iSolon.org is a policy institute committed to
exploring and advancing opportunities for democratic reform brought
about by new information technologies. It focuses on the
most difficult areas of democratic reform─where elected officials have a
conflict of interest in bringing about reforms that might reduce their
own power.
New from iSolon.org
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October 31, 2011
The Case of the Missing White House Petitions
J.H. Snider's Huffington Post article on the frustrations citizens experience using the White House's new We The People petition website. Daily Candy featured two quotes from the article.
October 31, 2011
White House responds to marijuana and God petitions
NextGov
quotes from J.H. Snider's October 20, 2011 article,
What Is the Democratic Function of the White House's We The People
Petition Website?
October 27, 2011
Whither Journalistic Ethics? Why Politico has fallen short in its coverage of spectrum issues
J.H. Snider's Huffington Post article on the material
but undisclosed conflicts of interest Politico has in covering
spectrum policy issues.
October 24, 2011
The Broadcast Industry's Free TV Scam Redux: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me
J.H. Snider's Huffington Post article on the newly announed Free TV and Broadband Coalition.
October 20, 2011
What Is the Democratic Function of the White House's We The People Petition Website?
J.H. Snider's Huffington Post article critiquing the October 18, 2011 front page article in the Wall Street Journal, which is bereft of understanding the democratic purposes of a petition website. America Speaks reposted it on its blog Campaign for a Stronger Democracy commented on it. .
October 17, 2011
Could Federal Government Privacy Policy Kill Online News?
J.H. Snider's Huffington Post article discussing an underappreciated linkage between privacy policy and media policy.
October 11, 2011
The White House's New We the People Petition Website
J.H. Snider's Huffington Post article critiquing the White House's new website facilitating the public's First Amendment right to petition its government. The Wall Street Journal reposted it on its blog, and a week later ran a similar story on its front page.
October 5, 2011
Soaking the Rich in Obama’s Jobs Plan? Its multi-billion dollar spectrum giveaway undercuts the president's populist message
J.H. Snider's article, published in the Huffington Post and reposted on the Wall Street Journal's blog, criticizes the tacit spectrum giveaway contained in the American Jobs Act of 2011. TR Daily reports on the article.
September 6, 2011
A proposal to modernize public meeting spaces across Federal agencies
The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation publishes J.H. Snider's letter to senior White House officials regarding the future design of public meeting spaces at Federal agencies.
August 30, 2011
Maryland's Congressional Redistricting: Let's Make it Transparent and Accountable
The Severna Park Patch publishes J.H. Snider's written comments to Maryland's Congressional redistricting committee regarding the transparencyt of its proceedings.
August 16, 2011
Multichannel 'may not win online war'
Inside Retail cites J.H. Snider and Terra Ziporyn's 1992 book (Future Shop: How New Technologies Will Change The Way We Shop and What We Buy, St. Martin's Press) as a landmark in the emerging field of ecommerce.
July 6, 2011
Making
Public Community Media Accessible
The Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution publishes J.H. Snider's working paper on the need to rethink public policy regarding local public media, especially the design and use of public meeting rooms. The paper is covered in the the Deliberative Democracy Consortium's newsletter and National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation's monthly update.
June 9, 2011
Information Needs of Communties: The changing media landscape in a
broadband age
In its report on the future of public media, the FCC cites J.H. Snider in the text and six times in the footnotes--more than at least one think tank that received millions of dollars in foundation funding to help move this debate forward.
May
26, 2011
Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics announces fellows
J.H. Snider appointed a non-residential Network Fellow at Harvard University's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics for the 2011-2012 academic year.
May
5, 2011
Rosetta Stone for corporate IDs would simplify accountability
Federal Computer Week cites iSolon.org's years of work addressing the need for governmentwide organizational identifiers.
