Citizen participation in politics and the new systems of communication.
(continued)
Parts 4 to 6, GLOSSARY and REFERENCES
4. participation and citizen power
TABLE: Forms of societal decision making
a. direct democracy. Citizens vote, or decide by consensus, on principles, laws, plans etc. then monitor and guide implementation of policy. A partial form of direct democracy exists where citizens have the right to initiate and enact referenda on a particular issue. (Problems with direct democracy include: lack of information of citizens on political issues; need to find ways to allow deliberation on complex public issues; difficulty to organise communication, debate and voting among very large groups)
b. indirect democracy or delegation (Problems: may be distorted by failure or inability of many to vote; may be corrupted by bribery and nepotism etc.; often insensitive to needs and wishes of citizens; leads to disempowerment and anomie of citizens.)
b.1 accurate representation of citizenry (e.g. fair elections, proportional system)
b.1.1 low guidance of legislative and executive by constituents (poor information, no right of recall of delegates, no chance of interventions such as vetoing laws or actions, sacking ministers or government, dissolving parliament)
b.1.2 high guidance by constituents
b.2 inaccurate representation of citizenry (e.g. unfair or rigged elections; "fixing" of boundaries of electoral districts by ruling group in order to secure re-election; non-proportional e.g "first past the post" system, or indirect system e.g. US presidential election)
b..2.1 low guidance of legislative and executive by constituents (almost inevitably the case)
b.2.2 high guidance by constituents (difficult to imagine where representation is poor)
____________________________________
4.1 antidote to discontent, psychic factors, problem solving
To what purpose participation in collective decision-making? We may predict that some of the widely discussed "ills" of modern "democratic" societies such as apathy towards the party-representative system, low voting turn-outs, low public esteem of politicians, "politische Verdrossenheit", (German, translation = morose discontent) may be, if not cured, then at least improved if more and more people become involved in decision-making and steering policy implementation. It is not only a question of correcting deficits. There are many positive aspects to participation which can particularly well be described and predicted by psychologists. For instance, being able to contribute to solving one's own problems, acquiring a sense of control, perceiving some meaning in social and political life (and maybe therefore in own life), being able to contribute to solving commonly faced problems.
Frances Moore Lappe, Co-Director, Center for Living Democracy writes in The Quickening of America, (with Paul Martin DuBois, published by Jossey-Bass, 1994.)
"What's surfacing as a conflict between individual and majority rights
actually reflects something much deeper. It's a spreading sense of
powerlessness among Americans in all walks of life. Most Americans
aren't apathetic and morally adrift. We're frustrated and angry at
an economic and political system that excludes us and fails to address
our worsening problems. And our anger at exclusion leads to
hopelessness and withdrawal." Cited by G. Scott Aiken. (Aiken 1996)
Also, and again to reveal a personal view, I urge a wide and urgent citizens' appraisal and evaluation of the concept of problem-solving as a task of "the polis". This is not only a matter of healing the collective psyche but also a pragmatic and urgent one. There are problems (v.i.) which existing social, economic and political systems appear unlikely to be able to solve.
Many social, political and global problems are, unfortunately but challengingly, available to be tackled, for instance child abuse which can cause life-long traumatisation, starvation, poverty, social violence, crime including the "white-collar" variety, pollution and many other problems of large cities. Military policy, especially regarding the readiness to invest in peace-making and improving skill in peace-promotion, is also a crucial area which need to be scrutinised by a critical public.
For purposes of this article I will concentrate on potential reform of the rich, western-style democracies. The politics and economics of the richer countries affects the rest of the world significantly. Not only questions of financial, economic and technical aid or loans to poorer countries but also the controversies about own (private, public, commercial, industrial) use of raw materials and energy sources, production, waste, and pollution and disruption of air, water and land are of vital importance to the whole earth and its inhabitants. Also, because we are discussing ICT then we are of necessity concentrating on those countries where substantial developments in ICT has occurred. (This is not to disregard the vital importance of enabling much wider access to some forms of ICT in all countries, but that will not be covered in this article.)
More effective involvement of citizens in problem solving, and in collective decision-making as part of problem solving, (remembering the caveat above. Introduction, "2.1 remark about assumptions") may help move towards solutions.
