by CKR
It seems to me that there are a great many things we can learn from this project. I think those things are different for different audiences, although they overlap considerably.
I think our blog-tank was an immense success. Many thanks to all who participated and all who followed its progress.
For The Bloggers™:
Damn, we’re good. But I think this is only a start on how to combine our forces to come up with policy and other sorts of recommendations. I would have liked more participation, but the numbers were fine for a first time. Any more would have made a lot more work for me.
I would have liked more cross-talk between blogs after I posted the first-round summary. But perhaps we had already achieved some significant agreement by then. For subjects more difficult of consensus, a couple of intermediate rounds might be useful. That will require staying power and commitment to the discussion. I think we had this, but it wasn’t really tested.
We had two outlier posts. One presented opinions that were far from the consensus, and the other presented material that was valuable background, but not of immediate use. It is very difficult to incorporate too large a range of opinions in early rounds of a blog-tank. However, a consensus may provide a springboard for further discussion with those with different opinions by finding common ground, if possible. I’ll ask our outlier if he finds any common ground in the consensus document.
I should have said more about the background-outlier, which opens up a wide range of issues that feed into nuclear weapons policy, although indirectly. I happen to be of the opinion that undercurrents like the blogger identifies in his Part III are important, but they are hard to take account of in our usual political discourse.
For the Policy-Makers
Citizen support for policies is extremely important. Bloggers may not be entirely typical citizens; they are more willing to make their ideas public, which includes both articulateness and risk-taking. They are probably more opinionated. These three traits, along with the availability of the internet, may make them opinion-leaders. I’m assuming they’re reasonably typical of the public.
Nuclear weapons policy has been bumping along without any particularly successful contributions from the policy community. It can be argued that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev were able to develop their arms-control agreements, almost as far as nuclear abolition, because of the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s. Policy needs public support.
I included bloggers from moderately hawkish to fairly dovish, from center-left to center-right. We came up with a general statement, rather than detailed recommendations on treaty provisions, although there were a couple of treaty-specific recommendations, like ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
This is probably the best role for public participation. The specialists (you!) can come up with detailed prescriptions for how to make the policy happen.
We also came up with a couple of ideas I haven’t seen anywhere else. They may or may not pan out, but we’d like to see you develop them further. And maybe we will too.
For the Presidential Candidates:
This is how you develop consensus: get people with a range of viewpoints together (physically or electronically) and encourage them to talk to each other. Identify points of common interest and divergence. Let them work it out. Then reach out to a wider range of viewpoints.
It’s important for you to tell us where you stand, but so far, none of you have said very much about nuclear weapons and their proliferation. And you represent the people, so you should solicit their opinions You are using the internet to broadcast your message and to bring in contributions, but not opinion.
We offer the consensus statement to you for your adoption. We believe it represents a wide swath of public opinion. We also believe it will work for Republicans or Democrats. No charge for our advice, but we’d like to be acknowledged.
For the Arms Control Community:
There is an enormous hiatus in public policy, although, by and large, the public dislike nuclear weapons and would be happy to see them gone. But they don’t see a way to that end.
This project is a new model for engaging the public. They don’t have to know all the treaties, and they don’t have to get every detail right. They have a pretty good idea of the big picture, though.
And the more the public is engaged, the more likely that those treaties will come into effect!
For the MSM:
Contrary to the latest screed I’ve seen against The Bloggers™, we’ve had a thoughtful and respectful discussion and produced a policy statement. Certainly it includes opinion, just as do columnists and foreign policy experts in what they write. But we respectfully suggest that you take a harder look at what’s out here and the enormous possibilities, far beyond the internet add-ons at so many newspaper sites. It takes really listening to the public. We recognize that’s hard after you’ve worked in a medium that is largely one-way, but we recommend considering what we’ve done here.
For All:
As one of our participants said, “brainpower is lying in the streets for the taking.” Or in the intertubes.