EDemocracy is the use of technical tools - particularly the Internet - to allow citizens access to information; to take part in petitions, consultations, deliberation, referenda and elections; and communicate with each other to form e-communities and movements, and take part in e-campaigning and e-activism.

The concept of eDemocracy is in its infancy, so eDemocracy research is also in its early stages, says Herbert Kubicek, professor of Applied Computer Science at the University of Bremen in Germany.

It always takes new technology years to settle into its ideal role, says Kubicek, so the field has not yet lived up to expectations. "With eDemocracy we are in a lively phase of experimentation. It is important to analyse and evaluate the experience which is made now in order to learn for the future employment of eDemocratic processes."

There are two main challenges to European eDemocracy research currently, says Kubicek.

Firstly, says Kubicek, the analysis of eDemocracy combines two different methods. Scientists must analyse the social aspects of citizen interaction in the same way that they did in the past, in townhall meetings for example or by the use of paper petitions. But they also have to research how people interact with computers and computer usability.

"The only way to move forward is that e-democracy research has to be interdisciplinary, socio-technical and cover what we call the micro-level of individual use as well as the meso-level of institutions and the macro-level of societal conditions, trends and effects."

Secondly, researchers are drawn to different areas disproportionately. Large numbers of e-voting experiments are carried out, despite few democratic institutions actually using e-voting. E-movements however, where people use the Internet to join forces for a particular cause, are increasingly occurring in the 'real world' but few researchers cover them.

"It seems the technical security aspects of online voting attract researchers with technical interest, while the great diversity of social movements is much more difficult to grasp."

But research into e-movements may become increasingly necessary. The Internet is enabling people to network with other individuals, information and services to create a 'Fifth Estate', to the print media's Fourth Estate, says William Dutton, director of the Oxford Internet Institute at the UK-based University of Oxford, UK, who spoke at the conference.

These networks, says Dutton, are surpassing, undermining and crossing the boundaries of existing institutions. "This is creating a new form of social accountability in government, politics and other sectors."

"But these Internet-enabled networks of the Fifth Estate need to be identified and better understood [by researchers] if they are to be protected and fostered in the coming decades," he adds.

Research into the impact of eDemocracy is a pressing need, says Kubicek. But there are methodological challenges to this - how does one assess whether consulting people online about a particular decision has increased political engagement, rebuilt trust in political institutions or improved the decisions made"

A way to move forward is the use of comparative studies. One of the conclusions of the conference, according to Kubicek was that the necessary insights and differentiation come from comparing at least two, or three or four cases, rather than the usual individual case studies.

And these studies can be pan-European. One of the views shared by participants at the conference, says Kubicek, was that European countries' diverse stages of democracy can all benefit from eDemocracy, as the electronic tools are not bound to particular forms and styles of democracy.

Members from the Council of Europe's Ad Hoc Committee on Electronic Democracy participated in the conference and can provide a platform for exchanging experience between governments, says Kubicek.

"It is of the utmost importance that comparative studies are funded which concentrate on comparable democratic processes and compare the deployment and effects of different e-tools across comparable countries," says Kubicek.

And that's where the ESF can play an important role, he says, in ensuring that this pan-European collaborative and comparative research can be carried out.

"Usually it is very difficult for a group of researchers from different countries to coordinate several grant proposals. ESF with its EUROCORES Programme provides a unique opportunity to overcome these practical problems and support synchronisation of national studies."

Many ideas for research came out of the conference, says Kubicek, and regular eDemocracy conferences are planned for the future.

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European Science Foundation
Democracy in the 21st century at TerraDaily.com