4.2 Some objections and barriers to improved citizen participation and direct democracy
Presenting the potential benefits of improved citizen participation may be regarded by some as idealistic, even illusory. For others it is anathema. Critics of direct democracy cite cases (e.g. in the western USA) where citizens have acquired increased rights to legislate. In exercising their new democratic rights the majority were said to be highly selfish, acting for example to reduce personal taxation or to avoid any disturbance of own comfort (e.g. refusing to accept any personal or local environmental risks and so displacing these onto other citizens, the "not in my backyard" philosophy). Other critics become even more alarmed, fearing a "dictatorship" of the majority, in modern terms projected as "an electronic mob". These criticisms are not new but have cropped up again in recent months in european and north american e-mail discussion lists (fora) concerning "public policy" and "information society".
4.3. Can citizens take over more responsibility?
Enthusiasts have tried to demonstrate the potential of citizens to take over more responsibilty. Academics, some of them no doubt also enthusiasts, tested this potential in research. Citizens, often in groups arranged like juries, have been confronted with a political controversy, a problem of public finance or a social issue such as allocation of health care resources. In many reported cases, groups of "average" citizens, sometimes selected to be representative of their society, have shown high ability to understand, debate and judge on complex issues. Sometimes political scientists were of the opinion that the citizens' understanding was "ahead of the politicians'". Further, there have been applications of the citizen-jury or citizen-panel method of decision-making in real-life. For instance, in an Austrian town the local politicians and community could not agree on the siting of a sports complex. A citizens' panel was called in and was able to persuade the conflicting parties to accept a solution. In a question of allocating resources for health care when finance has become very tight, a British health authority called in a team of consultants to help organise citizens' juries, with reportedly productive results. (British Medical Journal 1996).
The listed questions (Table) are helpful when asssesing a private or official project which claims to improve citizens' participation in public decision-making:
TABLE: criteria for projects which claim to improve citzens' participation in public decsion-making.
Are citizens confronted with issues and asked to decide upon them?
Do or may citizens put forward issues for debate/decision?
Do decisions taken/recommendations made by citizen groups have any effect in the real political system?
__________________________
4.4 town meetings, old and new
A natural democratic form is a gathering (an assembly) of all citizens of a place, be it a village or town, to share problems, debate issues of common concern and decide on collective action. An assembly of this type, termed a "town meeting", which must have its roots in human pre-history, came into regular use several hundred years ago and to some extent is still used in communities of the eastern United States of America. The "town meeting", because all citizens are ideally present and have the right to be heard, is also a symbol of direct democracy. Major problems of organisation arise not only because "representative" forms of government tend to emerge and so displace direct (citizens') decision making, but also because of the difficulty to deal with large communities or units such as large cities and states. How can 100,000 citizens meet? Well, perhaps in a football stadium - but how can all the "football fans" discuss and decide on a public issue? With the emergence of ICT it is not surprising that the question - of whether ICT can be applied to allow large groups of citizens to participate in "town meetings" - should be raised. Good collective decisions cannot be reached by voting rapidly on a proposal (motion) but also require information, preparation, opportunities to question, consult, debate and "deliberate". So, can some or all of these functions be built into a system which might be termed the "electronic town meeting"?
There are a number of projects which aim to demonstrate that "electronic" or ICT-assisted town-meetings are possible and useful. (See "Choosing Our Future (COF) and item 3.5 about the Reform Party of Canada.) These projects overlap and in some cases have grown out of older attempts to gather "in-depth" citizens' opinion on important public issues (see for example 3.7 about the Jefferson Centre). Some comments on projects and innovations with "electronic town meetings" (ETMs), juries and panels appear elsewhere in this paper.
