eDemocracy - ifib.de · Prisma Strategic Guideline 9 eDemocracy Prepared for the Prisma team by Herbert Kubicek and Hilmar Westholm University Of Bremen, Technologie-Zentrum Informatik

Prisma Strategic Guideline 9

eDemocracy

Prepared for the Prisma team by

Herbert Kubicek and Hilmar WestholmUniversity Of Bremen, Technologie-Zentrum Informatik

Roman WinklerAustrian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Technology Assessment

April 2003

INFORMATION SOCIETIES TECHNOLOGIES (IST) PROGRAMME

Prisma Strategic Guidelines

1 -- eAdministration

2 -- eHealth

3 -- eServices for all – treating all users equally

4 -- eEnvironment

5 -- eTransport

6 -- eTourism

7 – eGovernment innovation in the knowledge economy

8 -- eGovernment in selected EU Accession States

9 -- eDemocracy

10 -- eStrategies for Government

Other important Prisma publications

Pan-European changes and trends in service provision

Pan-European current best practice

Pan-European scenario-building

Pan-European future best practice models

Synopsis report outlining Prisma’s methodology, approach, main results, tools and utility, plus synopsis reportson each best practice service and thematic model

Synthesis report on long-term trends and scenarios for IST service design, development and provision

Prisma Final report

All the above publications are available on:

http://www.prisma-eu.net

or from:

Jeremy MillardCompetence and IT

Danish Technological InstituteTeknologiparken8000 Aarhus C

DenmarkTelephone: +45 72 20 14 17

Fax: +45 72 20 14 14mailto: [email protected]

Foreword

Paul Timmers, Head of Unit eGovernment,Directorate-General Information Society

European Commission

The way we are governed in Europe is undergoing dramatic change, to which the introduction of Informationand Communications Technology is making its own powerful contribution, hand-in-hand with other societaltrends. This makes eGovernment one of the biggest challenges currently facing Europe as it touches on so manyaspects of our personal, family, community, working and business lives.

In recognition of this importance, eGovernment has become a major focus within the eEurope 2005 Action Plan,which itself arises out of the new common policy framework for the knowledge-based economy, agreed at theLisbon Summit in March 2000, towards improved competitiveness, sustainable economic growth, more andbetter jobs and greater social cohesion in Europe.

The new phase of European cooperation marked by the Lisbon objectives is also supported by the 6th FrameworkProgramme for Research and Technology development, shortly to launch its first eGovernment projects, andwhich itself builds directly on the 5th Framework Programme and particularly the Key Action on “Systems andServices for the Citizen”.

The series of strategic guidelines, of which this publication is part, represents some of the important resultsemerging from 5th Framework Programme research prepared by the PRISMA project as an accompanyingmeasure within the Action Line “New models for providing services to citizens”. PRISMA’s work is animpressive and potentially very influential study of good practice across a number of public eService areaswhich uses scenario development techniques to assist service providers, ICT suppliers, user organisations andpolicy makers to anticipate good practice requirements within eGovernment over the next five to ten years.

This publication results from the joint effort of many people across Europe. I hope that it will be both a point ofreference as well as a source of inspiration and deeper understanding.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission.

Paul Timmers, Head of Unit eGovernmentDirectorate-General Information SocietyEuropean Commission

The Prisma project

Jeremy Millard, Prisma Coordinator,Danish Technological Institute

This publication is one of a series of Strategic Guidelines prepared by the Prisma project as part of the 5th

Framework Information Society Technologies Programme for European research and technology development,2000-2003. It represents the joint effort of all Prisma project partners.

The core work of the Prisma project involves:� mapping overall trends and changes affecting eGovernment over a 10 year time horizon� identifying current good practice (state of the art) in the provision of citizen services� elaborating long-term visions over 10 years for eGovernment� conducting foresight and scenario-building exercises over 10 years for eGovernment� developing new models of service delivery based upon future-oriented good practice for these services.

The Prisma project aims to provide for the first time a systematic analysis and synthesis of current and futureimpacts of new information and communication technology (ICT) on government services in Europe. Within thecontext of eGovernment, six major service fields have been examined in detail: administrations; health; personswith special needs: the disabled and elderly; environment; transport; and tourism.

Although Prisma has undertaken a comprehensive analysis of each of these service fields in turn, a main strandof the research has also been to focus upon the synergies between them by examining common cross-cuttingthemes:1. user-centred design and involvement2. multi-channel service delivery3. organisation, work and skills4. financing5. social inclusion6. regional development7. trust, security and privacy8. technology trends and standards9. governance, including partnerships, collaboration and competition

A focus on these cross-cutting themes has maximised the impact and robustness of the current and future goodpractice analyses, scenarios and models developed by Prisma. This has enabled an integrative understanding ofeGovernment service change over the next ten years to be undertaken, both in-depth within specific servicefields, but also taking a broader view by linking common issues and challenges, and deriving common lessonsmore likely to have future longer term resonance.

Prisma work has been carried out in close consultation with a large number of selected good practice cases ofeGovernment around Europe, and with experts working through service and thematic panels. An independentAdvisory Panel has also monitoring the project over its total duration and provided regular feedback and advice.

A detailed description of Prisma’s methodology is available in the publication Prisma Final Report. All PrismaStrategic Guidelines and other publications are available from the web-site: http://www.prisma-eu.net.

I offer my sincere thanks to all Prisma partners and colleagues who have worked tirelessly and with greatenthusiasm to make our collective work a success. Much appreciation is also extended to Stefanos Gouvras andGiuseppe Zilioli of the European Commission who have always been on hand with invaluable support andadvice when needed.

Jeremy Millard

CONTENTS

Foreword

The Prisma project

1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................ 1

2 E-DEMOCRACY – CONCEPT, TOOLS AND APPLICATIONS ........................ 2

2.1 E-tools and selected applications.....................................................................3

2.2 E-tools within the policy cycle ..........................................................................42.2.1 Problem perception ........................................................................................... 52.2.2 Agenda setting ................................................................................................... 72.2.3 Policy formulation.............................................................................................. 82.2.4 Decision making .............................................................................................. 122.2.5 Implementation ................................................................................................ 132.2.6 Evaluation and monitoring ............................................................................. 142.2.7 Termination and revision ................................................................................ 162.2.8 Summary........................................................................................................... 16

3 SOCIETAL TRENDS AND IMPACTS ON FUTURE E-DEMOCRACY............ 18

3.1 Changes in the political triangle .....................................................................18

3.2 A contingency model of e-democracy............................................................20

3.3 The broader context and the scenario method..............................................23

4 SCENARIOS FOR E-DEMOCRACY .............................................................. 24

4.1 The scenario development process ..............................................................244.1.1 Methodology..................................................................................................... 244.1.2 Construction of external scenarios ............................................................... 244.1.3 Dimensions of the scenarios.......................................................................... 244.1.4 Scenario overview ........................................................................................... 25

4.2 Scenario 1: “A prosperous and more just Europe ........................................264.2.1 Description of the scenario ............................................................................ 264.2.2 Main influences of this scenario on e-democracy ....................................... 27

4.3 Scenario 2: “A turbulent world”.....................................................................284.3.1 Description of the scenario ............................................................................ 284.3.2 Main influences of this scenario on e-democracy ....................................... 29

4.4 Scenario 3: “Recession and re-orientation” .................................................304.4.1 Description of the scenario ............................................................................ 304.4.2 Main influences of this scenario on e-democracy ....................................... 31

4.5 Summary ..........................................................................................................31

5 FUTURE PATTERNS OF E-DEMOCRACY PRACTICE ................................. 34

6 CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................... 39

7 REFERENCES: ............................................................................................... 41

Prisma Strategic Guideline 9 eDemocracy

PRISMA 1 April 2003

1 Introduction

The current European Union, and in particular an expanded 25 member States EU, needs to be more open, moreaccountable and more legitimate. To achieve these three goals requires increased efforts of citizens’involvement, especially since citizens’ participation in formal decision making like voting partially dramaticallydecreases in many member States. Increased involvement in democratic processes is therefore a criticalchallenge for European representative democracy in the next 10 to 15 years.

Participation is a multilateral relationship between stakeholders of the political triangle (State, market, civilsociety) and describes involvement of individuals as well as policy-making by groups (e.g. political parties,interest groups, associations, etc.), with the objective of influencing the political agenda at various stages of thepolitical cycle and different levels of government. In order to enhance participation, citizens (as well asgovernments and political bodies) need increased and improved access to politically relevant information, aswell as improved capabilities of managing knowledge.

The development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) since the early 1960s has raisedexpectations for improving business and administration, and also citizens´ participation and access toinformation. Recently, these expectations have been reinforced due to the diffusion of the internet. Besides e-commerce and e-government, a third area for discussion and experimentation has emerged: e-democracy.

E-democracy covers a wide range of ways of political participation, from access to public information via formaland informal participation in planning and decision-making processes, to online voting in elections. These newtechnical possibilities coincide with decreasing participation rates in elections. E-democracy thus is viewed as ameans to fight these tendencies and to improve political participation. However, this is not achieved merely byproviding technical facilities. Rather, technology has to be embedded into organisational, social, legal andcultural changes, it has to be integrated into political and administrative processes on the side of the institutionswhich offer participation and has to be matched with the concerns and everyday life routines of the peopleaddressed.

The European Commission, in its 5th Research Framework Programme, has responded to these options andchallenges and has funded a number of research and development projects, which together form the e-democracycluster1. Also, the OECD has considered the impact of ICTs on efforts to enhance citizen engagement in policydecision-making, and highlights five main challenges for e-democracy.� Challenge of scale: How can technology enable an individual to get heard in public mass debates; how can

technology support governments to listen and respond to citizens’ comments.� Building capacity and active citizenship: Designing technology to encourage deliberative debates on public

issues among citizens.� Ensuring coherence – allowing a holistic view of policy-making: There is a need to ensure that knowledge

that is input at each stage is made available appropriately at other stages of the process so as to enable moreinformed decision making by governments and citizens.

� Evaluating e-engagement: There is a need to understand how to assess the benefits and impacts of e-democracy tools on political decision-making.

� Ensuring commitment: Governments need to adapt structures and decision-making processes to ensure thatthe results gathered with e-democracy tools are analysed, disseminated and used (OECD 2003).

Although the democratic system and procedures in the member countries differ to some extent, it is possible toidentify some basic preconditions and factors of success for the deployment of e-democracy technology withinthe European Community.

1 For interim results and project descriptions, cf. 1st Cluster Concertation Meeting in IST application systems for eDemocracy. 30th March2001, Brussels.


PRISMA 2 April 2003

This paper summarises the lessons learned from several projects analysed, and experts consulted, in the PRISMAproject2. As the potentials of ICT for democratic processes still have to be fully exploited, and we are thereforedealing with future developments, the PRISMA project in particular tried to map developments of e-democracyas part of e-government until 20103. Of course nobody knows what this development will look like. Most of theliterature on e-democracy implicitly assumes that the economic, social and political situation in five or ten yearswill be the same as years ago. But this is only one possibility of many, and not the most likely one. To overcomethis simplification, the PRISMA project chose a scenario approach. As democratic participation depends on itscontext, three different scenarios have been developed. Even if none of these become reality, the comparativeanalysis of e-democracy under three different assumptions helps to identify the more stable and the morecontext-sensitive aspects. Thus uncertainty in making strategic decisions or investment is reduced and attentionis directed towards the varying factors.

The paper starts with defining and structuring e-democracy by following the model of the policy cycle in Section2. In Section 3 major trends affecting the development of e-democracy are discussed. Section 4 presents thescenario method and the three scenarios developed in the PRISMA project. In Section 5, we analyse how e-democracy might develop under each of these scenarios, and identify the robust and the context-sensitive factors.

2 E-democracy – concept, tools and applications

Electronic or digital democracy4 are rather recent terms for which a general agreed definition is not yet found(for examples, cf. Tsagarousianou, Tambini & Brian, 1998; Hague & Loader, 1999; Jankowski, Van Selm &Hollander, 2000; Coleman & Gøtze, 2001). We define e-democracy in this context similar to Hacker & VanDijk’ s (2000: 1) definition of digital democracy as the use of ICTs (mainly the Internet, and mobiletechnologies) and CMC (computer mediated communication) to enhance active participation of citizens and tosupport the collaboration between actors for policy-making purposes without the limits of time, space and otherphysical conditions in democratic communication, whether acting as citizens, their elected representatives, or onbehalf of administrations, parliaments or associations (ie. lobby groups, interest groups, NGO’ s) within thepolitical processes of all stages of governance. According to Tsagariousianou (1999), electronic democracyconsists of three components: information provision, deliberation, and participation in decision-making. In spiteof some reservations (is their relationship rank ordered or not, different forms, location and accessibility ofinformation), the model Tsagarouisanou presents does suggest the basic elements involved in the democraticprocess supported by ICT (cf. Jankowski & Van Os 2002:2f.).

In order to analyse the development of e-democracy it is not necessary to build upon one particular theory ofdemocracy like the process-oriented, the functions- and transaction-oriented, the institutional or the input-output-oriented theory of democracy5. As e-democracy deals with mechanisms and tools to support participationprocesses, the procedure-oriented participatory theory of democracy as developed by Pateman (1970) andHabermas (1990) is of particular relevance. These approaches cover a partially normative, partially empiricalanalysis of the conditions of the most authentic participation of as many citizens as possible in the discourse anddecision-making on public affairs to inspire improvement of the representative democratic system as well assupporting elected representatives and mediators. Access to information and the availability of communicationchannels will not weaken but rather strengthen the representative system. In particular it will enforce people’ strust in governmental bodies, as Coleman expects: An increase in public information and deliberation willproduce a much stronger and more frequently renewable and reviewable mandate from the people to their chosenrepresentatives“ (Coleman 2001, 123).

2 PRISMA (PRoviding Innovative Service Models and Assessment) was an EU-supported project within the IST-programmeto analyse trends and current good practice within e-government (divided up into the 6 service fields, “ administration” ,“ health” , “ persons with special needs” , “ transport” , “ environment” , and “ tourism” ). Using the scenario method, PRISMAdeveloped “ strategic guidelines” for these services for the next ten years.3 We are aware that the scope of e-democracy includes more areas of social life than does e-government (e.g. the relationshipbetween the civil sector and the market-sector). In this white paper the focus is about the part of e-democracy that overlapswith e-government.4 We are using the terms “ e-democracy” and “ digital democracy” as synonyms.5 For an overview cf. Schmidt 1997.


PRISMA 3 April 2003

2.1 E-tools and selected applications

A wide range of ICT applications for citizens’ participation has emerged over the last decade. These applicationsor tools can be distinguished by their functionality in three categories (cf. OECD 2001):� information, such as websites and portals with elaborated search functions, frequently asked questions

(FAQ’ s), webcasting of meetings, newsletters, etc;� communication and consultation, such as online fora, chats and newsgroups, petitions and complaint

management systems; and� active participation, e.g. online mediation, voting in elections and referenda, etc.

These electronic tools substitute or complement analogue formal and informal means which serve the samefunctions. Table 1 lists different analogue means of citizens’ involvement, assigns corresponding electroniconline tools and gives some recent examples of application.

