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NDI currently serves as the co-chair, together with the Congress of Chile,
> of the legislative component of the Open Government Partnership (OGP),
> which now comprises 70 governments worldwide. In this capacity, we have
> worked to support a growing number of parliaments around the world as they
> seek to respond to a range of challenges, from increased citizen
> expectations of their representative institutions, to rising populism and
> increased political polarization. NDI has worked with its co-chair, with
> the OGP itself, and with nearly 50 parliaments around the world to
> establish formal relationships between civil society groups and
> legislatures to advance specific measures that promote transparency and
> responsiveness. An increasing number of parliaments have expressed
> interest in this type of engagement. Within the past two weeks, NDI has
> participated in informational briefings or open parliament programs in
> Tunisia, Italy and Costa Rica, the later being a regional meeting of
> legislatures interested in parliamentary openness.
>
> I thought you would be interested in the following remarks by NDI
> Governance Director Scott Hubli, who directs this OGP initiative, before
> the Italian Senate which recently launched a new set of guidelines for
> public consultations.
>
> With best regards,
>
> Ken
>
> Kenneth Wollack
> President
> National Democratic Institute
> 455 Massachusetts Ave., NW, 8th Floor
> Washington, DC 20001
> 202-728-5500 <(202)%20728-5500> (Tel)
> 888-875-2887 <(888)%20875-2887> (Fax)
> email: ken@ndi.org
> website: www.ndi.org
>
>
>
>
> The Legislative Openness Movement
>
> K. Scott Hubli, Director of Governance Programs, National Democratic
> Institute
>
> Prepared Remarks for the Open Senate Initiative of the Italian Senate
> May 9, 2017, Rome, Italy
>
>
> In recent years, parliaments, together with civil society, have
> increasingly engaged around the concept of parliamentary openness. In my
> remarks this afternoon, I would like to address three issues: 1) why has
> parliamentary openness emerged as a global challenge, 2) what are some of
> the good practices being advanced by parliaments in partnership with civil
> society, and 3) how the Italian Senate and other parliamentary institutions
> can share information internationally on what works and what does not work
> on this issue.
>
> Parliamentary Openness as a Global Challenge
>
> We live in a time of technological disruption and extremely rapid
> socioeconomic change. One of the defining issues of our time is whether our
> governance institutions will be able to adapt rapidly enough to harness
> this change, or whether they will be overwhelmed by it. In the private
> sector, the tech industry praises disruption. If Uber, Lyft or another
> ride-sharing service disrupts the traditional taxi business, drivers may
> lose their jobs or need to be retrained, but the end result may be greater
> consumer choice. Disruption in politics is different — and the stakes are
> far higher. When technology disrupts politics, it can consolidate and
> embolden extreme viewpoints while undermining the role of traditional
> mediators in the press, policy shops, and representative institutions of
> government. This paves the way toward partisan gridlock, radical populist
> appeals and even interference in democratic politics by authoritarian
> regimes — ultimately damaging citizen confidence in democracy itself.
>
> I would like to share two quotes that illustrate the challenge before us.
> The first quote is actually a tweet from San Francisco civic innovator
> Catherine Bracy: “Citizens using 21st cent tools to talk, gov't using
> 20th cent tools to listen, and 19th cent processes to respond.”
> Parliaments are, by their nature, products of tradition and are slow to
> change. Tech entrepreneurs often boast about failing 20 times before
> succeeding, so long as the end result is a profitable venture. But if a
> parliament or government fails with just one out of 100 different laws or
> initiatives, it is considered a failure. A government may successfully
> thwart hundreds of planned terrorist attacks, but if it fails to prevent
> one, it fails with the public. Government institutions and parliaments are,
> by their nature, risk-averse and, as a result, have not adapted as rapidly
> as citizens’ expectations have evolved.
>
> This brings me to the second quote I would like to share, which is from a
> group called Code for America that is working to make governments and
> parliaments more user-friendly: “User-centered design isn’t just how we
> should be designing technology, it is how we should be designing our
> democratic institutions.” User-centered design is simply the idea that a
> product or service should serve the end user’s needs, desires and
> capabilities. We know what this looks like in commerce. Ordering a book on
> Amazon, for instance, is very easy. Now, you do not even need to go to a
> website. If you have an Amazon Echo in your home, you can just say out loud
> that you would like to order a book, or groceries, or a pizza, and it will
> be shortly delivered to your door. Compare this experience with what a
> constituent needs to do to understand what a bill does, where a bill is in
> the legislative process, how that bill impacts the existing body of laws,
> who their legislator is, and how to provide input into this process.
