Books

Civic Tech in the Global South is comprised of one study and three field evaluations of civic tech initiatives in developing countries. The study reviews evidence on the use of 23 digital platforms designed to amplify citizen voices to improve service delivery, highlighting citizen uptake and the degree of responsiveness by public service providers. The initiatives are an SMS-based polling platform run by UNICEF in Uganda, a complaints-management system run by the water sector in Kenya, and an internet-based participatory budgeting program in Brazil. Based on these experiences, the authors examine: i) the extent to which technologies have promoted inclusiveness, ii) the effect of these initiatives on public service delivery, and iii) the extent to which these effects can be attributed to technology.

Civic tech is an emerging field. Its meaning is still being forged as practitioners discover better ways to use tech for civic purposes: to empower their communities, change how government works, or solve a social problem. In some cases, civic apps—that is, tools or platforms that are designed primarily for one of these civic purposes—are the key to change. But general-purpose tech platforms and services can also be used to achieve civic goals. This book takes a close look at both, including up-to-date case studies of SeeClickFix, Front Porch Forum, NextDoor, NationBuilder, Public Lab, Brigade and Facebook; in-depth reports on new kinds of distributed organizing efforts like Hollaback! and the 2014 People’s Climate March; and critiques of ChangeByUs and Waze. Whether you are a technologist, an organizer, an activist, or just a citizen who wants to make the world a better place, as you read this book, you will discover new ways of making our new tools work for us, our communities, and our society. Featuring contributions by Rebecca Chao, Denise Cheng, Allison Fine, Alexander B. Howard, Matt Leighninger, Jessica McKenzie, Eilís O’Neill, Sam Roudman, and Micah L. Sifry.

Now that communication can be as quick as thought, why hasn’t our ability to organize politically—to establish gains and beyond that, to maintain them—kept pace? The web has given us both capacity and speed: but progressive change seems to be something perpetually in the air, rarely manifesting, even more rarely staying with us. Micah L. Sifry, a longtime analyst of democracy and its role on the net, examines what he calls “The Big Disconnect.” In his usual pithy, to-the-point style, he explores why data-driven politics and our digital overlords have failed or misled us, and how they can be made to serve us instead, in a real balance between citizens and state, independent of corporations. The web and social media have enabled an explosive increase in participation in the public arena—but not much else has changed. For the next step beyond connectivity, writes Sifry, “we need a real digital public square, not one hosted by Facebook, shaped by Google and snooped on by the National Security Agency. If we don’t build one, then any notion of democracy as ‘rule by the people’ will no longer be meaningful. We will be a nation of Big Data, by Big Email, for the powers that be.”

The United States government is diligent—some might say to the point of obsession—in defending its borders against invaders. Now we are told a small, international band of renegades armed with nothing more than laptops presents the greatest threat to the U.S. regime since the close of the Cold War. WikiLeaks’ release of a massive trove of secret official documents has riled politicians from across the spectrum. Even noted free-speech advocate Floyd Abrams blames WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for the certain defeat of federal shield-law legislation protecting journalists. Hyperbole, hysteria? Certainly. Welcome to the Age of Transparency. But political analyst and writer Micah Sifry argues that WikiLeaks is not the whole story: It is a symptom, an indicator of an ongoing generational and philosophical struggle between older, closed systems, and the new open culture of the Internet. Despite Assange’s arrest, the publication of secret documents continues. As Sifry shows, this is part of a larger movement for greater governmental and corporate transparency: “When you combine connectivity with transparency—the ability for more people to see, share and shape what is going on around them—the result is a huge increase in social energy, which is being channeled in all kinds of directions.”

When the Framers met in Philadelphia in 1787, they bravely conjured a new form of self-government. But they couldn’t have imagined a mass society with instantaneous, many-to-many communications or many of the other innovations of modernity. So, replacing that quill pen with a mouse, imagine that you have to power to redesign American democracy for the Internet Age. What would you do? This anthology offers forty-four essays, some large and sweeping, others more specific, that respond to this challenge. They are infused with the hopes of reenergizing, reorganizing, and reorienting our government for the Internet Age.