Analogue means of citizens’ involvement(examples)

Online

Formal informal

Levelof

interactivity Electronic tool Specific examples (e.g.if on experi-mental level

and not commonapplied)

Access to (written)information (acts,procedures, programmes,etc.) according to national(FOI-)acts

Brochures (e.g.political partyprogrammes,legislation, citizens’rights)Flyers (e.g. aboutlocal planningmeasures)

Web sites ofgovernments, localcommunities andpoliticians providingtextual (legal,parliamentary, partyprogrammes,announcements, etc.),and illustrative (GIS)information

Information about policiesof political parties on themunicipalities’ websites(Bologna, Denmark, TheNetherlands, Germany foryoung citizens)

Informationmanagement systems /KnowledgeManagement systems

e.g. pollutant release andtransfer registers (PTRS)based on the Arhusconvention (e.g.European PollutantEmission Register -EPER

Search function forinformation access

Stockholm

Online-glossaryHotlines FAQ

TV-Broadcasting of councilor parliament sessions

Webcast of meetings Issy les Moulineaux,Scottish parliament

Announcement of council(committee) meetings(with agenda)Announcement oflegislation in selectednewspapers and journals

Information

Instant messaging,newsletter

Citizen RelationshipManagement(Amsterdam)

Legally binding planningprocedures

Participation ofrepresentatives of NGOsin council committees

Citizen meetings,Hearings

Focus groups,Neighbourhoodcommittees

Online-forum

Citizen request sessionswithin council meetings

Complaintmanagement

Web-based Complaintmanagement

Petitions

Communication

and

consultation

Online petition Scottish parliament


PRISMA 4 April 2003

NGO’s / interestgroups’ campaigning+ protests: letters tomembers andsympathisants

Email

NewsgroupsSurveys Polling

Interactive web-basedcity-planning game

Tampere

Chat with singlepolitical andadministrativerepresentatives orabout specific issues(e.g. partyprogrammes)Citizen’s comments ondraft bills

Estonia, Czech Republik

NGO’s: online protests,campaigning

Austrian Lobau-motorway, UK’scampaign against fuelprice increase

Elections, referenda, bal-lots

e-voting at elections,ballots or referenda

E-voting at political elec-tions: Switzerland, UK,Ireland

Involvement of represen-tatives of NGOs in legisla-tion and planning proce-dures

Consensus confer-ences, Mediation,Round tables, Advo-cacy planning

Participation

Online mediation,CSCW

Table 1: Means of citizen involvement and corresponding e-democracy tools

2.2 E-tools within the policy cycle

In order to get a more precise picture of the potential of ICT to support the democratic process, the model of thepolicy cycle is quite useful. To each phase of this cycle tools and applications of ICT can be assigned which sup-port transparency and participation in this respective context. As a synthesis of models suggested by Windhoff-Héritier (1987), Jänicke et al. (1999), and Grunow (2001), seven phases can be distinguished (Figure 1).

problemperception

agendasetting

decisionmaking

policyformulationimplementation

evaluation,monitoring

termination

Figure 1: The Policy Cycle


PRISMA 5 April 2003

2.2.1 Problem perception

Relevant political actors need to be aware of a political problem until it becomes part of the decision-makingprocess. To get into the focus of political discussions, policy analysis strengthens issues like the structure of theproblem (e.g. if it is visible or not). Sometimes scientific methods of problem analysis are necessary to perceivea problem. Besides the nature of a problem, the affected political actors and their power and the interest of themedia are of great relevance for perception and communication of the problem. “ Problem perception” is a fieldwhich has not been very well explored.

Problem perception heavily depends on information. A problem may be perceived due to changes in the naturalor social environment and/or due to inappropriate reaction of governmental bodies. Accordingly, problemperception is supported by information systems and services about natural or social developments and aboutpolitical actions. Compared to offline means, electronic, web-based tools can make information more easilyaccessible by applying enhanced search functions, and more understandable by graphical or audio-visualpresentation. Geographical information systems (GIS) are a good example with regard to environmentalinformation or information about land-use planning, where maps with different layers for different aspects canbe provided. One example is GEOMED which allows placement of different layers with different classes ofobjects over a digital map.6 3-D-presentations offer an even better understanding of planned objects.

Box 1: Scottish Parliament: Members, Parliament’s meetings’ information (site and webcast)

The Scottish Parliament’ s web site (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk, consulted January 2003) publishes theofficial report of the Parliament’ s meetings in the Chamber by 7am on the following day, and CommitteeReports as soon as possible (generally within 3 days after the meeting was held). In addition, and as a furtherstep towards openness, committee agendas and papers are published in advance. The site also provides the e-mail addresses of all members of the Parliament, their biographies and links to personal web pages, alongsidephone and fax numbers and correspondence addresses. E-mail addresses for clerks to committees and for officeswithin the Parliament are also published. A webcasting service broadcasts Chamber and Committee meetingslive across the web so that organisations and individuals can listen in and watch items of particular importance tothem. The service also includes access to the audio-visual archive of webcasts, and relevant papers for thecommittee meetings (cf. Macintosh 2002, 20).

To judge whether government or parliament deals properly with crucial problems or whether they are creatingnew ones, information about ongoing governmental decisions is relevant. The Scottish parliament (see Box 1)and the Slovakian government (see Box 2) are examples of this. While the Slovakian example concentrates onproviding documents, the Scottish Parliament is a good example for web-based broadcasting. For more than oneyear, the Parliament has transmitted its sessions via the Internet. (http://www.scottishparliamentlive.com,consulted January 2003).7

Box 2: Slovakia - FOI to the national government

The Slovakian governmental web site (http://www.government.gov.sk) is a web site maintained and dedicated toprovide information about the Government and the Government Office of the Slovak Republic, which supportsthe government’ s administration sessions as well as sessions of various government advisory councils and otherbodies with relation to the government. One section of the page covers the sessions of the Government ofSlovakia. Since April 1999, all the resolutions of the government have been published on the web page. Sincepassing the Freedom of Information Act in January 2000, all materials and documents submitted to the 6 GEOMED was a project funded by the European Commission within the Telematics Applications Programme (IE 2037GEOMED), URL: http://ais.gmd.de/MS/geomed/overview.html, consulted April 2003; cf. Schmidt-Belz / Rinner / Gordon(1998).7 While governments may use web casts and streaming to “ push” information to Internet users and provide interaction tools related to thoseweb casts, the web also can be an online meeting place for citizens to exchange ideas. Perhaps the quintessential example of this is Minne-sota E-Democracy (http://www.e-democracy.org, consulted January 2003), which is “ a non-partisan citizen-based organisation whosemission is to improve participation in democracy in Minnesota through the use of information networks.” Steven Clift launched this organi-sation in 1994 as an election-based web site. Since then, it has grown into an “ online commons” where people meet to discuss ideas anddemocracy. For an extended review of the effort, refer to Dahlberg (2001). (Bertelsmann Foundation 2001, 36)


PRISMA 6 April 2003

government sessions have been made accessible to the public on the web site. Documents are usually publiclyaccessible even before they have been delivered to the Government Office.

Many municipalities offer services providing information on particular events. AmsterdamMail(http://www.amsterdammail.nl/colofon.php, consulted January 2003) goes a step further and includes citizenrelationship management: The system delivers information by e-mail on municipal items. If you register withAmsterdamMail you will receive regular e-mails (either daily or weekly) with references to informationpublished at municipal web sites. References are prepared on the basis of the user’ s personal profile in whichyou can indicate the items you wish to be informed about. The profile can be changed if necessary andinformation can be looked at via the AmsterdamMail-archive.

In many cases the initial information provided is not sufficient to judge whether there is a problem and what kindof problem it is. One way to respond to this aspect is by providing web sites with “ frequently asked questions“(FAQs). An electronic FAQ manager helps governments more effectively to satisfy citizens’ needs, and, at thesame time, helps keep track of questions posed by citizens. Some commercial FAQ systems are available, forexample “ FAQ-Manager” (CGI World by I2 Services Inc., at www.cgi-world.com) and the open-source software“ FAQ-O-Matic” . This system automates the process of maintaining a FAQ list. It allows visitors to the FAQ listto take part in keeping it up to date. The EDEN research project8 develops a linguistic tool that will allowautomatic and assisted preparation of FAQ lists from questions and answers, and summary lists of expressedopinions. Such lists will be fed into the “ local administration knowledge base” (Macintosh 2002, 25).

Problem perception can further be supported by requesting particular information through communicationprocesses such as complaint management (Box 3).

Box 3: Complaint management: The UK “CitizenSpace“

Citizen space, located on the governmental portal UK online(http://www.ukonline.gov.uk/CitizenSpace/CSComplaints/0,1166,~801b22~fs~en,00.html, consultedJanuary2003) is an exemplary case of e-complaint management. The opportunity to make “ complaints aboutpublic service” links to ombudsmen on different levels of government (Cabinet, Parliament, local government)and services (health). It offers advice about how the procedures work to make complaints or suggestions topublic service providers and it also delivers general information about ombudsmen, what they do, whichombudsmen service to use and the procedure for making complaints to them. The complaints must be addressedto specified agencies (not clustered under life-events), which are listed under “ complaints procedures” or toombudsmen for specific regions. You have to use an online form which can be used to make a note of theanswers offline (it has to be signed manually), then you can either go back online and fill in the answers onscreen, or you can send it by mail. If you have any documents to support your complaint, which you want toinclude, the complaint must be sent by post. The technology is not very sophisticated (form available, mediabreak, no digital signature) but a first step.

Web-based consultation spaces, known as bulletin boards, online forums or conferences, can also be used in thisearly stage of policy-making, especially on the level of local government because here the residents´ input makessense in so far as they can point out specific problems policy-makers are not aware of. They enable linear,threaded or indexed, asynchronous, structured, usually moderated communication capabilities combined withbackground information. “ There are many good tools on the market but there are some problems to overcome.For example, users often demand features they have seen on another site, but, if too many features are offered,less experienced users get lost.” (Coleman/Gøtze 2002, 25, for deeper insight on web-, open source, low cost andprofessional software based available forum-applications cf. Powazek 2001)

Good progress was made in autumn 2000 in the Artic Swedish town of Kalix (http://www.kalix.se) where thecity council introduced an online town-hall allowing people for two weeks to chat with local politicians andurban planners and to vote electronically on issues pertaining to the proposed renovation of the town centre. Thee-consultation was implemented with assistance of “ votia.com” , an e-democracy company offering organisationsan integrated system for information, debate, voting, and feedback (http://www.votia.com/kalix_centrum.html,

8 Within the E.D.E.N. project, tools are being developed to improve communication between public administrations and citi-zens to increase knowledge and therefore support decision-making with urban planning as application domain through theuse of natural language processing (NLP) and community tools (like polling and e-consultations) (http://www.edentool.org).


PRISMA 7 April 2003

consulted January 2003). In autumn 2001, a further online-discussion about a taxation was conducted. Kalixreceived the Swedish award “ Sweden’ s IT council for 2001” due to their usage of Internet technology to renewdemocracy. They declare themselves to be “ evidence that a council does not have to be large or wealthy to lie atthe cutting edge of development” 9.

Box 4: Horn Lehe - Online consultation with information provision and “citizen facilitators”

Good experiences were gathered with a five weeks online forum which was organized in November 2001 withinthe E.D.E.N-project. Tools for online discussions and for visualising maps were used firstly through adiscussion about future developments of the district Horn-Lehe in Bremen (Germany). The discussion toolForumDigital enabled anonymous and registered contributions with the right name as well as with a nickname tovarious issues from urban (district) planning to youth leisure activities. The forum combined information(masterplan with background information, 3D-animated map, minutes of district board meetings) withdiscussion. The problem of high expenses for moderation should be met with the innovation of moderation bycitizens (of the district). Besides, it was a multi-channel access while online discussion and visualising mapswere accompanied by physical committee meetings (giving citizens the opportunity to voice their opinion),household-questionnaire, round-table. The large amount of citizen-produced material was a challenge fordecision-makers (problem of information overload). Surprisingly two thirds of the contributions wereconstructive (good and better) according to a five-point rating list, nevertheless from a communication-orientedpoint of view, most of the contributions were only expressive, some listening or responding, a very small numberemphatic and persuasive (in both ways: being persuaded as well as persuading). The quality of contributionsmade by known authors was better. Generally, the quality of discussions profited by contributions from the headof the district administration (and other experts). The innovation of “ citizen-moderators” showed that they needto be trained intensively in technical but also “ socio-technical” issues to summarise contributions, to findsensible titles for them (for the index-listing and better usage) and to forward contributions to responsible expertsfor reply (cf. Westholm 2003).

2.2.2 Agenda setting

Problem perception does not automatically lead to problem solving. With scarce resources and differinginterests, those who are interested in having a perceived problem to be solved must bring it to attention of thosewho have or provide the means to solve the problem, to put it on their agenda. Relevant factors for agendasetting are the existence of a “ helper interest” (institutions and companies that might benefit from problemsolution), the structure of the problem (visible, easy-to-solve problems with the necessary administrative andpolitical capacity are easier to solve than others), and the interest of policy-makers. An interesting aspect of theagenda setting is the question: who starts certain political initiatives? Generally, there are two differentapproaches: on the one hand, civic organisations may trigger movements (bottom-up approach); on the otherhand, initiatives can also be taken by institutions such as public authorities (top-down approach). New and oldmedia (mass media) play a decisive role in the daily agenda setting processes, and diffusion of good politicalpractice from other countries may become strong drivers in both models.

The political agenda is still largely influenced by the mass media, in particular newspapers and television, butnew electronic Internet-based services and tools can contribute to this agenda-setting process. One example is e-mail campaigns. E-mail is mainly used in a one-to-one or a one-to-many mode. But it has also been applied in amany-to-one mode in order to send similar messages to political bodies, members of parliament etc. In mostcases, these kinds of coordinated action have been organized by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Box 5: E-mail campaigns by NGO’s

In the autumn of 2000 for instance, activists in the United Kingdom brought the country to a halt by using theInternet to protest against fuel price increases. By co-ordinating online and with cellular phones, they effectivelymounted a democratic protest that caused politicians to take notice and change policies. The Register, whichgives a good overview of the issue, argues: “ If it weren't for mobile phones and the Internet it seems unlikelythat such a protest would ever have happened. Old-style protests consisted of getting as many people together inone place as possible. This would never have worked for this petrol crisis. Instead, by communicating and 9 Eivor Byngelson, mayor of Kalix, in a press release, 6th November, 2001.


PRISMA 8 April 2003

organising over the Internet, anyone anywhere is able to keep up to date and the accumulation of knowledgeenabled smaller groups to protest outside depots and effectively cut off the petrol lifeline. In this situation, theInternet is a truly terrifying tool for the government” (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13237.html,consulted January 2003). Another digital NGO-activity that got worldwide attention was the campaign againstbuilding the Lobau Autobahn - a new highway through a national park in Austria. It includes information, anonline petition and a forum (http://www.lobauautobahn.at, consulted January 2003). These examples show howNGOs can use online protest tools to influence public policies in ways that would have been difficult a few yearsago.

A more formal way to make a claim on the agenda of parliament are online petitions. One example is that of theScottish parliament.

Box 6: Electronic petitioning in Scotland

Electronic petitioning is one of the web-based applications in a toolkit that the International TeledemocracyCentre at Napier University designed on behalf of the Scottish parliament, and which worked from March 2000to April 2002 (www.e-petitioner.org.uk, consulted April 2003). It includes functionalities like creating petitions,viewing/signing petitions, adding background information, joining a discussion forum, submitting petitions, andautomatically updating the number of persons supporting the petition.In designing the system a number of key “ democratic” requirements were important to the organizers (e.g.transparency of the process, accessibility, remaining within the data protection standards, keeping peopleadequately informed about the petition issues, and making comments to the petition).The design should bemodular enough to allow for future requirements such as mechanisms to allow better analysis of the petitionstatistics. A straightforward example is sorting by postcode to enable the representatives to better appreciate thesupport for the petition from their constituents

According to the organizers, the purpose of the electronic petitioning system on the Centre’ s web site is three-fold. Firstly, it gives people an opportunity to look at, and importantly try out, what such a system offers.Secondly it allows people to comment on particular issues that are of concern to them regarding electronicpetitioning. Thirdly it hosts “ live” petitions - petitions that are valid, will be submitted to the relevant authorityand where individuals can add their name and address on-line if they support the petition. “ E-petitioner hasdemonstrated that electronic petitions can be effective and will not necessarily create a large number of frivolousnames and addresses. E-petitioner has allowed the organisations raising a petition to better inform the publicabout their cause. It has also allowed them to better understand the concerns the public has about the petitionissues.“ (Macintosh, Davenport, Malina & Whyte 2001, 238).

2.2.3 Policy formulation

In order to mobilise support, in this third stage of the policy-cycle, targets and objectives as well as basicapproaches or measures for dealing with the problem are defined and negotiated. Political measures arelegislation, regulation as well as deregulation, plans and programmes. According to empirical policy research,the starting point of this stage – target formulation – is a conflicting area, which results in complex coalitionbuilding. New policy research explains that the process of policy formulation itself often has a directing effectsince target groups anticipate the solutions in discussion and realise them to benefit from the front-runneradvantage (cf. Jänicke et al. 1999).

Once a problem is on the agenda, there are different ways to deal with it. The respective bodies may put plans forcomments, start discussions about alternative ways of action etc.