>
> Making government more ‘user-centered’ is clearly not an easy task. At the
> same time that citizen expectations are rising, the ability of legislatures
> to respond to this challenge is, in some ways, becoming more difficult. The
> rise of social media has contributed to political polarization and made
> compromise more difficult. It used to be that a handful of television
> networks provided most news for most citizens; these networks were also
> fairly similar in terms of their perspectives. Today, increasing numbers of
> people get their information primarily through social media, and those news
> feeds are increasingly tailored to respond to their particular individual
> preferences. More and more of us live in a filter bubble, where we
> interact online only with people who share our worldview. This bias toward
> polarization has been further amplified by the existence of financial
> incentives to spread wholly invented “fake news” and the use of artificial
> intelligence and botnets to “juice” or amplify certain stories to appeal to
> particular constituencies.
>
> Parliaments are feeling these effects, as they reflect the polarization in
> the electorate and as civil political discourse decreases. Google
> “parliamentary fist fights” and you will see examples from many parliaments
> in the world. At the same time, parliamentarians are being asked to
> navigate a more polarized environment, they are also being asked to
> negotiate in a far more transparent world. Too often, parliamentarians
> find themselves talking to their “base” and to the cameras, rather than to
> their colleagues across the aisle. Although it is almost impossible to
> negotiate a peace deal in public, parliaments are asked to negotiate laws
> in as public a way as possible, further contributing to the challenge. To a
> certain extent, the discussion of “parliamentary openness” is a discussion
> about how parliaments are grappling with these challenges.
>
> The State of Parliamentary Openness
>
> The good news is that parliaments are innovating and responding to this
> challenge, often in close collaboration with civil society, civic
> technologists and young people. Let me start with a story from Mexico about
> a well-intentioned effort that went wrong initially, but then got back on
> track. The Mexican Congress decided to build an Open Parliament App, but
> did not first consult with civil society organizations. They went about the
> procurement process in the traditional way, putting out a tender and
> presumably targeting their the standard vendors. The contract cost several
> millions dollars and was widely criticized in the press and by civil
> society, which dubbed it the “millionaire’s app.” So far, this is a story
> of a well-intentioned effort gone wrong. But the story did not end there;
> instead, a civic organization sponsored a competition for hackers and civic
> tech groups to build a similar app at no cost to the Congress. A number of
> individuals and organizations developed several solutions that included
> nearly all the features asked for in the procurement. Many of these new
> solutions cost only as much as the iPads that were offered as a prize in
> the competition. The original contract was cancelled, and the competition
> winners were recognized in the Mexican Congress.
>
> Co-creating solutions with civil society is just one way that parliaments
> are looking to open up their operations and innovate. Some parliaments are
> even taking a page from the private sector and looking to create a Chief
> Innovation Officer position, to help help manage change and experiment with
> ways of engaging the public and strengthening public engagement with, and
> confidence in, the parliamentary institution. Parliamentary openness tends
> to encompass three sub issues: transparency of parliamentary life and
> parliamentary data, legislative ethics and citizen engagement. I will
> quickly touch on a few good practices in each of these areas.
>
> Transparency of Parliamentary Data: Transparency is being demanded by
> citizens, but we should not assume that transparency alone will build
> citizen confidence. Consider police body cameras, which have attracted much
> attention in the United States. These cameras can be used to build public
> confidence in the police. However, if underlying issues of police violence
> and misconduct are not addressed, then releasing recordings of their
> behavior will tend to further weaken public perception of police integrity.
> It is similar with parliamentary data. When done well, parliamentary data
> can provide a better sense of what parliament is working on at any time,
> and can help citizens and journalists better understand and navigate the
> issues and arguments. When done poorly, such as showing poor attendance
> rates in the plenary without showing other elements of parliamentary work
> or providing proper context, it can further undermine public confidence.
>
> There are many good examples. Rather than expecting citizens or
> journalists to navigate thousands of pages of Hansard or hours of streaming
> video, there are now tools to visualize parliamentary debate and allow
> people to more easily understand how parliament is addressing an issue that
> they care about. One example is the Fabrique de la Loi project in France,
> which has been experimenting with new ways of presenting the history of a
> bill, so citizens can more easily understand how and where a bill changed
> in the legislative process.
>
> POPVOX in the US is another platform for sharing information between
> members and constituents. It does two things: first, it makes it easier for
> citizens to navigate the legislative process — to understand different
> bills, to track where a bill is in the process, and to contact their
> elected representatives. Secondly, it helps members of Congress process the
> information and opinions they are receiving from constituents – helping to
> separate the signal from the noise. Rather than providing a member with a
> stack of random letters, POPVOX sends data in an organized and structured
> format, and verifies that feedback is coming from actual constituents in
> their district, not professional lobbyists or bots. Dashboards and data
> visualizations also provide richer insights on the composition and timing
> of constituent feedback.
