Spoor eGovernment E-DEMOCRATIE: HOE, WAT, WAAR OF NIET

Transcription

Spoor eGovernment
E-DEMOCRATIE: HOE, WAT, WAAR OF NIET?
BESCHOUWINGEN VOOR BELEIDSMAKERS
Davy Janssen
Rapport
D/2006/10106/003
Februari 2006
Tel: 0032 16 32 36 10
Algemeen secretariaat - Steunpunt Beleidsrelevant onderzoek
BESTUURLIJKE ORGANISATIE VLAANDEREN
E. VAN EVENSTRAAT 2 C - B-3000 LEUVEN – BELGIE
Fax: 0032 16 32 36 11
www.steunpuntbov.be
E-mail: [email protected]
E-democratie: hoe, wat, waar of niet? Beschouwingen voor beleidsmakers
Spoor eGovernment
E-DEMOCRATIE: HOE, WAT, WAAR OF NIET?
BESCHOUWINGEN VOOR BELEIDSMAKERS
INHOUDSTAFEL
HOOFDSTUK 1
Definities van e-Democratie ........................................................................................... 5
HOOFDSTUK 2
meerwaarde van de ‘e’ in e-Democratie...................................................................... 9
2.1
Karakteristieken van de online context .......................................................................................... 9
2.2
Tijds- en plaatskenmerken............................................................................................................. 10
HOOFDSTUK 3
3.1
plaats van e-Democratie initiatieven in de democratische besluitvorming..... 13
E-democratie en de fasen van het beleidsproces ...................................................................... 13
Identificeren van beleidsproblemen/beleidsuitdagingen ..................................................................... 13
Analyse van het probleem/de uitdaging ................................................................................................ 13
Maken van beleid...................................................................................................................................... 14
Implementeren van beleid ....................................................................................................................... 14
Monitoren van beleid ................................................................................................................................ 14
3.2
E-Democratie en het niveau van participatie .............................................................................. 14
Informatie ................................................................................................................................................... 15
Consultatie ................................................................................................................................................. 15
Participatie ................................................................................................................................................. 15
Issue-based fora (thema’s)...................................................................................................................... 16
Policy-based fora (beleid)........................................................................................................................ 16
HOOFDSTUK 4
e-Democratie in Vlaanderen: de case kleurrijk vlaanderen ................................. 17
HOOFDSTUK 5
zinvolheid van het stimuleren van burgerparticipatie........................................... 31
5.1
Voordelen van burgerparticipatie .................................................................................................. 32
Leereffecten............................................................................................................................................... 32
Politieke overtuiging ................................................................................................................................. 33
Uit een impasse geraken ......................................................................................................................... 33
Gerechtskosten vermijden....................................................................................................................... 33
Davy Janssen
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Steunpunt beleidsrelevant onderzoek - bestuurlijke organisatie Vlaanderen
5.2
Nadelen van burgerparticipatie ..................................................................................................... 34
Kosten ........................................................................................................................................................ 34
Passiviteit en publieke aliënatie.............................................................................................................. 35
Representatie ............................................................................................................................................ 35
‘Managen’ van verwachtingen ................................................................................................................ 36
Kracht van verkeerde beslissingen ........................................................................................................ 36
Kracht van egoïsme.................................................................................................................................. 36
HOOFDSTUK 6
evalueren van E-Democratie initiatieven .................................................................. 37
6.1
Twee ‘online public dialogues’ in de US context ........................................................................ 37
6.2
Beoogde effecten van online publieke dialogen ......................................................................... 38
Incorporeren van publieke waarden....................................................................................................... 38
Verbeteren van de kwaliteit van de besluitvorming ............................................................................. 39
Opvoeden en informeren van het publiek ............................................................................................. 39
Verminderen van conflict ......................................................................................................................... 39
Verhogen van het vertrouwen in de democratische instituties........................................................... 40
6.3
Beleidsevaluatie van online publieke dialogen ........................................................................... 40
Hoe tevreden waren participanten met het proces?............................................................................ 43
In welke mate introduceerde de online dialoog ‘nieuwe stemmen’ in het beleid? .......................... 43
Hoe zagen de participanten de ‘publieke ruimte’ die door de online dialoog tot stand werd
gebracht? ................................................................................................................................................... 43
Wat hebben de participanten aan de online dialoog gehad, in het bijzonder betreffende de
potentiële impact op het beleidsproces? ............................................................................................... 44
Wat hebben beleidsmakers aan het proces gehad, in het bijzonder betreffende mogelijke
wijzigingen in de publieke opinie? .......................................................................................................... 44
6.4
Information Renaissance model voor online publieke dialogen ............................................... 44
Resources and tools................................................................................................................................. 44
Outreach..................................................................................................................................................... 45
Registration................................................................................................................................................ 45
Panellists.................................................................................................................................................... 45
Agenda and Questions ............................................................................................................................ 46
Discussion.................................................................................................................................................. 46
Summaries................................................................................................................................................. 46
Archive........................................................................................................................................................ 46
Evaluation .................................................................................................................................................. 46
Impact......................................................................................................................................................... 47
6.5
2
Aandachtspunten voor online publieke dialogen ........................................................................ 47
Spoor eGovernment
E-democratie: hoe, wat, waar of niet? Beschouwingen voor beleidsmakers
Willen mensen participeren?................................................................................................................... 47
Wie participeert wel/niet?......................................................................................................................... 48
Aard en complexiteit van de thema’s..................................................................................................... 49
Impact op beleid versus impact op participatie .................................................................................... 49
Vertrouwen................................................................................................................................................. 50
HOOFDSTUK 7
7.1
Conclusies en opmerkingen ........................................................................................ 53
Bestuurskundige en democratische implicaties van e-democratie .......................................... 53
Spanning tussen de representatieve democratie en de directe democratie.................................... 53
Problematiek van de verwachtingen ...................................................................................................... 54
Groep-individu problematiek ................................................................................................................... 54
Authentificatieproblematiek ..................................................................................................................... 54
Problematiek van het consumentisme en de burger als klant ........................................................... 55
Op welke vraag is eDemocratie het antwoord? ................................................................................... 55
Problematiek van de digitale kloof.......................................................................................................... 56
Referenties......................................................................................................................................................... 57
Bijlage 1: Resultaten van de E-Forum E-Democracy Work Group...................................................... 59
Bijlage 2: Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy ....................................................................... 123
Bijlage 3: Ideas for green paper ................................................................................................................. 147
Davy Janssen
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Hoofdstuk 1: Definities van e-democratie
HOOFDSTUK 1 DEFINITIES VAN E-DEMOCRATIE
E-Democratie wordt in de literatuur op vele manieren gedefinieerd. Enkele voorbeelden zijn de
volgende:
‘The use of ICT in democratic processes’ (Macintosh and Whyte 2001).
‘eDemocracy is about deepening citizen participation in democracy’ (Clift 2003).
‘Digital democracy is a way of extending participation into civil society, beyond elected
representatives’ (Schlosberg and Dryzek 2002).
‘The concept of e-democracy is associated with efforts to broaden political participation by
enabling citizens to connect with one another and with their representatives via new information
and communication technologies’ (Hansard Society).
De hier gehanteerde definitie bouwt verder op die van Macintosh:
‘eDemocratie is het inzetten van informatie- en communicatietechnologie (ICT)
om democratische processen te versterken. Deze versterking bestaat enerzijds uit
het meer toegankelijk maken van deze processen en anderzijds uit het toelaten
van meer participatie in deze processen.’
We willen opmerken dat, hoewel het acroniem ICT dadelijk de link legt met het Internet, ICT
ruimer is en veeleer een verzamelnaam vormt voor een reeks nieuwe technologieën die zich niet
beperken tot het Internet.
•
•
Telefonie. De telefoon is een communicatietechnologie met een zeer hoge
penetratiegraad, waardoor het voor bepaalde doeleinden een ideale technologie lijkt. Het
‘call center’ of de ‘servicelijn’ is een gekende manier van het gebruik van technologie
voor overheidsdoeleinden en laat burgers toe overheden van op afstand, en (soms) ook
buiten de kantooruren, te contacteren.
(Interactieve) Televisie. Met de introductie van interactieve digitale tv, lijkt het erop alsof
de televisie een tweede leven begint als democratische technologie. Al in de jaren 1960
werd tv op deze manier gepercipieerd door groepen activisten in de VS, die veel
verwachtten van community tv, het gebruik van televisie om een (lokaal)
gemeenschapsgevoel te creëren. Hoewel het in die tijd zeker de potentie had om een
gemeenschapsinstrument te worden, want het was gemakkelijk om lokale kanalen op te
starten, is de doorbraak er nooit gekomen omwille van de kolonisatie van het
Davy Janssen
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•
•
televisielandschap door de grote networks. De komst van digitale televisie voegt nieuwe
interactiemogelijkheden aan het medium toe, en alvast de Vlaamse overheid is van plan
om hiervan gebruik te maken in het project iDTV.
Kiosken en terminals. Aangezien de penetratie van het Internet nog niet voldoende hoog
is, blijft er de noodzaak om sommige aspecten van dienstverlening toegankelijk te maken
op gebruiksvriendelijke terminals die raadpleegbaar zijn op openbare plaatsen. De
terminal is meestal een apparaat met een aanraakscherm dat gebruikers toelaat op het
Internet of op een of ander intern netwerk. Veruit de bekendste terminal in Vlaanderen is
de VDAB WISS terminal, die werkzoekenden kunnen gebruiken om vacatures te
raadplegen.
SMS en mobiele telefonie. Het lijkt nog niet duidelijk of de SMS technologie uitgroeit tot
een belangrijke democratische technologie. Intussen liep in Vlaanderen al een kort SMS
experiment onder de naam SMS3003, dat naar de mening van burgers over bepaalde
thema’s peilde. Het project kende weinig succes en werd al vlug weer opgedoekt. In
verband met mobiele technologie in het algemeen kunnen we stellen dat er een
opkomende aandacht is, zeker van de kant van de ICT-industrie, voor het m-government
(mobiel)
en
het
u-government
(ubiquitous=alomtegenwoordig).
Ook
overheidsagentschappen zoals de Vlaamse Dienst voor Arbeidsbemiddeling en
Beroepsopleiding (VDAB) beschouwen SMS en ook MMS als interessante technologieën
om (arbeidsmarkt)informatie door te spelen aan specifieke doelgroepen die voorlopers
zijn in het gebruik ervan, vooral jongeren dan.
Hoewel het bovenstaande overzicht dus duidelijk maakt dat het bij e-democratie niet enkel om
het Internet gaat, neemt dit niet weg dat het Internet als centrale technologie voor e-democratie
wordt beschouwd. De opkomst en democratisering van het Internet rond het midden van de jaren
1990 werden immers al snel in verband gebracht met een andere ontwikkeling, die van een
gepercipieerde ‘crisis van de democratie’ die zich uit in een daling van het lidmaatschap van
politieke partijen en lagere opkomstcijfers voor verkiezingen. Bij deze crisis werd dan de nuance
gemaakt dat het eigenlijk ging om verminderde interesse in traditionele vormen van politiek, wat
niet gelijkstaat aan een verminderde interesse in politiek as such. Tegelijk levert de manier
waarop het Internet bruikbaar is om burgers rond thema’s te mobiliseren, het bewijs dat mensen
nog steeds geëngageerd zijn. Vandaar dat het Internet als dé technologie wordt beschouwd die
mensen in staat stelt om zichzelf te organiseren en mobiliseren, en het ook vanuit de institutionele
politiek als hét communicatie-instrument bij uitstek wordt gezien.
Een eerste afbakening van de term e-democratie die verder gaat op wat we hierboven hebben
besproken, houdt in dat we veronderstellen dat er steeds een formele politieke actor bij betrokken
is. Het onderzoek naar manieren waarop mensen zichzelf organiseren zonder tussenkomst van
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Spoor eGovernment
Hoofdstuk 1: Definities van e-democratie
institutionele actoren, valt dus vrijwel buiten de scope van het onderzoek. We denken hierbij
bijvoorbeeld aan de manier waarop nieuwe sociale bewegingen het Internet gebruiken om
invloed uit te oefenen op de institutionele politiek. Als we dan kijken naar de manieren waarop
politieke actoren het Internet wel al voor democratische doeleinden aanwenden, kunnen we onder
andere de volgende e-democratie applicaties onderscheiden:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Elektronisch stemmen. Het gebruik van ICT bij het verkiezingsproces in de vorm van pc’s
en terminals, vaak met touch-screen schermtechnologie. Kiezers verplaatsen zich nog
steeds naar het stemlokaal, maar registreren hun stem elektronisch.
Online stemmen. Het eigenlijke e-voting, waarbij kiezers van op afstand kunnen stemmen
en zich niet meer naar een kieslokaal dienen te verplaatsen. Het eVoting is eindeloos
complexer dan het elektronisch stemmen in een stemlokaal, waar het een menselijke
tussenkomst is die de identiteit van de stemmer bevestigt en het geheim van het stemhokje
op dezelfde manier kan worden gegarandeerd dan bij het stemmen zonder ICT.
Online referenda. Het elektronische pendant van het referendum, waarbij eVoting
technologie ook buiten de regelmatige verkiezingsmomenten inzetbaar is om referenda te
organiseren.
Streaming van parlementaire sessies. Openbare besturen van alle niveau’s kunnen hun
momenten van deliberatie (zittingen, sessies, raden, commissies) openbaar maken door er
camera’s toe te laten en de opnames op het Internet uit te zenden. Het ‘streamen’
impliceert dat het live wordt uitgezonden, of dat het achteraf opnieuw kan worden
bekeken.
Online databases. De databasetechnologie is een krachtig instrument waarbij de
democratische meerwaarde van de technologie vooral te zoeken is in de mogelijkheden
die ze biedt om grote stukken informatie op intuïtieve manieren te doorzoeken.
Discussiefora met ambtenaren en politici. Men spreekt op het Internet over zogenaamde
online ‘forums’, waarbij het woord ‘forum’ metaforisch wordt gebruikten de analogie met
het forum in de klassieke oudheid ver kan worden doorgetrokken. Het online forum is een
‘plaats’ (website) op het Internet waar burgers en politici kunnen ‘discussiëren’ –in de
vorm van tekstuele communicatie– over maatschappelijke thema’s. De toegevoegde
waarde van de onderliggende internettechnologie is vooral dat de schaal van
maatschappelijke discussies in principe kan worden vergroot: veel meer burgers kunnen
een discussie mee volgen of eraan deelnemen.
Publieke discussiefora. In dit geval wordt de forumtechnologie aangewend om burgers
onderling te laten discussiëren.
Online besluitvorming. Men spreekt over ‘electronic decision support systems’, waarbij
ICT ook daadwerkelijk wordt ingezet om besluitvorming te faciliteren. Het gaat vaak om
software die de verschillende posities en standpunten in een debat visualiseert om op die
manier een consensus of overeenkomst mogelijk te maken.
Deze technologieën kunnen worden ingedeeld naargelang van de manier waarop de technologie
ingrijpt in bestaande democratische procedures. Bannister onderscheidt in dit verband de
volgende typologie (Bannister 2002) :
Davy Janssen
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1.
2.
3.
4.
Technologieën die bestaande procedures automatiseren
Technologieën die voorzien in betere informatie
Technologieën die het democratische proces ‘transformeren’
Technologieën die de schaal van processen veranderen
In de onderstaande matrix delen wij de hierboven vermelde democratische technologieën op
volgens de wijze waarop ze ingrijpen in bestaande democratische procedures.
Automate
Inform
Transform
Change Scale
e-Voting
Webcasting
Discussie fora
Online referenda
Online stemmen
Web publicatie
Online consultatie
Lokale initiatieven
Online
Online databases
Directe Burgerwetgeving
e-Lobbying
Informatie
Online besluitvorming
opiniepeiling
e-Campaigning
over
politieke partijen
Registratie
van
kiezers
e-Representatie
Het zijn vooral de twee laatste categorieën technologieën waar een duidelijke meerwaarde uitgaat
van ICT in de zin dat het iets toevoegt aan bestaande processen. De transformerende
technologieën, zoals online fora, maken nieuwe processen en conversaties mogelijk, terwijl de
schaalveranderende technologieën bestaande processen op een nieuwe schaal toelaten.
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Spoor eGovernment
Hoofdstuk 2: Meerwaarde van de ‘e’ in e-democratie
HOOFDSTUK 2 MEERWAARDE VAN DE ‘E’ IN E-DEMOCRATIE
Door de ‘e’ vooraf te laten gaan aan een gekende term, trachten we vaak aan te geven dat het hier
om het virtuele pendant gaat van een bestaand ‘iets’, zoals in de voorbeelden e-mail, egovernment, e-health, e-administration en e-democratie. De ‘e’ impliceert hier telkens dat ICT
dienst doet als enabler of facilitator van bestaande processen. Hoewel vaak wordt gesteld dat de
nadruk bij e-government en e-democratie niet in de eerste plaats op technologie dient gelegd, is
het toch zinvol om even stil te staan bij de component ICT en bij de vraag wat deze toevoegt aan
de manier waarop de burger bij het beleid kan worden betrokken.
Hiervoor vertrekken we van een Vlaams beleidsinitiatief waarbij ICT een centraal onderdeel was,
namelijk het project Kleurrijk Vlaanderen. Met dit project wilde de Vlaamse Regering het
langetermijndenken in Vlaanderen stimuleren. Het was een groots opgezet project dat tot doel
had zoveel mogelijk burgers te bereiken om over de toekomstige beleidsopties voor Vlaanderen
te discussiëren. De basis van het project was het maatschappelijke debat en dit debat werd zowel
fysiek gevoerd als online. Enerzijds werden er thematische informatie- en debatavonden
georganiseerd, en anderzijds was er een permanent online forum waarin de thema’s van het debat
konden worden besproken.. Deze werkwijze liet toe om de online variant van het debat, waarbij
individuen op om het even welke locatie achter de computer zitten, te vergelijken met de offline
variant bestaande uit de traditionele setting met een groep mensen in één ruimte. Waarin zit nu de
meerwaarde van de ‘e’?
2.1 KARAKTERISTIEKEN VAN DE ONLINE CONTEXT
In vergelijking met een ‘face-to-face’ (F2F) discussie, valt het dadelijk op dat er in de online
context heel wat minder ‘social cues’ zichtbaar zijn van de deelnemers aan de discussie. De
ingrediënten van de discussie zijn stukken tekst op een scherm, geplaatst in een bepaalde
functionele volgorde. Heel wat elementen die in de F2F situatie invloed kunnen hebben op de
dynamiek van het gesprek en het gedrag van de gesprekspartners, zijn afwezig in de online
context. Het gaat hier om zaken als fysieke verschijning, kracht van de stem, non-verbale
expressie zoals handgebaren, gezichtsuitdrukkingen etcetera. Het is mogelijk dat de afwezigheid
Davy Janssen
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van dit soort ‘social cues’ bevorderlijk is voor de houding van discutanten in het debat. Het is
immers niet meer mogelijk om, zoals in de F2F situatie, iemand het zwijgen op te leggen door
hem streng aan te kijken of hem/haar toe te schreeuwen.
Meer algemeen mondt de afwezigheid van heel wat ‘social cues’ vaak uit in een situatie van
anonimiteit van de discussiepartners. De enige identificator van de verschillende standpunten is
dan een naam of bijnaam die telkens verschijnt bij de bijdragen van de participanten. Dit kan
enerzijds bevrijdend werken voor deelnemers die – als ze anoniem zijn – vrijer zullen spreken,
maar kan anderzijds ook de dynamiek van de conversatie fel verstoren omdat de anonimiteit leidt
tot een verscherping van de standpunten bij participanten. Het is in ieder geval duidelijk dat de
anonimiteit die momenteel de norm lijkt bij online discussies, zeer problematisch is als het gaat
over de impact van maatschappelijke discussies op het beleid. Het debat overheid-middenveld
vertrekt immers steeds van de gekende identiteit van de discussiepartners: het moet immers
steeds duidelijk zijn welke stem weerklinkt in het maatschappelijke debat.
Het project Kleurrijk Vlaanderen omvatte, zoals al vermeld, zowel een offline als een online
debat. De offline variant, een F2F debat in een bepaalde locatie, betrof mensen die mekaar
konden zien en die zichzelf introduceerden wanneer zij het woord namen. De online variant, de
discussie over het zelfde onderwerp op het Internet, liet toe dat mensen een bijnaam opgaven om
op die manier anoniem aan het debat deel te nemen. Toch viel het op dat mensen vaak een naam
en achternaam vermeldden, wat doet vermoeden dat sommigen veeleer geneigd zijn om de eigen
naam op te geven wanneer zij hun stem wensen te laten horen in een maatschappelijk debat.
2.2 TIJDS- EN PLAATSKENMERKEN
Een F2F debat kan maar een beperkte tijd duren: op een gegeven moment stijgt er rumoer op uit
de zaal, is het moeilijker voor mensen om hun beurt af te wachten, worden mensen moe en willen
ze naar huis. Er kan dan een vervolgdebat worden georganiseerd waar dan waarschijnlijk wel iets
minder mensen aanwezig zullen zijn. Het debat verloopt synchroon: als de ene is uitgesproken,
gaat de andere verder, hoewel er natuurlijk ook veel ‘overlap’ is wanneer mensen door mekaar
beginnen roepen. Het online debat daarentegen verloopt vaak asynchroon. Niettegenstaande er
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Hoofdstuk 2: Meerwaarde van de ‘e’ in e-democratie
ook synchrone chat-technologie bestaat, lijken de mogelijkheden hiervan toch veeleer beperkt en
wordt ze dan ook verder buiten beschouwing gelaten. Het ‘online forum’, als democratische
technologie is meestal een asynchroon gestructureerd gesprek. Dit betekent dat je, wanneer je
deelneemt aan een online debat, de bijdragen van anderen rustig kan doornemen, een antwoord
kan formuleren, en dit als bijdrage aan het debat kan toevoegen. Je bepaalt dus zelf wanneer je
naar het debat wil gaan ‘luisteren’ en eraan wilt deelnemen. Het dwingende karakter van een F2F
debat verdwijnt hiermee.
Door de thematische structurering van gesprekstopics in de meest online forums kan er ook over
veel meer tegelijk worden ‘gesproken’. In een typisch online forum vind je verschillende
thematische subforums. Binnen elk subforum wordt een ‘gesprek’ dan meestal geïnitialiseerd
door iemand die haar bijdrage een bepaalde naam geeft (om aan te geven waarover zij het wil
hebben) en deze bijdrage op het forum plaatst als een nieuwe ‘conversation thread’. Deze ‘thread’
is de drager van een conversatie. Het woord ‘thread’ betekent ‘draad’ en verwijst naar de
metaforische draad die conversaties aan elkaar rijgt. Een thread wordt meestal visueel
voorgesteld als een reeks titels van bijdragen die onder elkaar staan en naar rechts inspringen.
Binnen één enkel online forum kan je dus navigeren naar talloze gespreksonderwerpen en
participeren aan de discussies die interessant lijken.
Een ander gevolg van het asynchrone karakter van het online forum heeft te maken met ‘turn
taking’. In tegenstelling tot de F2F situatie, kan je in een online forum niet worden ‘onderbroken’
in het midden van een zin. Het ‘turn taking’, of het afwisselend het woord nemen, is een zeer
belangrijk mechanisme in de F2F context: wanneer iemand spreekt, zit er iemand anders te
wachten om op het juiste moment het woord te nemen en iemand te antwoorden, te onderbreken
of kort te sluiten. Dit komt in deze vorm niet voor in de online context: je kan ‘zeggen’ wat je te
zeggen hebt in één bericht, dit bericht verschijnt onder het bericht van degene waar het een
antwoord op is, en nadat anderen het hebben gelezen, kunnen ook zij hierover weer nadenken en
een antwoord geven. Dit kan bevorderlijk zijn voor de discussie, zeker voor mensen die vrij
schuw zijn en dichtklappen als zij in de F2F situatie iets te vaak worden onderbroken of
tegengesproken in het midden van hun betoog.
Davy Janssen
11
Hoofdstuk 3: Plaats van e-democratie initiatieven in de democratische besluitvorming
HOOFDSTUK 3 PLAATS VAN E-DEMOCRATIE INITIATIEVEN IN DE
DEMOCRATISCHE BESLUITVORMING
3.1 E-DEMOCRATIE EN DE FASEN VAN HET BELEIDSPROCES
Input van burgers en organisaties kan op verschillende momenten in het beleidsproces worden
gevat. Wij overlopen hieronder de diverse fasen waarin een e-democratie-initiatief waardevol kan
zijn:
Identificeren van beleidsproblemen/beleidsuitdagingen
Het identificeren van beleidsproblemen, annex beleidsuitdagingen noemt men ook wel de agenda
setting fase. Dit is het moment waarop de noodzaak voor een nieuw beleid of een
beleidsverandering wordt geïdentificeerd, en waarbij het probleem wordt gedefinieerd. ICT/edemocratieexperimenten kunnen worden opgezet, op elk beleidsniveau, om te achterhalen waar
prioriteiten liggen, om burgers en organisaties de kans te geven aan te geven wat voor hen het
belangrijkste is. De meeste bestaande e-democratieprojecten situeren zich hier, ook al omdat het
weinig bedreigend is om burgers helemaal in het begin mee te laten denken over wat belangrijke
zaken zijn om aan te pakken.
Analyse van het probleem/de uitdaging
Wanneer een punt op de agenda is gezet, bestaat de volgende stap erin om dit punt te analyseren:
waar gaat het precies om en vooral, waar liggen de mogelijkheden om beleidsmatig hier iets aan
te doen? In deze fase kan een beroep worden gedaan op ICT om burgers en organisaties ideeën te
laten genereren met betrekking tot oplossingen en aanpakken.
Davy Janssen
13
Maken van beleid
Bij het maken van beleid gaat het om het uitwerken van een beleidsinstrument, uiteindelijk is dit
een document, een beleidsplan. Ook in deze fase kunnen burgers worden betrokken. Meestal
krijgt de bevolking dan een draft van een beleidsplan voorgelegd, waaraan een speciale
internetpagina is gewijd, en kunnen de burgers dan – naast een formeel commentaarproces – ook
online opmerkingen en commentaren geven binnen een vooraf bepaalde tijdsperiode. Later wordt
dan een aangepast beleidsplan gepubliceerd waarin de opmerkingen worden meegenomen. Deze
manier van werken is al gedeeltelijk geïnstitutionaliseerd in het Verenigd Koninkrijk, waar voor
verschillende soorten beleidsplannen een e-consultatieperiode geldt.
Implementeren van beleid
Ook in de uiteindelijke uitvoering of implementatie van het beleidsplan is voor ICT een
mogelijke rol weggelegd, al lijkt deze fase in de beleidscyclus minder kansen te bieden. De
uitvoering zelf dient immers grotendeels door de overheid te gebeuren, maar onmiddellijk na de
eerste zichtbare resultaten kan de burger weer worden ingeschakeld in het monitoren of opvolgen
van de uitvoering.
Monitoren van beleid
In dit laatste stadium spelen burgers hun meest natuurlijke rol, die van het controleren van de
overheid. Hier kan het Internet dienstig zijn als een meldingsplaats waar burgers hun
opmerkingen, klachten, voorstellen tot verbetering van het beleid in kwestie kunnen melden.
3.2 E-DEMOCRATIE EN HET NIVEAU VAN PARTICIPATIE
Naast het uiteenrafelen van de verschillende momenten waarop ICT kan worden ingezet om
burgers bij het beleidsproces te betrekken, is het ook een nuttige oefening om een onderscheid te
maken in de diepte van de participatie. In elk van de hierboven vermelde fasen kan burgers
immers op uiteenlopende manieren invloed worden gegeven. Hun input kan louter ‘consultatief’
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Hoofdstuk 3: Plaats van e-democratie initiatieven in de democratische besluitvorming
zijn of er kan aan hun stem een doorslaggevend karakter worden gegeven zodat hun
aanbevelingen bindend zijn. Dit zijn de twee uitersten van het continuüm, en daartussen bevinden
zich nog vele variaties.
