President Obama, Public Participation, and an Agenda for Research and Experimentation THOMAS A. BRYER* Abstract The Obama Administration has offered citizens and onlookers from other nations a host of innovative efforts to make the United States federal government more open, participatory, and collaborative. In this issue of the International Journal of Public Participation, a set of invited authors consider the varying levels of success of this work demonstrated thus far and raise important research and practical questions for the Administration and others who might learn from the Administration s experiences. In this introduction, some of these questions are reviewed and notable practices are summarized. Ultimately, it is concluded that, though the Administration is still young, there is much to learn, question, and anticipate as the role of citizens in national level governance evolves. Keywords: Obama, public participation, research agenda * University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, tbryer@mail.ucf.edu Copyright 2010 The International Association for Public Participation. All rights reserved. The International Journal of Public Participation Volume 4 Number 1 January 2010
PRESIDENT OBAMA, PUBLIC PARTICIPATION, AND AN AGENDA FOR RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION 6 Public participation. Citizen empowerment. Transparency and openness in government. These have been hallmarks of the young Obama Administration. On the President s first full day in office (January 21, 2009), he signed a Presidential Memorandum directed to the heads of the various federal departments and agencies. 1 In it, he stated his commitment to and expectation for transparency, public engagement, and collaboration across agencies and organizations. On December 9, 2009, Office of Management and Budget Director, Peter Orszag signed a memorandum to department and agency heads specifying the actions that needed to be taken to promote the values identified in the President s memorandum. 2 Summarizing the values, Orszag noted: The three principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration form the cornerstone of an open government. Transparency promotes accountability by providing the public with information about what the Government is doing. Participation allows members of the public to contribute ideas and expertise so that their government can make policies with the benefit of information that is widely dispersed in society. Collaboration improves the effectiveness of Government by encouraging partnerships and cooperation within the Federal Government, across levels of government, and between the Government and private institutions (p. 1). The specific actions outlined by Orszag consisted of: (1) Publish government information online, (2) Improve the quality of government information, (3) Create and Institutionalize a Culture of Open Government, and (4) Create an Enabling Policy Framework for Open Government. The centerpiece of the action steps is for each department and agency to prepare and publish an open government plan that details how they are meeting and will continue to meet these open government objectives. Besides these memoranda, the Administration has experimented with social and Internet technologies to engage citizens with the White House, with Congress, or with one another. For instance, the Administration has twice utilized a process of co-production of citizen participation (Bryer, 2010). In other words, the Administration has asked volunteer citizens to convene community forums at a time and place of their choosing. Volunteer conveners received discussion questions but were otherwise left on their own with the only request being that they 1 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/transparency_and_open_government 2 http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-06.pdf
7 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION report on the discussions to the Administration. In December 2008, during the transition from the Bush to Obama Administration, citizens were asked to convene health care community forums. More than 3200 such forums were convened around the country, and the Department of Health and Human Services issues a report several months later providing a thorough analysis of the information they received. (A video of the author discussing these forums is available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wnf6fs95ze). This process was repeated in December 2009, when the Administration asked citizens to convene community forums on the issue of jobs creation. In addition to these social technologies, the Administration has utilized Internet media and technology in various ways. Early in the Administration s tenure, officials facilitated an electronic town hall meeting (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/openforquestions). Citizens were invited to send questions electronically that they wanted President Obama to answer during the town hall. Empowering citizens to decide which questions should be answered in the limited time of the town hall meeting, the President agreed to answer the questions receiving the most votes by citizens on an interactive website. More than 100,000 questions were submitted and 1.5 million votes cast. The President responded, to one degree or another, as promised, even to a politically awkward question about legalizing marijuana as a possible economic stimulus. A similar technology-facilitated citizen voting process was used to compile the Citizen s Briefing Book (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/meet-the-office-of-public-engagement-and-the- Citizens-Briefing-Book). There are other examples some of which are written about in the papers assembled in this issue. Despite the impressive experimentation and innovation observed in these examples, there remain important questions both theoretical and practical that need to be considered. Some of these questions are addressed in this issue but others are not. Indeed, it may be premature to answer some of these questions, at least in any definitive sense. The Administration is still young; data are still emerging. Questions below are some of those that may need to be considered, as scholars, practitioners, and citizens seek public participation processes and institutions that work. First, do government officials have the skills needed to meaningfully and successfully engage citizens? In this regard, do government officials have online and offline facilitation skills to ensure no citizen or group of citizens dominate discussion or artificially bias discourse? Do
