ABOUT

With rates of trust in government at historic lows, the legitimacy of traditional representative models of lawmaking — often conducted by professional staff and politicians working behind closed doors and distorted by political party agendas–is called into question. New forms of public participation could help to improve both legitimacy and effectiveness by introducing more data and diverse viewpoints at each stage of the lawmaking process.

CrowdLaw is the practice of using technology to tap the intelligence and expertise of the public in order to improve the quality of lawmaking. Around the world, there are already over two dozen examples of local legislatures and national parliaments turning to the Internet to involve the public in legislative drafting and decision-making. These ambitious crowdlaw initiatives show that the public can, in many cases, go beyond contributing opinions and signing petitions online to playing a more substantive role, including: proposing legislation, drafting bills, monitoring implementation, and supplying missing data. Through such processes, the public becomes collaborators and co-creators in the legislative process to the end of improving the quality of legislative outcomes and the effectiveness of governing.

GovLab is supporting legislative bodies in investigating, designing, implementing, and testing crowdlaw initiatives. Our work includes:

• Studying and sharing learnings about CrowdLaw practices in use around the world and convening practitioners to share learnings.
• Synthesizing best practices for the design of CrowdLaw initiatives — including platforms, processes, and policies — through an on-going survey of over 25 public engagement initiatives.
• Cultivating a thriving network of now more than 90 CrowdLaw and public engagement experts and practitioners.
• Crafting a model legal framework to accelerate the integration of public input into the legislative process.
• Advising on the implementation of CrowdLaw practices.

Additional Resources:

• Twitter List: A curated twitter list of CrowdLaw practitioners and researchers from around the world compiled by the GovLab’s CrowdLaw team.

Table of Contents:

CrowdLaw: Online Public Participation in Lawmaking

1. Preface
2. Introduction | This section introduces CrowdLaw as a form of public engagement in lawmaking and provides a glimpse into how engagement efforts across the world are bringing the public into various stages of the legislative process. We also outline the goals of the report and provide a roadmap.
3. Ten recommendations for designing better CrowdLaw initiatives | In this section we summarize ten recommendations for the thoughtful design of CrowdLaw initiatives organized around: clarifying the demand for participation, increasing the supply of public participants and information, and experimenting with and improving on initiatives. The recommendations are relevant across all stages of the legislative process.
4. Framework for institutionalizing public engagement in lawmaking | This section offers a draft of provisions of a public engagement statute with an explanation and rationale for each. We also compare these provisions to what was contained in the Podemos 2016 original draft.
5. The political context in Spain and elsewhere | This section introduces Podemos and why this effort to institutionalize public engagement is taking place in Spain now, including a brief account of motivating regional and global events.
6. Why public engagement? Normative goals | This section explains the varied value propositions for public engagement and connects them to their origins in various strands of political theory.
7. 25 global citizen engagement case studies | This section summarizes findings from analyzing 25 examples of public engagement in lawmaking using an original taxonomy. An expanded taxonomy is discussed in the final section (Research Agenda).
8. Expanded recommendations | Here we expand upon earlier recommendations by providing case studies that contributed to each recommendation. We have endeavored to summarize lessons learned and to translate those insights into design principles.
9. An agenda for research and experimentation | Finally, we highlight valuable directions for further research and experimentation in CrowdLaw.
10. Acknowledgements