De Organisatie voor Economische Samenwerking en Ontwikkeling (OECD 2003) heeft de
volgende typologie van politieke participatie opgesteld:
Informatie
Bij informatieverstrekking betreft het een éénwegsrelatie waarbij de overheid informatie
produceert en levert aan burgers. De toegang tot goede overheidsinformatie lijkt banaal, maar is
een onmisbare randvoorwaarde voor een actief en goed geïnformeerd burgerschap.
Consultatie
In het geval van consultatie is er sprake van een tweewegsrelatie waarbij burgers terugkoppelen
en feedback geven aan de overheid. Het is de overheid die de onderwerpen waarover discussie
mogelijk is, identificeert en op de agenda zet. De overheid beheert het proces en burgers worden
uitgenodigd om hun visie op de zaken te geven.
Participatie
Participatie gaat een stap verder en impliceert dat burgers actief meedoen aan het identificeren
van beleidsproblemen. Ze doen dus ook aan agenda setting, maar de finale verantwoordelijkheid
voor de beslissingen ligt bij de overheid. De OESO vermeldt hier onmiddellijk bij dat ze dit type
participatie slechts heel sporadisch en op projectmatige basis is tegengekomen.
Veel e-democratie-initatieven lijken e-consultaties van een of andere vorm te zijn: de overheid
heeft een idee/een beleid/een probleem en vraagt dan aan burgers wat zij daarvan vinden. Het
project www.kleurrijkvlaanderen.be is ook van deze orde. In dit project vroeg de Vlaamse
overheid aan haar burgers om mee te denken over de toekomst van Vlaanderen. Het online
Davy Janssen
15
gedeelte van KLV bestond uit een website met discussiefora over 13 thema’s. Rond elk van de
thema’s werden actuele vragen gesteld door het projectteam en werd er telkens een
informatiedossier aangelegd, zodat mensen van de mogelijkheden van het Internet gebruik
konden maken om zich grondig te informeren. Het is de overheid die het process beheerde en die
bepaalde wat er met de input van burgers zou gebeuren.
Een verder onderscheid dat wordt gemaakt binnen de e-consultaties, is het volgende (Macintosh
2003):
Issue-based fora (thema’s)
Een issue-based forum is opgebouwd rond door politici geïdentificeerde beleidsproblematieken.
Dit kan je vergelijken met de 13 thema’s van KLV (milieu, democratie, zorg, cultuur en
samenleving, etc.). De verschillende fora belichamen telkens een thema. Input van burgers wordt
gevraagd om nieuwe ideeën te genereren en om naar de publieke opinie te peilen.
Policy-based fora (beleid)
Een policy-based forum is opgebouwd rond thema’s die rechtstreeks refereren naar wetgevend
werk dat die thema’s behandelt. De bedoeling van de gevraagde input is de meningen te leren
kennen van de 'stakeholders', zij die rechtstreeks betrokken zijn bij de wet in kwestie. Deelnemers
aan de fora worden al dan niet aangemoedigd om ook eigen ideeën te geven, maar het is duidelijk
dat het format impliceert dat men vooral wenst te achterhalen in hoeverre de stakeholders het
eens zijn met het voorgestelde beleid.
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Hoofdstuk 4: E-democratie in Vlaanderen – De case Kleurrijk Vlaanderen
HOOFDSTUK 4 E-DEMOCRATIE IN VLAANDEREN: DE CASE
KLEURRIJK VLAANDEREN
Het project Kleurrijk Vlaanderen betekende voor de Vlaamse overheid een eerste kennismaking
met een grootschalig online debat. In het raam van dit onderzoek zijn er geregeld contacten
geweest met het Kleurrijk Vlaanderen projectteam, meer in het bijzonder met projectleider Sven
Willekens. Dit resulteerde in het opnemen van het project in een internationaal casestudy rapport
van experimentele e-democratie-initiatieven (Macintosh 2003). Naast de publicatie van de case in
dit rapport, hadden we de gelegenheid om de case voor te stellen op de E-Forum Summit op 16
september 2003 in Valencia, hierbij vergezeld door projectleider Sven Willekens en enkele
ambtenaren van de Vlaamse gemeenschap. Er werd geoordeeld dat de presentatie van Kleurrijk
Vlaanderen in dit forum een interessante gelegenheid bood om ook in een internationale context
gelijkaardige initiatieven te introduceren. Hieronder presenteer ik de case zoals ingestuurd voor
het e-Forum rapport.
Davy Janssen
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Colourful Flanders – Thinking today about the Flanders of
tomorrow
KEY DIMENSIONS OF EDEMOCRACY PROJECTS
For the creation of this document use has been made of:
•
•
The information on Colourful Flanders as it is available on the project’s website
(www.vlaanderen.be).
Interviews with the Colourful Flanders project-manager
Colourful Flanders - Thinking today about the Flanders of tomorrow
The aim of the ‘Kleurrijk Vlaanderen’ project is to stimulate the debate on the future of Flanders
and to involve as many people as possible in this debate. In order to achieve this, the project
team makes use of an extensive website (www.kleurrijkvlaanderen.be) on which the online part
of the debate takes place on web forums. On the website, citizens can also find lots of (links to)
background information concerning the discussion topic under consideration. The site is also
used to announce IRL (In Real Life) events that either initiate or close a certain topical debate.
The Colourful Flanders project team tries to structure the debate through the use of two
analytical frames. First, there is the generic, ongoing, societal debate on the online forums. The
framework for this debate is the Pact van Vilvoorde (Pact of Vilvoorde), a declaration of
intentions in which 21 targets for the 21st century are formulated. These targets cover a broad
range of themes, and they are used by the project team to engage citizens in the ongoing
debates. Second, there are the thematic debates, initiated by the project team for a certain
period of time (4 to 6 weeks), covering the following themes: mobility, work, culture and society,
customer-friendly government, environment, lifelong learning, innovation, care, democracy,
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Flanders in the world, spatial/environmental planning, business, and sports. Here it is the
thematic classification in 13 subject matters that structures the debate1.
In conclusion, the discussions on the Colourful Flanders website are structured and informed by:
•
•
the 21 targets of the Pact van Vilvoorde > the generic, ongoing online debate
the 14 themes > the online thematic debates, restricted in time, with a real life event at to
initiate and end the debate.
1. Stage in decision-making
The stage in the decision-making cycle in which the project engages citizens is mainly that of
‘option analysis’. In a preparatory phase of the project, the classification in 13 themes was
developed, and expert groups had established the 21 targets of the Pact van Vilvoorde. The
themes and targets clarify the scope of the debate, and could be seen as the result of the
‘agenda setting’ phase. Subsequently, when the Colourful Flanders project engages citizens to
take part in the debate, they are being asked to think about the way in which thematic policy
(e.g. sports or environmental planning) or the 21 targets can be realised by 2010/2020. When
looking at the degree of specificity of the targets, it becomes clear that what is expected from
citizens is that they think about different options or alternatives in order to realise the targets that
are presupposed. These are some of the targets:
•
•
•
By 2010, Flanders will be one of the most attractive European regions for the
establishment and development of business activities.
By 2010, traffic safety will be improved and Flanders will have cut back by half its lag
viz-a-viz the current European leaders
By 2010, the increase in the quality of life will make sure that half of the Flemish
population considers itself as a regular participant in the cultural life.
1
There is also a 14th theme called ‘thinking about the future’. This is a project-wide theme in which the information
needed to take part in the discussions is set out. It also deals with the concept and theory of ‘thinking about the
future’.
Davy Janssen
19
The fact that certain themes and targets are presupposed before citizens are involved, implies
that the ‘agenda setting’ phase has to a certain degree already been completed. Citizens are
being invited to think about ways in which certain targets can be realised. Therefore the
Colourful Flanders project can mainly be situated in the ‘option analysis’ phase of the decision
cycle. It has to be noted however, that citizens can also make less structured, open-ended,
remarks and can try to put new issues on the political agenda. Therefore there are, at least
formal, opportunities for citizens to try and influence policy already in the ‘agenda-setting’ phase.
Besides, the number of policy domains covered by the classification in 13 themes and the 21
targets of the Pact van Vilvoorde practically coincides with Flanders’ jurisdiction, implying that
there no real restriction of subjects in the agenda setting phase. In conclusion, when considering
the eConsultation dichotomy in table 1, the Kleurrijk Vlaanderen project can be classified as an
‘Issue Based Forum’.
In general, e-consultations have taken one of two forms that correspond with different stages in decision making
1.
issue based forums
• organised around policy issues that have been formulated by policy-makers, interest groups or experts
• presented as the heading of one or more discussion ‘threads’
• responses are sought in order to gauge opinion or solicit ideas
• position statements, links to websites and other background information may also be presented
2. policy-based forums
•
•
•
•
organised around themes/issues that relate directly to a draft policy that is meant to address these
intended to solicit responses from those affected
participants might be encouraged to submit alternative ideas and suggestions but the format implies that what is
being sought is an indication of how far the participants agree (or not) with the proposal, and why
this can be made explicit using survey-style closed questions that the participants can give quantitative responses
to.
2. Level of engagement
The Colourful Flanders project can be characterised as a ‘deliberative eConsultation’ initiative. It
is deliberative because the final objective of the project is to stimulate the public debate on
policy issues, and it is a consultation because government is consulting its citizens on ‘policy
issues that have been formulated by policy-makers, interest groups or experts’ (excerpt 1). In the
preparatory phase of the Colourful Flanders project, six ‘expert vision groups’ were established
that formulated the 21 targets of the Pact van Vilvoorde. Next to that, an independent think thank
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called Forum 21 was set up. The forum’s objective is to ask pertinent questions that can
stimulate the debate on Flanders’ future. On the political level, input for the Colourful Flanders
project came from the Kleurennota, a vision text from the Flemish government.
3. Actors
GOVERNMENT AGENCY
The agency responsible for the Colourful Flanders project is the Colourful Flanders project-team.
It can be situated in the Department of Coordination from the administration Kanselarij en
Voorlichting. This is a horizontal department: the Colourful Flanders project has a coordinating
function across the different vertical departments. In terms of the new organogram of the
Ministry of the Flemish Community the project can be situated in the Diensten van de Minister
President (Services of the Minister President).
TYPE OF TARGET AUDIENCE
There are two target audiences. First, there is the generic communication to the broad target
audience: the entire population of Flanders (about 6 million people). Once someone has
registered herself on the project website, they become part of the ‘Colourful Flanders Club’ and
eMail communication is used to keep people coming to this ‘club’, so to speak. The
communications strategy (concerning the ongoing online debates) for this broad population is
called ‘generic communication’.
The second audience consists of more specific target audiences in the Flemish population.
These can be citizens, civil society organisations, business organisations etc. The
communication strategy for these audiences is tied up with the 13 themes, and takes a project
approach. Different projects (online discussions for an established amount of time, preceded
and ended by real life events) are set up and the Colourful Flanders team targets its
communication to individuals and organisations that have a stake in the theme that is being
discussed. This communication strategy is called ‘subject related communication’.
Davy Janssen
21
INTERMEDIARIES
The project team is actually a communications cell: information on the website is provided by all
the departments and political cabinets of the Flemish administration. In this way, the project
team is itself an intermediary between citizens, administration, and the political level. It plays an
active role: in consultation with administrations and cabinets it tries to find interesting and
provocative topics for discussion. When a discussion is finished, it summarizes citizen’s input
and offers this to the chairman of the Flemish parliament. He makes sure the information is
handed over to the parliamentary committee that is most relevant.
CHAMPIONS
Patrick Dewael, minister-president of the Flemish government, is recognised as the champion of
the project. It is said that the original idea of a consultation project was his, and that he is also
responsible for the revitalisation of the project since march 2003. He has also made sure that his
ministers of the Flemish government consider the project as an important one.
4. Resources
MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM
The Colourful Flanders project team consists of:
•
•
•
•
•
1 project manager (university studies)
2 members of staff (university studies)
1 webmaster (IT & graphic skills)
1 editor (university studies)
1 administrative function
CAPABILITIES
The six core employees of the project can make extensive use of knowledge inside and outside
the Flemish administration for all kinds of purposes, such as the organisation of events, the
publications of the project, and also for juridical advice. Inside the administration, different
departments regularly submit their own ideas and question for consideration in the debates.
TIME
11/07/2000
Start of the Colourful Flanders project.
2001
The expert vision groups > Pact van Vilvoorde (21 targets)
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2002-2003
Online discussion with the public
June 2004
End of the project
FINANCIAL COST
The so-called 2nd phase of the project is most relevant here: this is the phase in which the online
discussion forums engage citizens in the debate (2002-2003). The total budget for this phase is
2,38 million Euro, of which 1,4 million is used to buy advertisement space.
SOURCE OF FUNDING
Flemish government
5. Technologies used
TYPE
An extensive website with a tabulated structure (see fig 1.in the Annex). The site’s homepage
offers tabs to the 13 thematic debates, as well as some fairly specific questions which lead you
to the respective forum discussions. The homepage also has a news section and a links section,
as well as some ‘buttons’ to order government brochures.
Next to the homepage, the primary section of the site is the forum section, where the different
debates are taking place in the form of an asynchronic thread, allowing people to respond to an
argument at any time, and making sure they can always follow the ‘history’ of a certain debate.
The forum section is broken down in the 13 themes, e.g. environment, lifelong learning,
innovation, democracy, etc. Each thematic page has different subsections, the discussion forum
being the most important one. There are also sections for background information on the theme
at hand, an overview section (with all the questions from the eNewsletters), an events section, a
press section, an archive of the previous debates, and a ‘point of view section’ where position
statements from civil society organisations on the theme at hand are presented. Schematically it
looks like this:
Davy Janssen
23
Themes
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
care
democracy
sport
mobility
etc
oversight
information
events
•
•
•
•
press
points of view
discussion form
archive
o
take part in the current debate
The website allows for personal registration. When you provide your e-mail address, you can
choose to receive the eNewsletter. This is an e-mail from the Colourful Flanders team, sent
weekly of bi-weekly, which contains about 10 specific questions with links to the project’s forums
on the website. Some of these e-mails are called ‘Flashes’. These are mails with just one or two
messages, inviting you to join a new thematic online debate or announcing some real live event.
The eNewsletter is designed to engage as many people as possible in the forum debates. It is
subdivided in four or sections. At the end of each section there is a hyperlink to the forum,
leading straight to the discussion to which the question or remark refers. These are the possible
eNewsletter sections:
•
•
•
•
•
•
24
Focus/Question of the week: A question, formulated by the Colourful Flanders project team,
inspired by a press article, a recent book, recent research or a citizen’s contribution to the
previous discussion forum. The question can also refer to on of the 21 targets of the Pact
van Vilvoorde. The questions are often supported by hyperlinks to additional sources of
information, making sure citizens can adequately inform themselves before making a
contribution to the discussion forum.
Topical: A question or a position statement on topical issues. There is also often a link with
the 21 targets.
Point of View: The point of view of someone who was involved in an earlier discussion on the
forum is picked up and reformulated in the eNewsletter. The project team provides this
question or position statement with some background information, and citizens are asked
to respond.
Dossier: Questions or position statements referring to broader societal themes. For example,
this can be an OESO report saying Belgian people should work longer.
Event: announcement of a Real life event, opening or closing a thematical debate on the
website.
Call: the eNewsletter often ends with an open question, inviting citizens the add new ideas or
themes to the debates.
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SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR END-USERS
No special requirements besides internet access and the necessary skills to use a PC and work
on the internet. It has to be said that the online debates have an offline equivalent: at the
beginning of a thematic debate paper brochures (including a ‘discussion card’) are distributed,
giving citizens the possibility of taking part in the debate by post.
UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGY
•
•
•
SQL (central Microsoft server with database)
CMS (contract management system)
Active Server pages (used for the discussion forums)
The technology is fairly straightforward. It is a mix of commercial off-the-shelve products and
customised products (e.g. the CMS)
6. Rules of engagement
REGISTRATION, SECURITY AND AUTHENTIFICATION
People can register with on the Colourful Flanders website. The three-step registration
procedure requires the following information:
•
•
•
Step 1.
eMail address
Step 2.
eMail address + password
Step 3.
o Step 3.1. personal information (name, address obligatory)
o Step 3.2. personalisation: which of the themes are relevant to you?
o Step 3.3. in which ‘role’ do you participate? > citizen, civil servant, academic,
student…
The registration procedure, however, is not obligatory: one can also take part in the discussions
anonymous. Besides, one can easily register under a different name. This implies that there is
no authentification policy: you never know if somebody is really who they say they are.
On the discussion forums on each of the subjects, there is a page with discussion ‘rules’ in
which the disclaimer states that:
•
•
•
the Flemish government rejects liability for information contributed by a third-party.
The information on the website is not necessarily correct
All government organisations are themselves responsible for information they put on the
Colourful Flanders website
Davy Janssen
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7. Duration and sustainability
LONGER TERM
The Colourful Flanders project is set up as a long term project. The preparatory phase started in
2000, the discussions take place in 2002 and 2003, and the project ends in July 2004.
ONE-OFF PILOTE
The Colourful Flanders project was clearly set up as a pilot project, a first experiment in a largescale, long-term eConsultation project. At this time it is not known if the project will get a
permanent character after July 2004.
8. Scale
LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT
Belgium is a federal country. The level of government involved in the Colourful Flanders project
is the Flemish government (regional level government).
GEOGRAPHICAL AREA
Flanders, the largest of the Belgium regions
SIZE OF TARGET AUDIENCE
5.972.781,00 in 2002 (according to the Administration for planning and statistics)
9. Accessibility
HOW MANY CONTRIBUTED?
The moment of counting: 28/50/2003 > all the contributions since the start of the project are still
available (active or in the archive section) on the site. The figure below gives the following
information:
•
26
Theme: the debates are organised around the 13 themes.
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•
•
•
Amount of ‘Point of View’ contributions. These are longer contributions to the discussion,
often submitted by civil society organisations or academics.
Amount of Forums dedicated to the theme under consideration.
Amount of total contributions to the total of forums dedicated to the theme under
consideration.
At the moment of counting (28/05/03), these were the numbers of contributions to a forum
discussion, and the total amounts of ‘points of view’ (of organisations and individuals)
Theme
# Points of View
mobility
29
6
1 452
work
32
9
2 007
culture and society
17
7
602
2
2
114
environment
14
10
391
lifelong learning
12
9
1 285
innovation
21
6
143
0
1
52
18
4
234
4
5
249
Flanders in the world
1
0
0
democracy
5
2
199
care
9
4
620
Total
164
65
7 099
customer-friendly
# Forums
# Contributions
government
sports
business
spatial/environmental
planning
Total amount of contributions (points of view + forum contributions)
7 263
WHERE DID THEY GET ACCESS TO TECHNOLOGY?
No information available. The project is a web-based one, so people can only access it via the
internet.
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10. Promotion strategy
OFFLINE AND ONLINE
The online debates, introduced in 2002, were accompanied by an integrated promotion strategy
(offline and online). Offline: adverts in magazines and papers. Online: links and banners on
other government sites, esp. the Flemish portal. Adverts are meant to stimulate citizens to join
the debates and are therefore often presented in the form of specific questions such as:
•
•
Are you prepared to pay more for biological products?
Does Flanders invest to much of its space in our economy?
11. Evaluation: was evaluation undertaken?
An evaluation of the Colourful Flanders project as a deliberative project has not yet been
undertaken. There has been a SWOT analyses of the operationality of the project in 2002, which
lead to some internal communicative changes but kept the rest of the project unchanged.
12. Outcomes
The project team itself, considers as an important structural outcome the fact that a discussion
forum has been created that offers citizens an opportunity to ventilate their opinions on policy
issues.
13. Critical factors for success
POLITICAL
The further success of the project hinges on good relations between different partners: the
Colourful Flanders project-team, the Flemish administration, the political leaders and their
officers/advisors (called ‘kabinetten’). These relations have to stay intact as they are now. A
danger may be that one of the partners tries to use the Colourful Flanders project to promote
there current policy plans. The discussion of the future of Flanders can, however, not be about
the political problems of the day. That would be a perverse use of a long term discussion forum.
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CULTURAL
Continuous efforts have to be make to ensure that the Colourful Flanders project gets a positive
evaluation, especially in the media. Journalists are quit often not impressed by user take-up
figures and assume too easily that thousands of people will be involved in the discussions.
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Hoofdstuk 6: Evalueren van e-democratie initiatieven
HOOFDSTUK 5 ZINVOLHEID VAN HET STIMULEREN VAN
BURGERPARTICIPATIE
Wanneer e-democratie wordt gedefineerd als ‘het versterken van democratische processen door
middel van ICT’, is dit geen neutrale omschrijving. Ze gaat er namelijk vanuit dat het
introduceren van burgerparticipatie door middel van ICT de besluitvorming zal versterken.
Hoewel het bijna een dogma is geworden, lijkt het niet vanzelfsprekend dat het betrekken van
burgers bij de besluitvorming perse moet/zal resulteren in beter beleid. Indien de introductie van
een e-democratie-project niet wordt voorafgegaan door een analyse van de mogelijke gevolgen
van burgerparticipatie in het beleidsdomein in kwestie, bestaat het gevaar dat de input van
burgers contraproductief werkt. De literatuur over burgerparticipatie lijkt vrij normatief en zich
weinig bewust van deze gevaren:
It is widely argued that increased community participation in government
decision making produces many important benefits. Dissent is rare: it is difficult
to envision anything but positive outcomes from citizens joining the policy
process, collaborating with others and reaching consensus to bring about
positive social and environmental change (Irvin and Stansbury 2004).
In één van de weinige wetenschappelijke publicaties waarin de auteurs een meer kritische
houding aannemen ten opzichte van het debat aangaande burgerparticipatie, stellen Irvin en
Stansbury de krasse vraag: ‘citizen participation in decision making: is it worth the effort?’ (Irvin
and Stansbury 2004). Het lijkt een bijzonder adequate vraag voor beleidsmakers die edemocratie-initiatieven plannen: is het de moeite om hier, in een bepaald specifiek
beleidsdomein, ICT in te zetten om burgers bij de besluitvorming te betrekken? We zullen de
redenering van Irvin en Stansbury volgen en deze presenteren als een leidraad voor
beleidsplanners. In hun analyse belichten de auteurs eerst de mogelijke meerwaarde van
burgerparticipatie en vervolgens de potentiële sociale en economische kosten verbonden aan
participatie-initiatieven, ‘so that policy makers may better predict the usefulness of citizen
participation initiatives’ (Irvin and Stansbury 2004).
Davy Janssen
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5.1 VOORDELEN VAN BURGERPARTICIPATIE
Het ‘geloof’ in de meerwaarde van burgerparticipatie is gebaseerd op de gedachte dat dit zal
resulteren in beleid dat een betere weerspiegeling is van de preferenties van de burgers en dat het
dus ook op meer goedkeuring van die burgers kan rekenen. De ‘believers’ wijzen erop dat zowel
het proces van participatie waardevol is in de vorm van bijvoorbeeld leereffecten voor burgers,
als de uitkomst ervan in de zin van beter beleid. Aangezien er dus een meerwaarde kan zijn voor
zowel de burgers als de overheid, kunnen de potentiële voordelen dan ook in de volgende 2x2
matrix worden gegoten.
Voordelen van burgerparticipatie-initiatieven voor de overheidsbesluitvorming
Besluitvormingsproces
Besluitvormingsresultaat
Voordelen voor burgers
Voordelen voor de overheid
-
-
leereffecten
overtuigen overheid
uit impasse geraken
leereffecten
overtuigen burgers
uit impasse geraken
gerechtskosten vermijden
Leereffecten
De procesmatige aspecten van burgerparticipatie, de activiteit zelf dus, kan positieve leereffecten
en respect voor de representatieve democratie stimuleren bij burgers die eraan deelnemen.
Tijdens het proces kunnen ze leren en zien hoe complex besluitvorming is, kunnen ze respect
leren opbrengen voor de verschillende posities en kunnen ze leren wat het betekent om een
compromis te sluiten. Ook voor de overheid en haar administratie zijn er leereffecten te
verwachten, zeker op het domein van gespecialiseerd beleid waar een administratie vaak heel wat
kan leren van gespecialiseerde middenveldorganisaties die expertise bezitten op het vlak van een
bepaalde materie. Ook het voorleggen van een beleidsplan aan een ad random steekproef van de
bevolking biedt heel wat leermogelijkheden aan de administratie, zeker in verband met de
(on)populariteit van bepaalde maatregelen bij de bevolking.
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Politieke overtuiging
Participatie-initiatieven lijken niet altijd in de eerste plaats bedoeld om beter beleid tot stand te
brengen, maar veeleer om een voor het beleid welwillend publiek te creëren. Het hangt ervan af
wat de doelstelling is van de overheid: als die erin bestaat om de bevolking te overtuigen van de
juistheid van het beleid en als dit lukt door burgers erbij te betrekken, is de opzet geslaagd. Het
verhogen van de legitimatie voor voorgesteld beleid is zeker één van de bestaande
overheidsdoelstellingen van participatiebeleid. Deze overtuigingskracht kan natuurlijk ook
omgekeerd werken wanneer burgers een participatie-initiatief aangrijpen en erin slagen om het
voorgestelde beleid in een door hen gewenste richting bij te sturen.
Uit een impasse geraken
Het inschrijven van een moment van participatie en het serieus nemen hiervan door overheden,
kan vaak de voorkeur hebben op een gesloten besluitvormingscyclus waarop drukkingsgroepen
via
lobbying
toch
hun
stempel
willen
drukken.
Een
participatief
initiatief
kan
legitimatieverhogend werken en politici een ‘mandaat’ geven om onpopulaire beslissingen toch te
nemen. Vooral in de Verenigde Staten worden participatie-initiatieven vaak geïnitieerd door een
bepaalde functionele administratie, zoals het Environmental Protection Agency, die hiermee
tracht steun te verwerven bij de bevolking voor maatregelen of veranderingen die de
administratie in kwestie noodzakelijk acht, maar waar zij met politieke weerstand te maken heeft.
Gerechtskosten vermijden
Eén van de mogelijke voordelen voor de overheid die het gevolg kan zijn van het toelaten van
burgerparticipatie in de besluitvorming, is het vermijden van gerechtskosten van processen
aangespannen door burgers of (middenveld)organisaties. Die overjuridisering van de
samenleving lijkt een typisch Amerikaans fenomeen, maar dat is het niet. Denken we maar aan de
invloed die de burgerbevolking blijkbaar kan uitoefenen op de besluitvorming in de zaak van de
nachtvluchten in Zaventem. Amerikanen weten dit al langer, en beschouwen publieke participatie
dus als kosteffectief omdat het dure gerechtskosten minder waarschijnlijk maakt. Door alle
Davy Janssen
33
partijen ‘vooraf mee in het bad te nemen’ kunnen zij dus ook met een deel van de
verantwoordelijkheid voor de genomen beslissing worden opgezadeld.
5.2 NADELEN VAN BURGERPARTICIPATIE
De volgende tabel sommeert enkele nadelen van burgerparticipatie (Irvin and Stansbury 2004).
We maken opnieuw het onderscheid tussen de nadelen als gevolg van het proces van participatie
en de nadelen betreffende de uitkomst van participatie. De nadelen kunnen betrekking hebben op
de participanten aan het proces of op de overheid die het proces organiseert. In de verdere uitleg
hieronder zullen we de in het schema vermelde nadelen niet punt per punt bespreke, maar willen
we vooral ingaan op de problematische facetten van participatie-initiatieven die aan de basis
liggen van de in het schema vermelde nadelige uitkomsten.
Nadelen van burgerparticipatie
Voordelen voor burgers
Voordelen voor de overheid
Besluitvormingsproces
-
tijdrovend (saai)
zinloos indien geen rekening mee gehouden -
Besluitvormingsresultaat
-
slechtere besluitvorming indien
zware
beïnvloeding
door tegengestelde
belangengroepen
-
tijdrovend
duur
kans op boemerangeffect
(vijandigheid)
verlies
controle
besluitvormingsproces
mogelijkheid van slechte
beslissing die niet meer
omkeerbaar is
minder
budget
voor
uiteindelijke
implementatie beleid
Kosten
In de meeste literatuur over burgerparticipatie is het kostenplaatje een element dat weinig of niet
aan bod komt. Die kosten lijken aanzienlijk, maar moeilijk grijpbaar. Ze kunnen zich situeren in
de extra tijd die participatie-initiatieven vergen, in de directe financiële kosten voor het opzetten
van een participatie-initiatief, waardoor middelen worden weggetrokken van de eigenlijke
implementatie van het beleid. Daar staat tegenover dat mogelijke ‘opbrengsten’ van een
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participatie-initiatief in termen van sociaal kapitaal, welwillendheid van burgers, en soms zelfs
betere besluitvorming, al even onmeetbaar lijken. Uiteindelijk zal de beslissing om wel of geen
participatie-initiatieven toe te laten, steeds het besluit zijn van een weloverwogen inschatting van
de mogelijke meerwaarde ervan.