Box 7: Urban planning related information and ability of legally binding comments

Düsseldorf (Germany) enables citizens to find comprehensive information about all current urban planningprocedures: map of current valid zoning code with planned changes marked in red colour, planned houses drawnin section, (sometimes 3D-animation of planned situation), aerial photographs of current planning-site, text withjustifications of planning, text with (written) remarks to the map, and a hint to the site where the plan is


PRISMA 9 April 2003

(physically) outlaid. A form to make comments and proposals to planning is provided. In this case the advantageof the new medium to visualise things is used to enable broader access to administrative information. Readingand understanding of subject-specific terms and abbreviations could be improved, but citizens receive detailedinformation about their right to participate which includes a call for sending their ideas about planning via e-mailwhich need not be considered from a legal point of view but will be considered because of a self-obligation ofthe municipality.

Chat rooms do not have the best image but offer some unique online interaction features like gathering andinteracting with a group for very low costs. Common functionalities enable whispering (with individualparticipants in the chat room), shouting (being heard immediately) and speaking (one-to-all communicationfiltered by a facilitator) and sometimes sophisticated functionalities like documentation (e.g. by Unchat,http://www.unchat.com/, consulted January 2003). Chats are often used by single politicians and administrativeofficials both on the EU- and the national level, but rarely on the regional or local level. Nevertheless chat roomsare often too unstructured and do not fit longer and sophisticated submissions. Thus, it is not surprising thatusers rated chats with politicians as bad as the virtual visit of a museum.

Sweden’ s Democracy Square (http://www.demokratitorget.gov.se) is a government-led effort to encouragevisitors to take an active part in democratic debate. The site, offered by the Swedish Commission of Inquiry onDemocracy, offers reports and writings online in PDF format. It also provides opportunities for organisations toapply for money for democracy projects. Politicians frequently use televised town hall meetings to get input (andmake headlines). Some experimented with online town halls in the 2000 presidential campaign. In the nearfuture, more governments will provide extended-hour town halls to get input on public policy. Localcommunities can take part in an online consultation about neighbourhood renewal at Communities Online(http://www.communities.org.uk). (cf. Bertelsmann Foundation 2001, 37 and 56)

Box 8: Interactive access to information

Political (and planning) information delivery is still a problem on the local level often due to financial andhuman resource problems but also due to different traditions in political culture through history: Scandinaviancities normally provide open access to administrative information according to their FOI-laws. The BollnäsDialogue http://www.dialogen.bollnas.se (consulted January 2003) for instance, is an online interactiveinformation and communication service between citizens and the municipal council that includes several features(log-in necessary): Municipal Council meetings broadcast on the Internet and offer an opportunity to addressquestions to political representatives and civil servants.

Online forums are used as a means of consultation to improve deliberating governmental proposals, to exchangeexperiences, to discuss programmes or to design policies. Sometimes, finding a consensus to prepare decision-making is the explicit objective. Consultation implies a “ two-way relation in, which citizens provide feedback togovernment - based on the prior definition by government of the issue on which citizens’ views are being soughtand requires the provision of information” (OECD 2001, 2). The German ministry of the Interior for instanceenabled a six-week online discussion of the draft of the Freedom of Information Act. Contrary to the commonprocedure institutions and private individuals were involved in the procedure electronically. The organisersreported that the citizens’ contributions had been very sophisticated and that these arguments might not beenreceived by the institutions traditionally involved. The UK as well as the Scottish Parliament have made goodprogress with discussions on drafts and acts. Estonia allows citizens to submit their own legislation proposalsonline (Bertelsmann 2002). On the EU-level, the European Convent (http://european-convention.eu.int) invitesEU-citizens and advocacy groups to participate in discussion on the the convention and the EU enlargementprocess. The DG “ Environment” requested comments on the draft of the 6th environmental action programme.The Interactive Policy Making initiative of the CEC (accessible via a web portal called “ Your Voice in Europe” ,http://europa.eu.int/yourvoice/, consulted January 2003), includes two online mechanisms that will enhance theCommission's ability to assess the impact of EU policies (or absence of them) on the ground.� A consultation option to receive and store rapid and structured collections of stakeholders' opinions on new

initiatives (listed according to policy fields): It is also possible to access closed discussions.� A feedback mechanism, which helps to collect spontaneous reactions (e.g. through questionnaires and a

mailing list). It uses existing networks and contact points as intermediaries in order to obtain continuousaccess to the opinions and experiences of economic operators and EU citizens.


PRISMA 10 April 2003

One particular advantage of online-media is the possibility of obtaining authentic but still anonymousinformation and opinion by people concerned. For topics which touch the intimate sphere of people,parliamentary hearings pose a barrier which may be overcome by online-hearings, as the example of an Inquiryinto Domestic Violence illustrates (Box 9).

Box 9: UK Online Parliamentary Inquiry into Domestic Violence

In March 2000, the UK Parliament instructed the Hansard Society (http://www.hansard-society.org.uk) toconduct an online consultation on domestic violence in order to provide evidence to the All-Party DomesticViolence Group. It was the aim of the consultation process to inform politicians on the situation of domesticviolence victims in order to influence the policy-making process in this issue. One of the most difficult tasks wasapproaching survivors of domestic violence. Given that there is no central register for domestic violence victims,survivors of domestic violence were contacted through women’ s groups, disability groups and “ Women’ s Aid”refuges and outreach organisations. The Internet was perceived as an adequate medium for the investigationsince it allowed a high degree of anonymity. In order to ensure a high level of security every participant wasgiven a secure identity, which was different from her real name. About 83 % of the women said that they felt thatconsultation process was sufficiently safe and secure. Many participants considered the online platform as a tool,which enabled them to exchange experiences and information in a relatively safe environment (cf. Coleman;Normann 2000, 6ff.). Moreover, the platform contributed to the creation of an online community which wascharacterised by mutual support, bonding and strategies of community building as one of the participants put it:“It was brilliant; I felt really close to the participants during the consultation as if I were part of a giant supportnetwork”. (cf. Coleman; Normann 2000, 39).

Another advantage of ICT is to have surveys online much faster and cheaper. However, online surveys (alsocalled polling) are not representative of the population in total because of the internet bias (i.e. the socialstructure of the Internet community is not identical with the structure of the whole population or a particulartarget population) and because of the participation bias (i.e. in offline surveys, interviewees are selectedrandomly by researchers while online only those are participating who are interested in the issue,). Sophisticatedresearch methods have to be employed to deal with these challenges (see example in Box 10 below).

Box 10: Online Polling about Germany’s institutions“ Perspective Germany“ is an online polling implemented in 2001 and 2002 by IT and media-companies and aconsultancy company under the umbrella of Germany’ s former president. From mid-October to the end of theyear 2002, 356,000 people participated in the polling which is, according to the organisers, the highestparticipation rate globally an online polling has ever had. Citizens were requested to give their opinions aboutthe state and demand of innovation for 22 institutions clustered into six issues (purposes of the state,representation of interests, social affairs, education, health and religion).Although representation is a crucial issue of Internet polling, the organisers used a methodological approachwhich takes into account both the Internet bias and the participation bias and eliminates them. Simultaneously anoffline random sample survey was conducted with 2,400 citizens using the same questions of the online-polling.With these reference data statistical bias of the online survey could be avoided.One result of this Internet survey is that mode effects can be reduced by the Internet: Normally, an interviewee ina personal interview tends to reply what is “ socially desired” , ie. what she or he thinks the interviewer likes tohear. A comparison of offline and online results indicates that these desired effects are reduced in anonymousonline surveys. (McKinsey a.o. 2003)

The internet also allows for multilateral forms of interaction which come very close to Habermas’ ideal model ofthe public sphere and rational discourse10. They are called deliberation, active participation, or in more technical 10 The German philosopher developed a model of normative democratic debate with rational-critical discourse at its heart.The usage of reason is a core feature in deliberative debates and crucial to Habermas’ concept of the public sphere. It refersto a discussion, which is not “ interested” , “ disguised” or “ manipulated” (Webster 1995, 101). The idea is that citizens cometogether to debate on questions of a common concern or as Dahlgren (1995, 9) puts it: They discuss “ on politics in thebroadest sense” . With the advent of the Information Age Habermas’ model has become even more pertinent than in the time“ before” the Internet. This derives from the assumption that new media offer a great democratic potential as they presumablyovercome the inadequacies of traditional media such as the “ sender-receiver dichotomy” . Proponents of digital participationin the political realm consider the Internet as an adequate platform to halt the supposed disconnection of the citizens from thepolitical system and its shared identity (Papacharissi 2002, 10). However, these assumptions are contested and critical voices



terms tele-cooperation, computer-mediated communication (CMC) or computer supported cooperative work(CSCW). New forms of governance might lead to new procedures, e.g., the Internet will be used as a commonworking platform among the political triangle among the State (government and administration), the businessand the third sector to improve organisational performance and the results of political and administrativeprocedures (for a first step see Box 11 explaining a platform for building applications).

Box 11: Groupware systems in e-democracy: the plattform for building-applications in Esslingen(Germany)Esslingen, one of the three winners of the German e-government competition “ Media@Komm” , has developed aweb-based building-platform to support all actors involved in a building process from planning andcommunication to collaboration and information (www.bauen.esslingen.de, consulted April 2003). The platformprovides services maintained by the municipality or by the provider of the platform. Part of it is an extranet as awebspace for specific planning accessible for specific architects and planners. It enables the central and currentmaintenance of data, documents and maps, a form-server and geographic information systems targeted to thosewho are involved in the planning or permission proceedings. Legally binding procedures are supported by thedigital signature. Building applications can be sent electronically and digitally signed to the building office. Themunicipality uses the platform to involve all necessary institutions in the permission-process. Advantages of thevirtual platform are that processes can be controlled and all participants have a common data-base and access tocurrent data all the time, communications and documentations are transparent. Processes of documentation andcommunication as well as filing of documents and documentations can be standardised. (For further information:[email protected])

A further step of using ICT could be tele-co-operation: It designates ubiquitous co-operation in performinginformational work processes (e.g. internal co-operation between administrative bodies, negotiation, “ virtual”meetings) (Lenk 1999). Most of the countries in Northern and Western Europe created a lot of elements of publicinvolvement, especially in the area of public planning. With these tools new means of participation which haveemerged in European countries with a “ participation culture” since the 1990s, like “ mediation” , “ public fora” ,“ working groups” , “ citizen advisory groups” , “ caucuses” , “ visioning workshops” or “ round tables” can besupported. Virtual meetings, for example, can support interaction between stakeholders who are distributedgeographically and who need/wish to be involved in decision making on specific issues. A virtual meeting spacefor stakeholders needs to support deliberative participation on policy related issues. The “ Zeno system”(http://zeno.fhg.de/, consulted April 2003) or the “ Forum: digital” (http://www.pvl.at/top.php/forumdigital.html,consulted April 2003) are good examples of such tools.

Deliberation plays a crucial role in modern discussion programmes, such as citizen juries or study circles and itis the premise of a particular theory within the studies of democracy (cf. Gastil 2000, 357): deliberativedemocracy which is “ (…) founded on the principles of reasoned dialogue and deliberation… [It] is rooted in theidea of self-governance in which political truths emerge not from the clash of pre-established interests andpreferences but from reasoned discussion about issues involving the common good” (London 1995, 1f.).According to Fishkin, civic deliberation takes place when (Wilhelm 1999, 159):� political issues can be discussed at length.;� the communication process among the participants provides the space for reflection; and� opinions and arguments are open for public “ test” and criticism.

Box 12: Mediation as an innovative approach of policy making

A special form of deliberative processes is mediation. The term mediation can be understood as a moderatedconflict resolution discourse. “ Mediation is a voluntary process in which those involved in a dispute jointlyexplore and resolve their differences. The mediator has no authority to impose a settlement. His or her strengthlies in the ability to assist the parties in resolving their own conflicts” (cf. Cormick 1980, 27 acc. to Zilleßen1998, 17). Searching for new (win-win) solutions characterises the process and the principle that thesealternative dispute resolutions do not replace existing procedures for decision-making. It supplements them butdoes not replace them (cf. Zillessen 1998, 18).

doubt that the Internet is an adequate medium to create a public sphere. Opponents criticise the exclusiveness of the Internetin terms of access and point to cheap and fast communication, which often includes offensive or hostile behaviour (e.g.“ flaming” ; the use of abusive language etc.) (Levine 2000, 3).



Phases of a mediation-procedure (acc. to Susskind/Cruikshank (1987, 95)) are the following.

(1) Pre-negotiations (serious and intensive preparation of consultations with joint definition ofstakeholders, topics and the working of the procedure).

(2) Phase of negotiations: Elaboration alone and /or in small groups of proposals for a problem resolutionwhich they examine as (at least partly) reasonable and acceptable and which are summarised in awritten document of agreement.

(3) Implementation of the agreement: Integration of the informal results into the formal decision-makingprocedure and definition of mechanisms of control to monitor the implementation.

Processes may also be termed as “ mediation” if a neutral third party helps the stakeholders to improve a givensolution or if it supports the affected stakeholders to improve the basis of a decision or to adopt suggestions tothe decision makers. Central to mediation is the influence on the content of the decision and so far that it is aforum of a cooperative decision-finding as a prerequisite of conflict resolution and not a means to gainacceptance for an already taken decision (cf. Zillessen 1998, 18). Mediation systems are meant to support suchdiscussions (e.g. by means of information technology). There can be seen a big potential for such systems, sincethe need for conflict resolving systems is growing, e.g. in politics, companies or any other organisations.

In order to support participating organisations in developing their own policy formulation, or to support workinggroups over some period of time, an online working space can be provided. Such CSCW-tools have beendeveloped to support tele-cooperation in the business and research community but can be employed in politicalparticipation as well. For registered users they provide access to documents which can be changed by authorisedmembers, thus providing access to the latest version at all times. Examples for this type of application can befound within the Agenda 21 process (Box 12).

Box 12: Agenda 21 as a driving force for more public involvement

Agenda 21, a document most countries of the world agreed on at the United Nations Conference on Environmentand Development (UNCED) in 1992, has given a new input. A main emphasis of this document is to givecitizens the opportunity to participate in issues dealing with transformation of societies (and local communities)to ensure sustainable development. Although implemented the (local) Agenda 21, only a few Europeangovernments have tried to improve means of participation, communication between different lobby-groups onthe local level, and public spirit (ICLEI/DifU 1999, 154).

2.2.4 Decision making

A decision is the confirming choice among several alternatives which cannot be realised simultaneously.Decision making also includes the decision to take no action for the time being. In political decision making it isnot always obvious who is taking a decision because of which reasons and influences. Often there is a struggleabout the authority to take a decision between different political institutions, and members of these institutionstake their decisions under complex, partially visible and partially invisible influences of different stakeholders.

CSCW can also be employed to support the decision making of political bodies. The most advanced example isthe Estonian government of ministers’ session info-system (see Box 13).

Box 13: Estonian government of ministers’ session info-system

The system of the Estonian government of ministers’ session info-system(http://www.riik.ee/valitsus/viis/viisengl.html, consulted January 2003) includes the following components:Web-based original software, workstations for Ministers and staff, terminal and database server, audio systemand video system. The objective of this project is to automate the preparation processes and proceedings of theEstonian Government Cabinet meetings. The final goal is to prepare all materials digitally and thus to reducecopying costs and delivery time. Meeting agendas are available online, and viewing and changing is allowed forrespective officials. Digital documents may include links to other documents and a search engine is alsoavailable. The system further includes the possibility to record meetings and to show digital materials to visitorsby the data-projector. The system is set up for 20 working places for Ministers, and also several places for



personnel. Terminal-type computer is used for one working place and the system can be used to follow themeeting, to browse the Internet. There are also plans to offer videoconferencing.

There are also examples for electronically supported parliamentary work (ESPW). Belgium’ s and Slovenia’ sparliaments are gaining experience with wired legislative bodies (cf. The Economist 2001, 38). Also, the citycouncil of Stuttgart (Germany) has been experimenting for some time with a support system which in its secondphase is to go wireless (cf. Schwabe/Krcmar 1999, see box 14). These systems offer more effective working-methods for policy makers and more independence (related to selection of information, organising, archiving andsearching-methods). Politicians get connected with the administration and other electronic systems in thejurisdiction. Minutes, policy papers, budget lists and so forth, are put on the Net. Furthermore, these systemscontribute to more transparent political processes and strengthen the people’ s trust in democratic institutions.

