March 27th, 2015 -- The Organization of American States (OAS) today hosted its 66th Policy Roundtable, on the issue “Innovating for Democracy: Citizen Participation in the Digital Era,” at its headquarters in Washington DC.
The Director of the Department for Effective Public Management of the OAS, María Fernanda Trigo, explained in the opening, that the event takes place in the context of the first edition of the first edition of the OAS Fellowship on Open Government in the Americas, which brought together 24 young leaders from 16 countries of the Americas in the U.S. cities of Osprey Point, Maryland and Washington, DC, “to debate ideas, exchange experiences and work on projects designed to increase governmental transparency, participation and citizen collaboration.”
The Secretary for Political Affairs of the OAS, Kevin Casas-Zamora, moderated a discussion panel made up of the Executive Director of the Intelligent Citizen Foundation, Pablo Collada Chávez; the President of the Inter-American Dialogue, Michael Shifter; and Matt Lira, Spring Fellow at Harvard University´s Institute of Politics and Republican Party strategist.
In his words of introduction, Casas-Zamora highlighted that the event represents “a wonderful opportunity to discuss one of the truly vexing issues of our time which is the ways in which information and communication technologies are affecting democracy, and particularly in the Americas.” “While it is clear that information and communication technologies are opening up new ways for social and citizen engagement,” said Casas-Zamora, “it is also very clear that they are taxing traditional representative institutions in myriad ways.”
For his part, the Executive Director of the Intelligent Citizen Foundation said that “what needs to be restructured, rebuilt is the way that democracies interact with each other, or interact as a system that needs to be more representative and needs better ways and tools for interaction.” For civil society organizations, said Collada, the capacity and potential of interacting with more people has dramatically changed with new information and communication technologies. But the effect is not the same for everyone, he said, and pointed to two fundamental divisions in the reigon: between those who have access to technology and those who do not; and between those who use technology for public issues and those who do not.
Matt Lira, in his remarks, said “American democratic institutions are just as challenged with these issues as any other democracies around the world. It’s a fundamental shift in how we are communicating, how we are organizing, and how society organizes itself.” In addition, the U.S. political strategist expressed his conviction that “with this kind of change progress is inevitable, because it is what the public expects. We are in an era of participation of interactivity, immediacy, openness, and the politicians who don´t realize that will no longer be leaders. And that is ultimately the optimistic message for those who believe that this is the way that government should function,” concluded Lira.
For his part, the President of the Inter-American Dialogue, Michael Shifter, said that, although technologies are changing the way in which citizens express their demands and complaints, traditional structures remain strong. “We have this coexistence of this burgeoning social media on one hand, but we still have these institutions and parties that are there. They may not be very effective, they may not enjoy enough credibility there may be a lot of distrust, but they can be activated or mobilized for political ends,” said Shifter, who added that “Political machinery may be fading a little bit, but it is still there.” As an example, he mentioned the presidential election in Colombia in 2010 between Juan Manuel Santos and Antanas Mockus, who maintained a strong position in social media before begin defeated by a wide margin.
The Roundtable also included a question and answer session with the public. Before the event, several of the participants in the OAS Fellowship on Open Government in the Americas were received in the office of the Chief of Staff of the Secretary General, Hugo De Zela.
A gallery of photos of the event is available here.
The B-Roll of the event is available here.
For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.
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