness as well as the participation and qualification of the population already with the introduction of such an instrument [...] Conditions for the sustained success of such a format ”.

Imitators

In February 2015 the district of Rotenburg (Wümme) started the community platform ROW based on the example of LiquidFriesland; In March 2017 it was decided to abolish it and replaced by an online form in the area of suggestions and criticism on the district administration's homepage. At the same time, the cities of Seelze and Wunstorf activated comparable platforms.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ nwzonline - Frisians launch portal for online public participation , accessed on February 6, 2013
  2. ↑ Manfred Klein: LiquidFriesland - connection of eDemocracy and municipal constitution. Retrieved February 8, 2013 .
  3. ↑ Peter Mühlbauer : Telepolis: Interview with Jan Huwald, political director of the Pirate Party (2007) about Liquid Democracy. Retrieved February 7, 2013 .
  4. ^ Andreas Nitsche: Mission - LiquidFeedback. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 13, 2011 ; Retrieved February 7, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / liquidfeedback.org
  5. ^ Stefan Eisel: LiquidFriesland finally at the end. An internet corpse as a marketing coup . Konrad Adenauer Foundation . St. Augustine. September 3, 2015. Accessed December 11, 2015
  6. ↑ Citizen participation - Active citizens in the free democracy: Liquid Friesland was buried.
  7. ↑ Nordwest-Zeitung: District of Friesland: Operation should be easier. December 1, 2016, accessed December 11, 2019 .
  8. ^ Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior and Sport: Lower Saxony Municipal Constitutional Law
  9. ↑ Pirate Party Stammtisch Friesland: Agenda 14 August 2012 / TOP 4. Liquid Feedback 2.0 / Liquid Friesland
  10. ↑ Pirate Party Stammtisch Friesland: Politicians among themselves ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . December 18, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / piraten-friesland.de
  11. ↑ Pirate Party Stammtisch Friesland: The pirates have already made a difference in FRI ( memento of the original from March 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . January 1, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / piraten-friesland.de
  12. ↑ Liquid Democracy in the Pirate Party: Support of local pilot projects for digital participation based on the example of Liquid Friesland. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 20, 2015 ; Retrieved February 7, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / lqpp.de
  13. ↑ Manuel Bewarder / Thorsten Jungholt: Pirates and FDP argue about co-determination. Die Welt, August 15, 2012, accessed February 8, 2013 .
  14. ↑ Public participation: District of Friesland introduces Liquid Feedback. Zeit Online, November 9, 2012, accessed February 7, 2013 .
  15. ↑ Landkreis Friesland: LiquidFriesland Evaluation Report - June 2013 , accessed on June 11, 2013
  16. ↑ Kathrin Drehkopf: How is the “Liquid” project going in Friesland? NDR info . December 20, 2012
  17. ↑ Liquid Friesland - a failed experiment . internetunddemokratie.wordpress.com May 22, 2014
  18. ↑ We are all a little offended in Friesland . NordWest-Zeitung July 24, 2014
  19. ^ Stefan Eisel: LiquidFriesland finally at the end. An internet corpse as a marketing coup . Konrad Adenauer Foundation . St. Augustine. September 3, 2015. Accessed December 11, 2015
  20. ^ LiquidFriesland . Participedia . December 13, 2014
  21. ↑ Minutes of the meeting of the district council of the district of Friesland on June 25, 2013. Item 6.4.5: Continuation of LiquidFriesland ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . P. 13 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / buergerinfo.friesland.de
  22. ↑ SPD and Greens want to reanimate Liquid Friesland. There is still radio silence on the district's online platform . Northwest Newspaper . October 15, 2015. Retrieved December 12, 2015
  23. ^ Günter Hoffmann: Digital Democracy . Wiener Zeitung . February 1, 2015. Accessed December 12, 2015
  24. ↑ District of Görlitz: Citizen participation in the district of Görlitz: inform - discuss - help shape . May 2014. Retrieved December 12, 2015
  25. ↑ "Citizens' Platform ROW" will be launched in the coming weeks - digital democracy in the Rotenburger Kreishaus . District newspaper . February 19, 2015. Retrieved December 12, 2015
  26. ↑ "Citizens' Platform ROW" after two years before the end: "The horse is dead"
  27. ↑ District of Rotenburg: suggestions and criticism