Box 14: “Cuparla“ – Computer supported parliamentary work in Stuttgart (Germany)

Cuparla (or STADTRAT-online) is a Lotus-Notes-based software application (with document-management,scheduling, e-mailing and fax-connection) to support communication, information delivery and informationtreatment within parliamentary parties and the administration from the view-point of the parliamentarians. Thelocal councillors are working in the plenary, at home, at work, or on the road with their notebooks. Launched in1996, Cuparla is included in a framework of municipal information systems (Kommunaler Sitzungsdienst KSD,local service for council meetings, and KOMMUNIS, the municipal statistical information system) with Internetaccess. But it is also usable offline as a mobile telecommunications system, e.g. in meetings or on the road. Anupdated version is going to start in 2002. The project is well documented in Majer (2001); Schwabe (2000), andSchwabe/Krcmar (1999).

Main users are the city councillors of Stuttgart and their secretaries (some 70 people in total). Cuparla consists ofeasy navigation while the portal is designed similar to real rooms used by the target group with an “ entrance-hall” with “ doors” to the “ parliamentary party” , to “ committees” , to the “ administration data base” , and others.The system provides an easy functionality to search documents in other data-bases (e.g. the number ofKindergartens, schools, the Geographical Information System). An important part of information access forparliamentarians is to be able to know about the workflow of proposals, motions, and their requests to theadministration. There is a latent conflict between councillors and the administration: having the functionality toobserve these workflows (with exact data on date of request, planned reply, responsible division and phonenumber of officer, etc.) has priority for councillors and not for officers because it seems to be a good measure tocontrol the administration.

The decision-making phase of the policy cycle can also be supported by diverse e-voting tools for ballots andreferenda as well as for internal decision making processes within larger political bodies e.g. councils andparliaments (see Box 17 below).

2.2.5 Implementation

It is mainly the task of the public administration to implement the decisions taken by political institutions. Thereare two main problems in this implementation stage: one concerns the influence of the state on industry and thecivil sector to change their behaviour; the second problem concerns the relationship within the state, assometimes different levels of government (local, state and federal) have varying interests. Both problems haveled to an “ implementation deficit” in many policy areas over the last decades (cf. Mayntz 1983).

To overcome the implementation deficit, there are two options, a technologically driven way (ICT e.g. tomonitor implementation) and/or applying new means of governance. The latter happens two-fold: addressees ofnew (stronger) legislations (normally companies) are involved in the legislation procedure as well as otherstakeholders that act as “ watch dogs” (non-profit associations, NGOs). Involvement of the first often leads toagreements (e.g. called “ covenants” in the Netherlands) between the government and the addressees to makeregulations by law obsolete and to shift parts of monitoring to the addressees (to be controlled with ICT’ s by thegovernment and – depending on FOI-regulations – also by citizens and third-sector associations). Monitoringand control depend on information. New legislations on the European level (see Box 15 about the AarhusConvention) are leading to the installation of new monitoring-tools like information platforms (e.g. PRTR -pollutant release and transfer registers like http://www.prtr.de, consulted January 2003, of the “ Landesanstalt für



Umweltschutz Baden-Württemberg” (LfU) and the “ German Federal Environmental Agency” (UBA) or the“ European pollutant emission register” (EPER, http://www.eper.de, consulted January 2003)11. The PRTR is adatabase as it is demanded by the Aarhus-Convention which foresees the stepwise installation of publiclyaccessible databases on media-spreading monitoring of environmental pollution (including emissions into the air,the water and soil, and waste transfer).

Box 15: The "Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making andAccess to Justice in Environmental Matters"

On 25 June 1998, the Presidency of the Council and the Commission signed the UN/ECE Convention on accessto information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters (EuropeanCommission 1999, Annexes 1 and 2). The convention is a new kind of environmental agreement. It linksenvironmental rights and human rights. It is the first legally binding instrument for access to information, publicparticipation in decision-making and justice in environmental matters. The Convention establishes thatsustainable development can be achieved only through the involvement of all stakeholders. It links governmentaccountability and environmental protection. It focuses on interactions between the public and public authoritiesin a democratic context and forges a new process for public participation in the negotiation and implementationof international agreements. Evidently, the convention has recognised the important role of electronic tools. Itcalls for public authorities to make information progressively available electronically. To this end, electronictools can be applied to Articles 3-9 of the Convention. These cover all three pillars of the Convention: access toinformation, public participation in decision-making, and access to justice in environmental affairs.

2.2.6 Evaluation and monitoring

In the representative democratic system, the evaluation of political decisions and their implementation by thecitizens mainly is performed in elections. As the rate of participation in elections on the local and the Europeanlevel in a number of cases is decreasing, elected politicians fear for their legitimation. E-voting often is viewedas a means to increase participation rates, in particular among the younger people (example in Box 16).

Box 16: “ 16plus” - How to engage young citizens to participate in elections (Germany)

Young citizens (“ first voters” ) as a special target group were addressed through the project 16plus(http://www.16plus.de) which supplied information about the 1999 local elections in the State of Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany for voters aged 16 and 20 to encourage them to participate in local politics. The users gotindividually tailored, accessible and attractively designed information concerning the importance of electionsand the possibilities of political involvement. For instance, it was possible for the user to choose short or in-depth articles on most aspects of the election process. The information was supplemented by entertainment andexclusive content, in particular stories about various real-life examples of political participation, researched forand published on the web site only (cf. CEC 2001c, 52).

However electronic voting requires advanced technological features in order to secure anonymity andauthentication at the same time. On the one hand voters have to be identified without any doubt and there mustbe no way for a person to vote twice. On the other hand the vote given may not be attributed to the voting personunder any circumstance. These requirements make secure electronic voting very expensive and still risky at leastin some forms. Electronic voting may be exercised in voting booths with electronic voting machines or onlinevia the internet from any PC or other electronic device. Voting machines in an intra- or extranet can reach thenecessary high level of security, while voting from any PC cannot be made safe, not only because of the internetbut even more because of operating systems like Windows. The benefits to be gained vary to a large extentbetween the EU-member states. In Germany where voting by mail is possible, the value added by online-votingis not significant, while in other countries, where voters have to see a voting place, a change of rules allowingonline voting indeed might make voting more comfortable. However experience shows that participation rates

11 Commission of the European Community, 2001, COMMISSION DECISION of 17 July 2000 on the implementation of aEuropean pollutant emission register (EPER) according to Article 15 of Council Directive 96/61/EC concerning integratedpollution prevention and control (IPPC) Official Journal of the European Communities 28. July2000 L 192/36: MemberStates shall report to the Commission on emissions to air and water for all pollutants for which the given threshold values areexceeded.



most of all depend on the constellation of parties to be elected and the extent to which they raise controversialissues. Countries like Switzerland, where there are twenty or thirty referenda each year, are willing to investmore in online-voting systems because they would be used more frequently and reduce the cost of thesereferenda.

Box 17: E-voting - various “ voting-cultures”, different technical solutions

E-voting experiments have been implemented in various ways depending mainly on traditional voting behaviorin each country. Great Britain for instance, as a country without national identity cards, may encounterdifficulties in developing a secure way of authentication. In France, the challenge of e-voting is very stronglypolitically driven since the republican pact rests on a well anchored rite and on certain mistrust with regard tothe influences that the voter-individual in private could possibly undergo (cf. Maigret 2002,5). In Switzerland,this mistrust does not exist since postal voting has proved that there was no reason to doubt the competence andthe independence of the voters. Due to security and privacy reasons, Norway recently has forbidden the inclusionof digital facilities of voting into the practice of political elections .Biometrics in all its forms must prove itself to be reliable from an ergonomic, political and social point of view.The technology of recognition of the eye’s iris poses ethical problems (discovery of diseases) and therecognition of fingerprints has a significant rate of failure. The smart card also includes many problems (e.g.routing of mail via post office and possible loss, cost, re-use). The problem is the creation of a compromisebetween the quality of the technique (guaranteeing the authentication, the protection of the data, etc.) and itsacceptability. A feasible solution could be installing electronic voting machines at polling stations (under civilservants’ control) which could be used in the future by the citizens out of their living district (experiments withtouch screen systems, direct recording electronic machines (DRE), static or mobile kiosks in the US, Germany,Switzerland, and Estonia).12 Experiments with remote voting by electronic means have been conducted withtelephone voting, SMS text voting, Internet voting and/or interactive digital TV voting mainly in the UK andSwitzerland. The advantage of kiosks is their capacity to renew the traditional polling both with modern meansof authentication like fingerprints recognition or smartcards and the transmission of data by a protected privatenetwork bypassing the Internet (cf. Maigret 2002).It is a matter of costs: in Switzerland, the costs for the “ vote éléctronique” are estimated to be at least 400 MSwiss Franc (~220 M ��)LQDQFLDO�EHQHILWV�DUH�H[SHFWHG�QRW�HDUOLHU�WKDQ�LQ��\HDUV�DOWKRXJK�6ZLtzerland canuse this technology not only for voting but also for their direct democratic ballots and referenda (cf. Kubicek etal. 2002, 28f.).

In any case, the internet offers new possibilities to provide up to date and individualised information for voters tosupport more informed voting. This is also relevant for referenda, where detailed background information can bemade accessible.

Box 18: The Guardian “ Elections 2001” talkboard (United Kingdom)13

The Guardian “ Elections 2001” talkboard provides an example of how Britons used the Internet to discusspolitical issues online. The British daily newspaper The Guardian set up the “ Elections 2001” talkboard a coupleof months before the UK Parliamentarian Elections took place in June 2001. Winkler (2002) undertook anempirical investigation of the talkboard debates, based upon the question of how far this specific platform was apublic space for civic deliberation, and evaluated therefore both the content and the interactivity among users. Tosum up, the author concludes that the Guardian talkboard widely fulfilled the requirements for civic deliberationsince it enabled rational-critical discussions, interaction among the participants, the exchange of information and 12 The CYBERVOTE project (http://www.eucybervote.org, consulted January 2003) aims at contributing to the develop-ment of European democracy by enabling all its citizens the use of modern electronic voting system. The goal is to increasethe overall participation of European citizens to all kind of elections and more specifically to increase the participation of theyouth, physically handicapped people, immigrants and socially excluded people. The objective of the CYBERVOTE projectis therefore to develop the first completely secure cyber voting system based on WAP, WML, XML, HTML and JAVA tech-nologies that will enable European citizens to vote through their mobile phones and PCs connected to Internet. The CYBER-VOTE design will be driven by solutions, which will allow the user authentication while guaranteeing ballot secrecy, sanctityand integrity but also the freedom of expression of the voter and the user-friendliness and the acceptability of the system.Trial applications will be conducted with disabled, ill and travelling people on different pilot elections (cf. also box 17).13 For further examples of information about policies of political parties cf. reports on local elections in the Netherlands(Ols/Jankowski 2002) and about the County Council Election day 2001 in North Jutland (Denmark) where, in 1997, the low-est voter turnout in the Danish election was experienced. (Coleman 2002, 43)



the formation of political ideas and opinions. However, it is important to stress that those who actively andpermanently contributed to the “ Elections 2001” discussions belonged to a rather small group of people. In fact,intense and rational-critical discussions appear to presuppose close interactions, which obviously occur moreeasily in small rather than large groups of people. Consequently, this study shows that the Guardian talkboarddid not provide the framework for mass deliberation processes, but rather provided a discussion platform forsmall and (highly focused) groups of people.

However, evaluation is more than judgement of policy performance by elections. It is also a judgement of theeffectiveness and efficiency and of the conditions of the effects of political measures and programmes. In manycases administrations are obliged to report to parliament and to the public the effects of their measures. Jänickeet al. (1999, 63) state that this is a great achievement compared to the former self-documentation ofgovernments’ activities. But this reporting has been dealt with in the first phase as performance deficits causeproblem perception and contribute to starting the cycle again.

2.2.7 Termination and revision

It is not trivial to state that policies can terminate because there are strong stakeholders that might have aninterest in keeping problems on the agenda because their existence depends on the existence of the problem.Nevertheless finalising policy programmes and making available personnel and financial resources could be asensible policy target. Besides, evaluation often leads to (instrumental) policy learning and a revised version ofthe policy (Sabatier 1993). This underlines that political measurements normally do not have a high accuracy butneed to be evaluated and improved.

As this stage intensively corresponds with the implementation stage and its evaluation, and because of thecircumstance that it is a specific point in the timetable rather than a procedure that needs to be supportedtechnologically, e-democracy tools here are not separately mentioned.

2.2.8 Summary

This chapter illustrated the potential that ICTs might have to support democratic life, and Table 2 summarisesthe assignment of e-democracy tools to different phases of the policy cycle. Some of these tools support severalphases while others are employed only in one or two.

Step of policycycle /e-democracytools

Info

rmat

ion

web

-site

New

slet

ter (

Em

ail w

ith C

RM

)

Sea

rch

func

tion

Glo

ssar

y

FAQ

Web

cast

of m

eetin

gs

Inst

ant m

essa

ging

Info

rmat

ion

/ K

now

ledg

e m

anag

emen

tsy

stem

s

Com

plai

nt m

anag

emen

t

Pet

ition

New

sgro

up

Pol

ling

Foru

m

Inte

ract

ive

web

-bas

ed c

ity-p

lann

ing

gam

e

Cha

t

Com

men

ts o

n dr

aft o

f law

s

Onl

ine

prot

ests

, cam

paig

ning

E-v

otin

g

CS

CW

, O

nlin

e m

edia

tion

Information Communicationand consultation

ProblemperceptionAgendasettingPolicyformulationDecisionmaking



ImplementationEvaluation,monitoringTermination

Table 2: Relevance of e-democracy tools for steps of policy cycle

However, ICTs are embedded into a social world and are extremely dependant on social trends. Therefore, thenext chapter emphasises those impacts of social life that might strongly influence technological developments.



3 Societal trends and impacts on future e-democracy

So far e-democracy is still in an experimental phase. For most of the examples presented here there is noevaluation of their effectiveness and efficiency. And there are no established practices yet, where and when todeploy which tool instead of or in combination with more traditional offline-means.

But even the limited experience gained so far shows that these questions cannot be answered in an absolute waybut rather have to be put into a broader context. Therefore any assessment of the future development of e-democracy has to be based upon assumptions about the more general development of democratic decisionmaking, society as a whole and the economy as well.

We do not expect that either the basic structure of the democratic system or the fundamental economic and socialstructure of society within the EU member states will change dramatically up to 2010. But there are trends ofchange in the past which will continue and change this structure gradually. And of course the economicdevelopment, the way social and environmental problems are dealt with, the role of governments and NGOs, thepolitical culture and similar aspects surely will change during this time.

3.1 Changes in the political triangle

During the last ten years the originally high expectations of the democratising effects of the internet have beenlowered and differentiated significantly. We have learned that the internet only provides a platform forsupporting democratic procedures and that the actual use of such provisions still is determined by the “ standardmodel of political participation” 14 and by the political culture which influences the extent and the direction ofcivic engagement. Political scientists have detected changes of the political culture independently fromtechnological development, in particular a tendency strengthening the civic sector.15 With regard to industrythere is a trend of deregulation and enforcing self-regulation, all together reducing and changing the role ofgovernment bodies and legislative action. Partly this is due to the fact that national legislation and itsenforcement by national or local administrations either no longer works with multinational enterprises operatingon global markets or is considered to weaken their competitiveness. But to maintain some degree of order andjustice within society, new means of coordination and setting of rules are needed and are emerging, for which theterm “ governance” , in contrast to government, has been coined. The European Commission recently has issued aWhite Paper on European Governance, thus stressing the need for a broad discussion and the role of ICT(Commission of the European Communities 2001:11). This supports our assumption that there is no certaintyabout who will make and influence important political decisions in five or ten years.

