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Towards eParticipation
in Democratic Decision
Making
Colin Fraser
International Teledemocracy Centre
Napier University
www.demo-net.org
DEMO-net is a Network of Excellence
funded by the European Commission
'Classical' eDemocracy
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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 evoting
● the other addressing citizen participation in
democratic decision-making
www.demo-net.org
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
www.demo-net.org
eEngagement
• How can ICT facilitate the three levels of
participation? (OECD 2003)
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–
–
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Reaching a wider audience
Providing relevant information
Engaging with a wider audience
Supporting appropriate feedback
www.demo-net.org
Technologies for effective dialogue
Video interview (pre-recorded)
FAQ
Blogs
Video interview (streamed)
Chat interview
Argument Maps
Discussion Boards
Questionnaire
Games
www.demo-net.org
Disseminating information
Forming opinions
Gathering
opinions
www.demo-net.org
DEMO-net Objectives
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•
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)
1.establish a corpus of lessons-learnt to show what kind of
projects have delivered what kind of results and thereby
considered effective for eParticipation.
2.integrate multidisciplinary research in eParticipation
3.disseminate research amongst stakeholders
www.demo-net.org
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
www.demo-net.org
Research Objectives
1. 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
2. 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.
3. 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
www.demo-net.org
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
www.demo-net.org
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
www.demo-net.org
Joined eParticipation socio-technical
research
- Develop the theoretical basis for crossdisciplinary 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
www.demo-net.org
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
www.demo-net.org
DEMO-net partner relationships
DEMO-net
Associated
institutions
DEMO-net:
building the
eParticipation
community
DEMO-net
partner
institutions
DEMO-net
Affiliated Experts
Regions
Industry
R&D
R&D groups
outside EU
Eg: the EU-NSF
networking at eGov
Industry
Authorities
www.demo-net.org
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
www.demo-net.org
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 eParticipation and actively worked with
governments across Europe in applying and
evaluating e-Participation
www.demo-net.org
Contacts
• Administrative Project Co-ordinator: Nanna Skovrup, The
Digital North Denmark, Vesterbro 102, DK9000, Aalborg,
Denmark.bEmail: nsk@nja.dk
• Strategic Research Coordinator: Professor Ann Macintosh,
International Teledemocracy Centre, Napier University, 10
Colinton Road, Edinburgh, EH10 5DT, UK. Email:
A.Macintosh@napier.ac.uk
• Scientific Manager: Prof. Kim Viborg-Andersen, Department of
Informatics, Copenhagen Business School, Howitzvej 60, DK 2000 Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, Denmark. Email:
andersen@cbs.dk
www.demo-net.org