Information and Communication Technologies: from Modern to Information Society

Univerzitetno in raziskovalno središče Novo mesto 19.-20. september 2008

e-PARTICIPATION IN e-PARTICIPATION IN SLOVENIAN e-GOVERNMENTSLOVENIAN e-GOVERNMENT

Simon Delakorda(Institute for Electronic Participation - INePA)

Empirical Facts

Explanation Hypotheses

Slovene e-government state of the art in the area of e-Participation / e-Democracy is a result of:

Implementation deficit

Development deficit

Methodology

Slovene government ministries web sites analysis (e-democracy tools typology; Trechsel, 2003)

Specific case studies analysis E-government policy documents analysis

(typology of e-democracy; Hagen, 1996) Informal correspondence with government

officials

Results I. - Implementation deficit

Earlier e-government strategies favoured electronic democratization concept (strengthening representative democracy)

E-government strategy 2006: Republic of Slovenia among 10 most developed e-democracies in the world

Conceptual shift towards participatory and direct democracy (e-pools, e-consultations, e-referendum etc.)

e-Democracy neglected by implementation plans

Results II. - Development deficit

all government ministries provided public information e-access

8 ministries out of fifteen offered an e-mail address for sending comments on draft legislation

Little success with moderated on-line forums Web 2.0 applications rarely available E-Democracy web 1.0 portal not yet finalized

Interpretation

Implementation and development deficit of e-Participation are results of a technocratic understanding of political democracy and citizenship:

e-Participation as technological issue e-Participation as legal issue Top down controlled e-participation in order to

secure objective and rational support for political elites interest

Possible solutions

Adoption of Government Law on public participation and co-decision (e-participation regulation):

− Political citizens are not e-government consumers− Political freedom should mean that citizens have the

democratic right and instruments to reject government and political elites decisions without being sanctioned

Integration of knowledge and resources between public administration and civil society

Technology reorientation towards web 2.0 for strengthening active citizenship communities

Electronic strong democracy (Grossman, 1995)

THANK YOU!THANK YOU!

simon.delakorda@inepa.si simon.delakorda@inepa.si

Institute for Electronic Participation (INePA)Institute for Electronic Participation (INePA)Povšetova ulica 37Povšetova ulica 37

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