April 20, 2011
General
Assembly moves forward with more transparency, but there’s still a long
way to go
The Maryland Reporter cites J.H. Snider on the Maryland General Assembly's transparency agenda and accomplishments during its recently completed 2011 session.
April 4, 2011
Open Government Advocate Blasts NTIA on Transparency
TRDaily
(Telecommunications
Reports) cites J.H. Snider's case study of federal
agency compliance with the Obama Administration's Open Government
Initiative at the National Telecommunications and Information
Administation (NTIA).
March 23, 2011
Maryland Senate testimony by J.H. Snider on House Bill 48.
March
15, 2011
Joint Committee on Transparency and Open Government Act
Maryland Senate testimony by J.H. Snider on Senate Bill 644.
March 15, 2011
Maryland's Public Information Act
Maryland Senate testimony by J.H. Snider on Senate Bill 740, an amended version of House Bill 37 (see February 1, 2011 below).
February 17, 2011
Written comments to Maryland House of Delegates by J.H. Snider on House Bill 48.
February 1, 2011
Maryland's Public Information Act
Maryland House of Delegates testimony by J.H. Snider on House Bill 37.
November 14, 2010
Give Marylanders the constitutional convention they voted for
The
Washington Post publishes J.H. Snider's op-ed on the implications of the results of the Nov. 2 Maryland constitutional convention ballot referendum.
The online version, with a different title and URL, was published on the afternoon of Nov. 13 under the title
Con-con promise comes due for O’Malley .
November 3, 2010
Maryland constitutional convention uncertain
The Baltimore Sun cites J.H. Snider on the November 2, 2010 Maryland ballot referendum on whether to convene a state constitutional conveniton.
November 1, 2010
Baltimore Sun columnist and Midday host Dan Rodricks moderates an hourlong discussion on the three statewide propositions on the November 2, 2010 ballot. Leading off the program and discussing the Maryland state constitutional convention question was iSolon.org president J.H. Snider.
October 24, 2010
Voters will decide whether to call a constitutional convention
The Baltimore Sun cites J.H. Snider on the November 2, 2010 Maryland ballot referendum on whether to convene a state constitutional conveniton.
October 22, 2010
Connecting the Dots for Democratic Accountability
iSolon sponsored event at the National Press Club, 1:00 pm to 2:30
pm. At the event, J.H. Snider presented his working paper: Connecting the Dots for Democratic Accountability: Semantic Web-Based Information Sharing Policy and the Future of Investigative Reporting.
An updated draft was posted here on Thursday, October 28, 2010.
The Powerpoint presentation of the paper can be found
here.
October 22, 2010
iSolon
sponsored event at the National Press Club, 3:00 pm to 4:30.
The accompanying press release, featured late breaking news from
Maryland's two gubernatorial candidates:
O’Malley and Ehrlich Endorse “Yes” Vote On Nov. 2 Maryland Con-Con
Ballot Referendum.
The event was reported on in the October 25, 2010 issue of the Daily
Record: Experts:
Md. constitutional convention unlikely.
October 13, 2010
The Baltimore City Paper cites J.H. Snider on the November 2, 2010 Maryland constitutional convention ballot referendum.
October
13, 2010
Rewriting Maryland constitution is up to voters, but not many know
The Maryland Reporter cites J.H. Snider on the November 2, 2010 Maryland constitutional convention ballot referendum.
October 12, 2010
A Historic Year for State Con-Cons
The Huffington Post publishes this article co-authored by
J.H. Snider and G. Alan Tarr on why 2010 is a historic year for state con-cons, a
much ignored and misunderstood mechanism of democratic reform.
October 11, 2010
Four States to weigh calls for constitutional convention
Stateline cites J.H. Snider on state constitutional conventions.
September
22, 2010
The road to term limits in Maryland:
A constitutional convention is the state’s best chance for reform
The Baltimore Sun publishes J.H. Snider's oped arguing that a state constitutional convention may be the best way to pass democratic reforms, such as term limits, where the legislature has a blatant conflict of interest with voters. For more information on Maryland's November 2, 2010 ballot item to convene a state constitutional convention, see www.MarylandConCon.org.
