A Systematic Review of E-Democracy

Possibilities and Limits of E-participation: A Systematic Review of E-democracy

Autoria: Herman Resende Santos, Dany Flávio Tonelli

With the intention of understanding the current academic discussions on e-democracy, a systematic literature review was carried out, in order to answer the following question: What has been said about e-democracy in the last five years? A theoretical classification scheme, known as Ideological Discourse Placements (IDP), was proposed for analyzing the article’s approaches. The need for deep-rooted changes to cultural, political and social structures in order to promote an alignment between responsivity and democratic participation was noted. This conception refers to the need for dialogue and cooperation between government and citizens, through practices of public governance guided towards civil empowerment.

1. Introduction

The various conceptual definitions of electronic democracy delineate a complex interactive system between society and the state mediated by information and communication (ICT) technologies. The digital interfaces through which public organizations connect to citizens continuously reconfigure processes of expression, learning, innovation and democratic participation in government policies. The intense development of ICTs, and the values and concepts inherent to Web 2.0 such as interactivity, sharing and co-creation, induce the conception of new organizational architectures and institutional designs. Imposing legal, technological, organizational, cultural and political challenges, these new dynamics lead to transformations of society’s expectations regarding the actions of public administration and refer to the perceived need for an improvement in public governance practices. Analysis of the relationship between digital access and democracy (Faris & Etling, 2008) reiterates a recurring vision of its main features, namely: the increasing transparency of information flows; facilitation of the coordination of activities between geographically dispersed citizens and actors; and the external visibility of government-citizen interaction platforms (Rhue & Sundararajan, 2013). The proposition of a democratic model, called “e-cognocracy” (Moreno-Jiménez, 2003; Moreno-Jiménez & Polasek, 2003), which consists of a “cognitive democracy oriented to the extraction and sharing of knowledge associated with the scientific resolution of public decision-making problems related to the governance of society” (Moreno-Jiménez, Piles, Ruiz, Salazar & Turón, 2011) whose objectives are to promote “transparency, control, participation, knowledge, democratization and learning” (Mamaqi & Moreno-Jiménez, 2009), reiterates the essentiality of information and knowledge to the democratic process (Servaes, 1998; Servaes, 2005). The conciliation proposed through the concept of e-cognocracy between digital democratic processes, “collective intelligence” and its connection with the effectiveness and responsiveness of the government action’s planning reiterates the understanding that horizontal government-citizen communication processes are essential for the instrumentalization of participative and deliberative dynamics (Barber, 2003; Fishkin, 1991; Groshek, 2009; Park, 2013). From gaps regarding the continuous democratizing effects of digital technology analysis (Rhue & Sundararajan, 2013), open issues concerning the relationship between these mechanisms and institutional democracy strengthening are observed (Skoric & Park, 2013). In order to understand the current academic debate on the topic of e-democracy and its inherent issues, this study consisted of a systematic literature review and therefore the following research question was proposed: What has been said about e-democracy in the last five years? This article has been structured into five sections. After the introduction, Section 2 presents the theoretical framework and concepts related to electronic democracy; Section 3 discusses the methodological approach; Section 4 analyzes the information extracted from selected articles; and in Section 5 the closing remarks are presented.

2. Theoretical Framework

Vedel (2006) presented an overview of the historical process of the development of e- democracy articulated in three phases comprising the periods 1950–60, 1970–80 and 1990– 2000, to which were joined respectively the conceptions of “The governing machine” (a view of optimization of the administrative machinery of the state), “Teledemocracy to enhance 2

