Does democracy have a digital future? At a recent conference at Danube University in Krems, Austria, Sean Kippin asked the co-Chairs of the recent digital democracy and e-government conference (CEDEM) – Peter Parycek and Noella Edelmann – whether politicians were capable of making the necessary transition to digital, what the implications were localism, and which countries were managing the digital transition well

Edelmann, Noella

Kippin, Sean

Parycek, Peter

LSE Research Online

By Democratic Audit UK 2015-7-2Interview: Peter Parycek and Noella Edelmann on digitaldemocracy best practice, localism, and e-governmentdemocraticaudit.com /2015/07/02/interview-peter-parycek-and-noella-edelmann-on-digital-democracy-best-practice-localism-and-e-government/Does democracy have a digital future? At a recent conference at Danube University in Krems, Austria, Sean Kippinasked the co-Chairs of the recent digital democracy and e-government conference (CEDEM) – Peter Parycek andNoella Edelmann – whether politicians were capable of making the necessary transition to digital, what theimplications were localism, and which countries were managing the digital transition well. Part 1 of this interview can be found here.Krems University, Austria (Credit: Sean Kippin, CC BY NC 2.0)SK: Are politicians capable of managing complicated processes such as a transition to a more digitallyoriented democracy? PP: I’m am an optimist, but I do think it will be very difficult for all of us. The people who are doing politics wouldstand to lose a lot of power, so when the question comes up, they aren’t interested in engaging with the process.There was a wonderful keynote address after the Obama elections by  a colleague of mine around three years afterthe 2008 Presidential election in the US, and the speaker was so very disappointed by what had happened. Therewas so much “Hope”! for real change, and at the beginning Obama tried with initiatives like OpenData.gov, and histown hall meetings, but after around a year everything in that area fizzled out.NE: A lot of people were deeply disappointed in Obama. I remember seeing a wonderful presentation looking at howat  everything that was at first open and Obama would talk about the process of governance as being about what1/3“we” were doing. After that, it all became about what “I” am doing, thinking. It was “We” during the election and “I”after a while in government, and that was symbolic of the way his approach to government changed.PP: Maybe he really tried to change it, but found the Washington D.C. system too established, and he couldn’tchange it. Even if we are polite with regard to Obama, and we give him the benefit of the doubt in assuming that hedid genuinely want to make this change, he wasn’t able to do so because the system was too established,embedded and strong. Even the American president wasn’t able to change the system: if he can’t, who can?SK: Moving on, which countries are managing the digital transition well, and what is that they’re doing? PP. It really depends on how you define ‘well’. If you’re thinking about how you deal with data and artificialintelligence, then the United States is the leader. Their military and defence capability means they’re extraordinarilyadvanced on a technological level. We saw this during the Cold War with the military focus manifesting itself intechnological innovation generally and the creation of the internet specifically, arising from their need for a stableand decentralised network.They’d make the decision that such a thing was needed, and they’d spend the necessary money to carry out theresearch. The same happened after 9/11. Immediately, they set up a completely new programme to analyse data onan enormous scale. Who is processing the most data in the world? It’s the NSA. They have built up extraordinaryknowledge over the past few years. Once these things are established they begin to have other applications, forexample in commerce. So in terms of building systems to analyse and take advantage of data, it is the UnitedStates.In terms of the governance of the whole state, I would say Singapore. They analyse data endlessly. The trigger  forSingapore was Avian flu. They came up with an interesting mind-game, and asked; what would have happened ifwe had analysed all of the data which we had at the time of the outbreak? There was a very clear answer, whichwas that they would have fixed it immediately. And because they had a real economic breakdown as a result of theoutbreak, and that was really the spur for this new approach. So they turned to the analysis of data, and they havestarted using it to really govern the state.In regard to the traditional aspects of e-government, I would say that the UK is doing a good job. Also, Austria isdoing well – but in a very traditional sense. For example digitising existing governmental processes. The UK is in thelead when it comes to more modern approaches. If you approach a UK website it really is state of the art, and it hasbeen pushed forward a great deal in recent years. Most countries are still in the ‘1.0’ design phase. But in Austria,‘behind the curtain’ is doing ok. Estonia is also doing well when it comes to internal linkages between theirdatabases. They’re very good at that here in Austria, too. The census is done completely electronically, throughlooking at 18 different databases, and then you click, and there’s your census!In regard to electronic identity and voting, Estonia is the world-leading country. 70% in the last election votedelectronically, so their whole society is very digitised.SK: On Estonia, their system rests on a unified identity card system. In the UK there’s a great appetite foronline voting but we didn’t like ID cards when they were propsed – is there a way of squaring that circle?PP. In Estonia they were very pragmatic. Theirs isn’t actually the most secure system – they just said “let’s do it!”.But it was easier in Estonia because its more or less a city (in terms of size). There’s no federalism, so you don’thave to discuss anything with the Scottish government or Parliament for example. So if Estonia is mentioned as abest practice case, you do have to be careful. The state is small and centralised, but they did do a great job becausethey had a very strong President. He made the decision, and he saw it through, because he was and is in love withtechnology and he used that passion to change the whole state. There can only really be change if one or more ofthe country’s leaders is in love with technology. Perhaps after some time he or she can change the whole system.India will be interesting, because the new Prime Minister is a great lover of technology. He came from Gujarat state,2/3which is the leading state in e-government, and I saw him give a brilliant talk about their e-government ideas andprojects and I immediately said ‘this could be a presentation from Europe’. Now he’s the Prime Minister, with abillion people living under the government he leads. Perhaps India could become a leader in this regard? Ofcourse, they do have big issues to navigate such as religion and poverty, but in the future its worth looking at.Because it is the world’s biggest democracy, it has a highly skilled workforce and big companies, it has a PrimeMinister who loves technology. Things aren’t as settled there as our fat, settled, complacent democracies, sochange could be afoot.SK: Is there a tension between increased localism and devolution and digitisation? Does the latter act as acentralising force? PP. Maybe yes, maybe no! You can use technology for decentralisation, too. If you’re able to find a commondefinition of ‘shared services’, they can run centralised or decentralised services, but the service itself is highlystandardised. So if you can set up the main services and then share it, perhaps it can be effected or modified a bitfor the local needs in question, that could have great potential. The question is how to use technology to govern on alocal level. I think the local level will have a great future in a digital future, because it enables you to do things on alocal basis. However you define the elements, and how deeply you should govern the whole state. If it is completelyfragmentised, then the state is in trouble. You can look back into history – in West Germany, every city was its ownstate, and it wasn’t very successful. They had fun, and independence, but Napoleon also had a lot of fun and took itall over. So you need some policy areas reserved for a national level, and then what you can govern on the locallevel, to find the best conception of governance. And technology will change these conceptions. But we have todiscuss it, define it, and how to use technology to make it work best.—gives the views of the authors, and not the position of Democratic Audit UK, nor of the London School of Economics.Please read our comments policy before posting.—Professor Peter Parycek is the Head of the Centre for E-Governance at Danube University,Krems, and the co-Chair of the 2015 CEDEM conference.  Noella Edelmann is the co-Chair of the 2015 CEDEM conference, and academic staff at DanubeUniversity, Krems.  This interview was carried out at the 2015 CeDem conference in Krems, Austria.3/3

Interview: Peter Parycek and Noella Edelmann on digital democracy best practice, localism, and e-government

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