Passiviteit en publieke aliënatie
Veel van de normatieve literatuur aangaande democratie en participatie gaat ervan uit dat burgers
bereid zijn te participeren aan processen van politieke besluitvorming, zeker wanneer hen daartoe
- vaak met ICT ondersteunde – hulpmiddelen worden aangereikt. Toch klinken er vanuit de
psychologie en sociale psychologie andere stemmen die stellen dat burgers dit soort complexe
processen liefst vermijden. Vanuit het standpunt van een overheid kan dit resulteren in een
strategie die erin bestaat om geen participatieprocessen te ontwerpen die zich ruchten op een
publiek dat als ‘passief’ wordt ingeschat. Meer en meer empirisch onderzoek naar de bereidheid
om van burgers om actief deel te nemen aan participatie-initiatieven, lijkt uit te wijzen dat deze
bereidheid veeleer laag is.
Representatie
Aangezien burgers meestal geen vergoeding ontvangen voor hun deelname aan participatieinitiatieven, bestaat het gevaar dat participatiecommissies worden bevolkt door burgers die ofwel
zeer fel bezig zijn met een bepaald thema omdat ze er in hun leven mee worden geconfronteerd,
of die voldoende tijd en geld hebben om regelmatig te participeren. Een mogelijke oplossing voor
dit probleem van representatie bestaat erin om ‘citizen juries’ samen te stellen die ad random uit
de bevolking worden geselecteerd. Dit gebeurt ook effectief in de VS en het VK. Het nadeel is
natuurlijk dat hier sowieso zwaardere kosten mee gepaard gaan: deelnemers krijgen dan vaak een
verloning of worden vergoed voor hun onkosten. Een voordeel van de ad random selectie is
natuurlijk ook dat er veel minder kans is dat ‘special interests’ de commissie zullen domineren.
Davy Janssen
35
‘Managen’ van verwachtingen
Eén van de altijd terugkerende dilemma’s waarmee een ontwerper van een participatie-initiatief
te maken krijgt, is het ‘managen’, het in toom houden, van de verwachtingen van de deelnemers.
Wanneer deelnemers ten onrechte geloven dat hun beslissingen onverkort zullen worden
geïmplementeerd, is het risico voor onvrede over het participatieproces groot. De strategieën voor
het omgaan met de verwachtingen van participanten, zoals die meestal worden voorgeschreven,
bevelen aan om duidelijk en eerlijk te communiceren over de aard van het initiatief en de mate
waarin burgers het kunnen beïnvloeden. Het schetsen van het initiatief in termen van de fase van
het beleidsproces waarin het zich bevindt (zie 3.1.) en het niveau van participatie (zie 3.2.) dat
wordt toegelaten, lijkt alvast een must.
Kracht van verkeerde beslissingen
Beslissingen waarbij de input van burgers belangrijk is geweest, hebben vaak een grote
draagkracht. Wanneer echter blijkt dat bepaalde single-issue groepen de besluitvorming hebben
gedomineerd, en de functionele administratie oordeeldt dat de voorliggende wetgeving ‘slecht’ is
of het algemeen belang niet lijkt te dienen, kan dit problematisch zijn. De overheid of de
administratie kunnen veel tegenstand ondervinden wanneer zij trachten het initiatief terug te
draaien, net omdat het tot stand is gekomen via een participatie-initiatief.
Kracht van egoïsme
Veel van de normatieve participatieliteratuur hecht grote waarde aan de opvoedende kracht van
participatieprocessen. Wanneer een deliberatieve context tot stand is gebracht, waarbinnen een
eerlijk en inclusief debat wordt gefaciliteerd, wordt er veel verwacht van de deelnemers aan dit
proces: zij moeten inzicht leren krijgen in de standpunten van anderen en die meenemen in hun
eigen denken. Toch mag niet uit het oog worden verloren dat de kans reëel is dat mensen blijven
redeneren en argumenteren vanuit puur eigenbelang. De waarheid ligt waarschijnlijk ergens in
het midden, maar het lijkt naïef om te vertrekken van een al te positief beeld van de altruïstische
mens.
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HOOFDSTUK 6 EVALUEREN VAN E-DEMOCRATIE INITIATIEVEN
e-Democratie-initiatieven nemen vaak de vorm aan van een via ICT ‘enabled’ gesprek tussen
burgers en/of overheden, een zogenaamde ‘online dialoog’. Een schoolvoorbeeld van het meest
typische e-Democratie-initiatief dat overheden opzetten, is een online forum e-consultatieproject
zoals Kleurrijk Vlaanderen. Aangezien het naar ons oordeel quasi onmogelijk is om de effectieve
impact van dit project op de besluitvorming na te gaan, dienen we op zoek te gaan naar andere
manieren om zulke projecten te evalueren. We kunnen ons hierbij baseren op evaluaties van
Amerikaanse e-democratieprojecten. De Verenigde Staten kennen al langer een traditie van
‘online public dialogues’, vaak geïnitieerd door overheidsagentschappen of Amerikaanse staten,
en er lijkt zich ook een zekere overeenstemming af te tekenen in verband met de manier waarop
zulke online dialogen dienen geëvalueerd.
Met het aanhalen van deze Amerikaanse voorbeelden beogen we het bekendmaken in Vlaanderen
van ontwikkelingen die momenteel in een internationale context ingang vinden. Ook willen we
met het aanreiken van een werkwijze voor het evalueren van e-democratie-initiatieven
beleidsmakers instrumenten ter legitimatie en evaluatie van e-democratie-projecten voorstellen.
6.1 TWEE ‘ONLINE PUBLIC DIALOGUES’ IN DE US CONTEXT
We bespreken twee voorbeelden van evaluatie van online dialogues. Het eerste betreft de
National Dialogue on Public Involvement in EPA Decisions. Deze online dialoog werd in 2001
georganiseerd door het Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) en bracht 1.166 mensen samen
in een online discussie in verband met publieke participatie binnen het EPA. Het was dus een
soort metadiscussie waarbij aan burgers werd gevraagd hoe de EPA zijn participatiebeleid dient
vorm te geven. Achteraf diende dit project geëvalueerd. Dit evaluatierapport (Beierle 2002)
zullen we hier verder bespreken met het oog op aanreiken van methoden voor de evaluatie van dit
soort online dialogen.
Het tweede voorbeeld dat we aanhalen, betreft de evaluatie van de California Education
Dialogue (CED) (Gunn and Carlitz 2003). De staat California zette in juni 2002 een online
Davy Janssen
37
participatie-initiatief op om de publieke input te verhogen in verband met een langetermijnplan
voor het onderwijs in California. Er worden duidelijke voordelen toegeschreven aan het inzetten
van het Internet:
Online dialogue offers a new type of public space and a tool for civic
engagement that is inherently more dynamic and interactive than most
traditional exchanges between the pubic and policy makers (Gunn and Carlitz
2003)
Beide cases zijn typische voorbeelden van ‘policy-based’ forums - en geen ‘issue-based’ forums
– aangezien burgers en organisaties rechtstreeks werden bevraagd over een voorstel van
wetgeving, respectievelijk het EPA Public Involvement policy en het California Master Plan for
Education. Wat verder opvalt in de evaluatierapporten van beide initiatieven, is dat de auteurs
ervan naar elkaar verwijzen en dat ze hetzelfde framework voor evaluatie volgen. De beide
rapporten hanteren exact hetzelfde stramien. Het spreekt vanzelf dat een standaardisatie van
evaluatiecriteria over initiatieven heen een goede zaak is en dat dit vergelijkingen tussen edemocratie-initiatieven over de beleidsgrenzen heen mogelijk maakt. Hier gaat het trouwens over
zeer verschillende beleidsniveau’s en actoren: de onderwijsdialoog werd opgezet door de
regering van een staat van de VS en de bevraging over publieke input bij het EPA werd
georganiseerd door het EPA, een centraal agentschap van de VS.
6.2 BEOOGDE EFFECTEN VAN ONLINE PUBLIEKE DIALOGEN
De auteurs van het evaluatierapport van de CED verwijzen onmiddellijk naar Thomas Beierle, de
auteur van het rapport over online participatie bij het EPA. Beierle and Cayford geven vijf ‘social
goals’ van participatieprocessen aan die in meer algemene termen kunnen worden gezien als
redenen waarom overheden participatieprocessen zouden organiseren (Beierle 2002):
Incorporeren van publieke waarden
De doelstelling bestaat erin om publieke waarden en opinies mee te nemen in de besluitvorming.
Hoewel burgers het dikwijls onderling niet eens zullen zijn over de aanpak van bepaalde
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maatschappelijke problemen, benaderen zij deze problemen vaak vanuit een perspectief dat
complex en rijk kan zijn, en dat een aanvulling kan betekenen voor de inschatting door
zogenaamde experts. Meer fundamenteel betekent democratie dat burgers mee mogen
beslissingen maken in verband met de inrichting van hun samenleving, en vanuit dit normatief
ideaal zal het dan ook steeds de bedoeling zijn om publieke waarden te vatten in beleid.
Verbeteren van de kwaliteit van de besluitvorming
Het publiek weet vaak meer dan het beleid. Er schuilt zeker waarheid in deze stelling en ze wordt
dan ook regelmatig serieus genomen door overheden, zeker wat betreft lokaal beleid of specifieke
materies waar bepaalde subgroepen burgers erg goed thuis in zijn.
Opvoeden en informeren van het publiek
Informatievoorziening is één van de basisvoorwaarden voor een ‘informed debate’ tussen burgers
en overheid. Enkel op basis van goede informatie kan er zoiets ontstaan als een publieke opinie.
Naast het verbeteren van de besluitvorming is het ‘opvoeden’ van burgers één van de
hoofddoelstellingen van veel participatie-initiatieven. Door burgers bij het besluitvormingsproces
te betrekken, kunnen zij van dichtbij ervaren wat het betekent om in een representatieve
democratie tot een consensus te komen. De veronderstelling is dat ze hierdoor ‘reflexievere’
burgers worden die zich kunnen inleven in de standpunten van burgers waarmee ze het niet eens
zijn.
Verminderen van conflict
Wanneer verschillende belanghebbenden elkaars visies en standpunten kunnen vernemen in een
niet-vijandige omgeving, kan dit positieve gevolgen hebben in vergelijking met een arena waarin
elke partij haar eisen rechtstreeks tot het beleid richt. Het is echter nooit zeker dat een open debat
conflicten kan oplossen. In de literatuur is er minder over te vinden, maar een debat (zeker over
ethische of morele kwesties) kan een conflict ook scherper stellen en een oplossing bemoeilijken.
Davy Janssen
39
Verhogen van het vertrouwen in de democratische instituties
Bij velen leeft de overtuiging dat het vertrouwen van burgers in de traditionele instellingen van
de representatieve democratie achteruit gaat. Dalingen in de ledencijfers van politieke partijen en
verminderingen in de opkomst bij verkiezingen worden meestal als illustratief hiervoor
aangehaald. Bij voorstanders van inspraakmechanismen is de stelling te horen dat inspraak
vertrouwenswekkend werkt omdat burgers de instellingen van de democratie van dicht bij
kunnen meemaken en ervaren.
6.3 BELEIDSEVALUATIE VAN ONLINE PUBLIEKE DIALOGEN
De uiteindelijke evaluatie van beide online dialogues verloopt op een identieke manier. De
evaluatie is gebaseerd op vijf vragen. Geen van de vragen gaat rechtstreeks in op het uiteindelijke
effect van het participatie-initiatief op de besluitvorming. Dat lijkt een grote tekortkoming, maar
dat is het niet wanneer men ervan uitgaat dat het ‘meten’ van de impact op de besluitvorming
eigenlijk onmogelijk is wegens te veel ‘intervening variables’ en het niet kunnen isoleren van de
impact van participatie. Aangezien er op het eerste gezicht een klein verschil tussen de
evaluatievragen van beide cases, worden de vragen hieronder apart weergegeven.
Public Involvement in EPA decisions
1. Hoe tevreden waren de participanten aan
het proces?
2. In welke mate introduceerde de online
dialoog ‘nieuwe stemmen’ in het beleid?
3. Wat is de kwaliteit van de communicatie
in de online dialoog?
4. Wat hebben de participanten gehad aan de
online dialoog?
5. Wat heeft het EPA gehad aan de online
dialoog?
40
California Education Dialogue
1. Hoe tevreden waren de participanten aan
het proces?
2. In welke mate introduceerde de online
dialoog ‘nieuwe stemmen’ in het beleid?
3. Hoe zagen de participanten de ‘publieke
ruimte’ die door de online dialoog tot
stand werd gebracht?
4. Wat hebben de participanten aan de online
dialoog gehad, in het bijzonder
betreffende de potentiële impact op het
beleidsproces?
5. Wat hebben beleidsmakers gehad aan het
proces, in het bijzonder betreffende de
mogelijke wijzigingen in de publieke
opinie?
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Uiteindelijk gaat het om dezelfde vragen, al lijken er verschillen in klemtoon. Zo lijkt de derde
vraag verschillend: kwaliteit van de communicatie versus kwaliteit van de publieke ruimte. Toch
wordt er hier naar hetzelfde gepeild, hoewel enkel de EPA dialoog de vraag in termen van de
theorie van de publieke ruimte stelt. De kwaliteit van de publieke ruimte hangt namelijk af van de
kwaliteit van de argumentatie en communicatie in deze ruimte. In vragen vier en vijf zien we bij
de CED dialoog meer details in de vraagstelling. De vierde vraag verwijst naar de ‘potentiële
impact op het beleidsproces’ als één van de baten voor de participanten aan de online dialoog. Dit
lijkt contradictorisch met de bewering hierboven dat er niet rechtstreeks wordt ingegaan op de
impact op de besluitvorming. Toch is dit maar deels zo, want uiteindelijk wordt enkel aan de
deelnemers gevraagd wat zij denken dat de impact op de besluitvorming is geweest.
Om deze vragen te beantwoorden, wordt geput uit vier bronnen van informatie, te weten een
inschrijvings- of registratieformulier dat participanten aan de online dialoog vooraf dienden in
te vullen, een survey die de deelnemers na de online dialoog kregen voorgelegd, de website
statistieken (de zogenaamde ‘logs’ van de activiteit in het online forum), en interviews met de
organisatoren van de dialoog.
1. Registratieformulier
a. Demografische informatie
b. Vragen in verband met de ‘rol’ van de participant (burger, vertegenwoordiger
onderwijs, ambtenaar, zakenman, student)
c. Vragen in verband met de kennis van en betrokkenheid bij het onderwerp ter
discussie: het onderwijsbeleid in California
d. Vragen in verband met ‘internet use’
e. Vragen in verband met politieke interesse en engagement
f. Vraag of men een ‘active participant’ wil zijn en dus ook berichten wil ‘posten’ in
het online forum
g. Vraag of men de post-evaluatie enquête wil invullen
2. Web site statistieken (logfiles)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Davy Janssen
Aantal keren dat een participant de site heeft bezocht
Aantal keren dat een participant een bericht heeft ‘gepost’
Duur van de activiteiten per participant
Aantal berichten (totaal, in de tijd, per deelgesprek)
Etc???
41
3. Survey bij participanten (afgenomen na de online dialoog)
a. Een (deels gesloten) vragenlijst van 32 vragen, waarvan 7 met de mogelijkheid om
open antwoorden te geven
b. Vooral vragen in verband met de ervaring van de online dialoog en in verband met
de (gewijzigde) houdingen van participanten ten opzichte van het onderwijsbeleid
4. Interviews bij de Joint Committee Staf (de administratie die de dialoog initieerde)
Deze verscheidene databronnen vormen de basis van de evaluatie van de online dialoog aan de
hand van de vijf vragen. Alvorens een evaluatie van het project mogelijk is, dient de online
dialoog eerst in al zijn aspecten te worden beschreven. De volgende criteria komen voor:
1. Classificatie van participanten. Zowel in het registratieformulier als in de survey wordt
aan de deelnemers gevraagd zich te bekennen als individuele burgers, als ambtenaar
(lokaal, regionaal, federaal), als vertegenwoordiger van de industrie of als lid van het
departement (EPA) die de bevraging initieert. Deze initiële classificatie geeft een ruw
overzicht van de samenstelling van de online dialoog.
2. Patronen van ‘postings’ en gelezen berichten. Participanten nemen deel aan de online
dialoog door berichten (‘postings’) te versturen en door de berichten van anderen te lezen
en hierop te reageren. In de analyse van deze berichten worden verschillende statistieken
gegenereerd die een idee geven van de dynamiek van de conversatie. Voorbeelden zijn:
a. Aantal participanten dat berichten post (overzicht per dag van de dialoog)
b. Aantal berichten en ‘threads’ per dag. De benaming ‘thread’ is het virtuele
pendant van een ‘gesprek’, daar waar ‘post’ staat voor één individueel bericht.
3. Niveau van participatie. Hier wordt de vraag gesteld naar de intensiteit van participatie:
participeerden de deelnemers op een gelijkaardige manier aan het debat of niet? De
belangrijkste statistiek die wordt gegenereerd, is die met op de X-as de percentages van
participanten die berichten ‘posten’ en op de Y-as het percentage van geposte berichten.
Deze grafiek laat toe om uitspraken te doen over de dominantie van het gesprek door
bepaalde groepen. Voor de EPA dialoog bleek bijvoorbeeld dat 10% van de participanten
verantwoordelijk waren voor 50% van de berichten. Er was dus een zekere ‘inner circle’
van participanten aanwezig die het gesprek domineerden.
Dan volgt de uiteindelijke evaluatie aan de hand van de vijf vragen. We bespreken dit kort met de
nadruk op de bronnen en informatie die worden gebruikt:
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Hoe tevreden waren participanten met het proces?
Hiervoor is vooral de post-evaluatie survey een belangrijke bron van informatie. Participanten
werden bevraagd over hun ervaringen en tevredenheid met de online dialoog. Er werd hen
gevraagd of ze meer van dit soort dialogen georganiseerd willen zien. Er werd tevens gevraagd
om specifieke elementen van de dialoog te beoordelen. Ten slotte werd bij hen ook gepeild naar
wat hen motiveerde om berichten te posten (interesse in onderwerp, drang om vorig bericht te
beantwoorden, gevoel van verantwoordelijkheid, genoeg tijd om te participeren) of niet te posten
(tijdsgebrek, anderen hadden mijn ‘punt al gemaakt’, geen interesse in het onderwerp, ik lees
liever dan dat ik participeer).
In welke mate introduceerde de online dialoog ‘nieuwe stemmen’ in het beleid?
Het registratieformulier is hier de voornaamste informatiebron. De demografische informatie
wordt geanalyseerd, naast enkele specifieke vragen: kennis van het onderwerp van discussie,
politiek engagement en het gebruik van Internet.
Hoe zagen de participanten de ‘publieke ruimte’ die door de online dialoog tot stand werd
gebracht?
Via de post-evaluatie survey kan hierop een antwoord worden geboden. De vragen betreffen de
perceptie van de dialoog, de kwaliteit van de communicatie, de sfeer van de dialoog, de
hoffelijkheid van de dialoog en de perceptie van de voorkennis van participanten. De
evaluatievraag over de publieke ruimte is gebaseerd op de theorie van de publieke ruimte, die
stelt dat er in een samenleving plaatsen en momenten dienen te zijn waar burgers ongehinderd
over de inrichting van hun samenleving kunnen spreken, en dat het op deze plaatsen is waar
zoiets als een ‘publieke opinie’ ontstaat, die het beleid op een indirecte manier informeert.
Davy Janssen
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Wat hebben de participanten aan de online dialoog gehad, in het bijzonder betreffende de
potentiële impact op het beleidsproces?
Hier zijn het vooral de open vragen in de post-evaluatie survey die centraal staan. De open vragen
gaan over het engagement van de participanten om mee te doen en hun verwachtingen in verband
met de impact van de dialoog op de besluitvorming. Verder bevat de survey ook een groep
gestructureerde en gesloten vragen over aspecten en deelgebieden waar participanten ‘iets geleerd
hebben’, met andere woorden kennis opgedaan hebben.
Wat hebben beleidsmakers aan het proces gehad, in het bijzonder betreffende mogelijke
wijzigingen in de publieke opinie?
Verschillende vragen uit de post-evaluatie survey bevatten aanwijzingen in verband met de
‘goodwill’ van burgers ten opzichte van de administratie en aangaande veranderingen in de
houding van het publiek ten opzichte van de besproken wetgeving. Aparte interviews met de
‘joint committee staff’ als organisatoren van de dialoog, zowel voor als na de online dialoog,
vullen deze informatie aan.
6.4 INFORMATION
RENAISSANCE
MODEL
VOOR
ONLINE
PUBLIEKE
DIALOGEN
De beide US voorbeelden van online dialoog die we hier hebben besproken, werden gefaciliteerd
door het bedrijf ‘Information Renaissance’, dat een model voor online dialogen heeft gecreëerd
dat tegemoet komt aan wat de OECD ‘e-consultation’ noemt. We halen kort de bouwstenen van
het model aan. We hopen dat dit inspirerend kan werken voor beleidsmakers die nadenken over
de mogelijkheden van online participatie.
Resources and tools
Voor elke georganiseerde online dialoog wordt er een speciale informatieve website ontwikkeld.
Deze site bestaat uit een ‘briefing book’ met achtergrondinformatie en een ‘how to’ sectie met
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informatie over het gebruik van zowel de informatieve site als de online dialoog zelf. Van de
deelnemers wordt verwacht dat zij vertrouwd raken met dit materiaal vooraleer de dialoog begint.
Een geïnformeerde dialoog vereist immers geïnformeerde burgers en er wordt dus veel belang
gehecht aan het ontsluiten van voldoende achtergrondinformatie over het onderwerp ter discussie
in het ‘briefing book’.
Outreach
Een succesvolle online dialoog vereist de deelname van een gevarieerd publiek, waaronder zeker
de zogenaamde ‘stakeholders’, te weten degenen die worden geaffecteerd door de
besluitvormingskwestie ter sprake. De stakeholders dienen dus te worden geïdentificeerd en
betrokken. De online dialoog wordt aangekondigd via e-mail (lists en zines), websites van
organisaties, persmededelingen in de gedrukte media en aandacht in de audiovisuele media.
Allerlei organisaties, zoals openbare bibliotheken en lokale verenigingen, worden aangemoedigd
om het online debat aan te kondigen. Een eerste indicatie betreffende de variatie onder de
participanten is de analyse van het registratieformulier bij de start van het debat. Blijkt hier dat er
bepaalde groepen serieus ondervertegenwoordigd zijn, dan kan er nog een laatste oproep tot
deelname naar deze groepen worden gelanceerd.
Registration
De registratie begint ongeveer een maand voordat de online dialoog van start gaat.
Basisdemografische informatie wordt gevraagd, evenals een korte open biografie (50 woorden).
Dan wordt participanten gevraagd of ze een actieve deelnemer willen zijn en dus zelf berichten
willen ‘posten’, dan wel een passieve deelnemer die enkel berichten van anderen leest.
Panellists
Een panel van beleidsmakers en experts wordt samengesteld. Het is niet de bedoeling dat het
panel uitgebreide uiteenzettingen doet, maar wel dat het panel het gesprek tussen de andere
deelnemers faciliteert door het stellen van vragen en het geven van informatie of ideeën.
Davy Janssen
45
Agenda and Questions
Er wordt een duidelijke agenda voor de online dialoog opgesteld. De agenda is gestructureerd aan
de hand van een set thematieken. Elk thema bevat verder specifieke vragen om de online dialoog
focus te geven. De agenda van de dialoog wordt vooraf meegedeeld aan alle participanten.
Discussion
De feitelijke online discussie, die meestal ongeveer twee weken duurt, vormt de kern van het
proces. Zoals bij de meest online forums, is de discussie ‘asynchroon’. Dit wil zeggen dat
participanten alle tijd hebben om na te denken over de bijdragen van anderen vooraleer ze zelf
een bericht ‘posten’.
Summaries
Dagelijks wordt er een samenvatting van de discussies opgesteld en wordt deze verstuurd naar de
deelnemers. Uit de post-dialoog survey blijkt telkens dat participanten dit zeer op prijs stellen.
Archive
De volledige website van de online dialoog wordt, ook nadat de dialoog voorbij is, online
beschikbaar gemaakt als een doorzoekbaar archief. Hierdoor blijven steeds alle discussies
beschikbaar en doorzoekbaar.
Evaluation
De evaluatieprocedure is integraal onderdeel van het Info Renaissance model van online
dialogen. Een gestandaardiseerde evaluatieprocedure van online dialogen is een onmisbaar
instrument om het succes van online dialogen met elkaar te vergelijken. De procedure zoals hier
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beschreven, is de ongeveer zelfde als die bij de online dialoog van het Environmental Protection
Agency.
Impact
Hoewel de impact van een online dialoog moeilijk te objectiveren valt, zien we toch twee sporen
van impact-assessment geregeld terugkomen. Het eerste spoor evalueert impact in termen van
publieke input en effect op wetgeving of besluitvorming in het algemeen. Het tweede spoor kijkt
naar de participanten in de dialoog: heeft de dialoog hun houding veranderd, bijvoorbeeld hun
interesse in beleid of hun begrip voor de complexiteit van wetgeving.
6.5 AANDACHTSPUNTEN VOOR ONLINE PUBLIEKE DIALOGEN
In een meer beschouwend hoofdstuk van hun rapport, gaan de auteurs in op enkele zogenaamde
‘dilemma’s van publieke participatie’. We bespreken deze en vullen ze aan met onze eigen
inzichten terzake.
Willen mensen participeren?
Deze vraag staat centraal in veel zogenaamde ‘democratietheorie’ en het is één van de meest
fundamentele vragen van de democratie op zich. Zowel het ‘ja’ als ‘nee’ antwoord op deze vraag
kan met empirisch onderzoek worden geïllustreerd: vaak blijkt dat mensen geen zin of tijd
hebben om zich met politiek in te laten en op andere momenten komt naar voor dat zij betere en
meer kanalen voor inspraak wensen. Om op een pragmatische manier om te kunnen gaan met
deze onduidelijkheid of burgers nu wel of niet willen participeren, opteren vele beleidsmakers en
administraties ervoor om ervan uit te gaan dat mensen belang hechten aan participatie wanneer
een bepaald thema voor hen zeer belangrijk is. Een gevolg van deze veronderstelling is dan ook
dat de overheid of administratie participatie-initiatieven opzet om die groep mensen die op dat
ogenblik wensen te participeren, te bedienen.
Davy Janssen
47
Eén van de interessante facetten van de online variant van publieke participatie, online dialoog
dus, betreft de mogelijke impact van de dialoog op zogenaamde ‘lurkers’. Lurkers zijn mensen
die de online dialoog wel volgen, maar die er zelf niet aan deelnemen en dus geen berichten
posten. Er zijn steeds meer lurkers dan participanten, wat vai de ‘logfiles’ te traceren valt. Het is
mogelijk dat deze mensen geïnteresseerd raken in politieke discussie simpelweg door het feit dat
zij de online discussies van anderen volgen. Het gaat hier dus om een interessant neveneffect van
de visibiliteit van online dialogen.
Wie participeert wel/niet?
De representatiekwestie is nooit veraf in discussies over participatief beleid. Het gaat dan om de
vraag of de burgers en groeperingen die participeren, wel representatief zijn voor de ganse
bevolking, of voor die subgroep die zij geacht wordt te vertegenwoordigen. Ervaringen met
traditionele, offline varianten van participatief beleid hebben geleerd dat meestal een relatief
klein deel van het publiek participeert en dat bepaalde ‘underserved audiences’, segmenten van
de bevolking die niet participeren, telkens weer naar voor komen.