4.5 Role of governments, industry, commerce and providers of information technology: facing the demands of citizens (receivers and transmitters)
Although citizens may choose to increase their participation, their self-determination and self-government by means of argument and discourse, by peaceful protest and struggle, or by violence, it cannot be denied that those at present in positions of power may influence if, and at what rate, the right and ability to participate be increased or indeed decreased. Thus, governments may "open" their proceedings and take more into acount the opinions of citizens. Through "freedom of information" laws, "government on-line" and intensive public opinion polling these things have already happened in some countries. Politicians, especially in systems where candidates are elected personally rather than anonymously from a party list, have a strong interest to know in detail what their potential voters think. Some (Compare 3.4 and 3.5 above, the Reform Party of Canada - theirs appeared to be responses to popular demand, based on election promises.) may be motivated by apparently genuine wishes to improve democracy. Commercial concerns (businesses) and "non-profit" initiatives may play an important role by offering services which can facilitate citizens' access to information about government (e.g. Internet service providers, television companies which offer interactivity, organisers of ETMs, "electronic brokers" of political analyses and information (e.g. 3.1 above, California Voters Foundation). Electronic and communication scientists, and those who funded them, have obviously played a crucial role, by first making modern ICT possible. But citizen demand and feed-back to manufacturers of computer hard- and software and to ICT service providers have played very important roles here too. Consider only the development of the Internet, which grew out of a north american networked communication sytem built to survive a nuclear war. The enormous demand by citizens for information, access to and improved manageablity of data, and for enhanced human communication has lead to the emergence of highly sophisticated and increasingly "user-friendly" ICT systems. (See remarks in Introduction on "ICT may change the ways in which government works" and on dangers of "informatisation", with perhaps "Orwellisation" of government and society.)
To date, ICT has allowed many millions of citizens to become receivers of electronic information, e.g. via e-mail. Also, in a limited way, all these people may transmit their ideas and views, again by e-mail, sometimes via a "home page" in the WWW. Usually, a citizen may not initiate a formal Internet or Usenet discussion unless she or he has quite advanced ICT skills and has access to expensive "hard-" and "software". "Organising" cyberspace, and political organising within it, has so far been performed by a relatively small minority. These are in the main the "providers" of Internet and related services, the large and small commercial and non-profit concerns (ISPs), the academic institutes and some official bodies (e.g. the European Commission). Potentially, these institutions and groups can steer and control development and functions of cyberspace, and the citizens who visit and use it. Further analysis of the role of possible "cybercrats" will not be attempted in this paper.
4.6 citizens organise in (and out of) cyberspace. Some examples in real-life.
The "internet surfer" who is also politically educated will probably conclude that political information on a particular theme is often difficult to locate and is commonly of quite low quality. Links to other source which could fill in knowledge and information gaps are often not provided. The branching "tree of knowledge" promised by ICT has not yet grown leaves and has born very little fruit! Exisiting political initiatives, e.g. political parties, pro-environment groups, do not fully exploit ICT and certainly do not "reach out" to citizens in an ideal way.
Despite claims about revolution to be expected as a result of "information super-highways" some things do not change too quickly. For example, most citizens of the rich industrialised countries don't imagine that they personally could nor should do anything to promote direct democracy, neither to improve participation in public decision-making. Most people, and this applies to academics as well as other citizens, at least in Europe, do not know why they might need an Internet connection. And most, having connected, would not dream of using it to promote social change or for political purposes. The latter remarks are based on recent Internet forum discussions and also extrapolated from work on "non-cyber" political participation (Boehnke and Macpherson 1989).
However, given the rates of technical development and application of ICTs, and the expectation that more and more citizens will obtain access to the systems, it may be predicted that ICTs will increasingly be used as instruments of politics and social activism.
Citizens may organise, e.g. to protest against injustice in distant lands, or widely and rapidly spread information to gain support for political ideas (e.g. against Internet censorship, the case of Ejército Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional EZLN in Chiapas, the reported "electronic" support for the democracy movement in the crumbling USSR, the protest against repression in Tianmen Square, Beijing. See further examples in section 3, above). The organisation of citizens to take more power via direct democracy and participation, assisted by ICTs or otherwise, is minimal at present, partly because, except in a few countries, effective (competent) access to ICT is percentually very low. The lobby for democratic reform in general is weak, although probably growing, in the rich "western-style" democracies. ICT may aid efforts to organise, raise consciousness and build the political will for changes which will allow improved participation (formally, via legislation and in some cases changing or writing constitutions).
See further comments in item 5.5 "self-organisation for rights to participate and direct democracy".
4.7 Preliminary discussion and critique of projects and programmes in and out of cyberspace.
Looking at the numerous projects which aim to improve the democratic process and social integration by using ICT, what is the relevance and status of citizen to citizen communication and to what extent are there meaningful opportunities to participate? Some of these projects, e.g. MED (see URL, Minnesota Electronic Democracy, glossary below), British on-line project (described above) , claim to be initiatives founded by and run for citizens. These projects tend to depend on a small group of dedicated enthusiasts, often volunteers. They offer information, commonly about the election process, candidates, government and administration. (See Table). They may present issues of political controversy, often striving to fairly present several points of view of parties or interest groups. In some cases, e.g. CVF, MED, many thousands of citizens have at least logged in via the Internet. The citizens role has been mainly that of the spectator. But that may change. The various electronic democracy and community network projects offer their ICT services for participatory functions which include public fora (forums) on specified topics, e.g. health care, traffic; "general" fora where any political or social topic may be raised; fora for government officials and experts; closed fora aimed to allow and promote discussion among politicians.
