Towards eParticipation in Democratic Decision Making

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Towards eParticipation in Democratic Decision
Making
Colin Fraser International Teledemocracy
Centre Napier University
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'Classical' eDemocracy

• Use of ICT to engage citizens, support democratic
  decision-making processes and (?strengthen
  representative democracy?)
• Principal mechanism is the internet accessed
  through an increasing variety of channels,
  including PCs, both in the home and in public
  locations, mobile phones ...
• democratic decision making processes can be
  (usefully) divided into two main categories
• one addressing the electoral process, including
  e-voting
• the other addressing citizen participation in
  democratic decision-making

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eParticipation

• Use of ICT to broaden and deepen political
  participation by enabling citizens to connect
  with one another and with their elected
  representatives
• OECD Citizens as Partners reports identifies 3
  key relationships
• Information one way relationship where
  government produces and delivers information for
  citizens
• Consultation two way relationship where citizens
  provide feedback from government. Government
  sets the agenda and manages the process.
• Active Participation partnership with government
  in which citizens active engage in defining
  process and content of decision making

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eEngagement

• How can ICT facilitate the three levels of
  participation? (OECD 2003)
• Reaching a wider audience
• Providing relevant information
• Engaging with a wider audience
• Supporting appropriate feedback

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Technologies for effective dialogue
Video interview (pre-recorded) FAQ Blogs Video
interview (streamed) Chat interview Argument
Maps Discussion Boards Questionnaire Games
Disseminating information
Forming opinions
Gathering opinions
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DEMO-net Objectives

• Problem a lot of good work performed in the area
  of eDemocracy but much of this is fragmented
• Lessons often difficult to learn because of the
  disparate nature of much of the work
• Evaluation strategies not yet mature
• Proposed Answer DemoNet (the eParticipation
  Network)
• establish a corpus of lessons-learnt to show what
  kind of projects have delivered what kind of
  results and thereby considered effective for
  eParticipation.
• integrate multidisciplinary research in
  eParticipation
• disseminate research amongst stakeholders

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Objectives will be achieved by

• Analyse existing eParticipation research across
  Europe
• Which academic domains do researchers who think
  they are doing eParticipation belong to?
• What tools and techniques are used to create
  instances of eParticipation and used to evaluate
  them?
• Co-operation between government, academia and
  industry to improve quality of research
  understanding
• Developing the theoretical underpinnings of the
  research area of eParticipation bringing
  together work in various different disciplines
  through focused workshops

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Research Objectives

• Establish a corpus of material of empirically
  based research and policy documents related to
  eParticipation
• Research knowledge architectures to support
  access to corpus
• Research interfaces to support evidence-based
  decision-making
• Investigate barriers to eParticipation across
  Europe
• Research discourse analysis techniques to explore
  agenda setting, and alliance building at
  different levels.
• Map of current emergent eParticipation
• technological infrastructures
• eParticipation methods.
• Establish criteria for evaluation of future
  eParticipation initiatives in a systematic
  standardised way
• Harmonise align concepts, terminology methods
• from academic disciplines.
• from the various non-academic stakeholders, eg
  European, national, regional and local
  governments

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Setting challenges

• Identify and respond to developing global
  research and innovation challenges in
  eParticipation
• Analyse the European eParticipation research
  landscape, comparing it with international
  developments
• Develop research agenda and roadmaps to govern
  future direction and future of network
• Put together research teams and thematic networks
  to respond to evolving challenges

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Joined eParticipation technical research

• Understand existing tools and technologies used
  for eParticipation
• Analyse the technical challenges of
  eParticipation
• Develop standards and ontologies for information
  structuring
• Utilise methods of Knowledge Management for large
  scale eParticipation

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Joined eParticipation socio-technical research

• Develop the theoretical basis for
  cross-disciplinary socio-technical research in
  eParticipation to introduce and implement
  eParticipation in different application areas
• - Establish ways to support internal relevance
  (quality of online discourse) and external
  relevance (way eParticipation outcomes are used
  by political actors)
• Support socio-technical theoretical basis of
  technical solutions and their implementation

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Research exchange programme

• Promotes cooperation between technical and
  socio-technical researchers, government
  specialists and industry specialists
• Aims to
• create cross-disciplinary teams working on
  research and innovation projects
• develop funding opportunities for new projects
• stimulate wide discussion and dissemination of
  research results to develop and stabilise expert
  networks

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DEMO-net partner relationships
DEMO-netbuilding the eParticipation community
Eg the EU-NSF networking at eGov
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DEMO-net will deliver

• Virtual centre of excellence in eParticipation
  research which will ensure
• Research community that advances IST applicable
  to eParticipation an environment that
  encourages collaboration
• Sustainable eParticipation research community
• Significant contribution to PhD development
• Critical exposure of researchers to pressing
  democratic problems
• Significant input to government policy
  development for citizen engagement both in
  individual EU countries and the EU as a whole

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Overall aims

• The DEMO-net project aims to
• to promote and develop technological and
  socio-technical excellence in the emerging field
  of e-Participation.
• build on the experience accumulated by leading
  European research organisations that have studied
  the underlying principles of e-Participation and
  actively worked with governments across Europe in
  applying and evaluating e-Participation

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Contacts

• Administrative Project Co-ordinator Nanna
  Skovrup, The Digital North Denmark, Vesterbro
  102, DK9000, Aalborg, Denmark.bEmail nsk_at_nja.dk
• Strategic Research Coordinator Professor Ann
  Macintosh, International Teledemocracy Centre,
  Napier University, 10 Colinton Road, Edinburgh,
  EH10 5DT, UK. Email A.Macintosh_at_napier.ac.uk
• Scientific Manager Prof. Kim Viborg-Andersen,
  Department of Informatics, Copenhagen Business
  School, Howitzvej 60, DK - 2000 Frederiksberg,
  Copenhagen, Denmark. Email andersen_at_cbs.dk