Wanneer we kijken naar online participatie in de vorm van online dialogen, vallen onmiddellijk
enkele eigenschappen van de gebruikte participatietechnologie (ICT) op die waarschijnlijk een
effect zullen hebben op de verdeling van participatie: zo lijken online dialogen goed geschikt
voor zij die toegang hebben tot het Internet, zij die zeer betrokken zijn bij een bepaalde
thematiek, zij die tijd hebben om op een intensieve manier de online dialoog te volgen, en zij die
in perifere gebieden wonen en weinig mobiel zijn. Wanneer we deze mogelijke effecten van de
technologie combineren met de vaststellingen betreffende traditionele participatie, kunnen we
veronderstellen dat er opnieuw specifieke ‘unserved audiences’ zijn die, indien er geen
inspanningen worden gedaan om ze toch te betrekken, niet zullen deelnemen aan online
participatieprocessen.
In het online dialogue model dat hier aan de orde is, wordt er tegemoetgekomen aan deze
problematiek door vooraf te brainstormen over de samenstellingen van de stakeholders en door
een actieve notificatiepolitiek. Vooraleer een online debat wordt georganiseerd, dienen de
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organisaties - dikwijls functionele administraties, maar in het geval van de California Education
Dialogue ging het om een deelstaatregering - die het initiëren, goed na te denken over wie de
stakeholders zijn. Zij worden gestimuleerd om na te denken over de vraag of de huidige
gesprekspartners wel de juiste zijn en of er nieuwe stemmen in het proces dienen te worden
geïntroduceerd. Deze oefening resulteert dan in een classificatie van stakeholders. In een tweede
stap probeert men dan te waarborgen dat elke geïdentificeerde stakeholder ook daadwerkelijk aan
de dialoog participeert. Hierbij zijn de pre-dialoog registratieformulieren zeer informatief: deze
bieden al dadelijk een zicht op de groepen die niet aanwezig zijn. Op basis van deze analyse
kunnen dan extra inspanningen worden gedaan om deze groepen toch te mobiliseren.
Aard en complexiteit van de thema’s
De complexiteit die kenmerkend is voor veel van het hedendaagse overheidsbeleid, brengt
enerzijds met zich dat het noodzakelijk lijkt om burgers goed te informeren om complexe
beslissingen te legitimeren, en anderzijds dat het moeilijker lijkt om dit te doen en dus ook om
burgers bij beleidsvorming te betrekken. Voor de organisatie van een online dialoog impliceert
dit onder andere dat een juiste ontsluiting van informatie betreffende het discussiethema
fundamenteel is. De online omgeving beschikt hierbij over een aantal troeven. De belangrijkste
troef zit in de manier waarop discussie en informatie online kunnen worden georganiseerd
omwille van de hypertextualiteit van het Internet. Het lineaire stramien van informatie op
papieren dragers kan worden doorbroken: een ‘hyperlink’ maakt het immers mogelijk om achter
elk woord of zin op het scherm een boel andere informatie te ‘linken’. Zogenaamde ‘pop-up’
schermen kunnen participanten in de loop van de online dialoog attent maken op
achtergrondinformatie die zij best verwerken vooraleer verder te discussiëren. Ook kan de
informatie op andere dan tekstuele manieren worden gebracht, onder meer in de vorm van
presentaties, films of andere audiovisuele hulpmiddelen.
Impact op beleid versus impact op participatie
Bij de evaluatie van e-democratie-initiatieven kunnen overheidsorganisaties terugvallen op twee
sporen waarbij de volgende vragen centraal staan: 1) Heeft publieke participatie invloed gehad
Davy Janssen
49
op de uiteindelijke besluitvorming? en 2) Heeft de publieke participatie invloed gehad op de
deelnemers, hun interesse wat betreft de overheid en het besproken beleid, en hun begrip voor de
standpunten van andere partijen? Het mag duidelijk zijn dat het eerste spoor het meest ‘zuivere’
is in de zin dat een ultieme evaluatie van participatie idealiter zou moeten peilen naar de impact
op besluitvorming. Anderzijds is het ook het minst realistische spoor omdat het moeilijk haalbaar
lijkt om de invloed van één verklarende variabele op het (zeer complexe) besluitvormingsproces
te achterhalen. Vandaar dat overheden en administraties zich bij de evaluatie van participatieinitiatieven veelal richten op de burgers of andere partijen die hebben geparticipeerd. De
evaluatie van de hier besproken online dialogen steunt dan ook vooral op de post-dialoog survey
die bij de participanten werd afgenomen.
Vertrouwen
De kwestie van het vertrouwen van burgers in ‘de politiek’ staat centraal in het debat met
betrekking tot een modern overheidsmanagement. Het participatiebeleid in al zijn aspecten wordt
vaak gezien als gericht op het verhogen van het vertrouwen van burgers in de overheid, en het
woord ‘vertrouwen’ (trust) vinden we dan ook geregeld terug in teksten die participatieinitiatieven legitimeren. Het lijkt erop dat moderne overheden als vertrouwenwekkende strategie
massaal voor participatie-initiatieven kiezen. Toch is het ‘managen’ van vertrouwen bij
burgerparticipatie een complexe aangelegenheid en is het beoogde resultaat van een verhoogd
vertrouwen geen garantie. Burgers, zeker indien ze zijn georganiseerd, lijken dikwijls initieel
wantrouwig te zijn ten opzichte van participatie-initiatieven die als coöpterend worden gezien.
Coöptatie wordt dan begrepen als het opzetten van pseudo-participatie initiatieven die als
‘zoethoudertjes’ voor de burgers dienen. Dit initiële wantrouwen dient in ieder geval te worden
aangepakt. Bij het uittekenen van participatief beleid dienen beleidsmakers het ‘boemerangeffect’
voor ogen te houden waarbij geëngageerde en geïnteresseerde burgers ontgoocheld zijn over de
kwaliteit van een participatief proces en met negatieve gevoelens achterblijven omdat ze vinden
dat ze niet serieus worden genomen. Er dient in ieder geval duidelijk gecommuniceerd in welke
fase van het beleidsproces burgers worden betrokken: wat is al beslist en wat blijft open voor
echte participatie? Het moet voor participanten duidelijk worden waarop en hoeveel invloed zij
kunnen hebben.
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Het lijkt erop dat de online dialogen geschikte technologieën zijn om participatie voor burgers
tastbaar te maken. Het proces is zeer zichtbaar, de interactie kan zeer direct zijn. De voortgang
van het proces, evenals de invloed van participanten op het uiteindelijke eindproduct, kan zeer
aanschouwelijk worden gemaakt. Deze directheid van participatie maakt het des te meer
noodzakelijk dat beleidsmakers het proces ernstig nemen: het lijkt erop dat het beleid in een
online georchestreerd participatie-initiatief veel sneller door de mand valt en dat projecten die
opgezet zijn als ‘window dressing’ ook als zodanig worden herkend zeer negatief geëvalueerd.
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Hoofdstuk 7: Conclusies en opmerkingen
HOOFDSTUK 7 CONCLUSIES EN OPMERKINGEN
Met dit rapport wordt het ‘intermezzo’ in verband met e-democratie binnen het extrabestuurlijke
luik van het spoor e-government afgesloten. Met dit rapport hebben wij enkele beschouwingen
ter overpeinzing willen meegeven aan beleidsmakers. We zullen het dan ook afronden met een
overzicht van wat, naar ons inzicht, enkele van meest prangende problematieken zijn die in het
denken over e-democratie aan bod (zouden moeten) komen. Verder verwijzen wij voor verdere
informatie graag naar de studies en rapporten van het ViWta, het Vlaams Instituut voor
Technologisch en Wetenschappelijk Aspectenonderzoek. Deze autonome instelling verbonden
aan het Vlaamse Parlement, herbergt namelijk het verdere onderzoek naar e-democratie in
Vlaanderen. Meer informatie is te vinden op de website www.viwta.be.
7.1 BESTUURSKUNDIGE
EN
DEMOCRATISCHE
IMPLICATIES
VAN
E-
DEMOCRATIE
Spanning tussen de representatieve democratie en de directe democratie
De eerste denkers over de invloed van ICT op de samenleving waren algemeen te positief of te
negatief over de verwachte invloed ervan. Er waren ‘techno-optimisten’ die in ICT de oplossing
voor het democratische probleem zagen. Ze stelden dat we nu eindelijk de directe democratie
konden implementeren omdat de schaalproblemen de wereld uit zijn. Het zou nu technisch
kinderspel worden om iedereen ‘op een knopje te laten drukken’ om zijn stem uit te brengen. Het
mag duidelijk zijn dat deze eerste denkers veeleer naief en radicaal waren: directe democratie
betekent immers dat iedereen altijd over alles dient te beslissen. Wie heeft daar zin en tijd voor?
Feit is dat we leven in een representatieve democratie en dat we daar goede redenen voor hebben.
Hij lijkt dan ook zinnig dat als een overheid over e-democratie (na)denkt, ze dit dan doet vanuit
de gedachte dat de representatieve democratie kan worden verrijkt en niet uitgehold, door hier en
daar nieuwe vormen van meer rechtstreekse burgerparticipatie toe te laten. Bij elk project of
experiment dat wordt opgezet, moet echter worden getoetst of het niet in tegenspraak is met de
representatieve democratie zoals wij die kennen.
Davy Janssen
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Problematiek van de verwachtingen
We hebben de problematiek van de verwachtingen al eerder onder de aandacht gebracht en ze is
dan ook een heet hangijzer. Het is een gouden wet van participatiebeleid: als je mensen iets
voorspiegelt, moet je het waarmaken. Meer subtiel speelt ook de dynamiek dat burgers sowieso
verwachten dat met hun mening rekening wordt gehouden als erom wordt gevraagd. Alvorens
eender welk experiment op te starten, moet het dus duidelijk zijn wat het antwoord zal zijn op de
burger die vraagt: ‘maar wat gaan jullie nu allemaal doen met mijn mening? Op welke manier
word ik betrokken bij het beleid?’. Als je dit antwoord niet hebt, kan je beter niets doen. In het egovernment is dezelfde fout vaak gemaakt wanneer lokale besturen bijvoorbeeld een ‘suggestieof klachtenloket’ openen. Wanneer antwoorden te lang op zich laten wachten of er te weinig
capaciteit is, worden burgers zuur en gefrustreerd, en was er beter geen loket.
Groep-individu problematiek
De samenleving bestaat niet enkel uit individuen, maar ook uit georganiseerde groepen van
mensen die samen het maatschappelijk middenveld uitmaken. E-Democratieprojecten zoals
citizen juries en citizen panels waarbij individuen willekeurig uit de populatie worden
geselecteerd en socio-demografische representativiteit wordt nagestreefd, betrekken tot op heden
enkel individuele burgers bij het beleid. Met de resultaten hiervan in de hand kan een overheid
beweren dat de stem van de samenleving nu op een meer directe en nauwkeurige manier wordt
meegenomen in de beleidscyclus. In landen waar het georganiseerde middenveld een belangrijke
rol speelt, zouden overheden deze rol kunnen trachten te verminderen door met e-democratie op
de individuele burger te mikken. Indien dit een politiek objectief is, wordt het bestaande weefsel
van de respresentatieve democratie meer uitgehold dan versterkt.
Authentificatieproblematiek
Het is tot op vandaag nog niet mogelijk om mensen vanop afstand sluitend te identificeren. De
randvoorwaarde hiervoor lijkt een volledige introductie van een elektronische identiteitskaart met
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Hoofdstuk 7: Conclusies en opmerkingen
bijhorende kaartlezers. De implicatie hiervan is dat elk e-democratie-initiatief dus nog te maken
heeft met de onzekere identiteit van de deelnemers. Dit heeft dus weer zijn gevolgen wanneer het
gaat om het baseren van beslissingen op dit soort burgerinput. De stem van burgers die mee
beslissen, dient een gekende stem te zijn.
Problematiek van het consumentisme en de burger als klant
De problematiek van – noem het – het consumentisme komt erop neer dat de ontwikkeling
waarbij de burger als ‘klant’ wordt benaderd, mogelijk nefast kan zijn voor de ontwikkeling van
een rijke e-democratie. Als de overheid de burger ‘klant’ noemt, creëert ze hiermee
verwachtingen die de burger kent van de markt: snelle goede dienstverlening. In een edemocratieopvatting is de burger echter geen klant maar burger, en dient hij te leren wat het
betekent om in een samenleving te leven: afwegingen, debat, compromis. Dit is een moeilijke
oefening die op gespannen voet staat met de ‘instant gratification’ politiek die overheden op het
vlak van dienstverlening voeren. Er zal dus een evenwicht moeten worden gezocht op het vlak
van in de communicatie.
Op welke vraag is eDemocratie het antwoord?
Vaak ligt de nadruk op de technologie en wat die allemaal mogelijk maakt. Het strekt echter tot
aanbeveling om te denken over participatie en niet over technologie. Technologie is slechts een
middel om te realiseren wat de overheid wil realiseren. Het is pas nadat de fundamentele optie is
genomen om burgers bij een bepaalde thematiek te betrekken, dat moet worden gedacht in termen
van kanalen en eventueel technologie.
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Problematiek van de digitale kloof
Het is duidelijk dat de digitale kloof bestaat en dat ze problemen schept voor de representativiteit
van het publiek dat via het Internet bereikbaar is. Net als de authentificiatieproblematiek heeft dit
dus zijn implicaties voor de waarde van de input van burgers en dient ervan te uitgegaan dat niet
de meningen van alle partijen te vatten zijn middels het Internet. Het traditionele
participatiedenken voorziet in verschillende kanalen om moeilijk te bereiken doelgroepen toch te
horen.
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Referenties
REFERENTIES
Bannister, F. (2002). e-Democracy. Small is Beautiful? 2nd European Conference on EGovernment, Oxford, MCIL.
Beierle, T. (2002). Democracy On-Line. An evaluation of the National Dialogue on Public
Involvement in EPA Decisions. Washinton DC, Resources for the Future.
Clift, S. (2003). E-Democracy, E-Governance and Public Net-Work. Available online:
www.publicus.net
Gunn, R. and R. Carlitz (2003). Online Dialogue in a Political Context: The California Master
Plan for Education. Pittsburgh, Information Renaissance.
Hansard Society (2002). Technology: Enhancing Representative Democracy in the UK? London:
Hansard.
Irvin, R. A. and J. Stansbury (2004). "Citizen Participation in Decision Making: Is It Worth the
Effort?" Public Administration Review 64(1).
Macintosh, A. (2003). E-Forum E-Democracy Work Group 4 - Initial Results. Unpublished
report.
Macintosh, A. and A. Whyte (2001). "Analysis and Evaluation of E-Consultations." e-Service
Journal 2(1).
OECD (2003). "Engaging Citizens Online for Better Policy-making."
Schlosberg, D. and J. S. Dryzek (2002). "Digital Democracy. Authentic or Virtual?" Organisation
& Environment 15(3): 332-335.
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Bijlage 1: Resultaten van de E-Forum E-Democracy Work Group
BIJLAGE 1. Resultaten van de E-Forum E-Democracy Work Group.
In 2003 werd ik aangezocht om deel uit te maken van een e-democracy werkgroep, onder voorzitterschap van
Professor Ann Macintosh van het International Tele-Democracy Center in Schotland (Napier University). De
verschillende bijeenkomsten van deze internationale groep onderzoekers en de verdere online contacten resulteerden
in september 2003 in een gezamenlijk rapport. In dit rapport worden, ten eerste, de sleuteldimensies geidentificeerd
vanwaaruit eDemocratieprojecten beschreven en geevalueerd kunnen worden. Er werd gestreefd naar een
internationale consensus en dus naar een standaardisering die een vergelijking van eDemocratieprojecten in een
internationale context mogelijk maakt. Nadat deze dimensies in onderling overleg vastgelegd waren, hebben de
verschillende auteurs van het rapport een in hun ogen uitzonderlijke nationale eDemocratiecase besproken aan de
hand van de sleuteldimensies. Ik opteerde ervoor om het Vlaamse initiatief ‘Kleurrijk Vlaanderen’ in een
internationale context te introduceren. Naast de publicatie van deze case in dit rapport, heb ik ook de gelegenheid
gehad om de Kleurrijk Vlaanderen case te presenteren op de E-Forum Summit, op 16 september 2003 in Valencia. Ik
werd hierbij vergezeld door de projectleider van Kleurrijk Vlaanderen.
In deze bijlage worden dus verschillende eDemocratieprojecten in verschillende landen voorgesteld aan de hand van
een gemeenschappelijke set criteria. Ik geef ze graag mee omdat ze het mogelijk maken om de eigen ervaring
(Kleurrijk Vlaanderen) naast die van andere landen te leggen en hieruit conclusie voor de toekomst te trekken.
E-Forum E-Democracy Work Group 4 - Initial Results
Edited by Ann Macintosh
Contributors to this report:
Professor Prosser, University of Economics and Business Administration Vienna
Davy Janssen, Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium
Ian Johnson and Dave Annison, Office of the E-Envoy, London
Professor Ann Macintosh, ITC, Napier University, Edinburgh
Professor Åke Grönlund, Örebro University, Sweden
Katharina Ahrens, Federal Ministry of the Interior, Germany
Birgitte Paulsen, Det digitale demokrati, Hals Kommune, Denmark
Kirsten Rosted and Birgitte Paulsen, The County of North Jutland, Denmark
Irina Zalisova, BMI Association, Czech Republic
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HOOFDSTUK 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 OBJECTIVES
Our over-arching objective is to provide recommendations about initiatives that need to be
undertaken by government to make e-democracy a successful reality. To achieve this ambitious
objective, the members of the group will work together to identify examples of emerging edemocracy practice in all levels of government and attempt to identify the specific issues and
constraints that hinder e-democracy development. In doing this, gaps in experience and
knowledge will be identified which will provide valuable information as to where future research
funding in e-democracy should be directed.
1.2 EXPECTED RESULTS:
1. An agreed a set of key dimensions by which to characterise e-democracy projects.
2. A set of e-democracy applications across Europe which describe a range of innovative edemocracy practice, described using the above key dimensions.
3. Areas where future research funding in e-democracy should be directed, which will be
achieved by analysing the gaps in experience and knowledge from the above descriptions
of e-democracy practical applications.
HOOFDSTUK 2 KEY DIMENSIONS
In this section we identify the key dimensions with which to characterize e-participation
initiatives. We have identified 13 such key dimensions and we present them here as a basis for
discussion and further elaboration.
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2.1 STAGE IN POLICY-MAKING PROCESS
This key dimension considers when to engage citizens. In order to discuss where ICT is most
appropriate in the policy process, we consider the 5 high-level stages involved on the policy lifecycle. Each of the stages is described below.
1. Agenda setting
establishing the need for a policy or a change in policy and defining what the problem to
be addressed is.
2. Analysis
defining the challenges and opportunities associated with an agenda item more clearly in
order to produce a draft policy document.
3. Creating the policy
ensuring a good workable policy document. This involves a variety of mechanisms which
can include: formal consultation, risk analysis, undertaking pilot studies, and designing
the implementation plan.
4. Implementing the policy
this can involve the development of legislation, regulation, guidance, and a delivery plan.
5. Monitoring the policy
this can involve evaluation and review of the policy in action, research evidence and
views of users. Here there is the possibility to loop back to stage one.
2.2 LEVEL OF PARTICIPATION
This key dimension considers to what level citizens are engaged. The OECD report (2001) argues
that democratic political participation must involve the means to be informed, the mechanisms to
take part in the decision-making and the ability to contribute and influence the policy agenda,
specifically it usefully defines the following terms.
1. Information
a one-way relationship in which government produces and delivers information for use by
citizens.
2. Consultation
a two-way relationship in which citizens provide feedback to government. It is based on
the prior definition of information. Governments define the issues for consultation, set the
questions and manage the process, while citizens are invited to contribute their views and
opinions.
3. Active participation
a relationship based on partnership with government in which citizens actively engage in
defining the process and content of policy-making. It acknowledges equal standing for
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citizens in setting the agenda, although the responsibility for the final decision rests with
government.
These can be considered as three levels of participation that can be used to characterize edemocracy initiatives.
2.3 ACTORS
This key dimension identifies the stakeholders along with their respective roles and the target
audience. Stakeholders in off-line participation initiatives will typically include decision-makers,
champions of the particular policy, various experts related to the policy content. In any eparticipation this grouping will be increased and stakeholders will include a multi-disciplinary
team to support the socio-technical nature of e-participation. In any project description it is
necessary to understand the specific roles the stakeholder played.
The type of target audience is identified, identifying for example, whether it is a geographical
community of interest or a subject-based community of interest.
2.4 RESOURCES
This key dimension describes the financial and other resources required to use ICTs to support
participation. However, the true costs may be difficult to determine because many may be
funded from specific R&D budgets of national governments.
2.5 TECHNOLOGIES USED
This key dimension considers the application of the technology, e.g. e-consultation or e-referenda
as well as the underlying technology, e.g. NLP, speech technology. There is also a need to
identify whether it was an in-house development, collaborative development with external
agencies or commercially available of the shelf software.
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2.6 RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
This key dimensions describes the amount of personal information requested along with any
privacy statement on how it will be used. It is important to appreciate if and how users are made
aware of how the personal information they enter will be used and who will have access to it.
Also, it describes any “conditions of use statement” so that the full rules of engagement can be
appreciated.
2.7 DURATION & SUSTAINABILITY
This key dimension considers for what period of time the initiative lasted. Firstly it describes
whether the e-participation initiative was a one-off pilot, part of a series of experimental studies,
a regular participation exercise or an on-going well-established initiative. Secondly it describes
exactly how long each engagement lasted, in terms of days, weeks or months.
2.8 SCALE
This key dimension describes the general size of the target audience and its geographical spread.
It also describes the level of government and number of government agencies involved.
2.9 ACCESSIBILITY
This key dimension considers how many citizens participated and from where. It identifies both
the channel and the locality, for example whether it is from a cyber café, public library, town hall,
etc., along with any special measures that were put in place to support access by people with
disabilities and to address the digital divide in general.
2.10 PROMOTION
This key dimension identifies the promotional channels that were used to inform the target
audience that the on-line participation exercise was happening. It includes both traditional
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channels, such as press releases and news broadcasts and more interactive “on-line” style
promotion, such as “tell a friend” postcards and clickable logos advertising the participation on
related websites.
2.11 WAS EVALUATION UNDERTAKEN?
This key dimension is concerned with if and how the initiative was evaluated and the results of
that evaluation. There is a clear need to share approaches to evaluation of e-participation and
establish agreed frameworks that will allow us to understand the success or otherwise of any eparticipation project.
2.12 OUTCOMES
This key dimension is concerned with the results from the initiative. It is important that the
successes and failures are documented along with the constraints and benefits of using ICTs.
2.13 CRITICAL FACTORS FOR SUCCESS
This key dimension captures any political, legal, cultural, economic, or technological factor that
stand out so as to make the e-participation a success. This dimension provides a place to give
some background as to why the initiative achieved what it did. However, it can be also used to
record what would be done differently if it were to start again.
HOOFDSTUK 3 EMERGING EXAMPLES OF E-DEMOCRACY PRACTICE
In this section we describe some emerging examples of e-democracy practice using the above key
dimensions. The report currently contains 12 case studies provided by 7 European countries.
3.1 E-VOTING IN AUSTRIA
Type: Internet-based voting system
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Developer: Institute of Information Processing and Information Economics, University of
Economics and Business Administration, Vienna
Funding: Non-commercial research prototype
3.1.1 – 3.1.2 Stage in decision-making and level of engagement
The project develops a system for secure Internet voting using National ID Cards, the first test
election was conducted in May 2003. The aim is to increase voter participation in certain, welldefined segments of the electorate, namely:
•
•
•
Where paper-based absentee voting is already enabled by the Constitution
In groups with a high Internet diffusion rate
Where effective voter turnout is low
The groups identified by these criteria are professional bodies and Chambers (e.g., Chamber of
Commerce and Student Union, both having participation rates below 30%) and Austrians living
abroad (participation rates well below 10%1).
3.1.3 Actors
The first test election was conducted in May 2003 parallel to the Student Union election at the
University of Economics and Business Administration (Wirtschaftsuniversität, WU). The Student
Union is an official body of representatives governed by the Student Union Law, which also sets
the rule for the elections. All parties represented in WU’s Student Parliament supported the test
election.
1
In the General Elections 1999 the Electorate abroad consisted of approx. 380,000. Yet, only 24,000 votes were cast
from abroad (this figure includes Austrian residents, who were temporarily abroad at the time of the elections). Out
of these 24,000 votes 8,000 were invalid, which has been ascribed to complex mail voting procedures.
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3.1.4 Resources
The project was supported by the Anniversary Fund of the City of Vienna and WU internal
research grants. One permanent staff (Prof. Prosser) and three project assistants were involved.
Programming started in 2002, the prototype implementation was finished in early 2003.
3.1.5 – 3.1.6 Technologies and Rules of Engagement
The algorithm, upon which the system is based, was designed by Prof. Alexander Prosser. Since
the algorithm was published, it is open to the discussion of the scientific community. The
prototype is a Web-based application implemented in Java 1.4; the server side is implemented in
php scripts and mySQL database.
The system implements a two-stage voting protocol:
•
•
Registration: Using their National ID Card voters submit a digitally signed application for
e-voting; once the registration server is able to identify the voter and to authenticate the
signature, a blindly signed election token is issued, which is stored on the National ID
Card. The voter is struck off the conventional voter registry ensuring a person can vote
but once. Due to the blind signature the election token cannot be traced back to the voter.
On Election Day, the token is the only credential supplied by the voter. Upon checking
the authenticity of the token, the ballot box server issues an electronic ballot sheet, which
is then filled in by the voter. The ballot sheet is encrypted with keys issued by the election
committee (representatives of the candidate parties) and inextricably linked to the token.
Upon receiving the token and the encoded ballot sheet, the ballot box server again checks
the authenticity of the token and whether it has already been lodged. If the token is valid,
the encrypted ballot sheet is stored.
After the election closed, the list of ballot sheets is published and thereby its state publicly
documented at a stage when it is still encrypted and hence untamperable. Then the members of
the election committee supply their hitherto secret keys to open the ballot sheets and make them
accessible; also these keys are published.
The system uses the National ID Card in two ways:
•
•
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As a means of identification and to authenticate the application for issuing an electronic
election token.
To store the election token.
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However, the National ID Card has to fulfil two criteria:
•
•
Pin-protected files have to be written by standard card readers/writers; this is to protect
the election token stored on the card from unauthorised access. This property is currently
fulfilled by all commercial implementations of the Austrian National ID Card.
All information identifying the cardholder has to be protected from unauthorised access as
well; this is to prevent the ballot box server that reads the tokens from the card to access
the personal information. Only recently, was this property included in the Austrian
National ID Cards specification; commercial implementations can be expected to follow
as soon as the next generation of cards are rolled-out.
3.1.7 – 3.1.8 Duration, Sustainability and Scale
The project originated as a pure research project and it will also be continued as such. However,
it has drawn considerable interest from several organizations in Austria, hence a number of
election projects can be expected to “spin-off” the original project.
3.1.9 Accessibility
980 persons were eligible to participate in the Student Union test election in May 2003. Since
National ID Cards were not sufficiently available, the two roles of the card had to be replaced:
•
•
Students identified themselves using their login account for the University network
An arbitrary Storage Media was used.
Virtually every Internet PC could be used to participate; problems only arose with public Internet
terminals without external storage media. Feedback received indicates that most participants
registered and voted from their homes or PC labs at WU.
3.1.10 Promotion
WU’s Student Union plans to use the system as a real voting media in the next upcoming
elections in 2005, hence the test election received extensive coverage in the Student Union
newsletters. The institute sent a mailing to every eligible student with information and a detailed
user description. An e-mail-based helpdesk was available during the entire test, on the election
days also a hotline was available.
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3.1.11 Evaluation
The fundamental hypotheses of the project are:
•
•
•
E-voting increases voter participation
The distribution of votes among the candidate parties in e-voting is the same as that in
conventional, paper-based voting
It is technically feasible to guarantee the General Voting Principles in Internet voting.
The test election conducted in May 2003 provided a first opportunity to review the hypotheses:
412 out of 980 eligible students registered and 355 cast a vote, which is a participation of 36%.
The voter participation at the real election, which was conducted in parallel only reached 26%.
