It is worth considering the term 'microgovernment' itself and what its use is intended to achieve.

What almost all of the various elements of what is often currently termed 'Government 2.0' have in common is that they are about breaking up existing services and processes so that they become more personalised around individuals, communities and service users instead of being monolithic provision of services to 'the public'.

The term microgovernment aims to convey something of this change to a system where people drive government rather than vice versa.

It also has the advantage that, as a term, it isn't a 'bolt-on' to government, another thing that is done in parallel to existing work, but represents the fundamental change that is required.

Similarly, it is not a technologically-driven buzzword that emphasises IT infrastructure and processes over the service delivery that should be the priority.

And it indicates to the employees of public services that their work is about focusing on the needs of citizens.

The other fundamental requirement of microgovernment is that, depending on how you with to think about the issue, it either does away with the traditional democratic vote entirely or splits it into a myriad of separate votes for each citizen, each vote corresponding to a particular policy area.

Evidence that voters are already used to casting multiple votes to achieve differing outcomes, albeit it different democratic levels, has already been considered.

A personalised state can be a state in which participation is extended in ways that are far more meaningful than existing democratic mechanisms allow.

For example, in representative democracy, not all votes are equal. Some are cast for candidates who do not win and are wasted, while others simply add to the winning candidate's majority. This has the effect that political campaigns are targeted at the small numbers of undecided voters in a small number of key constituencies.

In contrast, in a truly personalised state all choices are equally valued. That is not to say that all are implemented, which is a different issue and one which will be addressed later. But no one citizen's choices are inherently more valued than those of another, and in this sense it can actually be more democratic than many forms of representative democracy.