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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.
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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
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6 Dangers of eDemocracy ...... 68 6.1 Electronic voting...... 69 7 Conclusions ...... 71
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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
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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 eDemocracy projects 24 Table 4. From society to technology: academic fields and disciplines 34 Table 5. Clusters of eParticipation research themes (adapted from DEMO-net) 38 Table 6. Temporal and Spatial Dimensions of Collaborative Functions 41 Table 7. Tools for Argumentation Support (compiled from DEMO net) 44 Table 8. Scenario template 49 Table 9. eParticipation initiatives in Latin America 61
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1 eDemocracy in context
eDemocracy 1, a shortcut for electronic democracy, is a political development still in its infancy, as well as the subject of much debate and activity within governments, civic-oriented groups and societies around the world. It comprises the use of electronic communications technologies (e.g. the Internet) in enhancing and/or implementing (new) democratic processes within a democratic republic or representative democracy. Typically, enhancements in democratic processes are thought of in terms of making processes more accessible leading to more expansive and direct citizen participation in public policy decision- making. This, in theory, enables broader influence in policy outcomes: when more individuals are involved transparency, accountability and the resulting increased political legitimacy could yield smarter policies which can keep governments closer to the consent of the governed.
Although the most known and direct feature of eDemocracy is electronic voting (eVoting) the term has a much wider span and has acquired a significantly broadened horizon to encompass nearly all aspects of the democratic process.
On the terminology side, words such as cyber-democracy, participatory democracy or digital democracy have also been employed. “eDemocracy” itself first appeared in 1994 during online civic efforts in US Minnesota. The field and the concept however have existed since the late 60s and early 70s under the collective name “Tele-democracy”.
Given that “there are as many interpretations of eDemocracy as there are of democracy itself” 2, confusion is amplified by the relative “infancy” of the concept and the early stages of its practice. According to a conceptualisation by Steven Clift 3 eDemocracy refers to “how the internet can be used to enhance our democratic processes and provide increased opportunities for individuals and communities to interact with government and for the government to seek input from the community.” Clift continues to say that eDemocracy represents the use of information and communication technologies and strategies by democratic actors within political and governance processes of local communities, nations and on the international stage. Democratic actors/sectors include governments, elected officials, the media, political organizations, and citizen/voters. To many, eDemocracy suggests greater and more active citizen participation enabled by the Internet, mobile communications, and other technologies in today’s representative democracy as well as through more participatory or direct forms of citizen involvement in addressing public challenges.
An interesting point of view on the nature of eDemocracy comes from Fernando Mendez 4 of the eDemocracy Centre in Zurich, Switzerland. He observes that as eDemocratic experimentation involves trying to harness the democratising potential of ICTs to empower the citizen, this suggests the presence of a certain process element. He then states that eDemocracy should be viewed as a process rather than a product or an end-state. As such, eDemocracy involves much experimentation and many trials and errors, across all levels of public authority. Mendez characterises eDemocracy as a process which firstly involves the explicit introduction of ICTs into the democratic realm and, secondly, provides techniques (or strategies) geared towards particular normative goals. These goals can include:
♦ transparency of the political process
1 Definition adapted from www.wikipedia.org 2 Riley C.G., The changing role of the citizen on the e-Governance and e-Democracy equation, Ottawa, Canada, Commonwealth Centre for e-Governance, 2003. 3 http://www.publicus.net , http://www.publicus.net/articles/edemresources.html 4 Mendez F., “e-Democratic Experimentation in Europe: The Case of e-Voting”, International Conference on Direct Democracy in Latin America, 14-15 March 2007, Buenos Aires, Argentina
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♦ citizens’ involvement and participation ♦ opinion formation via new spaces of information and deliberation.
Finally, to supplement the conceptualisation of eDemocracy, we quote some defining features as identified by the access2democracy 5 non-profit non governmental organisation (NGO) established in Athens and New York by a group of prominent, like-minded world citizens. The organisation observes that eDemocracy is usually identified to websites with online forums, eVotes, eConsultations etc. They note however that:
♦ eDemocracy is more about democracy than technology ♦ Deploying ICTs is not enough, as an ICT ‘layer’ over a bureaucratic administration makes it even more bureaucratic ♦ eDemocracy is not o Just about eVote or the creation of a “push button” democracy o “yet another” eGovernment service o A ready made solution to tackle the democratic deficit.
Although no state can lay claim on having implemented eDemocracy, state-oriented attempts have been registered throughout the world, especially centred around the concept of ICT- aided direct democracy (referred to as EDD, i.e. Electronic Direct Democracy). Ross Perot advocated "electronic town halls" during his 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns in the US. Switzerland, already partially governed by a direct democracy system, is making some progress towards such a system. Several attempts at open source governance are emerging, most notably the Metagovernment 6 project. “Senator On-Line”, an Australian political party running for the Senate in the 2007 federal elections proposes to institute an EDD system so that Australians decide which way the senators vote on each and every bill.
Despite its undeniable potential however, eDemocracy has so far not managed to become a mainstream instrument. Major obstacles to its acceptance lie on the technical as well as the societal side. For example, for secure elections and other secure citizen-to-government transactions, citizens must have some form of identification that preserves privacy and maybe also one which could be used in internet forums. Even if problems of such nature can be solved from the technical point of view, a multitude of vested interests spanning those of politicians, media moguls, big business and trade unions could be harmed by a more direct democracy. Meaningful application of the eDemocracy concepts may thus be opposed.
Some traditional objections to direct democracy are argued to apply to eDemocracy as well. For example, the potential for governance to tend towards populism and demagoguery as well as the inequalities which the digital divide can bring. The latter are formed between those with access to the tools of eDemocracy (mobile phones and Internet connections) and those without. As D. Barney 7 has argued, ICTs do not provide an equal ability for all citizens to participate meaningfully in the democratic process; the technology is not inherently democratic. Last but no least, one should consider the opportunity cost of expenditure on eDemocracy innovations.
1.1 Constituent fields of eDemocracy
As acknowledged by most stakeholders, the broad spectrum of eDemocracy as a concept comprises three fields, namely:
5 www.access2democracy.org 6 http://www.metagovernment.org/ 7 Barney D., “Prometheus Wired”, Vancouver 2000, UBC Press.
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1. eParticipation 2. eVoting 3. eParliament
Of those fields above, the last two refer to specific, relatively well-defined processes:
♦ eVoting, which in itself comprises electronic versions of elections, referendums and other initiatives and ♦ eParliament, which comprises specific parliamentary processes such as electronically assisted legislation, balloting and transparency enhancement.
What is intriguing however, from the point of view of taking the democratic process further, is the first part, namely eParticipation. Being the most widely and far reaching process of eDemocracy, it is the concept which potentially brings citizen involvement in the democratic process to another level.
From another point of view regarding categorisations of eDemocracy models 8, only two main types are considered:
♦ The consultative mode, where the emphasis is on the vertical flows of citizen-state communication, and ♦ The participatory model, where a more complex, horizontal and multi-directional interactivity is taking place.
Following A. Chadwick (see previous reference), the participatory model “contains a recognition that knowledge is discursive, contingent and changeable and that it emerges through interaction.” In the participatory model interaction is regarded as “constitutive of democracy itself”. Opinion formation and political action based on forums, groups or new “virtual communities” enlivens and furthers the development of civil society, where “quality of public debate, rather than speed alone, is what matters.”
Finally, another, perhaps more “holistic” categorisation, favoured by the eDemocracy Centre 9, includes the government dissemination activities as the part of eDemocracy which aims towards increasing transparency. According to this the constituent fields of eDemocracy are distinguished according to the aspect they promote as:
1. Increasing transparency , where information dissemination about governance and its affairs is the main objective (eg. a government website, a political blog etc.) 2. Increasing participation , where active involvement of citizens in the decision-making process is sought (e.g. eConsultation, eVoting, etc.) 3. Increasing deliberation , where stimulation of interaction and discussion among citizens is the aim (e.g. forums)
1.2 eVoting
Europe appears to have big plans for electronic voting (eVoting). In a press article 10 the authors note the attempts of European governments to make the voting process attractive
8 Chadwick A., “E-Government and E-Democracy: A Case For Convergence?”, “Public Policy in the E-Government Era”, Political Studies Association Annual Conference, University of Leicester, 15-17 April, 2003.
9 http://edc.unige.ch/index.php , see “e-DC Working Papers” under “Publications” 10 “The Age of E-Voting”, by Sarah Sennott and Adam Piore, Newsweek International, April 2006
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and convenient for citizens. Examples include the British government, which saw the lowest voter turnout in 90 years (59 percent) in 2001, and has run many trials in local-council elections, and ballots over the Internet in Geneva, Switzerland, cast in April 2006 as a first step in a plan to wire the entire country. The European Union has funded a 3.2 million euro, three-year pilot program to use eVoting in three local elections, one in France and the other two in Germany and in Sweden. More than 1 million Estonians have voted via the Internet in the 2006 local elections. To counter the possibility of coercion, Estonians were able to log back on an unlimited number of times and change their vote anonymously or walk into a polling station and cancel their e-vote.
The authors note that eVoting is far from foolproof, however. In this respect, the US (despite the 2000 presidential election incidents) has scrapped plans to introduce eVoting for the armed forces, on the grounds of safety and privacy. For example, as the authors mention: “How do you verify that people aren't selling their voter-ID codes, if you can't actually watch them vote at a station?”
What seems to be a compromise is the use of voting machines, which started in the US and are also catching on in Europe. The Netherlands and parts of Germany have used them in elections. The United Kingdom has completed two pilot programs using more than 300 machines for local elections. France authorised the first use of electronic polling booths in elections held in 2006. And more than 3.2 million people in Belgium (44 percent of all voters) voted electronically in their national elections in May 2005. In Brazil, by as early as 1998, almost two-thirds of the voting population had cast electronic ballots in federal, state and local elections 11 .
Some experts argue that even these systems are vulnerable; therefore an active field of research deals with developing systems to let people know that their votes have been counted. The authors point out that using a simple digital audit trail to re-create what happened on Election Day would mean revealing who voted for whom, thus violating the principle of secret ballots. The most sophisticated systems deliver verifiability without a cumbersome, possibly vulnerable, set of printed-out ballots. With clever cryptographic algorithms and innovative viewing devices, it is possible to envision a process that provides specific proof after the fact that a vote was included in the total, without compromising the privacy of the specific selection. Cryptographers such as David Chaum, who wrote the first papers on computer-based anonymous voting, in the early 1980s, have currently been working on such issues.
Besides technical matters however, political culture does play an important role. As F. Mendez observes 12 , eVoting in the US is a divisive issue; the possibility of it becoming a feature of the electoral process in the foreseeable future there is extremely remote. This is in contrast to Europe, where states such as the UK, Switzerland and Estonia lead the eVoting experimentation.
1.3 eParticipation
The term “participation” means taking part in joint activities for the purpose of reaching a common goal. Participation in political science and theory of management refers to direct public participation in political, economical or management decisions. The two are not completely separated but belong to a spectrum of complexity and context. When participation becomes complicated, decision making becomes necessary. Hence, any participatory process is potentially important for the rule system governing the activities.
11 Holmes D.. “E-gov: E-business Strategies for Government”, London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2001. 12 Mendez F., “e-Democratic Experimentation in Europe: The Case of e-Voting”, International Conference on Direct Democracy in Latin America, 14-15 March 2007, Buenos Aires, Argentina
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eParticipation is a recently invented term meaning "the use of information and communication technologies to broaden and deepen political participation by enabling citizens to connect with one another and with their elected representatives"13 . This can also be described as ICT- supported involvement in government and governance processes, such as administration, service delivery, decision making and policy making.
A quite narrow sense of eParticipation has been reflected in the term “active participation” defined by OECD 14 as:
• “a relationship based on partnership with government in which citizens actively engage in defining the process and content of policy-making. It acknowledges equal standing for citizens in setting the agenda, proposing policy options and shaping the policy dialogue – although the responsibility for the final decision or policy formulation rests with government.”
In a broad sense, however, eParticipation includes all stakeholders in democratic decision- making processes and not only citizen related top-down government initiatives. The complexity of eParticipation processes results from the large number of different areas, involved stakeholders, levels of engagement, and stages in policy making, which characterise both research and applications. It can also be considered as an umbrella concept: eVoting makes no sense if eParticipation cannot be realised, moreover eParliament without eParticipation is reduced to a mere electronic administrative process. As observed by C. G. Riley 15 “eDemocracy is in its nascent stage and while one may not be able to predict accurately what shape it will take …the key to its success will be the willing and vigorous participation by a large part of the citizenry.”
It is for this reason that eParticipation (or the Participatory Model of eDemocracy) is considered as being the most important and the most challenging goal for eDemocracy and, in many cases, in its widest sense, as virtually synonymous to eDemocracy itself 16 . We shall treat it as such for the rest of this document.
UK eDemocracy expert Stephen Coleman 17 noted that there is a current democratic deficit facing many governments and that two key questions in relation to the nature of democracy are how to make the political process more participatory and how public engagement in policies that affect everyday life can become more deliberative. He believes that the new ICTs could contribute to a renewed faith in government bodies through the creation of a more transparent, interactive government engaged in wide dialogue with an interactive citizenry.
1.3.1 eParticipation examples throughout the world
Citizen participation in the governing process will result in a more robust, full democracy. One of the most successful and robust applications around is the way one particular parliament, the Scottish Parliament in the UK, is addressing eParticipation through ePetitioning. The example is described by Ann Macintosh 18 of the International Teledemocracy Centre, Napier University, UK.
13 Macintosh, A.: “eParticipation in policy-making: the research and the challenges”. In: Exploiting the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2006) 14 OECD, “Citizens as Partners” report, 2001, p. 23 15 Riley C.G., “The changing role of the citizen in the e-governance and e-democracy equation”, Commonwealth Centre for e-Governance, September 2003. 16 For example, the model of a holistic society by Cornelius Castoriadis proposes “no more differentiation of the political system from society, no more public authority, but active participation of all citizens in the common matters”. 17 Coleman, S., Speech at “Crossing Boundaries” conference, Otawa, May 2003. 18 OECD: “PROMISE AND PROBLEMS OF E-DEMOCRACY” – ISBN 92-64-01948-0, 2003
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According to the author, “few countries have used technology to enable electronic petitioning to the extent of the Scottish Parliament. One of the main documents setting out how the new Scottish Parliament should work was The Consultative Steering Group document (The Scottish Office, 1998). This stated that the Scottish Parliament should aspire to use all forms of information and communication technology “innovatively and appropriately” to support the Group’s guiding principles of openness , accessibility and participation .”
“To achieve this, the Scottish Parliament established a dedicated Public Petitions Committee (PPC) to actively promote petitions as a means by which the public could effectively raise issues of concern with the Parliament. The remit of the PPC is to consider and report on whether a public petition is admissible and what action is to be taken on the petition. There are no restrictions on who can submit a petition. A petition submitted by an individual will be considered on equal terms with one submitted with a large number of supporting signatures. The PPC considers the merits of the issues raised in each admissible petition and makes a decision on the appropriate action to be taken in each case. This can involve requesting other committees in the Parliament (generally those with the remit to examine specific subject areas) to carry out further consideration of the issues raised, or requesting the views of, or action by, the Scottish Executive (the devolved government for Scotland), local authorities and other public bodies in Scotland.”
The electronic petitioning system used by citizens to submit petitions to the Scottish Parliament is called “e-petitioner” ( www.e-petitioner.org.uk ) and is a tool developed and managed by the International Teledemocracy Centre, Napier University. The tool as implemented for the Scottish Parliament ( http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ ) allows to: “ ♦ View a petition text online. ♦ Read additional information on the petition issue online. ♦ Those deciding to support the petition can add their name and address to the petition online. ♦ All citizens can join an integrated online discussion forum and add comments for or against each e-petition.
Precise guidelines and management procedures have been put in place to incorporate the submission of ePetitions into the normal workflow of the PPC. A briefing note accompanies each ePetition. This contains the petition text, a list of names and addresses of those supporting the petition. An analysis of the geographical spread of supporters is included so that the members of the Scottish Parliament can see how many of their constituents support the petition. Also there is a summary of the discussion forum highlighting the main arguments for and against the petition.
Finally, the Committee ensures that petitioners are kept informed of progress at each stage of the Parliament’s consideration of their petition. This feedback is reflected on the e-petitioner website. The actions of the Committee have resulted in a range of positive outcomes, from local solutions to petitioners’ concerns to amendments to legislation – thus demonstrating active participation.”
Similar facilities for petitions have been provided through the e-petitioner tool have been provided for more elected bodies such as:
♦ ePetitioning for the German Bundestag through The German Bundestag e-Petitioner website . ♦ e-Petitioner for English Local Authorities implemented for the: o Bristol City Council ePetition and the o Royal Borough of Kingston ePetition
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Online petitions is a participation tool which is growing in popularity, not only among government organisations but also among advocacy groups, such as People for the American Way ( http://www.pfaw.org ).
