Ancient Athens saw democracy at its best. Not to say that Athens boasted a utopian government, but it did have a utopian idea of government: every citizen actively engaged in decisions and policymaking in a government for the people, by the people. Every derivation of democracy since, including the United States variant, has fallen short. This is not without necessity-the United States has a large population and not everybody can go to Washington and take an active role in government; hence, the need for elected representatives. But in this age of ubiquitous Internet access, engaging citizens directly in government becomes easier, via engaging them, so to speak.

The Office of Citizen Services and Communications at the U.S. General Services Administration recently released the newsletter Engaging Citizens in Government (pdf). Part of GSA's intragovernmental solutions efforts, the newsletter shares ideas, suggestions, plans of action, explanations, and studies of several prominent authors, including Katie Stanton of the White House, U.K. digital engagement chief Andrew Stott, and Jan Schaffer of J-Lab.

Newsletters don't typically scream "interesting," government ones especially. But if you're intrigued by the Gov 2.0 push to further engage citizens in government, this little e-pamphlet is full of compelling statistics, information, and perspectives, both global and national.

You Can Lead a Horse to Water, but You Can't Make Him Drink

Just because more and more citizens have access to the Internet in one way or another does not mean that they are all interested in participating in government. Just as an Athenian long ago could walk right past the town square, perhaps en route to watch the Ancient Greek equivalents of NASCAR or the Red Sox-Yankees playoff game, nobody is under obligation to log on and sign petitions or to sound off on a forum about what ails government. We might prefer to complain to whomever happens to be next to us on the bus. By holding town square meetings online, people can even multitask, discussing the performance records of the latest House of Representatives and American Idol candidates simultaneously.

Of course, engaging citizens online also enables concerned citizens living on the outskirts of Athens to participate in a government that they would not normally have access to. And this is the real gain that outweighs the problems that halfhearted or troublemaking participants cause.

The Road to Athens

The question then becomes: how can the government best engage its citizens so to better the government? Governance is still the responsibility of the government. Different government agencies must figure out which issues to present to citizens, how to best collect opinions from a wide variety of people, and  how to protect minority groups who might view matters differently than the majority.

Cases documented in the GSA newsletter show that the citizens most likely to be involved with government online are those involved in government offline. Which raises the important question: If the participants are the same, has the Internet really changed the landscape after all? Another finding: the opinions that garner the most support are the ones first posted to a discussion.

The government's job is still good governance. Our job, the job of citizens in a democracy, is to ensure that the government delivers. With more citizen involvement, the quality of governance should go up, as there are more eyes and minds on the case.

And hopefully the U.S. can approach something like a digital Athens.