social links,” which focused on the “revitalization of social connections among citizens” and “Cyber-democracy as a new polity,” which consisted of the idea of creating of a new political space. Another contextual categorization of the concept of electronic democracy was organized in distinct phases: “1 – Futuristic Predictions: promotion of radical changes in political processes; 2 – Early Empirical Projects: emergence of tele-democracy; 3 – Theorizing Participatory Potentials; 4 – Analyzing First Implementation Projects; 5 – Theorizing Deliberative Potentials: focus on deliberative communication processes; and 6 – Conceptual Convergence: digital, cyber, e-democracy” (Črnič, 2012). Multiple concepts of e-democracy reflect the complexity and plurality of power games between rulers and ruled concerning the decision-making process intrinsic to public policies (Črnič, 2012). Addressing the issue of e-democracy, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (Europe, 2009) presented guiding principles of practice on the subject, namely: focus on democratic processes, respect for human, social, ethical and cultural values; should refer to good governance, should facilitate the information provision and deliberation; should be based on cooperation processes between actors, can be applied in any democratic model, can attract and encourage youth participation. In the literature, the e-democracy definitions range from broad concepts such as democratic process digitalization to more specific ones such as: administrative optimization; deliberative or direct democracy; communication between society and government (connecting people with each other and with political representatives); expansion of democratic participation; political culture transformation; and promotion of substantive values. According to Kardan and Sadeghiani (2011), there is no consensus on the definition and use of the term “e-democracy.” At the Future of Democracy Forum held in Madrid in 2009, Terry Davis, General Secretary of the Council of Europe, said: “...I do not think that there is any such thing as electronic democracy [...] democracy is simply democracy.” (Europe, 2008, p.39). In contrast, it’s argued that the prefix “e” for “digital and online” profoundly changes the conception of the term (Li, 2010). Dahl, Limongi & Paciornik (1997) relate democracy to the concept of democratic responsiveness, meaning the essence of the term from the notion of correspondence between the actions of the state and the wishes of the people, while Schlozman and Brady (1995) argue that the central concept of democracy is not confined to government responsiveness, but relates to democratic participation. From this definition a representation diagram of e-democracy’s core elements was developed. The sociopolitical digital interactions, understood as “the bottom-up and top- down dynamics of a government-citizen democratic relationship instrumentalized by the ICT’s” (Santos, Tonelli, Bermejo, 2014) and characterized by ascending flows of e- participation, which necessarily involve the civil empowerment and descending flows of governmental responsiveness, was associated with the idea of electronic democracy.

Figure 1 – Core elements of e-democracy

Several authors and institutions have studied e-democracy models; for the purposes of this study we adopted the Sæbø and Päivärinta (2006) model, developed from two fundamental characteristics: inclusion in decisions and agenda control (Dahl, 1989). The authors define four categories of e-democracy:

. Partisan e-democracy – allows participation and citizen involvement in the decision-making process through alternative technological channels of communication. . Deliberative e-democracy – connects citizens to decision-making processes, emphasizing the role of open discussions. . Liberal e-democracy – is characterized by the fact that the government sets the agenda for decision-making processes. . Direct e-democracy – citizens participate directly in decision-making processes.

As a complement to this categorization, the concept of E-cognocracy was included (Moreno-Jiménez & Polasek, 2003), which comprises the extraction and use of collective intelligence in dynamic decision making, learning and democratic improvement. In this sense, learning is the essential tool that enables citizens’ e-participation in democratic processes (Watson & Mundy, 2001) through ICT’s mediated channels (Macintosh, 2004). The intrinsic complexity of e-democracy programs relates to the plurality of legal mechanisms and socio-technical values regarding political power distribution (Chadwick, 2008), and the main challenge inherent in e-democracy programs is to connect the forms of citizen participation through the digital environments of Web 2.0 with the real processes inherent in public policies. According to Vedel (2006), the dimensions of the democratic process are information, discussion and decision. To this end, it is necessary to look at “sectors” of e-democracy project implementation, namely “e-voting, e-participation, e-consultation, e-environment, e- legislation, e-parliament, e-justice, e-mediation, e-initiatives, e-petitioning, e-campaigning, e- polling and e-surveying” (Europe, 2009). p.15.

