Spotlight: Translating online energy into institutional power in Brazil
/Spotlight: Translating online energy into institutional power in Brazil
Centuries-old political institutions and new internet platforms don't always fit together seamlessly. To help bridge this gap, in 2013 Brazil's Câmara dos Deputados created an innovation team, LAB Hacker. The project managed to fuse online participation with a democratic institution founded in 1826.
They enlisted 200 of parliament's legislative advisors. These advisors helped ensure that citizens' digital participation fed into the parliament's legislative mechanics. For example, a rapporteur would determine if citizens' digitally delivered input was successfully incorporated into a bill's final text. Although not direct democracy, these intermediaries helped transfer online public engagement to offline institutions.