E-DEMOCRATIE: HOE, WAT, WAAR OF NIET? BESCHOUWINGEN VOOR BELEIDSMAKERS

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

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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

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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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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

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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 10

Spoor eGovernment

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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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’.

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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’.

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’.

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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:

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Steunpunt beleidsrelevant onderzoek - bestuurlijke organisatie Vlaanderen 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: •

• •

• • •

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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. 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

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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: •

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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).

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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

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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 34

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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.

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‘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

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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 44

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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

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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.

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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 48

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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

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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. 50

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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 54

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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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Bijlage 1: Resultaten van de E-Forum E-Democracy Work Group

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 Davy Janssen

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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 Davy Janssen

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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 64

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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

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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: • • • 76

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. Spoor eGovernment


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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 Davy Janssen

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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.

3.3.1 Stage in decision-making 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.

3.3.2 Level of engagement 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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3.3.5 Technologies used 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.

3.3.6 Rules of engagement 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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3.3.7 Duration and sustainability 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.

3.4.1 Stage in decision-making The website allows feedback, complaints and enquiries on council decisions. The Local Democracy Page includes, 82

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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.

3.4.2 Level of engagement 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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3.4.6 Rules of engagement 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.

3.4.12 Critical factors for success 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.

3.5.1 Stage in decision-making 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.

3.5.2 Level of engagement 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.

3.5.5 Technologies used 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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3.5.6 Rules of engagement 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.”

3.5.7 Duration and sustainability 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. Davy Janssen

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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.

3.6.1 Level of engagement 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.

3.6.2 Stage in 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 Davy Janssen

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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.

3.6.5 Technologies used 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.

3.6.6 Rules of engagement 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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3.6.7 Duration and sustainability 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.

3.7.1 Level of engagement 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.

3.7.2 Stage in 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).

3.7.5 Technologies used 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.

3.7.6 Rules of engagement 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.

3.7.7 Duration and sustainability 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. The system is accessible from any standard web browser, and requires no installation of help systems on the client side.

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.

3.8.1 Level of engagement 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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3.8.2 Stage in decision-making 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.

3.8.5 Technologies used 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.

3.8.6 Rules of engagement 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. The system is accessible from any standard web browser, and requires no installation of help systems on the client side.

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3.8.7 Duration and sustainability 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.

3.9.5 Rules of engagement There is a set of standard rules for every participant. Besides, the IT-experts need to register in advance.

3.9.6 Duration & sustainability 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.

3.9.12 Critical factors for success 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

3.10.1 Stage in decision-making 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.

3.10.2 Level of engagement 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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3.10.6 Rules of engagement 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.

3.10.7 Duration & sustainability 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.

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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: • • • • • • 114

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 Spoor eGovernment


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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

3.11.6 Rules of engagement 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.

3.11.7 Duration & sustainability 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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3.11.9 Accessibility 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.

3.11.13 Critical factors for success 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.

3.12.2 Level of engagement 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. 118

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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.

3.12.6 Rules of engagement 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.

3.12.7 Duration & sustainability 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.

3.12.9 Accessibility 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.

3.12.13 Critical factors for success 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

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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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Bijlage 2: Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy

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 Davy Janssen

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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. 126

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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 Davy Janssen

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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 Davy Janssen

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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 136

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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.

REFERENCES

Aikens, G. (1997), American democracy and computer-mediated communication: a case study in Minnesota, Ph.D dissertation, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge University.

Beierle, T.C. (2002), Democracy online: an evaluation of the National Dialogue on Public Involvement in EPA decision, Washington: RFF Report.

Bentivegna, S. (1998), Talking politics on the net, Research paper R-20, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, JFK, School of Government. Chambers, S. (1996), Reasonable democracy: Jürgen Habermas and the politics of discourse, London: Cornell University Press.

Coleman, S., Hall N. and Howell M (2002), Hearing voices. The experience of online public consultation and discussion in UK governance, UK: Hansard Society.

Dahlberg, L. (2002), “Net-public sphere research: beyond the ‘first phase’”, Euricom colloquium: electronic networks and democracy; 9-12 October 2002, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Davis, R. (1999), The web of politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Bijlage 2: Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy Dryzek, J.S. (2000), Deliberative democracy and beyond, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Docter and Dutton (1998), “The first amendment online: Santa Monica’s public electronic network”, in R. Tsagarousianou, D. Tambini and C. Bryan, Eds., Cyberdemocracy: Technologies, Cities and Civic Network, London : Routledge.

Dumoulin, M. (2003), ‘Les forums électroniques: délibératifs et démocratiques?’, in Monière, D. (ed.), Internet et la Démocratie, Montréal: Erudit.

Dutton, W.H. (1996), “Networks rules of order: regulating speech in public electronic fora”, Media, Culture & Society, 18: 269-290.

Graham, T.S. (2002) “The public sphere needs you. Deliberating in online forums: new hope for the public sphere?”, Master Thesis, University of Amsterdam.

Habermas, J. (1984/7), The theory of communicative action: volumes 1&2., Boston: Beacon Press.

Habermas, J. (1988), The structural transformation of the public sphere, Cambridge: MIT Press.

Habermas, J. (1996), Between facts and norms: contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy, Cambridge: MIT Press.

Iyengar S., R. C. Luskin and J. S. Fishkin (2004), “Facilitating informed political Opinion: Evidences from face-toface and online deliberative polls”, Research Paper, The Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford: Stanford University.

Jankowski, N. and Van Selm M. (2000), “The promise and practice of public debate in cyberspace”, in K. Hacker and J.A.G.M. Van Dijk, Eds., Digital Democracy: Issues of theory and practice, London: Sage.

Jankowski, N.W. and van Os, R. (2002), “Internet-based political discourse: a case study of electronic democracy in the city of Hoogeveen”, Euricom colloquium: electronic networks and democracy, 9-12 October 2002, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Jensen, J.L. (2003a), “Public spheres on the internet: anarchic or government-sponsored – a comparison”, Scandinavian Political Studies 26(4): 349-374.

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Jensen, J.L. (2003b), “Minnesota E-democracy – online participation and political effects”, Association of Internet researcher’s conference, 16-19 October 2003, Toronto, Canada.

Macintosh, A. and Whyte, A. (2002), “Analysis and evaluation of e-consultations”, e-Service Journal 2(1): 9-34.

Markovits, E. (2004), “The trouble with being earnest: deliberative democracy and the sincerity norm”, Annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, 2-5 September, Chicago, USA.

Monnoyer-Smith, L. (2004), “Nouveaux dispositifs de concertation et formes controverses : le choix d’un troisième aéroport pour Paris”, Rapport intermédiaire interne, Laboratoire Communication et Politique, CNRS, Paris.

Muhlberger, P. (2000), “Defining and measuring deliberative participation and potential: a theoretical analysis and operationalization”, International society for political phychology 23rd annual scientific meeting, Seattle, USA.

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Bijlage 2: Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy Trechsel, A., Kies, R., Mendez, F and P. Schmitter (2004), “Evaluation of the use of new technologies in order to facilitate democracy in Europe: E-democratizing the parliaments and parties in Europe”, European Parliament DG for research: STOA.

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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

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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,

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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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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’.

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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: • • • • • •

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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

Spoor eGovernment

E-DEMOCRATIE: HOE, WAT, WAAR OF NIET? BESCHOUWINGEN VOOR BELEIDSMAKERS

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