Citizens' electronic discussion fora are usually moderated by one of the organisers. This moderation, applied to maintain consistency with the topic, to avoid "flame-wars" and extremism, may limit the freedom of some citizens to present their view or inhibit others from contributing. It seems that the themes or issues selected for discussion have often been selected by the organisers too. But some projects state that citizens may put forward topics for a new e-forum themselves. Until now, these projects must be regarded as experimental or as demonstrations that participation can be improved. Citizens (unless they are willing and able to set up their own Internet server and forum/ conference system) have no formal right to demand a public debate on a particular issue. Also there is no direct political effect of the discussions or of their conclusions. (This may lead to rejection of the offer to participate.) Some politicians may listen or join in, so could possibly be influenced by the input of "voters", but they are not obliged to act according to the results of the citizens' deliberations.
The pioneering efforts (described above. 3.4, 3.5) of the Reform Party of Canada, their voters and constituents, show two important possibilities here. Firstly, that during a legislature period and on specific issues (not only in a short period before elections) political delegates can learn and act on the views of a representative group of their constituents. Secondly, that with the aid of modern techniques, all members of an electoral constituency can be consulted, may vote on an issue or proposed law, and this vote may direct the delegate in parliament.
Town meeting projects, citizens' jury and panel projects illustrate that some change towards direct democracy may - in theory at least - be achieved with and without the aid of ICT. Of course, in striving for direct democracy while trying to allow citizens of a large constituency to communicate and indeed participate in meaningful and effective ways then some problems will be encountered and objections raised. All citizens of the constituency (e.g. San Francisco) cannot at all easily be involved in a single debate so various models have been conceived in order to have a workable number of participants, some with representative sampling. Already then the principle of direct democracy is being "watered down", as only a small percentage of constituents (a "sample") may participate. In large scale "electronic town, state or national meetings" public opinion sampling techniques have been used. However, assuming even that a "scientifically" representative sample of citizens is obtained, there are various objections which will still be raised by critics of this type of project. For instance, citizens who were not selected and invited to participate in the ETM may complain that they were not represented. They may well not be too impressed by arguments about scientific sampling. Others may not wish be bothered with details of public affairs and assert that they would prefer a system (well known) in which the delegate for whom they had voted in an election should decide vicariously for them. Another criticism is that in the ETM and similar models to date, there has not been enough information supplied nor enough time allowed, e.g. during a television programe, for citizens to make an informed decision about how to vote on the selected issue.
The older projects, generally using little or no ICT, which may be described as rehearsals for improved democracy, are less susceptible to criticism about lack of information and deliberation (see Jefferson Center programme, 3.7 above). They allow citizens to deliberate thoroughly on public issues before reaching a decision or making recommendations on public policy. (These projects use several models. Participants may be e.g. citizens' juries, relatively small groups of usually less than 25 roughly "representative" citizens. Or, panels of citizens which may be large and representative of a state or country may be selected. The projects vary in the degree to which the participants are asked to study the selected topic or "issue", the amount and type of debate, the time taken for the whole procedure, the type of decision procedure (e.g. majority voting or attempting consensus), and in the application or use of the results of the deliberations (e.g. for press reports, or to directly lobby politicians, or for academic analysis).
Elements of these methods, ETMs, citizens' panels and juries, in a very limited way, have begun to be applied, mainly experimentally, in "real" politics. e.g. during 1995 vice-president Al Gore took part in a large scale electronic debate with built-in feed-back to allow opinion of participants to be repeatedly gauged during the proceedings. (Hurwitz and Mallery 1995). Hage refers to a recent National Electronic Town Hall Meeting (in which "the e-lists and WWW servers quickly overloaded, while the "alt" newsgroup access worked fine")(Hage 1996). Also see the Reform Party of Canada projects, described above. ICT developments can theoretically allow many of the forms of selective information, participation in debate and decision-making (or formulation of recommendations) which are illustrated in this paper to be offered to large groups of citizens who may be geographically dispersed.