Other activities which have taken place in the recent past and are quoted below 19 are indicative of the areas of eParticipation pursued and their results:
♦ Online chats. Newspapers like The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com ) and political parties such as the Swedish Social Democratic Party ( http://www.sap.se ) were among the first organisations offering routine online chats between public officials and the public. This tradition has been continuing. Some governments have been getting into the swing in Europe, although most tend to ignore chats as a form of online input.
♦ Online meetings. It’s becoming more common for state legislatures and parliaments to Webcast official meetings. Of course, many governments already air proceedings on local-access radio or television channels, so Webcasts cannot be considered as being a totally new service. Examples are many; we note some of the earliest attempts such as the North Carolina state legislature’s streaming audio feature (http://ftp.legislature.state.nc.us/ ) which started back in 2000 and the Scottish Parliament (http://www.scottishparliamentlive.com ), which also started Webcasting its meetings in the same year. Other legislative examples are the State of Virginia US (http://legis.state.va.us/ ) and Utah ( http://www.le.state.ut.us/ ).
♦ Online meeting place. While governments may use Webcasts and streaming to “push” information to Internet users and provide interaction tools related to those Webcasts, the Web also can be an online meeting place for citizens to exchange ideas. Perhaps the quintessential example of this is Minnesota eDemocracy site ( http://www.e- democracy.org), which is “a non-partisan citizen-based organisation whose mission is to improve participation in democracy in Minnesota through the use of information networks.” Steven Clift launched this organisation in 1994 as an election-based Web site. Since then, it has grown into an “online commons” where people meet to discuss ideas and democracy.
♦ Online debate. Back in 1998, Brack and Clift were part of an effort to launch the first public service campaign on the Internet to encourage voting. Dubbed “Web White and Blue” ( http://www.webwhiteblue.org in an archival form), the site transformed into the place for the nation’s first rolling cyber-debate in the 2000 presidential election. The online forum was a place where candidates met daily toward the end of the election to answer questions and listen to voters. This effort is a model for actively involving more people over a long period of time in issues of public importance.
♦ Online protests. In the fall of 2000, activists in the United Kingdom brought the country to a halt by using the Internet to protest fuel price increases. By coordinating online and with cell phones, they effectively mounted a democratic protest that caused politicians to take notice and change policies. This example – and dozens of others – is a showcase of how advocacy groups can use online protest tools to influence public policies in ways that would have been difficult a few years ago. A documentation of the 2000 crisis can be seen at “The Register”, ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13237.html ).
19 “E-DEMOCRACY AROUND THE WORLD”, a survey for the Bertelsmann Foundation by Phil Noble & Associates, Summer 2001
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♦ Online town halls. Sweden’s Democracy Square ( http://www.demokratitorget.gov.se) is a government-led effort to encourage visitors to take an active part in the democratic debate. The site, offered by the Swedish Commission of Inquiry on Democracy, offers reports and writings online in PDF format. It also provides opportunities for organisations to apply for money for democracy projects. Politicians frequently use televised town hall meetings to get input (and make headlines). Some experimented with online town halls in the 2000 presidential campaign and more have done so since.
♦ Online voting. One of the most talked-about online participatory topics is the possibility of online voting. While the Arizona Democratic Party held a binding primary election online in 2000, there remains a lot of privacy and security scepticism about online voting by governments. Citizens, however, seem somewhat eager about the concept. In the United Kingdom, half of Internet users polled in May 2001 said they would vote online if they could – an indication that one-fifth of U.K. voters would vote online, according to Forrester Research. A similar sentiment exists in Canada, but the U.S. results are less clear. Voters after the election problems felt more inclined to use such systems; however, privacy and security concerns have recently been able to reverse these trends.
♦ Blogs. Blogging in America has been transformed into a political watchdog post shaking up today's political and journalistic worlds; however, the same effect hasn't made a significant stir in European affairs. American bloggers account for a large percentage of those creating blogs and reading them. As Helen Szamuely, of the independent think tank The Bruges Group, says Americans make up half of readers of British blogs (United Press article 20 )
1.3.2 Approaches to eParticipation for citizens
There are online organisations and groups with the goal of getting people more involved in the democratic process through the use of new technologies. Examples can be the US-based “Teledemocracy Action News and Network” 21 and the “Centre for Democracy and Technology” 22 in Washington. We present here two of the better-known approaches in developing online communities of eDemocracy pioneered by eDemocracy experts Steven Clift and Ann Macintosh as characterised and compared by C.G. RiIley 23 .
“The Clift approach is to build a community of networks in which people can engage in political discourse, develop ways to input into government policy and decision-making, send people to appropriate sites, and recommend ways to use technology to be able to influence the process of government. Much of what he does is from his own perspective, using the means through his newsgroup wire list, Democracy Online newswire (“do-wire”) 24 tracking developments in eDemocracy and sharing them with colleagues around the world. Clift works with governments to encourage them to get online, use tools to engage citizens, and use the Internet as a tool for online voting.
The Macintosh approach has been a traditional one of working with governments from an academic institution to develop tools to help legislators and administrators obtain public input on issues of the day. Through her International Teledemocracy Centre she has been engaged in online consultations on a number of policy issues for the Scottish parliament, has developed tools to obtain public input, including programmes directed specifically at youth.
20 http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2006/01/12/euro_political_blogs_lagging_behind_us/1971/ , 1986. 21 http://frontpage.auburn.edu/tann 22 http://www.cdt.org 23 Riley C.G., “The changing role of the citizen in the e-governance and e-democracy equation”, Commonwealth Centre for e-Governance, September 2003. 24 http://www.e-democracy.org
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She also does work with the European Union on their eDemocracy projects, for example, she participates in the DEMO-net Network of Excellence (see chapter 3).
Although her work is set by the government agenda, she differs from Clift in that much of her e-democracy research is done from the perspective of an academic researcher.”
On the other hand, Clift is “proactively developing a culture of eDemocracy whilst Macintosh contributes through the input of researched papers and online consultations developed through government funding.”
Riley continues with the observation that “eDemocracy advocates consider the fact of governments putting their legislation, legislative proposals and background documents on certain issues online to be a start towards bringing more citizens into the process, because it makes government more transparent and documents more widely accessible. But this is still very much a top-down approach by government, as the groups and individuals mentioned above, who are engaged in e-democracy initiatives, mainly rely on the agenda set by government and react to what government is doing to create input.”
1.4 Remark
With eDemocracy being tied to ICT and the Internet in particular, its development is heavily affected by the course of evolution in those fields. It is therefore not surprising that the general euphoria which swept ICT and the Internet around 2000 (the “dot com” era) also gave a significant boost to the theory and practice of eDemocracy, both at theoretical-academic level (including experimentation design and practice) as well as political level. Notable examples of the latter are the 1999-2002 developments in the UK, with the publication of the white paper on “Modernising Government”, the creation of the e-Envoy as well as new legislation for eVoting experimentation at local level. (see section 5.1.2 for more detail).
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2 eDemocracy examples around the world
There are several examples of innovative use of technologies to pursue democratic goals. Some examples are given below 25 .
♦ MoveOn. This citizen action Web site is run by an advocacy group (http://www.moveon.org ) which generated a lot of press and a lot of debate during the Lewinsky scandal involving President Clinton. First, it sent hundreds of thousands of e- mails to Congress and generated pledges of $13 million in support to use against Republicans who opposed the president. Then during the 2000 elections, it raised and distributed more than $2 million from activists to candidates in key races across the country (keeping its pledge to oust Clinton opponents). The result was that in five targeted Senate races, the candidates it supported won four. Currently the site is involved in political debate and campaign organisation.
♦ People for the American Way. This group, ( http://www.pfaw.org ) used e-mail to oppose a presidential nomination. It generated a lot of media attention. A good place to demonstrate how to mount e-mail campaigns.
♦ Canada’s foreign policy revision was conducted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) in partnership with a civil society think-tank, the McLuhan Global Research Network. The dialogue was implemented through hearings, town halls, mail, phone and a web-site set up as an electronic channel whereby citizens could take part. This lasted for four months in early 2003. The web site included the publication of a Dialogue Paper 26 which can be downloaded, background information and resources to be accessed, terms of engagement, and posed questions for discussion in an online forum. In addition, 19 roundtables were convened around the country, numerous town halls, hearings and meetings with Federal ministers and provincial governments. There were a total of 63,000 visits to the site, 1.5 million hits, 25,000 downloads and 7000 submissions, 500 of which were considered serious submissions, all of which were analysed. 2000 individuals registered to participate in the online discussions. Weekly summaries of contributions were posted on the site, as was the final report and recommendations 27 .
♦ China. Chinese dissidents often use the Internet to publish information about the government. While China’s Internet use is low, it is constantly growing. Much news comes from sites located outside the country. Although censorship limiting access to some of those sites is still present, it is on the decline. www.politicsonline.com regularly carries relevant stories.
♦ Mexico. Rebels in the Chiapas region (Zapatistas) have used the Internet for years to complain about conditions and push for governmental change. They communicated their message with news media, instead of people 28 .
♦ India. An Indian web portal, Tehelka.com ( http://www.tehelka.com ), upset the government in 2001 when reporters posed as arms dealers bribed their way into the defense ministry to win a spoof contract. The site published the corruption scandal which shook the government to its foundations. It was an innovative use of the Web to broadcast corruption in democracy and to bring about change through the medium.
25 “E-DEMOCRACY AROUND THE WORLD”, a survey for the Bertelsmann Foundation by Phil Noble & Associates, Summer 2001 26 http://www.foreign-policy-dialogue.ca 27 Jeffrey L, McLuhan Global Research Network, Speech at “Crossing Boundaries” Conference, Ottawa, May 8, 2003 28 http://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,1282,17633,00.html
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♦ International effort. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines ( http://www.icbl.org ) won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for work to rid the planet of landmines. The group’s work gained momentum, because of its use of the Internet to bring people together from around the world.
♦ East Timor. The East Timor Action Network ( http://etan.org ) is one of several advocacy sites that provide detailed information about human rights in East Timor.
♦ World Headlines archives . One of the best resources of stories about how the Internet is being used around the world is the World Headlines archives on http://www.politicsonline.com . It allows users to search for stories about the Internet and politics by country.
♦ CommGAP. The World Bank's Communication for Governance & Accountability Program (CommGAP, www.worldbank.org/commgap ) launched the blog entitled "People, Spaces, Deliberation" in 2001, on knowledge sharing and discussion on how to secure good governance and accountability. Currently, CommGAP is planning several events for 2008, including a co-sponsored event with Harvard University on the Role of the News Media in the Governance Agenda , and launching several publications, including Governance Reform under Real-World Conditions: Citizens, Stakeholders, and Voice , and two research papers on media development in post-conflict environments. Discussions will be held on the blog around these events and materials will be available to download, including free e-books.
2.1 Online deliberation
As Shawn Rosenberg observes 29 : “Political participation is falling and citizen alienation and cynicism are increasing. A growing number of philosophers and political practitioners have advocated for a more deliberative form of democracy in response to evidence of this decline in the traditional mechanisms of democracy.” Deliberative democracy is a form of political participation, usually conducted in moderated group-meetings. In an online form, deliberation is an example of eParticipation. The media, public broadcasting in particular, NGOs, and universities often make ideal hosts for online deliberation. Citizens can put their trust in a neutral facilitator and open up about their views. Government often needs to be involved, preferably as a participant not just the host. We present two successful experiments and initiatives in online deliberation, quoted by Steven Clift 30 :
♦ By the People. This online deliberative poll worked with gender-balanced representative sample of 280 Americans in late 2002. The participants met online in small groups of 10- 20 with professional moderators who guided their real-time online exchanges (which allowed voice conversations) twice a week for four weeks. Before each meeting, participants were asked to review non-partisan, “carefully balanced” reading materials. It should be emphasized that this was not like the typical online poll with a self-selected audience that answers a typical online poll on a media or government web site. Their statement of results: “After deliberating, the participants increased their willingness to take responsibility for problems around the world. The percentages that placed priority on providing food and medical help to poor countries rose from 51 percent to 67 percent, on protecting human rights in other countries from 49 percent to 60 percent, and on protecting weaker nations against aggression from 56 percent to 68 percent.”
29 Rosenberg S. (ed), “Deliberation, Participation and Democracy Can the People Govern?”, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 30 Clift S., “E-Government and Democracy, Representation and citizen engagement in the information age”, www.publicus.net
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♦ Politika.lv or policy.lv is a public policy site geared toward the policy community in Latvia. Funded by the Soros Foundation of Latvia, it is one of best NGO-based policy portals on the Internet. Most commercial “value-added” ventures presenting a mix of in-depth policy resources no longer exist and many NGO sites have a strong political bent. Politika.lv seeks to network “all actors participating in the public policy process -- parliamentarians, civil servants, NGOs and advocacy groups, policy analysts and research institutes. It is one of the aims of politika.lv to strengthen cooperation and dialogue within this community and, ultimately, raise the quality of policy decisions in Latvia.” ( http://www.policy.lv )
In what follows, we quote a table of the most common online deliberation techniques, their distinguishing characteristics and some application examples throughout the world.
Organisation Approach Distinguishing Characteristics Notable Examples Ascentum Dialogue • Provides consultation and • Listening to Canadians: Circles dialogue tools to government, eConsultation on business, and not-for-profit Pension Disability Plan, organisations. 2002–2003 • Can accommodate large and • Public Input on the small groups, organised into Future of Health Care, “tables” of up to 14 participants. 2002 • Can support synchronous and For more information, visit: asynchronous dialogues. http://www.dialoguecircles.c • Offers a range of customisable om participant and administrator tools, including background materials (video, text, images, etc.), surveys, scenarios, workbooks, and calendars. CitizenScape Link to • Provides concentrated list of • Western Australia Govern- government actions available for Citizenship Strategy, ment consultation and the links to get 2004 Consult- there. • Consulting Citizens: ation • Offers online dialogue to affect Engaging with Spaces how government actions proceed Aboriginal Western from planning to completion. Australians, 2004 For more information, visit: http://www.citizenscape.wa. gov.au DELIB Citizen- • Enables participants to search for, • Consultation on Space participate in, see results of, and Prostitution Law propose new consultations. Reform, 2004 • “Consultation” limited to reading For more information, visit: background materials, responding http://www.citizenspace.co.u to poll questions, and adding k comments. • Clean interface includes a progress tracker and “Fact Bank.”
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Denmark Danmarks • Free eDialogue tool developed by • County of Funen, Public National IT Debatten the Danish National IT and Debate on the Regional and Telecom Telecom Agency to encourage Plan, 2004 Agency public debate of issues. • City of Aarhus, Public • Tool for public officials to use to Debate on Traffic “qualify” their decisions. Planning and • Emphasises well-defined topics, Expenditures, 2003 clear purposes, and (pro)active For more information, visit: and dedicated debate http://www.danmarksdebatte management/moderation. n.dk and http://e- • Seeks to promote public debate demokrati.borger.dk/app/DD at the national, county, and Main.page municipal levels. Dialogue by Small to • Provides a range of engagement • Surrey County Council Design Large services, including consultation, Waste Plan, 2004 Group online stakeholder engagement, • Taking It On, DEFRA Dialogue and public debate. Sustainable • Developed proprietary Development Strategy, DialogueDXplatform to collect, 2004 collate, and report information • International Finance easily and rapidly. Corporation • Breaks consultations into Consultation on “sessions,” to first collect Disclosure Policy, 2004 individual responses to For more information, visit: consultation questions, then http://www.dialoguebydesign share and invite response to .net results. • Participants interact via facilitator proxy using e-mail. Fraunhofer Dito2.0 • Platform for goal-oriented, • City of Cologne, Institute for moderated online discussion. “Cologne Rings” Autonomous • Seeks to apply tools for e- Discussions, 2004 and participation in municipal decision • Esslingen City Dialogue Intelligent making, especially consensus, on Budget, 2003 Systems stakeholder, and planning • “Growing City,” processes. Hamburg, 2002 • Tool set includes brainstorming, For more information visit: mind mapping, and content http://zeno8.ais.fraunhofer.d mining. e/zeno/ Information Large- • Asynchronous online dialogues, • California Master Plan Renaissance Scale several weeks long, engage large for Education, 2002 Online groups in discussions of public • Public Involvement in Dialogue issues. EPA Decisions, 2001 • Dialogues include panellists -- • Americans Discuss public officials, issue experts, and Social Security, 1999 advocacy groups -- and extensive For more information, visit: background materials. http://www.info-ren.org • Regular summaries encapsulate daily discussion and enable participants to remain current without reading all comments. • Often sponsored by public agencies as part of their policy- making processes.
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Web Lab Small • Asynchronous online dialogues • Listening to the City: Group that distribute participants among Rebuilding Lower Dialogue facilitated and non-facilitated Manhattan, 2002 groups of 10–15 discussants. • Project 540, High • Takes place over multiple weeks School Civic to encourage greater interaction, Engagement, 2002 investment, and accountability • What Now: Politics, the among participants. Economy, Your Life, • Dialogue monitors track group 2001 activity and intervene as needed. For more information, visit: • Document libraries provide http://www.weblab.org background material, and polls take the pulse of participants.
