Definitions
Before progressing further, it may be helpful to include some definitions which will bring clarity to the issues examined later on.
The bigger picture consists of the changes being wrought by 'Web 2.0', which Wikipedia says is "commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration".
These changes in turn have different facets, covering social relationships, commercial applications and governance in the broadest sense.
It is particularly the aspects of governance which will be examined here, but it is worth keeping in mind that many of the principles and technologies being applied in this field, such as the publicly shared tagging of content and ever more advanced systems of searching and filtering, apply equally in the other fields. Indeed, that is where much of the innovation comes from.
As Part I describes, the commercial application of Web 2.0 is as much about culture as it is about business models. This cultural change is most clearly seen in the development of social networking, which points in the same direction of travel.
So how to describe the ways in which technology is affecting governance? One useful way is to separate e-democracy from e-government.
Michael Peart, in a 2007 paper for the e-Democracy Centre at Zurich University, suggested that:
e-Democracy consists of all electronic means of communication that enable/empower citizens in their efforts to hold rulers/politicians accountable for their actions in the public realm. Depending on the aspect of democracy being promoted, e-democracy can employ different techniques: (1) for increasing the transparency of the political process; (2) for enhancing the direct involvement and participation of citizens; and (3) improving the quality of opinion formation by opening new spaces of information and deliberation." [i]
This definition covers institutions ranging from legislative bodies, local councils and political parties through to individual politicians.
It defines e-democracy to include e-politics, which might be thought of as the efforts of politicians (as individuals) and parties (as organisations) to use tools and services such as Flickr, Facebook or Twitter to hold conversations with voters and engage in e-campaigning with a view to making a measurable impact at the ballot box. This activity takes place outside the formal processes of the state, which themselves might include measures such as e-voting or e-petitions in Parliament.
An interesting paper by Fernando Mendez (2007) gives a similar description.
"At a broad level, it is probably fair to state that one of the central goals of the many e-democratic experimentations involves trying to harness the democratising potential of ICT's to empower the citizen. This suggests a certain process element and brings us neatly to our first distinction: e-democracy should be viewed as a process not a product. E-democracy thus conceived is not an end-state, or a product that can be somehow magically purchased if we just implement the right techniques. Instead, e-democracy should be seen as a process, one that will involve much experimentation, and many trials and errors, across all levels of public authority, but with no specific telos, or end-state in mind." [ii]
He goes on to suggest that e-democracy helps citizens to hold politicians to account, either through increasing transparency, encouraging participation or improving the level of public deliberation.
It is also useful to think of e-democracy as applying not just to vertical links from representatives to the public but also horizontally between citizens, although this potential has yet to be significantly realised.
While some of the principles, such as measures to increase transparency, can apply equally to government activity, Peart describes how e-government is distinct from e-democracy.
"E-democracy relates to those uses of ICTs which provide either novel or more efficient, practicable means for citizens to exercise influence in the governing process. In other words, this term applies when ICTs are used to revolutionise the relationship between citizen and representative. E-government, however, is a term that can be invoked to describe those uses of ICTs which do one of two things. First, under the paradigm of organisational theory, they may make the interaction between different agencies and different bureaucrats more efficient, as they do for private firms. Second, they may make the relationship between the government bureaucracy and the citizen, in the sense of a political consumer, more comfortable and efficient by reducing transaction costs. To put it another way, when a citizen can pay a fine or fill out a property tax form online, this is an example of e-government." [iii]
And e-government also contains a diverse range of policy responses to the opportunities that new technologies are making possible. As Dave Briggs of Learning Pool has noted in a post on his blog, "there are so many disparate elements going on around change and the public sector, whether transformational government, Smarter Government, Power of Information, eGovernment, eDemocracy, open data, hyperlocal, CRM [customer relationship management] and VRM [vendor relationship management], transparency, openness..."
So both e-democracy and e-government cover ways of improving transparency and encouraging participation in their respective spheres.
But Peart [iv] adds a third concept, deliberation, to his definition of e-democracy, reflecting the importance of shaping and developing opinion in relation to public policy.
Interestingly, the December 2009 US Open Government Directive also adds a third concept, but reflecting its focus on administration and policy delivery this is collaboration, which it defines as "encouraging partnerships and co-operation within the Federal Government, across levels of government, and between the Government and private institutions".
To simplify, e-democracy can be thought of as the application of technology to the legislative branch and other bodies with elected representatives (including the parties and politicians within them), while e-government is its application to the executive branch with a greater focus on service delivery and organisational efficiency.
Part I focuses on the issues raised by e-democracy, while Part II looks at the development of e-government.
Footnotes:
[i] Peart, M. (2007), 'Local e-Democracy Initiatives in the United States', e-Working Papers 2007/03, e-Democracy Centre, Universität Zürich, pp. 2-3. Available at http://www.edemocracycentre.ch/files/WP2007-3-Peart-%20Local%20e-Democracy%20in%20the%20US.pdf [December 22, 2009].
[ii] Mendez, F. (2007), 'e-Democratic Experimentation in Europe: The Case of e-Voting', e-Working Papers 2007/02, E-Democracy Centre, Universität Zürich, p. 6. Available at http://www.edemocracycentre.ch/files/WP2007-2%20-%20Mendez%20-%20eDemocracy%20Experiences%20in%20Europe.pdf [January 13, 2010].
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