About CrowdLaw

CrowdLaw is the simple but powerful idea that parliaments, city councils and public institutions work better when they encourage citizen engagement, leveraging new technologies to tap into diverse sources of opinions, expertise and data at each stage of the law and policymaking cycle to improve the quality and effectiveness of the resulting laws and policies.

CrowdLaw is any law or policymaking process that offers a meaningful opportunity for the public to participate in one or multiples stages of decision-making, including but not limited to the processes of problem identification, solution identification, proposal drafting, ratification, implementation or evaluation. Through such processes, the public becomes collaborators and co-creators in public decision making.

For more about CrowdLaw, see crowd.law. To sign up for the CrowdLaw Quarterly newsletter, click here.

About the CrowdLaw Catalog

The CrowdLaw Catalog is a growing repository of 100 CrowdLaw cases from around the world. The goal of the catalog is to help those wishing to start new or improve existing CrowdLaw projects to learn from one another.

Examples are tagged and searchable by four criteria:

1. Level - What level of government is involved? Search by National, Regional, and/or Local
2. Stage - At what stage of the law or policymaking process the participation take place? Search by Problem Identification, Solution Identification, Drafting, Decision Making, Implementation and/or Assessment
3. Task - What are people being asked to contribute? Search by: Ideas, Expertise, Opinions, Evidence and/or Actions.
4. Technology - What is the platform? Search by: Web, Mobile and/or Offline

The catalog offers brief descriptions of each initiative and links to additional resources.

Coming Fall 2018, look out for the CrowdLaw Cases and the CrowdLaw Playbook - In-depth cases and instructions for how to start, run, maintain and measure a CrowdLaw project.

To share an example or suggest corrections, please send us an email to crowdlaw@thegovlab.org.

The CrowdLaw Taxonomy

At what stage of the law and policymaking cycle is citizen engagement sought?

• Problem Identification: First stage of the law and policymaking cycle dedicated to set up the agenda of topicsto address, developingclear, straightforward problem statements. Citizen engagement opportunities are linked to identify issues of concern and to prioritize them.
• Solution Identification: Second stage of the law and policymaking cycle dedicated to find diverse ideas to tackle a problem. Citizen engagement opportunities are linked toformulate, deliberate upon, and propose innovative approaches to solving a given problem.
• Drafting: Third stage of the law and policymaking cycle dedicated to redact the final text of a law or policy. Citizen engagement opportunities are linked to collaboratively writing, commenting on, and documenting draft constitutions, legislations, regulations or policies.
• Decision Making: Fourth stage of the law and policymaking cycle dedicated to follow the established procedure to approve a law or policy.Citizen engagement opportunities are linked to endorse initiatives and vote between options.
• Implementation: Fifth stage of the law and policymaking cycle dedicated to put a law or policy into action. Citizen engagement opportunities are linked to refine the action plan for the delivery of a given legislation or policy and to co-creation.
• Assessment: Final stage of the law and policymaking cycle dedicated to conduct evaluations to determine if a law or policy was effective in achieving its goals. Citizen engagement opportunities are linked to monitor the outcomes and evaluate the impact on the overall well-being of the community.

What is the participatory task?

• Ideas and Proposals: A thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action that citizens propose.
• Expertise: A combination of skills, passion, and knowledge gained either professionally or simply through experience that is used to determine a person’s credibility on a given topic.
• Opinions: Publicly stated views or beliefs about a given topic that are not necessarily backed by facts, credibility, or logic.
• Actions: The fact or process of doing something that implies an active role of the citizens that goes beyond sharing ideas, expertise, opinions or evidence.
• Evidence: Concrete support for or against something based on real facts, data, information or events.