Table 1. Online deliberation techniques, examples and sites 31
2.1.1 Online Public Issue Forums
As Steven Clift observes, “citizen to citizen discussions online have tremendous potential if they are organised within the context of existing power structures and have significant reach within the community. The agenda-setting potential of issue forums is significant. However, proving impact on actual decision-making is difficult in any medium. Local forums seem to have strongest potential for agenda-setting success. Geography matters in democracy. If taken local, the Internet and ICTs can strengthen public life and the role of citizens. These local successes need to be built upon and combined with state/provincial, national, and global efforts.”
He goes on to quote some successful non-governmental discussion-oriented projects with a civic bent, which include:
♦ Tripoli E-Discussion Society - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tripoli/ - Lebanon ♦ e-thepeople – http://www.e-thepeople.org - US ♦ OpenDemocracy.Net - http://www.opendemocracy.net - UK ♦ K2K – Knoxville, Tennessee - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/k2k/ - US ♦ Arlington, Massachusetts - http://www.arlingtonlist.org - US
The survey of eParticipation sites and forums around Europe and the rest of the world, performed by the WEB.DEP project, singled out 29 sites and the participation-support tools they employ, in accordance to criteria related to general context and their possibilities for success. The criteria employed were 32 :
A. Context.
♦ Consensus building. The tool or initiative includes functions to support consensus. ♦ Trust-building. An objective of the initiative or functions/ modification of the tool to support trust-building.
31 Reproduced from: ”Public Deliberation: A Manager’s Guide to Citizen Engagement”, C. J. Lukensmeyer and L. Hasselblad Torres, IBM Center for the Business of Government, 2006. 32 Smith E,. Macintosh A., “Existing eParticipation practices with relevance to WEB.DEP”, in D 2.1 – “Current situation, high-level definition of WEB.DEP priority areas and stakeholders”, WEB.DEP project, 2007
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♦ Deliberation support. For example the tool includes features which help participants to interact with each other’s contributions ♦ Media involvement. The initiative has a strong relationship with one or more media organisations. ♦ Information provision (focus). The provision of information is an important focus of the tool. The tool has been structured to promote use of this information to support discussion. ♦ Languages. Mixed language initiative (or aiming to move that way) ♦ Digital divide. Specific efforts have been made to include the digitally disenfranchised. These may be technical modifications, equipment supplied or workshops held offline with potential users. ♦ Moderation and facilitation schemes. Comprehensive rules, roles or system support for moderation, facilitation, content-rating. ♦ Citizens raising issues. Participants can choose topics or raise new topics for discussion. ♦ Influencing policy or law – The initiative has a strong relationship with government or policy-makers with a view to influencing policy or law.
B. Success factors.
♦ Shared agenda (a strong theme or well-defined objective). Participants want to work together or are keen to work on the topic. Users may share a strong relationship with the topic or a geographic area. Users may share a relevant attribute, for example age. ♦ Defined schedule. A schedule that organises the discussion over a specific period of time. Often the themes of later discussions are influenced by the content/conclusions of earlier ones. The schedule may be defined by news/articles posted. A defined schedule gives participants a reason to return at a specific time. ♦ Carefully structured. The tool is carefully structured/tailored to support the objective. ♦ Strong (active) facilitation . Moderators take an active role in the discussion. Technology may be designed to support this (e.g. gives moderators powers to structure the discussion) ♦ Small groups. (an alternative to active facilitation)– Participants are split into small “discussion groups” either throughout the process or for certain phases. (These can be a good alternative to strong facilitation, as long as the group are clear about the aims and structure of their discussion) ♦ Impetus to support good forum use. Comprehensive netiquette policy/advice, some sort of technical support for this, a content rating system ♦ Open source technology. More durable software (already de-bugged) allows more time to structure the initiative appropriately and focus on content ♦ Good publicity. Initiative can achieve the number of participants it needs to succeed. Note that only a small percentage of visitors will actively participate. ♦ Political support. The initiative has a relationship with government (or other powerful body) that implies its results will be acknowledges by and impact on government.
The full tables of those initiatives, web addresses and characteristics can be found in the survey text (see previous reference). Here we present a selection of those initiatives which fulfil 70% and more of the criteria of each category in the table below. The last column of the table refers to the fulfilment of one specific criterion, namely the influence exerted by the initiative on policy or law. This parameter was singled out as being of particular relevance to direct democracy. Note that with the exception of “Zeno (Dito 2)” and the “ Albanian-Serb Information Exchange Forum”, all the other initiatives listed fulfil this criterion, therefore they have a strong relationship to the legislative process and aim to exert influence in it.
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Name Web Address Country/Area Influence on policy/law Albanian-Serb http://www.kosovakosovo.com Kosovo and NO Information Exchange surrounding area Forum Econsultation.org http://www.econsultation.org Ireland YES Local Issues Forums http://e-democracy.org Specific cities or TES areas in the US or UK. Demos: Delphi Online http://www.demos-project.org EU – Germany, YES Mediation System Italy HeadsUp http://www.headsup.org.uk UK YES
Seoul's Cyber Policy http://forum.seoul.go.kr Seoul, S. Korea YES Forum Zeno (Dito 2) http://zeno8.ais.fraunhofer.de/zeno International NO (German)
Table 2. Top ranking eParticipation initiatives according to context and success factors (Success factors category highlighted in black)
2.2 eDemocracy examples by nation
We briefly present some established sites 33 which can be considered as exemplary utilisations of the eDemocracy concepts.
North America
This includes the two federal states, i.e. the US and Canada, which offer a multitude of sites serving federal, state and local levels of governance and participation.
♦ FirstGov (http://www.firstgov.gov ) A massive U.S. portal of portals which offers richness, speed and depth. Built in just 90 days, it is one-stop shopping for the 20,000 Web sites of the U.S. federal government.
♦ Web White & Blue (http://www.webwhiteblue.org ). This eDemocracy Web site provided the first public service campaign to encourage people to vote in 1998 and the first rolling cyber-debates of presidential candidates in 2000. Funded in part by the Markle Foundation, Web White & Blue offered lessons in non-government use of the Internet to spur civic participation. The site is not operational anymore but its archives are still accessible.
♦ U.S. Census (http://www.census.gov ). This site is packed with useful information, originally intended as a pull site, i.e. a place where people can get lots of information. Recent developments have introduced more personalisation features.
33 “E-DEMOCRACY AROUND THE WORLD”, a survey for the Bertelsmann Foundation by Phil Noble & Associates, Summer 2001
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♦ People for the American Way , mentioned in the previous section.
♦ Government of Canada (http://canada.gc.ca/main_e.html ), a gateway to the Canadian government, featuring information and service gateways for citizens, businesses and visitors. It offers several forums and other forms of contact between citizens and government.
Europe
♦ Consultation on the German Freedom of Information Act 34 . The Federal Ministry of the Interior set up an online discussion forum, the draft bill was made available for public discussion at an early stage feeding citizens’ opinions and arguments directly into the legislative process. The offer to comment was largely taken up by the public and the input was of good quality which led to changes in the original draft.
♦ Madrid Participa. The Madrid City Council (Directorate of Citizen Participation (DCP)) and private sponsors started the project in 2004 with the aim to involve citizens in the local decision-making processes and the multi-channel means of communication such as the Internet, Java mobile phones, SMS messages and public access Internet centres deployed throughout the city. The platform in operation 35 includes consultation and eVoting facilities (based on Scytl’s Pnyx.government solution). Participation rates 36 have ranged from 0,14% to 2,55% depending on the district. Although these might seem low turnouts, they fare well (actually they are higher) compared to participation rates in similar public consultation processes held the traditional way. This shows that the electronic means of consultation has benefitted the process by increasing the rates of response. The city council supports this view and states that its intention is to receive good quality feedback from citizens interested in the issues at hand, rather than high rates of participation.
♦ Other countries examples on eDemocracy advances outside the US and Europe include the following notable cases.
♦ Singapore. The Singaporean government is recognised as a worldwide innovator in eGovernment services. Its government portal ( www.gov.sg ) provides users with a wide variety of eServices including citizens’ engagement via sending e-feedback to almost any government department on national issues, policies, reduction of bureaucracy and others. Interestingly, Singapore became the world’s first country in 2001 to use the Internet as a tool to conduct a population census. Experts also say that it is relatively easy for Singapore to move toward eGovernment and eParticipation because its population of 4 million is concentrated in a compact, urban area.
♦ Australia. Government Online (http://www.agimo.gov.au/index.htm ) is a government effort to move Australia towards online government. The site is packed with information on the country’s vision and what it wants to do to move online. Of particular mention is the success of the 2001 survey effort to collect information from all of government about what they want done regarding to eGovernment. Australia’s national portal, http://www.australia.gov.au ), includes a multitude of consultation facilities on several issues and a short survey on the quality of the site itself.
34 OECD: “PROMISE AND PROBLEMS OF E-DEMOCRACY” – ISBN 92-64-01948-0, 2003 35 http://www.madridparticipa.org 36 http://www.epractice.eu/en/cases/madridp
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♦ New Zealand. The government’s portal, http://www.govt.nz is attractive and offers several online services.
♦ The Philippines. Electronic activists helped bring down a presidency in 2001. Thousands of protesters connected by cell phones and united through e-mail and Web protests marched on the palace and instigated the removal of Joseph Estrada from office. In late 2000, cybercitizens launched an online offensive to get 1 million online signatures for petitions for Estrada to step down. Among the leading sites in the effort was www.elagda.com . While they didn’t manage to gather 1 million signatures, the site offers multiple citizen-action tools that outline the possibilities for democratic activism.
♦ Israel. The Israeli government’s portal ( http://www.gov.il/firstgov/english ) in English and Hebrew, provides online e-mail services and citizen services, including a place to petition the prime minister. Most of the site is in Hebrew.
2.3 The US case
The US represents a particular case of a large “wired” society which accounts for approximately 15% of the total online traffic while having only 4% of the world’s population 37 . The US is typical of a western-type democracy and is broadly considered as the richest and most powerful nation in the world. Typical problems facing developed western democracies, such as low participation levels in elections, accountability of politicians (which is considered to be low) and apathy towards politics and common affairs among the younger generations, are also present in the US system.
Table 3. Techniques used for the sampled eDemocracy projects (see ref. 38 )
37 http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats14.htm
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As Michael Peart 38 observes, although information dissemination on all levels of government activity is abundant, thus enhancing transparency, there is relatively little activity on citizens’ participation in the decision-making processes. This is probably an indicator of the American political culture, which leans more towards observing government processes rather than directly influencing them. Moreover, this acts as a counter-incentive towards government at various levels (federal, state, local) to provide new ways for participation of its citizens.
Data collected and presented in the aforementioned study included initiatives and projects taking place in a representative 39 sample of 11 mainstream states classified according to the aspect of eDemocracy they promote. The technologies used in the sample and their classification according to the e-DC model (see section 1.1) is shown in the table above.
The findings showed an overwhelming trend towards transparency-enhancing projects, using relatively advanced webcasting and RSS technologies. Category 2 (increasing participation) accounted for far fewer projects and category 3 (deliberation) for even fewer; in fact only two.
Further analysis of the results of the study, performed by Peart and Diaz 40 , proceeds with the characterisation of the types of eDemocracy initiatives of the table above. We summarise their basic conclusions in what follows.
♦ Deliberation initiatives. This category accounts for 9% of the cases studied, covering two main types: online forums and citizen’s communication with elected representatives. A typical example of the former was the forum (now closed), hosted by a private group, which allowed residents of New York to discuss what was to be done with the former site of the “World Trade Center” in lower Manhattan 41 . An interesting feature of that forum was that it could bring citizens together under a common cause in a way that would not have been possible without ICTs. Another example of the second type of initiative is Virginia’s governor Kaine does two call-in radio shows monthly (one with the Washington Post radio and the other with WRVA near Richmond, Virginia), from which the web-site 42 often culls pertinent bits and makes them available online as a podcast for interested citizens. We should also note the discussion forum ( http://gov.ca.gov/ask ) run by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, which consists of live question and answer sessions, accessible online and downloadable from an archive for later use. The initiative seems to have ceased now however, as the last session dates back in 2007.
♦ Participation initiatives. The category accounted for 19% of cases of the study and includes four general types:
o Citizen feedback forum , a standard tool which is nothing but a form for a citizen to fill in and forward. An example is the “Email Governor Palin” programme of Alaska 43 , where Sarah Palin invites “ALL comments, concerns, ideas and questions” by citizens, using a form which also contains a menu for the thematic classification of the subject (approximately 30 categories). The whole initiative is a simple application of eDemocracy, but can be highly effective as a means of obtaining feedback.
38 Peart M., “Local e-Democracy Initiatives in the United States”, e-Democracy Centre, e-Working Papers, 2007/03 39 In the wording of the author, this included “cases that represent a full range of potential socio-economic influences” 40 Peart M., Diaz J. F., “Comparative Project on Local e-Democracy Initiatives in Europe and North America”, e- Democracy Centre, Research Centre on Direct Democracy, Univ. of Geneva, Geneva, 2007. The paper has appeared in a revised form titled: “Taking stock: local e-democracy in Europe and the USA”, International Journal of Electronic Governance, 2008 - Vol. 1, No.4, pp. 400 – 433.
41 http://dialogues.listeningtothecity.org 42 http://www.governor.virginia.gov/MediaRelations/MediaLibrary/podcasts.cfm 43 http://www.gov.state.ak.us/govmail.php
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o Ballot initiatives. Citizens can begin the process of placing an initiated proposal on a ballot. The example of the State of Colorado 44 is notable here, with full information on the process and (steps and preconditions) and the facility of online submission of the first proposal to a member of the legislative body. Feedback can also be received by e-mail. Although not all steps can be carried out online, the fact that initiation on a serious state-wide matter such as a referendum can be made online is a step towards direct democracy. o Online bidding and contract drafting , a form of eProcurement with the public sector, pioneered by Delray Beach, a medium-sized city in Florida, seen as a means of widening eDemocracy towards the participation of businesses o eBudgeting process. US sites do not generally allow direct participation of citizens in the decision making process, but interaction on issues like budgeting has been realised. Citizens can offer feedback as part of a survey on the drafting of the budget of a city (the cities of Alexandria and Charlottesville in Virginia have offered this facility in the past).
♦ Transparency initiatives. This is the largest category, realised in the form of various means, such as:
o Official blogs, kept by a chief administrator of a municipality or other high- ranking officials. Fro example, the city of Los Angeles, California, offers on its municipal webpage 7 different blogs 45 kept by administrative departments, such as Animal Services, the Police and others. In this way, information about the government and its administrative process comes directly from those who are involved and not through some intermediate medium (press, TV etc. o Webcasts. The technology is widely used in the US by legislatures at both State and municipal levels and constitutes by far the most common type of eDemocracy initiative encountered. Most states offer webcasts of their legislative sessions An example of advanced such services comes from the State of Colorado, which offers webcasts classified into subcommittee as well as general body meetings 46 . All levels of local government in the US, are committed into making the governance process more transparent so that citizens can keep track of their activities. o RSS feeds. Local governments in the US use this Web 2.0 tool to provide information and increase transparency. The ability to customise, allows information to be sent under different categories chosen by its generator. For example, the State legislature of Minnesota “MyBills” provides personalised bill tracking and e-mail & RSS notification for current Minnesota legislation. Choice can include topic, bill number, or bill author.
From the above, it is clear that eDemocracy in the US is almost synonymous to transparency of the political process. Citizens are able to read, listen and watch such activities using their PCs in a number of user-selected and classified ways.
As Peart and Diaz (see ref. above) conclude, it is likely that eDemocracy initiatives in the US manage to reverse the trend of apathy towards politics and the low level of accountability of politicians. By introducing more transparency, citizens can see politics happening and are more likely to want to exercise their voting rights, Also, recording government activity makes it harder for politicians to be dishonest and increases reach out to younger generations.
44 http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/lcsstaff/initiative.htm 45 http://www.lacity.org/lacity440.htm 46 http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics2004a/cslFrontPages.nsf/Audio?OpenForm
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An interesting remark the authors make is that in the US innovation in the future is not likely to come from the government. The US is characterised by a lack of a dedicated eDemocracy related administrative structure at Federal level, which shows that there is no will in providing innovative services to encourage eParticipation; this is probably due to the perceived lack of interest on behalf of the citizens. Administration of all eGovernment matters at federal level is through the Office of E-Government and Information Technology, which is under the control of the President. This office handles federal initiatives along the entire range of eGovernment, including eDemocracy. This means that eDemocracy projects run under eGovernment programmes and the same structure is replicated at state level. Actually, at state level, eDemocracy services belong to either legislative process information-observation or to administrative information (and sometimes interaction) centred on the governor’s office activities.
