Back Issues
THE RILEY REPORT – December 2003
from Thomas B. Riley (Tom@Rileyis.com)
www.rileyis.com
Following is the Riley Report for December
2003. Please feel free to pass this on as you see fit. If you wish to use any or part of the Report in an offline publication please acknowledge the author or contact the author if to be fully republished offline. If you are not currently subscribed to the Riley Report (there is no charge) you can email
info@rileyis.com and simply put subscribe in the body of the text. You can also go to the Riley Report at:
www.rileyis.com/report/index.html and subscribe there.
The introduction to this Report just released is an expansion of the June 2003 Riley Report.
E-Governance
toE-Democracy:
Examing the Evolution
This final paper
referenced above is part of a series of five International Tracking
Reports, produced in 2003. These reports assessed
assessing international
developments in the policies and public administration issues now driving
e-government, e-governance and e-democracy. As e-government principles and
practices have been applied in the past few years it has been clear that
fundamental governance issues determine the workability of the application
of e-services delivery and e-programs. This Riley Report addresses the
evolution of e-governance to e-democracy in our growing global information
society.
The Report looks at the e-democracy movement and how government is
responding to this new trend. Attention is paid to some of the academic
materials now emerging on the subject matter of e-democracy and relevant
materials on the subject of democracy itself. The current report was
prepared under the auspices of the Commonwealth
Centre for e-Governance and
the sponsorship of Telecommunications and Informatics Services of Public
Works and Government services Canada. Cathia Gilbert, Research Fellow of
CCEG, is thanked for her major contributions to the preparation and writing
of this report.
INTRODUCTION:
This fifth report in the series on policies driving
e-government,
illustrates how e-democracy flows from e-governance. The evolution of
e-democracy is analyzed and an overview of the issues presented for
discussion and debate. E-democracy is explored as a subset to the greater,
and more important, philosophical topic of democracy itself. Thus, the
paper begins with a discussion of the various forms of democracy and how
these have evolved from Athenian times to the present. This sets the
framework for an assessment of whether or not e-democracy shall be a
natural extension of representative and liberal democracy, as practiced
today in most western countries. Does the evolution of e-democracy
practices, such as online consultations, enhance the current system whereby
the polity governs society, and continues to have limited and controlled
input from the citizen, or shall we see the evolution of a new form of
democracy? These are pressing issues for modern governments as the new
technologies are contributing to the creation of faster communications, the
sharing of information and knowledge, and the emergence of new forms of our
respective cultures.
These reports to date represent guidelines for policy implementations for
e-government that can be used by governments, whether they are developed or
developing countries. This paper addresses some of the changes we are
witnessing as the e-democracy movement grows. Networked communities are
quickly evolving through the Internet, and citizens are increasingly using
the new technologies to organize themselves so their voices can be heard,
and to develop tools to attempt to influence government policy and programs
at the political and public administration level.
Writers and researchers, analyzing and assessing the emergence of
e-democracy, often leave out the broader philosophical nature of democracy
itself. For purposes of this paper it is important to put the whole
question of how ICTs will be used to further engage the citizenry into a
wider context of democracy as we practice it. There are different schools
of thought as to whether ICTs will change the nature of democracy, or if
ICTs will simply result in an extension of democracy we now practice and
understand.
There has been much talk in recent years of public cynicism toward
politicians and public officials. Much of this is based, amongst other
reasons, on a lack of knowledge and understanding of the inner workings of
government, including the public service and legislative arm. This
combined with the lack of government programs, in many instances, to inform
people of what the government is doing, or to engage people in the
development of public policy are only some of the many symptoms of why
there is such growing cynicism in the public in the last two decades. The
reasons for the cynicism are wide and diverse, and it is not the role of
this paper to come to conclusions about this prevailing public attitude,
but to suggest that the new ICTs could contribute to creating renewed faith
in government bodies through the creation of an interactive government
engaged in wide dialogue with an interactive citizenry.
The important issue to hand is that there be a vigorous debate and
discussion about the nature of democracy and how all our new technologies
can be used to produce a more engaged and interactive citizenry.