>
> Many parliaments are improving transparency simply by getting more
> legislative information out on social media from an institutional, rather
> than partisan, perspective. If proactive social media outreach is left
> primarily to members and their parties, rather than the institution as a
> whole, there is a risk that social media outreach will contribute to
> further polarization and will miss an opportunity to educate the public on
> the negotiation and compromises required on complex issues.
>
> Parliamentary Ethics and Integrity: A second area of parliamentary
> openness involves parliamentary ethics. Increasingly, parliaments that have
> lacked strong ethics codes are working to strengthen them while also
> enhancing transparency related to money in politics. This is an important
> element of building trust. The traditional ethics committee structure has
> also been complemented in many cases by professional, independent
> parliamentary agencies that support nonpartisan investigations — although
> this is often not particularly popular with parliamentarians. In the United
> States, the Office of Congressional Ethics is one such agency, created in
> the wake of the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal. As part of their Open
> Government Partnership action plans, both Ireland and Estonia have
> committed to stricter provisions on the regulation of lobbyists. Chile has
> also moved forward on this issue. There is also a movement to develop
> international norms and standards on parliamentary ethics. The Commonwealth
> Parliamentary Association has recently published benchmarks on
> parliamentary codes of conduct for Commonwealth countries, and Transparency
> International published a study of lobbying in the European context,
> highlighting the remaining challenges and ways to move forward on these
> issues.
>
> Citizen Engagement: By far the most promise and experimentation has
> occurred with respect to the third and final area of legislative openness:
> improved citizen engagement. Many parliaments are developing more
> structured opportunities for constructive consultation and dialogue with
> civil society, including the Italian Senate. Sometimes, as in Georgia, it
> has involved creating a permanent dialogue mechanism with civil society on
> issues of parliamentary openness and reform. These outreach and ‘inreach’
> mechanisms are not purely altruistic. Greater opportunities for engagement
> with civil society on parliamentary business can help parliamentarians
> understand civil society’s priorities for reform and build a strong case in
> support of draft legislation. Just as importantly, citizen engagement can
> help build a greater depth of understanding among civil society
> organizations regarding the challenges facing parliaments and members. The
> hope is that this leads to a more mature and constructive discourse, rather
> than a combative relationship that does not succeed in advancing reform and
> consists primarily of attacks on parliamentary performance.
>
> Many innovations regarding citizen engagement are coming from newer
> democratic parliaments. Some have referred to his phenomenon as “democratic
> leapfrogging.” Just as newer market economies were able to skip landlines
> and ‘leapfrog’ straight to mobile telephone towers, newer democracies may
> have greater flexibility to experiment with democratic processes than do
> older, more tradition-bound democracies. For example, the Committee on
> Government Assurances in Ghana has experimented with taking public input
> through WhatsApp, among other channels. Many have also cited the success
> of Brazil’s Hacker Lab. Just as parliaments have historically provided
> facilities to help traditional media cover legislative business, the Hacker
> Lab provides a place (and parliamentary staff support) in the Chamber of
> Deputies where civic technologists, citizens and civil society can
> collaborate with deputies to solve problems. Brazil also developed an
> e-democracia platform, part of a global wave of more sophisticated and
> user-friendly online platforms for citizen comments to parliament. While
> these platforms are not a panacea, and while we need to make sure that they
> do not exclude voices from the debate who lack internet access or are less
> active online, they can be an additional complement to existing methods of
> engagement.
>
> E-petitions are another mechanism increasingly being used to provide
> citizens with the opportunity to engage more directly in the parliamentary
> process. ManaBalss, or MyVoice, in Latvia, is just one example. E-petitions
> need to be approached cautiously so as not to further undermine
> representative democracy or amplify irresponsible populism; however, there
> are constructive ways to use these mechanisms. Often, e-petition processes
> are structured so that a petition simply requires a response, rather than
> an action, from the parliament or parliamentary committee if it attracts a
> sufficient number of signatures. While some petitions will be rightfully
> rejected if they are not in the public interest, they can provide
> opportunities for elected members to identify issues where greater public
> dialogue, education or awareness may be helpful.