Despite the fact that the government has the financial means, the role of innovator can be successfully played by the political parties. They are the ones who are politically motivated and this is shown by the election periods, where party mechanisms swell with effort to raise awareness and support. This, coupled with the drastically raised levels of attention by US citizens during these periods, shows that parties and private political advocacy groups seeking for support may well be the hosts of innovation in eDemocracy. Web 2.0 tools for social networking and new spaces for discussion and deliberation are likely to emerge.
2.4 eDemocracy initiatives: current trends
As the examples of this chapter have shown, there is certainly considerable activity in eDemocracy around the world. This is, in most cases, supplemented by policy measures and government-initiated projects aimed at enhancing the quality of democracy and overcoming problems such as apathy, low participation and mistrust in political leaders and representatives.
The study of Peart and Diaz 47 on eDemocracy initiatives in Europe and the US identifies the following major trends:
♦ Practices used. Webcasting is very popular in the US but not elsewhere. By far, the most common practice used is the forum, albeit plagued by relatively low levels of use by their intended audience. Next in popularity is eConsultation, which however is equally affected by low usage. The authors propose that mere provision of such as service cannot promote participation and dialogue; instead it should be integrated with other governmental efforts.
♦ Technological tools. Web 2.0, RSS feeds and video sharing are popular, especially in the US. They add transparency to legislation sessions and enable participation via videoed “question and answer” sessions. To a lesser extent, national digital smart/ID cards (Estonia, Italy, etc.) have eased authentication and opened up new avenues in areas such as eVoting.
♦ In many cases of established western-style democracies, initiatives such as eVoting legislation to enable the process have failed, probably due to the high level of dissatisfaction towards the democratic institutions themselves. The reverse is true for Switzerland, where the government is generally well-regarded and direct democracy is a regular practice. The example of Estonia (see section 5.1.4) also shows that the
47 Peart M., Diaz J. F., “Comparative Project on Local e-Democracy Initiatives in Europe and North America”, e- Democracy Centre, Research Centre on Direct Democracy, Univ. of Geneva, Geneva, 2007. The paper has appeared in a revised form titled: “Taking stock: local e-democracy in Europe and the USA”, International Journal of Electronic Governance, 2008 - Vol. 1, No.4, pp. 400 – 433.
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withdrawal from political discussion is not a feature of neo-democracies either. The authors conclude that the democratic context of a country is a significant factor in the consumption of eDemocracy services.
♦ The digital divide. There are relatively few initiatives attacking this issue by offering for example public access points or computer education classes. The public sphere has to be as inclusive as possible, but at present, it seems to be oblivious to this particular political space.
♦ Participation vs. transparency. Transparency is the dominant form of eDemocracy in the US but not in Europe.
♦ Creation of deliberative spaces is the most common type of initiative at present
♦ Innovative solutions are not the privilege of northern more developed countries. In fact, the most innovative examples come from countries like Spain, Italy and Hungary. The authors point out that, according to evidence by implemented projects , “eDemocracy does not require a long-established democratic context or a large budget to find success in revolutionising the relationship between citizens and their governments” .
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3 Research Trends
There has been considerable research in eDemocracy, coming from multiple sides such as political science, social science, technology, information theory and computer science. The subject is evidently multidisciplinary and this seems, not surprisingly, to be the most overlooked feature of the usual research support programmes throughout the world. This conclusion, reached by FP6 researchers of the DEMO-Net Network of Excellence (NoE) 48 is in-line with the general nature of eGovernment research.
The DEMO-net NoE is an eDemocracy/eParticipation umbrella project in FP6. The overarching objective of the network is to strengthen scientific, technological and social research excellence in eParticipation by integrating the research capacities of individuals and organisations spread across Europe. As described in their web-site ( www.demo-net.org ), the four high-level objectives of DEMO-net are:
♦ To achieve a lasting integration of currently fragmented research in eParticipation ♦ To stimulate joint research in DEMO-net's agreed research areas ♦ To disseminate DEMO-net research amongst eParticipation stakeholders ♦ To provide a barometer of research effectiveness for eParticipation in Europe.
The network has been active for just over two years now (started in January 2006) and its 4- year duration means that it should be considered as a mid-course project.
The research challenges that DEMO-net envisage as being prevalent in eDemocracy are summarised in the following picture.
The network members expect that by concentrating on specific types of processes and their support by e-tools they will gain a better understanding of the causes and the effect of their deployment and use. This, in turn, will enable them to compare different areas of eDemocracy/eParticipation and identify factors which determine commonalities and differences. As they also observe 49 , eParticipation by its very nature is a hybrid research activity. They note that the interdisciplinary nature of eDemocracy (and eParticipation in particular) research induces a process of “translation” to and from various scholars’ own disciplinary languages. They distinguish three types of such a translation, namely:
1. Between technologists and social scientists 2. Between researchers and political elites 3. Between researchers and the public
Due to these translations and to the multidisciplinary nature of the field, they conclude that the case of eParticipation research “entails questioning the political, technological and cultural assumptions upon which projects are based, as well as the empirical claims made by project managers, politicians, technology vendors, journalists and interest groups.”
48 www.demo-net.org 49 DEMO-NET, Deliverable 4.2, ver 1.0, December 2006
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Figure 1. Research challenges (DEMO-net 50 )
3.1 eParticipation research throughout the world
DEMO-net conducted a survey among research facilities around the world, in an effort to characterise and categorise the available resources. The survey, which was completed within 2006 and received responses from 108 research centres across 33 countries. These provided a map of expertise in eParticipation worldwide and enabled an overview of the current state of the research. Across Europe 76 research centres covering 20 countries contributed data. Of this sample 53 are based in northern Europe, 17 in southern Europe and 6 from Eastern Europe. Considering the rest of the world, 32 research centres contributed data from 13 countries, including 14 research centres in the USA and 4 in Australia.
The survey revealed the two most common eParticipation activities are:
♦ research into deliberation and ♦ research into consultation.
50 Kubicek h>, “Mapping the eDemocracy Research Topic Landscape – A Proposal from DEMO-net”, ESF-LiU Conference “Electronic Democracy, Achievements and Challenges”, Vadstena, Sweden, Nov. 21 - 25, 2007.
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Figure 2. Geographical spread of research centres in eParticipation (DEMO-net 51 )
The map of eParticipation research around the world is being built by DEMO-net via a survey among their contacts in research teams around the globe. The results are displayed pictorially using various categorisations; the most important of these results are reproduced and commented upon in what follows.
The figure above shows the number of research centres around the world who have responded to the first round of the survey. Although non-exhaustive, it is indicative of the spread of research and highlights the countries active in the area. As expected, larger and more advanced technologically countries have a larger share, while smaller countries of comparable level of development (such as Greece (4) and Portugal (1)) exhibit notable differences. This however, may be due to responses to the first round and may be ironed out in the next rounds. Europe comes across with 76 contributing research centres covering 20 countries; this is a rather large presence compared to the entire North America (14 centres in the US and 2 in Canada).
The next important aspect is the spread of activities around eParticipation in Europe and the rest of the world.
Regarding the European map, one observes that the spread can be split in two categories:
♦ multi-activity countries such as the UK, Sweden and Spain and most of the others and ♦ select activity countries, namely: o Finland (Journalism, Knowledge Management and Policy Processes) o Slovakia (Journalism, Collaborative Environments and Service Delivery) o Russian Federation (Voting)
51 From Figure1, DEMO-NET, Deliverable 4.2, ver 1.0, December 2006
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Figure 3. Map of eParticipation activities in Europe (DEMO-net)
Figure 4. Map of eParticipation activities in the rest of the world (DEMO-net)
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With the exception of the three select-activity countries, all others are active in “traditional” areas such as online deliberation, consultation, evaluation and policy processes.
Regarding the rest of the world, countries can also be divided into similar groups:
♦ multi-activity countries such as the USA, Australia, Canada and most of the others and ♦ select activity countries, namely: o Colombia (Information Provision and Knowledge Management) o Republic of Congo (Collaborative Environments and Electioneering) o Israel, India, Cote d’ Ivoire, South Africa falling in-between with 4-5 activities each
As DEMO-net observe, outside of Europe, there is still a strong bias to deliberation and consultation; research into ICT design also appears strong.
3.1.1 Observing and conducting eParticipation
Figure 5. Balance between observing and conducting eParticipation per country (DEMO-net)
Researchers at DEMO-net distinguish between the conduct of eParticipation and its study. Although, as they note, a strict separation cannot be made, they posed the question in the survey ask research centres on whether they were mainly concerned with:
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♦ research into conducting eParticipation, i.e. establishing and running eParticipation projects, primarily practiced by technology-based centres designing and applying eParticipation tools or ♦ research into observing/studying eParticipation, i.e. researching eParticipation projects or, in other words, focusing on the study of eParticipation.
The figure above provides the actual number of research centres conducting and observing in all the countries that responded.
The most interesting feature of the findings of this part of the survey is the large number of teams who declared themselves as dealing with both types of research. As this is rather odd, the DEMO-net researchers conjecture that several of the respondents had difficulties in distinguishing between the two areas of their work and this, in-turn is taken as a sign of the relative infancy and consequent immaturity of the eDemocracy/eParticipation discipline as a whole.
3.1.2 Academic Domains
Democratic Theory Political Social informatics Knowledge communications engineering Political Science Political sociology Information Software management engineering Law Public policy Participatory design Knowledge analysis management Media/Communications Public administration Spatial planning Information systems Science – local government Environmental Political psychology Collaborative Information management systems extraction Cultural studies Social shaping of Computational Computer Science technology linguistics Sociology Innovation studies 124 RESEARCH 100 RESEARCH 87 RESEARCH 74 RESEARCH GROUPS GROUPS GROUPS GROUPS
SOCIETY TECHNOLOGY
Table 4. From society to technology: academic fields and disciplines (DEMO net)
Regarding the positioning of eParticipation researchers, the above table, compiled by DEMO net researchers, is indicative of the spectrum of academic fields and disciplines encountered in eParticipation. This ranges from society to technology and can be considered as a map on which various research teams around the world can be positioned.
The following figure shows the thematic distribution of academic research centres covering eParticipation. The themes are taken from established academic domains (as shown in Table 4 above) and geographic distribution is aggregated into three large regions, namely Europe, North America and the rest of the world.
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Figure 6. Academic domains in eParticipation research per region (DEMO-net)
Some remarks which arise from the distribution chart (under the reservation that the current sample of respondents of the DEMO-net survey may be biased) are as follows:
♦ Political science, social informatics and political sociology are dominant disciplines among European centres. ♦ Democratic theory, media and communication science, and computer science are dominant disciplines among North American centres ♦ Social shaping of technology, media and communication science and public policy analysis are dominant disciplines among centres in the rest of the world ♦ No centres which include environmental management, computational linguistics and knowledge engineering deal with eParticipation research outside Europe and North America
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♦ Europe is the only region whose centres cover all domains, and, although one should expect the same to be true for North America, disciplines such as political sociology, cultural studies and collaborative systems are not pursued by corresponding North American centres
As the DEMO-net researchers point out 52 the responses which enabled the compilation of the chart shown above were prompted by the question “Which academic domains best describe your group's research?” They conclude that the twenty-seven academic fields and disciplines reported as being relevant to eParticipation, are a clear demonstration of the ‘hybrid’ nature of the field.
Referring back to Table 4, the shaded row shows the total number of research teams around the world aggregated from the previous figure per level of research (i.e. according to the four gradations dividing the spectrum from society to technology). A general remark is that disciplines in each of the columns are pretty well represented by research groups. A bias towards society is evident, however.
3.1.3 Maturity of the field
As mentioned before, the relative immaturity of eDemocracy/eParticipation as a research field has been (within the limitation of the survey) verified by the inability of most responders to distinguish between conducting and observing eParticipation research. This is also supported by the following chart showing the historical evolution of the growth of centres in eParticipation research.
Figure 7. Cumulative growth of research centres (DEMO-net)
52 DEMO-NET, Deliverable 4.2, ver 1.0, December 2006
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The majority of eParticipation research centres have only been established since 2001. The DEMO-net survey shows that prior to 2000 there were only 22 research centres as opposed to 15 new ones which came into being in 2000 and a further 53 established since then.
Finally, DEMO-net note that there are marked differences in research emphasis between European and US centres in areas such as cultural politics, community informatics and visualisation. On the other hand, there are also similarities demonstrated by the high percentage of research centres focusing on deliberation, consultation and knowledge management in both regions.
3.2 Gaps in eDemocracy research
As Steven Clift points out 53 , “research compiling “what if” speculation continues to be plentiful, but the questions being asked are often too general to be useful in the field by practitioners.” On the other hand, the revolutionary expectations created across many industries by the “dotcom Internet-era” obscured the evolutionary processes that are actually at work. This has resulted in a lack of qualitative and quantitative research projects measuring specific ICT- based strategies that are designed to achieve specific democratic goals.
Clift calls for goal-oriented comparative research at the appropriate level of granularity to ensure “a meaningful contribution to the success of eGovernment and eDemocracy efforts.”
In his own words: “The future of democracy and eGovernment will be determined by development of a cookbook, supported by research, with the best eDemocracy recipes and notes on regional and cultural specialisation. This cookbook will only feed the citizens hunger for more meaningful and effective participatory governance if the cookbook is used in a kitchen of democratic intent.”
He also notes that research to evaluate the impact of the best-practice use of ICT tools and strategies in efforts to improve democracy is rather limited. It is of interest to note that his assertion of the lack of impact evaluation and of comparative research (with the latter being a tool for the former) is also matched by the conclusions of the DEMO-net researchers on the gaps of eParticipation research as analysed in the next section.
3.2.1 Gaps in eParticipation research
Researchers in DEMO-net point out 54 that although a large variety of eParticipation activities are currently being researched, we are not in a position to know “how and how well (if at all) these are linked together in practice and, if so, whether or not research is reflecting and analysing these linkages.” As a possible means to answer to such a question, they propose “an analysis of ecologies of eParticipation ” to reflect the multiplicity and the complexity of links among the various activities in terms of technology, structure, and patterns of use.
With respect to the relationship between the present stage of research and the design of agendas for future research, they point out that eParticipation is a still youthful area, where more exploratory, descriptive and flexible methodological approaches may be favoured. At a more mature stage however, description and understanding should give way to more rigorous evidence-based explanation and evaluation via methods such as comparative analysis.
53 Steven L. Clift, “E-government and Democracy, Representation and citizen engagement in the information-age”, www.publicus.net , February 2004.
54 DEMO-NET, Deliverable 4.2, ver 1.0, December 2006
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In order to highlight the areas which lag behind in research, while at the same time avoid complexity, DEMO-net used a clustering of research perspectives and themes as shown in the following table (see section 3.1.1 on the initial categorisation into conducting/observing eParticipation).
Conducting eParticipation Observing/studying eParticipation Underpinning infrastructures/techniques Political & Cultural Framing Platforms/tools Understanding Political & Cultural Outcomes/Impact Assessment Design Understanding What People Do & How They Interact Content management tools Understanding What People Think Supporting interaction & comprehension Examining Content/Text Understanding What Systems Do: Technology Assessment
Table 5. Clusters of eParticipation research themes (adapted from DEMO-net)
Correlating these to responses from their survey, they were able to conclude that the following clusters represented gaps in research:
♦ Content management tools. The large amounts of information encountered in eParticipation are in need of user-navigation aids and consequently, structuring and representation ♦ Support of interaction and comprehension. Users need to understand complex information, which call for academic areas such as natural language processing, argumentation support systems and discourse analysis ♦ Technology assessment. Understanding of what technical systems do is a prerequisite to any research effort in the whole area ♦ Impact assessment. This involves understanding the political and cultural outcomes of eParticipation, cost/benefit analysis and comparative analysis of practices.
Note here that impact assessment and comparative research have also been characterised as major gaps by Steven Clift (see previous section).
Another, more holistic point of view comes from the study of Peart and Diaz on eDemocracy examples and practices in Europe and the US 55 . The authors single out two areas of further research:
♦ The digital divide , where they argue that more work needs to be done on how best to ameliorate the problem, with respect to eDemocracy. Indeed, one cannot talk about increasing participation by using a new means of communication, which, itself, is inaccessible by a significant part of the population.
55 Peart M., Diaz J. F., “Comparative Project on Local e-Democracy Initiatives in Europe and North America”, e- Democracy Centre, Research Centre on Direct Democracy, Univ. of Geneva, Geneva, 2007. The paper has appeared in a revised form titled: “Taking stock: local e-democracy in Europe and the USA”, International Journal of Electronic Governance, 2008 - Vol. 1, No.4, pp. 400 – 433.
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♦ The exact types of pre-conditions , which can lead to the success of different types of initiatives, are largely unknown at present. Clarifying the role of important variables in the background of any single initiative will enable the trend towards eDemocracy practices to solidify and limit the number of failures. As argued by the same authors (also see section 2.4) the democratic context of a country plays an important role in the consumption of eDemocracy services. Correlating the factors which shape this context with the participation rates of eDemocracy experiments can be a starting point in this area of research.
