Social Innovation, Democracy and Makerspaces

Economy, Industry, Innovation and Technical Democracy

This paper acknowledges that ethical questions raised by ICT are so fundamental that they include the question of the anthropological changes caused by communications tools. It then looks at the motivation of large companies to discharge their social responsibilities. The paper also argues that Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) are no longer the main decision makers for fundamental strategic corp...

Democracy, innovation, and the information society

We are now rethinking the idea of electronic democracy. Today nobody is looking at e-democracy from the perspective of a living room, push button, instant referenda democracy, hi the electronic age it is more and more evident that we are facing a complex evolution of the functioning of political systems that democracy is becoming not direct, but continuous; that we can look at an extreme democr...

Understanding Social Democracy

Participatory democracy in social movements

Participatory democracy refers to an organizational form in which decision making is decentralized, nonhierarchical, and consensus oriented. It can be contrasted with bureaucracy, in which decision making is centralized, hierarchical, and based on a formal division of labor, as well as with majority vote. Participatory democratic organizations have been a prominent feature of many progressive m...

Continuous Institutional Innovation and the Pragmatic Conception of Democracy

In every society in many arenas, the reality of collective decision making falls far short of the democratic ideal in countless ways. These shortfalls include disenfranchisement, unequal influence operating through formal and informal mechanisms, political apathy and alienation, misinformation, and misperception. Part of the solutions to these challenges lies in a sound democratic constitution....