eParticipation and eDemocracy Network

The eParticipation and eDemocracy Network is open to all interested in these issues, whether at sub-national, national, European or trans-national levels. The issues covered are potentially broad, such as eEngagement, eDeliberation, eInvolvement, eLegislation and eVoting, as well as eDecision, eRule and ePolicy-making. However, these are all inter-related and contribute to new concepts and practices for the governance of our societies. Thus, it is also important not to see ‘e’ tools as separate from traditional democratic and participatory processes, for example there are potentially fundamental impacts on the relationships between representative and direct democracy. All governments, as well as many other organisations which have a duty or wish to involve their constituencies, are striving to use new innovative ICT in order to broaden and deepen the democratic and participative processes, making them more transparent, inclusive, accessible and effective. This is driven by a widespread sense that citizens have disengaged from formal politics, like voting, joining parties and understanding decision-making processes, and that this reflects a crisis of trust. In addition, there are worries about the possible hijacking of these processes by vested interests or the already enfranchised. There is also widespread expectation of greater opportunities in the 21st Century for citizens and businesses to use ICT to participate in decision making at all levels, whether top-down in response to government initiatives or through the actions of elected representatives, or bottom-up by creating their own political agendas and processes. Indeed, over the last five years numerous eParticipation and eDemocracy trials and programmes have been run out at national and local levels across Europe, although much less so at European level. However, much more needs to be understood and implemented, for example in the context of the new mass collaboration tools which are already having profound impacts on personal lives and the business community.

Learn more about this community.

Domain:
eGovernment

Topic:
eParticipation, eDemocracy and eVoting Policy Other

Tags:
eParticipation eDemocracy representatives policy vision strategy decision-making political web-2.0 e

Latest Blog Posts
2010-01-11 09:56:04 | No replies.

2nd International conference on eParticipation (ePart) 2010

The 2nd International conference on eParticipation (ePart) 2010 29 August – 2 September 2010; Lausanne, Switzerland (co-organised with EGOV 2010) www.demo-net.org/epart Call for Papers The scope of [read more]
conference eParticipation publication papers 2010
2009-12-03 17:21:36 | No replies.

Can eParticipation improve democratic culture?

There seems to be a general consensus that an increase of overall political participation would help to improve democratic culture in general. A strong democracy has to offer different participatory [read more]
political participation, pep-net, eParticipation
Highlighted News
Highlighted Cases
08 February 2010 | United Kingdom, Greece, France, Lithuania, Belgium, Ireland

Welcoming Argument Visualisation to Europe

Eleni Panopoulou (University of Macedonia)
The WAVE project aims at improving the inclusiveness and transparency of EU decision making at the national and European level by using highly integrated, state-of-the-art Argument Visualisation [read more]
26 November 2009 | Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom

Online participation of citizens in EP Committee activities

Attila Toth (Novitech - New information technologies)
Through technology developed by the project partners, EU citizens will get the opportunity to have a closer contact with-and more influence on-their representatives at the European Parliament. The [read more]
Highlighted Events

AT: International Conference on eParticipation – ePart09

08 January 2009 | Austria
The scope of the ePart09 covers the whole range of research in eParticipation. Its principal aim is to review research advances in both social and technological scientific domains, seeking to [read more]

AT: 2009 Conference on Electronic Democracy – EDem2009

08 April 2009 | Austria
There are a number of eDemocracy applications, ranging from transparency sites and information, discussion, deliberation and consultation platforms to decision-making and voting systems, thus [read more]
Highlighted Library Items

EU: “e-Gov 2.0: pave the way for e-Participation” 2009

21 October 2009 | Pan european
Description (short summary):The new Information and Communications Technologies are gradually giving rise to a radical transformation in the current scenario. Globalisation, the new [read more]

US: Web 2.0 in the process of eParticipation

08 October 2009 | North America
Descritption text (short summary):The presidential campaign of Barack Obama during the 2008 elections sparked new discussion about the public engagement issue in the [read more]

Community Facilitators

Jeremy Millard

Teknologisk Institut
Denmark

Evangelos Kalampokis

University of Macedonia
Greece

Eleni Panopoulou

University of Macedonia
Greece

Konstantinos Tarabanis

University of Macedonia
Greece

Efthimios Tambouris

University of Macedonia
Greece

Simon Smith

Centre for Digital Citizenship, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds
United Kingdom

Effie Dalakiouridou

University of Macedonia
Greece

Eleftheria Hadjioannou

University of Macedonia
Greece

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen

Danish Technological Institute
Denmark

Ann Macintosh

Centre for Digital Citizenship, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds
United Kingdom

Rolf Luehrs

TuTech Innovation GmbH
Germany