E-participation

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E-government

    democracy

  participation

    E-democracy

  E-participation

E-administration
For executive, legislative, judicial, administration and citizens, residents, organizations, companies
(e- service public ) including:

Electronic voting

ICT systems

E-participation encompasses all internet- based processes that enable citizens to participate in the political decision-making process. It is an indirect democratic element of e-democracy . As a further development of classic participation processes , e-participation opens up the possibility of a large number of participants being able to develop very focused results. Just as with event-oriented formats, the selection and design of the joint work processes (collaborative workflows) determine the success of the process.

The term e-participation became necessary in order to distinguish it from the term e-government . E-government encompasses the optimization and modernization of administrative processes through information and communication technology - the offers of public services are made accessible online. E-government sees the citizen as the customer of government services. In contrast, e-participation emphasizes the role of the citizen as a responsible partner in political decision-making.

definition

Dimensions of e-government
E-Government Dimensions.svg
Sources (among others): Dowe / Märker, Hart / Pflügler

E-participation (part of e-government ) is still a young research field. Although the term came up at the beginning of the 21st century, there is still hardly any uniform definition. In the rather broad definition of Ann Macintosh, e-participation is seen as "the use of information and communication technologies to broaden and deepen the political participation of citizens."

At the center of e-participation is exchange, i.e. communication between politics and the electorate and communication between citizens. The Internet makes two-channel communication much easier here: Governments not only distribute information to their citizens, but also request opinions and views. Conversely, citizens turn to politicians with their concerns and receive answers. E-participation thus expressly emphasizes the partnership-like relationship between citizens and political decision-makers. The above definition of e-participation does not only include top-down procedures through which governments turn to voters. Rather, the decision-making and decision-making process is also possible without the direct involvement of political institutions if actors from the civil society sector come into contact with one another.

Participation process

As with classic participation processes , e-participation typically has to be divided between formal, i.e. H. To differentiate between legally prescribed procedures and informal, i.e. voluntary procedures.

Internet-based processes are increasingly being used, especially for formal participation processes (spatial planning, regional planning, state planning, plan approval, land-use planning, etc.). In addition to cost savings and process acceleration, internet-based participation takes into account the communication and interaction habits of the population, but also of the authorities, which have changed considerably in recent years due to the internet.

In contrast to electronic voting ( e-voting ), e-participation in informal procedures is not aimed at the act of making a decision, but at the process of forming an opinion. In representative democracies, e-participation is to be understood as a dialogue between government and citizens, in which the citizens voluntarily and actively participate in the decision-making process. However, the ultimate responsibility for the decision remains with the elected representatives.

Examples of e-participation offers are:

  • Opportunity to have a say in building projects on a municipality's website
  • Discussion of proposed legislation on a parliament's website
  • Discussions about the budget of a municipality ("participatory budget")
  • Internet-based surveys on planning projects
  • Formal participation procedures for planning processes (e.g. land-use planning, regional planning, plan approval procedures)

Tools and Methods

In the course of Web 2.0 in particular , a large number of tools were created that facilitate the social networking of a large number of people. These tools served as a source of inspiration for formal eParticipation processes. In addition, social networks and Web 2.0 applications are also becoming places of informal political participation.

Participation tools:

Mechanisms

Tracking and analysis

E-participation in the European Union

E-participation is linked to the hope that it will encourage citizens to participate in the political process and thus increase the legitimacy of political processes. The European Commission, which has been promoting projects for electronic citizen participation for several years, would like to take advantage of this effect.

After France and the Netherlands rejected the Lisbon Treaty in 2005, it became clear that there was a lack of direct communication between the EU institutions and EU citizens. To many citizens, decisions at EU level do not appear to be sufficiently legitimate and far removed from their own lives. In order to open up communication between citizens and EU institutions, European Communication has launched the so-called Plan D - D stands for discussion, debate and democracy.

As part of Plan D, the Commission funded six citizens' consultations between 2005 and 2007. The aim of the initiatives was to restore the citizens' trust in the European Union, to make decision-making processes more transparent and to promote the development of a European identity through the pan-European discussion. In 2008 Plan D was continued: the European Commission continued some of the most successful Plan D projects and co-financed a number of EU-wide and national new discussion projects.

ICT should also help to make the EU legislative process more transparent and transparent for citizens. The EU therefore funded a total of 21 projects between 2006 and 2008. On the one hand, these explored possibilities to make legal texts easier to understand and to be able to translate them into all languages ​​of the EU member states. On the other hand, they looked for ways to increase citizens' participation in the decision-making process. The MOMENTUM platform serves as a monitor for these projects.