The distribution of votes among the candidate parties was almost exactly the same in both media.
Hence H1 and H2 were supported. More elections have to follow to provide deeper insight and a
bigger sample.
No fundamental technical problems arose; however, some lessons can be learnt for the future:
•
•
•
Some students lost their election tokens due to unreliable media or forgot the password
(both problems will be solved by the use of National ID Cards).
Public Internet terminals without external storage media cannot be used, hence, the
program logic has to check for the availability of any external storage media at a very
early stage in the process.
The current system uses cryptographic functions offered by Java 1.4. While this Java
version is currently being offered by several browsers, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE)
does not support 1.4 and it seems somewhat doubtful whether future IE versions will
support 1.4. In this test election, students received a CD containing the Java 1.4 run time
environment to be installed if they used their own PC, in addition, all student PCs at WU
had been upgraded to 1.4. However, this procedure seems hardly viable for a broader
audience. The solution will be to replace the cryptographic library functions of 1.4, which
are not available in Java 1.1 (supported by Microsoft IE).
A complete evaluation report of this test election will be available at http://e-voting.at in June
2003.
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3.1.12 Critical Factors for Success
It can be said that an e-voting system will only be acceptable in Austria, if the General Election
Principles, in particular voter anonymity, can be technically guaranteed by the system. A system
relying solely on administrative or organizational measures to protect voter anonymity will
hardly be acceptable. Like any other system processing personal data in Public Administration,
an e-voting system also has to be approved by the Privacy Protection Commission
(Datenschutzrat).
At this stage, an electronic Voter Register does not exist in Austria, however, the migration of the
Central Register from a paper-based to an information system is currently underway – an
electronic Voter Register can be derived from this system.
The National ID Card provides an excellent platform for voter identification and authentication; it
is also a secure storage media. The redesign, which protects personal information stored on the
card will enable its use for secure, anonymous Internet voting.
3.2 COLOURFUL FLANDERS - THINKING TODAY ABOUT THE FLANDERS OF
TOMORROW
The aim of the ‘Kleurrijk Vlaanderen’ project is to stimulate the debate on the future of Flanders
and to involve as many people as possible in this debate. In order to achieve this, the project team
makes use of an extensive website (www.kleurrijkvlaanderen.be) on which the online part of the
debate takes place on web forums. On the website, citizens can also find lots of (links to)
background information concerning the discussion topic under consideration. The site is also
used to announce IRL (In Real Life) events that either initiate or close a certain topical debate.
The Colourful Flanders project team tries to structure the debate through the use of two analytical
frames. First, there is the generic, ongoing, societal debate on the online forums. The framework
for this debate is the Pact van Vilvoorde (Pact of Vilvoorde), a declaration of intentions in which
21 targets for the 21st century are formulated. These targets cover a broad range of themes, and
they are used by the project team to engage citizens in the ongoing debates. Second, there are the
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thematic debates, initiated by the project team for a certain period of time (4 to 6 weeks),
covering the following themes: mobility, work, culture and society, customer-friendly
government, environment, lifelong learning, innovation, care, democracy, Flanders in the world,
spatial/environmental planning, business, and sports. Here it is the thematic classification in 13
subject matters that structures the debate2.
In conclusion, the discussions on the Colourful Flanders website are structured and informed by:
•
•
the 21 targets of the Pact van Vilvoorde > the generic, ongoing online debate
the 14 themes > the online thematic debates, restricted in time, with a real life event at to
initiate and end the debate.
3.2.1 Stage in decision-making
The stage in the decision-making cycle in which the project engages citizens is mainly that of
‘option analysis’. In a preparatory phase of the project, the classification in 13 themes was
developed, and expert groups had established the 21 targets of the Pact van Vilvoorde. The
themes and targets clarify the scope of the debate, and could be seen as the result of the ‘agenda
setting’ phase. Subsequently, when the Colourful Flanders project engages citizens to take part in
the debate, they are being asked to think about the way in which thematic policy (e.g. sports or
environmental planning) or the 21 targets can be realised by 2010/2020. When looking at the
degree of specificity of the targets, it becomes clear that what is expected from citizens is that
they think about different options or alternatives in order to realise the targets that are
presupposed. These are some of the targets:
•
•
•
By 2010, Flanders will be one of the most attractive European regions for the
establishment and development of business activities.
By 2010, traffic safety will be improved and Flanders will have cut back by half its lag
viz-a-viz the current European leaders
By 2010, the increase in the quality of life will make sure that half of the Flemish
population considers itself as a regular participant in the cultural life.
2
There is also a 14th theme called ‘thinking about the future’. This is a project-wide theme in which the information
needed to take part in the discussions is set out. It also deals with the concept and theory of ‘thinking about the
future’.
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The fact that certain themes and targets are presupposed before citizens are involved, implies that
the ‘agenda setting’ phase has to a certain degree already been completed. Citizens are being
invited to think about ways in which certain targets can be realised. Therefore the Colourful
Flanders project can mainly be situated in the ‘option analysis’ phase of the decision cycle. It has
to be noted however, that citizens can also make less structured, open-ended, remarks and can try
to put new issues on the political agenda. Therefore there are, at least formal, opportunities for
citizens to try and influence policy already in the ‘agenda-setting’ phase. Besides, the number of
policy domains covered by the classification in 13 themes and the 21 targets of the Pact van
Vilvoorde practically coincides with Flanders’ jurisdiction, implying that there no real restriction
of subjects in the agenda setting phase. In conclusion, when considering the eConsultation
dichotomy in table 1, the Kleurrijk Vlaanderen project can be classified as an ‘Issue Based
Forum’.
3.2.2 Level of engagement
The Colourful Flanders project can be characterised as a ‘deliberative eConsultation’ initiative. It
is deliberative because the final objective of the project is to stimulate the public debate on policy
issues, and it is a consultation because government is consulting its citizens on ‘policy issues that
have been formulated by policy-makers, interest groups or experts’ (excerpt 1). In the preparatory
phase of the Colourful Flanders project, six ‘expert vision groups’ were established that
formulated the 21 targets of the Pact van Vilvoorde. Next to that, an independent think thank
called Forum 21 was set up. The forum’s objective is to ask pertinent questions that can stimulate
the debate on Flanders’ future. On the political level, input for the Colourful Flanders project
came from the Kleurennota, a vision text from the Flemish government.
3.2.3 Actors
GOVERNMENT
AGENCY
– The agency responsible for the Colourful Flanders project is the
Colourful Flanders project-team. It can be situated in the Department of Coordination from the
administration Kanselarij en Voorlichting. This is a horizontal department: the Colourful
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Flanders project has a coordinating function across the different vertical departments. In terms of
the new organogram of the Ministry of the Flemish Community the project can be situated in the
Diensten van de Minister President (Services of the Minister President).
TYPE
OF TARGET AUDIENCE
- There are two target audiences. First, there is the generic
communication to the broad target audience: the entire population of Flanders (about 6 million
people). Once someone has registered herself on the project website, they become part of the
‘Colourful Flanders Club’ and eMail communication is used to keep people coming to this ‘club’,
so to speak. The communications strategy (concerning the ongoing online debates) for this broad
population is called ‘generic communication’.
The second audience consists of more specific target audiences in the Flemish population. These
can be citizens, civil society organisations, business organisations etc. The communication
strategy for these audiences is tied up with the 13 themes, and takes a project approach. Different
projects (online discussions for an established amount of time, preceded and ended by real life
events) are set up and the Colourful Flanders team targets its communication to individuals and
organisations that have a stake in the theme that is being discussed. This communication strategy
is called ‘subject related communication’.
INTERMEDIARIES - The project team is actually a communications cell: information on the website
is provided by all the departments and political cabinets of the Flemish administration. In this
way, the project team is itself an intermediary between citizens, administration, and the political
level. It plays an active role: in consultation with administrations and cabinets it tries to find
interesting and provocative topics for discussion. When a discussion is finished, it summarizes
citizen’s input and offers this to the chairman of the Flemish parliament. He makes sure the
information is handed over to the parliamentary committee that is most relevant.
CHAMPIONS - Patrick Dewael, minister-president of the Flemish government, is recognised as the
champion of the project. It is said that the original idea of a consultation project was his, and that
he is also responsible for the revitalisation of the project since march 2003. He has also made
sure that his ministers of the Flemish government consider the project as an important one.
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The Colourful Flanders project team consists of:
•
•
•
•
•
1 project manager (university studies)
2 members of staff (university studies)
1 webmaster (IT & graphic skills)
1 editor (university studies)
1 administrative function
The six core employees of the project can make extensive use of knowledge inside and outside
the Flemish administration for all kinds of purposes, such as the organisation of events, the
publications of the project, and also for juridical advice. Inside the administration, different
departments regularly submit their own ideas and question for consideration in the debates.
3.2.4 Resources
TIME
11/07/2000
Start of the Colourful Flanders project.
2001
The expert vision groups > Pact van Vilvoorde (21 targets)
2002-2003
Online discussion with the public
June 2004
End of the project
The so-called 2nd phase of the project is most relevant here: this is the phase in which the online
discussion forums engage citizens in the debate (2002-2003). The total budget for this phase is
2,38 million Euro, of which 1,4 million is used to buy advertisement space.
SOURCE OF FUNDING – Flemish government
3.2.5 Technologies used
An extensive website with a tabulated structure (see fig 1.in the Annex). The site’s homepage
offers tabs to the 13 thematic debates, as well as some fairly specific questions which lead you to
the respective forum discussions. The homepage also has a news section and a links section, as
well as some ‘buttons’ to order government brochures.
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Next to the homepage, the primary section of the site is the forum section, where the different
debates are taking place in the form of an asynchronic thread, allowing people to respond to an
argument at any time, and making sure they can always follow the ‘history’ of a certain debate.
The forum section is broken down in the 13 themes, e.g. environment, lifelong learning,
innovation, democracy, etc. Each thematic page has different subsections, the discussion forum
being the most important one. There are also sections for background information on the theme at
hand, an overview section (with all the questions from the eNewsletters), an events section, a
press section, an archive of the previous debates, and a ‘point of view section’ where position
statements from civil society organisations on the theme at hand are presented.
The website allows for personal registration. When you provide your e-mail address, you can
choose to receive the eNewsletter. This is an e-mail from the Colourful Flanders team, sent
weekly of bi-weekly, which contains about 10 specific questions with links to the project’s
forums on the website. Some of these e-mails are called ‘Flashes’. These are mails with just one
or two messages, inviting you to join a new thematic online debate or announcing some real live
event.
The eNewsletter is designed to engage as many people as possible in the forum debates. It is
subdivided in four or sections. At the end of each section there is a hyperlink to the forum,
leading straight to the discussion to which the question or remark refers. These are the possible
eNewsletter sections:
•
•
•
•
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Focus/Question of the week: A question, formulated by the Colourful Flanders project
team, inspired by a press article, a recent book, recent research or a citizen’s contribution
to the previous discussion forum. The question can also refer to on of the 21 targets of the
Pact van Vilvoorde. The questions are often supported by hyperlinks to additional sources
of information, making sure citizens can adequately inform themselves before making a
contribution to the discussion forum.
Topical: A question or a position statement on topical issues. There is also often a link
with the 21 targets.
Point of View: The point of view of someone who was involved in an earlier discussion
on the forum is picked up and reformulated in the eNewsletter. The project team provides
this question or position statement with some background information, and citizens are
asked to respond.
Dossier: Questions or position statements referring to broader societal themes. For
example, this can be an OESO report saying Belgian people should work longer.
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•
•
Event: announcement of a Real life event, opening or closing a thematical debate on the
website.
Call: the eNewsletter often ends with an open question, inviting citizens the add new
ideas or themes to the debates.
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR END-USERS
No special requirements besides internet access and the necessary skills to use a PC and work on
the internet. It has to be said that the online debates have an offline equivalent: at the beginning
of a thematic debate paper brochures (including a ‘discussion card’) are distributed, giving
citizens the possibility of taking part in the debate by post.
UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGY
• SQL (central Microsoft server with database)
• CMS (contract management system)
• Active Server pages (used for the discussion forums)
The technology is fairly straightforward. It is a mix of commercial off-the-shelve products and
customised products (e.g. the CMS)
3.2.6 Rules of engagement
People can register with on the Colourful Flanders website. The three-step registration procedure
requires the following information:
•
•
•
Step 1.
Step 2.
Step 3.
o Step 3.1.
o Step 3.2.
o Step 3.3.
student…
eMail address
eMail address + password
personal information (name, address obligatory)
personalisation: which of the themes are relevant to you?
in which ‘role’ do you participate? > citizen, civil servant, academic,
The registration procedure, however, is not obligatory: one can also take part in the discussions
anonymous. Besides, one can easily register under a different name. This implies that there is no
authentification policy: you never know if somebody is really who they say they are.
On the discussion forums on each of the subjects, there is a page with discussion ‘rules’ in which
the disclaimer states that:
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•
•
•
the Flemish government rejects liability for information contributed by a third-party.
The information on the website is not necessarily correct
All government organisations are themselves responsible for information they put on the
Colourful Flanders website
3.2.7 Duration and sustainability
LONGER TERM
The Colourful Flanders project is set up as a long term project. The preparatory phase started in
2000, the discussions take place in 2002 and 2003, and the project ends in July 2004.
ONE-OFF PILOT
The Colourful Flanders project was clearly set up as a pilot project, a first experiment in a largescale, long-term eConsultation project. At this time it is not known if the project will get a
permanent character after July 2004.
3.2.8 Scale
Belgium is a federal country. The level of government involved in the Colourful Flanders project
is the Flemish government (regional level government).
Flanders, the largest of the Belgium regions
SIZE OF TARGET AUDIENCE
5.972.781,00 in 2002 (according to the Administration for planning and statistics)
3.2.9 Accessibility
The moment of counting: 28/50/2003 > all the contributions since the start of the project are still
available (active or in the archive section) on the site. The figure below gives the following
information:
•
•
•
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Theme: the debates are organised around the 13 themes.
Amount of ‘Point of View’ contributions. These are longer contributions to the
discussion, often submitted by civil society organisations or academics.
Amount of Forums dedicated to the theme under consideration.
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•
Amount of total contributions to the total of forums dedicated to the theme under
consideration.
The project is a web-based one, so people can only access it via the internet.
3.2.10 Promotion
The online debates, introduced in 2002, were accompanied by an integrated promotion strategy
(offline and online). Offline: adverts in magazines and papers. Online: links and banners on other
government sites, esp. the Flemish portal. Adverts are meant to stimulate citizens to join the
debates and are therefore often presented in the form of specific questions such as:
•
•
Are you prepared to pay more for biological products?
Does Flanders invest to much of its space in our economy?
3.2.11 Evaluation
An evaluation of the Colourful Flanders project as a deliberative project has not yet been
undertaken. There has been a SWOT analyses of the operationality of the project in 2002, which
lead to some internal communicative changes but kept the rest of the project unchanged.
3.2.12 Outcomes
The project team itself, considers as an important structural outcome the fact that a discussion
forum has been created that offers citizens an opportunity to ventilate their opinions on policy
issues.
3.2.13 Critical factors for success
The further success of the project hinges on good relations between different partners: the
Colourful Flanders project-team, the Flemish administration, the political leaders and their
officers/advisors (called ‘kabinetten’). These relations have to stay intact as they are now. A
danger may be that one of the partners tries to use the Colourful Flanders project to promote there
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current policy plans. The discussion of the future of Flanders can, however, not be about the
political problems of the day. That would be a perverse use of a long term discussion forum.
Continuous efforts have to be make to ensure that the Colourful Flanders project gets a positive
evaluation, especially in the media. Journalists are quit often not impressed by user take-up
figures and assume too easily that thousands of people will be involved in the discussions.
3.3 ELECTRONIC VOTING PILOTS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS, UK
The way in which people in the United Kingdom cast their vote in democratic elections has
changed very little for more than a century. Voting procedures are more or less the same as they
were before the advent of universal suffrage, yet with the introduction of technology every other
part of daily life has changed out of all recognition. Electronic transactions are now part of
people’s everyday lives. The UK Government is leading the way with a national programme of
electronic voting pilots enabling people to choose different ways in which to cast their vote.
These pilots will prepare the ground for establishing e-enabled elections services generally,
culminating in an enabled General Election sometime after 2006.
The vision is one of a phased move to multi-channel elections in which voters are offered a range
of means by which to cast their vote and choose the mechanism that most suits them. In the May
2003 electronic voting pilots the use of technology was more widespread than in previous years,
with 17 schemes offering voters the chance to cast a vote electronically through a variety of
channels. Moreover, each scheme covered a whole local authority area, whereas previous pilots
in 2002 had been on a smaller scale involving one or two wards.
All eligible voters within the participating local authorities were able to choose whether to vote
for a local government representative electronically or by traditional means.
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3.3.3 Actors
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), Local Authority electoral administrators and a
number of suppliers were involved in delivering the processes which allowed the e-voting pilots
to take place.
Local Authorities involved ranged from urban Metropolitan areas such as Sheffield and
Newcastle to new towns such as Telford & Wrekin and the rural areas of Copeland. Several of
the authorities were involved in the pilots programme for the second or even third time.
Overall, the e-enabled elections operated successfully with over 160,000 voters casting their vote
by electronic means.
3.3.4 Resources
The UK Government has committed £30m over three years to e-voting pilot schemes in local
elections, of which over £18M was spent last year. These funds are managed by ODPM, who
also established a central framework of suppliers capable of delivering services for pilots from
2003 up to the 2005 local elections. Suppliers involved in the May 2003 electronic voting pilots
were:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Athena
BT
DRS
Indra
Opt2Vote
Powervote
Strand
Unisys
Central to the procurement exercise was a Statement of Requirement document containing 61
separate requirements. These requirements covered a variety of areas including functional,
security, project management, evaluation and manageability requirements.
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A range of channels were used which offered the elector a choice as to how the cast their vote;
the internet, telephone, text message, digital television and kiosks located in traditional polling
stations or in public locations.
Voters using the Internet needed to enter credentials which had been supplied with their polling
card. In some cases two mailings were used to deliver the voter credentials. The digital television
channel operated in a similar fashion to internet voting except that the voter needed to navigate a
menu system to access the e-voting service.
Touchtone telephones could be used to cast a vote with voters following voice prompt
instructions after dialling a free phone telephone number. Voting by text message was not free
and the subscriber was charged at their usual rate to send a single message containing their vote.
Kiosks were used in different ways including being available at the traditional polling station and
at community locations such as libraries and supermarkets.
The pilots also made use of the emerging Election Markup Language (EML) to act as the ‘glue’
between the channel and infrastructure suppliers. EML is a specification for the structured
interchange of data among hardware, software, and service vendors who provide election and
voter services.
Overall management of the pilot programme rests with ODPM but suppliers and local authority
electoral administrators, as is right, were major players in the pilot programme. All suppliers had
signed up to the Statement of Requirement document and electoral administrators ensured that
electoral procedures were fully complied with.
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The electronic voting schemes were more wide spread than previous years. Approximately 6.4
million people in the pilot areas were eligible to vote in the May 2003 local government
elections. Future pilots are planned and the UK Government has committed £30m over three
years to fund such pilots.
3.3.8 Scale
The pilots in 2003 involved a broad range of technologies, but on a much larger scale than 2002.
Fourteen pilots featured remote electronic voting; three pilots featured electronic voting through
kiosks in polling stations and a further three pilots featured electronic counting of paper ballots.
Two pilots offered for the first time, interactive digital television. Future pilots will need to
address the issue of scalability if they are to help move towards an e-enabled national General
Election.
3.3.9 Accessibility
The Electoral Commission engaged Scope, the national disability charity, to conduct a disability
access audit of the 2003 electronic pilot schemes. Scope undertook a mix of user evaluation,
focus groups and technical access evaluations on all the electronic pilots. Scope’s overall
assessment was that access to electronic voting systems would benefit from the use of consistent
terminology across systems, and standardisation of some elements such as the length of voter
identification codes.
3.3.10 Promotion
In general, there was substantial promotion by the local authorities, although this did vary among
the pilots. Some e-pilots benefited from extra funding for promotion from ODPM although the
general policy was that promotion was the responsibility of the local authorities and their
suppliers.
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3.3.11 Evaluation
On 31st July 2003, the Electoral Commission published The shape of elections to come, an
evaluation of the 2003 programme of voting pilots.
This report can be found at http://www.electoralcommission.gov.uk/about-us/may2003pilots.cfm
3.3.12 Outcomes
The Electoral Commission have made a number of recommendations in their evaluation of the
pilots and the UK Government will respond to these in due course. Further pilots are proposed to
prepare the ground towards an e-enabled General Election sometime after 2006.
3.3.13 Critical success factors
Establishing and maintaining public confidence in the security and privacy of the electoral system
appears to be fundamental in achieving legitimacy for e-voting.
3.4 BRENT – YOUR 24 HOUR COUNCIL, UK
The London Borough of Brent website, http://www.brent.gov.uk/, allows online transactions which
include,
•
•
•
•
•
Receipt of e-mail alerts about consultations, developments or events,
Information about council representatives and allows contact by e-mail,
Tracking of planning and licence applications in the Borough,
Payment for services online, and
Submission online of council forms, applications, enquiries and complaints.
The website allows feedback, complaints and enquiries on council decisions.
The Local Democracy Page includes,
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Forums in which people can contribute to the decision making process in the Borough,
Reports and minutes of Council meetings
The Councils Forward Plan,
An interactive map of Brent indicating Wards,
Information on the calendar of Council Committee meetings
Information on voting and registration,
A guide to democracy and representation.
Citizens are able to monitor council decisions, contact local representatives by e mail and submit
responses to local consultations, including the regeneration of the area around the historic
Wembley Stadium.
3.4.3 Actors
This is local government website which supplies information and interacts with residents in the
London Borough of Brent.
3.4.4 Resources
There is a small Internet team within the local authority but context management of the website
has been delegated to each of the service areas.
3.4.5 Technologies
The website includes,
•
•
•
•
online discussion forums,
a secure transaction process using SSL and encryption,
an extranet containing secure areas, and
a translation facility.
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The use of personal information is covered in the websites privacy statement and secure
transactions are conducted using SSL and encryption.
3.4.7 Duration & sustainability
Brent was one of the first UK local authorities to set up a council website in January 1995 and
was awarded Website of the Year by the LGA in 1999. Website statistics for April 2003 show an
average of 82,822 hits per day.
The Council's community information system, BRAIN, won the LGA's Modernising Government
1999 award and IPR Best use of E-Media 2002. It provides a central reference facility for all
community and voluntary groups in Brent and includes an artists gallery and a mapping system.
Authorised groups are given a password and can update their own pages over the Internet.
3.4.8 Scale
The London Borough of Brent covers an area of 4,421 hectares and has a population of 263,464
(census 2001), of which 198,712 are between 16 and 74.
3.4.9 Promotion
Numerous links to other websites which reciprocate.
3.4.10 Evaluation
IPR Best use of E-Media 2002 – BRAIN website
2002 National Audit Survey judged Brent as amongst best local authority sites (joint second).
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3.4.11 Outcomes
Local residents can monitor what’s going on and contribute to activity in their area and the local
authority can gauge public opinion on a number of issues.
Responsiveness of local authority to residents taking part in forums or e-mails to representatives.
Keeping content topical.
3.5 E-PETITIONING IN SCOTLAND, UK
The Scottish Parliament wished to better support the electronic participation agenda of the
Parliament. Therefore they established an e-petitioning system to fit into the normal business of
the Public Petitions Committee of the Parliament. The Pubic Petitions Committee website is at
www.scottish.parliament.uk/petitions . The e-petitioner tool has the functionality to create petitions;
to view/sign petitions; to add background information, to join an integrated discussion forum; and
to submit petitions.
The system can be used at most stages in the policy-life cycle. To date it has been used to amend
new policy that was being debated by the Parliament and to amend existing policy to better cater
for citizens needs.
This initiative addresses the e-empowerment level of citizen participation as it uses an electronic
petitioning system to petition the Scottish Parliament.
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3.5.3 Actors
There are 2 sets of stakeholders for the e-petitioner system. The first set comprises the MSPs
(elected members of the Scottish Parliament) and the parliamentary officials who are responsible
for the petitioning participation agenda of the Parliament. The second set of stakeholders are the
various CSOs and individuals who wish to petition the parliament and influence the political
agenda - a number of such stakeholders have used of the system to electronically petition the
Parliament.
3.5.4 Resources
The system was initially designed and developed by Napier University and BT Scotland in 1999.
From March 2000 to 2003, the Public Petitions Committee accepted e-petitions from the system
on a trial basis. In November 2002 representatives from the Public Petitions Committee, the web
development group of the Parliament and the University re-designed the system to ensure it met
with the current working practices of the Parliament. It now forms part of the Scottish Parliament
web pages. Both Napier University and BT invested considerable resource in designing and
developing the original e-petitioning tool.
The e-petitioner tool has functionality to view a petition text online; read additional information
on the petition issue online; those deciding to support the petition can add their name and address
to the petition online; all citizens can join an integrated online discussion forum and add
comments for or against each e-petition.
To be able to quickly demonstrate and try out the e-petitioner functionality the first version of the
system was developed using forms and CGI scripts. It was available from both Explorer and
Netscape browsers. Once e-petitioner was accepted for trial use by the Scottish Parliament, the
system was updated to make it more robust and to reflect feedback from users and the Parliament.
The current version of e-petitioner is hosted on the University’s Windows NT Server and uses
Active Server Pages and an SQL Server database.
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As the system is collecting names and addresses, there is a very clear privacy statement which is
in line with the practices of the Parliament. This states: “Note: Your details will be held in
computer readable form to allow the principal petitioner to administer and submit the petition you
have signed. Only your name and country will be visible from this site. Your full name and
address will be submitted to the Public Petitions Committee.”
Terms and conditions of use are also clearly displayed, these are: “Any users of this website who
wish to make a comment are requested not to use offensive or abusive language, and not to make
advertising statements or include text of a disruptive nature. The providers of this system reserve
the right to remove comments, but accept no liability for the comments posted to these web
pages.”
In December 1999 the Scottish Parliament agreed to allow an electronic petition from the epetitioner system on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature to be the first electronic
petition to collect names and addresses electronically. This was a special arrangement between
the University and the Public Petitions Committee of the Parliament, and allowed both parties to
start to evaluate the use and civic impact of electronic petitioning in Scotland. Following the
initial success of e-Petitioner, the Public Petitions Committee suggested a more thorough
integration of e-petitioner with their pages on the Parliament's website. In Spring 2003, epetitioner was 're-branded' to provide a seamless integration between the tool and the Scottish
Parliament website.
3.5.8 Scale
This is at the Scottish national level as it is the Scottish Parliament as the devolved parliament for
Scotland within the UK. It addresses the devolved issues effecting the population of Scotland of
just over 5 million people spread over just under 8million hectares of land.
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3.5.9 Accessibility
Accessibility is in line with recommendations made by the Parliament. The e-petitioner system is
accessed from the top-level pages of the Public Petitions Committee of the Parliament website.
3.5.10 Promotion
The system is directly promoted from the Scottish Parliament web pages. Also each e-petition
has attached to it the facility to “tell a friend” through an e-postcard.
3.5.11 Evaluation
Evaluation was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and began in October 2000 and
lasted 6 months until the end of March 2001. The effectiveness of e-petitioner was measured
through observations of users, semi-focused interviews with Parliamentary committee members
and through an online questionnaire. A further evaluation of the new system is underway.
3.5.12 Outcomes
The e-petitioning system is providing an online voice for communities of interest. A petition can
collect a varied number of signatures but all are considered by the Public Petitions Committee.
The “hottest” petition topics collect not only names and addresses but also generate considerable
discussion in the integrated online discussion forum with issues raised both for and against the
petition topic.
3.5.13 Critical success factors
The elected member of parliament (MSP), who was the Convener of the Public Petitions
Committee, and the Clerk to the Committee have been very supportive and enthusiastic about e-
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petitions. Management procedures are in place to incorporate the submission of e-petitions into
the normal workflow of the Committee.
3.6 CONSULTATION IN KALIX, SWEDEN
Kalix (www.kalix.se) is a town of about 18 000 inhabitants in Sweden. The town won a national
award as “e-democracy town of the year” in 2001, very much because of their “Consultations”,
two of which have so far been conducted. The first concerned the remodelling of the town centre.
