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3 worlds far away so close

1. Academia

2. Webdeveloppers & hacktivists

3. Parliaments

our cognition of what a legislature is depends of the available instruments of communication

Séance du parlement de Bourgogne, sous la présidence de Charles le Téméraire vers 1470

Recueil de Gaignières. Maisons étrangères, fol. 38v - 39(d'après un original du XVe siècle)

Dessin, XVIIe siècleBNF, Estampes et photographie, fonds Gaignières 1325, RES OB-10-FOL

parliamentary monitoring: nosdeputes.fr

parliamentary monitoringopenpolis.it

roll-call analysis:votewatch.eu

law tracking: lafabriquedelaloi.fr

2 questions

1. Are ICT (information and communications technologies) a chance for legislatures?

2. What is the goodness of fit between legislatures & ICT?

1. ICT are challenging legislatures

• A threat for the law-making function

• A chance for the democratic control by citizens

A threat for the law-making function

• Parliaments are both judges & juries

• The inefficiency of legislation– Sovereignty– Stability

A chance for the democratic control by the citizens

• The last step of the de-monopolization process

• An opportunity to concretize the fiction of the Tribunal of public opinion

• … a risk of focussing too much on surgeries activities

I

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

1990 2000 2010

France Belgium Finland United Kingdom

Norway European Parliament Spain Italy

number of written questions in West European legislatures (100 = 1990)

2. Which goodness of fits between ICT and parliaments?

Some obvious differences on the conception of territories (bounded or not) and of power (vertical/centralized vs. networks)

But…

The fitness between ICT & legislatures

• Transparency & the great number of data• The logic of packets

“Imagine a sausage cut into pieces that are sent here and there. And at the end, the

sausage arrives safe and sound” Albertine Meunier

• A creative process of aggregation / disaggregation of reality

The discrepancy between ICT & legislatures

Parliaments are:

1. a group of different guys that:

2. stay physically in the same place,

3. talk,

4. take decision after talking,

5. without using physical violence

-> a pre-modern process of moderation of power through pluralism & speech that can not really be told by ICT