Specific key research themes that were not being widely addressed were also revealed by the DEMO-net research. These included:
♦ Mediation, a conflict resolution activity ♦ Mobile communications, a surprising outcome, given the popularity of the medium and the various attempts to include it in eGovernment services ♦ Electioneering and Polling, something which contradicts the number of research groups working in political science and sociology. ♦ Journalism, a major gap, given the role it has in any democracy.
Researchers in DEMO-net also note that there are few obvious types of eParticipation activity that were not covered at all by the respondents to their survey. The example they give is computer games which through their informative and participatory elements could potentially help users gain a better understanding of key policy issues (environment, urban planning etc.) or key public roles (citizen, political representative and others).
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4 Technologies for eParticipation
The range of basic Information Technology tools and techniques used in eGovernment projects is also used in eDemocracy/eParticipation platforms. These are semantic web services and ontologies to support interoperability at all levels (technical, semantic, organizational) as well as knowledge engineering and management systems.
What makes eDemocracy technologies different however, is the additional need for:
♦ Collaboration, thought of as being both among peers (citizens) as well as among central services (government agencies) and individual nodes (citizens) and ♦ Argumentation, in the form of tools to support informed debate and evidence-based policy-making.
We shall briefly refer to these technologies in what follows. Our exposition will be based on the presentation and analysis of these techniques made by the DEMO-net network of excellence.
Before proceeding however, it is instructive to quote the remark of Steven Clift 56 : “People sometimes incorrectly equate eDemocracy with direct democracy or are concerned that any effort in this area will somehow require frequent online voting by citizens. It is important to point out that technology is not destiny .”
4.1 Collaborative environments
Collaborative environments supported by ICT systems have been with us for some time now and have proved their value in many ways. From the “humble” e-mail to complex workflow support systems, they are all examples of collaborative functions which serve communication and information-sharing needs.
A general characterisation of the various collaborative functions available today along their spatial and temporal dimensions is given by Mentzas and Bafoutsou and reproduced below.
Collaboration tools and environments (we shall not refer to technical issues here as they are the subject of a separate discipline) present a great potential for eParticipation. With functions such as chat, online discussions, virtual communities and group decision-making they are ideal facilitators of citizens’ participation. Four relevant areas for the application of eCollaboration technologies have been identified by the DEMO-net researchers 57 , namely:
♦ Community building. Users, become members of virtual communities, can contribute online, initiate debate on specific issues such as policy formulation, new services and other issues. ♦ Electioneering. These areas are served by chat or live question-answer panels rooms with (pre-registered or not) participants being accepted for a set time-horizon. They enable politicians to have direct contact with voters and their opinions/needs ♦ Consultation. Here discussion forums are employed to provide structured interaction centered around specific issues and/or policies.
56 Clift S., “Policy Leadership E-Government and Democracy - Representation and citizen engagement in the information age”, www.publicus.net 57 DEMO net, Deliverable 5.2.1 – Collaborative Environments, January 2007.
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Table 6. Temporal and Spatial Dimensions of Collaborative Functions 58
4.2 Argumentation support systems
For the next few paragraphs we draw on some descriptive and definitive features of argumentation as presented by F. H. Van Eemeren and R. Grootendorst 59 .
Following the authors, “argumentation is a verbal, social and rational activity aimed at convincing a reasonable critic of the acceptability of a standpoint by putting forward a constellation of propositions justifying or refuting the proposition expressed in the standpoint.”
Elements referred to in the definition are distinguishing elements of argumentation. In principle argumentation is:
♦ a verbal activity, which takes place by means of language use ♦ a social activity, which is as a rule directed at other people ♦ a rational activity, which is generally based on intellectual considerations
Another characteristic of importance is that it always pertains to a specific point of view, or standpoint with regard to a certain issue. The speaker or writer defends this standpoint by means of argumentation, to a listener or reader who doubts its acceptability or has a different standpoint.
Argumentation theorists are concerned with the oral and written production of argumentation and the analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse. Four central problem areas have been prominent in the study of argumentation, namely:
♦ Unexpressed elements in argumentative discourse
58 Mentzas G. and Bafoutsou G., “Electronic Collaboration, Communication and Cooperation: A Taxonomy and a Prototype“, in Li E.Y. and Du T.C. (eds), “Advances in Electronic Business, Vol. 1, Theme: "Collaborative Commerce" , Idea Group Publishing, pp. 19-52, 2004. 59 Van Eemeren F. H., Grootendorst R., “A systematic Theory of Argumentation”, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
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♦ Argumentation structures ♦ Argumentation schemes ♦ Fallacies.
The current state-of-the-art in the study of argumentation is characterised by a co-existence of a variety of approaches. These approaches differ considerably in conceptualisation, scope and degree of theoretical refinement. The authors maintain that none of these approaches has so far resulted in a generally accepted theory that deals satisfactorily with all issues arising.
Argumentation theory was originally considered as a sub-discipline of philosophical logic. Evolution in the last fifteen years has deemed it as being an important area of logic-based Artificial Intelligence (AI). Within AI, research in argumentation theory has produced significant contributions to the modelling and analysis of defeasible reasoning and the development of formal methods for negotiation and dialogue processes. Founded on the theory of Computational Models of Argumentation or Computational Dialectics, this has led to the development of Argumentation Support Systems, which can facilitate practical decision- making in many circumstances, including eGovernance and eParticipation. This facilitation affects efficiency, transparency, fairness and rationality of the decision process, with much of the research applicable to fields such as Law.
Following D. Walton 60 , an argument links a set of statements, the premises, to another statement, the conclusion. Argumentation itself, determines the acceptability of claims, rather than their truth, one often has to decide whether or not to accept claims with less than complete certainty about their truth. Arguments used in the context of argumentation have two important properties. They are:
♦ Substantive , i.e. they depend not only on the form of the premises, but also their content and acceptability and ♦ Defeasible , i.e. their conclusions are only plausible, not certain, and may be defeated in various ways by additional information.
Much research has gone into discovering and classifying various patterns of argument, based on an analysis of the structure and content of arguments reconstructed from natural language texts. These patterns of argument have come to be called " argumentation schemes". Although they are the result of empirical case studies, they also have a normative side. They are a useful tool both for guiding the reconstruction of arguments put forward by other parties, (so as to open them up to critical analysis and evaluation) as well as supporting the construction ("invention") of new arguments to put forward in support of ones own claims or to counter the arguments of others.
Argumentation schemes may be domain dependent, so there can be an unlimited number of such schemes, from fields such as law (domain-dependent) or general purpose. D. Walton’s team’s collection and classification effort contains about 60 schemes, such as argument from: Expert Opinion, Popular Opinion, Analogy, Correlation-to-Cause, Consequence, Sign and Verbal Classification. Walton’s theory characterises an argument as “valid” if and only if it furthers the goals of the dialogue in which it is put forward. A corresponding taxonomy of dialogue types has also been proposed, comprising dialogues of type: persuasion, information seeking, negotiation, inquiry, deliberation and others.
Dialogues types which are particularly relevant to eParticipation and citizen engagement are those which can model processes such as consultation and deliberation. Following the Walton classification, an obvious type for government-to-citizens interaction through
60 Walton D., "Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation", Cambridge University Press, 2006
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consultation can be the Information Seeking type. In a similar fashion, other dialogue types or a concatenation of them such as Expert Opinion, Analogy and Consequence may be relevant.
4.2.1 Computational models
Computational models of argumentation are formal models designed for use in specifications of argumentation support systems. As summarised by the DEMO net researchers 61 , they are machine-executable mathematical models, which employ set theory and formal logic. In this way, empirical testing and evaluation of use cases is possible.
A generic four layer argumentation use case diagramme showing the types of various argumentation tasks to be supported by a computational model is given in the next figure.
Figure 8. Argumentation use cases diagramme (DEMO-net 62 )
Based on such computational models, various tools have been developed aiming at supporting argumentation in practice. DEMO-net have selected such a set based on those which most likely fit the needs of eDemocracy/eParticipation. They are tabulated below by name and web address where more information can be found.
61 DEMO net, Deliverable 5.2.2 – Argumentation Support Systems, January 2007. 62 DEMO net, Deliverable 5.2.2 – Argumentation Support Systems, January 2007.
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Name Web address Argue! and ArguMed http://www.ai.rug.nl/~verheij/aaa/index.htm Araucaria http://araucaria.computing.dundee.ac.uk/ Belvedere http://lilt.ics.hawaii.edu/lilt/software/belvedere/index.html CATO and CATO-Dial Aleven and Ashley 63 Compendium http://www.cognexus.org/id17.htm Dialaw http://cli.vu/~lodder/dialaw/ and http://cedire.org/ Hermes http://www.mech.upatras.gr/~nikos/index.html GEOMED http://cordis.europa.eu/search/index.cfm?fuseaction=proj.simpledocumentluc ene&HD_ID=1783331&CFID=169260&CFTOKEN=54309717 Parmenides http://cgi.csc.liv.ac.uk/~katie/Parmenides1.html PLAID QuestMap http://www.cognexus.org/id17.htm Reason!Able and http://www.goreason.com/ and http://www.philosophy.unimelb.edu.au/reason/ Rational Risk Agora http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~peter/downloads/may01/rehgmcb.doc Room 5 http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~room5/ Zeno, Dito and Diaglo http://zeno8.gmd.de/zeno/
Table 7. Tools for Argumentation Support (compiled from DEMO net)
Of the tools listed above, we should pay attention to CATO, which is perhaps one of the most popular systems to teach legal argument skills. It is based on previous work of Ashley, such as the HYPO model of legal argumentation, which provides an overall framework, argument forms: citation, response and rebuttal and a set of argument moves that can be made within the framework. It has been tried and tested extensively with law students as well.
Also, of note is the HERMES tool, a development under the IST FP5 ICTE PAN project. The tool 64 is based on the Zeno system and is aimed at supporting online group facilitation between government agencies, as opposed to the majority of existing collaborative argumentation support systems which are designed to support face to face meetings with a human facilitator.
4.2.2 eParticipation support examples
We supply some examples of eParticipation application scenarios for argumentation support systems as presented by DEMO-net 65 . The purpose is to demonstrate the extent to which such systems can encourage debate and deliberation by citizens on public issues. Policy making relies on options to follow. There usually is no clearly cut right or wrong approach; instead there are better or worse solutions, whose evaluation can only be made over time. Debates on them necessarily involve stakeholders with varied and often conflicting views even to the extent that some “do not even agree that there is a problem to be solved” 65 .
We show two examples of argument maps for consultation and deliberation activities. They represent the structure of a series of related viewpoints thus offering visualisation and clarity.
63 Aleven, V. and Ashley, K. D. (1994) “An Instructural Environment for practicing argumentation skills”, Proceedings of AAI 1994 . Cambridge, Mass: MIT press. Pp 485-492. 64 Karacapilidis, N., E. Loukis, and S. Dimopoulos, “Computer-supported G2G collaboration for public policy and decision making. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 2005 18(5):602-624. 65 DEMO net, Deliverable 5.2.2 – Argumentation Support Systems, January 2007.
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The examples are taken from the work of Napier University in eParticipation support 66 using the Compendium tool.
Figure 9. Visualisation of consultation data and responses (DEMO-net)
The previous figure shows a way of setting out the responses to an online consultation on a published draft policy document. The globe icon on the left indicates a hyperlink; in this instance, linked to the site containing the consultation paper. The intention is to improve clarity by making all the section topics visible at once. The blue icons on the far right provide links to further visualisations that provide the user with greater detail. Embedding maps permits information to be organised clearly and efficiently over a number of connected pages, rather than attempting to place all the data on one page. The deepest map contains a representation of the replies made to a particular question.
Another example given in the figure below represents a simplified version of consultation responses in the form of an inverted tree. The issue is Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) and the action to be taken to reduce it (if any). It is designed to allow users to deliberate before making their own conclusions. This process should assist users to see how their convictions on one issue may contradict other beliefs; thus, one might realise that the principle of ‘freedom of choice’ clashes with a belief in the duty of employers to protect their employees from harm by banning smoke in their premises for example.
66 Renton A. and Macintosh A., “Computer Supported Argument Maps as a Policy Memory”, The Information Society journal, 23(2), 2007.
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Figure 10. Supporting deliberation during a consultation (DEMO-net)
4.2.3 Modelling the evolution of research
A method for modelling one aspect of the evolutionary process of research in eParticipation has been announced by the DEMO-net researchers Wimmer, Schneider and Shaddock (see footnote 67 ).
Figure 11. Conceptual model: evolution from barriers to research (Reproduced from 67 )
67 Wimmer M.A., Schneider C., Shaddock J., “Framework and Methodology to Turn Barriers and Challenges of eParticipation into Research Themes and Actions”, eChallenges Conference, The Hague, 24-26 October 2007.
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A conceptual model has been drawn for the evolution from a barrier to a research result. The authors also supply an implementation example using an argumentation map (trace). The conceptual model and its implementation example are shown in the previous and next figures. The example chosen is the evolution from the barrier “lack of political support” to a set of related research activities generated as a response to the initial barrier. One can see the considerable visualisation power of the argumentation map as opposed to a mere verbal description.
Figure 12. Implementation of model via argumentation trace (Reproduced from 67 )
4.2.4 Summary
As the DEMO-net researchers point out, there is a clear requirement to understand better how technology can support informed debate on issues. These issues are usually complex enough to employ large numbers of arguments and counter-arguments, which make linear textual presentations confusing for the general public. Equally problematic is the requirement of a high level of critical thinking skill on behalf of all participants – something doubtful for the public at large.
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Both these features lead to a narrowing rather than widening of citizens’ participation. It therefore becomes increasingly important that citizens receive the relevant information in a medium that they can and will want to use in forming their opinion upon consultative issues. Argumentation support systems can aid in presenting complex information in a thematically arranged format, in identifying those issues that generate a significant response, in collating consultation responses and representing them within an argument structure, and in checking consistency of contributions to a debate. They can play a unique role within the wider eGovernance domain and as such, they deserve serious consideration as a primary area of eDemocracy/eParticipation research.
4.3 Other eParticipation research in FP6
Besides the overall eParticipation research scope of the DEMO-net network, which has been referred to in other parts of this document, efforts have also been made in FP6 to conduct actual eParticipation experiments. These involved “designs” of the form of eParticipation required according to specific needs of various social groups. Three FP6 projects serve this purpose, namely:
♦ eLOST (eGovernment for Low Socio-Economic Status Groups) ♦ eRepresentative (A Virtual Desktop for the Elected Representative) ♦ WEB.DEP (Western Balkans Democratic Participation)
Of those, the first two are not exclusively dedicated to eParticipation design but include the process as part of their wider purpose. In this way, eLOST have established the eGovernment Expert Exchange System as a general platform and forum for experts’ participation and eRepresentative have created the Virtual Desktop as an eDemocracy and general participation/information secure platform for mobile parliamentarians.
The third project (WEB.DEP) is a Specific Support Action (SSA) and represents a pure design effort. Its primary aim is to establish an important communication and information management network hosted by the national news agencies of the Western Balkan countries. It involves policy makers and stakeholders from the Western Balkans (governmental organisations, public news agencies and citizens) into eDemocracy/eParticipation processes, supported by a uniform environment operating under specified procedures and a common code of ethics. The Action brings together 8 partners representing three Western Balkan Countries (Albania, Serbia and FYROM) as well as two Member States (Greece and United Kingdom).
WEB.DEP is the definitive eParticipation design project in FP6. It addresses a wide audience and represents a good example of transfer of know how from more mature Member States towards the younger Balkan states. Actual design is based on pre-elaborated interaction scenarios . The researchers created the specification of the eParticipation tool by using structured stories, called scenarios, about people who are users of the WEB.DEP community forum. Scenarios enabled stakeholders to define and discuss their expectations of what actors do in a forum and how they do it. The stakeholders who wrote the initial scenarios were journalists who work for the national news agencies in the 3 Western Balkans countries: i.e. those closest to the context.
Actually, an interesting cross-fertilisation between eRepresentative and WEB.DEP occurred in the writing of the scenarios for the latter. For both projects the scenarios referred to the broad eDemocracy/eParticipation area, were written directly by stakeholders (civil servants and representatives) rather than technology experts and the agreed level of detail (granularity) to
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be included was about the same. This enabled WEB.DEP researchers to utilise and transfer the experience gained in eRepresentative.
4.3.1 Scenario design and generation
The principle followed by WEB.DEP researchers 68 was to allow participants belonging to the national news agencies to write the scenarios used for the design of the forum themselves. Although the Greek and UK partners had used scenarios before, the news agency partners were not. To this end, a guidance document was produced. The scenario template is shown in the following table, also based on the experience gained via eRepresentative.
Table 8. Scenario template (WEB.DEP, see ref. 68 )
Scenario writing was completed during additional face-to-face meetings which included specific themes, associated tasks templates and roles for the main actors, namely journalists, citizens and government.
