[liberationtech] something happened in Italy...

[Giuseppe A. Veltri]

Dear all,
Yesterday, something very interesting happened in Italy. A web-based
movement led by the ex-comedian Beppe Grillo (http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/)
had a fantastic results in many important cities in a first round of
administrative elections. Using massively the web to coordinate a number of
electoral candidates across Italy the gained up to 10% of votes in an
already ultra-saturated political market (Italy's famously
fragmented political spectrum). Interesting enough, a major point of their
campaign was to elect people to city councils to act as 'terminals' to
upload online all the important documents and decisions of a city government
that usually go undetected but have an impact on the life of citizens.
Because of their excellent results they will be able to do so and it will be
the first large-scale and web-based act of political transparency.

I leave aside any consideration about the political agenda of this movement
(called 'Movimento 5 Stelle', 5 stars movement) but I think it is very
interesting how they are trying to apply social network ideas to the
pre-existing political structure.

All best,

G


-----------------------------------------
Giuseppe A. Veltri
personal email ga.veltri at gmail.com
work email Giuseppe.Veltri at ec.europa.eu
web http://psicosociocult.blogspot.com/
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