It rendered a lot of attention in the press, in Sweden and internationally. A second consultation
dealt with tax levels, and it is seen as an annual event. A “Consultation” includes a full policy
cycle: agenda setting, policy making and decision, and technologies used include tools for all the
kinds of communication involved.
The initiative addresses both methods for increasing citizen engagement and remodelling of
political procedures so as to better cater for citizen involvement. Citizen participation is solicited
by several means, not only electronic, and citizen input has had real influence over local political
decision making.
The consultation model has been used at the agenda-setting stage, and at the decision-making
stage (advisory, as Swedish law allows only advisory referendums).
3.6.3 Actors
Initiator, and project owner is the political organization in the Town Hall. High-level political
leaders championed the project by personal engagement, and guaranteed that citizen input was
taken into proper consideration in the ensuing professional political process. Technical main actor
was a consultant company who has e-consultations as their main product. Public interest and
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participation increased considerably compared to the experiences from using traditional political
processes.
3.6.4 Resources
The Consultation uses a mix of Internet technologies, adapted and integrated by Votia
Empowerment Inc. (Votia.com). The investment is considerable but made over several projects.
All e-processes of a consultation are run by Votia. On the organizational side, the consultation is
integrated in the normal operations of Town Hall. The cost for one Kalix-size consultation is
estimated to $100 000, including both technology and work. As the technical system is owned by
the consultant company, it has been used in several consultations in other organisations.
Technologies include web pages, mail chat, e-voting and statistics modules. The technologies are
designed to meet the needs of all the communication processes involved in a Consultation: Web
pages for general information to the public about rules and procedures for the consultation and
for specific information about the project/issues to be debated, e-mail for questions and
comments, chat for interactive discussions, e-voting for casting votes, and statistics modules for
assessing participation. The latter were restricted due to privacy laws. There are parallel physical
procedures for those not able of willing to participate electronically.
The consultation is integrated in the political system and obeys the laws of privacy, which means,
for instance, that background demographic data can not be collected for evaluations of
participation. Different sets of citizens have been consulted at different times. One of the
consultations included also children from the age of 12.
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The context of the Consultations includes a series of efforts to renew town politics.
Starting 1998, the work in the Town Hall has been changed by the implementation of a network
organization which means people in different departments working with similar issues are
cooperating. The thrust is to make the political will able to influence work in the Town Hall at an
earlier stage. Hence, when the first Consultation took place it was one ingredient in a broad
programme for renewal of work procedures and making them more open to the public. The
history since shows great commitment to pursue the idea.
In terms of actor-networks, the Kalix story so far shows a quick and quite dramatic expansion. It
started as a project of the new political majority, largely driven by one party, the Greens, and in
particular by one person, the party leader. Early on, the administrative staff was enrolled by
means of changed procedures in the City Hall. As the first Consultation was successful in terms
of turnout, possible opposition by the political minority, and indeed by at least one party within
the majority coalition, was neutralized – there was really no way they could oppose something
that was generally lauded both within and outside of Kalix. By acting rapidly on the outcome of
Consultation 1, popular credibility was won. Not only did enquiries show that even those who did
not participate thought it was a good idea, also the turnout in Consultation 2 was dramatically
increased. This means the initiators today have a local network that can be considered very strong
as it not only has a lot of supporters, but also has neutralized the potential opposition.
3.6.8 Scale
This is a full-scale local government effort. The system reaches all inhabitants of Kalix, some
20.000 people, and could technically be scaled.
3.6.9 Accessibility
Accessibility is in line with Swedish government recommendations for web sites, as well as
general Internet usability best practice. The consultation is reached from the front page of the
City web. Information pages are open to anybody. Participation in discussions and voting is
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regulated by a password distributed by physical mail to authorised participants (different sets in
different consultations depending on issues to be discussed).
The system is accessible from any standard web browser, and requires no installation of help
systems on the client side.
3.6.10 Promotion
The system is promoted from the Kalix main web page. Also between Consultations there is
information about past and coming ones, including evaluation reports, in a dedicated
Consultations section of the city web. During consultations there has been ample coverage by the
local press.
3.6.11 Evaluation
The Consultations have been evaluated in several ways. 120 citizens were interviewed by Votia
Empowerment after the first consultation. Incoming comments have been analysed by Market
Watch Scandinavia. There are at least 5 student theses from 4 Swedish universities. The Kalix
consultation is also analysed in at least 4 academic publications, by Swedish and US researchers.
3.6.12 –3.6.13 Outcomes and Critical success factors
Participation has been great in comparison to history. Consultation no 1, on city planning,
gathered 7 % participation to be compared with the normal 10 people. Consultation no 2 achieved
a turnout of 51 %, which is more than in EU elections. Commitment among local politicians is
high, and Town Hall procedures have been remodelled to include consultations. Most important
for success are no doubt two things: personal commitment by the Municipal Commissioner and a
well working technical system provided by a consultant. It is clear that the city itself could not
have handled the technology in such a professional way.
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3.7 BOLLNÄS “COMMUNITY NETWORK”, SWEDEN
Bollnäs is a town of some 25 000 inhabitants in central Sweden. They have implemented what in
design is like a community network, but one that is organised and run by the City and with the
Municipal Commissioners and their politics at the centre. The context of Bollnäs’ e-democracy
activities contains a number of innovations in the democratic procedures. The inhabitants can
make written proposals (electronically or physically) to the Town Council, the Executive Board,
and to all City Committees. Also, the meetings of the Council, the Board, and the Committees are
open to the public. Citizens can email directly to the two municipal commissioners, with a
guaranteed answer. On the web site, there is “the Dialogue”, an open forum, running since 1998,
containing discussions in several pre-defined categories. Meetings of the City Council are video
broadcasted live on the web. Viewers can send questions via email during the break halfway
through the meeting, which are answered after the break. In the following we concentrate on the
electronic discussions, as they are the most interactive activity.
The initiative addresses both enhancing citizen engagement and adjusting political procedures so
as to better cater for citizen involvement. Citizen participation is solicited by several means, not
only electronic, and citizen input has had real influence over local political decision making.
The electronic discussions are used on an on-going basis at the agenda-setting stage, as are the
Citizen Proposals. The electronic discussions are also used at the monitoring stage, as
questioning of implemented policy is frequent. The broadcasted and the partly e-interactive City
Council meetings are obviously at the decision-making stage.
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3.7.3 Actors
Initiator, and project owner is the political organization in the Town Hall. High-level political
leaders champion the project by personal engagement and a great level of participation in the
electronic discussions, and guarantee that results are taken into proper consideration in the formal
political process. Partly marginalized are the party organisations, which normally play the most
important role in Swedish politics. City civil servants play an important role as many discussions
concern details of city services.
3.7.4 Resources
The Electronic discussion forums use simple mailing list technology, set up and maintained by
the City. The City Council broadcasting uses streaming technology in a cooperation with Telia
(formerly Swedish Telecom).
Technologies include web pages, e-mail, and video broadcasting. The democratically innovative
focus
is
on
the
mail
system
used
for
open
discussions
(http://dialogen.kommun.bollnas.se/wwwdialog/admin.nsf) and for the e-interactivity in the City
Hall meetings. All operations are conceived and run by the municipality itself, both the technical
system and the processes in which they are used, as it has been considered important to develop
knowledge in-house.
The “Dialogue” is open to anybody. There is no check that you live in Bollnäs or have any
relation to it. However, there is a registration requiring name, telephone number and email
address. Registration is done online by the user herself and checked only later. Also, postings are
monitored for decency, and abuse results in the account being closed. Rules are not stated up
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front, but available on request. Normal social rules for mailing lists are followed and are assumed
to be known by users.
The Dialogue has been ongoing at a stable level of activity since 1998. Discussions attract up to a
couple of hundreds of citizens, but usually take the form of statements, questions and answers
rather than deliberative debate. There have been attempts to increase the commitment level on
part of the citizens by having more structured discussions ending by voting or polling, but this
has so far not happened.
3.7.8 Scale
This is a full-scale local government effort. The system reaches all inhabitants of Bollnäs. It
could technically be scaled, but the forms for discussions can not easily using the current lowtech media.
3.7.9 Accessibility
Accessibility is open and discussion style follows Internet normal practice. This assumes some
familiarity with this on part of the citizens. Connectivity in Bollnäs is high. Participation in
discussions is regulated by a password, but registration is made online by the user herself,
checked afterwards, and only questioned if the list is abused.
3.7.10 Promotion
The system is promoted from the Bollnäs main web page. There is a dedicated Dialogue section
of the city web.
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3.7.11 Evaluation
The Dialogue has been evaluated in several ways by independent academic studies. The contents
of the discussions have been analysed, as has the functioning of it in a political perspective.
3.7.12 – 3.7.13 Outcomes and Critical success factors
Participation has been good in comparison to traditional means for public participation, but not
huge. At most a few hundred people have made postings on an issue. Commitment among local
politicians is high, and Town Hall procedures have been adjusted to include the Dialogue as a
standard means of communication. Most important for success is no doubt the personal
commitment and the frequent and qualitative participation by the two Municipal Commissioners.
One inhibiting factor for increasing quality of discussions is the simple technology used.
3.8 NORRMALM “INSIGHT” TOOL, SWEDEN
Norrmalm is a district with some 60 000 inhabitants within the City of Stockholm. The district
has a comparatively long history of e-democracy trials, starting 1999, including some
“consultations” using web technologies, and procedures for handling citizen proposals. Here we
focus on a self-developed tool for helping citizens keeping in touch with the local political life.
The tool, named Insight (Swedish: Insyn) cad be described as a software agent monitoring
documents produced by the district administration and notifying the citizen on documents and
events of interest based on keywords and topics chosen by the citizen.
The initiative addresses both remodelling of political procedures so as to better cater for citizen
involvement and citizen engagement. Citizen participation is solicited by several means. The
Insight tool promotes awareness, there are recurrent discussions on selected topics on the web,
and polls are held 2-3 times per year.
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The Insight tool is used at the agenda-setting stage, as are the Citizen Proposals. The polls are
obviously at the decision-making stage.
3.8.3 Actors
Initiator, and system owner is the political organization in the District Hall. High-level political
leaders championed the project by personal engagement, and guaranteed citizen input were taken
into proper consideration in the formal political process. City civil servants play an important role
as many discussions concern details of city services.
3.8.4 Resources
The Insight agent was developed by people working in the administration, but as a private effort.
The tool has since become used in other Stockholm districts.
Technologies include web pages, e-mail, and the Insight tool. All operations are run by the
municipality itself, both the technical system and the processes in which they are used.
The system is open to anybody. There is no check that you live in Norrmalm or have any relation
to the district. However, there is a registration requiring name, telephone number and email
address. Rules are not stated up front at registration, but available on request.
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The Insight tool was installed in 2002. The first consultation was held in 1999. Both are now
ongoing on a routine basis.
3.8.8 Scale
This is a full-scale local government effort. The system reaches all inhabitants of Norrmalm. It
could technically be scaled.
3.8.9 Accessibility
Accessibility is open and discussion style follows Internet normal practice. This assumes some
familiarity with this on part of the citizens. Connectivity in Norrmalm is high. Participation is
regulated by a password, but registration is made online by the user herself and only questioned
when the list is abused.
3.8.10 Promotion
The system is promoted from the Norrmalm main web page. There is a dedicated “Insight”
section of the district web.
3.8.11 Evaluation
The Insight tool has not yet been evaluated by external evaluators.
3.8.12 – 3.8.13 Outcomes and Critical success factors
Participation in consultations has been good according to comparisons with traditional means for
public participation, but not huge. Critical success factor have been the local district
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commissioner, local technological skill and innovation, and the City of Stockholm e-democracy
efforts inviting the districts to innovate in this domain.
3.9 SAGA – STANDARDS AND ARCHITECTURES FOR EGOVERNMENT
APPLICATIONS, GERMANY
SAGA is a document which presents standards, processes, methods and products of state-of-theart IT development for eGovernment applications in a concise form. It is developed and
constantly updated with the help of IT experts, who meet on a regular basis in the SAGA Online
Forum. The website is www.kbst.bund.de/saga.
The SAGA Online Forum is only one example of online forums in the German Federal
Administration.
3.9.1 Stages in the Policy-Making Process
The development and update of the SAGA document involves several stages in the policymaking process:
Agenda Setting and Analysis: After the agenda was set by the Federal Government with the
eGovernment initiative BundOnline 2005 and its implementation plan in 2001, the SAGA
working group started to analyse the agenda items and organised the online forum in May 2002.
Creating the policy: To ensure a good workable document, the involved IT experts in the forum
now meet on a regular basis to take stock of existing standards and constantly update the
document.
Implementing the policy: The results of the forum are published in follow-up versions. These
versions serve as a recommended basis of technological procedures for eGovernment in the
federal administration.
Monitoring the policy: The versions are constantly updated. This involves reviews of the
standards in action, research evidence, the integration of newly developed standards and views of
experts as well as other users.
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3.9.2 Level of engagement/participation
Information, consultation and active participation are the key targets of the SAGA Online Forum.
The IT experts share a wide range of information, prepared by the SAGA working group. The
working group consults the experts, moderates the forum and writes up the results. The IT
experts are actively involved with their comments and expertise in developing the document.
There is also an opportunity for users of the standards as well as interested citizens to comment
on the topic.
Actors
The forum was initially designed and developed by:
KBSt (Koordinierungs- und Beratungsstelle der Bundesregierung für Informationstechnik in der
Bundesverwaltung im Bundesministerium des Innern/Federal Government Co-ordination and
Advisory Agency for IT in the Federal Administration) – with SAGA working group
BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik/Federal Office for Information
Security)
Init AG (internet agency)
Booz, Allen & Hamilton (consultancy)
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (scientific institute)
The target participants are IT experts. They are mostly known to the working group in advance
and are directly invited to participate. Furthermore, users from the federal administration and
interested citizens are invited to comment.
3.9.3 Resources
The online forum is funded by the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Resources involve costs for
staff, technical equipment, budget for promotional measures and publishing.
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3.9.4 Technologies
The SAGA online-forum technology was developed collaboratively by the working group and an
external internet agency, in consultation with governmental and scientific bodies and a
consultancy company.
There is a set of standard rules for every participant. Besides, the IT-experts need to register in
advance.
The working group was founded in spring 2002, after the Federal Government launched the
eGovernment initiative BundOnline 2005 in September 2000 and its first implementation plan in
2001.
The SAGA Forum has been online since May 2002.
Version 1.1 is the up-to-date released publication of SAGA and dates from February 2003, after a
pre-running version 0.9 was published and subject to intense discussion in June 2002.
SAGA is updated at regular intervals, amended to reflect the latest developments and results.
3.9.7 – 3.9.8 Scale and Accessibility
The SAGA experts are situated in different parts of Germany and meet online on a regular basis.
Experts, users from the federal administration as well as interested citizens have access to the
same website and get specific information and the chance to post their comments. Users and
interested citizens are, however, not part of the registered expert online forum. Nevertheless, their
comments and questions are well cared for and included in the results.
More than 150 comments were processed after the publishing of version 0.9 and around 95 of
these comments resulted in amendments to the document, published as version 1.1.
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3.9.9 Promotion
SAGA is promoted via brochures, internet and events. It is included in speeches, interviews and
other promotional articles of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The different versions are
spread via specific internal channels within the federal administration, as well as publicly on the
internet.
3.9.10 Evaluation
There is a constant process of reviewing and updating SAGA in accordance with new
technological developments.
Additionally the project group “Internet and Democracy” at the Federal Ministry of the Interior
has written an evaluation report on online-forums in the federal administration in general, where
the SAGA Forum is only one example. Alongside the evaluation report, there were guidelines
developed for the future organisation of online forums to involve not only experts, but a far
greater range of citizens. Website: www.kbst.bund.de (Schriftenreihe der KBSt, Band 58, Juni
2003).
3.9.11 Outcome
The evaluation report shows that organizers of online-forums are highly satisfied with the results
and the Federal Ministry of the Interior plans to promote online-forums as a standard tool in the
policy-making process.
There are five success factors, identified by the evaluation report – in accordance with further
scientific reports and data:
Goals: Setting specific goals not only determines which audience to target at what point in the
decision-making process; it serves as the cornerstone on which the forum’s overall structure rests.
An online forum intended to gain expert feedback in formulating a decision will need to fulfil
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other requirements than a forum designed to inform and solicit comments from the general
public.
Preparation: While it should go without saying that adequate preparation is essential,
preparation is especially important when it comes to direct contact with the public. The sooner
the forum’s specific goals have been defined, the sooner one can begin identifying measures to
reach potential participants. Moderation and provision of appropriate information materials can
be planned well in advance; the same is true for the technical design. The various functions
should also be tested ahead of time and adjusted as needed to ensure that everything runs
smoothly.
Moderation: The results of our evaluation constantly stressed the importance of moderation in
ensuring the usefulness of discussion contributions. Consistent participation, targeted discussion
and a rigorous presentation of responses and results can only be achieved with the help of reliable
and knowledgeable moderators. Results prepared in this way can be integrated more effectively
into the political decision-making process.
Technology: Online forums are not computer games. They make new forms of discussion
possible, but they are not a technological end in themselves. The software should allow
everything to run smoothly. User-friendliness for participants and organisers should have a high
priority – for example, forum pages that can be navigated quickly and easily.
Integration of results: Online forums make sense only if participants’ contributions are
integrated into the decision-making process. Online forums that take this into account and clearly
demonstrate how forum results will be integrated enjoy active participation by highly motivated,
informed citizens who are in contact with policy-makers and provide valuable input for the
decision-making process.
3.10 DIGITAL DEMOCRACY IN HALS MUNICIPALITY, DENMARK
For a period of two years Hals Municipality launches various ICT experiments with the objective
of developing and renewing the local democratic process.
Purpose:
•
•
to increase citizen participation in the local democracy
to develop the ICT-qualifications of the citizens.
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•
•
to improve the political dialogue between citizens, politicians and the local
administration.
to gather knowledge about the potentials and limitations of ICT in terms
of democratic participation and governance
The Town Council of Hals Municipality strengthen the processes of communication between
citizens and local authorities through digital media on several stages in the decision-making
process:
Agenda setting:
The debate module at the web-site www.hals.dk allows citizens to bring up political problems of
their concern. It can be topics related to on-going political discussions or completely new topics.
By way of example may be cited from the last few month’s debate: Bathing safety at the beaches,
Extraordinary speed restrictions at certain roads, Industrial buildings near housing sectors,
Artistic ornamentation of open spaces, and Conduct of cases in the social services.
Analysis:
On some agenda items the Town Council asks all citizens in the municipality to give feed-back,
to voice their experiences and opinions through the debate module at the web-site. The Town
Council define an issue and set the questions – or present a range of solutions. It can be small
agenda items such as opening hours of the recycling stations and larger agenda items such as
which development project to give priority in the tight municipality budget. In both cases a short
introductory text, illustrations and links to background material will be presented at the web site
to qualify the digital political discussion. The hyper-structure of the Internet makes it possible to
direct the individual citizen directly to the issues and materials he or she wants to read and discuss. Is it done properly it will also widen out his/her interest by offering additional information
and discussion possibilities when he/she have reached his/her primary goal.
Creating the policy:
The working method used is to invite specific groups of citizens to take part in the defining of the
challenges, opportunities and political vision. The groups are asked to make policy outlines and
plan drafts for their specific area. Plans and drafts that the Town Council can incorporate in their
over-all plan for the municipality. Until now we have done that related to defining a youth policy
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of the municipality and related to the long-term plan for the physical development of the
municipality. E-mails and digital conferences are used for the on-going process in the group –
web sites are used for presenting preliminary results of the group work to the other citizens of the
municipality. Later in the process the Town Council asks the citizens outside the working groups
to comments on policy outlines and plan drafts presented on the web-site.
Implementing the policy:
Web sites are used to inform the citizens about the process of implementing new policies.
Monitoring the policy:
The debate module and the monthly chat sessions with the major and committee chairmen at the
web site www.hals.dk is open for comments on every policy – new and old.
A well-in-formed population is the back-bone of every attempt to make citizens take part in and
feel ownership to political decisions. On this back-bone we then build up two-way relations and
active partnership. Our aim is to let Information, Consultation and Active participation walk
hand-in-hand. To ”ensure that the Town Council do not adopt objectives, actions and economy,
which do not meet the wishes of the citizens, the needs of the users and the everyday experiences
of the institutions.” This means that the politicians want the citizens to take part in the decisionmaking process, to voice their wishes, needs and everyday experiences. They stress the processes
of communication between citizens and local authorities based on mutual respect, openness and
dialogue. At the same time the quotation stress that it is the Town Council who in the end decides
which ideas and wishes to build on when they make their final adoptions.
3.10.3 Actors
Stakeholders:
The project is developed by Hals Kommune (the Municipality of Hals) in close co-operation with
Sven Allan Jensen A/S and Aalborg University.
Co-operation partners:
•
•
WebHouse Aps
Fujitsu Siemens Computers,
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•
•
•
•
•
Vivarto Technologies,
Vester Hassing Antenneforening
LOF og AOF Hals
Ældresagen, brugerråd
Roles the stakeholders play:
Hals Kommune (the Municipality of Hals) form the geographical and organisational frame for the
experiments, why both politicians as well as the local administration is deeply involved in the
project. The major and the shadow major are members of the steering committee along with two
top ranking officials. A large number of municipal officers, teachers, librarians etc. are engaged
in putting the different experiments into execution.
Sven Allan Jensen A/S (a private company advising local authorities on city, country and traffic
planning) is represented on the steering committee and involved in the execution of ”Den digitale
kommuneplan” (the digital municipality plan).
Aalborg University, the Department of Economics, Politics and Public Administration is
represented on the steering committee and deeply involved in the evaluation process.
WebHouse Aps - a private company deeply involved in the development of specific software
solutions backing the digital democratic process in Hals Municipality.
Fujitsu Siemens Computers and Vivarto Technologies (private companies) deliver hardware and
software solutions.
Vester Hassing Antenneforening – a voluntarily run society serving the local community with a
high speed Internet infrastructure.
LOF og AOF Hals – local adult educational institutions (privately owned) offering a variety of
IT-related courses.
Ældresagen, brugerråd - senior citizens societies running computer centers and organising ITrelated courses for senior citizens.
Target audience:
All the people living in the Municipality of Hals is the target audience of ”Det digitale
demokrati”.
Some of the experiments have a smaller target audience, for instance people related to a specific
age group town, institution or society/club.
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3.10.4 Resources
The project has a budget of 16.5 mill DKK. We have received financial support (5.5 mill DKK)
from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation through Det Digitale Nordjylland [The
Digital North Denmark3]. The companies, institutions, societies and people involved have added
approx. 6.5 mill DKK. Aalborg Universitets Jubilæumsfond (a fund connected to Aalborg
University) have added approx. 2 mill DKK. The last approx. 2.5 mill DKK is funded by the the
Municipality of Hals primarily indirectly by holding a large number of municipal officers and
administrative facilities at the project’s disposal secondarily through direct finacial support.
3.10.5 Technologies
We have chosen different ways of making e-consultations:
•
•
•
•
•
a web site, www.hals.dk, with news and background information, an open debate forum,
and a monthly chat session with the major and committee chairmen.
closed e-conferences for specific groups.
a web site for a specific small urban community www.ulstedby.dk
mail distribution.
e-polls (used once in a while as a way to attract attention to a political issue, but never as
a governing tool).
The cooperation with the commercial software companies and developers is a delicate matter.
Off-the-shelf products may be cheap, but as soon as an even small change to the software is
needed it courses a lot of trouble and/or cost a lot of money. The web site www.ulstedby.dk is
developed from the ground by the citizens of Ulsted with the help from a web designer. It is a
very learning process which cause great ownership, but it too proves to be a rather expensive
solution, as the citizens - un-experienced with web-design - often change their minds during the
process of design.
3
The Digital North Denmark is a regional IT project, which is to run over 3 years with a funding of DKK 170 mill granted by
the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
The object is to explore the potentials of the network society for all citizens of North Denmark.
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In reality www.ulstedby.dk and www.hals.dk are open to everybody – also people outside
Ulsted and Hals Municipality. There is neither any registration nor any personal information
collected. In the terms of conditions the participants are asked to follow the laws concerning
public communication and to present themselves by name. This openness makes the debate
vulnerable to attacks from outsiders, but until now there has been no incidents. A few have
written a contribution without adding their names. This just caused the other contributors to ask
him/her to remember to add his/her name.
The youth conference is a closed conference only for young people living in Hals Municipality.
The participants therefore have to register them self, when they enter the conference.
For the school conference everybody have his/her own password, which is the same password,
they can use for all major public digital services used by the Danish authorities. The password is
related to the civil registration number, why it is very easy to know who should be allowed to
enter the conference or specific parts of the conference.
The e-participation initiatives in Hals Municipality described here are parts of a series of
experimental studies made as regular participation exercises. Some of the experiments have
turned out so well that the politicians are ready to make them last beyond the fixed timeframe of
2002 and 2003. Others are still waiting for their final break through or for their final verdict in the
assessment report that will be made in 2004.
3.10.8 Scale
In its design the project is partly a democracy project, partly an educational and skill developing
project.
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The experiments with digital democracy consist of multiple levels within three different arenas:
•
•
•
The local community level.
The institutional level.
The municipality level.
The three arenas involve many different groups such as: sports clubs, scouts, centre for the
elderly people, schools, church, citizens society, youth club, adult educational institutions, local
library, youth council, city planners, politicians, local administration etc. and a large series of
experiments, which makes the project unique in a national perspective.
The question is: Will the citizens' attitude to democracy and IT change during the course of the
project?
The local community level
The local community level covers communication among citizens. A small urban community in
Hals municipality, Ulsted, with approx. 1100 inhabitants, has been selected as the field of
experimenting.
Planned activities:
A web site with local information, bulletin board and debate forum.
IT-'islands' scattered all over the town of Ulsted.
Local associations and clubs improve the communication with their members and the
surrounding society by the means of web sites, e-mail contact etc.
The question is: Can IT prove instrumental in promoting participation in the democratic process
within the community, or will the contrary happen with the invasion of technology in people's
homes?
The institutional level
Ulsted Skole, a primary and lover-secondary school is the setting of the digital democracy at the
institutional level. Pupils, teachers, parents, school board and school administration as well as
educational working groups communicate via e-mails and digital conferences.
The question is: Can the communication among parents, teachers, the school board and the
remaining school prosper from using information technology as a tool?
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The municipality level
At the municipality level we offer citizens of the Municipality of Hals (population: 11.304)
means of following the political decisions and raising questions and issues via the Internet.
Thematic debates on various subjects such as local plan revision, youth policy, budget etc. are
launched through the year and each month the Major and the Committee Chairmen chats with
citizens about large and small matters of their concern.
The questions are among others: Can youth policy obtain a content and develop by involving
young citizens of a municipality in the process via the Internet? Can better results be achieved by
putting modern technology to use when submitting a new town plan for hearing?
3.10.9 Accessibility
A number of prerequisites must be met in order to initiate the experiments. In order to stand up to
these, part of the project is focused on preparing the community for participating in the
experiments.
For one thing, this happens via a part project on infrastructure. To increase the access to and the
speed of the Internet Vester Hassing Antenneforening has laid out optic fibre cables. To provide
computers and Internet access to all citizens regardless of their financial situation, we have made
an agreement with Fujitsu Siemens Computers that makes it possible to offer the citizens
computers and necessary software at limited costs. An IT-supporter helps new computer owners
in their first hesitating steps with the technology.
’IT-islands’ scattered around in Ulsted, at the library, in a food shop, in the sports hall, in the
parish building, at the centre for senior citizens, in the sport and youth clubs etc. take care that
people who choose not to buy a computer have free and easy access to the internet anyway.
Secondly it happens via a massive educational effort to make sure everybody can take part in the
Digital Democracy, regardless of any educational background. It is done in cooperation with
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adult and youth educational institutions, associations for the elderly and handicapped people and
the local library, which offer a wide range of IT introductory courses and evenings.
