Symposium on E-democracy CAHDE/Congress

Introductory session,  23 April 2007

Presentation by  Ian Micallef President of the Chamber of Local Authorities

Ten years ago the term eDemocracy was not in our vocabulary. Today, it is a hot topic. I see two developments behind this interest. First, the continuing political disengagement which is manifest through low voter turnout in national, regional and local elections and the disenchantment of citizens with public services and political actors. Second, the explosion and increasing uptake of new technologies like internet, mobile phones and digital TV.

Information and communication technologies and eDemocracy are changing the relationships between elected representatives and their constituents, changing the relationships between governments and citizens, and creating new forms of participation for civil society in the decision-making and policy-shaping processes.

It is clear, that, for the citizen, for the woman and man in the street, the issues that grip them in their day-to-day lives are very often local ones: local services, transport, dustbins, feeling safe to walk out in the evening - these are issues which we all have something to say about.

No surprise then that, when we come to examine the exciting developments in political behaviour that technology is making possible, we discover that a large proportion of them are local initiatives. I'm delighted that some excellent samples of these developments will be presented to us this afternoon, including projects from France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. I trust that this will stimulate our reflection and debate on the issues involved, and demonstrate the huge potential of e-democracy for reinvigorating our political life at all levels.

The case studies that we will hear about today suggest that new technology has the potential to help reverse this decline in political engagement. e-Participation initiatives can make representative democracy stronger by harnessing the power of new technology to encourage citizen participation, to deepen democratic interaction and to encourage transparent decision-making.

Another term that we are hearing more and more is "e-Engagement". e-Engagement involves using ICT for access to information, public consultation, or active participation. Information is a one-way relationship with local authorities producing information for use by citizens, enabling them to participate further in the democratic process. Consultation, on the other hand, is a two-way relationship:  citizens take part in consultations initiated by the local authority, with the aim of enhancing the community involvement in democratic processes. Active participation is a relationship based on partnership with local authorities, in which citizens actively engage in the policy-making process. It acknowledges the role for citizens in shaping policy.

An important question for eDemocracy projects is "what barriers are we most likely to meet?"  I am glad to see that we will be looking at this question in detail in one of our sessions this afternoon. There are at least four kinds of obstacles to the success of eDemocracy. They may be political, participatory, organisational or technological.

Some barriers are institutional. Politicians and administrations can find eDemocracy initiatives disruptive – there is a risk of eParticipation working too well and of administrations not being able to cope with the increase in demand. There may also be a question of whether eDemocracy policies have adequate political backing.

Other barriers relate to scepticism about the level of public demand for eDemocracy and questions about trust, data protection and user authentication.There is also a question about the so called “bottleneck of attention”, how to win the battle for people’s attention with an overload of available information and websites, and how to win “the rules of credibility”, whereby people decide what information to trust.

Then there is the risk of e-Participation initiatives being dominated by interest groups and failing to reflect the diversity of society. There is the risk of creating barriers to digitally excluded groups, such as older people and people on low incomes.

Many people are also concerned about what we may call “pseudo-participation”. People will only participate if they understand how they can contribute to the political process and believe that their contribution will be taken seriously. Elected representatives and democratic institutions can contribute to developing trust by using e-Democracy initiatives only where participation is meaningful and can be shown to be so.

e-Democracy projects often prove difficult to maintain as permanent democratic features. They may be under-resourced: there has been a tendency to develop pilot projects rather than sustainable strategies. We need to pay attention not only to the internet but also to other technologies such as television, cable television, digital TV, mobile phones and wireless networks. Our e-Democracy projects should be aiming at the integration of technologies through multiple platforms.

We need to identify what response is needed by policy-makers, and locate the most useful initiatives in using new technologies in representative democracies. We need to look closely at how citizens use information and what they are looking for in eDemocracy projects. We have to improve our understanding of what people want from e-democracy, e-administration and e-services. We need to understand how organisations are adapting to the new flows of information, for example conducting quantitative research on the quantity and nature of information that our elected representatives are receiving. We need better studies on website usability and on the accessibility and neutrality of online consultations and polls. Furthermore we need research on how to build tools designed for democratic purposes and research on low-cost technologies that could facilitate eDemocracy.

A final question: do we need a “digital bill of rights”, which would include, for example, the right for citizens to identify elected officials and contact them via email, the right to watch council and legislative body meetings, the right to free software to help citizens organise and lobby on issues of importance and the right to access public information in a digital format?

e-Democracy is an important issue for the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities. In 2005 the Committee on Culture and Education prepared a report on "Young people and new information and communication technologies (ICT) - a new opportunity for local democracy", which recommended that local authorities seek to bridge the digital divide by adapting technologies and providing infrastructures to make them accessible to all user groups, regardless of their social or cultural character or geographical location. It recommended that more efforts be made by local politicians to promote youth participation in local life using ICT to narrow the gap and ensure that the economically underprivileged are not deprived of these new tools.

To conclude,

This is an exciting period for democracy. There is a clear need to continue to review developments in this area, debate the issues and exchange good practice. The Congress has identified e-democracy as a priority area of its work for the next two years and will be working on several reports to feed into next year's Forum for the Future of Democracy.  I wish you a stimulating symposium.