Post in ESF Conference - E-democracy research requires all-inclusive approach, ESF conference told

Feb 14 19:34 UTC

So what's next for e-democracy research in Europe? Anyone doing anything on the
"e-movements" side they mention?

What about knowledge exchange among civil society actors and media not just
government?

Steven Clift

From:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/esf-err021408.php

Contact: Professor Herbert Kubicek
<email obscured>-bremen
49-421-218-2830

European Science Foundation
E-democracy research requires all-inclusive approach, ESF conference told

Research into eDemocracy must become more interdisciplinary, collaborative and
comparative if it is to sufficiently analyse the role and impact of technology
in democratic processes, heard delegates of a recent European Science
Foundation (ESF) research conference on eDemocracy.

EDemocracy is the use of technical tools – particularly the Internet – to allow
citizens access to information; to take part in petitions, consultations,
deliberation, referenda and elections; and communicate with each other to form
e-communities and movements, and take part in e-campaigning and e-activism.

The concept of eDemocracy is in its infancy, so eDemocracy research is also in
its early stages, says Herbert Kubicek, professor of Applied Computer Science
at the University of Bremen in Germany.

It always takes new technology years to settle into its ideal role, says
Kubicek, so the field has not yet lived up to expectations. “With eDemocracy we
are in a lively phase of experimentation. It is important to analyse and
evaluate the experience which is made now in order to learn for the future
employment of eDemocratic processes.”

There are two main challenges to European eDemocracy research currently, says
Kubicek.

Firstly, says Kubicek, the analysis of eDemocracy combines two different
methods. Scientists must analyse the social aspects of citizen interaction in
the same way that they did in the past, in townhall meetings for example or by
the use of paper petitions. But they also have to research how people interact
with computers and computer usability. “The only way to move forward is that
e-democracy research has to be interdisciplinary, socio-technical and cover
what we call the micro-level of individual use as well as the meso-level of
institutions and the macro-level of societal conditions, trends and effects.”

Secondly, researchers are drawn to different areas disproportionately. Large
numbers of e-voting experiments are carried out, despite few democratic
institutions actually using e-voting. E-movements however, where people use the
Internet to join forces for a particular cause, are increasingly occurring in
the ‘real world’ but few researchers cover them.
“It seems the technical security aspects of online voting attract researchers
with technical interest, while the great diversity of social movements is much
more difficult to grasp.”

But research into e-movements may become increasingly necessary. The Internet
is enabling people to network with other individuals, information and services
to create a ‘Fifth Estate’, to the print media’s Fourth Estate, says William
Dutton, director of the Oxford Internet Institute at the UK-based University of
Oxford, UK, who spoke at the conference.
These networks, says Dutton, are surpassing, undermining and crossing the
boundaries of existing institutions. “This is creating a new form of social
accountability in government, politics and other sectors.”
“But these Internet-enabled networks of the Fifth Estate need to be identified
and better understood [by researchers] if they are to be protected and fostered
in the coming decades,” he adds.

Research into the impact of eDemocracy is a pressing need, says Kubicek. But
there are methodological challenges to this – how does one assess whether
consulting people online about a particular decision has increased political
engagement, rebuilt trust in political institutions or improved the decisions
made"

A way to move forward is the use of comparative studies. One of the conclusions
of the conference, according to Kubicek was that the necessary insights and
differentiation come from comparing at least two, or three or four cases,
rather than the usual individual case studies.

And these studies can be pan-European. One of the views shared by participants
at the conference, says Kubicek, was that European countries’ diverse stages of
democracy can all benefit from eDemocracy, as the electronic tools are not
bound to particular forms and styles of democracy.

Members from the Council of Europe’s Ad Hoc Committee on Electronic Democracy
participated in the conference and can provide a platform for exchanging
experience between governments, says Kubicek.

“It is of the utmost importance that comparative studies are funded which
concentrate on comparable democratic processes and compare the deployment and
effects of different e-tools across comparable countries,” says Kubicek.
And that’s where the ESF can play an important role, he says, in ensuring that
this pan-European collaborative and comparative research can be carried out.

“Usually it is very difficult for a group of researchers from different
countries to coordinate several grant proposals. ESF with its EUROCORES
Programme provides a unique opportunity to overcome these practical problems
and support synchronisation of national studies.”

Many ideas for research came out of the conference, says Kubicek, and regular
eDemocracy conferences are planned for the future.

###

Electronic Democracy: achievements and challenges was organised by the ESF
Research Conferences Scheme and was attended by 50 researchers –both senior
researchers and doctoral students – from 15 European countries. It was held at
the Klosterhotel, in Vadstena, Sweden on 21-25 November 2007. The conference
was organised by the ESF in partnership with Linkoping University.
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