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For the first time in the history of modern democracy, new communication technologies are on the brink of emancipating citizens from powerful paternalistic states and established party organizations.  In the future people will not see their influence limited to elections every four to five years; rather, citizens will exercise permanent influence through constant suggestions, ideas, and contributions, all organized over the internet.  

Using these technologies, new actors will break into the system that has always been reserved for insiders. Transparency and innovation will spread. Politicians will have to be directly engaged in addressing the concerns of their constituents; those who do not will lose support, not only among voters but also among established media outlets. Indirect rankings of politicians have already appeared, in Germany on websites such as politikerwatch.de and abgeordnetenwatch.de, and those who reliably deliver solutions to their constituents' problems have come out on top.

The model of an independently organized civil society has been particularly important in rising and developing countries where freedom of speech and of the press is weak or repressed. Here, large numbers of citizens, activists, non-profits, and aid organizations use Web 2.0 technologies to exchange ideas, organize campaigns, and mobilize people. A fascinating example of this grassroots democracy was the February 2008 protests against the Columbian Marxist rebel group simultaneously organized in 160 cities around the world by the Facebook group "One million voices against the FARC." Further examples include Hossein Mussavi's campaign and the subsequent demonstrations in Iran, both substantially organized electronically, and the navigable "map of political violence" on Zimbabwe's Sokwanele.com, where users can report and document abuse and election fraud carried out by Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF.

Web 2.0 can also help established democracies generate policy solutions from the collective intelligence of informed citizens. Previously deterred by the classical political party structure, educated politically-concerned citizens will now have much better access to and a stronger involvement in the political process. The creative potential of the "wisdom of the masses" has long been recognized by companies such as Dell, IBM, and Starbucks. The success of community features and opportunities to offer suggestions on company websites was striking: Starbucks received over ten thousand responses, among them elaborate suggestions for technical innovation. The gains for the companies were enormous, as they received valuable input that helped them strengthen their brand and stay competitive, for free. The customers functioned like a large group of external creative consultants who donated their labor-intensive recommendations.

This could also work for domestic politics. However, the successful implementation of such a bottom-up initiative requires more than a webmaster and a pretty homepage. It will require a talent for political communication and agenda setting, a professionally organized network and database, first-class marketing, an intuitive sense of the target group, and last but not least a solid financial backing. When these preconditions are filled, technologies such as theme-specific web communities, Wikis, and videoconferencing can be used to collect the ideas and arguments of an intelligent and well-informed citizenry. The information must then be evaluated and summarized into precise, readable policy recommendations, ideally enriched with some expert knowledge. Eventually, this strategy could also be used to collect ideas from people on the ground in crisis regions.

Web 2.0 will eventually mean a civil society actively engaged in domestic affairs and policy solutions that are more creative and more popular.  

Dr. Johannes Bohnen and Jan-Friedrich Kallmorgen run the Berlin-based public affairs consulting firm Bohnen Kallmorgen & Partner. In 2004, they founded the think tank Atlantic Initiative. The organization's most important project is the world's first online foreign policy think tank, atlantic-community.org.

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