Making It Real

Marilyn Davis
Deliberate.com

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     Last modified: May 30, 2005

Abstract
Dr. Davis lists the characteristics that must be achieved to consider the online deliberative democracy movement to be "real". For deliberative online democracy to live up to its potential we must provide: significant numbers of people participating in online deliberative decision-making; and real political power for the online deliberative decision-making community, i.e., a budget to spend.

She describes the software she has developed toward this end, stressing the importance of the underlying architecture to deliver both power to the participants, and security from manipulation by the administrators of the system.

Finally, Marilyn makes concrete proposals for revolutionizing politics and delivering real democracy. Specifically, the she sketches plans for acquiring political power within the current political structure and independent of the current political structure; for setting agendas democratically; and for registering participants cheaply and securely.