With regard to ICT we still can follow the basic assumption developed in technology assessment research in thelate 1970s arguing that ICT is an amplifier of existing or emerging social trends (cf. Reese et. al. 1977). Thecrucial question then is what the relevant trends with regard to e-democracy look like. To map the relevantchanges in the actors configuration one can refer to the political triangle (e.g. Kevenhörster 1997, 403f., Klein,Koopmans & Geiling 2001). Not because of ICT but because of the globalisation of the economy and thebreakdown of the former Eastern Block, power relations between the major groups of actors have alreadychanged and will continue to change in this decade. There are changes between the three sectors as well aswithin each of them (Fig. 2). In the past we could assume that the basic configuration of actors and their powerdistribution would mostly be stable and that only the ways of interaction between them would change. However,as the discussion about governance shows, this can no longer be assumed to be true for the years ahead.

14 According to the scientifically well-accepted standard model of participation, residents’ involvement mainly depends on human resources(education, income), identification with the political system and resulting believe in polical efficacy of the own involvement (Dalton 1988).15 From the point of view of policy-makers, the third sector also shall be involved into official policy-making, ie. the involvement of “ majorgroups” and especially NGO’ s in international policy regimes like the international conferences on environment and development.



Figure 2: The “political triangle” and power struggles between and within its edges

Most existing theories on democracy agree in the assumption that the power originates from the citizens and isdelegated to the state who among other things regulates industry to allow for optimal production and distributionof goods, to reach employment, some sort of equity and growth and at the same time minimise side effects suchas pollution (since the mid 1980s often called “ sustainable development” ). However we know that industrystrongly influences political decision making in legislation and administrative implementation. Moreover, duringthe last ten years this is no longer viewed as a threat to democratic decision making with the challenge forcountervailing powers but rather has become a goal of governmental reform and modernisation called“ cooperation” . Deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation, reducing bureaucratic burdens, and public privatepartnership have become guiding principles to restructuring government in the sense of reducing its impact.From another point of view this has been mentioned as an implementation deficit (see above) when we discussedthe policy cycle. So there may well be a situation where the participation of citizens is increased in most of thephases of the policy cycle, that their votes are fully incorporated in the decisions being taken but whenimplementation of these decisions is scheduled, administrations have to face that they do not have effectivemeans of enforcement. However at the same time in the civil sectors new organisations are emerging whichstress the democratic shortcomings of these modernisation processes, articulate the interest of larger groups ofcitizens, develop new forms of protest and might establish a new countervailing power within future systems ofgovernance.

The changes in the power relations between the three sectors are related to changes within each sector. Withinthe state sector the increase of power of the administration and the decrease of influence of parliaments is stillcontinuing. “ The bureaucracy appears to be increasing its influence as it has the resources to enhance itssynthesising and advising role” (cf. OECD 1998b, 8). International agreements e.g. on trade issues,environmental issues, intellectual property rights etc. are necessary in a global economy, and have to benegotiated by national government representatives and cannot be submitted several times to the many nationalparliaments during the negotiation process. However when national legislation is required at the end, parliamentshave no discretion to change central points. Simultaneously, the increasing decisions based on consensualconflict resolution extend the basis of legitimacy of the administrations. The (new) legitimacy through consensusunder the important stakeholders stands in the way of parliamentarian legitimacy through majority. Besidesrelated to scientific legitimacy, the specific departments often have a lead towards the policy-makers becausethey have expert reports, advisory boards, etc. Especially if politicians work on an honorary basis (as it is mostlythe case on the local and regional level), administrations have a lot of power by controlling and disseminatinginformation.

Within the civil sector, in western democracies we can observe a change of behaviour of citizens with regard topolitical participation which mainly comes from loosening the traditional affiliation to established massinstitutions such as churches and trade unions (cf. Putnam 2000). While these institutions thereby loose theirinfluence on political decision making the new non-profit associations operate in an issue-based mode. Thus it iseasier to articulate the interest of larger groups of citizens, offering them the opportunity of engagement for a



certain topic and only over a certain period of time, developing new forms of protest and possibly establishing anew countervailing power within future systems of governance.

Within industry we see big differences in interests and influence among the big global players as well as betweenthem and the many small and medium seized enterprises (SMEs). More and more antitrust regulation, whichsecures competition on national markets, is loosened in order to allow the big players to become even bigger inorder to compete on global markets. This leads to the paradoxical situation that strengthening thecompetitiveness of the global players weakens competition on national markets. Partly as a result of this processthe traditional industry and employers associations often no longer can speak for their industries and therebylose the legitimacy as a reliable and effective partner for agreements in the political arena.

3.2 A contingency model of e-democracy

Building upon these considerations we can develop a contingency model of e-democracy. The concept ofcontingency models was developed in organisation theory in the late 60s, and stresses the fact that organisationsdevelop differently and adopt different structures according to differences in their environments and othercharacteristics such as size, technology etc (see Lawrence and Lorsch 1969, Pugh, Hickson et.al 1969 andsummarising Kieser and Kubicek 1977).

A contingency model starts with defining the dependent variables which are to be explained or predicted, thenlooks for the relevant factors influencing their development, and finally checks whether relevant contextualfactors might intervene or influence both sets of variables.

In our case the dependent variables are the offerings and use of e-democracy tools. But as the use of these toolsis embedded into certain participation processes, which are offered by political institutions or initiated by otherorganisations, these aspects have to be considered as dependent variables as well. Therefore we have to analysewhat kind of participation legislative bodies and administrative units will offer to citizens and interest groupswith regard to subjects, range and particular addressees, and which e-tools will be employed in these offerings.And we have to assess to what extent individual citizens and interest groups will make use of these offerings aswell as start their own initiatives using e-democracy tools for campaigning etc.

The behaviour of state agencies and the civil sector is contingent of several influence factors, some of whichhave already been mentioned (see Fig. 3). We call these influence factors the specific context of e-democracy.These factors themselves are dependent on more general socio-economic factors which may be called thebroader context and which are the subject of the PRISMA scenarios. Let us talk about the specific context first.The following list of influence factors is not complete but illustrates the contingency approach.

A very uncertain influence factor is the political interest and the resulting civic engagement because it is notdirectly a result of the economic situation but more indirectly in the form described above. Since citizens havebecome less deferential and dependent, and more consumerist and volatile, old styles of representation havecome under pressure to change. In many democracies, not only are participation rates in elections decreasing,there is also a decline of membership in civil networks that resulted in a precipitous drop in political engagementin general (cf. Coleman / Gøtze 2001, Putnam 2000) with less commitment to the political process and less trustin government (cf. NAO 1999, 24). These days, citizens prefer selective, focussed and limited involvement inpolitical processes (mainly on the local level, often of NIMBY – not in my backyard – character) andtransparency of political-administrative procedures.

A similar constellation of different influence factors exists for the degree of participation in elections and polls.In some member states there are ongoing debates as to what extent direct-democratic tools are appropriate tosupport and supplement representative democracy – sometimes combined with deliberative elements: citizens’initiatives, referenda and ballots become part of the constitutional law, mostly on the local level, but are greatlycontroversial on the national level. “ Legislatures are increasingly squeezed between the general public and theexecutive; the new technologies make plebiscite democracy more feasible and this possibility is putting pressureon representative democracy” (cf. OECD 1998a, 8). But these forms of votes are often criticised because theyreduce complex political problems to simplifying yes/no-alternatives (Bellamy/Taylor 1998, Lenk 2000).



Experts agree that ICT-supported voting by “ pressing the button” has less importance than innovating theprocedures of decisions (cf. Lenk 2000, 150).

Figure 3: A “contingency model” of e-democracy

Communication culture covers a whole bundle of different trends. It includes aspects such as the openness ofpolitical discourse, tolerance for minorities, the existence of common values, etc. Changes of governance can bepart of this development – both increase in new means of cooperation in the way of consensus-building strategieswith mediation and resulting covenants can be the line or the shift to conflicting policies (e.g. as reaction towardseffects of globalisation). As mentioned already one decisive but still rather open trend is the future role of NGOs.Against the background of the alienation of parts of society towards policies on the one hand and theglobalisation of economic activities, of standards of human rights, ecological risks and ICT-networks on theother, new political organisations are emerging which act increasingly independently from the borders of nationsand seem to be a symptom of globalisation as well as an answer to it. In the context of the European Union, thesenon-governmental organisations (NGOs) have at least the following fundamental strengths.� A capacity to build European level coalitions in the form of Euro-groups, umbrella organisations, or through

the creation of cross-national Euro-level networks.� Through these coalitions, an ability to contribute to European integration in a manner likely to be attractive to

the Commission.� An ability to set the political agenda in the environmental sector and to structure the content of issues in ways

which place other interests at a disadvantage.

NGOs sometimes also support capacity-building on the side of the policy-makers: according to Mazey andRichardson (2002), in the 1970s, for example, the European Commission needed an NGO movement as acounterweight to the industrial lobby (consequently, the then founded European Environmental Bureau (EEB)has received significant amounts of the EU-funding to hold seminars and round tables on specific issues fromeco-labelling to standardisation policies). According to a Commission official interviewed by the authors of thatstudy, the task force which preceded the formation of DG XI (Environment) was originally so weak that itsought the support of the NGOs and mobilised and supported them in order to defend itself. Without this externalsupport, DG ” Environment” might have died in its early years (cf. Mazey and Richardson 2002, 149f.).



Meanwhile, interest groups are also better informed, better linked through networks, and, according to a surveyin eight OECD-countries, better able to bring pressure to bear, especially on the middle level of bureaucracy (cf.OECD 1998b, 8). NGOs have used the advantages of the Internet as one of the first political stakeholders.Practices of representation are of extreme importance for these groups because contact to target groups normallycan only be provided via the media channels. Electronic mailing (-lists) are a good example for cheapdissemination of specific information over far distances. Some NGOs are acting as pioneers in the installation ofinteractive web sites which often provide not only a good content but are provocative and sometimes amusing,too (e.g. the web site provided by CorporateWatch in the UK delivers extensive advice to search for thosegroups which are attending to accuse companies for their environmental damages or other delicts). Others informabout “ green” marketing activities when it is possible for Internet-users to participate. The group NetActionedited an online-guide for optimising NGO web sites. Also, the Internet becomes an important tool for collectioncampaigns. The web site of the WWF (WorldWideFund for Nature)-International, for instance, enabled theirusers to choose a “ passport” of some 80 focal points of nature conservation all over the world together with atypology of the own possibilities of support (electronic mailing, petitions, donations (Heins 2002, 140ff.).

Treating public administrations like enterprises leads to looking for new kinds of revenues. One idea is to sell theinformation that is gathered for administrative purposes. A prominent example is geographical information. Thisis in line with a more general trend of commodification of information. There are not only chances of newrevenues for administrations, but the administrations themselves suddenly have to pay for information which wasavailable for free before. New intellectual property rights are requiring payments for providing information tocitizens, raising costs of public libraries etc. Partly due to the internet many citizens expect that informationwhich is available within government is made available to the public as well, and a large majority expects thatthis information is provided free without any special charges. This expectation collides with the economicpressure for cost effectiveness on public administration and with the above described trend towardscommodification of information. This is an important issue for e-democracy and also a good case to illustrate themethodology of this analysis: the e-democracy offering at stake is the access to public information according tosome freedom of information regulation. This may be supported by data bases or knowledge managementsystems accessible via the internet. The extent and the conditions of which such access is provided will dependon how the different stakeholders behind the different trends succeed with pursuing their interests.

At this moment huge differences exist among EU member States concerning information policy and regulationson access to information. Therefore the European Commission launched initiatives to improve access to publicsector information since the late 1980s. They resulted in legal provisions on the citizen’ s right to accessinformation at the EU-level (in the Amsterdam Treaty), as well as in a series of attempts to encourage memberStates to pursue the same strategy. The different trends mentioned above are considered in a Green Paper onPublic Sector Information (European Commission 1999), which raises awareness about what is at stake and whatare the key challenges. It addresses all major issues including: the definition and scope of the public sector; theconditions of access; the obligation to produce information and exemptions; time, quantity and format of publicsector response to information requests; pricing of public sector information; competition rules (EU and nationallegislation); rights on public sector information and the harmonisation of national regimes; privacy issues; theneed for inventories and directories of public sector information; liability; and, finally, possible actions. Theannex of the Green Paper includes a preliminary characterisation of the situation concerning legislation andpolicy on access to public sector information in EU member states. In contrast with the “ governmentcommercialisation” position, this initiative of the European Commission is a major step in already long-lastingefforts to foster greater openness in government information. The draft guidelines which have been suggested bythe European Commission on the basis of earlier discussions and studies such as the PUBLAW reports16 so farsuggest principles similar to the U.S. public information policy (Weiss et al. 1997, 320): They encourage theavailability of public information for use by the private sectors and for exploitation by electronic media as wellas procedures for access to public information. They discourage exclusivity and restrictions on dissemination andopt for exemption of public information from copyright. This position is motivated by the goal to develop theinformation market and to ensure that European companies can compete on a level basis with the informationindustries worldwide

Awareness of trust and data privacy issues concerning ICT is a factor that might have a strong influence on theuse of e-democracy applications. Nowadays, diverging trends can be observed: users are interested in high

16 See http://www2.echo.lu/legal/en/access/access.html.



standards of privacy especially towards giving data to governmental authorities (although this attitude variesover Europe). Citizens and companies as well want to know how their data are used and how personal (andbusiness) data and privacy are protected. If data are collected, how they are used cannot be controlled.Governmental agencies are insisting on strong data protection regulations while these tendencies could restrainfrom enhancing ICTs. Meanwhile, high awareness of data protection and privacy issues is necessary to increasethe demand, understanding and acceptance for sophisticated and (from a user side) complicated data protectionapplications (encryption, authentication technologies, qualified electronic signatures, etc.). Meanwhile, theprincipal access to information supported by ICT has strong influences on the requirement of getting access toinformation to the debit of privacy.

The openness of individuals towards technology is an opalescent factor influencing future ICT-development andpenetration in general. Digital inclusion strongly depends on the economic situation and the existence of enoughstate revenues to support lower income groups. Hence it is thinkable that larger parts of the society are notinterested in making use of ICTs because of fashions, change of attitudes, etc. Because these factors are ofrelevance also for e-business, it can be assumed that co-operation of the three sectors (market, government, civilsociety) and the addition of partially identical interests (e.g. the advantages of delivering information through theInternet can be used by the business to market their products as well as by the NGOs to point undesirable socialdevelopments out to the public) are strong factors to bridge these gaps.

3.3 The broader context and the scenario method

The influential factors of the specific context are not linear and already determined. Rather their futuredevelopment itself is contingent on more basic developments and conditions of society, the economy and theenvironment. Apparently future economic development largely will influence these trends. If economic growthreturns this will reduce conflicts. When the European economy enters a longer recession period, the weakeningof the state sector will continue, the communication culture will suffer etc.

A scenario describes a possible future and is one of the tools that is used in foresight exercises and for policyanalysis. This instrument incorporates developments both within the system (endogenous) and outside thesystem (exogenous) that affect the system under consideration (Botterman 2001). “ The term scenario isborrowed from the theatre world where it refers to the sketch of the scenes. A scenario in the policy analysisworld can be a preferred future, an un-preferred future, or just a possible future – as long as it is plausible.Scenarios are often generated in sets that give a picture of a range of plausible futures” 17 It presents an analytictool to identify uncertainties of a policy decision and aims at enabling decision makers to make more rationaldecisions considering the unpredictability of the future (Riet 2002). As such, a scenario has to fulfil thefollowing criteria.

� It should be plausible, but it does not have to be probable. Indeed, given the uncertainty of the future, itneeds to be explicitly stated that the scenario is not a prediction, but only a possibility, as likely as manyother possibilities.

� It should be internally consistent in order to be plausible and in order to enable a coherent discussion.� It should not describe the developments that led to the described picture of the future. Instead, participants

might be asked to project backwards from the posited future to better understand how that future mightarise.

� It should contain enough information to describe the functioning of a system.

Against this background, scenarios played a key role in the PRISMA project (http://www.prisma-eu.int) andcontributed to the development of future-oriented best practice models in the six PRISMA service fields:administrations; health; persons with special needs (the disabled and the elderly); environment; transport; andtourism. Building scenarios on how the external world might look in 10 years from now is necessary to informan appropriate adaptation of current good practice models and to arrive at more robust innovative models.

17 http://www.rand.orf/randeurope/fields/scenarios.pdf, consulted November 2002.



