Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS Presentation by Elisa Lironi - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Civic Participation in the Age of Digitalization: Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS Presentation by Elisa Lironi ENCC Travelling Academy - Krakow, 15 October 2015 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 1

What is ECAS?  WHO? European Citizen Action Service  WHAT? ECAS’s mission is to empower citizens to exercise their rights. We provide: • High quality services (ex. Your Europe Advice) • Research (ex. Knowledge Centre) • Capacity building to civil society organisations (ex. Triple A)  WHY? ECAS aspires to be the EU Resource Centre on citizens’ rights, campaigning for an inclusive, transparent and democratic Europe, where the benefits of EU citizenship can be fully tapped. 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 2

What is ECAS’ contribution to digital democracy? 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 3

What is Digital Democracy?  Digital Democracy (or eDemocracy) refers to the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to support democratic decision-making in order to enhance democratic institutions and democratic processes.  It relates to the online activities of governments (administration, representatives, political parties) and citizens. 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 4

 Three perspectives on eDemocracy 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 5

Digital Democracy is NOT meant to replace traditional forms of representative democracy, but rather to complement them by adding elements of citizen empowerment and direct democracy. (ECAS, 2015) 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 6

What is Crowdsourcing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-38uPkyH9vI 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 7

Case 1: Constitutional reform in Iceland  Step 1: 1000 citizens in a National Forum to explain the values they would want to see in the Icelandic Constitution  Step 2: 25 citizens in the Constitutional Council to produce a draft constitution to be passed in the Parliament; Openness by social media.  Step 3: Non-binding referendum, 49% turnout Ultimately stalled in the Parliament! 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 8

Case 2: Open Ministry in Finland  Step 1: Finnish Parliament adopted the New Citizens ’ Initiative Act (50 000 signatures in six months would lead to a discussion in Parliament)  Step 2: Open Ministry was launched  Example: Off-Road Traffic Act 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 9

Case 3: Partido de la Red in Argentina  Step 1: Creation of DemocracyOS: open-source web application designed to become a bridge between citizens and their elected representatives (better access to information and to indicate support for new proposals)  Step 2: Offering DemocracyOS to traditional political parties so that they can build a two-way conversation with their constituencies  Step 3: Founding their own political party (the Net Party) where they would vote in Congress according to what was decided by citizens on DemocracyOS 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 10

Challenges and Lessons Challenges Lessons Defining a clear purpose Tailor your method to your objective ex. need for institutions to respond to citizens’ demands Limited access to technology persists Tailor your method to your public Lack of expertise or motivation to press for social Tailor your method to your topic change Challenge of scale Tailor your method to your scale ex. on a larger scale more things are needed Do not underestimate the fear for digital tools 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 11

We’ve got a government in a box ready to roll in. (General Stanley A. McChrystal, senior American commander in Afghanistan, speaking at the beginning of an offensive to retake territory from the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, February 2010 – quoted in Filkins, 2010) Participation tools need to be tailor made even when they are digital! 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 12

Thank you! elisa.lironi@ecas.org @ElisaLironi ecas.org digidem-utopia.com 19/10/2015 Exploring Digital Democracy with ECAS 13