Different scenarios written by various teams of journalists went through a re-iteration and merger process, finally concluded with a set of 15 scenarios for implementation, corresponding to each task. Functional roles were identified, namely forum administrator, journalist, moderator and user (citizen, expert, government).
The scenarios were also used to support decisions about the various eParticipation procedures, which the WEB.DEP researchers realised as an iterative series of models, called Influence Models . These models showed in a diagrammatic and textual form the relationships between journalists, government representatives and citizens, based on the lifecycle of a discussion topic on the WEB.DEP portal.
68 Taylor-Smith, E., Buckner, K. “Designing e-Participation with Balkan Journalists”; in Peter Parycek and Alexander Prosser (eds.) 'EDem08 E-Democracy Conference, Danube University Krems, Austria' , Austrian Computer Society, Vienna, Austria, 29th – 30th September 2008.
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Figure 13. Final influence model diagramme (WEB.DEP 69 )
Models were updated and influenced by the scenarios which eventually fed the design structure of the forum. A diagramme of the final (after iterations) influence model describing the eParticipation process is given above. The numbers correspond to distinct stages of the process, for example:
1. Journalist X posts an item about Topic A (news media) in the WEB.DEP Document Repository. 2. Journalist Y uses this item (either as background information or just as inspiration) to start Discussion B about Topic A in the WEB.DEP Forum. Journalist Y writes the first post of Discussion B. Y adds links to various articles and documents in the Document Repository (e.g. government statements) to the discussion’s Resources page, to support the discussion. Y adds information about ... 3. Journalist Y publicises Discussion B: adding an article about it to the Document Repository; a “featured discussion” link to it on the WEB.DEP home page. 4. etc.(the complete description of the 13 steps can be found in ref. 69 )
The final, simplified structure of the forum is shown in the diagramme below.
Each discussion contains a collection of pages. Discussions are simplified for the diagramme but in reality each discussion has a longer cycle of articles and comments. Each of the three discussions shown is presented at the same stage. In practice, each is expected to develop over time. Closed discussions are available on a read-only basis. Articles are posted by journalists on the Results page after the discussion is closed, as there is likely to be a delay between the end of the discussion and final responses to the discussion being received.
69 WEB.DEP SSA, D4.1, “Detailed Definition of the Operation of the WEB.DEP Forum”, December 2007
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Figure 14. Simplified structure of the WEB.DEP forum (see ref. 69 )
4.3.2 Outline of the operation of the forum
A forum is a main component of many eParticipation experiments, it is therefore of interest to outline the basic principles behind its operation. WEB.DEP 70 offers a typical example of such a design procedure, which we summarise in this section.
Due to language requirements (three languages for three countries) and to budgetary constraints, a single shared participation space (which would have involved full translations) was not realised. Instead, four different forums were created, three for each WEB.DEP country using the corresponding official language and a fourth forum in English. News agency journalists are able to start discussions in the English-language forum based what appears to be of interest originally contained in the other forums.
Fora are open to everyone on a read-only basis but journalists, moderators and contributing citizens use registered accounts, with options on private or public personal data.
As the idea of the project is to host debates based on news provided by the news agencies, journalists initiate topics based on news stories that appear in the WEB.DEP content management system. Citizens can also suggest discussion topics to journalists and/or moderators.
Moderation is undertaken by the journalists themselves, under a moderation code and suitable procedures (details in ref. 69). eParticipation mechanisms of the forum consist of two interactive tools: discussion and polling. Each discussion/poll combination should be based on a specific topic and be accompanied by supporting information. Space for feedback is also provided.
70 WEB.DEP SSA, D4.2-v2, “Report on WEB.DEP Operation”, December 2008.
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♦ Discussion. Registered users can comment on the current topics with subsequent discussion sessions in a blog format steered (facilitated) by the journalist that has initiated the topic. ♦ Voting mechanisms. As the discussion progresses, the journalist is able to set up simple polls for each discussion, focused on the different arguments used. Voters are registered citizens.
Each discussion has a defined life cycle used for encouraging citizen involvement and for circulating the discussion results to the responsible stakeholders. Journalists set time limits for the discussion and the polls. It is important that all stakeholders understand the shared agenda and to facilitate the delivery of the opinion of the citizens.
4.3.3 Preliminary results
Evaluation of the operation of the forums based on early trials shows that response from users is generally positive. The proportion of registered users posting is relatively high, which indicates that the forum is quite usable. The terms and conditions seem to be supporting constructive use.
The WEB.DEP researchers concluded that early evaluations of responses based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) 71, 72 showed a good level of belief in the usefulness of the forum and most respondents express their intention to use it in the future. The number of responders was relatively small, so firm conclusions cannot be drawn. The analysis highlights the positive effect of relevant occupation and training to variables of the model such as “Perceived Usefulness”, “Ease of Use” and “Intention to Use”. However, ”Prior Experience” did not seem to have a positive effect on these three concepts, which shows that WEB.DEP does not require special skills or experience in certain fields from its users. Taken together, the responses indicated a positive attitude towards the WEB.DEP sites.
An eParticipation evaluation questionnaire was also distributed, and responses were also largely positive. Respondents felt that using the forum would have positive effects in terms of increasing their interest in current affairs and, to a smaller extent their knowledge.
Researchers warn, however, that perhaps due to a relatively high level of political interest among respondents, this may be due to a more positive bias towards the concept and aims of WEB.DEP. There is no doubt however that eParticipation experiments were met with enthusiasm and that one can expect an overall possible impact on the Western Balkans.
The consortium admits that at that stage of WEB.DEP operation (December 2008), many aspects of the model and implementation could not be measured. No discussions had been closed by the time data was collected, therefore very little can be said about the effectiveness or suitability of the forum and its associated processes for eParticipation.
71 Davis, F. D., Bagozzi, R. P., Warshaw, P. R. “ User acceptance of computer technology: A comparison of two theoretical models”. Management Science, 35, 982-1003.1989. 72 Bagozzi, R. P., Davis, F. D., Warshaw, P. R. “Development and test of a theory of technological learning and usage. Human Relations”, 45(7), 660-686, 1992.
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5 Policies, attitudes, initiatives
In March 2003, the OECD released a short brief on eDemocracy/eParticipation titled, “Engaging Citizens Online for Better Policy-making.” The emerging lessons they highlight from recent government activity include:
♦ Technology is an enabler not the solution. Integration with traditional, “offline” tools for access to information, consultation and public participation in policy-making is needed to make the most of ICTs. ♦ The online provision of information is an essential precondition for engagement, but quantity does not mean quality. Active promotion and competent moderation are key to effective online consultations. ♦ The barriers to greater online citizen engagement in policy-making are cultural, organisational and constitutional not technological. Overcoming these challenges will require greater efforts to raise awareness and capacity both within governments and among citizens.
The organisation emphasises the importance of cultural, organisational (resources and allocation) and constitutional (policy) factors in widening citizens’ participation, as opposed to technological issues which it considers as being of lesser influence. The same opinion has been largely expressed by other prominent advocates of eDemocracy. Steven Clift for example argues that what is needed is political will (intent) realised by pre-allocated human and capital resources. We elaborate on his views in what follows.
Governments in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada have put forward eDemocracy/eParticipation policy frameworks or programmes. As Steven Clift remarks however 73 , for the most part, government eDemocracy policies and goals are not articulated like those related to eServices. He continues pointing out that “if e-democracy is not part of what is evaluated or budgeted, then the administrative and resource priorities within agency eGovernment efforts will not likely address the eDemocracy responsibilities of governments. Non-coordinated agency-by-agency approaches to eDemocracy have limited value, because the assumptions of efficiency and cost savings cannot be easily translated from the dominant services framework.”
Another observation that he makes is that participation involves openness, access to information (and possibly specific technological support) and requires time to evolve and be established as a process. These democratic requirements may seem contrary to critical mission requirements as they are perceived by a full-time eGovernment manager or policy maker. He therefore calls for a division of policy responsibilities to ensure that a balanced eGovernment with democratic elements emerges.
Finally, he remarks that “formal or significant consideration of the eDemocracy opportunity or responsibility within government is rare. Most governments mention the democratising potential of ICTs in their eGovernment plans, but few have staff dedicated to monitoring the issue or developing proposed policies. However, where governments have staff dedicated and policies designed to enhance participatory governance generally, those efforts can leverage ICTs to re-ignite their missions.”
5.1 Examples of successful policy efforts
73 Clift S., “Policy Leadership E-Government and Democracy - Representation and citizen engagement in the information age”, www.publicus.net , article based on research provided to the United Nations – UNPAN/DESA for the 2003 World Public Sector Report: http://unpan.org/dpepa_worldpareport.asp
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We quote some examples which show the results of comprehensive policy efforts. We note that, in general, not many nations worldwide have adopted a comprehensive eDemocracy policy. For example, the US Federal Government has no policy initiative dedicated to eDemocracy.
5.1.1 State of Queensland, Australia
Queensland 73 adopted an eDemocracy Policy Framework in November 2001, which clearly places eDemocracy within their system of representative democracy. Some highlights quoted below are:
♦ The Queensland Government is committed to exploring the many new opportunities the Internet brings and to discovering ways in which this medium can strengthen participative democracy within Queensland -The Smart State. ♦ eDemocracy is at the convergence of traditional democratic processes and Internet technology. It refers to how the Internet can be used to enhance our democratic processes and provide increased opportunities for individuals and communities to interact with government. ♦ eDemocracy comprises a range of Internet based activities that aim to strengthen democratic processes and institutions, including government agencies. Some of the ways in which this can be delivered include: o providing accessible information resources online; o conducting policy consultation online; and o facilitating electronic input to policy development. ♦ It is the responsibility of government to expand the channels of communication to reach as many citizens as possible. The Internet is not inherently democratic, but it can be used for democratic purposes. The full implications of how the Internet will enhance this interaction are yet to be explored.
The results of application of such a policy were a specific set of eDemocracy projects led by a new “eDemocracy Unit”, including initiatives to webcast their state parliament sessions, create a legally qualifying ePetition to parliament system, which has been in operation since, and an online system for online consultation under the Smart State initiative. It is indicative of the integration of eDemocracy within eGovernment that the annual report on the progress of the Smart State strategy is accompanied by a request for feedback and questions and the promise of opportunities to get involved in the lead up to the release of the next strategy in mid-2008.
5.1.2 United Kingdom
The decline in voting and political participation in a society is an indication that people do not trust that their input into government matters. The UK government launched through the then House of Commons Leader, Robin Cook, MP, and then carried out by the office of the e- Envoy, the consultation process under the name: “In the Service of Democracy”. The entire process and consultations generated among others a wealth of documentation, and was characterised as 74 “the most comprehensive effort by a national government to review and gain input on their eDemocracy policy options”.
74 Clift S., “Policy Leadership E-Government and Democracy - Representation and citizen engagement in the information age”, www.publicus.net
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In the wording of the original consultation paper 75 , the state of democracy is described as follows:
“We live in an age characterised by a multiplicity of channels of communication, yet many people feel cut off from public life. There are more ways than ever to speak, but still there is a widespread feeling that people's voices are not being heard. The health of a representative democracy depends on people being prepared to vote. Channels through which people can participate and make their voices heard between elections are also important.
The development of the Government's eDemocracy strategy is prompted by trends in three main areas: ♦ Democracy requires the involvement of the public, but participation in the traditional institutions of democracy is declining ♦ Despite this decline, many citizens are prepared to devote energy, experience and expertise to issues that matter to them ♦ Information and communication technology (ICT), particularly the Internet, is changing the way many aspects of society work. In democratic terms, it offers new channels of communication between citizens, elected representatives and government that may help to engage citizens in the democratic process
The Internet provides the means by which citizens can have a direct role in shaping policies and influencing the decisions that affect their lives. The heart of this eDemocracy policy is, however, not technology but democracy.
… The challenge for democracy is, therefore, to:
• enable citizens' expertise and experience to play a part in policy-making and decision- making to give individuals a greater stake in the democratic process; and • use people's energy and interest in politics to support and enhance the traditional institutions of democracy…”
In the same document, seven criteria for online consultations were laid out, which form part of the Code of Practice on eDemocracy. These were:
♦ Timing of consultation should be built into the planning process for a policy (including legislation) or service from the start, so that it has the best prospect of improving the proposals concerned, and so that sufficient time is left for it at each stage. ♦ It should be clear who is being consulted, about what questions, in what timescale and for what purpose. ♦ A consultation document should be as simple and concise as possible. It should make it as easy as possible for readers to respond, make contact or complain. ♦ Documents should be made widely available, with the fullest use of electronic means (though not to the exclusion of others), and should be effectively drawn to the attention of all interested groups and individuals. ♦ Sufficient time should be allowed for considered responses from all groups with an interest. Twelve weeks should be the standard minimum period for a consultation. ♦ Responses should be carefully and open-mindedly analysed, and the results made widely available, with an account of the views expressed, and reasons for decisions finally taken. ♦ Departments should monitor and evaluate consultations, designating a consultation coordinator who will ensure the lessons are disseminated.
75 ”In the Service of Democracy: A Consultation Paper on a Policy for e-Democracy”, Office of e-Envoy, UK Government, July 2002.
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It can be inferred by the UK government document that ICT and the Internet are considered as a significant means towards enhancing the democratic process, however, despite these advanced views portrayed in the document, the number of consultations within government departments in the UK has not yet reached the level initially expected.
Besides the general political issues discussed above, the UK is a particularly important example of eDemocracy experimentation. Posts such as the e-Envoy and new legislation on eVoting at local level prepared the ground for what has been characterised as the first true eVoting experiment in the world in 2002. In the May 2002 local elections, 16 eVoting pilots were set up and a further 20 such experiments followed after a year’s time, all with a legally binding status. Although not all pilots allowed votes cast remotely, multiple delivery channels such as the Internet, SMS and digital TV were used.
An interesting feature of the UK approach is the market-oriented perspective. While other governments move towards solutions where the state effectively owns the final output, the UK wants ownership of the technological system to remain in the private sector 76 . This puts a mandate on local authorities, which calls for eventual development of relations with the private sector, thus lessening the responsibilities of the central government in negotiating with suppliers for eVoting services.
In 2002, the UK government even committed itself to a future e-enabled general election, this being the forthcoming 2006 election. In fact the plans were not realised. Political controversy, which included no support from the main opposition party and disputes on the very idea of remote voting itself (including postal votes), has since discredited the e-enabled general election idea. This also resulted in abandoning plans for adapting the country’s legal basis to include eVoting. What the trend seems to be now is smaller scale trials at local elections and the possibility for a larger scale experiment for the 2009 European elections.
5.1.3 Switzerland
Switzerland has a rather unique political system with a strongly federated structure centred on the cantons. In addition, there is a strong tradition of direct democracy (perhaps the strongest in the world), fuelled by the fact that any citizen can initiate voting procedures on an issue of local or federal significance, provided a certain number of requesting cosignatories is reached. The result is that each Swiss citizen faces a voting call for 4-5 times per year on the average.
The Swiss parliament initiated discussions of eVoting back in 2000. An eVoting project led by the Federal Chancellery’s Political Rights Division resulted in the cantons of Geneva, Zurich and Neuchatel taking up the eVoting challenge. Due to the decentralised cantonal system, the cantons could organise their e-election solutions in any way they saw fit, provided they remained the owners of the final solution and that they shared the technology developed with other cantons. Financing was provided by federal funds at a level of 80% of the additional costs incurred. The first trail took place in 2003 in a small commune of Geneva, followed by other successful trials in the three cantons between 2003 and 2006. Despite this, eVoting has not yet become a generally accepted procedure in Switzerland.
76 L. Pratchett and M. Wingfield, 'Electronic voting in the United Kingdom. Lessons and limitations from the UK Experience' in N. Kersting and H. Baldersheim (eds) Electronic Voting and Democracy. A Comparative Analysis Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp172-92
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As F. Mendez describes 77 , “... the arguments range from the risks involved in conducting e- voting trials, the cost implications, to arguments related to digital divide issues and claims that it devalues the symbolic act of voting.” He also draws a parallel to postal voting, for which the last argument on the devaluation of the symbolic act of voting equally applies. Postal voting in Switzerland is now the most heavily used voting method, having been through a thirty-year history of struggle for recognition. Mendez foresees that a gradual and lengthy implementation of eVoting along the lines of the establishment of postal voting is likely. Actually, parties such as the Swiss People’s party perceive themselves threatened by generalised eVoting; therefore compromises (such as the 10% limit on the size of the electorate able to use eVoting set in 2006) will become necessary.
5.1.4 Estonia
Estonia’s democratic status is relatively very recent, the country in the past having been a communist state. Three factors have been identified78 as characterising the current general attitude towards democracy and its accompanying institutions, namely fragility of civil society structures, low voter turnout especially for local elections and low reputation of the political parties. As a response to such considerations, the Estonian Civil Society Development Concept (EKAK) was established by the parliament, aiming, among others, at the promotion of citizen involvement in the political decision-making process through the use of ICTs. This is a manifestation of the remarkable political will to experiment with ICTs, which, despite the young age of the republic, characterises the country. The result is a wide range of available online eGovernment services and supporting (public key) infrastructure centred on the (now compulsory) electronic national identity card, which allows transactions with government.