4 Scenarios for e-democracy

4.1 The scenario development process

4.1.1 Methodology

Scenario building for the PRISMA project has been designed as a two-stage process. Stage one was devoted todevelop exploratory (not normative) scenarios, mainly based on desk research without direct involvement ofexternal service area experts. Existing work in this area has been examined, including the Commission’ sForward Studies Unit “ Scenarios for Europe 2010” 18 and the ISTAG “ scenarios for ambient intelligence in2010” 19. In this stage, the main drivers and important dimensions of change were examined, in order todetermine the most important elements of the future. Once these drivers and dimensions were identified, theywere fleshed out into plausible and concrete, using the method of desk research. It has been a deliberate decisionto concentrate on a set of three such scenarios. They are labelled as “ external scenarios” because they focus onthe external environment of service provision. Stage two integrated the external scenarios from stage one andsketched plausible effects on e-democracy. This stage was undertaken with important inputs from externalexperts in specifically designed scenario workshops. Given each external scenario, their expertise was used todetermine what future-oriented good practice related to e-democracy, based on fundamental European values(normative standards) and in consideration of circumstances and requirements of service provision in 2010.

4.1.2 Construction of external scenarios

The construction of “ external scenarios” built on a conceptual framework designed to capture the changes in theexternal environment of service provision by ways of five categories of drivers and trends: socio-cultural;economic; political; technical; ecological. The PRISMA team undertook a collation of opinion on major trendsand drivers in the areas of socio-cultural, economic, political, technical and ecological changes over the next tenyears in relation to service provision in the six service fields. These trends and drivers were then consolidatedand assessed within the team according to four criteria:� importance (i.e. importance for e-service delivery: low, medium, high);� certainty (i.e. likelihood of occurrence: low, medium, high);� controllability (i.e. ability to manage if high, ability to determine outcome if not: low, medium, high); and� significance (global and European: yes, no).

Using assessments on a total of around 75 trends and drivers, four dimensions were identified upon which thescenarios could be built (Economy/Society; Government; Information Technology; Sustainability). The finalresult of this process was a set of three scenarios, differentiated among each other by specific characteristics oneach of the four key dimensions.

4.1.3 Dimensions of the scenarios

The four dimensions, which had been identified as the basis upon which the scenarios were then built can becharacterised as follows.

“Prosperity of the Economy and Society”: This dimension refers to the general socio-economic well being ofEurope in 2010. It was decided to build three versions of the future along this dimension. Version “ +” ischaracterised by good economic well being, relative peace in the world, EU integration progressing well, andpositive moves towards social cohesion and equity. Version “ –” is built around a “ Eurodepression” , andrepresents relatively poor economic performance, leading to strife, a slowdown of EU integration, and means aninability to make progress in social cohesion and equity. Version “ 0” lies between version “ +” and version “ –” .That is, there is a slowdown in growth, but not an actual recession.

18 http://europa.eu.int/comm/cdp/scenario/resume/index_en.htm, consulted December 2002.19 ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/ist/docs/istagscenarios2010.pdf, consulted December 2002.



“Power of Government”: This dimension refers to the role of government in peoples’ lives. Here, again, thereare three versions. The first version presents a balanced world, with a division of competencies between centralgovernments, the private sector; between central and regional governments; and between governments and non-governmental bodies. The second demonstrates a conflict situation – both by government and the private sectorwielding its economic power (largely at the cost of influence by the civil society). The third version describes afall in the power of centralised control and a growth of regional governance, NGOs, and self-organising smallgroups.

“Grade of innovation of information technology”: This dimension refers to the development of informationtechnology, and has two versions. Version “ +” is a dynamic development and diffusion with full speed ahead,while version “ –” is a slowdown in progress.

“Consideration of sustainable development”: This dimension refers to the development of an attitude towards asustainable environment and the implementation of policies based upon that attitude. Again, there are twodescriptions. Version “ +” describes an increasing awareness of sustainability, policies aimed at promotingsustainability, and progress in various indicators of reduction of the environmental load. Version “ –” isregression in all of these characteristics. Two other “ dimensions” are included as composites of different featuresof the “ Economy/Society” and “ Government” dimensions. These are the dimensions of social progress andEuropean integration. The first is an even balance between “ Economy/Society” and “ Government” , and thesecond is based upon economy.

Each of the dimensions is built upon drivers that were submitted by the PRISMA team as a whole, and rated fortheir importance to the service fields. All drivers considered important to any sector were included in at least oneof the four dimensions. In addition, some drivers – especially those considered important with high certainty, areused in all of the scenarios as context-setting materials. These include, among others, population growth andmigration. To use the dimensions to arrive at scenarios, at least eight possibilities were considered (that is, eightcandidate scenarios progressed to the stage of being given names). From these, the PRISMA scenario committeeselected a set of three to be presented to the external experts in the planned scenario workshops.

4.1.4 Scenario overview

The main results are full descriptions of three alternative scenarios that represent realistic, internally consistent,and plausible pictures of alternative futures. They have been labelled as follows.

Scenario 1: “ A prosperous and more just Europe”Scenario 2: “ A turbulent world”Scenario 3: “ Recession and re-orientation”

The three scenarios manage to create variation among all four dimensions. No scenario is perfectly correlated(either in a positive or negative direction) with any other scenario. The three scenarios present very differentpictures of Europe in 2010 and each has interesting unique aspects. None of the scenarios is the “ trend” , andeach of them is possible. The following figure illustrates the specific characteristics of each scenario. A moredetailed description will be given subsequently:.



Considerationof sustainabledevelopment

Prosperity of the economy

Power of thegovernment

Grade of innovation of information technology

+

+

+ - -

-neutral +

(a heavyhand)

fall

S 2: A turbulent world

S3: Recession and re-orientation

S1: A prosperous and more just Europe

0

Figure 4: Overview on scenarios of future e-government

The following chapters attempt to shed light on the future development of e-democracy services against thebackground of these three scenarios. For an overview, see figure 4 above.

4.2 Scenario 1: “ A prosperous and more just Europe

4.2.1 Description of the scenario

The first decade of the 21st century has been beyond everyone’ s expectations. The world is at peace and hasexperienced widespread economic and social progress. It is possible to combine economic growth with areduction in the environmental burden on the planet. By 2010 Moore’ s Law is still in force and ICT continues tocontribute to the prosperity of Europe. The scenario assumes positive economic development, a neutral (ie. lessregulating) role of government characterised by a mix of public and private solutions, a positive contribution byICT technologies, and increasing sustainable development.

Governments have been re-engineered at all levels and enable horizontal (among different agencies on the samelevel) as well as vertical (among different levels of government) integration of services, which are now deliveredat one stop with flexible front offices. They are gaining enough tax revenues to invest in ICT development (e.g.PAPs) and re-engineering activities. Good co-operation with the private and the third sector provides acombination of private and public services according to special life events and commercial issues. Governmentsand public administrations provide practical support tools to facilitate the use of e-government services forcitizens, such as meta-information guides, public service guides and portals, public access points, and so on, toaccess relevant information.

The ongoing privatisation of the public sector helped to balance the public budget of most Member States. Inmost EU countries, public administrations are still responsible for the health, education, pension system etc.However, close public-private partnerships have also been established in these areas. In 2010, most of the EUcountries will be able to increase their public spending on social policy and provide public services together withnon-profit organisations and private corporations to EU citizens. The introduction of e-government has causedsignificant investments and continues to require high operational costs.



The focus on ICT training in schools, enterprises and public authorities has raised the general ICT-literacy levelin Europe. Moreover, ICT courses for certain target groups have contributed to a more “ inclusive” e-society.International guidelines, agreements and laws have raised awareness on privacy issues. Consequently, consistentstandards and laws have been implemented in most countries. Even though computers play a more central role inthe everyday life of people, they are not noticed in the same way as in 2000 since they have become smaller,interconnected and more intelligent. Technology is hidden almost everywhere and just works (“ calm” or“ ambient” technologies). Technology has become a social good enabling large communication networks.

The emergence of trans-national corporations has made borders disappear, and their relative growth hasincreased the need for worldwide economic policy-making. “ Rules of fair play” have been institutionalised byinternational regulations so that all states tend to profit more evenly from globalisation, and wealth disparitiestend to be gradually reduced. In 2010, the “ global civil society” has finally got a common and approvedrepresentative body: “ the UN Civil Society Forum” .

In this scenario, the internal re-engineering of the back-office-front-office relationship according to ICT-opportunities is on top of the agenda. E-government is well funded and attracts more and more users. Peopletrust technological systems, government becomes “ big brother” and “ invisible” but people will be happy with it.Technological devices have become indispensable and most homes have turned into e-homes. On the supply sidethis results in a requirement for information about technology-related privacy issues in the contact betweenpublic service providers and the citizens, the end users.

Public tasks are criticised if they are provided efficiently by government or if they should have been betteroutsourced. Power-sharing and policy-making with covenants is the line. From an economical point of view,close public-private partnerships (mainly G2B, but also G2C) have been established. Good co-operation betweenall governmental bodies with the private and/or the third sector provides a combination of private and publicservices according to special life events and commercial issues. Under this scenario, privatisation has beenconcentrated in “ socially less sensitive” areas. “ Social contracts” between public and private institutions havebeen concluded in order to guarantee the maintenance of the social net. Nevertheless, contracts and theirtransparency might become a problem because services (as well as other activities) provided by the governmentas the only stakeholder can be controlled via democratically elected committees, but for public-privatepartnerships this is less and for whole privatised companies it is hardly possible.

4.2.2 Main influences of this scenario on e-democracy

E-democracy becomes less state-centred, e.g. political parties lose large numbers of their supporters, manyNGOs register an increase in (passive) membership. Consequently, co-operation and highly integrated networkbuilding among stakeholders from all edges of the political triangle (state - market - civil society) is improved.“ Service communities” (also known as “ communities of practice” organised in a “ Computer Supported Co-operative Work” (CSCW) framework) are on the agenda: Here, stakeholders like architects, lawyers or membersof unemployment initiatives are distributing, exchanging, discussing, storing and updating knowledge andinformation about their own experiences or special cases. There are many examples where citizens are requestedin their functions as experts who have better knowledge managements systems than public administrations;solutions will be found that people are willing to share their knowledge. However, this necessitates a culturalshift in organisations, from “ knowledge is power” to “ sharing knowledge is power” . Taking into account thatcitizens (as users) expect current, reliable and quick information from public administrations rather than from aservice community where they often miss it, in this scenario it is necessary to support organisational learning ofthese working groups.

Despite increased contacts as service consumers, citizens all over Europe have felt increasingly excluded frompolitical life and have low political interest because they are largely content with the status quo and feel verycomfortable. A smug population will just vote, but has little interest in the political process as long as all is welland does not participate in deliberative affairs. On the “ information” stage, administrations will continue topublish their information at one-stop e-portals, some of these services – mainly economically attractiveinformation like geographical data (especially maps) – are being commercialised by private enterprises.Distinctions in FOI-policies in the member States of the extended European Union are not harmonised due todifferent political cultures. While Scandinavian States traditionally have a very open information policy, otherEuropean States will be driven through international initiatives like the UN-ECE Aarhus convention (allowing



citizens access to environment-related information, see Box 15 above) to change their holding-up informationpolicies. (Public) access to information about companies might increase while FOI-acts are now expanded andinclude information, which nowadays are avoided to be published with the argument to be “ company-secrets” .Good results of policies and extensive freedom of information rights lead to trust in the political system and itsinstitutions. Generally, under this scenario access to government-held information has been widely grantedthrough good information management systems independent from (administrative) processes on the basis of theEuropean Freedom of Information Act. Pro-active information delivery has become the rule. This alreadyincludes that inter-governmental knowledge management systems exist, that different documents are stored,structured, classified, labelled and maintained (centrally data mining). Also tacit knowledge is part of this as wellas “ data cemeteries” . These systems are usable for internal processes as well and need to go beyondorganisational boundaries. Moreover, KM systems must be in line with FOI, users need not to have certain“ hidden” knowledge to find required information. Suppliers must enable users to get access to availableinformation. Some knowledge management systems for various demands were evaluated to be useful only forbasic services and not for complex ones (planning etc.). Knowledge management systems are independent from(administrative) processes and it is decisive to know who has the requested information.

“ Online-consultations” will become normally provided (but rarely used) involvement procedures to discusspolitical and planning issues (but mainly in that way that citizens are allowed to make comments to planningissues electronically). The social exclusion issue in participation will still continue due to the circumstance thatcitizens have much confidence in the State and are not very interested in deliberative participation processes.“ Active participation” in the form of CSCW based “ communities of practice” will be used frequently by(growing) networks of experts for instance in consensus-oriented mediation and moderation processes.Intuitively one would expect “ e-voting” to be the inevitable evolution of traditional voting, but it needs to beagreed on how such a development can be implemented in technological terms and how it could gain acceptanceby all actors (politicians and citizens). Work is required in three major areas: the supporting technologies andprocesses, user acceptance (politicians/citizens) and assessment of impact on the democratic institutions and thepolitical process.

Co-operation among the public, business and the third sector is the characteristic of this scenario and mightinclude that ICT resources are spent very effectively because each partner plays the role he knows best.Decisions can be better based because of improved information gathering, management and planning. The(planning and political) consensus among important societal stakeholders like the State, the business and thethird sector (e.g. through “ highly integrated networks” ) implies more co-operation and less conflicts andtransmission-losses. Broader based decisions will lead to better acceptance.

The reverse of the medal is that consensus among strong stakeholders often leads to less political encouragementon the basic level of a society because representatives do their job. This might lead to political apathy, which willnot mainly be registered in elections but in deliberative procedures where involvement of citizens is part of the“ school of democracy” . Part of this phenomenon is that the new networks partly would decrease transparency ofpolitical decisions because boards of new companies formed in public-private partnerships do not meet publiclylike democratic institutions do. Here it is necessary to take care of the contracts between the public and theprivate side of public-private partnerships to find solutions for this problem (e.g. through special FOI-notifications).

4.3 Scenario 2: “ A turbulent world”


In this scenario economic growth has not been sustained. After an initial trend towards privatisation andoutsourcing, there has been a shift towards strong central government direction. At the same time the marketpower of the private sector has significantly increased. The two forces are frequently in severe conflict. Drivenby market incentives, information technology has continued its growth, but a regard for sustainability has beenlost in the combination of economic volatility and conflict. The scenario assumes slow but unstable economicdevelopment, an interventionist role of government, a positive contribution by ICT technologies, and a loss ofsustainability.



In 2010, the market is characterised by ruthless competition in a winner-takes-all environment. As a result ofprivatisation and outsourcing in the first half of the first decade in this century, a growing proportion of publictasks were provided by private enterprises. As a result, e-government has to compete with private alternativesthat offer a similar service. Digital exclusion has become a big issue both worldwide (the developed versus thedeveloping world) and on an individual level. While some homes have become ’hi-tech’, most remain hi-fi.Society has become more fragmented than ever: the individual reigns supreme. Internet access, althoughwidespread, is inefficiently organised and relatively expensive for anything other than e-mail and informationservices. Public sites such as railway stations, hotels, and airports are ‘hotspots’ with wireless access points.Simultaneously, the importance of privacy protection for improving trust in IT systems has become clear.International guidelines, agreements, and laws have made security an issue that concerns all nations of the world,and consistent standards and laws have been implemented to secure that ISPs and other actors that are involvedin data traffic or hosting pay very careful attention to security issues. More people trust technological systems.Due to pervasive applications people do not think any longer about when and how they are interacting withcomputers. Although turbulent, the IT-sector will expand in this scenario.

Government is politically strong but its economic basis is pure due to reductions of tax revenues. Most Europeancountries were forced to consolidate their national budgets. In this scenario there is a pressure for rapid changewithin governmental organisation. There will be less back office interoperability (compared to scenario 1).Through the privatisation and outsourcing of public functions public expenditures could be considerablyreduced. A growing proportion of public tasks was provided by private enterprises (e.g. communicationinstitutions like formerly-public broadcasting). Governments’ main task becomes to take care for the “ losers” ofthe economic development. Therefore a flexible development of various delivery channels is necessary –Internet-access for the richer and individualised face-to-face contacts to the “ have-nots” . Social cohesion is nowunder pressure, therefore government will take action (like nowadays in Britain with the establishment ofneighbourhood communities). Social inclusion is asking for other solutions than individualistic service provision.Therefore, the selectiveness of e-government – that governmental services will be tailored to specific targetgroups, some hitherto financed services and tasks must have been cut down because of budget restrictions - islikely to be the most important feature under this scenario, social integration matters need to be targeted andpromotion and positive discrimination becomes necessary.


