E-participation
Encyclopedia
e-participation is the generally accepted term referring to "ICT
-supported participation in processes involved in government and governance". Processes may concern administration, service delivery, decision making and policy making. E-participation is hence closely related to e-government and (e-)governance
participation
. The need for the term has emerged as citizen benefits and values have often received less attention in e-government development than those of the service providers, and the need to distinguish the roles of citizen and customer
has become clearer.
A more detailed definition sees e-participation as "the use of information and communication technologies to broaden and deepen political participation by enabling citizens to connect with one another and with their elected representatives" . This definition includes all stakeholders in democratic decision-making processes and not only citizen related top-down government initiatives. So e-participation can be seen as part of e-democracy
, whereas e-democracy means the use of ICT by governments in general used by elected officials, media, political parties and interest groups, civil society organizations, international governmental organizations, or citizens/voters within any of the political processes of states/regions, nations, and local and global communities .
The complexity of e-participation processes results from the large number of different participation areas, involved stakeholders, levels of engagement, and stages in policy making, which characterize the research and applications .
, and Actor-Network Theory
. These theories all, in different ways, deal with how "ways of doing things" become established or rejected, and how those that become established increasingly affect the ways we "normally" do things.
that can be used or inspire the design of architecture for e-participation. In particular, "the emergence of online communities oriented toward the creation of useful products suggests that it may be possible to design socially mediating technology that support public-government collaborations" .
Participation tools:
Mechanisms
Tracking and analysis
The individual projects will concentrate on ensuring that the legislative language and process is more transparent, understandable and accessible to the citizen. In addition the projects emphasis on the communication of legislation will be used to enhance and grow citizen’s involvement and contribution in the process of creating and thereafter implementing the legislation.
So far, 21 projects have been funded. In the first year six trial projects were selected in 2007 seven more as well as the support action MOMENTUM to coordinate and promote the eParticipation projects and in 2008 a further seven trial projects were chosen. The European Parliament
, national parliaments and local and regional authorities are actively involved. State-of-the-art ICT tools are being tested to facilitate the writing of legal texts, including translation into different languages, and the drafting of amendments as well as making the texts easier for non-specialists to find and understand. New digital technologies are also being used to give citizens easier access to information and the more opportunity to try to influence decisions that affect their lives. A report . which was published as a MOMENTUM whitepaper highlights the major facts and figures of those project's while providing some initial policy recommendations for future use.
has now launched a number of actions aiming at further advancing the work of supporting eParticipation.
Examples:
Information and communication technologies
Information and communications technology or information and communication technology, usually abbreviated as ICT, is often used as an extended synonym for information technology , but is usually a more general term that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of...
-supported participation in processes involved in government and governance". Processes may concern administration, service delivery, decision making and policy making. E-participation is hence closely related to e-government and (e-)governance
Governance
Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...
participation
Participation (decision making)
Participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions - and ideally exert influence - regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participatory decision making can take place along any realm of human social activity, including...
. The need for the term has emerged as citizen benefits and values have often received less attention in e-government development than those of the service providers, and the need to distinguish the roles of citizen and customer
Customer
A customer is usually used to refer to a current or potential buyer or user of the products of an individual or organization, called the supplier, seller, or vendor. This is typically through purchasing or renting goods or services...
has become clearer.
A more detailed definition sees e-participation as "the use of information and communication technologies to broaden and deepen political participation by enabling citizens to connect with one another and with their elected representatives" . This definition includes all stakeholders in democratic decision-making processes and not only citizen related top-down government initiatives. So e-participation can be seen as part of e-democracy
E-democracy
E-democracy refers to the use of information technologies and communication technologies and strategies in political and governance processes...
, whereas e-democracy means the use of ICT by governments in general used by elected officials, media, political parties and interest groups, civil society organizations, international governmental organizations, or citizens/voters within any of the political processes of states/regions, nations, and local and global communities .
The complexity of e-participation processes results from the large number of different participation areas, involved stakeholders, levels of engagement, and stages in policy making, which characterize the research and applications .
History
The term emanated in the early 2000s and draws generally on three developments.- The general development in CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) and groupware directed towards collaborative environments to support human ICT-mediated interaction, both work-related and social.