August 3, 2010
J.H. Snider describes the role state constitutional conventions should play in the democratic process, with a focus on Maryland's state constitutional ballot item on November 2, 2010.
July 5, 2010
Md. to vote in November on whether to hold constitutional convention
The Washington Post features J.H. Snider in a front page article on the merits of changing Maryland's Constitution by voting yes to convene a convention on the November 2, ballot. For details, see Marylandconcon.org.
June
24, 2010
Maryland to webcast more hearings, meetings over Internet
The MarylandReporter.com describes J.H. Snider's critique of yesterday's announcement by Maryland's Governor and other state leaders concerning government transparency
June
15, 2010
A year of digital TV: who won the transition?
Ars Technica (a division of Wired Magazine) cites J.H. Snider's reflections on the DTV transition on its one-year anniversary.
June 14, 2010
It's the Public's Data: Democratizing School Board Records
Education Week publishes J.H. Snider's article on using new information
technology to enhance accees to public school board records.
June 3, 2010
Experts Debate Federal
Spectrum Leasing, Transparency Proposals
TRDaily (Telecommunications
Reports) cites J. H. Snider on the lack of transparency within the
U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA).
May 30, 2010
'Troublemaker' fights secrecy in government
The Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) publishes an article on J.H. Snider's local open government efforts.
May 24, 2010
Federal Trade Commission Staff Discussion Draft:
Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of
Journalism
The FTC discussion draft cites iSolon.org's conflict-of-interest automation proposal six times (see March 10, 2010 presentation and working paper below). The draft will be discussed at the FTC's June 15, 2010 National Press Club event on the Future of Journalism.
May 20, 2010
How Craig McCaw Built a 4G Network on the Cheap:
The mobile pioneer's Clearwire controls airwaves worth $20 billion or
more
Bloomberg Businessweek cites J.H. Snider's work on media policy.
May 8, 2010
2010 Freedom of Information Summit
J.H. Snider
presents on
Transparency
in the Digital Age. WikiFOIA summarized the summit
here.
April 29, 2010
House
transparency caucus vows to regain
public's trust in government
Nextgov,
a publication of the National Journal Group, Inc., cites J.H. Snider on
the political implications of the lack of Democratic leadership support
for the new Congressional Transparency Caucus.
April 18, 2010
Maryland's Fake Open Government
The
Washington Post publishes J.H. Snider's commentary on what's
wrong with open government in Maryland and how to fix it. One
proposal is to update Maryland's Constitution. For information on how that might happen, see
MarylandConCon.org
April 6, 2010
Spotting Holes in OpenGov
Plans for Public Engagement
Steve Buckley from U.S. Transparency interviews J.H. Snider about his essay, Deterring Fake Public Participation
April 4, 2010
A hotbed of techie agents of government transparency
The Washington Post cites J.H. Snider on the recent "TransparencyCamp" held in Washington, DC.
March
26, 2010
Parent school group picks new leaders
Capital article on J.H. Snider's election as vice chair of Anne Arundel County, Maryland's Countywide Citizen Advisory Committee with a mandate to use new information technology to improve democratic deliberation among public school parents.
March 14, 2010
Sunshine Week: Experts say access to online public records
must expand
The Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) quotes J.H. Snider on Anne Arundel County's compliance with not only only the letter but the spirit of Maryland's right-to-know laws. It does so again in Open government for more than just a week, March 18, 2010.
March 10, 2010
How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?
J.H. Snider presents his proposal for using semantic
web technologies to automate conflict-of-interest reporting at this FTC
workshop. The proposal consisted of a
presentation
(an
audio recording of the presentation starts at 143:20) and
accompanying
working paper, both with the same title, "Automating
Conflict-of-Interest Reporting."
