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Open Access 2020 | Open Access | Buch

Buchtitelbild

European E-Democracy in Practice

herausgegeben von: Dr. Leonhard Hennen, Dr. Ira van Keulen, Dr. Iris Korthagen, Dr. Georg Aichholzer, Dr. Ralf Lindner, Dr. Rasmus Øjvind Nielsen

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Studies in Digital Politics and Governance

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Über dieses Buch

This open access book explores how digital tools and social media technologies can contribute to better participation and involvement of EU citizens in European politics. By analyzing selected representative e-participation projects at the local, national and European governmental levels, it identifies the preconditions, best practices and shortcomings of e-participation practices in connection with EU decision-making procedures and institutions. The book features case studies on parliamentary monitoring, e-voting practices, and e-publics, and offers recommendations for improving the integration of e-democracy in European politics and governance. Accordingly, it will appeal to scholars as well as practitioners interested in identifying suitable e-participation tools for European institutions and thus helps to reduce the EU’s current democratic deficit.

This book is a continuation of the book “Electronic Democracy in Europe” published by Springer.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Open Access

Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
The introductory chapter provides an overview of the volume ‘European e-Democracy in Practice’. The focus of the volume is on the exploration of the conditions needed to realise the democratic potential of the broad scope of tools, instruments and procedures to strengthen the ties between established processes of representative democratic decision-making and its constituencies, with a particular view to political communication and decision-making at the European level. Part I of the book provides the outcome of a broad literature review covering the scholarly debate on the achievements and potentials of e-democracy and its relevance for policymaking on the EU level. Part II of the book presents 22 case studies on the use of e-participation tools at the local, national and European levels which were carried out to learn about best practices and major challenges and problems of e-participation in practice. Finally, Part III provides a systematic comparative analysis of the case studies, and based on this analysis and the findings of the literature review, options for improving e-participation at the EU-level are discussed.
Leonhard Hennen, Iris Korthagen, Ira van Keulen, Georg Aichholzer, Ralf Lindner, Rasmus Ø. Nielsen

The State of Scholarly Discussions

Frontmatter

Open Access

Chapter 2. E-Democracy: Conceptual Foundations and Recent Trends
Abstract
Lindner and Aichholzer provide an introductory overview of the theoretical and conceptual foundations of electronic democracy, thereby providing analytical insights on the interplay between Internet-based communication and democratic processes. To this end, different normative views, aims and approaches of e-democracy are presented and systematically related to the central tenets of the main models of democracy. As e-participation plays an essential role in most conceptions of e-democracy, a typology of Internet-based citizen involvement is developed, thereby structuring the diversity of e-participation practices. Given the growing relevance of Web 2.0 and social media, the chapter discusses to which degree they are able to support core democratic functions of public communication—namely public critique, legitimation, and integration—by exploring the effects of social media usage on the quality of deliberation, political activism and political behaviour. In view of phenomena such as “personalised politics”, echo chambers and deliberate misinformation, the authors call for effective political, educational and regulatory responses to the democratic challenges social media increasingly pose.
Ralf Lindner, Georg Aichholzer

Open Access

Chapter 3. E-Democracy and the European Public Sphere
Abstract
The chapter starts with an outline of outstanding recent contributions to the discussion of the EU democratic deficit and the so-called “no demos” problem and the debate about European citizenship and European identity—mainly in the light of insights from the EU crisis. This is followed by reflections on the recent discussion on the state of the mass media-based European public sphere. Finally, the author discusses the state of research on the Internet’s capacity to support the emergence of a (renewed) public sphere, with a focus on options for political actors to use the Internet for communication and campaigning, on the related establishment of segmented issue-related publics as well as on social media and its two-faced character as an enabler as well as a distorting factor of the public sphere. The author is sceptic about the capacities of Internet-based political communication to develop into a supranational (European) public sphere. It rather establishes a network of a multitude of discursive processes aimed at opinion formation at various levels and on various issues. The potential of online communication to increase the responsiveness of political institutions so far is set into practice insufficiently. Online media are increasingly used in a vertical and scarcely in a horizontal or interactive manner of communication.
Leonhard Hennen

Open Access

Chapter 4. Experience with Digital Tools in Different Types of e-Participation
Abstract
The chapter offers a systematic overview of the use of digital tools for various forms of political participation and the experiences made so far, based on an extensive literature review. Discerning three key functions of e-participation—monitoring, agenda-setting and input to decision-making—the authors review a variety of formally institutionalised mechanisms as well as informal expressions of civic engagement, including social media. The examination of digital tool use for monitoring purposes extends from electronic information access and exchange to e-deliberation, while the role for agenda-setting mainly includes uses for e-petitions and e-campaigning, showing a mixed picture of democratic impacts. The review of e-participation providing input for decision-making focusses on e-consultations, e-participative budgeting and e-voting, identifying several persisting problems with the latter instrument. A special section examines e-participation at EU-level, from deliberative citizens’ involvement projects and e-consultation to the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) and e-petitions to the European Parliament. Findings show that digital tools enhance direct and participative democracy in many respects; however, exaggerated expectations of new democratic potentials remain unfulfilled: deliberative participative designs lack any impact on decision-making, and the ECI still is rather an instrument for civil society mobilisation than citizen empowerment.
Georg Aichholzer, Gloria Rose