- Developments in e-democracyE-democracyE-democracy refers to the use of information technologies and communication technologies and strategies in political and governance processes...
since the late 1990s, where interest rapidly evolved from e-voting to several forms of ICT-supported and –enabled interaction between governments and citizens, including not only direct ones such as consultations, lobbying, petitioningInternet petitionAn Internet petition is a form of petition posted on a website. Visitors to the website in question can add their email addresses or names, and after enough "signatures" have been collected, the resulting letter may be delivered to the subject of the petition, usually via e-mail.-Pros and cons:The...
and polling but also ones pursued outside of government itself, including electioneering, campaigning, and community informatics. To a large extent, the institutional framework conditions of the chosen democratic model define at which part of the democratic processes participation is permitted (such as direct or representative democracy, or any intermediate forms). - The development in e-government towards increasingly complex service delivery. Complex services require considerable interaction including searching, selecting options based on multiple criteria, calculating outcomes, notifications, inquiries, complaints, and many other activities. There are several ICT tools for such tasks, ranging from FAQs to call centres, but there is a need to coordinate all these into user-friendly but powerful toolsets for client-organization encounters. Because interaction in such contexts is complex, and because goals have to be reached, the arenas where it takes places becomes social arenas for ICT-supported participation.
On the definition
The term participation means taking part in joint activities for the purpose of reaching a common goal. This encompasses both trivial situations in which participation mainly has a technical meaning, ”doing things together”. For example, a football team needs 11 players, and dancing often requires two or more people acting in a coordinated manner. But participation, even in trivial situations, also has a goal-oriented aspect which means decision making and control are involved. Participation in political science and theory of management refers to direct public participation in political, economical or management decisions. The two are not completely separated but belong on a spectrum of complexity and context. When participation becomes complicated, decision making becomes necessary. Hence, any participatory process is potentially important for the rule system governing the activities. In terms of points 2 and 3 above, this means that when service processes become complex, the implementation of them will not be in all details based on political decisions but also on what is found to be practical. Such decisions are made in many places in a situated manner. When such practical doings become implemented in government (e)service systems, they will affect decision making, as many changes will later be hard to make simply because existing procedures are implemented in ICT systems and government agencies’ procedures. There are many theories dealing with institutionalization, for example structuration theory, Institutional theoryInstitutional theory
Institutional theory is "A widely accepted theoretical posture that emphasizes rational myths, isomorphism, and legitimacy."FThere are two dominant trends in institutional theory:* Old Institutionalism sometimes associated with Historical institutionalism...
, and Actor-Network Theory
Actor-network theory
Actor–network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is a distinctive approach to social theory and research which originated in the field of science studies...
. These theories all, in different ways, deal with how "ways of doing things" become established or rejected, and how those that become established increasingly affect the ways we "normally" do things.
Models and tools for e-participation
A number of tools and models have emerged as part of the Web 2.0Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
that can be used or inspire the design of architecture for e-participation. In particular, "the emergence of online communities oriented toward the creation of useful products suggests that it may be possible to design socially mediating technology that support public-government collaborations" .
Participation tools:
- Wikis
- Online social networking
- Blogs
Mechanisms
- eVoting
- Reputation systemReputation systemA reputation system computes and publishes reputation scores for a set of objects within a community or domain, based on a collection of opinions that other entities hold about the objects...
s - Internet petitionInternet petitionAn Internet petition is a form of petition posted on a website. Visitors to the website in question can add their email addresses or names, and after enough "signatures" have been collected, the resulting letter may be delivered to the subject of the petition, usually via e-mail.-Pros and cons:The...
s - Transparency tools (social translucenceSocial translucenceSocial translucence is a term that was proposed by Thomas Erickson and Wendy A. Kellogg to refer to "design digital systems that support coherent behavior by making participants and their activities visible to one another"....
mechanisms)
Tracking and analysis
- Digital traces
- Data miningData miningData mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
- Data visualizationData visualizationData visualization is the study of the visual representation of data, meaning "information that has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information"....
- Simulations such as agent-based social simulationAgent-based social simulationAgent-based social simulation consists in social simulations that are based on Agent-based modeling, and implemented using artificial agent technologies....
European eParticipation Preparatory Action
eParticipation is the Preparatory Action lasts for three years (2006–2008). The EU is taking the lead in using on-line tools to improve the legislative process for its citizens. eParticipation which launched on 1 January 2007 will run as a series of linked projects which each contribute to a greater awareness and involvement by citizens in the legislation process right from the initial drafting through to its implementation at a regional and local level.The individual projects will concentrate on ensuring that the legislative language and process is more transparent, understandable and accessible to the citizen. In addition the projects emphasis on the communication of legislation will be used to enhance and grow citizen’s involvement and contribution in the process of creating and thereafter implementing the legislation.
So far, 21 projects have been funded. In the first year six trial projects were selected in 2007 seven more as well as the support action MOMENTUM to coordinate and promote the eParticipation projects and in 2008 a further seven trial projects were chosen. The European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
, national parliaments and local and regional authorities are actively involved. State-of-the-art ICT tools are being tested to facilitate the writing of legal texts, including translation into different languages, and the drafting of amendments as well as making the texts easier for non-specialists to find and understand. New digital technologies are also being used to give citizens easier access to information and the more opportunity to try to influence decisions that affect their lives. A report . which was published as a MOMENTUM whitepaper highlights the major facts and figures of those project's while providing some initial policy recommendations for future use.