In addition, the EU promotes cooperation between e-participation actors. The Pan European eParticipation Network (PEP-Net) connects researchers, practitioners, companies and representatives from non-governmental organizations and from public administration.

Projects to improve e-participation are also funded in the 7th Framework Program of the European Union. The largest of these is the FUPOL project.

See also

literature

  • JG Bluemler, Stephen Coleman: Realizing Democracy Online: A Civic Commons in Cyberspace. London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2001
  • Stephen Coleman, John Gøtze: Bowling together. Online Public Engagement in Policy Deliberation. 2001
  • Robert Kaiser: Citizens and the State in Virtual Space - E-Government in German and International Perspective. In: Course book Internet and Politics - Electronic Democracy and Virtual Government. Vol. 1/2001, pp. 57-68. Opladen: Leske and Budrich 2001
  • Macintosh, Ann: eParticipation in Policy Making: The Research and the Challenges. Exploiting the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2006
  • Trénel, Matthias and Oliver Märker: "E-Participation: The Internet as a Medium for Citizen Participation." IPublic - Psychology in Environmental Protection 2004, 8: 59-65, 2004
  • OECD Policy Brief: Engaging Citizens Online for Better Policy-making (PDF; 189 kB). Washington et al: OECD Observer, 2003
  • Märker, Oliver, Matthias Trénel and Annika Poppenborg: “Unused knowledge. Introductory article of the special issue 'e-Participation. Pioneer of a new planning culture? '. “Kommune21. e-Government, Internet and Information Technology 2003, 9: 18-20, 2003
  • Martini, Mario: From the domestic sofa to the digital agora: E-participation as an instrument of a living democracy ?, in: Hill / Schliesky (ed.), Die Neubestetermung der Privatheit, Baden-Baden 2014, pp. N93-247
  • Alexander Siedschlag, Arne Rogg, Carolin Welzel: Digital Democracy. Formation of will and participation via the Internet. Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 2002
  • Fleischhauer, Dietmar, Oliver Märker, Volkmar Pipek and Dirk Schmidt: "bürger.beteiligung.de ?, planning participation through information and communication technology." Location, Zeitschrift für Angewandte Geographie 4, 19-25, 1998
  • Märker, Oliver: Online mediation as an instrument for sustainable urban and regional planning. A qualitative study of the internal and external relevance of online mediated processes. Fraunhofer Series in Information and Communication Technology, 2/2005. Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2005
  • Lenk, Klaus: “Technologies that promote participation?” Pp. 111–123 in information rights and communication policy. Development perspectives of cable television and broadband communication, Ed .: Klaus Lenk, contributions to legal informatics, 4th Darmstadt, 1976
  • Ifib and Zebralog: “'E-Participation - Electronic participation of the population and business in e-government'. Study on behalf of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Ref. IT 1. “ http: //www.e-konsultation.de,/ 2008
  • Knies, J .: E-participation in spatial planning, In: Strobl, J., Blaschke, T. & G. Griesebner (Ed.) (2007): Applied Geoinformatics 2007. Contributions to the 19th AGIT Symposium Salzburg. Wichmann, Heidelberg, S .: 354-363, 2007
  • Andreas Meinicke: Political legitimation through online citizen participation? Blog "Kommune 2.0" - http://andreasmeinicke.wordpress.com/ (2012), download PDF
  • Jens Weiß: Who will save democracy from e-participation? Administration & Management, 19, 2013, pp. 283–288. PDF
  • Oliver Märker & Josef Wehner: Who will protect e-participation from wrong standards? - a replica. Administration & Management, 20th year 2014, issue 2, pp. 59–66. PDF
  • MAria Brückner & Oliver Märker: E-Participation: Electrification of Citizen Participation. With examples from Berlin and Brandenburg. Location - Journal for Applied Geography, special issue for the German Congress for Geography, 2015, pp. 112–119.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ KAISER, Robert (2001): Citizens and the State in Virtual Space - E-Government in German and International Perspective. In: Siedschlag et al. (2001: 57-68)
  2. ↑ Christoph Dowe, Oliver Märker: Electronic Citizen Participation in Large German Cities 2004 - Website Ranking , Initiative eParticipation
    Thomas Hart, Frank Pflüger (ed.): New Media and Citizen Orientation     - Strategies for the Local Future , Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung, Gütersloh 2004
  3. ^ Macintosh, Ann (2006): eParticipation in Policy Making: The Research and the Challenges
  4. ^ Macintosh, Ann (2006): eParticipation in Policy Making: The Research and the Challenges
  5. ^ "Debate Europe" - a voice for the citizens ( Memento from August 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ^ Report on the Objectives, Structure and Status of eParticipation Initiative Projects in the European Union ( Memento from October 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ FUPOL project

Web links