It is still a minority of citizens who participate actively in the open debate forum and chat
sessions at www.hals.dk, but the number is growing. In some focus interviews done by
researchers from Aalborg University the participants express that they feel more relaxed by
writing a contribution on the Internet than by voicing their opinions – if at all - through a reader’s
letter in the daily newspaper. The Internetnet is fast – and you do not have to be extremely well
educated or write perfectly to join in – is some of the remarks we have received.
Most people participate from their personal computer at home. Especially the young people
seems to move more freely from school or public library computers to personal computers at
home.
3.10.10 Promotion
To make sure that the digital dialogue processes get commonly known in Hals Municipality it has
been necessary to adopt at multi-medial strategy. More than 50 % of the population is not used to
collect information or to discuss on the Internet, why they would never realize this opportunity if
it was only advertised on the net. In Hals Municipality both posters, leaflets, newspaper
advertisements, direct mail to associations, mouth-to-mouth communication and press-releases
have been used besides web site banners, direct e-mails and digital bulletin boards.
3.10.11 Evaluation
Throughout the project a comprehensive follow-up research will be performed by researchers
from Aalborg University, the Department of Economics, Politics and Public Administration.
They will follow and evaluate on how the increased use of ICT affects democratic governance
and participation in different arenas and at different level. See a presentation of the research in
English at the Aalborg University, project web-site "Digital local democracy" (PDF)
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3.10.12 Outcomes
The general impression is, that it takes a lot to make this new medium part of the everyday life of
ordinary citizens. Quite a few citizens talk enthusiastically about these new digital possibilities
and keenly follow the debate on the web site. When it come down to actually contributing to the
digital discussions the numbers drop drastically. It will probably be a matter of a five or ten years
before almost everybody use this medium with confidence. The provisional experiences in Hals
Municipality show it is possible to speed up this process, but that it really need a lot of
manpower, as the most effective promotion is the one done by meeting the citizens in their own
nest - meeting them in their clubs and societies, at the centre for the elderly, at the library, in the
schools and where ever they meet in the local community.
In spite of huge technical problems we have succeeded in creating a local political awareness
among the group of young people who took part in our testing of the e-conference software. A
promising prospect for future experiments in that field.
3.10.13Critical factors for success
Critical factors for success of the digital dialogue processes seems to be:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Do the citizens know they exist?
Do they have access?
Do the technology work properly?
Do the topics discussed interest the citizens?
Is the topics presented in an enticing way?
Is it clear to the citizens what kind of influence he/she has on the decision-making
process?
Are the citizens comfortable by voicing their opinion in writing in a publish sphere?
Do the politicians dare to put forward political issues in an early stage in the decisionmaking process?
Do the web-editor/moderator have the necessary skills and time to prepare a digital debate
with background material and everything?
Do the web-editor/moderator have the freedom to edit the material delivered by
politicians and administration in order to present it in an enticing way?
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3.11 DEMOCRACY ON THE WEB – WWW.NORDPOL.DK, DENMARK
In 2000 the County of North Jutland launched a large digital administration project. One of the
ambitions of the project is to re-enable the democratic process in the region in a time of ailing
civic interest and participation in the democratic fora. The task of the Democracy project was to
create an electronic forum for the democratic dialogue among citizens and politicians with a
particular aim towards November 20, 2001: The next County Council Election Day.
Since the election in 2001 the web site www.nordpol.dk has been used as a forum for dialogue
between the members of the County Council and the citizens of North Jutland.
3.11.1 Stage in decision
The stage in the policy-making process is both “Agenda setting” and “Analysis”. In the debates
initiated by the County the citizens are asked to contribute their ideas and knowledge concerning
specific political issues.
At the same time the discussion forum on the website offers “free space” where the citizens are
invited to enter the issues they would like to discuss with the politicians.
3.11.2 Level of participation
The objective of the nordpol.dk project is to render visible the decisions made on a regional
political level, and to involve the citizens in relation to the process of democracy. The project is
mainly designed for consultation – a media for dialogue - where the County defines and manages
the larger debates.
The topics of the dialogues are current issues in the decision making of the politicians. The ideas
and comments from the citizens are used as a source of knowledge and inspiration for both the
administration and the politicians and integrated in the political planning.
The project also offers information on how to engage in the ongoing decision making in the
county and the possibility to follow the daily workflow via the County website: www.nja.dk.
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3.11.3 Actors
The target group of the Democracy project in its widest definition is the citizens and the
politicians. In the first debate concerning the County Council Election the first time voters with
their tradition for small polls were a specific target group as well.
The guidelines for the design of the project were created in focus group meetings with “adult”
citizens, politicians and first time voters. Here the groups were asked to define their requirements
to a web site representing the democracy of North Jutland.
3.11.4 Resources
The web site was designed in close cooperation between the project group of the County of North
Jutland, and the KMD, the large Danish IT enterprise. Also the KMD contributed as a partner in
relation to the user survey and in defining the design of the web site.
Building the web site - Total cost: 58,250 euro.
The project group in the County of North Jutland consists of three people all working part time
on the project.
Kirsten Rosted, project manager ([email protected])
Christine Maria Andersen, project assistant ([email protected])
Bente Toldbod, public relations consultant ([email protected])
3.11.5 Technologies
The web site - see the English version - was structured with a forum for debates as the central
element.
Adding to this it offers:
•
•
•
•
•
•
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A presentation of the politicians
A Chat Room
A Calendar of political arrangements
News sites, where the daily news are available from e.g. the regional broadcasting station
A quiz with prizes to win
An Info page with e.g. information on how to influence the political decision-making
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•
A Search function
The choice of design, colour and graphics was based on a wish to create a page with a
sympathetic, inviting and friendly image, which will not put off young people at the first click
There is no registration of the citizens on the nordpol.dk website – again to make it as easy as
possible to contribute to the debate. The contributors can leave their name and e-mail address.
The rules of the debate are specified on the website.
The politicians have been provided with a special log-in facility partly to avoid “fake
contributions”, partly to give a better overview through a graphic distinction between
contributions from politicians and citizens. Contributions from the politicians are marked with a
dot and a link to the profile of the politician.
The first project period was September 10 to November 20, 2001 - a democratic forum with a
particular aim towards The County Council Election Day.
Since the election in 2001 the web site www.nordpol.dk has been an established forum for
dialogue between the members of the County Council and the citizens of North Jutland.
3.11.8 Scale
The project owner is the County of North Jutland – the regional level of government.
The target audience is the population of North Jutland – approximately 500,000 people.
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The citizens can participate in the debate from any computer on the web, also computers in
libraries or community centres, that can be used free of charge.
3.11.10 Promotion
The first project period was intensively profiled in North Jutland as part of the county’s campaign
to draw attention to the county council election. Nordpol.dk was profiled through radio spots, TV
and cinema commercials, on bus advertisements and posters and in relation to teachers of social
studies on the youth educations.
Profiling campaign - Total cost: 123,000 euro.
The succeeding debates have had a small profiling campaign, but as the target groups are quite
specific, the major part of the campaign relies on direct mail.
3.11.11 Evaluation
The first project period was evaluated by the project group. Compared to similar attempts to
engage citizens in political dialogue the dialogue was quite successful.
Engaging the first time voters in the debate proved quite difficult, though. The first time voters
stated that they read the contributions in the debate, but didn’t write any. The main feature on the
website for the first time voters was the descriptions each political candidate had made stating
their political viewpoints.
3.11.12 Outcomes
During the election debate in the first project period of September 10 to November 20, 2001 the
www.nordpol.dk experienced 23,000 visitors and 450 contributions for debate.
The succeeding debates have varied from very few to about 100 contributions. The debates with
very specific target groups has had the best outcome, for instance a debate about improving the
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conditions for the handicapped (target group: the employees working in this area, the families,
interest groups and of course the handicapped) and about changes in the education for adults
(target group: employees, students, other education centres and so on).
With more specific topics for debate, the target group of the debate is of course narrower. In a
period of two months the handicap-debate had 7,300 visitors and 95 contributions for debate. In a
period of one month the education-debate had 94 contributions and 10,586 visitors.
Our experience so far is that a successful debate demands:
•
•
•
•
•
•
A clear and very specific topic for the debate.
A directly engagement of the citizens – through user groups, existing networks, direct
mail and so on.
Launching the debate in the beginning of the decision-making process, so the citizen has
the best opportunity to influence the outcome.
A clear objective for the debate and a description of how the contributions of the citizens
are used in the process.
Visible and active participation from politicians.
A user-friendly web-site to diminish the technology barrier.
3.12 SEND E-MAIL TO THE PARLIAMENT – CZECH PILOT 2000
This pilot was a contribution to development of an open dialog between citizens and government
with the main objective to provide both, citizens and state administration, (respective, voted
political representatives), with modern and user-friendly Internet based tools for the development
of e-democracy
3.12.1 Stage in decision
The effort of the activity under this project was to involve citizens to a direct and active
participation in a social dialog and, on the other hand, to promote in a practical way possibilities
of the Internet.
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The last but not the least was the effort to activate the use of the Internet from the side of
politicians and state administration.
In terms of key dimensions of this report, it was an attempt to involve citizens into the process of
developing the policy and to support so called “informed democracy”. It can be used at all stages
in the policy-making life cycle.
As the beginning it was a very simple web site created for citizens, where everybody could find a
list of all public representatives in the Czech Parliament, structured by region and by political
party. People were encouraged to send e-mail directly to their regional political representative in
the Czech Parliament.
Citizens from the whole Czech Republic were invited to use the Internet application to make
comments on policy and related issues and also ask questions. Information about public places
with Internet access, like Internet.cafes or public libraries, was promoted by media.
3.12.3 Actors
BMI Association, private non- profit organisation, as the organizer.
EMC group, PR agency, as a promoter.
The Library of the Czech Parliament, as public administration body, who has guaranteed the
security of data and information flow.
Capitol Internet Publisher - private company, which created the application and offered the
technical support and the web site.
3.12.4 Resources
The application was placed at the separate web site and was free for use for everybody. The only
price was the price of the internet access.
The creation of the application was done as an example of Public&Private Partnership to show
the possible was of future co-operation on this field.
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3.12.5 Technologies
The pilot was based on a special know-how and technologies of the private company, Internet
Capital Publishing, who developed the user-friendly interface with simple navigation, which
could be used by everybody.
Although, those time it wasn’t created and analysed by WAI standards in order to make it
accessible for people with disabilities.
There were no special rules for sending of e-mail to Parliament representatives in order to
encourage as many people as possible to use the application. The messages were, of cause,
moderated from the point of eligibility of basic moral rules and those (very few) with
unacceptable content were excluded at the beginning. This moderation was undertaken by the
Library of the Czech Parliament.
The statistics of replies from politicians was made and promoted by media and some kind of
ranking list of “popularity” of politicians, based at the number of e-mails arrived, was done.
The pilot was created originally for one month, March 2000, but under the agreement of all
participants the application was free for use for the whole year till March 2001 and after
evaluation also till the March 2002, but without deeper analyses in the later stage.
Other possibilities appeared for voters to express their views and the reform of the whole system
of public administration came.
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3.12.8 Scale
The target audience was the widest population all over the Czech Republic. It was possible,
because the pilot was promoted at the media wave of the national annual campaign Month of
Internet.
The level of government: Parliament of the Czech Republic.
About 700 people sent messages in Spring 2000, mostly in March, when the web site was
promoted.
Citizens were able to use any Internet access point. Actually, there were mostly used public
places with Internet access, like Internet cafés and public libraries, also promoted by media. A
simple questionnaire was added for people (age, profession, education, region, the place of
internet access).
According to the results, the most of questions were sent by young people between 18 – 25 and
the most frequent access place was at work, which reflected the real situation with Internet
accessibility in the country.
3.12.10 Promotion
The launching of the application was supported by thematic articles in media, the web site was
promoted in advertising in media, people were invited to use the application at www.mailposlanci.cz.
The overall promotion was done under the umbrella of the annual campaign Month of Internet,
which involved about 30 % of adult population of the Czech Republic (according to the analyses
of Market agency). It involved adverts in printed media, dailies and some magazines and
promotion on national radio. Also more than 119 libraries participated in the pilot as public
Internet access places.
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3.12.11 Evaluation
The evaluation was done with a help of a professional agency Deloitte&Touche. The analysis of
all questions were done and also some demographic analyses of citizens, who used the
application, was made.
Most of the questions dealt with the regional topics (26 %), the second (16%) were connected
with legal system and the next was telecommunication issues (15%). It is interesting that 10 % of
questions were related to the person’s rights and only 3 % were about European Union.
The simple demography of participants was done according to the age, profession, education,
region, the place of internet access. It was not surprise that most of them were among students
and qualified professionals.
3.12.12 Outcomes
The complete evaluation report was presented to public in articles, at the final press conference to
the Month of Internet campaign, but the main expected result was, that politicians started to
consider Internet seriously as possible channel of efficient communication with their voters.
It was expected by organizers, that the pilot could only show the way and give an impulse for
both sides- citizens and politicians- for seeking of better forms of interaction. The overall number
of 630 eligible questions could be considered as quite enough for the pilot, but not enough for the
normal dialog. The target was not to evoke the massive flow of questions, but to show the
possibility of regular communication of citizens and politicians, if necessary.
The level of penetration of Internet in the Czech Republic in 2000 could be considered as one of
critical factors, the number of users in March 2000 was about 1 million users whereas the
population of the Czech Republic is about 10 million people.
The other factors, which were not analysed, are connected with sociological aspects, as the
political
“mature”
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education
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Bijlage 2: Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy
BIJLAGE 2. Janssen, D., Kies, R. (2005). Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy. Acta Politica 40:3. pp:
317-335
Raphaël Kies en ikzelf hebben enkele maanden in 2004 samengewerkt om een theoretisch kader te schetsen van
waaruit de kwaliteit van de conversaties in online forums geëvalueerd kan worden. Uiteindelijk heeft deze
samenwerking geresulteerd in de volgende internationale publicatie
Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy
Davy Janssen (University of Antwerp)
Raphaël Kies (European Universiy Institute)
INTRODUCTION
The Internet is rapidly becoming a part of the everyday lives of a majority of people in the
Western world. People perform various activities on the internet and one of them is discussing
politics and society in so-called online forums. In this article, we present an overview of some of
the empirical research that evaluates the quality of political conversations in online forums. In the
first section, we distinguish research on Usenet groups, web-based political forums and econsultation forums, and discuss some its findings. In the second section, we elaborate three
original categories of variables that attempt to explain differences observed in the quality of
deliberation. The third, more extensive section deals with methodological issues. It discusses the
operationalisation of deliberative quality and the application of a set of criteria for the idealized
public sphere to online conversations. In the conclusion, we present some objections to the
previous research and offer some ideas for a more comprehensive approach to online forum
analysis.
HOOFDSTUK 1 RESEARCH ON ONLINE POLITICAL FORUMS
In this section we present some of the literature on online forum analysis by using the following
classification: research on Usenet groups; research on political forums; research on e-consultation
forums; research on particular online deliberative experiments. Because of lack of space we do
not discuss studies in the fourth category here: they are mostly case study reports on specific
experiments.i
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1.1 USENET GROUPS
As Davis (1999) defines it, “Usenet is a computer conferencing network allowing any user to
read and even post messages on an electronic bulletin board”. These systems of interaction were
implemented in the 70’s, but their uptake surged during the 1990s: “by 1995, an estimated
180.000 users were posting nearly one million messages daily” (Davis, 1999: 150). The existing
research on political newsgroups can be divided in two broad categories. The first contains
studies of Usenet groups that are affiliated with political parties, coalitions of parties and/or
candidates. In this context Bentivegna (1998) has analysed four newsgroups: two were affiliated
with political parties and two with a coalition of parties. The second category of studies deals
with more issue related newsgroups. Davis (1999) analysed three Usenet groups that concerned a
variety of topics:
the politics of Clinton, the US Constitution, and radical-left ideology.
Schneider (1997) carried out an extensive empirical investigation of a Usenet newsgroup on
abortion. More recently, Dumoulin (2003) analysed three online newsgroups in Canada. Two
were based on topics of political interest (Western thoughts of separation and Avant-Garde
Quebec) and one on a topic of social interest (gay rights). Finally, Wilhelm (1999) analysed 10
political newsgroups chosen at random, six from Usenet newsgroups and four from the
commercial provider AOL.
Concerning the findings, the research suggests that Usenet groups are discursive contexts that do
not promote qualitative forms of deliberation. They are spaces that do not encourage reciprocal
exchanges between citizens. Wilhelm observed that the discursive dynamic was characterized by
“the self-expression of monologue, without in large measure the listening, responsiveness, and
dialogue that would promote communicative actions” (Wilhelm, 1999: 98). Dumoulin defines
this phenomenon as “interactive monologues”. Additionally, several authors (Davis, 1999;
Wilhelm, 2000; Sunstein, 2001) observed that Usenet groups favorize the encounter of similar
opinions and, as a consequence, lead to polarization of opinions. Additionally, Usenet
conversations are generally not considered to be deliberative, also since crossposting (i.e. the
sending of a message to different newsgroups) (Bentivegna, 1998) and “flaming” (i.e. the use of
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abusive language) tend to be strongly present (Davis, 1999; Dutton, 1996), in particular for topics
that are related to personal issues (Dumoulin, 2003).
1.2 POLITICAL FORUMS
Political forums are spaces of discussion that are hosted on the World Wide Web and that use a
web-based visualisation. We distinguish three contexts in which political forums have been
analysed. The first is the forum contained by a local website, whether public such as the city of
Santa Monica (Dutton, 1996; Docter and Dutton, 1998) or the city of Hoogeveen (Jankowsky and
van Os, 2002), or private such as the Minnesota e-democracy experience (Aikens, 1997; Jensen,
2003b). The second are the forums hosted at the national level by government institutions, such
as the Citizenspace forum in the UK (Coleman et al, 2002) or Nordpol in Denmark (Jensen,
2003a). The third are the forums hosted by traditional media organisations such as newspapers
(Schultz, 2000; Tanner, 2003). We will limit our analysis here to national institutional forums
and media organisations’ forums.
Citizenspace is a good example of a national institutional forum. Its purpose is to enable citizens
to enter into an interactive relationship with government. The Hansard Society, however,
suggests that the debates were not as constructive as expected and that the government
representatives did not participate (Coleman et al., 2002). In fact, the forum “lacked a clear
purpose or connection to Government policy making”, and worse, “it proved an outlet for illinformed opinion, prejudice or abuse” (Coleman et al., 2002: 12).
Regarding the forums hosted by media organisations, Schultz (2000) observed a forum hosted by
the New York Times, while Tanner (2001) analysed one hosted by a Chilean newspaper. Schultz
based his analysis on a survey of the journalists and users of the forum. He found that journalists
normally do not participate since they lack time. However, they do sometimes read the forums
they consider constructive. As to the users, the survey indicates that they tended to be highly
educated and male. Tanner focused on different aspects: the quality of interactions and the social
role function. To this end she focused on a specific forum where Chileans from around the world
discussed the October 1998 arrest of ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet and the legacy of the military
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government. Again, participants tended to be highly educated and male. However, even if the
forum did not match the ideal level of deliberation – she underlined problems of crossposting,
and of total absence of agreement - Tanner considered that such a forum contributed to the
reconciliation process in Chile through the development of public opinion and the creation of a
collective memory about the past event. The fact that an important proportion of messages
corresponded to “testimonial messages” of the experiences participants had with the dictatorship
is, according to the author, indicative of this process.
1.3 E-CONSULTATION FORUM
E-consultation forums are some of the most institutionalised procedures to allow online
participation of citizens in the political process. They refer to the use of the internet to
disseminate to the wider public, experts and interest groups, developments in a policy field and
invite them to respond. The rationale behind the promotion of e-consultation techniques is to
encourage the general public, interest groups and experts to participate in the decision-making
process (Trechsel et al., 2004). E-consultation can take a variety of technological formats and can
focus on very different topics: from questions related to urban planning (Monnoyer-Smith, 2004)
to e-consultation on prospective bills (Coleman et al. 2002; Beirle, 2002) or on ongoing debates
during the municipal council meetings.
The Hansard society (Coleman et al. 2002) provides a comparative study of ten e-consultation
forums in the UK that offers several interesting findings. It reveals that the rate of participation in
these consultative forums varied a lot. Regarding the profile of participants, and in particular the
gender balance, the study found that “gender balance is very much topic-related and reflects the
more traditional divisions of interest between men and women” (Coleman et al., 2002: 7). As to
the quality of the forum, findings were mixed. The positive aspects are that most messages were
relevant in the limited sense that they were not off-topic. Less positive impressions however
concerned the quality of the debates, since “most participants in forums posted messages which
simply stated their opinions” and “very few participants in the forum seemed to use facts in their
deliberation” (Coleman et al.: 2002: 8). Further, the study reveals that few government officials
or politicians participated in the forums even though most messages were directed to them.
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Concerning the political impact of the forum, the promoters confirmed that it was inexistent or
limited. The analysis concluded: “what is the value of inviting citizens to discuss a policy or Bill
if nobody at the other end is going to take any notice of them?” (Coleman et al., 2002: 10). It
would however be mistake to consider that all e-consultation forums are a failure from the point
of view of their quality and impact. The case of Commbill.net, the first UK e-consultation forum
on a draft Bill, is indicative of the fact that if an e-consultation forum is well organized, by
offering for instance relevant information and updated summaries, it can be successful in terms of
its impact (Coleman et al. 2002). In fact, the Committee that was established by both Houses of
Parliament referred to the e-consultation forums several times and two of its key policy
recommendations came directly from evidences presented via the forum.
This initial analysis of the literature suggests that the basic distinction we proposed (Usenet,
political forum and e-consulation forum) is insufficient for fully explaining differences in online
deliberation. There are for instance too many exceptions and contradictions to simply consider econsultation contexts as “good” for deliberation and newsgroup contexts as “bad”. Our intention
in the next section is to complement these preliminary findings by focusing on more fine tuned
variables for explaining deliberative variations.
HOOFDSTUK 2 VARIABLES EXPLAINING DIFFERENCES IN ONLINE
DELIBERATION
Our typology is based on three general categories that correspond to three avenues in which the
research could advance in order to get a better understanding of the online deliberation: i) the
communicative structure of the discussion space ii) the political culture and ideology and iii) The
“weak” and “strong” distinction. It is important to stress that these variables will interact, which
means that the established level of deliberation will necessarily result from a combination of
them.
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2.1 COMMUNICATIVE STRUCTURE OF DISCUSSION SPACE
The communicative structure, as we define it, corresponds to the technical and organisational
architecture of the discussion space. Regarding the technical architecture, it is fundamental to
distinguish the real-time discussion spaces (chat-rooms) from the asynchronous online discussion
spaces that do not have time constraints (email list; newsgroups; Bulletin boards; forums). It is
generally recognized that the former are spaces of encounter that attract 'small talk' and jokes,
while the latter constitute a more favourable place for the appearance of some form of rationalcritical form of debate since it allows participants to spend more time to think and justify their
interventions.
The second constitutive element of the communicative structure is the way the online discussion
spaces are organized and ruled. According to our observations two organisational issues are
particularly relevant as far as deliberation is concerned: the request of identification and the
presence of a moderator.
The issue of identification is a controversial one: on the one side it is assumed that the possibility
to hide the real identity, which is the case for most of the online discussion spaces, can have a
positive impact on deliberation because participants will feel more free to express their real
opinions. In other words online discussion spaces where no identification is required could have a
“disinhibiting effect” (Dutton 1996). The other side, however, argues that participants should be
identified in order to act as “responsible” actors in the debate: politics would be too serious to be
discussed by “unidentified persons” (Maldonado 1997). A research that we are conducting on the
forum of website of the “Italian Radicals”, one of the most frequented and interesting political
forum in Italy1ii, suggests that indeed the identification of the participants is a fundamental
element for explaining the quality and the persistency of a political debate.iii
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The question of moderation tends to be controversial as well. Some argue that on the Internet no
moderation should be allowed because the “cyberspace is a space of freedom” while others
consider that the moderation should be allowed in order to guarantee a certain structure and
continuity in the debate. The impact of the moderation on deliberation will obviously depend on
the type of moderation implemented. The moderator can be a “censor” – for example by
removing opinions that are at odds with the main ideology of the discussion space - or he can be
“promoter of deliberation” by, for example, implementing a system of synthesis of debate, by
giving more visibility to minority opinions, by offering background information related to the
topics etc. Our research on the online community of the “Italian Radicals” suggests that
moderation based on censure can be detrimental for maintaining the liveliness and the quality of
an online political debate since it often leads to polemical debates and discourage users to keep
up participating.iv
The issues of identification and moderation should not hide other organisational issues such as
the ownership of agenda setting or the accessibility of the forum. The first indicates whether the
possibility for initiating and defining the topics of the debate is decentralised or not (can forum
participants initiate their own topics or not), and the latter indicates who can participate in the
forum (total openness or not). Even if no specific research is conducted for evaluating their
specific impact on deliberation, it is essential to keep them present as possible “intervening
variables”.
2.2 POLITICAL CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY
By referring to the criteria “political culture and ideology” we imply that the socio-political
contexts in which the online discussion space is introduced is an important factor for explaining
divergences observed in the deliberation quality.
At the broad level, we suggest that the quality of deliberation could be affected by the
geographical and cultural zone in which the online debate takes place. Deliberation in online
discussion spaces is unlikely to be the same in strongly divergent cultural zones such as the
Asiatic, European or Arabic world. It is also likely that differences will be observed among the
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countries of the same cultural region and within those countries. Combining inter-cultural studies
with their impact on online deliberation would constitute a fascinating topic for further research.
We also suggest, that the quality of deliberation could be affected by the category of political
actors hosting the debates (Institutional sites, NGOs sites, News sites, political parties sites, trade
unions sites). The fact that each type of political actor hosts different kinds of participants and has
different interests and aims suggests that the debates in their online public space will be
dissimilar. The question we raise is whether some social actors are more likely than others to host
debates that tend to be deliberative.
At a more narrow level we imply that the political beliefs and ideology (right, left, ecological,
neutral etc.) of the actors hosting the debates could also influence the level of deliberation of the
debates. In this sense, Davis observed that there were more personal attacks and flames in
political discussion spaces with extreme ideologies (such as the radical left Usenet group) than in
forums that had a more balanced ideology (such as Clinton Usenet group) (Davis 1999).
Similarly, in a research we have conducted last year we argued that fact that a minor political
party (Italian radicals) had a much greater and more deliberative participation than the two
major Italian political parties (Democratici di Sinistra and Forza Italia) was due, to a large extent,
to a difference of political culture: the “Italian Radicals” have a much stronger participative
culture than the two other political parties (Kies 2003).
Finally, at a basic level, the literature suggests that the topic of the debate is a relevant variable
for explaining differences observed in deliberation. It is a relevant variable for explaining
variation in participation and in gender distribution. Jensen (2003a) found that in an institutional
forum citizens (nordpol.dk) are eager to engage in discussion when topics are related to their
daily lives. And Coleman (Coleman et al. 2002), based on a comparison of 10 institutional
forums (in Scotland, Wales and UK), observed that the more the discussion topic was related to
problems of everyday life and personal experience the more women participated in the debates.
This would reflect according to the authors: “the more traditional divisions of interest between
women and men” (Coleman et al. 2002). The topic discussed may also influence the content and
the quality of the debates. In this context the analysis of Dumoulin is interesting (2003). He
compared three Canadian forums that discussed different subjects: two were dealing with topics
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of political interest (western thoughts on separation and avant-garde Quebec) and one was
focusing on a problem of social interest (gay rights). The author found for instance, that flames
and moralizing discourses were particularly present in the gay rights forum, which, according to
him, was due to the fact it was a topic dealing with “personal values”. He also noticed that the
forums tended to be different from the point of view of their homogeneity (measure of plurality of
opinions): ‘gay rights’ and ‘Western thoughts on separation’ had a debate that was pluralistic
while, on the opposite, the debates within ‘Avant-Garde Quebec’ tended to be very
homogeneous. The latter is described as a close and homogeneous community that strongly
rejected opinions that did not take side with their cause.
2.3 “STRONG” V/S “WEAK” DISCUSSION SPACES
Nancy Fraser (1992) defines weak public spheres as “publics whose deliberative practice consists
exclusively in opinion formation and does not also encompass decision making” and strong
public spheres as “publics whose discourse encompasses both opinion formation and decision
making.”
