Four States of Digital Democracy
Dissertation on e-government and democracy, cited by Steven Clift at http://www.dowire.org/notes/?p=317
Summary
From http://www.dowire.org/notes/?p=317:
"[FOUR STAGES OF DIGITAL DEMOCRACY]
Source: Chan-Gon Kim (2005). Public Administrators’ Acceptance of The Practices of Digital Democracy: A Model Explaining The Utilization of Online Policy Forums In South Korea. Ph.D. Dissertation, Rutgers University-Newark.
Incorporating all of previous approaches, this study proposes four stages of digital democracy: (1) information disclosure, (2) listening/feedback, (3) online deliberation, (4) online decision-making.
It is theorized that digital democracy develops from the lower-level stage of “information disclosure” to the higher-level stage of “online decision-making.” These stages are ordered according to the extent of citizen participation in government by means of the Internet. In the “information disclosure” stage, public agencies provide useful information about policy matters on the Internet so that citizens can understand policy issues and form opinions.
In the “listening/feedback” stage, public agencies receive feedback or opinions about policy issues from citizens through government Web sites. In the “online deliberation” stage, citizens and public officials discuss policy issues via online forums. In the final stage, “online decision-making,”citizens directly participate in decision-making online and the extent of their participation in policy-making is the highest. As time goes on, the development of digital democracy is cumulative. The stages of digital democracy are shown in Figure 1 with two axes, the extent of participation and time.
(1) INFORMATION DISCLOSURE:
- Documents related to policy issues (White papers, annual reports, other publications)
- Detailed budget execution by divisions and projects
- Performance by divisions and projects
- Notice of proposed policies, projects, laws, and rules
- Minutes of public meetings
- Archived video of public events
- Synchronous video of public events, Webcast
- E-mail Newsletters, E-mail alerts
- Easy search functions
(2) LISTENING/FEEDBACK:
- E-mail messages to elected or public officials
- Online messages to the minister or the mayor
- Online questions and answers (Q & A)
- Online public comments on proposed policies, projects, laws, and rules
- Online policy proposals
- Online evaluations
- Online opinion polls/surveys
- Online citizen panels (cyber monitors)
- E-rulemaking
- Requests for information online (based on Freedom of Information Act)
- Electronic Town Meetings
(3) ONLINE DELIBERATION:
- Online bulletin boards
- E-mail discussions
- Online policy forums
- Scheduled e-meetings (real-time discussions)
- Online conferences
- Live chat
- Online public hearings
- Online focus groups
- Electronic citizen juries
- Electronic Town Meetings
(4) ONLINE DECISION-MAKING:
- E-petitions
- Electronic citizen juries
- E-referenda
- Internet voting (e-voting) in elections"