Such an
achievement is going to take commitment and hard work by many sectors of
society, not solely governments or legislative bodies (the latter being the
most resistant to change). Any movement forward can only be an improvement
for elected officials, public sector officials, and the public itself. This
is a difficult transition to make as, traditionally, most democratic
governments have relied on interest groups, experts, and academics to
assist them with the input of new legislation, legislation to be amended,
regulations, or public policy.
To make significant changes that would draw the citizenry more widely into
the process requires commitment and attitudinal change. Cost factors also
come to bear on this as well as the question of how to engage people for
their input and opinion. Referendums, offline and online, could be one
first step towards bringing the wider public into the whole process of
government.
However, this raises an even more fundamental question: Does the public
want to be more engaged in government or do they simply want the
opportunity to make their views known every once in awhile? If governments
do engage the public more frequently into public debate over issues of the
day, how often do they do this? What mechanisms will be available to
facilitate this process? How often should referendums be used and
what
subject matters should be considered priorities for referendums?
What
institutions within government need to be set up to make the wider
transition to e-democracy beyond online voting and online consultations?
These are just a few questions that need to be addressed and scoped out if
we are to move to a new form of democratic participation and beyond online
voting (very limited at the moment) and online consultations (at a very
nascent stage). Groups and individuals outside government are developing
their online tools and methodology to create different methodologies of
e-democracy in order to influence governments and the issues of the day.
Online activists and interested citizens alike also use e-democracy tools
to enhance democracy within their own groups and amongst themselves.
Thus, we see a culture of a different approach to traditional democracy
developing outside the sphere of government circles (with some input into
government, and some politicians making effective use of ICTs to further
their political goals) while governments make tentative steps to move into
the arena.
Governments are traditionally conservative and slow to move due to the
nature of their organizations and the duty to take all interests of society
into consideration when undertaking change. For the moment there is a
difference in cultures occurring and a wide gap between what individuals
and groups are doing online and what governments are currently capable of
doing online, especially in their relationships with the public.
The challenge of governments in the next few years will be to set out
mechanisms on how to embrace more of the public into the decision-making
process. More importantly governments, especially the elected bodies, need
to take a leadership role in engaging the public in wide debate on how, or
if, ICTs can and should change our current dynamics of democracy. For
while many might argue that being online is crucial for politicians to
continue to get elected, the evidence does not point to this being a
deciding factor at this time. The debate is a fluid one. We all need
to
become partners in a debate on the nature of democracy in our very changed
world, which will then lead to ways and means whereby ICTs can be strategic
tools for the democratic process. Governments are concerned about the
decline in public approval of their institutions. There are tools
available that can help reverse this attitude - it is now a question of how
extensively these tools can be used to effect this change. As this Report
shows, it is becoming increasingly important to engage the citizen. Tools
for consultation are still run from the top down but, if done properly, the
goals of an interactive government and an interactive citizenry can be
reached.
Democracy as practiced now by many countries is an evolving concept. The
principles and practice of democratic ideals vary from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction, but underpinning all democracies are the underlying tenets of
liberal democracy as evolved in the past two to three hundred years. There
is representative democracy (and many electoral and legislative forms of
this type of democracy), participatory democracy (practiced in some
jurisdictions, such as the town hall meetings tradition in the United
States), and direct democracy (the closest example of this today is the
practice of decisions of national importance by a referendum amongst the
electorate.)
These are but a few examples. There is a hint that the evolution of
e-democracy could take us into a new form of democracy, which would reflect
a wider voice of the public. But there is no clear vision of what such a
democracy would entail, and how it would differ from current practices or
reflect the overall society.
This paper was researched, written and prepared for Commonwealth Centre for
E-Governance by Thomas B. Riley and Cathia Gilbert Riley and released
December 23/03
For further questions you can email CCEG at tom@rileyis.com
, for further publications on our CCEG site click
here
Riley Information Services web site publications
Thomas Riley is available for consultations,
preparation of reports, presenting workshops or delivering speeches at
conferences and seminars on e-government, e-governance and e-democracy.
Please contact me at the email address below for further details.
Thomas B. Riley
Executive Director and Chair
Commonwealth Centre for E-Governance
www.electronicgov.net
Visiting Professor, University of Glasgow
President, Riley Information Services Inc.
www.rileyis.com
Tom@Rileyis.com