e-Participation in Austria: Trends and Public Policies

The paper is a first step to assess the status of e-participation within the political system in Austria. It takes a top-down perspective focusing on the policy framework related to citizens´ rights in the digital environment, the role of public participation and public policies on e-participation in Austria. The analysis of the development of e-participation in Austria as well as of social and political trends regarding civic participation in general and its electronic embedding, show a remarkable recent increase of e-participation projects and related initiatives. The paper identifies main institutional actors actively dealing with or promoting e-participation and reviews government initiatives as well as relevant policy documents specifically addressing and relating to e-participation or e-democracy. Finally, it takes a look at the state of the evaluation of e-participation. A major conclusion is that e-participation has become a subject of public policies in Austria; however, the recent upswing of supportive initiatives for public participation and e-participation goes together with ambivalent attitudes among politicians and administration towards e-participation.e-participation, e-democracy, citizens´ rights, institutional actors, public policies, government initiatives, evaluation

Latin America 2060: consolidation or crisis?

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Center Task Force Reports, a publication series that began publishing in 2009 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.Latin America has produced vigorous ideas throughout its history, expressed in narratives about its struggles and successes, or its weaknesses and failures. Together, these have shaped a multi-faceted vision of the region and its peoples. Some of its expositors, finding the story to be neither complete nor precise, work toward reformulations, some quite radical. Such generation of knowledge in different fields seems destined to yield a variety of distinct outcomes, at least in part because some of the emerging social and cultural movements are not yet very well structured. This Task Force Report project seeks to harness ideas about the region’s future into a coherent and policy useful discourse. A Workshop and a Task Force meeting was held at Boston University on November 18-19, 2010. A select group of invited experts – a mix of academic scholars and practitioners – were asked to turn their ideas into short ‘Think Pieces’ essays. Each Think Piece focuses on a specific topical issue for the region as a whole, instead of looking only at particular countries. These Think Piece essays are compiled and edited by the Task Force coordinator and published by the Pardee Center as a Task Force Report

Political parties and global democracy

This paper examines the place of political parties and party systems in providing democracy for the more global world of the twenty-first century. It argues that recent intense globalisation has by no means rendered poilitical parties and party systems irrelevant. However, political parties have lost substantial democratic impact by failing to move on with today's more global times. Parties could regain considerable stature as democratic forces if they altered a number of practices in line with emergent polycentric governance of a more global world. The paper advances a number of suggestions that could concurrently address the general stagnancy of political parties and the overall underdevelopment of global democracy

Covering Kids & Families Evaluation: Case Study of Illinois: Exploring Links Between Policy, Practice and the Trends in New Medicaid/SCHIP Enrollments

Evaluates the impact in Illinois of the RWJF project to increase enrollment in Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Programs. Outlines state policy changes; outreach, simplification, and coordination activities; and 1999-2005 enrollment trends

ICT and elections in Nigeria: rural dynamics of biometric voting technology adoption

Applications of Information and Communications Technology (ICT)-driven innovations are profound in the electoral cycle. Among them, biometric technology is currently sweeping across developing countries. It is, however, only poorly adopted among rural voters. Does the use of biometric technology in the conduct of elections reconstruct rural voters’ behaviour, amid prevailing social challenges? The links between these realities and their consequences are currently less understood, and lacking in supporting literature. I argue that the public perception of biometric technology, the availability of proper infrastructure, and the distance between polling stations and the dwellings of rural voters all affect the latter's level of adoption of biometric technology. These interactions combine to produce specific modalities that shape voting behaviour and general political culture. I elicit primary data from voters in Nigeria’s remote villages, so as to predict the implications and consequences of glossing over the dimensions and magnitude of the biometric technology adaptation challenge by policymakers. I conclude by reflecting on how these interplays and interactions create "spatial differentials" in electoral outcomes/credibility, and proffer possible strategies for institutional intervention.Die Anwendungen von Innovationen im Bereich der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie (IKT) sind im Wahlzyklus von großer Bedeutung. Biometrische Technologie erobert derzeit die Entwicklungsländer. Sie wird aber von den Wählern auf dem Land nur schlecht angenommen. Ändert die Nutzung von biometrischer Technologie das Wahlverhalten der Bevölkerung auf dem Land vor dem Hintergrund sozialer Herausforderungen? Der Zusammenhang zwischen diesen Realitäten und ihren Folgen wird in der Literatur noch nicht umfassend behandelt. Der Artikel argumentiert, dass die öffentliche Wahrnehmung der biometrischen Technologie, die Verfügbarkeit einer geeigneten Infrastruktur und die Entfernung zwischen den Wahllokalen und den Siedlungen der Wähler auf dem Land allesamt beeinflussen, inwieweit die ländliche Bevölkerung solche Technologien annimmt. Dieses Zusammenspiel führt zu spezifischen Modalitäten, die das Wahlverhalten und die allgemeine politische Kultur prägen. Ich nutze Primärdaten aus abgelegenen Dörfern in Nigeria, um zu zeigen, wie politische Entscheidungsträger Herausforderungen bei der Anwendung biometrischer Technologien schönreden und welche Folgen dies hat. Abschließend betrachte ich, wie diese Wechselwirkungen und Interaktionen zu "räumlichen Unterschieden" bei Wahlergebnissen/Glaubwürdigkeit führen und biete mögliche Strategien für institutionelle Interventionen an

The Basic Structure as Object: Institutions and Humanitarian Concern (draft)

[FIRST PARAGRAPHS] One third of the human species is infested with worms. The World Health Organization estimates that worms account for 40 percent of the global disease burden from tropical diseases excluding malaria. Worms cause a lot of misery. In this article I will focus on one particular type of infestation, which is hookworm. Approximately 740 million people suffer from hookworm infection in areas of rural poverty: more than one human in ten, a total greater than 23 times the population of Canada or twice the population of the United States. The greatest numbers of cases occur in China, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa—that is, mostly in the places in the world where poverty is most severe