26^th Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

Deepening democracy with e-media

Seminar organised by the Governance Committee of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities

27.03.2014

When used to promote local democracy, electronic media and other social networks can foster dialogue between all citizens as well as their participation in public affairs. The Governance Committee of the Congress, which is preparing a new report on the use of information technologies by local and regional authorities, held a seminar in Strasbourg on Thursday 27 March to present a number of initiatives taken by towns and cities in this field: “open data”, an “electoral compass” to assist citizens in voting, online petitions and so on.

As Karl-Heinz Lambertz (Belgium, SOC), Chair of the Governance Committee, pointed out when opening the seminar, digital technologies cannot replace traditional local democracy, but it is important to have an understanding and a good command of the technologies linking the virtual world and the real world. The Congress had already studied these issues in 2008, but the rapid development of technologies justifies the preparation of a fresh report, taking account of the changes that have taken place over the past 6 years. Leo Aadel (Estonia, ILDG) and Annemieke Traag (Netherlands, ILDG) have been tasked with drafting the report.

According to Ms Traag, electronic democracy will help to involve many more people, in particular young people, than conventional political channels. But as not everybody has access to such technologies, there is a risk of a creating a divide between those with access to the Internet and the others. Moreover, said Léo Aadel, “We have not yet discovered the full potential of electronic media, in which further progress is bound to be made.

Sian Reid, (United Kingdom, ILDG), the first of three speakers invited to present their local electronic media initiatives, is a member of Cambridge City Council. Like many other British municipalities, Cambridge now makes most of its information public to facilitate transparency with regard to its working methods and its decision-making procedures. She showed how her city disseminated information, for example on welfare benefits, local business taxes, health or recycling and how such information can be re-used by the public, sometimes for other purposes: for example, Cambridge cycle path maps are re-used but also improved by specialist sites providing information on routes for cyclists. “Open data” are supplemented by individuals in accordance with the “crowdfunding” principle and Sian Reid quoted a number a number of examples including the experiment carried out in Boston (USA), which helps car-drivers to avoid traffic jams by receiving information through their mobile phones. However, some participants at the seminar pointed out that the confidentiality of the information gathered and its storage raised “ethical” problems, to which clear solutions needed to be found.

'A web application to assist voters'

The Dutch company “Kieskompas” has designed an “electoral compass” enabling voters to see how they stand with regard to the proposals made by political parties at an election. The application asks the users questions such as what they think of their country’s social, economic or family policy. According to the replies given, the “compass” indicates to users the political party that is closest to their opinions and helps them to continue obtaining more information. André Krouwel, who founded “Kieskompas”, explained that the compass helps voters who are poorly informed or unsure of their choice to find the most appropriate candidates. The questions raised by the “compass” concern the full range of issues addressed by all the different candidates, from the extreme left to the extreme right. The tools has already been used at national elections in 38 countries, although André Krouwel acknowledged that it was more difficult to put in place for local elections where the issues raised tended to concern more specific, one-off issues than general policy. It had, nevertheless, been used at the municipal elections in 8 towns in Turkey, using questions concerning local policy issues. He also pointed out that the application did not only assist people in voting but also encouraged parties to clarify their position on all the subjects that interest their constituents.

A dual political identity: real and digital  

The development of digital technologies means that elected representatives now live and work differently, said Kadri Tillemann, President of the Municipal Council of Keila, an Estonian town of some 5,000 inhabitants. “I am a woman of flesh and blood, but I am also a digital being who can be found on all the social networks”, laughed this local elected representative, who is constantly trying to strike a balance between her “two political identities”. For example, “I can get my political message over more effectively by electronic means than in the traditional press, but I also need to talk with people and to meet them as trust can only be gained through real contact on the ground”. Estonia is particularly well-advanced in the field of new technologies, including electronic voting, which is regularly used by a third of voters. But we need to bear in mind the limits of digital technologies, she said, particularly given that not everybody uses them: they supplement real contacts but cannot replace them. Digital technologies are also clearly less useful in small towns where everyone knows each other than in large cities, even if “the elected representatives who are most active in the field are often also those who are moss active online”, as several Estonian elected representatives pointed out.

During the discussions which followed these presentations, the President of the Chamber of the Regions, Nataliya Romanova (Ukraine, ILDG) raised the question of online petitions and their use. The City of Tbilissi, the capital of Georgia, had put numerous official and administrative documents, including calls for building tenders, on the Internet, and this had helped to improve transparency and prevent corruption, explained Sevdia Ugrekhelidze (Georgia, EPP/ECC), Mayor ad interim of Tbilissi. The City authorities also communicated with the inhabitants through social networks.

All these experiences will be grist to the mill of the forthcoming report by the Congress, which will also draw on the contributions on electronic democracy at the 2^nd World Forum for Democracy held in Strasbourg in November 2013.