Tags resources where the "best website" is on http://co-intelligence.org/ or where there's a link in the Notes to the CII site. Content on the CII site can be copied/adapted here. If this makes the "best website" redundant, find a new website to point to.
When people ask how a country or region is doing, the answer -- especially on popular news venues -- tends to focus exclusively on the economy, or more particularly the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP fails to even reflect the health of the economy, but what we really need is far richer and more whole feedback about how we are doing economically, socially and ecologically. Many new indicators have been researched and proposed in recent decades.
Anticipatory democracy is the public's active, conscious engagement in collectively shaping the future of their community, state or nation. It is usually applied to instances where future-visioning processes or telecommunications technologies are being used to support or shape public engagement.
Diverse citizens are convened to seek, with the help of professional facilitation, shared understandings, solutions and wisdom about social concerns. Their unanimous conclusions are publicized to their entire community or country. Examples include Danish Citizen Technology Panels, Wisdom Councils, and The People's Verdict.
This proposal suggests officially appointing volunteer citizens to gather in small study circles in their homes, workplaces or public gathering spots to study and discuss issues of concern to public officials and then advise those officials on those issues.
(also known as Reflective Democracy)
A society can be more wide awake and intelligent -- not only individually, but collectively. Things can be set up to empower informed citizens to make self-determined choices together. By creatively including all viewpoints and learning from errors a conscious democracy can confidently respond to (and anticipate) changing conditions.
How do we start with our actual diversity and weave it into something that makes sense for all of us?
How can we talk to each other so that we all feel heard, and so we actually learn something and accomplish things together?
Citizens can make decisions, laws and policies directly in town hall meetings. Can they do it in whole states and countries? For an international academic site focused on direct democracy see C2D - Centre for Research on Direct Democracy.
Ralph Nader's blueprint for institutions through which citizens could control what they own (airwaves, public lands, pension funds, etc).... operate powerful watchdog groups to keep corporations in line.... and make the electoral process work more for them....