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Edemocracy Report Prepared for the ICT for Government and Public Services Unit DG Information Society and Media European Commission Bringing Together and Accelerating eGovernment Research in the EU eDemocracy Report Report Date March 2009 Authors: I. Kotsiopoulos ICT for Government and Public Services Unit Ch. de Charleroi, 123A DG Information Society and Media B-1060 Brussels European Commission Prepared for the ICT for Government and Public Services Unit DG Information Society and Media European Commission Executive summary This document corresponds to the final version of the report on eDemocracy under the framework of the study “Bringing Together and Accelerating eGovernment Research in the EU” . The general aim is to present the role of ICT in enhancing the democratic process, with emphasis on the role of research efforts throughout the world. The report examines the general issue of eDemocracy and its main branches such as eVoting and eParticipation, with special emphasis on the latter as being the most widely applicable. Various examples of successful implementation of the participatory model throughout the world are included, followed by research trends. The message from the research community is that political, technological and cultural aspects are equally important; this is manifested by the span of disciplines covered by internationally distributed teams. Regarding present gaps and future needs of research, impact assessment aided by comparative analysis of different implementations and methods to narrow the digital divide appear prominent. On the technological side, research should aim for support tools: today’s user faces vast amounts of content and needs to engage and interact with others. The report concludes with examples of policy-led initiatives for a number of countries. These examples show the European lead in the application of participatory models, including eVoting, and the support given by policy-making bodies such as governments and the Council of Europe. Finally, a chapter on the dangers inherent in eDemocracy, due to either technical or non-technical underlying causes, is included. A-2 Prepared for the ICT for Government and Public Services Unit DG Information Society and Media European Commission Table of Contents Executive summary................................................................................................................. 2 1 eDemocracy in context .................................................................................................... 7 1.1 Constituent fields of eDemocracy ............................................................................... 8 1.2 eVoting ........................................................................................................................ 9 1.3 eParticipation............................................................................................................. 10 1.3.1 eParticipation examples throughout the world............................................... 11 1.3.2 Approaches to eParticipation for citizens ...................................................... 14 1.4 Remark...................................................................................................................... 15 2 eDemocracy examples around the world .................................................................... 16 2.1 Online deliberation .................................................................................................... 17 2.1.1 Online Public Issue Forums........................................................................... 20 2.2 eDemocracy examples by nation.............................................................................. 22 2.3 The US case.............................................................................................................. 24 2.4 eDemocracy initiatives: current trends...................................................................... 27 3 Research Trends ............................................................................................................ 29 3.1 eParticipation research throughout the world ........................................................... 30 3.1.1 Observing and conducting eParticipation ...................................................... 33 3.1.2 Academic Domains........................................................................................ 34 3.1.3 Maturity of the field......................................................................................... 36 3.2 Gaps in eDemocracy research.................................................................................. 37 3.2.1 Gaps in eParticipation research..................................................................... 37 4 Technologies for eParticipation.................................................................................... 40 4.1 Collaborative environments....................................................................................... 40 4.2 Argumentation support systems................................................................................ 41 4.2.1 Computational models ................................................................................... 43 4.2.2 eParticipation support examples.................................................................... 44 4.2.3 Modelling the evolution of research............................................................... 46 4.2.4 Summary........................................................................................................ 47 4.3 Other eParticipation research in FP6........................................................................ 48 4.3.1 Scenario design and generation .................................................................... 49 4.3.2 Outline of the operation of the forum ............................................................. 51 4.3.3 Preliminary results ......................................................................................... 52 5 Policies, attitudes, initiatives ........................................................................................ 53 5.1 Examples of successful policy efforts ....................................................................... 53 5.1.1 State of Queensland, Australia ...................................................................... 54 5.1.2 United Kingdom ............................................................................................. 54 5.1.3 Switzerland .................................................................................................... 56 5.1.4 Estonia ........................................................................................................... 57 5.1.5 Hungary ......................................................................................................... 58 5.1.6 Italy ................................................................................................................ 59 5.1.7 Spain.............................................................................................................. 59 5.1.8 Latin America ................................................................................................. 60 5.1.9 Other examples.............................................................................................. 62 5.2 The Council of Europe on eDemocracy.................................................................... 62 5.3 Policy challenges: technology-oriented research...................................................... 65 5.4 Conclusions and policy recommendations................................................................ 66 A-3 Prepared for the ICT for Government and Public Services Unit DG Information Society and Media European Commission 6 Dangers of eDemocracy ................................................................................................ 68 6.1 Electronic voting........................................................................................................ 69 7 Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 71 A-4 Prepared for the ICT for Government and Public Services Unit DG Information Society and Media European Commission List of figures Figure 1. Research challenges (DEMO-net) 30 Figure 2. Geographical spread of research centres in eParticipation (DEMO-net) 31 Figure 3. Map of eParticipation activities in Europe (DEMO-net) 32 Figure 4. Map of eParticipation activities in the rest of the world (DEMO-net) 32 Figure 5. Balance between observing and conducting eParticipation per country (DEMO-net) 33 Figure 6. Academic domains in eParticipation research per region (DEMO-net) 35 Figure 7. Cumulative growth of research centres (DEMO-net) 36 Figure 8. Argumentation use cases diagramme (DEMO-net) 43 Figure 9. Visualisation of consultation data and responses (DEMO-net) 45 Figure 10. Supporting deliberation during a consultation (DEMO-net) 46 Figure 11. Conceptual model: evolution from barriers to research 46 Figure 12. Implementation of model via argumentation trace 47 Figure 13. Final influence model diagramme 50 Figure 14. Simplified structure of the WEB.DEP forum 51 A-5 Prepared for the ICT for Government and Public Services Unit DG Information Society and Media European Commission List of tables Table 1. Online deliberation techniques, examples and sites 20 Table 2. Top ranking eParticipation initiatives according to context and success factors 22 Table 3. Techniques used for the sampled
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