Abstract:

Electronic participation in politics (e-participation) is now a reality in many countries, at least among the relatively privileged citizens of most democratic states. Governments at national, regional and local levels all seem keen to exploit new technologies in order to bridge the supposed gap between the state and its citizens, finding increasingly novel ways to inform, consult and otherwise engage their populations in aspects of the political process. Citizens, as well, are grasping the opportunities offered by the information age to discuss and selforganise across traditional geographic and political boundaries, to hold their political leaders to account and to exert influence upon them.

Despite the excitement in some areas around e-democracy, however, experience of developing and applying new technologies to support or enhance citizen participation in politics is mixed. It is only in the last few years that real experiments have taken place with online engagement, and the real consequences of new modes of participation are only beginning to be thought through. This symposium, organised under the auspices of the Council of Europe's ad hoc Committee on e-democracy (CAHDE), provided an opportunity to assess developments in e-democracy across the continent. As well as hearing about a range of different initiatives from NGOs and governments operating at the local, national and international level, it also heard from academics, parliamentarians and others concerned with the new technologies and the ways in which they are being enacted in different political locations. Consequently, it went beyond mapping the range and take-up of initiatives, to provide the first cross-national consideration of how new technologies might be changing the relationship between governors and the governed.

This report summarises the main themes that were discussed at the symposium, and highlights its broad conclusions in terms of the added value that e-democracy may be seen to offer governments, politicians and citizens in Europe.

Full Text:

Symposium on

E-democracy:

new opportunities for enhancing civic participation

Strasbourg

23-24 April 2007

Final Report

Lawrence Pratchett, De Montfort University, UK

General Rapporteur

Electronic participation in politics (e-participation) is now a reality in many countries, at least

among the relatively privileged citizens of most democratic states. Governments at national,

regional and local levels all seem keen to exploit new technologies in order to bridge the

supposed gap between the state and its citizens, finding increasingly novel ways to inform,

consult and otherwise engage their populations in aspects of the political process. Citizens,

as well, are grasping the opportunities offered by the information age to discuss and selforganise

across traditional geographic and political boundaries, to hold their political leaders

to account and to exert influence upon them.

Despite the excitement in some areas around e-democracy, however, experience of

developing and applying new technologies to support or enhance citizen participation in

politics is mixed. It is only in the last few years that real experiments have taken place with

online engagement, and the real consequences of new modes of participation are only

beginning to be thought through. This symposium, organised under the auspices of the

Council of Europe's ad hoc Committee on e-democracy (CAHDE), provided an opportunity to

assess developments in e-democracy across the continent. As well as hearing about a

range of different initiatives from NGOs and governments operating at the local, national and

international level, it also heard from academics, parliamentarians and others concerned with

the new technologies and the ways in which they are being enacted in different political

locations. Consequently, it went beyond mapping the range and take-up of initiatives, to

provide the first cross-national consideration of how new technologies might be changing the

relationship between governors and the governed.

This report summarises the main themes that were discussed at the symposium, and

highlights its broad conclusions in terms of the added value that e-democracy may be seen

to offer governments, politicians and citizens in Europe. Overall, five key themes emerged:

1. Why do we need e-democracy?

This first theme concerns the very basis of why so many countries, governments, politicians,

NGOs and citizens themselves are interested in e-democracy. Throughout the symposium,

and particularly in the opening speeches, the question of exactly why those present feel edemocracy

might be useful arose. Responses to this question fell into two categories:

Political disengagement - many participants felt that the tools of e-democracy and eparticipation

represent an opportunity to respond to observed problems concerning political

apathy and disengagement across Europe. These concerns are associated with a

perception that the democratic deficit is growing in relation to a range of political institutions

at the local, national and international level.

2

This democratic deficit is characterised by such problems as:

• Declining levels of political participation, as witnessed by falling election

turnout across many European countries;

• Declining trust in political institutions and in politicians in particular, leading to

greater disengagement from politics among many groups;

• Declining levels of civic engagement especially among young people who are

increasingly disinterested in participating in civic life;

• Alienation and a sense of disenfranchisement among certain groups

(especially the economically, ethnically or socially excluded);

• The growth of extremism and racism in politics in many European countries,

as witnessed by the growing success of far-right parties in local elections in

particular.

For those concerned with these problems, e-democracy offers new opportunities to address

citizens and to re-engage various groups.

The ICT opportunity - at the other extreme, there was an implicit acknowledgement from

many speakers that it was the opportunity that new information and communication

technologies (ICTs) offer that is most exciting about e-democracy. These opportunities

include:

• The possibility to reach out to new groups (such as the young) using

technologies that appeal to them (for example, by using Web 2.0 technologies

such as Face Book, My Space, You Tube and Second Life);

• The possibility of using ICTs to re-engineer new political and democratic

processes that fit with contemporary policy problems (the example of how epetitioning

systems have made parliaments more responsive in Germany,

Scotland and elsewhere was emphasised).

