INSPIRE

Future Trends for e-Democracy and e-Participation

How technology is transforming government and governing

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can enhance civic life by serving a variety of ends, including better delivery of government services to citizens, improved government interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information and participation in decision-making processes, and more efficient government management.

While the application of ICT is impacting close to every aspect of modern life, there are certain areas in which digitalization is thought to have a more profound effects than in others. As social scientists, politicians and other experts are gradually exploring the potential implications of these developments, two concepts have surfaced in recent years: e-government (or e-governance) and e-democracy.

The term e-government itself is rather narrow in scope and merely refers to the electronic delivery of services and information, such as the paying of parking tickets and other fees online, or providing real time alerts and notifications for street cleaning or for emergencies.

e-Governance, on the contrary, is broader in scope and covers the regulation and transparency of administrative operations, and citizen engagement with governments and institutions through ICT. e-Governance not only involves the use of technological tools, but also aims to improve services, increase stakeholder participation in policy and decision-making, and offer channels that bring about a culture and practice of governance that serves citizens better.

In other words, e-government consists of the various governmental services that can be provided through technological means, whereas e-governance­ focuses on how governing can be improved in regard to participation and transparency through the use of ICT. e-Governance provides the framework for how e-government tools should be utilized.

In addition to the primary web portals of governments, there are multiple channels for delivering e-government services. These include the use of internet-connected smartphones (feature-rich devices with maximum communication capabilities), voice prompted interfaces (allowing for multi-lingual capabilities), SMS mobile phone applications (cost-efficient), and social media applications (provide two-way interactions and are free of cost).

e-Democracy can be understood as a subset of what was previously described as e-governance, referring to the role that citizens and society as whole play in influencing government operation, and how ICT is used in this regard. It includes all technologically aided processes that inform and influence political decision-making, from stakeholder consultations to citizen engagement. The technologies that enable e-government support the emergence of e-democracy.

Web 2.0 is often used to refer to the ways in which citizen and stakeholder engagement is aided by the latest technological developments. It contrasts the first generation of Web 1.0 websites in which users where limited to viewing content in a passive manner. The Web 2.0-era, rather, is characterized by websites and applications that emphasize user generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (the ability to work and share information with other systems and devices).

Being defined by two-way communication and enhanced accessibility, Web 2.0 creates abundant prospects for citizen participation and information exchange between public and private sectors, as well as between different parts of society more generally. Examples of this include:

• Analyzing online activity and user behavior to help politicians and decision-makers identify which issues are important, and which parts of the population require more attention and resources;
• Specifically developed apps and websites as digital tools that help citizens be more successful and effective at coordinating collective action;
• Social media as a tool for influencing public debates and opinion through deliberately informing and disinforming (“fakes news”) citizens.
• Citizen participation platforms supporting all sorts of participatory processes, digital assemblies, and online consultations.

Although these tools are not new, they have been increasingly utilized in the decision-making processes of social movements and political parties. This development presents a novel approach, especially in regard to political parties, as the open and egalitarian nature of new forms of participation powered by ICT (such as during primaries or internal consultations) cuts directly against traditional party norms of centralized control and fixed hierarchies. This has recently been seen in the use of online voting by traditional parties for internal decision-making, such as Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). As a matter of fact, online voting and election modernization solutions have been used by numerous political parties in various countries, and even by a supranational organization: the European Union.

With continued advancements in the capabilities and security of ICT, we can expect to see a consistent rise in the implementation of e-government and e-democracy solutions around the world. In times of declining participation rates and political disenchantment, these novel forms of democracy have the potential to rebuild the public’s trust in institutions and to foster civic engagement. This will need to be accompanied by a focus on e-governance, ensuring that such tools are utilized to promote transparent, accessible, and participatory democracies.

This article was written by Maximilian Hee, Public Policy Intern at Scytl.