Studies on e-democracy usually focus on the relationship between ICTs and their potential to “amplify the political voice of ordinary citizens” through increased “availability of information” and the establishment of new methods of “information distribution,” by encouraging “political participation” and “engaging in deliberation” about public policy (Harrison et al. 2012). According to Singh & Walsh, (2012), the main focus of the e-democracy literature consists in addressing the challenges of expanding and encouraging citizen participation and democratic dynamic transformation from collaborative processes through social media and open data. The association between ICTs and their core features, namely the instrumentalization of horizontal relations and its potential for transforming the government- citizen interactions, are addressed by several authors from considerations about the type and intensity of their impact on the design of new forms of relationships with political power (Silva, 2005). Views on the subject are divided between optimists, who advocate the capacity of ICTs for improving sociopolitical relations, pessimists, who point to an increasing control of the political and governmental dynamics by market forces, and moderates, who see the occurrence of a simple adaptive rearrangement of the liberal democratic system (Silva, 2005). Although ICTs have induced the popular desire for democratic participation, their use in the participative processes has been focused on optimizing internal administrative procedures, rather than transforming political actions and political culture (Insua, 2008). When considering the nature of transparency, participation and collaboration in the context of government actions, Harrison et al. (2012) suggest that “these processes should be viewed as means toward desirable ends, rather than administrative ends in themselves, as they appear to be currently treated.” Although significant progress has been made regarding the provision of information and public services, dialogue (the central dimension of democratic governance) remains largely unrealized in the digital context (Roman & Miller, 2013). This can be explained by the view that “The factor which determines whether ICTs serve as a democratizing force is the political culture in which they develop” (Coleman, 1999). According to Kallio and Käkönen, J. (2002: p.3) the main question about the relationship between democracy and e-democracy may be structural. the problem could be that both politics and democracy do not anymore have a real meaning in current political structures and therefore people are loosing their interest in politics. In case this is a justified conclusion e-democracy fails to increase democracy. It only creates an illusion of democratic participation. In case the problem is more structural than just lack of participation, the whole question about e- democracy has to be connected to de and re-construction of social and political structures.

2.1. Related Concepts

From the information gathered on the literature review, Table 1 was proposed and comprised a graphical means of visualizing concepts related to e-democracy.

Table 1. E-democracy-Related Concepts

3. Methodology

To conduct this study, a qualitative approach was adopted that consisted of a systematic literature review method, through which the mapping of the current state of scientific knowledge about e-democracy was carried out, based on specific criteria. According to Kitchenham (2004), a systematic literature review is “a means of identifying, evaluating and interpreting all available research relevant to a particular research question, or topic area, or phenomenon of interest.” To Garrard (2013, p. 5), a literature review consists of an

analysis of scientific materials about a specific topic that requires the reviewer to carefully read each of the studies to evaluate the study purpose, determine the appropriateness and quality of the scientific methods, examine the analysis of the questions and answers posed by the authors, summarize the findings across the studies, and write an objective synthesis of the findings.

To conduct this review, strategies for search, selection, reading and analysis of perceived results were outlined, based on adaptations from texts by Kitchenham (2004), Leeuw and Leeuw (2012) and Garrard (2013). The study was conducted in three separate phases, relating to the definition of articles, the summarization of information and the elaboration of findings discussed throughout the papers.

3.1. Search Process

A priori criteria for the search for articles were established from the definition of the indexed databases, namely SAGE Journals online, Elsevier SCOPUS and Web of Knowledge Search Cross (Thomson Scientific / ISI Web Services). The term “e-democracy” was defined as the keyword of the research. Once established the indexed databases and the keyword, 1044 documents were found on August 17, 2013.

3.2. Selection Criteria

The research results were subjected to three-times filtering. Filter 1 defined that works should be published since 2008; Filter 2 concentrated on finding documents within the topics Social Sciences / Public Administration / Social Sciences & Humanities; and Filter 3 consisted in verifying whether the document consisted of an article. After performing the search filtering processes, 189 articles were selected (Table 2).

Table 2. Selection Criteria

3.3. Reading Criteria

Hereinafter were applied the filters referring to the reading criteria. Through Filter 4, the compatibility between title, abstract, keywords and the study’s objective was analyzed; Filter 5 consisted in reading the introduction and conclusion, and gauging the affinity with the work’s scope; and Filter 6 checked whether the research objectives were met. Among the 189 selected articles, only 14 met the selection/reading criteria through the selection filtering.

3.4. Analyzing Criteria

The remaining 14 studies were read in full and their analysis and discussion were conducted as follows. Before analyzing the selected papers, a theoretical classification scheme known as Ideological Discourse Placements (IDP) was developed as an analytical tool for this study. For the analysis of the information extracted from the selected articles, four ordering and understanding cognitive procedures were employed. The first procedure consisted in defining the main article’s characteristics and outcomes (see Table 4). The second, based on an adaptation of the work of Silva (2005), consisted of a Discursive Tonic Analysis of the results of the articles. The third step of the analysis was the use of the developed theoretical scheme for the classification of the

Ideological Discourse Placements (IDP). Finally, the fourth procedure was the identification of the article’s methodological approaches.

