Should E-Government Design for Citizen Participation? Stealth Democracy and Deliberation

Cyberoptimists have heralded an age of citizen engagement enabled by electronic technologies that allow widespread citizen input in government decision making. In contrast, influential political scientists maintain that the preponderance of citizens quite reasonably wish to avoid political participation and that involving citizens could have very negative consequences for governance. In their widely-read book, Stealth Democracy, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse seek to show that much of the American public desires "stealth democracy"—a democracy run like a business by experts with little deliberation or public input. The authors maintain that stealth democracy beliefs are due to reasonable apathy rationales and that a more engaged democracy is simply of no interest to the public. This paper introduces an opposing "parochial citizens thesis " that suggests that stealth democracy beliefs may be driven by socially problematic beliefs and orientations, including reverence for authority and an incapacity to take other political perspectives. These views are rooted in simplistic conceptions of human agency and political leadership that might be ameliorated through deliberation. This paper examines survey and experimental data from the National Science Foundation / Information Technology Research funded Virtual Agora Project. The data comprise a representative sample of 568 Pittsburgh residents, who participated in face-to-face and online deliberations. Using OLS regression with cluster-robust standard errors, the paper finds that stealth democracy beliefs are explained by beliefs and orientations consistent with the parochial citizens thesis. It also finds that online democratic deliberation significantly ameliorates key stealth democracy beliefs and some of the factors that lead to these beliefs. Contrary to the stealth democracy thesis, e-government efforts to stimulate citizen deliberation may have positive consequences

Using Social Media in Rulemaking: Possibilities and Barriers

“Web 2.0” is characterized by interaction, collaboration, non-static web sites, use of social media, and creation of user-generated content. In theory, these Web 2.0 tools can be harnessed not only in the private sphere but as tools for an e-topia of citizen engagement and participatory democracy. Notice-and-comment rulemaking is the pre-digital government process that most approached (while still falling far short of) the e-topian vision of public participation in deliberative governance. The notice-and-comment process for federal agency rulemaking has now changed from a paper process to an electronic one. Expectations for this switch were high; many anticipated a revolution that would make rulemaking not just more efficient, but also more broadly participatory, democratic, and dialogic. In the event, the move online has not produced a fundamental shift in the nature of notice-and-comment rulemaking. At the same time, the online world in general has come to be increasingly characterized by participatory and dialogic activities, with a move from static, text-based websites to dynamic, multi-media platforms with large amounts of user-generated content. This shift has not left agencies untouched. To the contrary, agencies at all levels of government have embraced social media – by late 2013 there were over 1000 registered federal agency twitter feeds and over 1000 registered federal agency Facebook pages, for example – but these have been used much more as tools for broadcasting the agency’s message than for dialogue or obtaining input. All of which invites the questions whether agencies could or should directly rely on social media in the rulemaking process. This study reviews how federal agencies have been using social media to date and considers the practical and legal barriers to using social media in rulemaking, not just to raise the visibility of rulemakings, which is certainly happening, but to gather relevant input and help formulate the content of rules. The study was undertaken for the Administrative Conference of the United States and is the basis for a set of recommendations adopted by ACUS in December 2013. Those recommendations overlap with but are not identical to the recommendations set out herein

Asiantuntijapäätöksenteko ja poliittinen epäluottamus : Häivedemokratian kannatus Suomessa vuosina 2007, 2011 ja 2015

