Comments on: E-democracy: participation next? (1)

By: TWiP 4: Frankfurt Gestalten (Create Frankfurt)

TWiP 4: Frankfurt Gestalten (Create Frankfurt) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:12:19 +0000

[...] exactly when I first crossed virtual paths with Christian Kreutz, or how: maybe it was this 2007 post on e-democracy and participation, maybe another encounter from even [...]

By: Rolf Lührs

Rolf Lührs — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:23:19 +0000

Yes you are right: E-democracy has up to now failed to keep its promises. However, there are a lot of encouraging examples in Europe and especially in Britain and Germany. Look e.g. at the database http://www.e-participation.net, a joint project of politik-digital.de and the British Council. In Germany numerous moderated online dialogues have taken place which connected citizens and governments and managed to achieve concrete results. Some of these have meanwhile be realised or implemented. Forerunners are the cities of Hamburg and Berlin. See also the e-participation blog http://www.demos-monitor.de

By: Jan Philipp Amos

Jan Philipp Amos — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 07:46:58 +0000

While I agree with your view on the yet-to-be-used potential of using the web for the democratic process, I think it is necessary to differentiate between enhancing two-way communication and the creation of a new relationship between politicians / administration and the public on one side, and the use of the web for electoral processes and online decision making. The web can undoubtedly improve communication and thus improve political participation, but in my opinion, when it comes to e-voting, you have to keep in mind also the risks of fraud or technical failure. I think that the new potential of the web lets us forget about new risks that come with it sometimes. I am the last person that wouldn’t embrace the opportunities the web offers – I just like to point out that its not all better just because its online.
On the topic of the “watchdog”-website you mentioned: Check out http://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de, a project that started in Hamburg in 2004, monitoring the politicians in the city’s parliament, creating a platform for direct communication with every member of it and publicising what every individual member of parliament voted for in the ballots.
Interestingly, in combination with a new electoral law that was agreed upon by public referendum a year later, and that gave the voter the option of voting for certain local candidates instead of voting for a party and its programme, this website actually made a difference, as candidates and members of parliament were under a whole new pressure and their individual standpoint suddenly was tracable back to them.
Even though decided by referendum, the new electoral law was abolished shortly after by decision of the ruling party in Hamburg. The initiative “Mehr Demokratie” (More Democracy)is currently working on a new referendum that will make referendums legally binding in future.

By: stephane LEE

stephane LEE — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 07:26:46 +0000

Well Christian, I ‘ll have to talk to Tara Hunt because we’re precisely editing a web app call Feedback2.0, and it is really intented to set up a direct dialogue between an organization and a community.

Of course we’re looking to e-democracy as a very good use case for our product…

I’ll let you know of our progress in that direction.