“Get rich quick! Read this book and learn how to invest in politicians for fun and profit! Just don’t leave this book where any regular voters can read it!” –Arianna Huffington, author of Pigs at the Trough Every day corporations and other wealthy special interests pump another $2 million into the coffers of our elected officials in Washington and their party committees. For their money they get an estimated $160 billion a year in tax breaks, subsidies, and other sweet deals. That’s $160 billion lifted from taxpayers’ pockets–or about $1,500 per taxpayer per year! But that’s not the worst of it. Their money also buys them the opportunity to shape public policy to suit their bottom lines. And the cost we pay for that is much dearer. Blending satirical bite with mountains of eye-opening research, this rollicking call to arms breaks the issue into manageable, kitchen-table topics and makes it accessible with graphs, tables, sidebars, quizzes, and fascinating factoids. “Sifry and Watzman lay it all out with no bark on it in this devastatingly straight-forward book–the overt corruption of our country through what we politely call ‘the campaign finance system.’ Legalized bribery is the root of our political rot and few people know more about how to fix it and have done more to fix it than the good folks at Public Campaign.” –Molly Ivins, author of Bushwhacked “Sifry and Watzman are two of the most astute observers of political influence in this country. Their important new book names names and cuts through the bull about the issues that affect our daily lives, in a wonderfully amusing but drop-dead accurate way!” –Charles Lewis, author of The Buying of the President 2004

More Americans now identify as political independents than as either Democrats or Republicans. Tired of the two-party gridlock, the pandering, and the lack of vision, they’ve turned in increasing numbers to independent and third-party candidates. In 1998, for the first time in decades, a third-party candidate who was not a refugee from one of the two major parties, Jesse Ventura, won election to state-wide office, as the governor of Minnesota. In 2000, the public was riveted by the Reform Party’s implosion over Patrick Buchanan’s presidential candidacy and by Ralph Nader’s Green Party run, which infuriated many Democrats but energized hundreds of thousands of disaffected voters in stadium-sized super-rallies.What are the prospects for new third-party efforts? Combining the close-in, personal reporting and learned analysis one can only get by covering this beat for years, Micah L. Sifry’s. Spoiling for a Fight exposes both the unfair obstacles and the viable opportunities facing today’s leading independent parties. Third-party candidates continue be denied a fighting chance by discriminatory ballot access, unequal campaign financing, winner-take-all races, and derisive media coverage. Yet, after years of grassroots organizing, third parties are making major inroads. At the local level, efforts like Chicago’s New Party and New York’s Working Families Party have upset urban political machines while gaining positions on county councils and school boards. Third-party activists are true believers in democracy, and if America’s closed two-party system is ever to be reformed, it will be thanks to their efforts.

Despite the torrent of coverage devoted to war with Iraq, woefully little attention has been paid to the history of the region, the policies that led to the conflict, and the daunting challenges that will confront America and the Middle East once the immediate crisis has ended. In this collection, Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, coeditors of the acclaimed Gulf War Reader, have assembled essays and documents that present an eminently readable, up-to-the-moment guide — from every imaginable perspective — to the continuing crisis in the Gulf and Middle East. Here, in analysis and commentary from some of the world’s leading writers and opinion makers — and in the words of the key participants themselves — is the engrossing saga of how oil economics, power politics, dreams of empire, nationalist yearnings, and religious fanaticism — not to mention naked aggression, betrayal, and tragic miscalculation — have conspired to bring us to the fateful collision of the West and the Arab world over Iraq. Contributors include: Fouad Ajami George W. Bush Richard Butler John le Carré Noam Chomsky Ann Coulter Thomas Friedman Al Gore Seymour Hersh Christopher Hitchens Arianna Huffington Saddam Hussein Terry Jones Robert Kagan Charles Krauthammer William Kristol Nicholas Lemann Kanan Makiya Kevin Phillips Kenneth Pollack Colin Powell Condoleezza Rice Arundhati Roy Edward Said William Safire Jonathan Schell Susan Sontag George Will

Draws on official government documents, political commentaries, speeches, and other writings to examine events leading up to the Persian Gulf War, the battle to free Kuwait, and the impact of the war on the Middle East and on world politics