I am not completely sure when this came out, but this paper entitled "Digital Government through Social Networks: How citizens can aggregate their money and votes to define digital government" is worth the read. It is dense and only six pages long. Here is a portion of the abstract:
Politicians seek only money and votes. Citizens control all
the money and votes but have never participated broadly and
systematically to allocate their control of those resources to
affect governance. North Americans possess a “participatory
surplus” fueling open source software and presidential
campaigns, energizing millions. Well-understood social
networking services could provide a barackobama.com for
constituents of any politician and for the stakeholders of any
government agency or service. How might campaign web
site experts design and host a network to govern governance?


















































































































































































