Tässä pro gradu -tutkielmassa selvitetään, minkälaisena häivedemokratian kannatus näyttäytyy suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa. Työssä tutkitaan, missä määrin häivedemokratiaa kannatetaan Suomessa vuosina 2007, 2011 ja 2015, eli missä määrin Suomessa on henkilöitä, jotka haluavat päätöksentekijöiksi asiantuntijoita ja yritysjohtajia kansalaisten ja poliitikkojen asemesta ja jotka haluavat pienentää keskustelujen ja kompromissien roolia päätöksenteossa. Tarkastelun kohteena on myös, onko häivedemokratiaa mittaava mittari sisällöllisesti yhtenäinen ja empiirisesti johdonmukainen, vai jakautuuko se aiempien tutkimusten mukaisesti kahtia asiantuntijapäätöksenteon kannatusta ja epäluottamusta politiikkaa kohtaan mittaaviin osiin. Lisäksi tutkielmassa selvitetään, korreloiko häivedemokratiamittari populismia ja elitismiä mittaavien mittareiden kanssa. Lopuksi tutkitaan, eroavatko häivedemokratian kannattajat muusta väestöstä sosiodemografisilta taustatekijöiltään ja poliittisilta asenteiltaan ja vaikuttavatko poliittis-taloudellisen toimintaympäristön muutokset häivedemokratian kannatukseen. Aineistona tutkielmassa käytetään eduskuntavaalitutkimuksia vuosilta 2007, 2011 ja 2015 ja analyysimenetelminä käytetään pääkomponenttianalyysia ja binääristä logistista regressioanalyysia. Tutkielma osoittaa, että häivedemokratian kannatus vaihtelee huomattavasti vuosittain, eikä se vaikuta olevan kiinteä osa suomalaisten poliittisia asenteita. Häivedemokratiamittari ei tutkimustulosten perusteella mittaa vain yhtä taustalla vallitsevaa ilmiötä. Mittari vaikuttaa sen sijaan jakautuvan kahteen ulottuvuuteen, joista toinen mittaa asiantuntijapäätöksenteon kannatusta ja toinen epäluottamusta politiikkaa ja poliitikkoja kohtaan. Lisäksi epäluottamusta mittaava ulottuvuus korreloi populismia mittaavan mittarin kanssa ja asiantuntijapäätöksentekoa mittaava ulottuvuus elitismiä mittaavan mittarin kanssa, mikä vahvistaa, että häivedemokratiamittari ei mittaa häivedemokratiaksi nimettävissä olevaa ilmiötä vaan ennemmin muihin asennejoukkoihin kuten populismiin ja elitismiin kuuluvia piirteitä. Koska häivedemokratiamittarin eri ulottuvuudet vaikuttavat liittyvän läheisemmin muihin asenteisiin kuin toisiinsa, ulottuvuudet tulisi jatkossa erottaa toisistaan ja lisätä niihin muita samansuuntaisia asenteita mittaavia muuttujia, jotta taustalla vallitsevat ilmiöt saataisiin mitattua tarkemmin. Tarvetta jakaa häivedemokratiamittari kahteen osaan vahvistaa regressioanalyysilla saatu tulos, jonka mukaan häivedemokratian eri ulottuvuuksien kannatusta selittää osittain erilaiset tekijät. Asiantuntijapäätöksenteon kannatusta selittää tyytymättömyys demokratian toimivuuteen ja poliittisen oikeiston kannatus, mutta epäluottamukseen politiikkaa ja poliitikkoja kohtaan yhdistyy erityisesti matala koulutustaso ja heikko poliittinen kiinnittyminen. Poliittis-taloudellisen toimintaympäristön muutoksilla ei ole vaikutusta häivedemokratian tai sen ulottuvuuksien kannatukseen. Tutkielma osoittaa, että häivedemokratia ei ole mielekäs mittari mittaamaan tai käsite kuvaamaan suomalaisten poliittista järjestelmää koskevia näkemyksiä

Communication barriers within virtual communities in an ethnoreligious diverse society: a case study of Nigeria

The study explores the communication barriers that exist within virtual communities in an ethno-religious diverse society like Nigeria. Qualitative research approach was employed. Subsequently, data was collected using qualitative questionnaire that contained open ended questions and through participant observation (online ethnography). Purposive sampling was used to select participants through liaising with Facebook users, as one of the online virtual communities in Nigeria. Having monitored online discourse on Facebook for some months, this study purposively selected 300 active facebook users from various Nigerian cultural and ethnic backgrounds, but only 60 participants indicated their interest to participate. Also, out of the 60 participants who agreed to participate, only 30 participants (25 males and 5 females) fully participated to the final stage while the other 30 withdrew from the study. The participants were mainly adults between the age brackets of 20 and 59. Thematic Analysis was subsequently used to analyse the data by identifying main themes to provide detailed descriptions of the setting, participants as well as activities. The findings of this study revealed that majority of the participants agree that due to Facebook familiarity and Nigeria's religious colouration, there is a display of disrespect, insolence and deep arrogance to other interactants online. The study further identified and revealed other barriers such as differences in cultural backgrounds and opinions, lack of politeness, prejudging and filtering, name calling and insults. The study proposes that social media platforms as virtual communities should be regulated with full implementation of the law and its sustenance, regardless of individuals having power to make their own choices about the kind of languages they use within virtual communities and considering its effect on other online users. Vulgar languages, hate speeches, incitements, bullying and other offensive comments would hopefully be curbed to the barest minimum if this intervention could be implemented. The conclusion of the study was that Nigerians should be civil in responding to discourse in virtual communities as certain inflammatory, religious or utterances based on ethnicity due to an uninformed perspective usually display one's poor knowledge on issues of national interest

GeoICT Uniformity in Flexibility: Analysis of the influence of geoICT coordination on the cooperation between public organisations with geoICT

This chapter begins with an empirical case where various public sector organisations in the Netherlands have cooperated with a particular type of technology, geoICT, since 1996. Throughout this document, GeoICT refers to the collection of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) based systems allowing the study of natural and man-made phenomena with an explicit bearing in space (de By, 2004:15). Specific to ‘geo-’ICT is that it creates and manipulates ‘geospatial data.’ Similarly to other types of ICT, it has only partly affected the four spheres of government: policy, politics, public organisation, citizens (Zouridis and Thaens, 2005). However ‘Geo-’ICT has the potential to influence the public organisation beyond the operational core of public administration (ibid.). Section 1.2 begins from this assumption and presents the case. Section 1.3 follows with a conceptual analysis of this case, to derive a set of basic research questions. Section 1.4 formulates these research questions. Section 1.5 explains the approach with which these research questions are addressed. Section 1.6 describes the position of this research in relation to three research domains: geo-information science, public administration and organisational science. Section 1.7 provides a summary of the section and its relation to the subsequent chapters