The online democracy project attempts to combine theoretical research on political institutions with the design and implementation of software enabling groups to govern themselves online. Version 1.0 of the software is currently undergoing testing. The software permits groups to use a wide variety of online communication tools-- email, news groups, message boards, instant messaging and chat rooms-- within an integrated framework for purposes of group decision making. The software also includes voting and proposing mechanisms that allow users to structure their own formal elections and legislative processes entirely online. During the next year the software will be used as an integral part of an undergraduate class entitled Online Democracy, for student exercises in MBA classes, for experiments on political institutions and for actual online student groups at Northwestern. The project is a collaboration between Daniel Diermeier and Tim Feddersen of Kellogg's MEDS department, and Northwestern's Academic Technology Group.  Related Publications

For further information please contact Tim Feddersen.