March 1, 2010
J.H. Snider's presentation before the 111th Congress Stennis Congressional Staff Fellows Program.
March 1, 2010
Scholars look to increase research on open government
Nextgov,
a publication of the National Journal Group, Inc., cites J.H. Snider on
how elected officials' agendas can set academic and foundation agendas,
and the lag time between open government innovation and scholarly
assessments of it.
February 19, 2010
Deterring Fake Public Participation
The International Journal of Public Participation publishes J.H. Snider's essay on the growing plague of fake public participation in America.
February 9, 2010
Baltimore Sun columnist and Midday host Dan Rodricks moderates an hourlong discussion on the pros and cons of a Maryland constitutional convention with iSolon.org President J.H. Snider, Maryland Senate Minority Leader Allan Kittleman, and Maryland Legislative Counsel Dan Friedman.
February 5, 2010
Religious education at statehouse an example of what the public doesn’t know
The Iowa Independent cites J.H. Snider's work on a rarely disclosed but important legislative perk.
&
February 4, 2010
Rewrite state constitution?
It's a question for voters
The Baltimore Sun cites J.H. Snider's Baltimore Sun
op-ed in describing the Maryland Senate's debate over
SB26:
Maryland Constitutional Convention - Sense of the Voters.
January 22, 2010
Open Government: Defining, Designing, and Sustaining Transparency
J.H.
Snider presents his arguments on how the open government public policy
debate should be framed at this two-day workshop sponsored by Princeton
University's Center for Information Technology Policy.
The
video of Snider's presentation begins at 38:00.
January 8, 2010
The Baltimore Sun publishes J.H. Snider's op-ed on Maryland's 2010 ballot item to call a constitutional convention. For additional information, see Marylanders for a State Constitutional Convention.
December 18, 2009
Debate the News:
Summarizing the Comments Submitted to the FTC
Free Press's SaveTheNews.org includes iSolon.org's comments in its roundup of comments submitted for the Federal Trade Commission's workshop on the future of journalism.
November 30, 2009
For a TV
broadcast aired throughout the Middle East, the Voice of America
interviews J.H. Snider on the lack of think tank accountability in the
United States.
September
5, 2009
If Men Were Angels....: Should the Checks & Balances System Include Electoral Reform Juries?
Paper presented at the Representation and Electoral Systems Division's theme panel, Citizens' Assemblies and Deliberative Democracy, at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto, Canada.
July 28, 2009
Public
more satisfied with agencies that pursue transparency online, study says
Nextgov, a publication of the National Journal Group, Inc., cites J.H. Snider's methodological critique of a market research firm's report on the benefits to Federal agencies of improved transparency.
July 22, 2009
Harvard's Nieman Watchdog
publishes J.H. Snider's article arguing for the development and
implementation of a Bias Modeling Language to automate watchdog
journalism. This article launches
iSolon.org's BML Semantic Web Project.
July 9, 2009
Citizens
Assembly News Digest -- Special Edition -- July 2009
This special edition of iSolon.org's Citizens Assembly News Digest
provides an analysis of the referendum results on the recommendations of
the f British Columbia's Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform.
July 4, 2009
The Rumpus, an online magazine, discusses J.H. Snider's Nieman Watchdog article on media free riding.
June
27, 2009
Taking steps to deal with media parasitism
Harvard's Nieman Watchdog publishes J.H. Snider's second article in a two-part series on the problem and solution to media free riding.
June 22, 2009
Free riding: a deeply embedded media tradition
Harvard's Nieman Watchdog publishes J.H. Snider's first article in a two-part series on the problem and solution to media free riding.
June 12, 2009
The switch to digital TV—an early bailout that went awry
Harvard's Nieman Watchdog publishes J.H. Snider's critique of the digital television transition on its final day. The transition began more than 20 years ago.