>
> Let me mention one example from President Obama’s “We the People”
> platform, which required the President to respond to any petition obtaining
> 100,000 signatures. Several issues were raised on the platform that had not
> been part of the mainstream political discourse, relating to cell phone
> contracts with consumers, for example. However, efforts were also made to
> subvert the platform; such as a comical petition for the US to build a
> Death Star, as in the movie Star Wars. One response could have been to
> simply shut down the platform because it was abused. The Obama
> administration instead replied with humor, explaining that the Death Star
> was a colossal waste of resources which was rightfully destroyed by rebel
> forces — as anyone familiar with the movie knows. The White House then
> pivoted to a discussion of what NASA is doing to advance scientific
> knowledge and space exploration. Based on the number of clicks, this
> unplanned campaign was one of the government’s most successful public
> education efforts on NASA space exploration.
>
> The list of ways to improve citizen engagement is long — from bringing
> more parliamentary hearings to regions outside of the capital that are
> heavily affected by a specific problem, to parliamentary open days, to
> school programs, to model parliament programs. They often do not require
> the extensive use of technology. In an era when so many parliamentary
> budgets are under pressure, engaging citizens via these initiatives can
> build a greater awareness of the need to invest more in democracy and
> democratic institutions.
>
>
> How to Share Experience on Parliamentary Openness
>
> Parliamentary openness is developing rapidly and there is an increasing
> amount of experimentation around what works and what does not. I hope that
> the Italian Senate can continue to play a role in sharing its experiences
> with others. The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multilateral
> organization of 75 countries, including Italy, which are committed to
> working with civil society to strengthen government openness and citizen
> engagement. Originally created as a platform for dialogue between
> governments and civil society, I am proud that my organization, the
> National Democratic Institute, has pushed for parliaments to have a formal
> role in the process. We need not only engage governments and civil society
> in these discussions, but also intermediary institutions of representative
> democracy, such as parliaments and political parties. At an OGP Steering
> Committee meeting on the margins of last year’s UN General Assembly, OGP
> adopted a policy on legislative engagement that, for the first time,
> creates a formal mechanism for parliaments to “co-create” openness
> commitments with civil society. A number of countries have already done so
> less formally, from Georgia, to Chile, to Costa Rica, to France and
> Ukraine. With more formal guidance and structure in place, we look forward
> to seeing this number expand.
>
> OGP also supports a Legislative Openness Working Group that seeks to share
> learning within the OGP community on open parliaments. As with any OGP
> Working Group, it is co-chaired by a government institution (in this case,
> the Bicameral Commission on Legislative Transparency of the Chilean
> Congress) and a civil society organization (in this case, NDI). I have been
> very proud to work with Senator Hernan Larraín and his co-chair in the
> Chamber of Deputies, Patricio Vallespin, in moving this agenda forward. The
> next meeting of the Working Group is scheduled to take place in Ukraine on
> May 19 and 20. We would very much welcome participation by the Italian
> legislature and by Italian civil society groups in that discussion. The
> Working Group will be formally launching a Toolkit on Legislative Openness
> at that event. The Toolkit is currently available in draft form in English.
> This year, the Working Group will also continue to build out a Legislative
> Openness Data Explorer, which contains data on how parliaments around the
> world are doing on issues of openness.
>
> * * * * * * *
>
> We live in a period of rapid social and technological change that provides
> us an historic opportunity to reinvigorate our democracies. It is an
> opportunity we cannot afford to waste. Success is all the more likely if we
> can collaborate in addressing our shared challenges – not only between
> parliaments and domestic civil society, but also across borders among
> democratic countries.
>
> Authoritarian governments have welcomed the disruptive nature of the era
> in which we live. It provides both an excuse to clamp down at home and, in
> some cases, an opportunity to exacerbate tensions in democracies abroad.
> However, throughout history, it is democratic systems that have shown the
> most resilience in the face of rapid change. While authoritarian
> governments are capable of short-term success, they ultimately become
> sclerotic and ossified, and tend to end in catastrophic reversal, often
> with great human cost. I suspect that, when we look back at this period of
> technological disruption, we will find that the same rule still continues
> to apply. However, it is incumbent upon democratic countries to do their
> utmost to take advantage of the possibilities afforded by the digital age
> to reinvigorate and strengthen our democratic institutions. NDI, and the
> OGP Legislative Openness Working Group, stand ready to assist in sharing
> experiences as parliaments around the world grapple with these issues.
>
> I would like to thank the Italian Senate again for giving me this
> opportunity to share a few perspectives on the challenges legislatures are
> facing globally with respect to parliamentary openness, as well as ways
> that we can collaborate to address them. NDI wishes the Senate every
> success with its Open Senate initiatives and look forward to helping share
> its experiences with other parliaments around the world.
>
>
>
>