PoliticsGovernanceCivicsLegalPractice

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Politics, Governance, Civics and Legal Practice

Because Second Life has a real population it provides an opportunity to explore various forms of governance and community-building and to engage in political action, such as protests and electioneering, without many of the risks associated with taking action in the real world.


Democracy Island

Democracy Island (SLurl) opened in 2005, and was created by the Do Tank, a program of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School. The project team describe the project in the following way: "We're building a virtual world environment to offer government entities and interest groups an on-line space for conducting citizen consultation. In short, this project will use the metaphor of the "county fair," a familiar civic event in the life of a community. This will be a place - like a meeting tent, a town hall or even a shopping mall - where groups can congregate online."

Democracy Island includes a number of interesting displays and spaces designed to facilitate community communication and collaboration including:

  • Peer to Patent: which invites visitors to participate in the process of community patent review, and includes a public ampitheater that hosts gatherings related to intellectual property, and a park-like patent display area.
  • Landing Lights 3D wiki: a collaborative project which allows visitors to help prototype a public park (Landing Lights Park in Queens, NY)
  • Supreme Court of the United States: a replica build, which includes information about the current sitting judges and the Supreme Court's history and function.

For more information visit the Democracy Island Blog which charts the early development of the project, read a blog post about Democracy Island on the Global Kids blog or read reviews of Democracy Island by education students on the EDEC-262 Second Life Wiki.


Election Campaigns for the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS)

The Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) holds bi-annual elections in January and July each year, which invite representatives from the CDS community to stand for virutal public office. In 2007, the campaign included the first political video advertisement for an inworld political party - Because We CARE - January 2007 RA Elections.

In January 2009, there are several citizen factions running for election including: the Citizens' Social Democratic Faction (CSDF), the Democratic Pragmatist Union (DPU), the New United Citizens' Alliance for Rights and Equality (NuCARE) and Simplicity Party (SP). Under the CDS constitution, factions must have a membership that equals or exceeds at least 10% of the total CDS population by the start of an election to field candidates.

For further information check out the CDS Elections Guide, read about the CDS Election Factions 2009, read the CDS Factions Debate Transcript (Jan 09), watch a video about Democracy at CDS on Youtube or read a blog post 'Virtual Democracy',


Avatars against the War

On the 30 January 2007, avatars from around the world came together to hold a virtual celebration and protest which coincided with the peace march and demonstration held in real-life in Washington DC for an end to the war in Iraq.

More than 120 avatars met at virtual Capitol Hill (SLurl) to to show their commitment to peace. The event was supported by RootsCamp in SL (SLurl).

For more information check out RootsCamp - J27 events for peace in Second Life, watch a video of the protest on Google Video orview a Flickr slideshow of the event.



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This page was last modified on 24 October 2009, at 21:18. This page has been accessed 717 times.