Skip to content
Theme : democracy
-
I just love your accent
The Hack ? 30/1/2004 American politics with a British Accent, and vice versa? Politics in 3Over Here - 3 things that already happened:1) Winning this Streak ? The hairdo that is John Kerry won the New Hampshire Democratic primary by a whopping 39%. Despite frenzied media speculation, the Senator from Massachusetts became the first candidate to win both Iowa and NH (first two to vote) since Jimmy Carter. In a selection system designed to reduce the power of party bosses by allowing the...
from : paulmiller
2nd February 2004
-
Reich on the button
As the optimism and excitement surrounding the Howard Dean campaign begins to dissipate in the face of his disappointing showing in the early caucuses, attention is turning to the wider political lessons for the Democrats - and arguably for progressive politics worldwide. The central question is: could a more mainstream candidate harness and sustain the same participative grass-roots energy that Dean has managed to create, or does the elusive quality of "electability" depend on the kind of...
from : pauljoseph
29th January 2004
-
Trips Up and Out
Joe Trippi, web strategist and campaign manager for Howard Dean, is out. The New York Times is reporting a shake-up that has seen the resignation of Trippi and the arrival of Washington insider and former Gore aide Roy Neel as campaign chief executive. So Trippi, the mastermind of what's been described as "the greatest grass-roots movement in the history of American politics" is himself history. Some $40 million is already in the can and Dean staffers are taking a two week pay break. Will old...
from : petermacleod
29th January 2004
-
Mediated reality
This is perhaps a side-effect of the modern phenomenon of the televised debate. Inevitably, only a small proportion of people will actually watch; the reality of the debate is then mediated through a highly partisan game of Chinese whispers by the media before reaching the large proportion of people who are interested.What makes a debate particularly open to loss in translation is its interactive nature, which corresponds poorly with the structures of televised soundbites. To quote one...
from : alistairdavidson
29th January 2004
-
Davos diary
Simon Zadek has been running a really interesting diary from the World Economic Forum in Davos on openDemocracy. He describes himself as "one of the Shakespearean ?fools?, invited to amuse, surprise and, within moderation, attack, the gathered throng: an insider-outsider with attitude - yet reasonable manners".
from : paulmiller
28th January 2004
-
Making a virtue of weak leadership
Now here's an interesting experiment in e-democracy. A group of dot.com refugees has founded Your Party, a new political party which embraces exactly the features which are normally used to criticise traditional parties: no leadership, no policies, and no ideology...The idea seems to be to take the principle behind internet pollsters YouGov one step further: their entire agenda will be formed from scratch by visitors to their website. It's an appealingly simple model of mass-participation...
from : alistairdavidson
8th January 2004
-
Public Service Reform Summit
The Guardian are hosting a summit later this month on public service reform which looks interesting.
from : paulmiller
7th January 2004
-
Big issues need a big conversation
Recently Demos received a letter from the Prime Minister, himself, asking for our help. He launched a conversation with the British people about the challenges Britain faces and how together we can meet them. Is this something Demos should get involved in?
from : alistairdavidson
6th January 2004
-
Party poopers
The Observer has a piece on its front page today about the possibility of a Big Brother/Pop Idol stylee TV show to select politicians. The article also mentions YourParty which is aiming to do what Paul's link below does for a font but for a political manifesto. What with Howard Dean changing the rules in the US (here's the only article I've come across that 'gets' what's going on), could 2004 be the year the political party dies?
from : paulmiller
4th January 2004
-
The adaptive state
Today we launched our new collection The Adaptive State, which outlines an approach to the next phase of public service reform based around systems, personalisation and modular innovation. The book was launched at a breakfast event in London with speakers including Sir Andrew Turnbull (Cabinet Secretary), who said lots of nice things about Demos. It also gets a mention today in the Daily Telegraph.
from : jameswilsdon
12th December 2003
