Turning Barriers and Challenges into Successful Implementation and Use

Tuesday, June 5, 2007, Hotel Golf Jupiter 1, 11.00 – 12.30

Chair: 
Dr. Maria A. Wimmer, Professor for eGovernment
University of Koblenz, Institute for IS Research, Germany
Co-Chair: 
Dr. Kim V. Andersen, Professor
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Panel members:
John Shaddock, Yorkshire and Humber Region, UK
Dr. Alenka Žužek Nemec, Secretary
Department of International Relations, Ministry of Public Administration (Slovenia)
Dr. Kim V. Andersen, Professor
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Panel members:
John Shaddock, Yorkshire and Humber Region, UK
Dr. Alenka Žužek Nemec, Secretary
Department of International Relations, Ministry of Public Administration (Slovenia)
Dr. Kim V. Andersen, Professor
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Yigal Arens, Director
Digital Government Research Center, USC/Information Sciences Institute, United States

Panel description

eParticipation is a complex area of applying information and communication technologies (ICT) in the context of citizen engagement in the discourse with politicians and governments. A definition given by Macintosh (2004) states that eParticipation “is concerned with the use of (ICT) to engage citizens, support the democratic decision-making processes and strengthen representative democracy. The principal ICT mechanism is the internet accessed through an increasing variety of channels, including PCs, both in the home and in public locations, mobile phones, and interactive digital TV.’  eParticipation can be divided into three activities: the use of ICT to (1) support information provision, (2) top-down engagement which is concerned with support for government-led initiatives, and (3) ground-up empowerment which is mainly concerned with the support to enable citizens, civil society organizations and other democratically constituted groups to engage with their elected representatives and officials. The overall aim thereby is to make decision-making more transparent, inclusive, and accessible.

To properly understand the field, one has to bring together research and application, as well as the ICT development field. Thereby, the field is not to be seen as a single and simple case of application! Actually, analysis of eParticipation tools and technologies within Demo_net has elicited a number of eParticipation dimensions and categories, which can be differentiated into:
• eParticipation areas: Information Provision, Community building, Collaborative Environments, Consultation, Campaigning, Electioneering, Deliberation, Discourse, Mediation, Spatial planning, Polling, and Voting.
• Level of participation: eInforming, eConsulting, eCollaborating and eEmpowering.
• Actors in eParticipation: Politicians, Citizens, Civil Society Groups, Elected representatives, Government ministers, Government employees responsible for implementing policy, Political Parties, Companies, etc.
• Stage in the policy lifecycle: Agenda Setting, Analysis, Formulating, Implementing, and Monitoring a policy.

Likewise, many tool groups and tools have been studied. These were grouped into tools and technologies core in eParticipation, i.e. specifically developed for eParticipation activities in the dimensions introduced before; tools and technologies extensively used in eParticipation contexts, such as online discussion for a, surveys, blogs, etc.; and tools and technologies to support eParticipation activities (e.g. search engines, newsletters, etc.).
Currently, a number of pilot projects are being implemented across Europe at regional and local levels, where certain eParticipation aspects as pointed out above are touched. Yet current experience is that these projects mostly remain at a pilot stage.
To implement successful eParticipation solutions, many aspects of application, impact, assessment, processes, etc. have to be understood. A report of Demo-net investigated such aspects, and the needs of different stakeholders . An extensive list of challenges and barriers in eParticipation research and practice has been elicited as well .

Ongoing studies currently investigate the perception of eParticipation and mismatches among citizens, politicians, and government staff involved in democracy processes at city councils. Investigations currently being conducted by the organizers of the panel analyze the following eParticipation aspects:
• What are the eParticipation stakeholders’ interpretations of an eParticipation concept, and which potential mismatches of diverging perceptions among stakeholders do exist?
• What are the stakeholders’ expectations and requirements of eParticipation?
• Which inhibitors and drivers for eParticipation do exist from the stakeholders’ perception?
• What implications do these perceptions have for systems design, policies, and democracy models?
• In what respect do the various eParticipation projects differ (e.g. formal vs. informal politics models, different organisational structures, distinct levels of engagement)?
The investigations shall provide a better understanding of how research and practice can jointly overcome diverging perceptions and which consequences for eParticipation implementations have to be taken into mind.

The panel is planned as follows:
Introductory presentations will give an overview of the theme:
Kim V. Andersen (Copenhagen Business School, DK) – eParticipation research challenges (10 min)
Alenka Žužek Nemec (Ministry of Public Administration, Slovenia) - challenges and barriers of eParticipation practice: the national and New Member State perspective (10 min)
John Shaddock (Yorkshire and Humber Region, UK) – challenges and barriers of eParticipation practice: the regional perspective and reflection of an active eParticipation State (10 min)
Yigal Arens (Director Digital Government Research Center, USC/Information Sciences Institute, United States) – Lessons from the eRulemaking project (10 min)

The panel will discuss, how practice can benefit from the insights of research, and how the research results can be smoothly transferred into practice. Apart from that, discussion shall elucidate how practice can drive research in focusing on the needs to investigate upcoming challenges from the practice. In specific, the following questions will be discussed (50 min) :
• What are the reasons for many eParticipation pilots not turning into large-scale implementation projects?
• Who are the actors and drivers of such projects?
• Who (actors) needs to become the drivers and motivators of such projects to turn them into success at a wide scale?
• How to measure success and how to transfer findings from a pilot setting into wide, complex and dynamic application contexts?
• Which expertise is needed to implement successful eParticipation applications?

Contact:
Maria A. Wimmer
University of Koblenz-Landau, Institute for IS Research
Universitaetsstr. 1, 56070 Koblenz, Germany, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it