For an overview of participation and "rehearsal for democracy" models see Mark Robbins' recent electronic paper (Robbins 1996).
5 remarks
5.1 gender and access issues
These are recognised as highly important but will not be dealt with in detail in this paper. It is known that fewer women are Internet users but this seems to be in flux. Whether women will use ICT for political purposes more or less than men remains to be seen. This author would predict a proportionate increase in female political participation owing to spread of ICT.
Citizens' participation in collective decision-making can be facilitated by ICT, so access to computer terminals etc. is crucial. This is touched upon in the short items about ICT assisted community programmes and "digital cities" (3.8, 3.9) and in the Rand group paper (Anderson 1995).
5.2 learning
Projects have been designed to "educate" citizens about their society and its politics, some link to information about other countries and general matters such as economics. Learning to use ICT can open doors to untold information sources. Many citizens, especially the young, need to have opportunities to learn how complex decisons are made. ICT can assist learning in ways superior to traditional school lessons, to newspapers, radio and television. Learning to participate can be facilitated and political competence raised with asssistence of ICT.
Politicians and officials need to learn too. Although formally delegated by their constituents, many adopt the behaviour and attitudes of rulers. Authoritarian traits among citizens and politicians and the formation of hierarchies among the elected (e.g. governments and cabinets often become autonomous of parliaments) reinforce these patterns. In order to promote improved participation by citizens, perhaps aided by ICT, politicians must learn to consult, debate with, and better follow the wishes of their constituents.
5.3 motivation, interest, skills, time
Are citizens interested to participate more in deciding what happens in their societies, or even at the supra-national level? Generally, commentators have pointed to a lack of interest in politics, disillusionment about the integrity of politicians and falling election turnouts. The experience of many cyberprojects offering information about candidates and public issues is the opposite - many thousands have "visited" their Internet sites. It must be admitted that these are not representative findings, in any case until now only a minority of citizens is connected to the Internet, and even less use its facilities.
The chance to participate in making real political decisions, should it be offered, would probably attract many who had not previously been involved in politics. The "user friendliness" of ICT systems is increasing so computer skills become less important. Skill in handling and understanding complicated information, themes and problems remains necessary.
Trends such as those towards greater automation of work, production and organisation, reduced working hours and working at home mean that more "free" time will become available. Some of this could conceivably be used for "ICT-assisted" politics.
5.4 freedom of information - the struggle
To some extent developments in ICT have forced this issue upon unwilling governments, parliaments and official organisations. Commercial enterprises are largely "sealed boxes" to citizens who may have legitimate concerns about their activities. It is some years since the US Congress made some of its proceedings publicly available "on-line" (the system is called "Thomas") but the British government (at the time of writing) has failed to act similarly. In Britain, oft cited as "land of the free", every official document is effectively secret unless otherwise ruled by the government. Citizens complain that even the USA, with its "Freedom of Information" laws, is not doing anything like enough towards "open government", much information about e.g. parliamentary proceedings remaining effectively inaccessible. Governments and parliaments vary widely in the extent to which they inform about their activities (Macpherson 1997). The question arises that, if governments, parliaments and official bodies (ministries, bodies such as the Federal Drug Administration or offices for environment), make much of their archives and proceedings available electronically, then, who will have the time and resources to search through and who will use all of this information? See comments on "self-organisation for rights to participate and direct democracy", below.
5.5 self-organisation for rights to participate and direct democracy
Looking at co-ordination of social functions. At present this is usually done by institutions known as government, public administration with "quangos" (quasi-non-governmental-organisations, usually non-elected semi-autonomous bodies, paid from the public purse). A gradual transformation away from remote, self-reproducing elite decision-making to monitored, open, citizen-guided and citizen-run "government" of own affairs", ICT assisted, can be envisaged. Citizens must work to make transformation happen. Early approaches could include for instance:
"Watch Politics"
- process of government is monitored and criticised by (possibly representative) panels of citizens (e.g. finance watch, military affairs watch, social services watch). There would need to be specialised sub-groups. (Note: Electronically assisted cross-fertilisation among citizen-watch groups would put them collectively way ahead of government, which is hopelessly segregated into "ministries" and bureaucracies designed in the last century or even older.) To avoid fatal boredom and allow experience of different areas to accumulate, citizens' panels could rotate 5 yearly.