As a consequence, introducing eVoting to Estonia was seen as a relatively feasible target and, indeed, was first announced in 2001 by the then minister of justice, Märt Rask, a member of the Reform Party. Despite the existence of infrastructure and the generally “eGovernment-friendly” atmosphere however, the eVoting proposals met with political resistance which even evolved into constitutional court conflicts. As Wolfgang Drechsler reports 79 fears that certain political bodies could stand to benefit disproportionately moved the earliest eVoting date to 2005. Legislation was able to proceed, however, and although conflicts did appear the Estonians were able to vote electronically in the October 2005 local elections. This was followed by the March 2007 national elections, where 3% of the electorate did use the electronic facilities, as opposed to 2% of the previous efforts. This awarded Estonia the title of the first nation able to offer an eVoting system applicable to a national general election. We note that this is a unique example where implementation of an advanced political concept of eDemocracy was first achieved by a “neo-democracy” state.
Besides eVoting, Estonia has put consistent effort in opening new virtual spaces for public deliberation though a series of projects. A notable example is the online collaborative portal TOM, which is the Estonian acronym for “Today I Decide” ( www.eesti.ee/tom ). There, citizens can debate on new ideas, which can become proposals towards their elected representatives. Ideas can be brought forward, debated over for a period and then, in a refined, revised form forwarded to the appropriate ministry. The ministry is obliged to provide an answer via the portal within a period of one month.
77 Mendez F., “e-Democratic Experimentation in Europe: The Case of e-Voting”, International Conference on Direct Democracy in Latin America, 14-15 March 2007, Buenos Aires, Argentina 78 Peart M., Diaz J. F., “Comparative Project on Local e-Democracy Initiatives in Europe and North America”, e- Democracy Centre, Research Centre on Direct Democracy, Univ. of Geneva, Geneva, 2007 79 Drechsler, W., “The Estonian E-Voting Laws Discourse: Paradigmatic Benchmarking. for Central and Eastern Europe”,2003, . http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/nispacee/unpan009212.pdf
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Another example is the online forum started in 2005 by the city of Tartu as part of the municipal website specifically dedicated to the problems of the approximately 10000 unregistered residents of the city, mostly found among the student population. The forum asked participants to supply ideas on how best to encourage registration with the city. Although the forum was never used in a full scale, this is a characteristic example of political will to encourage eParticipation.
As Pearl and Diaz (see ref. 78 ) remark, the lack of faith in government and democracy institutions remains, despite the cutting edge experimentation via eDemocracy initiatives and the very high levels of Internet penetration. On the other hand, they note that “it is a laudable achievement to be host not only to the only nation-wide, binding eVoting but also to have provided so many online forums to foster political discussion” and recommend offering new services to enhance transparency between citizens and government.
5.1.5 Hungary
Hungary is a country with a strong tradition in local eDemocracy, despite its short life as a western-style democracy. Most initiatives serve deliberation, realised in the form of numerous forums spanning from little rural communities to large cities.
The current general climate in which eDemocracy developments take place is not reported 80 as being without problems, however. To start, a deep digital divide exists as a result of large inequalities in the distribution of wealth. This is accompanied by weak democratic institutions and practices, resulting in frequent violation of democratic principles, mistrust in government and bad practices amongst and between government and public bodies. Corruption in managing public finds, a side-effect of the previous regime, supplements the picture. The combined effect of these factors is, besides the general shortage of funds, a lack of reliable funding schemes and of well-administered funding structures. In spite of such hindrances, ICT projects to enhance public participation have progressed, often supported by poorly funded local authorities who have to rely on innovation (such as using Open Source solutions) to compensate.
There have been notable projects (see ref, immediately before) on increasing transparency, such as the online presence of the municipality of Papa with a (now falling) population of approximately 33000 which provides information on the activities of the local government and aims to proceed towards accepting and consolidating citizens’ opinions 81 . Other examples include the municipality of Pilisvorosvar with its website which is suitable for use by the blind and the city of Pécs, (157,000 in southern Hungary), which initiated a free Wi-Fi hotspot in the centre of the city to encourage citizens to sign online and get information about the government.
Local online forums are becoming common in the country. Examples can be found (see ref. immediately before) in the Komló and Hajduszoboszlo municipalities 82 , with fora moderated by members of the local government who draw on the ideas presented or actively participate. The latter forum also relies on open-source technology. Similar forums exist in many other areas and cities. Of those, the municipal area of Óbuda-Béklásmegyer, the second largest district in Budapest with roughly 127,000 citizens, established an online live-chat forum between the mayor and citizen-users, provided they register in advance. The event takes place every third month and is an example of a real political space which could not have existed without ICTs.
80 Peart M., Diaz J. F., “Comparative Project on Local e-Democracy Initiatives in Europe and North America”, e- Democracy Centre, Research Centre on Direct Democracy, Univ. of Geneva, Geneva, 2007 81 http://www.papa.hu/letoltes/informatikai_strategia.pdf 82 http://www.komlo.hu/index2.php?m=28 , and http://dn.tsoft.hu/hszobforum
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Although it is premature to draw generalised conclusions on the capability of ICTs and eDemocracy to restore faith and provide functionality in ailing democratic institutions, examples such as those of Estonia and Hungary here show that there certainly is a potential. It is up to governments to realise it to widen the basis and quality of democracy.
5.1.6 Italy
Italy is an example of a fully developed western-style democracy, which has only started experimenting with eDemocracy as recently as 2003, focusing mainly on deliberation.
The National Centre for Public Administration and Informatics (CNIPA) is a government organisation concerned with eGovernment and eDemocracy initiatives. CNPA funds projects at national as well as local level. In 2004, the Guidelines for eDemocracy were published by the Ministry for Innovation and Technology, aiming in increasing transparency and public participation in local governments. The first 57 eDemocracy projects at local level were funded by CNIPA in 2006, with local governments willing to invest more of their own funds to a total of approximately 40 million euros.
Peart and Diaz (see ref. immediately before) note here that projects do not really distinguish between eGovernment and eDemocracy, thus resulting in disproportionately low levels of improvement of the democratic process. They also warn that, unless the country’s deep digital divide is addressed, a large proportion of the population will remain oblivious to any advances in eDemocracy. Despite these adversities, the authors note that there is a considerable number of significant projects which began at local administration level or were based on citizens’ voluntary work (such as the Open Polis project across all of Italy). These are mostly self-financed, rely on Open Source technologies to lower costs and allow a more open and collaborative development process, than most others. In contrast, projects financed under a top-down government scheme tend to be slower in development and appear to be more tied to formal chains of command rather than an appropriate management structure.
There is currently a new programme that provides central government funding for successful local projects, such as the Partecipa Project 83 in Emilia Romagna and the OpenPolis 84 across the whole country. These examples show that eDemocracy is indeed becoming more popular. Even in the less ICT developed southern regions, Sicily (Catania) and Sardinia have successful ongoing projects, although their full democratic impact is currently affected by the the low ICT penetration which characterises this side of the digital divide.
5.1.7 Spain
Spain presents the typical array of problems found in mature western-style democracies, namely falling citizen participation and mistrust and lack of confidence in political leaders and politicians in general. To alleviate such issues, all levels of government have, for the last six years, supported eDemocracy initiatives on a widely spread basis. The country operates a federal system consisting of a central government, which loosely coordinates strongly autonomous regions.
Peart and Diaz (see ref. immediately before) remark that, in Spain, each level of government addresses the question of implementation of eDemocracy initiatives in different ways. This, of course, is to be expected, given the highly decentralized structure. They note that the central government provides funding for local projects but also has a thematic bias favouring eVoting
83 www.partecipa.net 84 www.openpolis.it
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in local elections. Regional governments tend to support initiatives that allow for greater citizen participation in parliamentary and legislative activities. Some regions also support participation to online political communities
Initiatives at local level are classified in two categories: (i) online political platforms as places of debate, opinion formation and direct proposals for new policies and (ii) participation in government activities (as exemplified by the Madrid Participa project 85 ). On the whole Spain is not short of eDemocracy initiatives, many of which however have not received adequate support from government and/or citizens. Peart and Diaz remark that the most robust examples appear at a low local level funded by sources additional to government’s own. Projects are in many ways innovative; for example Internet, mobile phones, SMS messages and on-site centres were used as alternative channels for the Madrid Participa project. Despite reservations and citizens’ reluctance, this abundance of initiatives may slowly change attitudes in the country and lead to new forms of political participation.
5.1.8 Latin America
In contrast to Europe and the US, where apathy, distrust in democratic institutions and low participation are key features of citizens’ attitude, Latin America is characterised by large participation in the electoral process and frequent political crises coupled with social protests and demonstrations. As a result, political system instability is the dominant feature in the area.
An recent appraisal of the situation was presented in the 2007 conference on direct democracy in Latin America by Y. Welp 86 . The author notes widespread use of ICTs by Latin American governments with developed government portals and strategic action plans in place.
Despite this, and the possibilities for increased transparency and participation it offers, the effectiveness of ICTs in the quality of the democratic process varies widely from country to country. The next table, compiled by Y. Welp, shows the main initiatives for citizen participation per country. Portals shown there are either citizen-oriented; or administration- oriented offering information on programmes, governmental units and news on governmental activity. The author remarks on the recent trend towards citizen-oriented portals in place of the more traditional approach of promoting government activity
With the exception of El Salvador, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Venezuela, all Latin American countries have developed eProcurement and contracting systems in an effort to increase transparency and tackle corruption. This is also the view adopted on the role of ICT in general, i.e. a means of transparency and efficiency. Funding is in many cases supplemented by international aid. Previous studies have also indicated that the funds provided by such international cooperation efforts for eGovernment have been used to emphasise the modernisation of the state as opposed to democracy itself.
Regarding information transparency, improved internal processes and management efficiency, the study showed that Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Panama and Peru are the most advanced, followed by Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Venezuela and tailed by Ecuador, Paraguay, Dominican Republic and Uruguay.
Regarding citizens’ participation, one should differentiate between symbolic space (such as a mailbox to write to a minister or president) and spaces to pose and follow-up proposals, or include citizens’ interaction to formulate legislation. Actually, portals enabling legislative power
85 Accessible through the City of Madrid portal http://www.munimadrid.es or directly at http://www.madridparticipa.org 86 Welp Y., “Democracy and Digital Divide in Latin America”, International Conference on Direct Democracy in Latin America, Buenos Aires, March 15-16 of 2007
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have spread, with the exception of the Honduras. Among them, advanced systems for citizen participation, either through individual access and submission of proposals and questions and/or through the creation of discussion forums have been in operation in Panama and Peru.
The real danger, according to the author is that these new spaces for participation do not work as instruments to improve the quality of democracy, but merely advertise governmental actions with the aim to build a facade in order to attract external sources of funding.
Table 9. eParticipation initiatives in Latin America (see ref. 86 )
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5.1.9 Other examples
Other government-led policy papers on eDemocracy have been put forward. The important issue here is, in the words of Steven Clift (ref. as before), that “applying eGovernment to accountability initiatives and efforts attempting to build citizen participation and trust require democratic intent within government.” To express and act on that intent we need “eDemocracy policy statements and programmes” to “help prioritise the allocation of eGovernment resources required”. Other examples of successfully pursued policy papers can be found in Canada, Ontario 87 and State of Victoria 88 , Australia. As said before, the US Federal Government has no policy initiative dedicated to eDemocracy, although experimentation has appeared at state and local level (see section 2.3).
5.2 The Council of Europe on eDemocracy
In June 2002, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe issued a ‘Draft recommendation on eGovernance’ which includes a set of 12 proposals for the Member States on eDemocracy. According to the draft recommendation, Member States should:
1. explore ways in which e-technologies can employed to improve the responsiveness of public authorities 2. clarify the legal framework that permits eParticipation as one of a range of participation instruments available to public authorities 3. promote eParticipation in local, regional, national and inter-governmental public life, and encourage eParticipation by the full range of communities existing in a local area (both communities of place and communities of interest) and ownership by these communities of ideas, positions and public value 4. recognise and explore the opportunities that e-technologies can bring in improving the transparency of democratic decision making within and between public authorities 5. make at their own initiative official documents available online to the public when it is in the interest of promoting transparency of public administration or will encourage informed participation by the public on matters of public interest; and encourage central, regional and local public authorities to do likewise 6. make official documents available online to the public in an unabridged version in order to enable the public and the media to build their own views on the issues in question 7. work with the online media as central partners in the dissemination of public information, and in doing so, seek regularly the opinion of media professionals on how public information should be presented in order to best serve their needs pay attention to the need for moderation, feedback to participants and follow-up in e- participation and online consultations and debates in recognition of the media’s role in encouraging eParticipation, public scrutiny and transparency, support the modernisation of the media — in particular local and regional media and the training of journalists — so that it can fully exploit the possibilities offered by e-technologies 8. strengthen the scrutiny of decision-making in public authorities, by improving access to information and communication within and between public authorities • improve the processes of democratic decision-making by focusing upon the tools and information
87 Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, Ontario, Canada, http://www.cio.gov.on.ca/scripts/index_.asp?action=31&P_ID=529&N_ID=1&PT_ID=15&U_ID=0&OP_ID=2
88 “Inquiry into Electronic Democracy”, Discussion Paper, Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee, Parliament, State of Victoria, Australia, October 2002, http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/sarc/E-Democracy/Discussion%20Paper.htm
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that support the legislature, judiciary and executive of public authorities in reaching appropriate decisions 9. consider e-enabled ways of voting in elections at all levels of government, as one component of improving engagement of citizens with government 10. promote the use of e-technologies to support locally elected members in conducting their representative and constituency roles
The Council of Europe continues its support for eDemocracy through the organisation of regular events such as conferences, workshops and symposiums. It is interesting to quote some conclusions from the recent symposium in Strasburg 89 .
The delegates recognised that electronic participation in politics (eParticipation) is now a reality in many countries, at least among the relatively privileged citizens of most democratic states. Governments at all levels seem keen to exploit new technologies and citizens, as well, are grasping the opportunities offered. Despite those messages however, experience of developing and applying new technologies to support or enhance citizen participation in politics is mixed. The symposium ended by prompting all governments to think about the following questions:
“ What type of democracy do we want? ♦ While it is not the role of any individual to decide how democracy should work in a particular country, governments and others need to reflect upon how democracy currently works and what problems they really want to address.
What values do we want eDemocracy to emphasise? ♦ Different devices will give emphasis to particular democratic values. The choice of devices, therefore, will reflect the priorities of governments and help to adjust the emphasis given to different democratic values.
How do individual devices affect behaviour (citizens, politicians, other stakeholders)? ♦ Governments need to think not only of the problems they want to address but also how current devices affect the behaviour of stakeholders.
How can individual devices link to policy decisions and outcomes? ♦ Participation and engagement is only relevant when it has effect on the policy process. Participants need to see and understand how their engagement is going to be used.
What criteria should we use for evaluating democracy and how can evaluations help democratic development? ♦ Governments need to develop measures of eDemocracy that reflect the reality of participation: only a limited number of people will want to engage. Evaluation, therefore, needs to focus on issues of both quantity and quality.”
The symposium concluded that only by answering these questions, governments might begin to be able to use eDemocracy to effectively shape future democratic processes.
89 Pratchett L., “Symposium on E-democracy: new opportunities for enhancing civic participation”, Final Report, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 23-24 April 2007, http://www.coe.int/t/e/integrated_projects/democracy/02_activities/002_e%2Ddemocracy/cahde%20%2D%20ad%20 hoc%20committee%20on%20e%2Ddemocracy/symposium%2De%2Ddemocracy%2Dapril07/E- dem%20symposium%20general%20report%20Pratchett%20E%2013%207%2007.asp#TopOfPage
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The next Council of Europe Forum for the future of democracy was hosted by Spain and the City of Madrid in October 2008. The most important conclusions selected out of the General Rapporteurs extended summary were as follows:
♦ It is essential to build people’s trust in eDemocracy in order to achieve its full potential. ♦ eDemocracy is not a new form of democracy but is a complement of it and not technology. Its evolution should be in accordance with the principles of democratic governance and practice. ♦ Challenges such as the digital divide and “e-discrimination” should be addressed and overcome. ♦ eDemocracy presupposes the existence of a basic democratic environment: free and fair elections, human rights, protection of privacy and personal data ♦ eDemocracy is an opportunity to reinvigorate representative democracy and to revisit its traditional concepts. ♦ Political will is required to involve everyone - institutions, interest groups and individuals - in the development of eDemocracy from an early stage, thus avoiding the risk of fragmentation of society. ♦ The Forum calls on all actors (and elected representatives in particular) in the democratic process to use the opportunities offered in their communication with the public. ♦ Recent developments in the field of eVoting have shown that increased attention should be paid to certification and observation to guarantee security and transparency and to build trust in the electoral process. The Forum therefore calls on national policy-makers to include these important aspects in their work and to engage in dialogue, at all stages of the process, with both the supporters and critics of eVoting. ♦ A right balance between empowerment and protection of the individual should be struck. It is important to keep options open for eDemocracy initiatives from the grass roots to develop without being submitted to restrictions, other than those designed to protect the rights of the individual and the general regulations that protect against all forms of abuse on the Internet and other digital technologies. ♦ The Forum welcomes the current work of the Parliamentary Assembly on eDemocracy and calls on it to take further initiatives, in particular with regard to eParliament. Indeed, eParliament can help parliaments at all levels, as well as elected representatives, to better fulfil their role as representatives of the people. ♦ Regulation in the field of eDemocracy, as a means of building trust among the people, can take the form of public regulation, co-regulation and self-regulation, as well as international standard-setting. The Forum recognises that more consideration needs to be given to this issue and proposes that the Committee of Ministers initiate work in this field, and closely involve the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission). ♦ Regulatory action may also be taken in respect of Internet governance. In this connection, the Forum has taken note with interest of the joint initiative at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) on “Public Participation in Internet Governance” by the Council of Europe, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), and encourages the involved partners to pursue this initiative.