By 2010, nation States and regional identities are still the most meaningful reference points for citizens. Thetrend away from globalisation is reinforced by the growing influence of anti-globalisation movements thatorganise protests throughout the world against increasing investment liberalisation and the widening gapbetween rich and poor countries. Economic and social turbulence has heightened the political interest of voters.In the latest European elections, turnout rates reached as high as 70 %. People have become much moreconcerned with the political process. They can now access information when, where, and how they want, butgovernment will only provide information for money under this scenario. No pro-active information will bedelivered. Government increasingly intervenes and attempts to return a number of privatised services to someform of public ownership. The private sector resists. simultaneously to the privatisation of marketable functionsof the State, the role of the third sector becomes more important: Associations support e-democracy throughprovision of links from and to e-government. This education in citizenship leads to a stronger “ civil-society” - e-democracy becomes less State-centred. International governance gets more and more important; therefore thereis a need for international action and for international cooperation. For this improved network building, the thirdsector needs support, e.g. in the way of tax reductions, delivery of offices (e.g. old municipal owned buildings)and access to information and databases to provide these tasks.

European citizens have high political interest but are increasingly sceptical towards national and Europeanbureaucrats, institutions and political parties. There is widespread interest in e-government as a means to becomemore involved or even to exert some influence, while the Internet has become the medium of choice for politicaldiscussions, developing strategies, and planning action. While at first online debates mostly dealt with nationalor local issues, people nowadays increasingly use the Internet to discuss matters of European and global concern.In a turbulent world there is a need for accurate information more than ever before. Especially for internet-use, itis necessary to make the information-sources crystal clear. Therefore, administrations will be reliable institutionsfor most user-groups. A (small) new source of revenue for administrations will be that they charge money forinformation delivered according to FOI acts. This becomes a special problem of social exclusion.



E-democracy becomes less state-centred since as a result of privatisation and outsourcing, a growing proportionof public tasks on the one hand were provided by private enterprise, which led to highly polarised social andeconomic structures. This has resulted in some problems, e.g. priorities were shifted, for instance projects ofnational importance (such as state-driven online-participation activities) were delayed or even cancelled inseveral EU countries. Besides, the lack of adequate service contracts among the state, private suppliers and thecitizens and controls of their implementation which should guarantee equitable, reliable and affordable servicedelivery has led to a severe deterioration of services. On the other hand, the third sector organisations take overtraditionally governmental tasks like information provision in specific areas and provide links from their ownweb sites to e-government. Highly interoperable and flexible e-services and technologies might be developedwhich can be partly used for e-democracy, too. The IT-business takes over development of those e-democracytools and applications which expect to gain profit, e.g. development of online-voting tools like nowadays andprovision of mandatory platforms for e-democracy toolkits.

4.4 Scenario 3: “Recession and re-orientation”


In the decade up to 2010, people have favoured decentralisation, environmentalism, and local markets whereasthey have become more sceptical towards technology, government and global market forces. Although there isno economic depression, neither does the economy experience much growth. The scenario assumes sloweconomic development, a smaller role of government, a slow development of ICT technologies, but anincreasingly sustainable development.

After an economic crash in the mid-2000s, Europe’ s economy recovers slowly. Most EU countries (except someof the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) successfully consolidated their public budgets due tosignificant reduction of public expenditures. Introducing lean administration models and privatising publicfunctions have downsized most European public administrations. Budget shifts enabled the re-organisation of theEuropean welfare systems. The passive money donor policy of the EU member States has been replaced by anactive social service policy involving private companies and social institutions. Social services (e.g. jobsearching) have been subcontracted to private institutions, under careful monitoring conditions. The CEEC’ sbecame the focal point of growth in Europe, however, cuts in EU subsidies slowed down economic developmentprocess in the CEEC’ s. The European internal market becomes more important, the clientele of government willnot mainly be their citizens, but business and third sector in a higher amount than today.

Digital divide issues play a very important role under this scenario. However, in this context people are notunable to deal with technology but they are unwilling to do so. People have become increasingly scepticalconcerning technology and have lost faith and interest in technological devices. It has become fashionable to beunreachable by mobile phone or e-mail. Nevertheless, people might be forced to use e-government services sincethere is no alternative and most of the public services can only be accessed electronically. Neighbourhood accesspoints have become more important and ensure that as many citizens as possible have access to e-governmentservices. Only a limited number of service channels will be available (but some data will be stored thatprincipally they can be delivered through various channels). Only basic technologies will be used because of theuncertain situation. Less standardised solutions are being observed, cultural differences have become moreimportant.

Citizens have turned to non-materialism and more emphasis has been given to spiritual values.Environmentalism has become “ en vogue” again and NGOs have seized control of the agenda.

Administrations sometimes had misused personal data in the first decade of this century, so there is low trust onthe users’ side and high awareness and scepticism that the state fulfils the demand of trust and privacy. Dataprotection becomes more important. It will get more regulated (but not controlled) than it already is and systemswere installed which enable citizens and businesses to choose whether they want to get informed and to whomthe information shall be delivered. Applications like GPS (global positioning system) will be the technology todetect people wherever they go, but these systems have to be regulated in order to avoid misuse. Also if Stateinstitutions privatise social services they must be aware of data privacy issues. These supply-side activities fit



with user requirements like electronic data protection rights management systems and data protection audits.Anonymous identification must be possible for various (e-democracy) applications. Clear policies for rightsmanagement, transparency and publication as well as for procurement will be established. Governments willenforce investments to the information management and digital rights management (DRM).


The potential of new media to re-organise organisational structures to provide easier and better access togovernment services for citizens and businesses has not been fully exploited. Although there is a strong demandfor actual, correct and easy to find information, the public information provision is very poor under this scenario.Public authorities do not have the financial means to deliver well-structured and accurate information in all areasof governmental action. In general, governments have a poor information base (if it is stored information).Nevertheless their information strategies will include provision of legal information, easy to find andconcentrating on good and reliable information e.g. through investments to the information management and thedigital rights management especially for the business sector and professional intermediaries (e.g. geographicalinformation systems which will become permanent). Companies and NGOs use direct contact to offices toreceive relevant information while for individual citizens, governments are no longer a reliable base forinformation (e.g. due to the fact that they will have misused data). Access to government-held information is stilllargely restricted either by data-protection law or by administrative culture; environmental information as well asgovernmental permits and licenses will become (more important) government services. Moreover, citizens donot request electronic services.

Increasing liberalisation of investment flows caused worldwide protests organised by grassroots organisations.This deprivation of political power has resulted in extremely low voter turnouts but also lead to resurgence ofpolitical interest from the bottom up. Citizens were enabled to set up local community associations (1/3 ofpopulation involved), networks for political debate etc. NGOs have become progressively more important forpolicy making while the membership and influence of political parties decreased. Large multinational NGOshave become equal to their industrial counterparts in terms of political influence on government. Thus,governments consider these developments in their information strategies and outsource main parts of democratictasks to the third sector and local communities. Furthermore, governments invest in networking strategies andseek co-operation with NGOs in order to organise a better informational return of citizens’ problems anddemands (e.g. the state supports mediation with NGOs by multi-channel strategies, incl. human mediators).Simultaneously, more emphasis will be given to face-to-face meetings. NGOs receive governmental funds andare in charge of some governmental tasks but there is a need for multinational support for instance. Mediationwith NGOs through combined delivery channels (face to face and supported by ICT groupware technologies)becomes an often-used procedure to solve conflicts (see box 12). This results in a new task for governments andcivil society to support this conflict-resolution method. Mediation is applied via multi channel support i.e. inface-to-face meetings as well as in electronic groupware applications (“ service communities” ).

4.5 SummaryTable 3 summarises how the influence factors or the specific context vary within the broader context asdescribed in the three scenarios.

Influencefactor

Shaping of the factor inthe scenario

“prosperous world“

Shaping of the factor inthe scenario “ turbulent

world”

Shaping of the factor inthe scenario “ recession

and re-orientation”Political interest of (individual) citizens

State-driveninvolvementinto politicalprocesses

Usually technically supportedbut less used

Low Governments invest innetworking strategiesand support „localcommunities“

Interest inpoliticalprocesses

Low People have become much moreconcerned with politics;Internet has become the medium ofchoice for political discussions

deprivation of politicalpower has resulted inthe resurgence ofpolitical interest fromthe bottom up;



citizens were enabledto set up localcommunity associations(1/3 of populationinvolved)

Participation inelections

A smug population will justvote

High voter turnout-rates (industry isinterested in proving online votingtools and provision of mandatoryplatforms for e-democracy toolkits

deprivation of politicalpower has resulted inextremely low voterturnouts

Governance / communication cultureTrust into thepolitical system

High Administrations are acceptedas reliable institutions (e.g. forinformation delivery) butincreasing scepticism towardsstate authorities

extreme scepticism towardstraditional political institution,

Governance Power-sharing and policy.-making with covenants,“service communities”, highlyintegrated networks:cooperation, less conflicts,broader based decisions;networking of experts(technically supported e.g. byCSCW)

Privatisation and outsourcing ofpublic tasks (mainly tobusiness, partly to NGOs – e.g.information provision)

New bottom up and localgovernance structures;more balanced powerrelations between the mainpublic actors (state, marketand third sector);Power sharing also includesnew partnerships amongthese stakeholders. Politicalconflicts are often solved bymediation procedures

Role of politicalparties

Lose large numbers of theirsupporters

Increasing scepticism Influence decreased

Role of NGO’s Partners to government andbusiness: increase inmembership

Conflicting role, lessacceptance by state andeconomy (but growing influencee.g. of anti-globalisationmovements to the public(opinion))Associations support e-democracy through provision ofinformation-links from and to (e-)government;this “education in citizenship”leads to a stronger “civil-society” - e-democracybecomes less State-centred;but third sector needs support

NGOs have becomeprogressively more importantfor policy making and haveseized control of the agenda;Large multinational NGOshave become equal to theirindustrial counterparts interms of political influence ongovernment;governments invest innetworking strategies andseek co-operations withNGOs in order to organise abetter informational return ofcitizens’ problems anddemands (e.g. mediation)

Freedom of informationLegally allowedaccess toinformation(FOI - Freedomof information)

FOI-acts are expanded,increased information accessalso to business-information;good and independentknowledge managementsystems independent fromgovernmental processes (e.g.inter-governmental);data mining centrally, partlyexchangePro-active informationdelivery

Users can now accessinformation when, where, andhow they want as long as theycan pay for it becausegovernment only providesinformation for money;Less back-office interoperabilityNo pro-active information willbe delivered

Access to government-heldinformation is largelyrestricted (either by data-protection law or byadministrative culture);

(Internal) Re-organisation ofinformationmanagement

Commercialising ofinformation delivery (merelygeographic data) (23)

A (small) new source ofrevenue for administrations willbe that they charge money forinformation delivered accordingto FOI acts;Selectiveness of e-government

Public authorities do not havethe financial means to deliverwell-structured and accurateinformation; governmentshave a poor information base(if it is stored information) buttheir information strategiesinclude provision of reliableand easy to find legal andgeographic informationtargeted mainly toprofessional intermediaries;



investments to theinformation management anddigital rights management

Requiredinformation

Information mainly requiredby organisations (enterprises,associations) rather than byindividuals

Great need for accurateinformation; necessary to clarifythe sources

Strong demand for actual,correct and easy to findinformation;environmental information aswell as governmental permitsand licenses will become(more important) governmentservices

Awareness of trust and privacy issuesAwareness ofprivacy andtrust issues

Raised, increased informationabout privacy issues

Clear information about privacyissues required and provided,consistent regulations havebeen implemented

High awareness andscepticism that the state fulfilsthe demand of trust andprivacy

Openness of individuals towards technology / digital integrationOpenness ofindividualstowardstechnology

Ambient technologies andvery technology open citizens

People mostly trusttechnological systems

People have becomeincreasingly scepticalconcerning technology andhave lost faith and interest intechnological devices

Digitalintegration

Fully implemented (withinOECD-countries but notglobally)

Exclusion, society fragmented(social ingration matters needto be targeted and promotionand positive discriminationbecomes necessary)Political practice of chargingmoney for information deliveredaccording to FOI acts becomesa special problem of socialexclusion;privatisation of formerly publicmedia (e.g. publicbroadcasting) has widened thesocial gap

Many people are not unableto deal with technology butthey are unwilling to do so.Nevertheless, people mightbe forced to use e-government services sincethere is no alternative andmost of the public servicescan only be accessedelectronically. Neighbourhoodaccess points have becomemore important and shallensure that as many citizensas possible have access to e-government services.

Table 3: Shaping of participation-relevant influence factors in the scenarios



5 Future patterns of e-democracy practiceThe choice of the scenario method within the PRISMA project team to describe future developments in the fieldof e-government in general and e-democracy specifically was based on the methodological assumption that aprediction is not possible neither through extrapolation curves of the past to the future nor through the use ofsophisticated methods like gathering expert opinions using the Delphi-method. Consequently, although thescenarios described in the previous chapter are possible (mainly because of their internal consistency) this doesnot include an assumption of their likelihood. The description of each scenario resulted in plausibledevelopments on both the users’ and the suppliers’ side. Sometimes there are developments listed in two or in allof the three scenarios. Table 4 lists the tools described in chapter 2 and describes their relevance over thescenarios and their technical, social and market robustness. Afterwards, we describe the influence factors onwhich relationships and strength of actors within the policy cycle depend on. There are some influence factors orsocial changes that are independent of the stages of the policy cycle but of huge relevance to evaluate e-democracy.

S 1: prosperousand more just

Europe

S 2: Turbulantworld

S 3: recessionand re-orientation Electronic tool

Robustness over thescenarios and sensitivity

analysis

Important -citizens expectreliable and quickinformation ratherfrom publicadministrationsthan from otherstakeholderseconomicallyattractiveinformationdelivery likegeographical data(esp. maps) arecommercialised3-D technologiespromotedespecially good(intergovernment-al) IMS/KMS

3rd sector demandsfor access toinformation anddatabasesAdministrations willbe reliableinstitutions -government willprovide informationonly for money(hence for specficareas, 3rd-sectororganisationsprovide information

Information services willnot be very improvedAccess to government-held information is stilllargely restricted either bylaw or by administrativeculture; environmentalinformation as well asgovernmental permitsand licenses will becomemore importantgovernment servicesconcentrating on goodand reliable informationesp. for the businesssector, professi-onalintermediaries (e.g.geographical informationsyst-ems which willbecome perman-ent) and(internal) NGO-workIMS/KMS mainly used“internally” within themarket and civil societysector

Information

Web sites ofgovernments,localcommunitiesand politiciansprovidingtextual (legal,parliamentary,partyprogrammes,etc.), andillustrative(GIS)information

Informationmanagementsystems (IMS)/ KnowledgeManagementSystems(KMS)

Technically and economicallyrobust, high public demandfor IMS (but providers willvary over scenarios)

Both in the prosperous and inthe turbulent scenario, a lotof information will bedelivered for money, e.g. inthe first scenario public datalike GIS-data.Data will be stored centrallywith de-central accessdepending on the task of theagency and the issue. (In therecession scenario, somedata such as information onhealth and income, will bestored de-centrally).In the third scenario, the civilsociety and especially NGOsare trustworthy organisationsand information tasks thattoday are fulfilled by thegovernment are taken over bythird sector organisations.