June 11-14, 2009
Annual Convening of the National Institute on Money in State Politics
J.H. Snider argues for Redistricting Juries and other related democratic reforms at the annual convening of the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
June 4, 2009
ShowMeTheSpending.org Coalition News
ShowMeTheSpending.org features J.H. Snider's work on public school budget transparency.
May 20, 2009
Democratize
School Budget Data
Education Week, the leading trade publication in K12 public education, publishes J.H. Snider's commentary on how to use new information technologies to democratize public access to school budget data.
May 12, 2009
Turkeys,
Thanksgiving and Roll Call Voting Records
Karl Kurtz, the National Conference of State Legislatures's expert
on legislative institutions, discusses J.H. Snider's turkey paper
in The Thicket at State Legislatures.
May 11, 2009
Would You Ask Turkeys to Mandate Thanksgiving? The Dismal Politics of Legislative Transparency
The Journal of Information Technology & Politics publishes the final version of J.H. Snider's working paper researched during the Spring of 2008 while Snider was a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.
May 5, 2009
Senate to Expand Transparency of Senate Votes: DeMint thanks Rules Committee for quick response
Following up on his May 1 press release (see below), Senator DeMint thanks the Senate leadership for acting so quickly on his recommendation. The XML link, tucked inconspicuously and without explanation on the page for Senate floor roll call votes on the Senate, not Thomas website, can be found here.
May 4, 2009
Eye on Redistricting: Florida's Where the Early Action Is
Congressional Quarterly article on the the Hudson/iSolon
conference on redistricting reform.
May 4, 2009
Reforming American Redistricting:
Lessons from British Columbia
Conference on redistricting reform cosponsored by the Hudson Institute and iSolon.org.
May 4, 2009
The
Case for Redistricting Juries: Lessons from British Columbia’s
Revolutionary Experiment in Democratic Reform
J.H. Snider's Working Paper presented at the Hudson/iSolon
conference on redistricting reform.
May 1, 2009
DeMint Leads Bipartisan Effort To Make Senate Votes More Transparent: Democrats and Republicans urge modernizing Senate website with easily searchable XML vote database
In a press release announcing a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee
on Rules and Administration seeking to make U.S. Senate roll call
votes available to the public using the XML format, U.S. Senator Jim
DeMint cites iSolon.org's work on this issue.
April 27, 2009
Online voting records user unfriendly
Politico's Victoria McGrane cites J.H. Snider's work on public
access to legislators' voting records. For more information, see
Would You Ask Turkeys to Mandate Thanksgiving? The Dismal Politics
of Legislative Transparency (SSRN prepublication working paper
version). On May 6 McGrane wrote a follow-up story,
Senate picks up the slack on data, mentioning the impact of her
earlier story in getting the Senate to post its roll call votes in XML
format.
April 25, 2009
Citizens
Assembly News Digest -- April 2009
The latest issue of iSolon.org's Citizens Assembly News Digest.
March 18, 2009
Public School Systems Should Post Compensation Data Online
The Washington Examiner publishes J.H. Snider's Sunshine Week commentary on the
need to proactively disclose public expenditure data.
March 9, 2009
ShowMeTheSpending.org Coalition Partners
ShowMeTheSpending.org names iSolon.org
a coalition partner.
February 26, 2009
Mixing Advocacy, Scholarly Research and Journalism: Can the New America Foundation Square the Circle?
The Center for Media and Democracy's
PR Watch publishes J.H. Snider's article on the ethical tensions in a successful, state-of-the-art, public policy think tank.
February 18, 2009
Open Government Rhetoric Versus Reality
The Washington Examiner publishes J.H. Snider's commentary on the
politics of the recently passed digital TV legislation.
February 8, 2009
Need Teachers? Show Them the Money
The Washington Post publishes J.H. Snider's commentary on the need for
better public disclosure of teacher compensation data. For a
related commentary published in Education Week, see
America’s Million-Dollar Superintendents.