European eParticipation Actions
The European CommissionEuropean Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
has now launched a number of actions aiming at further advancing the work of supporting eParticipation.
Examples:
- FP7 : ICT Challenge 7 : Objective ICT-2009.7.3 ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling. The European CommissionEuropean CommissionThe European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
has launched some call in this area to finance researches. - CIP ICT Policy Support Programme (or ICT PSP). The European project has open a call in the programme CIP (Competitiveness and Innovation Framework) on the Theme 3: ICT for government and governance
See also
- e-democracyE-democracyE-democracy refers to the use of information technologies and communication technologies and strategies in political and governance processes...
- Direct democracyDirect democracyDirect democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
- eGovernmentEGovernmentE-Government is digital interactions between a government and citizens , government and businesses/Commerce , government and employees , and also between government and governments /agencies...
- Electronic civil disobedienceElectronic civil disobedienceElectronic civil disobedience, also known as ECD or cyber civil disobedience, can refer to any type of civil disobedience in which the participants use information technology to carry out their actions. Electronic civil disobedience often involves the computers and/or the Internet and may also be...
- eRulemakingERulemakingElectronic rulemaking is the use of digital technologies by government agencies in the rulemaking and decision making processes. An interdisciplinary electronic rulemaking research community has formed as a result of funding under the auspices of the...
- Emergent democracyEmergent democracyEmergent democracy refers to the rise of political structures and behaviors without central planning and by the action of many individual participants, especially when mediated by the Internet...
- HacktivismHacktivismHacktivism is the use of computers and computer networks as a means of protest to promote political ends. The term was first coined in 1994 by a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective named Omega...
- Internet activismInternet activismInternet activism is the use of electronic communication technologies such as e-mail, the World Wide Web, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster communications by citizen movements and the delivery of local information to a large audience...
- Online consultationOnline consultationOnline consultations or e-consultations refer to an exchange between government and citizens using the Internet. They are one form of online deliberation. Further, online consultation consists in using the Internet to ask a group of people their opinion on one or more specific topics, allowing for...
- Online deliberationOnline deliberationOnline deliberation is a term associated with an emerging body of practice, research, and software dedicated to fostering serious, purposive discussion over the Internet...
- Online participationOnline participationSeveral motivations lead people to contribute to virtual communities. Various online media , are becoming ever greater knowledge-sharing resources. Many of these communities are highly cooperative and establish their own unique culture...
- Open politics
- Open source governanceOpen source governanceOpen-source governance is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles in order to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is...
- Collaborative e-democracyCollaborative e-democracyCollaborative e-democracy is a democratic conception which combines key features of direct democracy, representative democracy, and e-democracy...
- Participatory democracyParticipatory democracyParticipatory Democracy, also known as Deliberative Democracy, Direct Democracy and Real Democracy , is a process where political decisions are made directly by regular people...
- Parliamentary informaticsParliamentary informaticsParliamentary informatics is the application of information technology to the documentation of legislative activity. The principal areas of concern are the provision, in a form conveniently readable to humans or machines, of information and statistics about:...
- Radical transparencyRadical transparencyRadical transparency is a management approach in which all decision making is carried out publicly. The term was used by Daniel Goleman in his book...
- Second SuperpowerSecond Superpower"Second Superpower" is a term used to conceptualize a global civil society as a world force comparable to or counterbalancing the United States...
- Smart mobSmart mobA smart mob is a group that, contrary to the usual connotations of a mob, behaves intelligently or efficiently because of its exponentially increasing network links. This network enables people to connect to information and others, allowing a form of social coordination. Parallels are made to,...
- Social translucenceSocial translucenceSocial translucence is a term that was proposed by Thomas Erickson and Wendy A. Kellogg to refer to "design digital systems that support coherent behavior by making participants and their activities visible to one another"....
- Virtual volunteering / online volunteeringVirtual volunteeringVirtual volunteering is a term describing a volunteer who completes tasks, in whole or in part, off-site from the organization being assisted, using the Internet and a home, school, telecenter or work computer or other Internet-connected device. Virtual volunteering is also known as online...
International
- World e-Gov Forum
- Detailed list of participatory governance projects
- E-participation Country Index -Provides an index on E-participation
- ICEGOV - International Conference on Electronic Governance
- Internet Society Organization home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).
- International Teledemocracy Centre, Napier University, Edinburgh
Europe
- MOMENTUM: The European Commission Support Action in eParticipation
- PEP-NET: Pan European eParticipation Network
- European eParticipation Portal
- TID+ - a research project studying the pioneering use of e-participation in Estonia