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 Source: E-participacija.si
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Communication tools of e-democracy are meant to
strenghten direct inclusion and participation of citizens in the process of
decision-making and enhancing quality of public opinion. E-consultation,
e-polls, e-petitions, e-forum, political blogs, chat rooms and other ways of
communicating can be included in this section.
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E-consultation
Electronic consultation is used for institutionalized transmition
of comments, remarks, observations, notes and additions to the decision-maker(s)
about previously defined question, draft of regulation or political document in
some special policy field. Citizens, experts, interest groups, NGO's and other
parties are able to send their respected views on special matters of public
importance. The main goal of this tool is to strengthen participative political
culture of interested public so they can actively participate in
decision-making process. Normative documents and implementation of different
politics are more efficiently implemented and legitimate this way.
E-consultation is an interactive technique used before political decisions are
adopted and includes two-way communication between interested (public) parties
and legislative power. Simplified form of this tool is deliberative pooling. E-consultations need clearly defined goal,
precise timetable, transparent inclusion into decision-making process and
obligation of the initiator (institution or decision-maker) that opinions will
be taken under consideration and then properly used. This can be arranged
normatively through different laws.
Web-links:
Web-portal eSodelovanje.si
Public participation on the eGov-portal of the Republic Slovenia
Interactive formation of politics by European Commision
Consulting with Canadians
E-consultation
of the Kamnik municipality
More...
Literature:
Internet, soudeležba javnosti in Nacionalni program varstva
okolja (expert article)
E-polls
Internet based e-polls are used for measuring public opinion. Citizens are able
to state their opinions and positions about public matters. E-polls are used by
media, NGO's, political parties and public institutions. E-polls on web-pages
of public government are directed towards questions of public importance with
several possible answers (questionary is of closed type).
Web-links:
e-Polls
on eGovernment portal of the Republic Slovenia
Structured questionary of the Kamnik municipality
e-Polls on
European youth portal
e-Polls
on European portal for employment mobility
E-petition
Electronic petition is a web-application that citizens can
fill out, state what is it about and start a petition. Other citizens can read
e-petitions and sign them. E-petitions are streghtening active citizenship and
are enabling people to define public problems and place them on political
agendas.
Web-links:
e-petitions of European parliament
e-petitions
of Scottish parliament
e-petitions in United
Kingdom
system of e-petitions
for NGO's in Slovenia (e-participacija.si)
Peticije.org
system of
e-petitions at Avaaz.org
e-petition Save the Internet (kampanija za nevtralni Internet)
Literature:
Interview
on e-petitions for television transmition 'Od Peticije do peticije'
'Od peticije do peticije' in Studio City,
RTVSLO (10.7.2006)
E-forum
Electronic forum is an interactive application that enables
citizens to communicate and exchange their opinions about public matters which
they can choose themselves. The main goal of internet forum's is to strenghten
individual opinions and positions with help of deliberative process which can
also include opinions of experts or politicians. This is an interactive process
of posting opinions, judgments, evaluations and notes with directly refering to
opinions of others whether certain problem is in decision-making process or
not. E-forums can be public, political or expert (closed type). Moderated
forums are often a part of decision-making proces and have exact rules for
discussion, procedure of registration, time-table and moderating team that is
competent for moderating discussion and forming final report of debate. Formal
scope of this type of deliberative democracy is sometimes included in
legislature.
Web-links:
Citizen's Forum
(by e-participacija.si web-portal)
e-forum Dodogovor
(Civil dialogue in Slovenia)
e-forum Talking about Novo
mesto
e-forum Debate Europe (Evropska komisija)
Literature:
Citizen's Forum -
presentation by Simon Delakorda in London, UK  (PDF, 3.1MB)
"Citizen's
Forum: The First Successful eDemocracy Initiative in the Republic of
Slovenia?" Article in English by Simon Delakorda (PDF, 1.1MB)
Forum Ante Portas (expert article in Slovenian language)
Political
web-blog
Political web-blogs presents an autonomous method to post
and report about political contents that are in the interest of author(s)
(politician, citizen, interest group etc.). Contents can include relevant
informations, news, reports, notices, viewpoints and appeals. They can be focused
on one (theme-blogs) or more policy areas (environment, foreign and social
politics etc.), work of political players (institutions, parties, interest
groups etc.) or political process (election and election-campaigns). Visitors
often have option to comment news on web-blogs, which can be an important part
of web-blog's, but they don't have a wide and institutionalised public debate
on the principles of deliberative democracy. They do however enable citizens to
co-form public-opinion, become important public personas and communicate with
other citizens.
Web-links:
Web-blog
of Janez Potočnik
Web-blog
of Margot Wallstrom
Web-blog
E-demokracija.si
WatchBlog (american
political news, opinions and comments)
Jamie's Big Voice
(web-blog of homeless people in United Kingdom)
Literature:
Politični spletni dnevnik kot orodje e-demokracije? (expert
commentary in Slovenian language)
Chat rooms
Chat rooms are interactive tools for interactive real-time
communication. They are meant for political representatives and citizens or
only for citizens to debate about theme's of public importance. They usually
last for a short period of time (couple of hours) so they are announced in
advance. Topic of the debate can be general or about certain politicy
decisions. They are also moderated and require registration in advance.
Transcriptions of debate are usually available on the internet.
Web-links:
Chat room Europa
Chats (Evropska komisija)
Literature:
Transcription of web-debate about information of public matter
Source: Trechsel, Alexander H. / Kies, Raphael / Mendez,
Fernando / Schmitter, Philippe C. (2003). Evaluation of the use of new technologies in order to
facilitate democracy in Europe: e-democratizing the parliaments and parties of
Europe (pdf, 482 KB). Geneve - Research and Documentation Centre on Direct
Democracy, 2004.
Arranged by dr. Andrej A. Lukšič and Simon Delakorda, univ. dipl. pol.
Translation by Jernej Prodnik. Feel free to contact me if you find this
translation very poor.
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