Reading material: ‘Democracy is crashing’ is Kees Verhoeven’s reflection on the House of Representatives – Computer – .Geeks

Say ‘politician’ and ‘ICT’ and chances are you will end up with Kees Verhoeven. Since the D66 member left the House of Representatives in the previous elections, he has been working on a book. Democracy is crashing is a sometimes frustrating, but often enlightening look behind the scenes of politics.

For years, Kees Verhoeven was the face of digitization in the House of Representatives. He was certainly not the only tech-savvy member of parliament; Astrid Oostenbrug left politics disillusioned and Ton Elias suggested appointed an entire committee to investigate government ICT projects. Due to his agility Twitter And his positions regarding the Wiv referendum However, Verhoeven became one of the most prominent faces in the digital field. He left politics last year. He started a consultancy firm, but also wrote the book The Democracy Crashes about his time in the House of Representatives. That gives a good and sometimes cynical look behind the scenes of Dutch politics, with more than enough digitization to fascinate the average tweaker.

Thinking patterns and flaws

While reading, you will notice that De democracy crashes is mainly a reflection on Verhoeven’s time in the Chamber. In the first chapters he tries to put things in perspective. Not politics or digitization are discussed, but thinking patterns and flaws. He describes phenomena such as confirmation bias and invents formulas such as ‘goal + means + control = law’, to which he regularly returns later in the book. How, for example, noise arises in a discussion about allowing Kaspersky software in the government. The whole book is full of such frames. For example, an important part deals with the creation of the Wiv 2017, the notorious amendment to the Intelligence and Security Services Act, which was discussed in 2017. a referendum was held. Verhoeven not only writes how and what happened, he also mentions various frameworks and thought processes within which such a law is set up, such as the security thinking among politicians.

No juice

Who juicy juice expected about handshakes or shady backroom deals in The Hague, you don’t have to read The Democracy Crashes. The book is primarily a warning from Verhoeven to society and politicians. He warns against the influence of social media and the lack of knowledge about ICT in the House of Representatives. He does not describe this in abstract terms, but links it to concrete examples. Most of them may not be surprising or revealing to the average tweaker. For example, Verhoeven shows how Huawei was able to continue to operate in the Netherlands because policymakers did not understand the difference between peripheral and core equipment in telecom networks. From this comes the long discussion about the presence of the Chinese manufacturer in the Netherlands, which Verhoeven then interestingly interprets through his own involvement in the matter.

Another example is the shock of the House of Representatives when it turned out in 2022 that spy software Pegasus was being used in the Netherlands. Verhoeven describes in his book how he previously submitted an initiative law to ban spyware, but that it failed due to a lack of knowledge in politics.

Turning around the Wiv

The book is not just about thinking errors and patterns. It is also a reflection of Verhoeven himself on his work. An important part of this is his much-criticized ‘turn’ around the Wiv. Initially, Verhoeven was a fierce opponent of the ‘drag law’, but when the referendum came, he actually called for people to vote in favor of the new law. He was criticized for this, in particular by blogs such as GeenStijl, but also by Arjen Lubach. They accused him of party politics and of being dishonest. In The Democracy Crashes, Verhoeven returns extensively to that thought process. He tells how he realized the law was necessary, but also needed better oversight. It is also about the criticism he received, which was in line with the media cratization of politics, which he sees as a major problem.

Political problems

Democracy crashes is generally about the major problems that Verhoeven sees in politics in 2023. These are partly problems that have surfaced in the Netherlands in recent years, such as a fragmentation of the House of Representatives with smaller party factions that collectively have less have knowledge. For some of those problems, Verhoeven adds a digital component, which sometimes feels a bit forced. He partly explains the workload of MPs, for example, by the fact that in 2023 they will be permanently online with their smartphones, while that workload also has many other causes, such as the aforementioned shrinking fractions.

Solutions

The great thing about The Democracy Crashes is that it is not just a cynical biography of Verhoeven’s time in politics; it is a clear statement of what he sees as the problems in politics, but he also immediately proposes solutions for them. These are the focus of the last two chapters. Some solutions seem quite obvious and are easier written than implemented. For example, Verhoeven argues for more investments in cyber security and strengthening the vital infrastructure in the Netherlands. Cabinets and experts have been wanting this for years. Verhoeven also advocates breaking up large tech companies and wants a ‘digital tax’. Those are plans in the election program of D66 and which are also being worked on at European level.

As a result, some parts of The Democracy Crashes may have a somewhat high ‘duh’ content for a tweaker. It is no surprise that a prominent former D66 politician wants more money for cybersecurity. Some laws and bills described by Verhoeven will also sound familiar, for example about ICT projects such as CoronaMelder and SyRI. However, that is by no means the case everywhere. In many cases it is also good to be able to take a look behind the scenes and see how an individual politician experiences and tries to influence the creation of a law. That makes Democracy crashes interesting for everyone, even if you already follow technology intensively in politics.