Combating threats to democracy
Project Summary
The Jeff Bleich Centre for Democracy and Disruptive Technologies (JBC) is focused on strengthening the values and institutions of democratic societies. Innergise was invited to address a complex issue of critical concern – the ways that digital technologies are putting democracy at risk.
What was the opportunity?
Cyber threats are top of mind for government, and thus the security of ICT systems. But digital technologies present a much wider suite of threats.
The opportunity existed to elevated the awareness of government executives to these pervasive threats. By doing so, public policies and programs could be better tailored in their design and delivery to mitigate the risks while sustaining the benefits of digital technology.
How did we tackle the challenge?
Before delving into the pros and cons of digital technologies, we had to answer the question, “What is democracy and how does it work today?”
With JBC, we built a systems model of democracy to expose and explore the dynamics and forces at play across civil society, government, business and media.
We then engaged stakeholders from multiple sectors to build on this foundation. We overlay the interactions of current and emerging digital technologies, identifying points of high vulnerability and leverage. Stakeholders were also engaged in building four scenarios illustrating plausible futures.
This suite of material was translated into a 1-day immersive workshop for government executives. In addition to building much greater awareness of the currency and consequence of the digtech threats, executives were charged with discerning the consequences for their portfolios, the mitigating actions, and capability requirements.
What were the results and their impact?
While numerous mitigating actions were identified, all branches of government identified ‘trust’ as a common, critical ingredient in countering the digtech threats. Executives recognised the need for more work to embed ‘trust’ into policy, program delivery and citizen services… by design.
The experience was highly rated and recognised as a critical capability building experience for all branches of government. It was recommended that the program be rolled-out across the South Australian government and in other jurisdictions
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