February 3, 2009
Strengthen Think Tank Accountability
Politico publishes J.H. Snider's commentary on the need for
better public disclosure of think tank ethics and ethical conflicts.
January 21, 2009
Don't Delay the Digital TV Transition
Ars Technica publishes J.H. Snider's commentary critiquing U.S.
House and Senate bills seeking to delay the digital TV transition.
December 2, 2008
Future Shop One-Page Flyer
Publicity for Future Shop.
November 18, 2008
Future Shop Praise and Preface
Publicity for Future Shop.
November
14, 2008
Future Shop: How New Technologies Will Change the Way We Shop and What
We Buy
Authors Guild backinprint.com reprint of the J.H. Snider and
Terra Ziporyn book on e-commerce published by St. Martin's Press in
1992. The book features
a new preface analyzing the growth of e-commerce during the past two
decades and
forecasting that the changes in the consumer marketplace over the next
twenty years could be even greater.
November 12, 2008
Voting for Glass Houses
In the November/December issue of the Columbia Journalism Review,
Michael Schudson and Danielle Haas report on J.H. Snider's "Would You Ask Turkeys to Mandate Thanksgiving?"
On May 11, 2009, the Columbia Journalism Review followed up
with another story on the same topic,
Senate
Goes XML: A quiet shift is hailed.
October 1, 2008
School board's TV debut delayed
The Capital quotes J.H. Snider's critique of excessively costly and undemocratic televised school board coverage.
September 27, 2008
Spectrum Policy Panel at the 2008 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference
The J.H. Snider's serves as moderator and discussant.
September 21, 2008
Democracy 2.0 Grant Summit - Money in Politics
J.H. Snider serves as a grant contest judge for this event co-sponsored by Mobilize.org, the Sunlight Foundation, and Common Cause.
August 18, 2008
Americans for Redistricting Reform Advisory Committee Member
Organizations
Americans for Redistricting Reform names iSolon.org as an Advisory
Committee Member Organization.
July 19, 2008
Annual meeting of the National Online Legislative Associates (NOLA)
J.H. Snider presents the findings of his
Shorenstein Center working paper and conducts a discussion on the future
of technology enhanced legislature procedure, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, July 18-19, 2008. NOLA is the trade association of online legislative information providers.
July 14, 2008
Would You Ask Turkeys To Mandate Thanksgiving? The Dismal Politics of Legislative Transparency
The Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy
publishes J.H. Snider's Working Paper #1. Published in the
Journal of Information Technology & Politics, May 2009.
July 14, 2008
Would You Ask Turkeys To Mandate Thanksgiving? Using Citizens Assemblies to Reform the Process of Democratic Reform
The Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy
publishes J.H. Snider's Working Paper #2.
June 28, 2008
Harvard Hosts 2-Day Citizens Assembly Conference; New Zealand Parliament Allocates $4.3 million for a Citizens Assembly
The latest issue of iSolon.org's Citizens Assembly News Digest.
June
27, 2008
iSolon.org Launches Citizens Assembly Facebook Group
The Citizens Assembly Facebook group provides an online place for
academics and practitioners interested in citizens assembly based democratic
reform to come together as a community to pursue their common interests.
May 30, 2008
The Role of News Media in the Governance Agenda
J.H. Snider serves as workshop discussant at this joint event sponsored by the Communication for Governance and Accountability Program at the World Bank and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, May 29-31, 2008.
May 17, 2008
Crackpot or Genius? Canada Steps onto the World Stage as a Democratic Innovator
The Journal of Public Deliberation publishes J.H. Snider's concluding remarks at the Harvard University Canada Program's conference on democratic deficits and citizens assemblies, May 8-10, 2008.
May 14, 2008
Designing Deliberative Democracy
(Cambridge University Press, 2008)
The Journal of Public Deliberation publishes J.H. Snider's review of the first major book to be written about citizens assemblies.