However, concern was also expressed about how compatible these two responses were:

while concerns with political disengagement require innovative approaches to re-engaging

citizens, enhancing transparency and making governments more responsive, ICT led

innovation, at times at least, fails to address these problems in favour of innovation for

innovation's sake. Governments need to avoid e-democracy solutions simply because they

are ‘modern' and, instead, seek those innovations that will support their own needs.

2. Issues of supply and demand

This second theme addressed the issue of how effective contemporary e-democracy

initiatives are, and whether they relate to what citizens really want from democracy. In other

words, does what is being supplied by governments and other organisations match the

demand of citizens? Two concerns were relevant here:

If we build it they will come - too many initiatives are designed to suit the needs and

preferences of governments and other bodies. There is a sense that if citizens are given the

opportunities to participate they will automatically take it. The reality is that initiatives have to

be much more carefully crafted to ‘scratch where people are itching'. Governments also

have to accept that relatively low levels of engagement are not necessarily a problem and

that raw numbers of people participating are not necessarily a good measure of success for

e-democracy.

3

The unable willing or the able unwilling - this phrase was used in the symposium to reflect

the range of people that e-participation initiatives might reach and the problems associated

with it. The unable willing refers to those who might want to participate but lack the

resources and skills to engage. In this context, e-participation initiatives need to avoid

creating further barriers to engagement among those communities that fall into this category.

The able unwilling refers to those who have the resources and skills but prefer to invest them

elsewhere. In this context, e-participation initiatives need to be built creatively to provide

added reasons for engagement. A key point about these two categories is that a single

approach to e-democracy is unlikely to meet the needs of both. The challenge for

governments is to develop complementary approaches which do not have negative

consequences for engagement.

3. The scope for e-democracy

One of the issues that the symposium addressed both directly and indirectly concerned the

scope of e-democracy: who should be the target of e-democracy initiatives and what should

they be trying to achieve? The answer to this question was seen as a continuum. At one

extreme, incremental but nonetheless important changes in the operation of Parliament were

proposed. These proposals included enhancing the efficiency and transparency of elected

members by providing them all with email addresses and websites and, indeed, developing

systems such as the UK's theyworkforyou.com website, that monitor the parliamentary

activities of individual politicians. However, it was also recognised that there was significant

resistance among some (but by no means all) parliamentarians to technological innovation.

At the other extreme, it was also recognised that e-democracy needs to be engaging with the

latest Web 2.0 social networking technologies: there is already much citizen-led political

activity on sites such as MySpace, FaceBook, YouTube and Second Life and some

politicians are already responding to this latest phenomenon. However, there is also,

arguably, a need for governments and politicians to be more deliberate and strategic in their

approach to adopting these technologies.

Between these two extremes, there are also a range of new and emerging opportunities for

enhancing representation, improving participation and extending spaces for deliberation both

within and across communities. The question for governments, therefore, is to decide where

they wish to focus their efforts in this area.

4. Revolution or evolution?

Linked to the issue of where to focus efforts is a concern with how revolutionary or

evolutionary the technologies are when placed within a political system. It is tempting to see

all new applications as being revolutionary or, at the minimum, to have the potential to

radically alter the behaviour of politicians, public servants, citizens and so on. Indeed, it is

such radical claims that make many e-participation champions so persuasive. The

revolutionary impact of particular projects is often an implicit, if not explicit, criterion in

evaluating the success of e-democracy initiatives: e-democracy projects are expected to

have radically changed the behaviour of politicians, greatly extended the level of participation

or revolutionised the quality of engagement.

These revolutionary expectations, however, need to be balanced against the more modest

but nonetheless important achievements of most existing e-democracy projects. Few

projects have major and sustained effects on political behaviour, participation or

engagement: more significantly, even fewer have precisely the effects that their champions

predict for them. The reality of e-democracy is that it exists alongside other democratic

devices, many of which have long standing significance and legitimacy in different countries.

4

The way in which politicians, citizens and intermediary organisations take-up and use

devices, therefore, will be shaped by their past experience and current expectations.

Equally, experience of using new devices will shape the way in which future devices might be

adopted. Governments and others interested in implementing e-democracy devices need to

be conscious of the way new applications will relate to, and be shaped by, existing practices.

5. Top-down and bottom-up democracy

A key conclusion from the symposium was that what governments do in the area of edemocracy

matters. The attitudes of the different branches of government towards

participation and innovation will shape the way in which new systems are developed.

Governments need to think carefully, therefore, about what directions and incentives they are

providing for engagement through electronic means.

Inevitably, such the directions and incentives to e-democracy will need to be nuanced and

subtle. Choices about top-down systems will indicate the governments preferred means of

engaging citizens, whether it is through aggregative devices such as e-voting or focuses on

more deliberative and sustained dialogues with citizens. However, democracy is also about

bottom-up activities, with citizens self-organising to pursue particular political preferences or

interests. What governments do (and don't do) shapes the space in which citizens and the

organisations of civil society can be active. In the rush to provide a range of e-democracy

and offline channels for political engagement governments need to be careful not to crowd

out or ignore grass-roots forms of engagement.

Conclusions from the symposium

In the context of these themes, 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 e-democracy 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 e-democracy

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.

In answering these questions, governments might begin to be able to use e-democracy to

effectively shape future democratic processes.

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