PRESIDENT OBAMA, PUBLIC PARTICIPATION, AND AN AGENDA FOR RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION 8 officials have the qualitative analysis skills to read and interpret the volumes of text data received through blogs, discussion forms, chat rooms, and other social media utilized by the White House? The qualitative analysis of the community health care forums convened in 2009 by citizens around the country was well done and an exemplary demonstration of how to do qualitative analysis well. However, by the time the report was released, the health care debate was well underway, and it is not clear how (or whether) the citizen feedback was used to inform debate and policy development. If there is a commitment to use these media and solicit citizen feedback, there may also need to be a commitment to slow down the policy process and allow citizen voices to be meaningfully interpreted and integrated into debate. Second, and building on the last comment, what is the commitment of the government to use citizen generated feedback? Are citizens serving only in advisory roles, rather than in more powerful or even authoritative roles? If so, do citizens know this? Do citizen expectations regarding their participation align with the intentions of government officials? Third, are citizen ideas filtered for political relevancy and expediency? If so, what does such filtering communicate to citizens who are participating according the rules established by the Administration? For example, President Obama answered the question on the legalization of marijuana in the electronic town hall meeting referenced above with a succinct: No. This was a stark contrast to his detailed responses to other questions asked. Fourth, is it possible that citizens will be kept blogging with each other, thus potentially missing opportunities to exert real influence? Consider again the numbers of questions submitted to the electronic town hall meeting process more than 100,000 questions asked and 1.5 million votes cast for the most popular questions. Examining the Administration s Facebook fan page reveals similar large numbers of citizens engaged with each other in communication. If nothing is being done with most of the feedback received via these forums, what is the value to the citizen? This is not a rhetorical question but an empirical one. If no value is found, what are the implications? Sixth, how can citizens be facilitated without controlling or co-opting them? The Obama campaign apparatus has transformed into Organizing for America, which operates as a means to push supporters into action in support of the President s agenda. It may be that this activity stands in contrast to the requests for citizen feedback through the co-production of community
9 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION forums on health care and jobs creation. How can this potential dissonance be resolved and cooptation be avoided in favor of empowerment? Last, what institutional reforms can be put in place to prevent the build-up and bursting a democracy bubble? The Administration is intent on re-creating the country s economic and financial landscape to prevent a bubble from re-emerging, such as a housing sector bubble, technology bubble, health care bubble, et cetera. They (perhaps correctly) perceive that such bubbles, though providing short-term gains and pleasure, are, in the long-term damaging in that they are not sustainable and may leave individuals and communities worse off than they were before the bubble emerging. If citizens are being tempted with some degree of empowerment through participatory means and are developing trust with government offices where no such trust existed before, is it possible that this bubble of participatory good will can burst? Perhaps it might burst if citizens perceive that they are not truly empowered or influential in shaping decisions; it might burst when the Obama Administration leaves office and the next Administration drops all efforts to engage the citizenry through participatory means. What can be done today to build an indestructible bubble or to manage the growth of the bubble so it is sustainable? These are only some of the questions we might ask. The authors in this issue pose a set of other questions. Ren and Meister ask what lessons can be learned by European nations from the examples set by the Obama Administration and vice versa. In their exploration, they examine the use of social media, fundraising strategies, and efforts at institutionalization of participatory process. Boys also examines the use of social media, as well as other campaign tactics, used by candidate Obama to engage the youngest voting population Millennials. Specifically, Boys asks: What caused the youth of America to become politically engaged in unprecedented numbers during the 2008 election? The author addresses this question through analysis of campaign-generated emails to supporters. Konieczka confronts the question of just how open and participatory the Administration has been. In his analysis of online dialogue associated with the Open Government Dialogue process in summer 2009, Konieczka assesses the Administration s success in terms of the Core Values of Public Participation expressed by the International Association of Public Participation. His conclusion suggests the Administration has work to do to achieve optimal and meaningful participatory processes. Hilgers and Ihl reflect on the Obama experience thus far and offer a
PRESIDENT OBAMA, PUBLIC PARTICIPATION, AND AN AGENDA FOR RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION 10 process to enhance participatory practice, something they call citizensourcing. They envision an adaptation of open innovation to fit within the confines of the public sector, focusing on creative use of technology and innovative collaboration between citizens and public administration. Also seeking improvement in participatory practice, Snyder, in a practitioner styled article, considers how so-called fake participation can be minimized and genuine empowerment of citizens in participatory processes encouraged. Overall, the set of articles contained within this issue suggest a thoughtful approach to public participation at national levels of government both in the United States with the Obama Administration and in other countries. Two sets of authors write from a non-united States perspective, providing much needed insight and cultural awareness. Though the Obama Administration is still young, as articles in this issue observe, it is a good time to begin framing questions and conducting analysis on the efficacy and purpose of public participation experienced so far. Citizens are witness to significant innovation; it is right and proper to know whether such innovation is serving a public good or if it is falling short in the desire to provide more open, participatory, and collaborative governance. Thomas A. Bryer is an assistant professor of public administration in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Central Florida. His research interests include civic engagement, collaborative public management, and bureaucratic responsiveness.
11 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION References Bryer, T. A. (2010). Living democracy in theory and practice: Getting dirty in a local government incorporation process. Public Administration and Management, 15(1). Obama, B. H. (2009). Transparency and open government [Memorandum]. The White House. Orszag, P. R. (2009). Open government directive. [Memorandum]. Executive Office of the President, Washington, DC. M-10-06.