E-participation

e-participation (also written e"Participation and e-Participation) is a recently invented term meaning “ICT-supported participation in processes involved in government and governance”. Processes may concern administration, service delivery, decision making and policy making. eParticipation is hence closely related to e-government and (e-)governance. (ICT=Information and Communication Technologies). The need for the term has emerged as user benefits and values have often been paid less attention to in the e-government development than those of the service providers.

A more detailed definition sees eParticipation as "the use of information and communicationtechnologies to broaden and deepen political participation by enabling citizensto connect with one another and with their elected representatives" [1] . This definition includes all stakeholders in democratic decision-making processes and notonly citizen related top-down government initiatives. So eParticipation can beseen as part of eDemocracy, whereas eDemocracy means the use of ICT by governments in general used by elected officials, media, political parties and interest groups, civil society organizations, international governmental organizations, orcitizens/voters within any of the political processes of states/regions, nations,and local and global communities [2] .The complexity of eParticipation processes results from the large numberof different participation areas, involved stakeholders, levels of engagement,and stages in policy making, which characterize the research and applications [3, chapter 2] .

European eParticipation Preparatory Action

eParticipation is the Preparatory Action [ [http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/implementation/prep_action/index_en.htm European e-Government programme] ] lasts for three years (2006-2008). The EU is taking the lead in using on-line tools to improve the legislative process for its citizens. eParticipation which launched on 1st January 2007 will run as a series of linked projects which each contribute to a greater awareness and involvement by citizens in the legislation process right from the initial drafting through to its implementation at a regional and local level.

The individual projects will concentrate on ensuring that the legislative language and process is more transparent, understandable and accessible to the citizen. In addition the projects emphasis on the communication of legislation will be used to enhance and grow citizen’s involvement and contribution in the process of creating and thereafter implementing the legislation.

So far, 14 projects have been funded [ [http://www.eu-participation.eu/ European eParticipation web] ] . In the first year six trial projects were selected and in 2007 a further seven trial projects as well as a support action to coordinate and promote the eParticipation projects were chosen. The European Parliament, national parliaments and local and regional authorities are actively involved. State-of-the-art ICT tools are being tested to facilitate the writing of legal texts, including translation into different languages, and the drafting of amendments as well as making the texts easier for non-specialists to find and understand. New digital technologies are also being used to give citizens easier access to information and the more opportunity to try to influence decisions that affect their lives.

History

The term emanated in the early 2000s and draws generally on three developments.
# The general development in CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) and groupware directed towards collaborative environments to support human ICT-mediated interaction, both work-related and social.
# The development in E-democracy since the late 1990s, where interest rapidly evolved from e-voting to several forms of ICT-supported and –enabled interaction between governments and citizens, including not only direct ones such as consultations, lobbying, petitioning and polling but also ones pursued outside of government itself, including electioneering, campaigning, and community informatics.
# The development in e-government towards increasingly complex service delivery. Complex services require considerable interaction including searching, selecting options based on multiple criteria, calculating outcomes, notifications, inquiries, complaints, and many other activities. There are several ICT tools for such tasks, ranging from FAQs to call centres, but there is a need to coordinate all these into user-friendly but powerful toolsets for client-organization encounters. Because interaction in such contexts is complex, and because goals have to be reached, the arenas where it takes places becomes social arenas for ICT-supported participation.

On the definition

The term Participation means taking part in joint activities for the purpose of reaching a common goal. This encompasses both trivial situations in which participation mainly has a technical meaning, ”doing things together”. For example, a football team needs 11 players, and dancing often requires two or more people acting in a coordinated manner. But participation, even in trivial situations, also has a goal-oriented aspect which means decision making and control are involved. Participation in political science and theory of management refers to direct public participation in political, economical or management decisions. The two are not completely separated but belong on a spectrum of complexity and context. When participation becomes complicated, decision making becomes necessary. Hence, any participatory process is potentially important for the rule system governing the activities. In terms of points 2 and 3 above, this means that when service processes become complex, the implementation of them will not be in all details based on political decisions but also on what is found to be practical. Such decisions are made in many places in a situated manner. When such practical doings become implemented in government (e)service systems, they will affect decision making, as many changes will later be hard to make simply because exising procedures are implemented in ICT systems and government agencies’ procedures. There are many theories dealing with institutionalization, for example Structuration theory, Institutional theory, and Actor-Network Theory. These theories all, in different ways, deal with how "ways of doing things" become established or rejected, and how those that become established increasingly affect the ways we "normally" do things.

ee also

*eDemocracy
*Direct democracy
*eGovernment
*Electronic civil disobedience
*eRulemaking
*Emergent democracy
*Hacktivism
*Internet activism
*Online consultation
*Online deliberation
*Open politics
*Open source governance
*Participatory democracy
*Parliamentary informatics
*Radical transparency
*Second Superpower
*Smart mob

References

[1] Macintosh, A.: eParticipation in policy-making: the research and the challenges.In: Exploiting the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies. IOSPress, Amsterdam (2006)

[2] Clift, S.: E-Democracy, e-Governance and public net-work. (2003)

[3] DEMO_net: Demo_net Deliverable 5.1: Report on current ICTs to enable partici-pation (2006)

External links

* [http://www.demo-net.org DEMO_net] : The Network of Excellence in eParticipation
* [http://www.ep-momentum.eu MOMENTUM] : The European Commission Support Action in eParticipation
* [http://www.pep-net.eu PEP-NET] : Pan European eParticipation Network
* [http://dowire.org Democracies Online Newswire]
* [http://www.worldegovforum.com World e-Gov Forum]
* [http://www.eu-forum.org/ e-forum] Association dedicated to analysing the future needs of eGovernment in Europe
* [http://www.isoc.fr/ Internet Society] Organization home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).
* [http://itc.napier.ac.uk/ International Teledemocracy Centre, Napier University, Edinburgh]
* [http://tidywork.pbwiki.com/ TID+] - a research project studying the pioneering use of e-participation in Estonia
* [http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan028607.pdf E-partcipation Country Index] -Provides an index on E-participation