"Group around problems"
- in selected areas of public concern, citizens form "task groups" (again, these could be representative "samples" of a constituency, region,
country or larger polity e.g. Europe) , e.g. on health care, foreign aid, environment. Task groups could propose laws and policy, or propose solutions to problems. They could work through an exisiting power centre (e.g. a parliament) and/or by-pass it by appealing to the whole electorate, e.g. by initiating a referendum or by publishing recommendations for action by citizens. A difference between these "task groups" and existing grass-roots and lobby organisations is that they aim to evolve into forms and processes which allow all citizens to participate directly in self-government.
"Watch abuses"
- citizens in relatively stable and free systems must support (a) struggles for freedom from oppression (compare Amnesty International) (b) efforts to introduce democratic systems, especially citizens' rights to participate, in all regions of the world.
6. Conclusions
6.1 Concluding remarks
How could citizens rule? I prefer to "let the question answer itself". Let's leave it to them - the citizens: perhaps they will one day, acting in large numbers, put "the system" on the public agenda.
A few thoughts may be offered.
Given that there are only limited numbers of citizens who can and do act on any social matter or issue of apparent public concern, then the few active people need to be selective on issues, avoid getting bogged down in low-priority matters, or lost in a "morass" of administrative and political themes. Limited aims, some first steps, could include better liaison among citizens' initiatives and (looking critically at established grass-roots groups, social movements and some NGOs) more openness and sharing of knowledge and skills. Pilot projects, aimed to improve exisiting systems of public decision-making and citizen-politician communication should be suported and tried out in more countries and regions.
There are some challenges to be faced. Citizens, with enormous advantages brought by ICT, can work to abolish starvation and poverty, to drastically reduce human use of energy and throughput of materials, consumption and pollution. (For much of that citizens do not need government, only to convince enough fellow-citizens to change their lives.) They can improve and guarantee education, housing and health care (pressurising money holders and governments to help).
6.2 Concluding points
A. Relevant to increasing participation of citizens in social and political decision making, ICT can provide new means of political communication, increased access to information (if allowed by laws and conditions) and improved data handling.
B. Via the Internet there is much independent political information available. So, it is to be expected that the quality (at least in the sense of being better informed) of decision-making by citizens will increase. Until now, this applies mainly to voting for (choosing) delegates (representatives, parliamentarians), because direct democracy is relatively rare. General "political culture" of persons and societies may be expected to improve.
C. Projects and intitiatives of private and academic groups show that
(a) citizens from all walks of life can evaluate and reach coherent conclusions about complex public affairs and (b) there is strong interest among citizens of the general public to learn more about political issues and candidates, with a view to making better informed choices. ICT can assist here.
D. Improved information by governments and politicians can help citizens to decide which parties or candidates to chose, and to decide on public issues. This assumes that the quality and accessibilty of information is high.
E."Real" examples in which ICT has helped to increase participation of citizens officially in political decision-making are very rare. These innovations have apparently allowed in one case that constituents could influence how their delegate voted in parliament and in one case mandated his choice.
F. Direct ICT assisted decision-making by large constituencies (the electronic Agora) has not on a regular basis been introduced into politics as yet.
G. ICT as instrument(s) of politics will develop further. Citizens may organise, e.g. to protest against injustice in distant lands, or widely and rapidly spread information to gain support for political ideas (e.g. against Internet censorship, EZLN in Chiapas). The organisation of citizens to take more power via direct democracy and participation, assisted by ICTs or otherwise, is minimal at present, partly because, except in a few countries, effective (competent) access to ICT is percentually very low.
H. The lobby for democratic reform in general is weak, although probably growing, in the rich "western-style" democracies.
I. The problems faced by humanity are so great and urgent that, if citizens do not asume greater responsibility to seek wiser collective decisions and ensure their implementation, further catastrophe looms. ICT may possibly help to increase "collective human intelligence".
J.ICT applied in existing power structures and by private and commercial interests carries dangers for freedom and self-determination of citizens everywhere.
CVF California Voters Foundation
ETM "electronic town meeting"
EZLN Ejército Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional
FTP (file transfer protocoll).
HTML hypertext mark-up language
ICT information and communication technology
IRC internet relay chat
ISP Internet Service Provider
MODEM Modulator-Demodulator, connects computer to telephone system.