In order to employ this fundamental distinction for evaluating its impact on the quality of the
deliberation we propose to extrapolate this definition by focusing on the perceived impact that the
participants have of these different contexts of discussion.
We define a public space as strong when participants consider that their participation will be read
and considered by other users and/or could have some concrete political outcomes. On the
opposite, we classify an online public space as weak when participants do not believe that their
participation counts and/or when they consider that no concrete political outcome is likely to
result from the online debate.
There are different ways for an online public space to be perceived as strong by its users: i) It can
result form the visibility of the public space and therefore its potential political influence (i.e. the
number of persons reading the forum); ii) It can also result from the aim of the forum. As we
saw, there are an increasing number of web-based discussion spaces involving citizens in
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consultation processes or decision making processes; iii) Finally, it can result from the status and
the power of the people participating actively or even just passively (just reading) in the online
debates.
The literature we came across suggests that strong public spaces tend to be more deliberative than
weak public spaces. Coleman, when comparing the weak governmental forum “citizenspace”
with the e-consultation experience organized by the Hansard society on stem research, pointed
out that in “citizenspace” the messages tended to be shorter than within specific e-consultation
forums (Coleman et al. 2002).v This suggests that the level of justification tends to be lower in
weak public spaces than in strong public spaces. Similarly, Jensen (2003a) who compared an
institutional political forum (nordpol.dk) with a widely used Usenet group (dk.politik) observed
that the messages contained in the institutional forum were not only generally longer and better
justified but also more respectful: they were comparable to a “letter to the editor” (Jensen, 2003a:
355). The fact that the forum was moderated and that politicians actively participated is
considered to have played an important role for explaining the difference in quality of
argumentation. Finally, Monnoyer (2004) - who compared a French online forum on
environmental issues with an e-consultation on the construction of a third airport in the region of
Paris - observed that participants in the e-consultation public space tended to be more polite, to
raise more questions and to be more precise when they reported discourses of others than
participants in environmental Usenet groups. Monnoyer also observed that there is a persistence
of deliberating seriously in the e-consultation forum even when participants expressed many
doubts as to whether they were heard.
In summary, the empirical findings we have accumulated so far suggest that:
- Asynchronous types of forum are more adapted to host political and deliberative debates than
synchronous discussion spaces.
- The request of identification and the guarantee of freedom of expression (no censure) are
important factors to promote the quality and continuity of the political debate.
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- The ideologically extreme institutions/communities are less likely to host open and plural forms
of debates.
- The topic of the debate is a relevant variable for explaining differences observed in the level of
participation, gender distribution and quality of deliberation.
- In discursive contexts where participants think that their voices can have an impact on decisions
(strong public spaces) they are more ready and willing to spend time to elaborate and to justify
their opinions.
HOOFDSTUK 3 MEASURING DELIBERATION ONLINE
The link between the theory of deliberative democracy and the practice of online forums is the
subject of an emerging body of literature. The research question concerning the relationship
between online forums and theories of democracy and public space is a recurring one. Graham
asks “to what extent, do current online political forums correspond to the ideal notion of the
public sphere advocated by Habermas and other deliberative democrats?” (Graham, 2002: 9).
Schneider tests ‘the hypothesis that the form of discourse fostered by computer mediated
discussion provides opportunities to expand the informal zone of the public sphere’ (Schneider,
1997: 1). Wilhelm asks ‘how useful are these virtual sounding boards in enabling deliberation in
the public sphere?’ (Wilhelm, 1999: 1), and Jensen echoes ‘can [the internet] contribute to
strengthening democracy by creating new public spheres online?’ (Jensen, 2003a: 1).
Each of these authors has developed an instrument to measure the extent to which online forums
have approached the conditions of an idealised public sphere. In this article, we will present an
overview of some of the previous research and make suggestions for future research. Our
emphasis will lie on the empirical aspect, on the operationalisation of public space criteria.
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3.1 THE OPERATIONALISATION OF ONLINE DELIBERATION
Public sphere theory and deliberative democratic theory is heavily influenced by the work of
Jürgen Habermas (Habermas, 1984/7, 1988, 1996). Habermas’s theory of communicative action
and discourse ethics provides a strong basis for the conceptualisation of an ideal type of public
sphere. Researchers that have operationalised this concept for empirical research do not agree on
the selection of criteria that constitute the idealised public sphere. Schneider lists the following
“four dimensions that embody the spirit of the idealized public sphere”: equality, diversity,
reciprocity and quality (Schneider, 1997: 72). Jensen selects six variables: form, dialogue,
openness, tone, argumentation, reciprocity (Jensen, 2003). Jankowski and Van Os suggest “a
combination of the dimensions suggested by both Schneider and Dahlberg” (Jankowski and van
Os, 2002: 3). Wilhelm uses a modified list with criteria of the virtual public sphere, which are
topography, topicality, inclusiveness, design and deliberation (Wilhelm, 1999). Steenbergen et al.
list the following criteria: participation, level of justification, content of justification, respect, and
constructive politics (Steenbergen et al., 2003). Finally, Graham distinguishes between the
process of understanding (consisting of rational-critical debate, reciprocity, reflexivity and
empathy), sincerity, equality and freedom (Graham, 2002).
In this article, we look at the way in which these authors have sought to construct measurement
schemes for their criteria, each of which covers a specific aspect of an idealised public sphere. A
list of criteria we have not mentioned here, but one we believe is quite exhaustive in that it covers
all the ‘ingredients’ of the other lists is that of Lincoln Dahlberg (Dahlberg, 2002). These are his
criteria: thematization and reasoned critique of problematic validity claims (reciprocity and
justification), reflexivity, ideal role taking, sincerity, inclusion and discursive equality, and
autonomy from state and economic power. For the sake of clarity, we will structure the rest of the
article according to Dahlberg’s list. This is not to say that we prefer it to other efforts at finding
public sphere criteria, but it does provide us with a fairly extensive and theoretically grounded set
of criteria.
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3.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE IDEALIZED PUBLIC SPHERE
3.2.1 Reciprocity
The element of reciprocity captures the degree to which a conversation is a real ‘discussion’.
Graham defines reciprocity as ‘the taking in (listening, reading) of another’s claim or reason and
giving a response’ (Graham, 2002: 45). For Schneider, reciprocity ‘refers to the notion that
people are engaged in conversation with each other, and that their messages are reflected upon
and discussed by others’ (Schneider, 1997: 74). In previous research, reciprocity has
predominantly been operationalised in a content analysisvi that codes for the number of replies a
message gets. Jensen uses the categories of ‘initiate’ (a message initiates a new debate), ‘reply’
(message is a reply to a previous message) and ‘monologue’ (message is not really part of a
debate), whereas Graham uses the comparable categories of ‘initial’, ‘response’ and ‘irrelevant’vii.
In each of these cases, messages posted are qualitatively interpreted according to these criteria.
Schneider employs a purely structural (quantitative) analysis. His is also a ‘reply-count’, but the
criteria for reply are purely structural: ‘a message is considered reciprocal to a previous message
if it appears in the same thread within seven days of the previous message, or if it cites the
message directly by message identification number’ (Schneider, 1997: 74).
3.2.2 Justification
Justification is a crucial requirement of true deliberation, because “if valid reasons are not
advanced, then subjects may not be able to find common ground” (Graham, 2002: 43). The
evaluation of justification is therefore a crucial element of deliberative quality. Previous research
has used various content analysis approaches centered on the arguments that participants use to
back up what they are saying. The most crude approach only codes for the absence or presence of
arguments (Wilhelm, 1999). A more elaborate coding, that of Jensen (2003), makes a further
distinction: when arguments are present they are either “internal”(based on personal viewpoints
and values) or “external”(based on facts and figures). There is a normativity present in these
codings in that arguments are better than no arguments and arguments based on “objective”
information are better than those based on personal experience. Another approach to justification
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operationalises the Rawlsian construct of public reason and Habermas’s emphasis on the
common good by focussing on the “scope” of arguments (for who are they acceptable?).
Steenbergen et al. distinguish, in their “content of justification” category, between neutral
statements, statements concerning group interests and statements refering to the common good viii.
A final approach to justification consists of a procedural or structural evaluation that makes
abstraction of the content of argumentation. Steenbergen et al.’s “level of justification” category
does this by looking at the completeness of inferences (Steenbergen et al., 2003).
3.2.3 Reflexivity
If the defining feature of deliberative democracy is preference change through deliberation
(Dryzek, 2000), reflexivity is one of its central characteristics. Dahlberg defines reflexivity as
follows: “participants critically examine their values, assumptions, and interests, as well as the
larger social context” (Dahlberg, 2002: 3). Graham talks of ‘the rethinking of one’s own validity
claims and arguments in light of another’s validity claim and/or argument’ (Graham, 2002: 46),
and according to Jensen research on reflexivity should try to ‘gain a reasonable interpretation of
the extent interactions encourage self-critique and position alterations’ (Jensen, 2003: 361).
Whereas neither Schneider nor Wilhelm deal with the issue in their content analysis, Jensen
measures reciprocity in a rather crude category with the variables ‘persuasion’, ‘progress’, and
‘radicalisation’ (Jensen, 2003). Graham’s approach is less based on a general appreciation of the
content of a message and uses an argumentation analysis approach based on counterarguments
and rebuttals that, combined with “counter evidence”, indicate “that participants have moved
beyond their own reasons and justifications and considered the claims and arguments of others”
(Graham, 2002: 67).
The problem with the text analysis approaches described here is that they leave important aspects
of reflexivity untouched. In his Net-public sphere article, Dahlberg makes the fundamental
observation that it “is quite difficult to evaluate [reflexivity] because it is a largely internalized
process” (Dahlberg, 2002: 6), taking place in the minds of individuals. This is the certainly the
case for a content analysis approach because ‘written communications may only show traces of
such a subjective process’ (Dahlberg, 2002: 6). A way out here is an extension of methodology to
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include participant observations in the form of (online) survey research. Jensen used the survey
approach and asked forum participants about several ‘internal effects’ on their thinking about the
topics of discussion (Jensen, 2003b). Further survey research on reflexivity in online forums has
been done by Muhlberger (Muhlberger, 2000, 2003).
3.2.4 Ideal role taking
Dahlberg defines his third criterium as ‘ongoing, respectful listening’ (Dahlberg, 2002). We first
discuss the aspect of respectful listening. Ideal role taking implies that all positions, ‘not just
those immediately present in the forum but all affected by the question under consideration’
(Dahlberg, 2002: 7), are taken into account. Respectful listening moves us into the realm of
‘respect’ and its opposite, disrespect, on which some of the previous research has already
focussed. Some studies have applied content analysis to look for explicit instances where respect
is absent (Jankowski and Van Os, 2002; Jensen, 2003). It is assumed that lesser instances of
disrespect imply an increase in deliberativeness. Steenbergen et al. code for respect rather
elaborately, with a category for respect for groups, respect towards the demands of others, and
respect towards the counterarguments of others.
With this focus on disrespect, the construct of respectful listening, let alone that of ideal role
taking, has not been researched in its entirety. For a more general appreciation, Dahlberg suggests
that we look for ‘participants seeking to understand the other through reflecting positions, asking
for clarification, acknowledging the rights of all to be heard, and even putting forward positions
that are not one’s own to enable broader reflection’ (Dahlberg, 2002: 7). We believe that this very
progressive level of understanding can only be gauged at with a qualitative approach and an
indept reading of messages.
The second core element of ideal role taking is its ongoing character. Research has focussed on
the structure of discussion threads (Schneider, 1997; Wilhelm, 1999). In his content analysis,
Wilhelm codes for ‘time’ (the mean time length of a thread in days) and ‘thread’ (the mean
number of threads per day) (Wilhelm, 1999). The thread is taken as a carrier of conversation and
the amount and duration of threads are criteria for the ongoing character of discussions. Another
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measurement that has been used in previous research consists of the counting of the number of
participants that have only participated in the forum one time (that have only sent one message),
referred to as the ‘one-timer effect’ (Graham, 2002). The rationale of this measurement is that
conversations will not be ongoing if a lot of the participants just ‘say’ something one time and
then leave.
3.2.5 Sincerity
The requirement of sincerity implies that ‘participants must make a sincere effort to make known
all relevant information including their intentions, interests, needs, and desires’ (Dahlberg, 2002:
3). Communicative action requires sincerity and banishes rethorical forms of speech to the realm
of strategic action. Textual analysis approaches, looking for sincerity in online conversations,
have mostly focussed on traces of the absence of sincerity. Graham approaches insincerity in a
qualitative manner, looking for instances where forum participants accuse other participants of
being insincere. He acknowledges that he is thus in fact measuring insincerity as perceived by
other participants but argues ‘it is the perception of sincerity, which has the greatest impact on the
process of deliberation’ (Graham, 2002: 70). Dahlberg suggests a more comprehensive approach
with a qualitative analysis based on “consistency in speech, consistency in speech and action, and
coherence” (Chambers 1996, cited in Dahlberg 2002: 7). An inductive approach could look for
instances where participant’s inconsistencies are exposed by other participants or could look for
inconstencies in speech and/or action themselves.
3.2.6 Criterium Five: Inclusion and discursive equality
The requirement of inclusion implies that all who are affected by the issues under discussion, or
more generally all who are interested, should be able to participate. In an online environment this
obviously means access to a computer with an internet connection and the necessary ICT skills to
reach an online forum and make a contribution. Research can report descriptive statistics
concerning internet penetration, pc ownership, etc., and can present survey data on internet use
and ICT skills. Furthermore, the moderation regime and/or technical architecture of an online
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forum can make access easier or harder and can thus be reported as a variable impacting on
inclusion.
Another issue, that of discursive equality, concerns us more. It concerns inclusion among those
that are able to access a forum, where ‘each participant [should have] an equal opportunity to
introduce and question any assertion whatsoever and to express attitudes, desires, and needs’
(Dahlberg, 2002: 3). Graham states that previous studies have dealt with discursive equality
‘from two slightly different perspectives: equal voice and equal standing’ (Graham, 2002: 70).
The ‘equal standing’ research has been mostly qualitative research that analysed the discourses
used by different groups of participants (men and women, professionals and dilettants) to
evaluate if certain discourses are dominating (and thus distracting from equality). We have not
had the time to deal with this strand of research as of yet, and will thus reserve any comments for
the future. The ‘equal voice’ perspective has gained a lot of attention in previous research
(Graham, 2002; Schneider, 1997; Jensen, 2003a). It analyses ‘distribution of voice’ in a
conversation in the assumption that if only a small amount of participants makes a large
proportion of the contributions they then dominate this debate. This idea of domation of
conversation is operationalised in a ‘%participant-%contributions’ statistic: the distribution of the
amount of messages posted per participant is plotted on a Lorenz curve, often revealing that a
small percentage of posters is responsible for a large percentage of messages posted and thus
indicating the domination of the conversation by one group of participants.
3.2.7 Criterium Six: Autonomy from state and economic power
This final but fundamental criteria of the idealized public sphere requires that ‘deliberation is
driven by the concerns of publicly-oriented citizens rather than by money or administrative
power’. It concerns the ‘place’ where the conversation takes place and is derived from
Habermas’s lifeworld/systems theory (Habermas, 1984/7). It is communicative rationality that
should drive deliberation in online forums, and not the ‘instrumental’ rationality of the systems
world. Concretely, online deliberation should be free from intrusion by state and economic
power. The empirical studies considered here have mostly not dealt with this criterium explicitly,
except for some that ask the question of who is allowed to set the agenda of the conversations.
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Dahlberg proposes some descriptive reporting on explicit instances where there is clearly no
autonomy (presence of censorship or other forms of surveillance, on-site advertisements etc.)
(Dahlberg, 2002). However, a deeper insight into the subtle ways in which the steering
mechanisms of money and power can curb autonomy, according to Dahlberg, can only be gained
through participant observations.
CONCLUSION
In the first section of the article, a selection of empirical studies on online deliberation and their
findings have been discussed. We gathered many more studies though, and could have focussed
the entire article on research findings. The reason why we did not emerges already from the
presentation of selected findings: no conclusive statements on the deliberative quality of online
forums can be made. Findings differ enormously, sometimes pointing at traces of true
deliberation, often pointing at its absence. That is why we focussed on methodological issues in
the bulk of our article: to see if different findings can be explained by differences in
methodology.
We found that the empirical research on deliberation in online forums has mostly taken the form
of a ‘discrepancy analysis’ in which a set of criteria for the idealised public sphere is derived
from a theoretical construct, and in which online conversations are analysed (in a textual
analysis) to see to which degree they approach the criteria of the ideal type. Several criticisms can
be made concerning this research. First, the often considerable differences between the choice of
criteria for deliberation (and the way they are then operationalised) are problematic, not in the
least from the perspective of comparability of research findings. Some studies omit fundamental
criteria, for example Schneider’s (1997) that does not deal with justification (and thus ignores the
quality of argumentation). Second, we argue that a purely structural/procedural analysis cannot
result in meaningful findings on deliberative quality and needs to be complemented by a
qualitative analysisix. Certainly for ‘justification’ a qualitative approach is needed to be able to
interpret the kinds of arguments that are put forward and to get insight into what kind of
argumentation is used, (not) appreciated and (not) tolerated in the forum.
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Third, research that aims at a comprehensive account of the democratic importance of online
forums, we argue, should include participant observation, for example in the form of online
surveys or sociological interviews. The existence of ‘lurkersx’ by itself is enough reason to also
include surveys on perceived reciprocity, reflexivity, equality and justification. Otherwise this
group of participants can never be reached. Furthermore, the combination of a survey approach
and a textual analysis based on a sampling strategy that results in a comprehensive selection of
conversation threads, could result in complementary observations that will strengthen research
findings. Fourth, the deductive approach of past research, whereby a set of criteria derived from a
theory is applied to a conversation practice, can be problematic in itself. For example, to what
degree can we apply Habermasian criteria to an online forum that is purely discursive, not tied to
any decision making and not part of institutional politics? In this type of forum people discuss
politics but are not looking for agreement or consensus, whereas in the Habermasian framework
conversations are directed at some outcome, agreement or consensus. Furthermore, the
Habermasian criteria favor a certain type of language that is ‘abstract (...), ethically acceptable,
presented in a cooperative manner and with transparent intentions, and makes a claim to truth’
(Markovits, 2004: 19). Authors such as Lynn Sanders and Iris Young have pointed out that in the
public space, people should be able to narrate in their own terms (Dryzek, 2000). These and other
‘difference democrats’ plead for the inclusion of other forms communication, such as testimony,
storytelling, rhetoric and greeting (Dryzek, 2000). A predetermined set of Habermasian criteria
downplays the relevance of those language forms. Especially in online forums where ordinary
citizens are invited this seems an unjust approach.
It seems to us that all the textual analysis approaches discussed are flawed in a similar manner.
The constructs which they seek to operationalise are complex, so that reductions of this
complexity in the form of mutually exclusive content analysis coding categories will always lead
to a loss of meaning. The fundamental consideration to be made is whether this reduction of
complexity still allows for meaningful research findings. We argue that for some of the empirical
research discussed here the answer is no. The strength of the content analysis approach,
especially that of the quantitative variant, is its ability to analyse large amounts of messages.
Content analysis is an established method of the social sciences and carries with it implications of
controllability and representativeness. The nature of the research question (how to get a true idea
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of the deliberative quality of an online conversation) however, begs for a more qualitative
approach that enables the researcher to reveal discourse patterns in a more inductive manner, in
stead of a top-down application of some content analysis template.
In any case, the methodological debate is ongoing and researchers are coming together to
compare their approaches to allow for true cross-comparative research on online deliberationxi. In
our article, we outlined several variables that could be relevant in explaining differences in
deliberative quality. It is only when researchers will agree on certain methodological approaches,
that the relevance of the communicative structure of discussion spaces, the political culture and
ideology, and the strong vs. weak distinction for explaining differences in deliberative quality,
will become clear.
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NOTES
i
For information we mention two interesting examples of online deliberative experiments: the Seniorweb in
the Netherlands that aimed to allow the senior citizens to get politically involved (Jankowsky and van Os,
2000) and the online deliberative opinion poll, which corresponds to a tentative of adapting the famous
experiences offline deliberative opinion poll experiences to the online environment (Iyengar et al., 2004).
ii
See www.radicali .it. Its forum exists since more than four years and contains more than 360 000 interventions with
more than 23 000 people that are registered.
iii
As the secretary of the party, Rita Bernardini, says in an interview: “if the forum was anonymous I would not
bother to reply to provocation, but since the forum is public with forename and name, I feel that I have to reply.”
(Kies, R, 2004)
iv
The current responsible of the forum, noticed that once the moderation was eliminated everything went
much better: “from that moment I made up my mind that the less you moderate, the less you control these
things, the more participants are encouraged to control themselves.” (Kies, R. 2004)
v
According to his findings the former had an average of 79 words per message while the later had an
average of 345 words per message.
vi
The unit of coding, for most authors, is the individual message that is posted to the forum. An exception
is Steenbergen et al., whose unit of coding is a ‘demand’, defined as: ‘a proposal on what decision should
or should not be made’ (Steenbergen et al., 2003).
vii
Wilhelm’s approach is somewhat different because of his category of ‘incorp’ (‘ideas drawn from others
but not from other participants’), but his second category is again ‘reply’.
viii
For this last category a further distinction is made between statements of the common good in utilitarian
terms and in terms of the difference principle.
ix
We just cannot get around the intuitive feeling that in order to evaluate a message’s deliberative quality
one should actually read them (and thus not only look at their structural or formal characteristics).
x
‘Lurkers’ are those forum participants that do not post messages but only read them. Most forums have a
‘reply-count’, as well as a ‘view-count’ built into their technical architecture which allows researchers to
Davy Janssen
145
see how many persons only ‘viewed’ the message (but dit not respond).Mostly, the group of lurkers will be
bigger than the active participants, and often they are more than 2/3 of the population.
xi
Consider, for example, the ASEF Workshop on Internet Research Methods, 3-5 July, Chinese University
of Hong Kong, with special attention for methodological issues related to comparative and cross-national
studies.
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Bijlage 3: Ideas for green paper
BIJLAGE 3. In de periode dat Raphaël Kies en ikzelf deelnamen aan het congres Empirical Approaches to
Deliberative Politics (mei 2004, European University Institute, Firenze) werden we door Philipe Schmitter
aangezocht om vanuit onze expertise input te leveren voor een geen paper over de toekomst van de democratie in
Europa. De green paper is getiteld The Future of Democracy in Europe: trends, analyses and reforms en is online
raadpleegbaar op de volgende URL:
http://www.coe.int/t/e/integrated_projects/democracy/05_key_texts/02_Green_Paper/
Aangezien ik als onderzoeker van het SBOV (misschien) op deze manier heb bijgedragen tot ontwikkelingen in een
internationale context, geef ik onze inputnota graag mee in dit rapport.
Ideas for green paper
By
R. Kies and D. Janssen
E-voting and e-deliberation for foreigner national elections:
In a world that is increasingly interconnected and where national elections of major and/or
contingent countries may have an impact on the global and/or local geopolitical equilibrium, one
should offer the possibility to ‘outside’citizens (not from the country where there are elections)
to be informed, to deliberate and to express their opinions through a non-binding integrated
system of e-voting. In the long run, such a system that would have an indicative weight could,
once it has been experimented with and acknowledged, acquire a concrete, (though limited)
weight on the national elections. This would encourage candidates to give more importance to
‘outside’ politics and would encouragenon-national voters to be more concerned by the internal
and domestic policies of other countries. Such a system already exists and has been developed by
the worldvotes website (http://www.theworldvotes.org/index.php?nid=858). It offers the
possibility to US and outside citizens to vote for the US elections. One could imagine to extend
such a participative procedure for national elections in Europe, but also for major elections such
as those in China and India.
Enhancing online citizen engagement through e-consultation procedures1
In order to promote greater civic involvement and better quality policies during the entire
legislative period - and not only the election period – e-consultation procedures could be further
implemented. E-consultation procedures can take a variety of technological formats (forums,
Davy Janssen
147
invitations to send e-mails, chats with political leaders) which can be implemented at different
stages of the policy cycle (most of the time at the agenda setting stage). They are implemented by
a wide range of public bodies (from local government to national government and parliaments as
well as those operating at intergovernmental or international level). The target group addressed
varies considerably, and may include all citizens, all interested parties or specific sub-section of
the population (e.g. marginalised groups, senior citizens, youth etc.). Accordingly, E-consultation
can focus on very different topics: from questions related to urban planning (Ducsill on the
construction of the third airport of Paris) to e-consultation on prospective bills ("Today I decide"
in Estonia, commbill.net in the UK) or on ongoing debates during the Municipal Council
meetings (see for example the case study on Issy-les-Moulineaux). They also tend to be
developed on very specific and sensitive questions such as the implementation OGM culture1.
It is important to note that such procedures raise some fundamental questions for our institutions.
As pointed out by the OECD policy brief: “such new tools pose significant challenges to
governments in terms of their technical, political and constitutional implications. Among the
questions raised are: How can government ensure an equal hearing and assured listening of so
many individual voices? How will such inputs be integrated into the policy-making cycle? How
can guarantees for personal data protection be ensured? ”
In order for online procedures to be successful we subscribe with the advises of the OECD that
indicate that i) online provision of information is an essential precondition for engagement; ii)
Active promotion and competent moderation are key to effective online consultations; iii)
Integration of online and traditional methods for citizen engagement in policy-making. An
approach based on multiple channels is likely to be more successful in reaching and engaging
citizens than the reliance on a single media. iv) an active promotion of online consultation
exercise is also necessary on- and off-line; v) the scope of the online consultation exercise should
be clearly mentioned (e.g. where the result will be published and how they will be used).
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Bijlage 3: Ideas for green paper
Developing fun politics online through “Electronic political game”
This proposition goes in the sense of the Spassfactor. The idea is to make politics more fun and
attractive to sections of the population (young, minorities etc.) that are normally indifferent to
politics. Many website have already implemented games (quiz, political slot-machine, jokes etc.)
in order to become more attractive. We believe that a further in this direction would be the
implementation of gaming technique developed by the private societes such as “delib”. A variety
of game political solutions are proposed, but the most attractive one is the one in which citizens
are invited to enter in the “jeu de role”. They have to create their own avatar and they are invited
to circulate in the different rooms to meet different other persons that have a political opinion.
Televised election games during elections
Elections in the Flemish part of Belgium have in 2003 and recently in 2004 been accompanied by
a televised electoral game, produced by the official regional broadcaster, the VRT, and the
universities of Antwerp and Brussels. This cooperation goes by the name of Doe De Stemtest
(‘Take part in the Voting Test’) and has for the regional elections in 2004 culminated in three
highly watched sunday evening television shows (with an average of 750.000 viewers on a 6
milion population in Flanders). The show is based on the Voting Test, an instrument developed
by the two participating universities, consisting of a set of 99 multiple choice questions. These
questions, concerning general political issues, have been answered by all political parties and
have afterwards been weighed according to the importance attached to each issue in the
respective party programs.
Each sunday, 33 questions are put before the electorate in an entertaining prime time tv show. At
the end of the show, citizens can use SMS, regular phones or the internet to send their answers to
the VRT, who in turn replies with a top three of political parties the citizen is ‘closest to’. To give
an idea of the magnitude of this program; for the 2003 elections, 1 milion (out of 6 milion)
people participated in the Voting Test. In the second part of each show, citizens can compare
their individual scores to those of a representative sample of Flemings, to see how close they are
to the ‘average person’.
Davy Janssen
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The concept has attracted a lot of attention and criticism among the press, political parties and
academics alike. The whole effort is being evaluated as controversial, but the aim of ‘getting
people to talk politics on the train’ does seem to have been realised. One important rationale (and
effect) of the entire project has been to shift media attention in periods of political campaigning
from horse-race style journalism to a focus on content. The 33 questions (each sunday) are the
center point of the television show, and other VRT news and current affairs programs have been
dealing with several of these questions and the political party’s take on these. Examples of the
questions are:
•
•
•
•
•
•
150
parents should never ‘slap’ their children
a driver’s license is for life
when30% of a city district is inhabited by immigrants, new immigrants should seek a
house elsewhere
smoking in bars should be forbidden
there should be a limit to the wages of top managers
there should be cameras on all trams and busses
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