De vrouwenbeweging online

This is an in-depth study of 12 organizations: six grass-roots organizations, three umbrella organizations and three service organizations within the Dutch women's movement. Also, six 'virtual organizations' (three portal sites, a platform site and two web organizations) were investigated. Apart from the service organizations, the uses of the Internet are almost limited to three communicative functions: information dissemi-nation and retrieval, recruitment and communication between the leaderships of organizations. Most organizations are leaving the 'homepage phase' of site development, but their current new ambitions seem to be more directed at applying network technology for purposes of internal communication than at interaction with the organization's environment. Until now, Internet uses had indeed some effects on the mobilization of resources, the relations with the environment and the 'management of frames', but these effects are almost limited to greater effectiveness and efficiency of existing action patterns. All organizations are now facing a situation in which the internal communication has to proceed along two speeds: only a part of the membership (individual members or member organizations) is online. The virtual organizations are more representative for the innovative potential of Internet. Together, they shape the contours of an information- and communication infrastructure for the women's movement in the information age

Re-intermediating the councillors? Towards new connections between representative and participatory democracy in local government

Session 2: Political representation and legitimacyThis paper explores the consequences of two strands of institutional renewal in local government for the position of the councillors, namely (1) the introduction of forms of participatory democracy in combination with (2) certain reforms in the institutions of representative democracy, in particular the separation of administrative and scrutiny roles between the council and the executive, and the directly elected mayor. In two cities, Almere in the Netherlands and Lewisham in the United Kingdom, various examples of citizen involvement are examined. A strikingly different picture emerges. Whereas a clear trend towards a disintermediation of the councillors can be observed in Lewisham, the Almere Council is trying strategies that seem to further a re-intermediation of the council in the political linkage chain. Together, these cases indicate that the character of the intermediation between citizens and decision-makers in local governance is determined by the interplay between institutional conditions and actor strategies

Facilitating the monitorial voter

Websites for monitoring the past performance of elected representatives in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are analysed according to how they meet the voters’ information needs. The case study reveals two distinct models of information provision. One model supports the evaluation of the enactment of election programmes by political parties, the other model supports the monitoring of the performance of individual representatives in terms of the voters’ current preferences. Guidelines are suggested for the design of retrospective voter information websites

Interactieve beleidsvorming en de instituties van het lokale bestuur

Interactieve beleidsvorming kan institutioneel worden opgevat als (1) een nieuwe aanpak van collectieve besluitvorming en (2) als een set van nieuwe rollen voor lokale actoren, zoals politici en ambtenaren. In dit artikel wordt nagegaan hoe nieuwe instituties van interactieve beleidsvorming en bestaande instituties van niet-interactieve beleidsvorming elkaar beinvloeden. Kort na het afsluiten van de vijf onderzochte interactieve processen (in de gemeenten De Bilt, Enschede, Leerdam, Hellevoetsluis en Zeewolde) bleek het (nog?) niet mogelijk om enige doorwerking van de nieuwe instituties te kunnen constateren. Daarentegen kwamen wel allerlei institutionele belemmeringen en weerstanden van de bestaande instituties naar voren, zowel op het niveau van besluitvormingspatronen als het rolgedrag van politici en ambtenaren. Interactieve beleidsvorming mobiliseert vooral aan het eind van het interactieve proces weerstanden. Er doet zich een terugval voor in 'oude instituties'. De grootste institutionele belemmeringen doen zich voor op het niveau van het rolgedrag. Politici en (zij het in iets mindere mate) ambtenaren zijn onzeker en terughoudend om gevestigde posities te relativeren en naar andere rolinvullingen te zoeken. Raadsleden stellen zich in de vijf onderzochte processen voornamelijk passief en afzijdig op

Towards an Informed Citizenry? Information- and communication technologies and electoral choice

What is the significance of ICT's for voting decisions? This chapter assesses two uses of ICT's: (1) databases of the voting records of representatives, and (2) a decision support system for party choice. It examines the information-seeking behavior of (prospective and retrospective) voters appraising either parties or individual candidates. Empirically, the significance of both ICT's for the voters' level of information seems to be limited, at least when considered separately. In combination, they provide new information that may attract the interest of more 'Downsian' voters. However, a large-scale and combined use of these ICT's may put the classical liberal model of representation under pressure

ICT Strategies of Democratic Intermediaries

A conceptual framework is proposed for discussing the ICT strategies of intermediaries and their effects on democratic intermediation. The main line of reasoning is that both ‘disintermediation’ and ‘re-intermediation’ have to be related to specific models of democracy and styles of citizenship. The linkage strategies of preference intermediaries, the supportive strategies of information intermediaries and the facilitative strategies of interaction intermediaries are discussed. The quality of democracy would be dependent on the interplay between different democratic practices, types of citizenship and intermediaries

Empowering Communities for Environmental Decision-Making

In this chapter, we discuss the relation between public innovation and the empowerment of local communities. Specifically, we explore the significance of cooperative public innovation efforts for the capability of local communities to participate in environmental decision-making, focusing on the role of environmental information, and information and communication technologies (ICTs). Our case-study is the city of Cleveland (Ohio) in the United States of America where several citizen-government partnerships have emerged on environmental sustainability and in which the access to information is a major element

Intermediaire organisaties, ICT en de toegankelijkheid van electronische overheidsinformatie

ICT-ontwikkelingen zijn relevant voor de vormgeving van de democratie. In dit artikel wordt ingegaan op de betekenis van ICT voor het optreden van intermediaire organisaties. Maatschappelijke organisaties gebruiken ICT om informatie te verspreiden, te analyseren en daarover te communiceren. ICT biedt nieuwe mogelijkheden voor collectieve actie. Specifiek wordt ingegaan op de toegankelijkheid van electronische overheidsinformatie voor maatschappelijke organisaties, op basis van het 'recht op weten' principe. Deze toegankelijkheid is van groot belang voor het vestigen van democratische machtsevenwichten tussen samenleving en overheid

The Moderator as an Emerging Democratic Intermediairy: The Role of the Moderator in Internet Discussions about Public Issues

A common approach towards the role of the moderator in Internet discussions is to see him as a filter. In this article I want to show that the moderator in government-initiated Internet discussions about public issues can be seen as a democratic intermediary, and that this role has the potential to enhance the quality of those discussions as forms of deliberative democracy. I develop a conceptual model of the management of Internet discussions. Five cases of Dutch Internet discussions about public issues are analyzed. The filter function of moderation appears to be of minor importance. Moderators do a lot more. They manage discussions. Particularly, they contribute to the interactivity and openness of discussions and to the accessibility of public administration and institutional politics. In most of the cases described, there had been independent, ???third party??? moderation. As governments gain more experience with the Internet, moderation may shift to governmental agencies. In this perspective, it is important to stress the transparency and to care for the negotiableness of moderation

France: A Strong State, Towards a Stronger Local Democracy?

In the political organization of France, the so-called 'Jacobean logic' plays an important role. It stands for a tendency towards centralisation and uniformity. However, since the 1980s there has been a process of decentralisation to sub-national authorities. Grenoble is an example of a city in which new ways of involving citizens in urban policies are being tried out. Since the 1960s government-citizens relations in Grenoble are structured via the local associations, and mainly on the neighbourhood level. The focus of the city government's recent strategy is to adapt the infrastructure of citizen participation to the conditions of modern urban life.This means, for example, that the associations are stimulated to take into account the level of the agglomeration, and that new forms of involving individual citizens have been established