3.5. Ideological Discourse Placements (IDP)

From the foci of analysis and perspectives inherent in the practice of e-democracy proposed by Dahlberg (2011), a theoretical classification scheme known as Ideological Discourse Placements (IDP) was developed that can be used in the analysis of other topics, with the intention of establishing a critical interpretive system of e-democracy approaches. The classification of Dahlberg (2011) consists of the definition of four intrinsic positions of understanding about the meaning of e-democracy: a) Liberal-individualist – based on individualistic rationality, which maximizes the exploitation of own interests, b) Deliberative – based on the formation of a consensus through dialogue, c) Counter-public – based on the ability of digital media to form groups of activism and protest, and d) Marxist Autonomists – based on the perception of the digital communication network’s potential to transcend state centralization and the capitalist system, understood as necessarily anti- democratic. The theoretical classification scheme of Ideological Discourse Placements (IDP) was based on the intersection of two lines, referring to movements of change or maintenance of power structures, and two columns, referring to the intensities (incremental or radical) of promotion of these movements. Thus, the radical and incremental forms of a power structure’s maintenance are associated respectively with individualism and corporatism/lobby, while the radical and incremental forms of a power structure’s change refer to the alternative and social empowerment. From the association and crossover between the proposed concepts, the theoretical Ideological Discourse Placements (IDP) framework was used to classify the perceived results of the analyzed articles.

Table 3. Theoretical Scheme of Ideological Discourse Placements (IDP) Source: Adapted from Dahlberg (2011)

4. Findings

The information from the selected articles was analyzed through four ordering and understanding cognitive procedures.

4.1. Systematic Review of Selected Studies’ Characteristics

Table 4. Systematic Review of Selected Studies’ Characteristics Source: Research data, table adapted from Leeuw and Leeuw (2012) 10

4.2. Discursive Tonic Analyses

Based on an adaptation of Silva (2005), a discursive tonic analysis was conducted.The definition of the characteristics underlying the results of the articles and three predominant positions inherent in the selected information were observed: optimistic, critical and guiding. Those who were optimistic about the prospects pertaining to ICTs in the context of electronic democracy observed its potential in: reshaping administration and public governance (Lee, Chang, Berry, 2011); enabling citizens to organize their own ways of producing public value (Meijer, 2012); extending the public space through e-participation (Rothberg, 2008); and empowering citizens through the promotion of participation in the decision-making processes regarding public issues and improving accountability and public transparency processes (Spirakis, Spiraki & Nikolopoulos, 2010). The results, which argued for a critical position in relation to democratic processes mediated by ICTs, identified caveats regarding: the nonpromotion of decision-making power sharing (Åström, Granberg & Khakee, 2011), the nonuse of ICTs in establishing channels of feedback and social participation (Črnič, 2012); the prevalence of ideologies that aim to reiterate the status quo of power relations (Insua, 2008); the nonrelation between new technologies and public administration reforms (Sandor, 2012); and the need to rethink e- democracy as a means of promoting social access to resources (Singh & Walsh, 2012). Approaches that consisted in proposing guidings and directions for study led to recommendations and observations about the nonneutrality of speeches (Dahlberg, 2011); the independence between e-democracy and e-government (Kardan & Sadeghiani, 2011); the need for education for democratic culture and citizenship promotion (Şendaǧ, 2010); promoting participation that requires more than the provision of communication resources (Marques, 2010); and the importance of public value to public organizations and better government (Harrison et al., 2012).

