For some time, I've been thinking about using Pledgebank to try and encourage political activism and lobbying. For those who don't know, Pledgebank is an attempt at solving the collective action problem - you can post a pledge saying "I will do X if Y other people do it too". There's no enforcement, of course - you just have to take people at their word - but at the minimum it allows people to signal a desire for action and possibly actually do something small.
So, here's my first experiment: a pledge that I will write to 5 MPs urging them to vote against the Marriage (Gender Clarification) Amendment Bill - but only if 5 other people will too.
You can sign up here.
And if you have any ideas on who to lobby and how, then feel free to share them in the comments.
3 comments:
I'm a krazy blogger from ... ???I'm "turned right" & looked where I ended up - leaving you a comment !!! So next time I'll turn left and you won't get one (hehe).
Posted by Kelvin : 11/11/2005 09:50:00 PM
Pledgebank has certainly had some successes, one of which includes this one: http://www.pledgebank.com/rights which is not yet closed, but has already resulted in the creation of the group it intends to support:
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/
Posted by Andrew : 11/12/2005 03:03:00 AM
Thanks for the link. I find this particularly interesting because a friend of mine, Ken O'Keefe, is using this approach with regard to P10K: http://www.p10k.net/ (a kind of people's peace keeping force to go to Israel/Palestine). Not until 10 000 people have signed up with the action take place.
Posted by Anonymous : 11/14/2005 11:56:00 AM
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