Case Studies

Frontmatter

Open Access

Chapter 5. Introduction to the Case Study Research
Abstract
Van Keulen and Korthagen introduce in this chapter the empirical study of 22 cases of digital tools which form a large and important part of this book. The authors indicate how the cases were selected based on different criteria such as diversity of institutional contexts and scales, geographical diversity and different types of citizen involvement. Each of the cases is described based on an evaluation framework for assessing the digital tools. The authors choose to put legitimacy and its key dimensions—input, throughput and output legitimacy—central in the framework. A logical choice since disengagement from the European democratic processes and distance of the European citizens from EU institutions remains a major problem. This short chapter explains furthermore how the data collection and analysis of the 22 cases have been done. Special attention is paid to explaining the method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA).
Ira van Keulen, Iris Korthagen

Open Access

Chapter 6. Parliamentary Monitoring
Abstract
Korthagen and Dorst introduce two digital tools which enable voters to monitor the actions of their representatives: the British theyworkforyou.​com and the German abgeordnetenwatch.de. Only the German tool is interactive; it also offers opportunities to ask questions to MPs, comment their voting behaviour and sign petitions. In their description and analysis of both cases, the authors put a strong focus on the participatory process and practical experiences of users. For a better understanding of these tools and how they are used in practice, interviews were conducted with the organisers and researchers familiar with both tools. Strengths and weaknesses are identified and possibilities for improvements explored. Although both tools are developed for the general public, they are mostly used by journalists and other professional users such as NGOs. The data of the websites therefore still reaches many people through mass media. The most important benefit of these tools is that they contribute to impartial information on political votes. However, unintended side effects are there as well, as several MPs in the UK increased the number of times they spoke just to increase their scores.
Iris Korthagen, Hade Dorst

Open Access

Chapter 7. Informal Agenda Setting
Abstract
In this chapter, Van Keulen and Korthagen describe two tools which are used by citizens to put issues they think are important on the political agenda: the Dutch website petities.nl and the Finnish Avoin Ministeriö (Open Ministry) which ceased to exist but was aimed to help citizens’ initiatives such as submitting a bill. Both are organised bottom-up. In their description and analysis of both cases, the authors put a strong focus on the participatory process and practical experiences of users. For a better understanding of these tools and how they are used in practice, interviews were conducted with the founders and researchers familiar with both tools. Strengths and weaknesses are identified and possibilities for improvements explored. While both tools show positive results in different ways, their impact in terms of policy tools leaves much to be desired. Interestingly, the low impact does not seem to create too much disillusionment among the participants. Quite the opposite, the amount of visitors of petities.nl have been steadily increasing. And participants of the Open Ministry are willing to accept not achieving the desired outcome, as long as they perceive the process to be fair. It turns out that e-participation tools are more often a successful civic instrument, but not a convincing policy instrument.
Ira van Keulen, Iris Korthagen

Open Access

Chapter 8. Formal Agenda Setting (National and Local Level)
Abstract
Korthagen et al. describe and analyse five digital democratic tools which serve or had served to support formal agenda setting at the national and local level (crowdsourcing for a constitution in Iceland, Future Melbourne Wiki, the Slovenian Predlagam.vladi.si, participatory budgeting in Berlin Lichtenberg and the Dutch internetconsultation.nl). The authors place a strong focus on the participatory process and practical experiences. For a better understanding of these tools and how they are used in practice, interviews were conducted with administrators and researchers familiar with the respective tools. Strengths and weaknesses are identified and possibilities for improvements explored. Most of the tools have had their impact on a political or policy agenda, although the extent of the impact differs and cannot always be quantified. This success is partly due to the embeddedness of most of the tools in formal policy or political processes. An important finding of this chapter is that although e-participation can have an impact on the political agenda setting, it does not always imply that there is an impact on the final decision-making process.
Iris Korthagen, Gloria Rose, Georg Aichholzer, Ira van Keulen

Open Access

Chapter 9. Formal Agenda-Setting (European Level)
Abstract
Rose et al. introduce four digital democratic tools which serve or have served to support formal agenda-setting on the European level (European Citizens’ Initiative, Futurium, Your Voice in Europe, and European Citizens’ Consultations). The authors place a strong focus on the participatory process and practical experiences. For a better understanding of these tools and how they are used in practice, interviews were conducted with administrators and researchers familiar with the respective tools. Strengths and weaknesses are identified and possibilities for improvements explored. While each tool shows positive results in different ways, their impact in terms of policy tools leaves much to be desired. Lessons learnt include the need to communicate clearly what input is desired from the participants and transparency about what outcomes can be expected and how the collected input is utilized. The tools must also be flexible enough to adapt to user feedback in order to provide for a learning process to take place.
Gloria Rose, Ira van Keulen, Georg Aichholzer