4.3. Ideological Discourse Placements (IDP)

The idea of using the IDP (Table 3) did not consist in judging the intrinsic values of the discourse expressed by the author throughout the article, but in an analysis of the suggested ideas communicated through the features of the results reported in Table 3. It was observed that among the analyzed results, three cases (Åström et al., 2011; Črnič, 2012; Insua, 2008) indicated limitations of democratic reach through ICTs and pointed to a tendency for power structure maintenance that reiterates individualism and corporatism/lobby-related ideologies. Six other results were characterized by approaches related to the trend of the incremental changing of power structures ( Lee, Chang & Berry, 2011; Meijer, 2012; Rothberg, 2008; Şendaǧ, 2010; Singh & Walsh, 2012; Spirakis et al., 2010), through considerations about e-democracy-related benefits such as promoting social empowerment, the socialization of access to resources, valorizing learning and qualification, the use of ICTs as democratic tools, the new configurations of governance and the instrumentalization of government responsiveness mechanisms by promoting substantive values. It was found that five of the selected results (the same as those classified as Guiding in the Discursive Tonic Analyses) produced recommendations and observations without presenting a defined (maintenance or change of power structure) positioning (Dahlberg, 2011; Harrison et al., 2012; Kardan & Sadeghiani, 2011; Marques, 2010; Sandor, 2012), although this is intrinsic to every discourse; Therefore it’s useful to remember that “even an attempt to

produce a value-neutral science is itself a judgement, normally in favor of status quo power relations” (Dahlberg, 2011).

4.4. Methodological Approaches

From the research-featuring table (see Table 4), it can be seen that the majority of the analyzed studies opted for qualitative methodological approaches, which confirms the findings of Lee et al. (2011), who claim that “most prior studies on e-government and e- democracy developmental models are based on intellectual speculation rather than data from empirical observation.”

5. Discussion

From the information on the analyzed articles: It was noted that a minority of authors report a tendency for power structure maintenance while the majority of authors point to the need for incremental change of the power structures. This observation reiterates that the critical approach of the articles prevails and guides ideological positioning toward the gradual transformation of status quo power relations. The absence of alternative/radical ideological approaches (Autonomist Marxist) relating to proposed changes or parallel forms of power structure was noted, which led to the possible perception of an ideological homogeny of the studied academic approaches. From this, evidence of “hegemony of scientific paradigm” was observed (Santos, 2002). The probable explanation for this is the bond between the sources of research funding of capitalistic states, which consists of the strongest link in the chain of the global academic mainstream of scientific paper publication; filtering and ideological conditioning of the scientific community’s approaches is an important strategy for maintaining the status quo of power relations. The predominance of qualitative methodological approaches to the topic was observed, referring to the lack of data and empirical studies for background, models and theoretical constructs for experimental hypotheses rooted in praxis. Thus, the consolidation of electronic democracy theories was not observed, probably because of the lack of methodological approaches that generate empirical data and can give support to models and theoretical construct formulations, or even because e-democracy is only about democracy (Europe, 2008).

6. Conclusion

Sociopolitical interactions mediated by ICTs involve a continuous power network configuration process and transformation of complex contexts that shape public policy and democratic processes. Government-society interactions are based on a constant process of self-organization of political institutions, and coordination between actors connected through networks. The sense of these adjustments, although ideally consisting of the generation of public values and the promotion of the common good, in practice is pervaded by conflicting and even ambiguous interests that balance through games of interest, influence and power. The ambiguity inherent in human actions, especially when it refers to the use of ICTs and government actions, reiterates the perception that although digitalizing government- citizen interaction channels points to promising avenues for institutional democracy 12

strengthening, it does not necessarily imply increased democratic participation or government responsiveness, as it generates new modalities of social exclusion (digital divide), control, monitoring and use of extracted collective intelligence to formulate capitalistic states’ global competition strategies. Reiterating Gomes (2005), unfortunately our political system has an anti-public shielding that “considerably reduces the real dimension and the real impact of public opinion both online and offline” and the negligible governmental willingness for a real citizen- centered government, perceived with variations from case to case, falls far short of the republican recommendations. Given the complexity of the sociopolitical and ideological context, the need for deep changes in cultural and sociopolitical structures that enable an alignment between public policies and the promotion of “social ownership” of the common good was noted, which leads to the establishment of dialogue and cooperation between state and citizen, through practices of public governance guided towards civil empowerment. Among the study’s limitations, the very methodological criteria for the selection of articles led to not exploring important published works. Future studies could, through critical analyses of the social, political, administrative, economic and ideological contexts, address issues relating to the changing structures of power through which democratic digital interactions between rulers and citizens occur. Questions remain regarding the promotion of governmental responsiveness, sustainable development, social inclusion and the creation of public value through digital processes that culminate in democratic institutional strengthening and public management innovations being observed.

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