Pro-activeinformationdelivery andcitizen relationshipmanagement

Newslettersubscription

Targeted to multiplyinggroups because offinancial restrictions

Instantmessaging,newsletter

Technically and economicallyrobust (but different user-conditions)

Promoted Yes (prerequisite tosell informationservices)

NGOs job (voluntary or“outsourced”) andtargeted to their members

Searchfunction forinformationaccess

Technically and economicallyrobust, varying addresseesover the scenarios

Also supported byNLP (NaturalLanguageProcessing)

Increasing demand,but hardlymaintained

NGOs job (voluntary or“outsourced”) andtargeted to their members

FAQ Technically robust;full-text retrieval in allscenarios, NLP only in thefirst

Promoted hardly public demand Webcast ofmeetings

Not robust



Promoted (e.g.backofficeintegration throughsophisticatedroutingtechnologies)

yes Rarely used Complaintmanagement

Not robust

(Technically)promoted

Promoted Rarely used,analogue meanspreferred

Online petition Not robustStrongly related to e-voting (seebelow) because of authenticationissues

Strongly used(new technologiesfor managementdemanded anddeveloped)

Strongly used (newtechnologies formanagementdemanded anddeveloped)

NGOs specificallyare using it foronline protest,campaigning

Email Robust;Strongly used (new technologies formanagement demanded anddeveloped)

yes yes yes Newsgroup RobustPromoted Rarely used for

politicalcommunication

Not relevantbecause of lessrepresentivity

Polling Not robust

Become normallyprovidedprocedures todiscuss politicaland planningissues (but mainlyin that way thatcitizens areallowed to makecomments toplanning issueselectronically (butcitizens are notvery interested indeliberativeparticipationprocesses)

People increasinglyuse the Internet todiscuss matters ofEuropean andglobal concern

Less public politicale-consultations butmainly for internaluse (e.g. withinNGOs)

Forum/Consultation

Robust but different means of useOne challenge over all scenarios isto innovate procedures bystructuring debates aboutcontroversial issues with IssueBased Information Systems (IBIS).

promoted Not relevant Not relevant Interactive web-based city-planning game

Not robust

Promoted, rarelyused for politicalcommunication

Not relevant Not relevant

Com

munication and consultation

Chat Technically robust, but no politicalrelevance over the scenarios

Promoted (civilservants asmediators)

Promoted(moderation by“third parties”)

State supportsmediation:Mediation withNGOs throughcombined deliverychannels (face toface and supportedby ICT groupwaretechnologies e.g. in“servicecommunities)becomes an often-used procedure tosolve conflicts

Onlinemediation

RobustMediation will become a normalused means to solve conflicts withinthe society. Only the “mediators”will vary: In the first scenario, it willbe the State (e.g. local councils) butin the recession version,moderators have to be neutral andcannot be members of government.

will be realised(juridical andfinancial ratherthan technicalproblems: financialbenefits are notexpected withinthe next 20 years.)Problem ofacceptancebecause of privacyreasons)

Not promotedbecause of thecoststhe driving forcebehind thesedevelopments willbe the IT-industry.

Not relevant,extremely low voterturnoutsthe driving force willbe the IT-industry.

Participation

E-voting atelections,ballots orreferenda

Not robustRealisation of ballot voting via theInternet not robust, too.



will be usedfrequently by(growing)networks ofstakeholdersamong all edgesof the politicaltriangle

interest and lobbygroups are using itat least for internalaffairsThe Internet will notonly be used as anetwork ofknowledge butmore and more asa working platformbased on a hugeorganisationalperformance

governments investin networkingstrategies; interestand lobby groupsare using it at leastfor internal affairs

CSCW Technically and economicallyrobust, socially used indistinguished circumstances overthe scenarios

Table 4: Implications of the scenarios on the robustness of tools – societal and market related

The policy cycle gives the folio to describe ICT-related requirements for e-democracy. Some issues are relevantfor more than only one stage.

“Problem perception” and “agenda setting”

Problem perception by its very nature is highly dependent on the social and economic development. Also thedegree and kind of information provision differs.

The relevant stakeholders in these two stages, independently of the applied technology to be discussed, are notthe individual citizens but institutions like the government, scientists or intermediaries (political parties,chambers of commerce, trade unions, NGOs, foundations etc.). Due to general changes of governance structureswithin Western democracies in the last twenty years (keywords: “ failure of the State” , co-operative means ofdecision-making, covenants among the stakeholders of the “ political triangle” ), the “ civil society” is forming amore powerful part in societies in 2010 than today which is leading to more acceptance of the whole politicalsystem, the State and its agencies. A living “ civil society” is the basement of a functioning democracy withincreasing complex structures which seem to be invisible for most citizens. But these initiatives, often on ahonorary basis, in both the turbulent and the recession scenario will need public support in the form of taxreductions, delivery of offices (e.g. old municipal owned buildings), information delivery (e.g. if citizens moveto inform them that there is an association that might carry functioning household-equipment) and access toinformation and data-bases. This support is not necessary in the first scenario because under its preconditionsthese third sector institutions have enough (financial) resources to do their job.

A main advantage of ICT over all scenarios will be the electronic information delivery which is relevant for allthree sectors of the society. In all scenarios, it will be a public demand, and both in the prosperous and in theturbulent scenario, a lot of information will be delivered for money. In the first scenario for instance,governments will provide those data on the market for which they can get money (e.g. GIS-data). Privateenterprises will receive licenses for further information-pools and can go to the market with these data. In thethird scenario, the civil society and especially NGOs are trustworthy organisations and information tasks thattoday are fulfilled by the government are taken over by third sector organisations. Dependent on the scenario,there will be a struggle among the three sectors about FOI-rights, privacy and property right issues.20

Discriminating criteria all over the scenarios will be the content and the costs. The increasing amount ofinformation will promote the demand for information-management strategies. However, this is not only the casein the e-democracy sector, it is likely that this potential market will be conquered by the business sector in allscenarios. Additionally, in the first scenario, knowledge management systems will be required.

In the prosperous scenario, information can be tailored to a large number of specific target groups. In theturbulent world, e-government in general and e-democracy in particular can only be selective according to twocriteria: (1) important basic needs; and (2) financial sustainability/efficiency. Under these criteria, e-democracywill not play an important role. Services for the business sector will be tailored according to (1) stakeholders (anaccommodation provider in the tourism industry has other demands than a company of the chemical industryprojecting a new industrial plant) and (2) the depth of how services are provided and focus on which part of a 20 The existence of a technology that enables cheap delivery of information implies not an automatism that this is leading to transparent gov-ernment and a sense that governments are not trying to hide anything from citizens as some analysts quote (cf. Bertelsmann Foundation2001, 61f.). Again, these are cultural processes that might be supported by new technologies but not initiated by them.



procedure. In the recession scenario, a sophisticated mechanism of selection of target groups (e.g. students due totheir IT-skills and openness) will be installed and combined with incentive-systems. Pro-active servicesprovided by the administrations as part of target group orientation and “ citizen relationship management(CRM)” will increase all over Europe, also in those States where citizens are sceptical towards technology due toprivacy issues. This implies that the residents will be provided with news according to their own specificinterests (e.g. urban planning). Data will be stored centrally with de-central access depending on the task of theagency and the issue. In the recession scenario, some data such as information on health and income, will bestored de-centrally.

Policy formulationNew means of democratic communication are being introduced influenced both by societal changes like “ goodgovernance” as well as by technological innovations: the Internet will not only be used as a network ofknowledge but more and more as a working platform based on a huge organisational performance (Lenk, 1999:251). This implies more than tele-working and will influence opinion making especially on the local level.Online consultations have been the beginning but without structuring and mediation an over-representation ofverbally skilled activists will be imminent. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the adaptability of online-applications for the specific case. The term implies that “ information” , “ consultation” and “ active participation”as main components of government-initiated citizen communication must be embedded into users’ andgovernments’ environments not only technically, but also economically, legally, organisationally, culturally andpolitically (cf. Westholm 2002). One challenge is to innovate procedures by structuring debates aboutcontroversial issues with Issue Based Information Systems (IBIS). The resulting quality might persuade civilservants that digital democracy does not only imply further work, but could be a rich and efficient resource tointegrate the knowledge of all stakeholders of a planning measure. Online supported mediation as a strategy forconflict solving integrating all relevant stakeholders and trying to find win-win solutions for all sides will gainincreased importance. State investment in networking NGOs in order to organise a better informational return ofcitizens’ problems and demands might be part of such a strategy. Government process re-engineering includingorganisational and procedural aspects of cross border interactivity of e-government services (as well as change ofmindsets and, of course, the public service ethic) will enhance these tendencies. In this context, it is appropriateto use this term including not only services and relations with customers but also transparent, open andaccountable government processes and relations with citizens. The best of new e-administrations’ servicedelivery is certainly not just about a government portal with services offered electronically via a single window.Rather, it is an internal re-engineering process, which includes the following.� Changes in permission and planning procedures, both within administrations (ICT enable agencies to

interact more easily and more transparently) and the relationships with external stakeholders (see theEsslingen case described in box 11).

� Integration of information or knowledge management systems based on varying sources (e.g. held bydifferent stakeholders) to avoid double-work. Specialists are often working according to their own waywithout exchange.

� Knowledge dispersed in various sources cannot be activated immediately and is often useless in practice.IMS and KMS will be formed distinguished in the scenarios: in the “ turbulent world” and the “ re-orientation” -scenarios, cooperation of knowledge providers is restricted to defined groups, whilst in the“ prosperous world” scenario, pools of documents will also be provided for larger networks covering variousparts of the society (all sectors) and knowledge management will also encompass information retrieval.

The current trend that state power decreases and is shared with the market sector as well as with the third sectorwill continue. Covenants and other forms of contracts among two actors or all three of them will be concludedmore often than today as it has been mentioned above. E-democracy certainly will be less state-centred.Mediation will become a normal used means to solve conflicts within the society (cf. Box 12 “ mediation” ). Onlythe “ mediators” will vary: in the first scenario, it will be the State (e.g. local councils) but in the recessionversion, moderators have to be neutral and cannot be members of government.

ICTs are also supporting traditional means of policy formulation: stakeholders’ meetings face to face (e.g.Parliamentary committee meetings, Town Hall meetings, Community meetings) need to be supported by calmintelligent meeting technology to improve discussion structuring, ideas capturing, mediation and consensusbuilding using a range of visualisation techniques, knowledge modelling, and multi-media – all connected to andunderpinned by an organisational memory.

Decision-making



Changes in this stage of the policy cycle are depending on the strength of government within society (bothrelated to its economic basis expressed mainly in financial revenues and its social position), which might haveconsequences for the trust of citizens in administrations. The outsourcing of parts of democracy to the thirdsector and local communities might also be scenario dependent. The “ policy cycle” focuses very strongly on astate-organised decision-making process, which is not always the case because a lot of decisions are made in“ informal means” apart from these legalised procedures. While government has a good position in theprosperous scenario, it has a weak (financial and political) status compared to the business and the third sector inthe two other scenarios. This results in different roles of the state which is not automatically the main actorinitiating political processes. In the “ turbulent world” , government has mainly the function of politicalintegration and “ pacifying strategies” while in the recession-scenario support of the third sector (mainly NGOs)is a result of social pressure and demand.

ImplementationIn the introduction chapter, the implementation stage was described as a task mainly fulfilled by theadministrations (with the restriction of the problem of “ implementation deficit” ). Nevertheless it can also be arelevant role for the third sector (NGOs), not only in developing countries where NGOs definitely play such arole (e.g. to implement programmes financed by international intergovernmental organisations). Governmentprocess-reengineering supported by ICTs and network-building can both in the first and in the third scenariolead to overwhelming the implementation deficit by shifting the task partly from the administrations to the thirdsector (e.g. industrial emissions could be controlled by NGOs). In the prosperous scenario well workinggovernance and power-sharing among the three edges of the political triangle are the preconditions for thismeans of “ job-sharing” while in the third sector the social pressure is strengthening the role of the third scenarioat the expense of the business sector.

Evaluation and TerminationOnly the first optimistic scenario will e-voting be realised by 2010. Although the voting procedure itself is wellknown, there are less technical problems but rather juridical and financial ones. The main problem is theidentification of voters with simultaneous protection of the voter secret. Particularly questions of security (seearising scepticism in scenario 3), usability, usefulness, and costs (problem in scenarios 2 and 3) will be raised.Other problems are the inclusion of expatriates and the harmonisation of electoral lists.Realisation of ballot voting via the Internet depends on the scenarios, too. As mentioned in chapter 2, in the mostballot-experienced Switzerland financial benefits are not expected within the next 20 years. Evidently, inscenario 1 and 2, the driving force behind these developments will be the IT-industry.

Besides voting, there is a need to evaluate e-engagement for better understanding how to assess the benefits andimpacts of e-democracy tools in the different stages of the policy-process on political decision-making. Qualitycontrol and surveys (market research and/or audits) are necessary to evaluate citizens’ demands and experienceswith new procedures (multi-channel, online, etc.).



6 Conclusions

The scenario method offers the opportunity to describe different futures and to try to understand what mighthappen under the framework of specific variables. The scenarios partly include (“ external” ) inputs that normallymight not happen but generally spoken cannot include all these possibilities (e.g. a terrorist attack or a newdesease). Nevertheless they are fruitful to understand many circumstances and framework conditions underwhich something can happen or not.

We stated that there will be slight changes between the three sectors as well as more important ones within eachof them (chapter 3). The basic configuration of actors and their power distribution will not change fundamentallywithin the next ten years but the discussion about governance shows that less state-centred (e-) democracy andnew forms of governance with more co-operation among the political triangle of government, market and thirdsector are on the political agenda of the next decade. The pressure on representative democracy to innovate itsprocedures for activating more citizens and gaining more acceptance for political decisions also results in newmeans of democratic communication. Hence, it is necessary to initiate a political debate on power sharingamong these three social sectors and to develop criteria and procedures for co-operation between publicadministrations and NGOs about issues like the agenda process, complaints and actions of associations.

Therefore, it is no wonder that one pattern that repeats under all scenarios and therefore concluded as “ robust” isthe social demand for information delivery and the technical support in the way of sophisticated information andknowledge management systems. This can be seen as the counterweight to the increasing influence of theindustrial sector on policy-making. ICTs offer the implementation-means to fulfill this “ user-requirement” ofincreased transparency and simultaneously lead to an increased pressure to provide information not only aboutadministrative issues but also about industrial issues (e.g. information about industrial procedures, pollution,etc.). Further robust e-democracy-tools are e.g. CSCW that provide over all scenarios the opportunity ofimproved (remote) communication within groups independently from the issue and stresses that characterise theinternet as a working platform.

The scenario-technique also clarifies very uncertain future developments: e-voting, chat, interactive web-basedplanning games for instance are tools that do not seem robust over all three scenarios. On the other hand, thereare tools which are technically robust but will be addressed to different target groups depending on the broadercontext: Online-mediation as a strategy for conflict solving integrating all relevant stakeholders and trying tofind win-win solutions for all sides is a digitally supported instrument to innovate political procedures andcommunication that is relevant in all scenarios but has to be organised differently: While in the prosperousscenario, the administrations can be the moderators because people estimate them as trustworthy, in the otherscenarios independent persons are necessary.

The advantages of ICTs are affecting several social tendencies regarding political participation: The Internetsupports short-term participation interests of the residents because of its speed and easy information retrieval.Citizens can gather information in a comfortable manner either concerning the method (e.g. cheap access fromhome) or the form (possibilities of visualisation, animation and multi-media possibilities). The Internet furtherreflects the trend of individualisation by its possibilities of anonymity and asynchronous communication: it canbe used independently from time and location and it is not necessary to join citizen-meetings which sometimesdo not involve a lot of opportunities to speak up.

To customise services and information for citizens in a pro-active way perhaps may encourage effectiveinvolvement. Residents are provided with citizen relationship management (CRM) according to their individualinterests (e.g. getting information about urban planning in the first scenario offered by the administration orbeing involved in a campaign by a nonprofit association in the third scenario). Nevertheless, ICT is not the keyto solving the problem of political apathy, and the risk of extravagant expectations from technical innovationsremains. According to the standard model of political participation, citizens’ involvement is not mainly aquestion of technology but of the political efficacy anticipated. Before a method is chosen, the target groups (thestakeholders and their roles within government or parliamentary consultation procedure) and the issue(substance, topics, situation of the decision, reach) need to be clarified (context-relevance). Furthermore, thequestion for what reason (interests, functions) involvement is useful has to be answered. The Internet has to beintegrated in all stages of the policy cycle in a multi-channel manner supplementing “ analogue” formal and



informal means of participation tailored to the specific case and target groups of public involvement. Thecombination of various channels of involvement like public meetings and hearings supported by electronicvisualisation tools, press releases, Internet use and a citizen hotline might lead to new synergies. Research oncombination of analogous and digital “ channels” (procedures) is highly recommended .



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