A draft recommendation on eDemocracy is currently considered for adoption by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers. This will offer all European governments substantial guidelines and principles when dealing with eDemocracy as well as a number of practical tools to those who require hands-on information about combining modern information and communication tools and democratic requirements and practice.
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5.3 Policy challenges: technology-oriented research
As stressed before in this section, technology is an enabler in eDemocracy, not a goal. This does not mean that technology-oriented research is irrelevant, but that the context within which such research takes place should be aligned to the needs of eDemocracy. For example, one cannot study technologies for participation processes while ignoring either the stakeholders involved or the multi-disciplinary nature of the subject itself. These features pose specific challenges in policy making on technology-oriented research. Ann Macintosh 90 (Napier University) has offered a categorisation of these challenges based on two milestone policy documents mentioned as well in the present document, namely the 2003 OECD report on “Promises and problems of eDemocracy: challenges of online citizen engagement” (see footnote 94 ) and the UK government’s “Consultation paper on a policy for eDemocracy” paper in 2002 (see footnote 75 ). The categorisation and a summary of its description is listed and commented on below.
Approaching the social complexity
♦ There are a growing number of civil society groups using ICTs to promote their cause and discuss issues. The membership of such groups is growing while the membership of political parties is decreasing. Real-time, collaborative environments to support policy issues for such dynamic communities will become an important aspect of eParticipation research along with all the associated issues of trust and security.
Integration and responsiveness
♦ If governments put in place online initiatives to engage with citizens, but continue with their old practices of policy-making they will risk generating widespread disillusionment, this will potentially increase, not decrease, democratic disengagement. There is no point inviting citizens to interact with government if no mechanism exists to manage the process, analyse inputs, respond to them and feed them into the policy process. A task for future research is to ensure cohesion across processes and across government boundaries.
Tools and techniques in context
♦ It is unlikely that one tool, no matter how sophisticated, will meet all eParticipation requirements. A ‘one-size fits all’ tool is not an appropriate way forward, since differences in language, culture and technical skills are likely to exclude some groups. In researching eParticipation, the aim should not be to devise an isolated ‘technology-based toolkit’, but to become sensitive to workable combinations of political, economic, organisational and technological methods of participation.
Interactivity and scalability
♦ Despite their promise for online consultations, threaded discussion forums tend to be used by only a small minority of their potential audience. Argumentation support systems offering argument visualisation has the potential to provide a more comprehensible representation of consultations and debates and a more appealing cue to get involved. A task for future research is to explore, much more innovatively, relevant interactive interfaces to support evidence-based decision-making and navigation through evolving, large-scale information sources.
90 Macintosh A., “eParticipation in Policy-making: the Research and the Challenges”, in “Exploiting the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies”, Cunningham P. and Cunningham M. (Eds), IOS Press, Amsterdam 2006.
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Analysis and evaluation
♦ The challenge of large-scale analysis for eParticipation remains to be resolved. To date, discourse analysis of eParticipation has typically focused on quantitative metrics rather than analysis of argument flows. There is a need to enable scalable discourse capture and analysis with semantic (ontology-based) enrichment. Current research has not extended this to the eParticipation policy-making domain. Although some efforts already exist, research strategies are required to help us understand how to evaluate and better understand the impact and potential of eParticipation.
5.4 Conclusions and policy recommendations
The challenge for eDemocracy is many-fold. From the policy point of view, Steven Clift summarises his five point conclusions on the role of ICT 91 as follows.
“ 1. Democratic necessity does not guarantee the use of ICTs based on their demonstrated or potential value. While governments may react to outside changes in their political environment due to ICT use in society, those in power need to decide in the interest of their society to bring ICTs into the heart of governance. Only in rare cases will ICTs wash over non-adaptive political systems. 2. The use of ICTs in democracy does not guarantee their success or a positive impact. Faults in adaptation to local conditions, culture, law, and implementation with follow through are real challenges. 3. Success in one country or government agency does not guarantee its spread nor its sustained use even when clear value is demonstrated. Elections happen. New leaders often shift their political priorities and approaches. 4. However, the value of the universal spread of ICT practices and strategies that address democratic necessities is immense. The tenuous nature of democracy requires continuous improvement and sustained enrichment with the newest tools available. 5. Therefore, one needs to articulate the necessity, demonstrate and document success toward desired democratic outcomes, and work deliberately to ensure its spread.”
Successful policy efforts should take into account the experience acquired by eDemocracy experiments throughout the world. Based on a study of such initiatives in Europe and the US, Peart and Diaz 92 offer the following recommendations in order of importance:
♦ Provide services in which the public is interested. For example, introducing eVoting even locally in the US is unlikely to succeed, given the prevailing attitudes and perception that the government is not even trusted to correctly carry out regular votes (also see section 2.3). Similar considerations apply to online public forums in the US, while quite the opposite is true for anything that allows more (passive) transparency for citizens, especially during election of representatives. The democratic context itself can be a guide regarding consumption of eDemocracy services: a country where the democratic
91 Clift S., “Policy Leadership E-Government and Democracy - Representation and citizen engagement in the information age”, www.publicus.net
92 Peart M., Diaz J. F., “Comparative Project on Local e-Democracy Initiatives in Europe and North America”, e- Democracy Centre, Research Centre on Direct Democracy, Univ. of Geneva, Geneva, 2007. The paper has appeared in a revised form titled: “Taking stock: local e-democracy in Europe and the USA”, International Journal of Electronic Governance, 2008 - Vol. 1, No.4, pp. 400 – 433.
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institutions function well and there is trust in government is more likely to host such services in a successful way (e.g. Switzerland). Equally well, a country, such as Estonia, where the democratic institutions are relatively young and have not faded into the state of “being taken for granted” can also be a successful host to eDemocracy services.
♦ It is potentially useful to have the central government play a limited role in coordinating eDemocracy initiatives. Government can learn and adopt new practices much better than disaggregated units. This can be demonstrated by the ODPM in Britain and the central government of Estonia and Switzerland (see section 5.1). This should not imply that central government interferes with the learning process or imposes decisions against local trends and needs.
♦ High levels of funding are not so important. For instance, the very successful webcasting and RSS programmes in the US are not costly to run. In other parts, (for example Hungary and Italy, many platforms run on Open Source technology, thus lowering their costs. Should funds be needed (e.g. eVoting) support from private investors can be sought (UK and Spain).
♦ Consider where the political motivation lies and where the interest in participation is focused. For example, in the US, citizens tend to follow politics during election periods only. This means that they are more willing to participate in discussion forums run by the political parties of candidates compared to an elected government. The reasoning behind such citizens’ behaviour (which is not uncommon in other western-type democracies) is that they have much more potential to affect change at pre-election periods, as politicians have to listen. This opens up possibilities for innovative use of ICTs by political parties and candidate representatives.
As Ann Macintosh observes 93 , “eParticipation is a knowledge intensive process that is interactive, collaborative, incremental and dynamic, requiring meaningful messages to be extracted over time from large assemblages of data and information produced by multiple stakeholders. It is a wicked, complex task.” To this, Steven Clift (ref. as before) adds that “the next generation has the democratic opportunity to use ICTs to help them meet public challenges and promote human and social development” and considers that “to this end, building momentum is more important than achieving quick success”.
93 Macintosh A., “eParticipation in Policy-making: the Research and the Challenges”, in “Exploiting the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies”, Cunningham P. and Cunningham M. (Eds), IOS Press, Amsterdam 2006.
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6 Dangers of eDemocracy
The access2democracy ( www.access2democracy.org ) non-profit non-governmental organisation (NGO) was established in Athens and New York by a group of prominent, like- minded world citizens. Its aim is to contribute to the field of eDemocracy and, to this end, its members refer to a summary of the following general pitfalls and dangers in its application.
“ ♦ Badly implemented, eDemocracy can be used as an excuse to enforce bad policy on the grounds of being inline with the “eVoices” of the people ♦ eDemocracy without accountability and transparent democratic control mechanisms can pose a real threat to privacy ♦ Even though eDemocracy is in its infancy, malpractice has already shown up with “eDemocracy” sites “facilitating” citizen access to policy making, for money ♦ Citizens are already disillusioned with politics. Making fun of them through badly implemented and dishonest eDemocracy projects will make them completely disillusioned and eventually angry.”
Besides these general dangers, which are also present in all eGovernment efforts, specific dangers affect eDemocracy specific processes. Following the analysis of Ann Macintosh 94 , we summarise those for electronic contributions in bullet form in what follows.
♦ The danger of “eConsultation fatigue” caused by lack of government feedback on citizens’ contributions and then, directly connected to this, the amount of resources that could potentially be required to undertake such analysis and feedback. Several commentators have noted a lack of correspondence between the growing call for comments on policy and their real influence and impact on actual policy content. Lack of timely and appropriate feedback could give rise to disillusionment about consultation even before governments have effectively harnessed technology to enable eConsultation, a measure which could allow a greater number of citizens to comment on policy.
♦ (Lack of) Analysis of eContributions. Governments need to re-think how they analyse citizens’ contributions, whether they are solicited or unsolicited. Clearly this is a cultural and organisational issue that cannot be solved by merely turning to technology. However, technology can be an enabler for change. The complex task of analysing vast amounts of unstructured information could be supported by technology. For example, the very nature of online discussion forum lends itself to content analysis and thread analysis.
♦ Appropriate feedback on citizens’ input to eConsultation can, hopefully, contribute to the overall transparency, accountability and openness of government. However, there is a marked lack of reports and information on eEngagement that clearly states how the results of the engagement have influenced the decision-making process and changed policy outcome. Perhaps, as governments view eEngagement studies as experimental, they do not feel that they should use input from pilots to change policy. However there is potentially a much more serious problem given that even in traditional consultations it is difficult to find any direct relation between citizens’ input and policy outcomes. This is, in part, due to the lack of attention so far to the issue of evaluating consultation – whether conducted using traditional or online tools. The report “Innovations in Citizens Participation in Government” (UK Parliament, 2001, p. 9) admits: “It was not easy to
94 OECD: “PROMISE AND PROBLEMS OF E-DEMOCRACY” – ISBN 92-64-01948-0, 2003
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assess how far consultation actually changed outcomes. There were few examples of dramatic conversions in policy.”
Last but not least, on the list of general issues negatively affecting eDemocracy, we repeat the argument of D. Barney 95 (see introduction) that ICTs do not provide an equal ability for all citizens to participate meaningfully in the democratic process because the technology is not inherently democratic. Although more of an eInclusion type of argument, the risk for “electronic democracy” not honouring democracy itself is there.
6.1 Electronic voting
The main dangers of eVoting lie in the vulnerability of such systems; these effects have been reported on in section 1.2. Here we add commentary on the non-technical dangers, which can adversely affect efforts to introduce remote eVoting.
Oostveen and Van den Besselaar 96 observe that historically, social aspects and democratic values have only been partially considered in the systems design process and that with remote eVoting at the first stages of development, important issues such as those need further study. They distinguish five distinct areas of concern, which are briefly described below by the authors.
♦ Free and secret voting. The greatest risk of eVoting, according to surveys they conducted, is the possibility that a voter can be forced by someone else to vote for a certain alternative. One typical example is pressure that family members could exert on prospective voters. Remote cannot provide privacy comparable to that of a voting booth. Even non-electronic forms such as postal voting can make coercive family voting a possibility. As the authors’ research indicates, many voters do not trust that their privacy is guaranteed in eVoting systems. They also feel that surveillance may alter their voting behaviour.
♦ The Digital divide. eVoting has to deal with an existing digital divide, in which an upper- class bias is present 97 . This digital divide can be expected to influence the participation in, and the outcome of, ballots. Authors do point out that despite evidence that the digital divide is declining, subtle divides still exist, ranging from age and software/connection skills to geographic selectivity of bandwidth availability. They even state that eElections may in the end be less representative than traditional ones.
♦ Cultural effects. This argument centres on the erosion of the “civic ritual” of physically casting a vote in a location where members of the community gather 98 . Critics argue that it would make elections less of a community event, which might create a greater gap between citizens and government, thus decreasing participation. The authors conclude that as eVoting may destroy the civic rituals, it can have a negative influence on the political culture and therefore is best avoided.
♦ Organisational issues. The logistics of organising a remote e-ballot include planning of activities of various institutions and actors; for instance, the organiser of the ballot, the
95 Barney D., “Prometheus Wired”, Vancouver 2000, UBC Press. 96 Oostveen A.M. and Van den Besselaar P., “Non-technical risks of remote electronic voting”, http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/p.a.a.vandenbesselaar/bestanden/2006%20ency%20evoting.pdf , 2007, 97 Phillips D. and von Spakovsky H., “Gauging the risks of Internet elections”, Communications of the ACM , 44 (1), 73- 85, 2001. 98 Dictson D. and Ray D., “The modern democratic revolution: An objective survey of Internet-based elections”, http://e-voto.di.fc.ul.pt/docs/The%20Modern%20Democratic%20Revolution.pdf , White Paper, January 2001 (paper originally appeared in www.SecurePoll.com)
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certification authorities, and the “supplier” of the eVoting service. The authors argue that existing examples of successful experiments can easily be matched by counterexamples.
♦ Behavioural effects. The authors observe that when one votes at home, isolated behind the computer terminal, a more individual level of identity (and more individual self- interests) is likely to become salient compared to when one votes in the community hall, surrounded by other people from different groups and backgrounds or at work surrounded by colleagues. In the latter two cases, collectivist and even multicultural concerns may be more salient. The authors quote research studies which show that people act in ways specific to their situation and that their social identities have a very powerful impact on their perceptions, emotions, and behaviour. Also, although eVoting may seem private, one of the concerns associated with this technology is whether it is indeed secure, or open to “surveillance” by those administering the system. Indeed, merely the perception of surveillance can potentially moderate voting preferences. For example, many pre- election polls underestimate self-interested or right-wing preferences, because they fail to take into account that people might not want to admit to such preferences in public. The authors conclude that although political preferences will not be entirely determined by the voting context, contextual effects may be especially important in the case of “floating” voters who often decide elections.
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7 Conclusions
eDemocracy is a newly emerging field of activity inspired by advocates of direct democracy (political level) and those of ICT (technical level). Of the different fields constituting eDemocracy, eParticipation appears to be both the most dynamic and the most promising with regard to enhancing the democratic process. This is manifested by the range of existing applications such as eConsultation, ePetition and eDeliberation and the breadth of research pursued. The latter encompasses diverse teams throughout the world with main disciplines ranging from political and social science to specialised argumentation support systems.
As pointed out by FP6 and other scholars, eParticipation is a relatively young field as far as research is concerned. In this respect, impact assessment, especially via comparative analysis of practices, and methods to bridge the digital divide are notable gaps in the research agenda. In a similar fashion, technological research needs point to IT tools supporting content management and users’ interaction and comprehension.
On the policy side, some governments, such as those in Europe, generally appear convinced with regard to eDemocracy. The European lead is exemplified by experiments such as those of Switzerland, Estonia and the UK. Elsewhere, Australia has an active agenda, while the US emphasises in transparency rather than participation. Also, bodies such as the Council of Europe support the concept through recommendations and organisation of regular events.
Finally, eDemocracy itself is not without dangers. Badly implemented eDemocracy can become a vehicle for bad policy and malpractice, while facilities such as remote eVoting may have wider implications on the outcome of ballots due to their inherent alteration of the voting context.
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Prepared by:
Lead contractor: EUROPEAN DYNAMICS SA http://www.eurodyn.com
Authors:
Dr. Ioannis KOTSIOPOULOS
Contract No.:
Contract No. 30-CE-0043035/00-16
European Commission Information Society and Media Directorate-General ICT for Government and Public Services Unit
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