MED Minnesota Electronic Democracy
<http://freenet.msp.mn.us/govt/e-democracy>
NGO non-governmental organisation
TAN+N Teledemocracy Action News Network, in WWW <http://www.auburn.edu/tann>
URL Unique resource location (e.g. a "home page" in the WWW)
WWW World Wide Web
Aiken G.S. <http://www.dar.cam.ac.uk/gsa1001/aikens.html> 1996 (In case of difficulty contact G.Scott Aikens in England: <gsa1001@cus.cam.ac.uk>, in USA: <aikens@freenet.msp.mn.us>
Anderson R.H., Tora K. Bikson, T.K., Law S.A. and Mitchell B.M. Universal access to e-mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications. Report available via WWW <http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR650/> 1995.
Ascherson, N. Local government and the myth of sovereignty. 1994 Charter88 <http://www.gn.apc.org/charter88/pubs/sovlecs/aschersn.html>
Asunmaa P.: e-mail message to Internet forum.
Pentti Asunmaa <kupeas@uta.fi>/ Subject: IS projects in small municipalities/ To: el-democracy@www.ispo.cec.be
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 22:05:12 +0200 (EET)/ Archived at <http://www.ispo.cec.be/> (El-democracy list)
Becker T. Citizen Power <http://www.auburn.edu/tann> 1996
Barney D. and Laycock D. The Recline of Party: Armchair Democracy and the Reform Party of Canada <http://www.sfu.ca/igs/Barney.html> 1995
Boehnke K. and Macpherson M.J. Zum Einfluß atomarer Bedrohung auf das politische Engagement- Literaturübersicht und interkulturelle Vergleichsstudie. (On the influence of nuclear threat on political behaviour - literature overview and cross-cultural study.) In K. Boehnke, M.J. Macpherson & F. Schmidt (Eds.), Leben unter atomarer Bedrohung. Probleme und Ergebnisse internationaler Forschung. (Life under nuclear threat) Heidelberg: Asanger, 1989.
British Medical Journal. Citizens have their say on health care. p. 1164, No. 7066, Volume 313, 1996
Costello J. Towards a New Politics. Essay published in the electronic forum <pa-comnet@smart1.svi.org>19 Nov 1996. Essay available from joec@cts.com (Joe Costello), madavis@deliberate.com (Marilyn Davis), mjm@berlin.snafu.de (Michael Macpherson)
Etzioni A. Minerva: An Electronic Town Hall. Policy Sciences 3, pp. 457-474, 1972.
Hage C. C. Hage Associates <http://www.chage.com/chage/> 1996 In case of difficulty contact
Hage C. <carl@chage.com> Re: Participation (Messsage to electronic forum Electronic Democracy and Elections <edem-elect@freedom.mtn.org> Thu, 14 Nov 1996 18:46.
GOVNEWS Archive <http://www.govnews.org/>
Hurwitz R. and Mallery J.C. The Open Meeting: A Web-Based System for Conferencing and Collaboration. In: Proceedings of The Fourth International Conference on The World Wide Web, Boston: MIT, 10:30 am Tuesday December 12, 1995.
Howells M. Broadening Participation in the United Nations Habitat II Conference using Internet. <http://archpropplan.auckland.ac.nz/Planning/
Imsong Lee 1996: contact Imsong Lee, Ph.D., Chairman of PA COMNET
Internationale Stadt <http://www.is.in-berlin.de/> 1996.
Klearman L. Does the Internet destroy internal power of governments? (A study of China, Mexico, Russia and Singapore) <http://www.meaning.com/people/leah/paper/is495.html> 1996
Krause A. Notes from the Virtual Activist Workshop. Message to electronic forum <edem-elect@freedom.mtn.org> 20 Nov 1996.
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contact: Dr. Michael Macpherson via e-mail, mjm@berlin.snafu.de
URL of this document is <http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/CP/sec2.html
Hypertext: <http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/open-meeting/paper.html>
Postscript: <http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/open-meeting/paper.ps.Z>
Habitat/Participation/participation-ch2.html> 1996
http://www.city.palo-alto.ca.us/palo/city/pacomnet/welcome.html.cgi
E-mail contact: <akrause@igc.apc.org>
NetAction Web site at: <http://www.netaction.org>.
<http://www.snafu.de/~mjm> See (BACKGROUND to) INTEGRAL STUDIES
<http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/integral.studies.html> and PROPOSALS <http://www.snafu.de/~mjm/prop.html> 1995-1996.
<http://www.btwebworld.com/communities/Reports/ed.html> 1996.