DEVELOPING EDEMOCRACY Concepts, Issues and Future Trends

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DEVELOPING E-DEMOCRACYConcepts, Issues and
Future Trends

• Adjunct Professor Dr. A.-V. Anttiroiko
• University of Tampere, Finland
• Presentation in e-Participation Forum
• Guro District, Seoul, South Korea, 7-9 February
  2007

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FROM E-GOVERNMENTTO E-DEMOCRACY
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Why e-Government?

• e-Government ltgt Information Society
• Transformative power of e-government
• Rationale behind and benefits of e-govt
• Societal benefits development, effectiveness,
  efficiency
• Institutional and organisational benefits
  modernisation and good governance, better work
  conditions etc.
• Benefits at individual level (users) costs,
  speed, access, flexibility, better service etc.

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e-Government Policy

• Nature of government intervention
• Supply vs. demand oriented strategies
• Rational planning vs. incrementalism
• Publicly funded vs. PPP vs. commercial

Evaluation
Feedback
Key Assessments e-Readiness assessment e-Gov
development stage assessment
Supply-oriented policies
Demand-oriented policies
User-friendliness, incentives, added value
Infrastructures, networks and e-services
New logic of public administration, politics and
public policy
Contribution to Society
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e-Readiness and the development stages of
e-government
Development stages
Accenture eGovernment Leadership 2003.
5. Fully transformed e-government system 4.
Online transactions 3. Two-way interaction 2.
Enhanced presence 1. Online presence
e-Readiness Technologies Users -
Institutions (e.g. CSPP and Harvard models)
On various typologies of e-gov development stage
models, see e.g. Janet Kaaya Development Stages
of Digital Government. In Encyclopedia of
Digital Government, Vol. I, pp. 301-309, 2007. On
e-readiness see e.g. Stephen M. Mutula Justus
Wamukoya E-Government Readiness in East and
Southern Africa. In Encyclopedia of Digital
Government, Vol. II, pp. 571-579, 2007.
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Special challenges to least developed and
developing countries
Literacy and skills, poverty, infrastructure,
institutional capacity, citizen-government
interaction etc.
Technology leapfrogging over successive
generations of technology
The e-government handbook for developing
countries, 2002
Institutional capacity-building
SMS inquiries on government operations in
Philippines
Web site of the parliament of Namibia
Gyandoot cyberkiosks in rural areas of Madhya
Pradesh
Declaranet, Mexico
LATIN AMERICA
ASIA
SchoolNet Africa
AfriAfya, Kenya (health care)
AFRICA
Geography of Human development (Wikipedia)
Photo of Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi, August 1999 by
Bob Tubbs / Wikimedia Commons
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Activities in democratic e-governance
e-Government Government information, services
and regulation
Participatory e-democracy e-Petitions,
e-voting, online consultation etc.
e-Communities Citizen weblogs, wiki-media, my
portals, hactivism etc.
GOVERNMENT
CITIZENS AND COMMUNITIES
Applied from Lucas Walsh Extending E-Government
and Citizen Participation in Australia through
the Internet. In Encyclopedia of Digital
Government. Vol. II, pp. 812-818, IGR 2007.
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E-PARTICIPATION
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e-Democracy

• Tool-oriented conception of democracy
• Differentia specifica ICTs
• Goes beyond democracy as usual
• -gt Innovations in democratic practice
• Includes various institutional arrangements
• Political representation
• Bureaucratic discretion
• Policy networks
• Citizen participation
• and deliberation
• Direct citizen influence

Freedom House's survey Freedom in the World 2006
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Participatory e-democracy

• Emphasises
• Citizenship and the sense of community
• Active citizen participation
• Deliberation (cf. deliberative democracy)
• Interaction between citizens, politicians and
  public administration
• Paradigmatic tools e-Consultation, Electronic
• Town Meeting (ETM), e-citizen jury, etc.
• e.g. B. Barber Strong Democracy 1984
• e.g. T. Becker C.D. Slaton Future of
  Teledemocracy 2000

Benjamin Barber
http//www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/barber/
Ted Becker
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Institutional and technological mediation in
democratic system
e-Participation
Technology
Institutions
Voters
Users
Representative system of government
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Process view of e-democracy
Functions (outer circle) and e-tools (inner
circle)
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ISSUES
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Towards Participatory e-Democracy

• A need to go beyond
• Representative system of government
• Bureaucracy and managerialism
• Market mechanism and consumerism
• Note there is need to guarantee that
• citizen participation is meaningful, inclusive
• and democratic!

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Technological mediation tools may be used to
facilitate information, communication and
transaction processes in participatory democracy.
Issues of e-Participation

• Institutions e-Participation must be integrated
  into existing institutional structure
• Influence e-Participation must allow true civic
  influence on issues of interest
• Integration e-Participation must be possible in
  different phases of e-democracy process
• Interaction e-Participation should improve
  information, interaction and transaction
  processes.

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FUTURE TRENDS
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Preconditions of democracy are changing

• Globalisation
• ? Erosion of boundaries of a democratic polity
• ? Increased interdependence
• Informatisation and medialisation
• ? Increased technological mediation
• ? Medialisation of politics
• New forms of governance and organisation
• ? Networks, partnerships, markets
• Individualisation
• ? Individualism, virtual communities etc.

Manuel Castells
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Ubiquitous Future
u-City is a futuristic urban area in which
citizens are provided access to high-speed
networks that transmit information of/to people
or objects at any time and at any place
T.-G. Kim in Korea Times July 28, 2006

• U-City
• Relies on ubiquitous technologies, e.g. RFID
• Data and information sharing within the city
• Intelligence is built into buildings, streets etc.

Cf. wireless and mobile cities - San Francisco,
Philadelphia, Mountain View, California etc. -
Oulu, Tampere, Stockholm etc. - Taipei, Seoul,
Singapore, Osaka, Hong Kong etc.
Picture from wikimedia http//upload.wikimedia.or
g/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Seoul-01_28xndr29.jpg
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Korean Digital City and u-City Projects
40 km from Seoul
New Songdo City

• New Town to be built on a man-made island
• Large scale use of RFID, smart cards and sensors
• Managed by partnership-based Songdo U-Life
• Profit-generating u-city model
• To be completed around 2014

• u-Democracy Pilot Projects?
• u-Community development
• u-Community networks
• u-Participation forum
• u-Feedback channels
• u-Polling and u-consultation
• u-Neighbourhood councils
• u-Channel to public officials
• u-Public service portal
• u-Citizen juries, etc.

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Towards a Hybrid Model of Democracy

• Increased complexity
• Ubiquity towards participatory u-democracy?
• Network democracy as a new paradigm?
• e-Democracy may become a kind of integrative form
  of democracy that helps to integrate different
  forms and mechanisms of democratic governance,
  thus contributing to our ability to cope with the
  requirements of network society.

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Thank you!

• Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko
• University of Tampere
• Finland
• kuaran_at_uta.fi