April 14, 2008
J.H. Snider selected to be a Rockwood Foundation Fellow in Media, Communications, and Information Policy
Snider will be a Rockwood Foundation Fellow for the 2008-2009 fellowship year.
March 20, 2008
The Quest to Protect Creative Policy Ideas
The Chronicle of Philanthropy publishes J.H. Snider's commentary on the problem of rewarding innovative public policy ideas when it isn't practical to patent such ideas.
March 17, 2008
Online contract access would let in more sunshine
In an editorial, the Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) cites J.H. Snider's critique of government databases that are not integrated
with each other.
March 13, 2008
Councilmen want county contracts published on Web: Say move will increase government transparency
In a front page story, the Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) cites
J.H. Snider's critique of government databases that are not integrated
with each other.
February 29, 2008
J.H. Snider on Spectrum Policy (half hour segment,
with Snider segment beginning at 18:50)
Counterspin, a radio program run on NPR affiliates, interviews
J.H. Snider about his Nieman Watchdog
article (see below).
February 28, 2008
OpenTheGovernment.org Coalition Partners
OpenTheGovernment.org names iSolon.org a coalition partner.
February 21, 2008
Is the spectrum just too complex for reporters?
Nieman Watchdog publishes a commentary summarizing J.H. Snider's Kennedy
School presentation.
February 19, 2008
The Government’s $19.3 Billion Auction of Spectrum
(as of Round 61 on February 12, 2008) Why don’t you know more about the government’s allocation of this vital natural resource?
J.H. Snider argues at a Kennedy School dinner sponsored by the
Shorenstein Center that spectrum politics has become a paradigmatic
example of special interest politics and that the quality of spectrum
journalism is a major cause of the problem.
January 28, 2008
Four Spring Fellows Named
Editor & Publisher reports on the appointment of the four
new Harvard Kennedy School of Government Shorenstein Center fellows for
Spring Semester 2008, including iSolon.org's J.H. Snider.
January 17, 2008
Saskatchewan Premier and Citizens Assembly Advocate Defeated; New
Zealand Parliament Debates and Defeats Citizens Assembly Legislation
The latest issue of iSolon.org's Citizens Assembly News Digest.
January 16, 2008
iSolon.org Launches
Citizens Assembly Forum (beta version)
The Citizens Assembly Forum provides an online place for academics and
practitioners interested in citizens assembly based democratic reform to
come together as a community to pursue their common interests.
November 1, 2007
Ontario Citizens' Assembly
Proposal Down But Not Out
The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation's Amy Lang summarizes
and reviews the latest issue of iSolon.org's Citizens Assembly News Digest.
October 19, 2007
Ontario Citizens Assembly Referendum Defeated;
Addendum:
Saskatchewan Premier Promises a Citizens Assembly if Re-Elected on
November 7
The latest issue of iSolon.org's Citizens Assembly News Digest.
October 11, 2007
New Voting System Goes Down To Defeat
In a front page story, the Ottawa Citizen quotes J.H. Snider on
the significance of Ontario's experiment with a citizens assembly.
October 5, 2007
School Board Backs TV Idea
Baltimore Sun quotes J.H. Snider's critique of local school
system's use of technology to cover itself.
September 14, 2007
Ontario’s Public Education Campaign Launches; U.K.’s Prime
Minister Explores Creating a Citizens Assembly
The latest issue of iSolon.org's Citizens Assembly News Digest.
June 19, 2007
Citizens Assemblies: A Mechanism for Enhancing Legislative Transparency
and Accountability
iSolon.org policy brief prepared for the workshop, "Toward More
Transparent Government," held at the National Academies of Science on
June 19, 2007.
June 15, 2007
From Dahl to O'Leary:
36 Years of the 'Yale School of Democratic
Reform'
J.H. Snider's book review essay tracing the history of the citizens assembly
proposal from Dahl's 1970 After the Revolution (Yale University Press)
to O'Leary's 2006 Saving Democracy (Stanford University Press).
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