Open Access

Chapter 10. Non-binding Decision-Making
Abstract
Korthagen et al. introduce six quite successful digital tools used in decision-making processes. Three tools are used by political parties (Spanish Podemos, the Italian Five Star Movement and the German Pirate Party) aiming for direct democracy and more transparency. The other three tools are online participatory budgeting (PB) tools initiated by municipalities (the Brazilian city Belo Horizonte, the French capital Paris and the Icelandic capital Reykjavik). The authors place a strong focus on the participatory process and practical experiences. For a better understanding of these tools and how they are used in practice, interviews were conducted with administrators and researchers familiar with the respective tools. All tools except one, the Podemos tool, prove to have an impact on decision-making processes with the party or municipality. The authors explain this success rate by the fact that the tools are embedded in actual formal decision-making processes: the internal party decision-making process and the budgeting process of local democracies.
Iris Korthagen, Casper Freundlich Larsen, Rasmus Ø. Nielsen

Open Access

Chapter 11. Binding Decision-Making
Abstract
Goos and Korthagen present a detailed analysis of the three case studies “Green Primary”, “Voting in Estonia” and “Voting in Switzerland”, which all describe different practices of online ballots. Relevant contextual factors of the digital tools with regard to the key dimensions input legitimacy, throughput legitimacy and output legitimacy are assessed in order to better understand the role these digital tools can play in the political decision-making process. The case studies are based on desk research and interviews with organizers and researchers of the e-participation processes and analyse the digital tool, the participants, participatory process and the results of the digital tool. The analysis shows that online voting tends to be more inclusive and that the process as such requires different steps to strengthen security and privacy of the online ballot. Furthermore, no clear indicators for an often-claimed increase of turnout exist, and, in general, scaling up online elections to a larger framework than the rather restricted ones analysed in this chapter requires major efforts with regard to legal, technical and social aspects.
Kerstin Goos, Iris Korthagen

Conclusions

Frontmatter

Open Access

Chapter 12. Assessing Tools for E-Democracy: Comparative Analysis of the Case Studies
Abstract
Korthagen and van Keulen compare in this chapter the 22 case studies of digital tools discussed in part II of the book. They use Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) to study which conditions lead to actual impact of the tools on policy, (1) decision-making or (2) agenda-setting. Sixteen conditions identified from the literature review are compared. Ultimately, the most important conditions for successful e-participation identified by the authors are as follows: a close and clear link of e-participation processes to a concrete formal decision-making process should be available; the participatory process and the contribution of its outputs to the overall decision-making process have to be clarified to the participants from the start; feedback to the participants about what has been done with their contributions is an indispensable feature of the process; a participative process should not be limited to one event but should be imbedded in an institutional ‘culture of participation’; and, finally, e-participation must be accompanied by an effective mobilisation and engagement strategy, involving communication instruments tailored for different target groups.
Iris Korthagen, Ira van Keulen

Open Access

Chapter 13. Options for Improving e-Participation at the EU Level
Abstract
In this chapter, Nielsen et al. propose options for improving e-participation at the EU level without changing underlying legal frameworks. In response to the challenges to e-participation, which arise out of current institutional designs, the authors make creative use of the research results presented earlier in the book to suggest ‘low-hanging fruits’ for practical reform. The challenges addressed include the relative weakness of individual citizens’ participation compared to that of CSO’s, the weakness of the Parliament in the legislative process and the continued de-coupling of the EU policy process from the will of the European citizens. While the chapter proposes no easy fixes, it points to some obvious practical steps forward. To improve existing participation mechanisms, the authors recommend providing improved support to citizens using the ECI, investing in the back-office support needed for the EP Petitions Portal to realize its potential and improving the scalability of Your Voice in Europe through advanced data analysis. They also make four novel proposals, first among which is to experiment with participatory budgeting in relation to the Regional and Social Funds. The chapter ends with a plea for a long-term vision of a unified European participation structure to gather and harness the potentials of individual mechanisms.
Rasmus Ø. Nielsen, Leonhard Hennen, Iris Korthagen, Georg Aichholzer, Ralf Lindner
Metadaten
Titel
European E-Democracy in Practice
herausgegeben von
Dr. Leonhard Hennen
Dr. Ira van Keulen
Dr. Iris Korthagen
Dr. Georg Aichholzer
Dr. Ralf Lindner
Dr. Rasmus Øjvind Nielsen
Copyright-Jahr
2020
Electronic ISBN
978-3-030-27184-8
Print ISBN
978-3-030-27183-1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27184-8

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