Deliberative Manoeuvres in the Digital Darkness: E-Democracy Policy in the UK

Abstract

This article• Critically reviews e-democracy policy thinking in the UK. • Surveys and evaluates e-democracy activity in key areas, including online forums, open government and data, e-petitioning, and more recent 'crowdsourcing' initiatives. • Defends the on-going importance of a more deliberative approach to e-democracy policy and practice. This paper evaluates the UK Government's e-democracy policy and considers what lesson should be learned for future policy and practice. Despite some isolated examples of success, we argue that policy experimentation in the area has been disappointing overall, especially when compared with the ambitious rhetoric that has surrounded it, and has failed to culminate in a coherent strategy for using the Internet to support democratic citizenship. Our analysis emphasizes the on-going importance of online deliberation in achieving inclusive, informed, and negotiated policy formation and political decision-making. In the absence of inclusive sites and practices of public deliberation, the democratic value of non-deliberative experiments with petitioning and crowdsourcing and recent government efforts to open up public information and data for citizen auditing and evaluation is likely to remain limited.For over a decade now, political leaders in the UK have paid lip service, and sometimes more, to the democratic potential of the Internet. They have supported various practical initiatives designed to promote public participation online. They have even expressed some interest in more deliberative ways of involving the public in policy-making than traditional partisan or populist opinion harvesting. However, despite some isolated examples of success, the results of these efforts have been disappointing overall and policy experimentation in the area has failed to culminate in a clear and coherent strategy for using the Internet to support democratic citizenship.In this paper, we evaluate critically the UK Government's approach to e-democracy and consider what lessons should be learned for future policy and practice. We begin by setting out how the New Labour Government initially introduced and discursively constructed e-democracy. We then focus on four main areas of e-democracy activity: experiments with deliberative forums, efforts to promote open government by liberating data online, the use of e-petitioning, and more bs_bs_banner

‘Reaching in’? The potential for e-petitions in local government in the United Kingdom

“…The examples from this research, and in particular those from the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament, as well as councils such as Renfrewshire and Wolverhampton, demonstrate that a strong e-petitions system can go a long way towards enabling citizens to 'reach in' to local authorities, including meeting the first two criteria identified by Ergazakis et al (2012) as performance indicators (engagement of citizens and of decision makers, and enabling participation), and can go beyond Moss and Coleman's (2014) limited model of single-click citizenship by providing good levels of access to the political system for citizens, not dependent upon reaching high numbers thresholds or having access to other significant resources.…”

“…Similarly, Moss and Coleman (2014) were sceptical of the value of initiatives such as the Downing Street e-petitions system, 'when they are confined to individualistic inputs, devoid of any scope for citizens to challenge, refine, or combine one another's ideas' (p. 415), and instead emphasise the desirability of elements of public deliberation.…”

De platformsamenleving. Strijd om publieke waarden in een online wereld

“…Moss en Coleman zien dit als een opmars van wat zij een monitorial citizenship noemen, waarbij burgers, al dan niet vertegenwoordigd door ngo's, digitale media gebruiken om publieke informatie wijder te verspreiden, en te gebruiken om machthebbers te controleren en indien nodig ter verantwoording te roepen (Moss & Coleman 2014;Harcup 2015). In sommige gevallen werken dergelijke organisaties ook nauw samen met bestaande nieuwsorganisaties, of zijn het juist professionele journalisten die via sociale media hun publiek weten te mobiliseren om bij te dragen aan het onderzoek.…”

The role of e-participation and open data in evidence-based policy decision making in local government

“…Raw open data, while potentially enabling citizens to monitor governments, needs intermediation and interpretation, and if they are to inform policy decisions, then there is a question over the participative, deliberative practices needed to facilitate that (Moss and Coleman, 2013). The use of ICT has long been anticipated to be a significant tool for greater and more effective political participation (Bailey and Ngwenyama, 2011, Komito, 2005, Macintosh and Whyte, 2006Mossberger et al, 2013, Salmat et al, 2011, but the question here is how to combine the presentation of open data in a meaningful way with an interactive contribution to policy making.…”