Actor-Network Theory (ANT) was developed in the field of Science and Technology Studies as a means of conceptualising relations between people and material objects, or rather how those ‘actants’ own conceptualisations form shifting relationships that may be stabilised into material form. ANT originated through work of sociologists Callon, Latour, Law and colleagues in the 1980s, at the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (CSI) of the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris. Recent work has included a focus on democracy, technology and the ‘politics of things’ (e.g. the architecture of parliamentary assemblies) (see Latour & Weibel, 2005).


ANT treats “existing structures” as defined by social patterns institutionalized (“inscribed” in technology), and hence not necessarily confined to specific institutions such as organizations, neither determined by social practices (as technology is also “acting”). “Actor networks” are the most salient structures driving the technological development by “negotiations”.


References:

Latour, B., & Weibel (Eds.) (2005). Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy. Boston: MIT Press.

The approach provides a conceptual basis for investigating the relationship between human agents, objects and their environment, a relationship which is understood to be mediated by cultural means, tools and signs. Activity Theory derives from the 1930’s work of Soviet social psychologists Vygotsky, Leont'ev and Luria, and was introduced to the Information Systems field primarily through Engeström and colleagues. It has been used extensively to study collaborative systems (see Redmiles, 2002).



References:

Redmiles, D. (ed.) (2002). Special Issue of CSCW: Activity Theory and the Practice of Design Computer Supported Cooperative Work. 11(1-2).

1. User-to-user interaction focuses on forms that individuals use to interact with each other.
   • Research areas: Social interaction; Interpersonal interaction; Symbolic interaction etc.
   • Applications: E-mail; Electronic bulleting boards, discussion for a, chats etc.
2. User-to-documents interaction deals with ways that active audiences choose in order to interpret and use mass media messages. The audience interacts with the messengers and gets involved in the process of content creation.
   • Research areas: Parasocial interactions in radio, television, film and the illusion of face-to-face relationships with moderators, performers etc.
   • Applications: Early forms of teledemocracy; interactive television; news-on-demand systems etc.
3. User-to-system interaction involves all forms of interaction between people and computers.
   • Research areas: Explorations of Human-Technology Interfaces
   • Applications: Web-based forms; any computer-based instruction etc.

References:
McMillan? (2002)
Richards, R. (2006). Users, interactivity and generation. New Media & Society, 8(4), 531-550.

Theoretical inputs for research concerning the “embedding/adaptability”-approach ifib applies mainly come from the “contingency approach” in organizational theory (Kieser & Kubicek, 1983): While classical management theorists such as Taylor and Fayol, were looking for the one best way in management and organization design, in the late 50s and early 60s a shift of paradigm arose, claiming that the organizational structure of a company or administration has to fit to the situation in which it finds itself. As these situations vary, different structures turn out to be most effective. In other words the optimal organizational structure is contingent, depending on certain contextual factors. Therefore this approach is labelled Contingeny Approach, in German the context is termed “situation“; and the approach is called situational approach (“Situativer Ansatz“).


Different researchers focussed on different contextual factors and investigated their influence in empirical studies. Joan Woodward (1958) looked into the production technology, Blau and Schoenherr (1971) into the size of the organizations, Burns and Stalker (1961) as well as Lawrence and Lorsch (1967) into the economic environment, in particular market competition and technological change. A broader approach was developed by a British team of researchers at the University of Aston by developing a conceptual scheme for the comparative analysis of organizational structure which took account of several contextual factors at the same time (Pugh & Hickson et al., 1963). In a survey of more than 30 organizations, seven contextual variables such as size, technology, geographical dispersion as well as five dimensions of organization structure (specialization, centralization of decision making, standardization, formalization and configuration) were operationalized by more than 80 indicators. Statistical analysis was directed towards identifying correlations, which were found, for example, between the size of an organization and the degree of specialization and formalization, as predicted by Max Weber. Later John Child joined the Aston Team and added variables describing the role structure and behaviour of organizational members and the performance of the organization, which are considered to be the relevant criteria for judging the fit between the structure and its context.


The Aston research programme was adopted in studies in more than ten countries. The whole research is summarized in four volumes (Pugh/Hickson, 1976; Pugh & Hinings, 1976; Pugh & Payne, 1977; Hickson & McMillan?, 1981). Kieser and Kubicek summarized this and related research in a German Textbook in 1976, using the following conceptual model (figure 1):





Figure 1: Conceptual model of the contingency approach developed by Kieser and Kubicek (1983)

According to this model, the formal structure of an organization defines the roles of its members in a specific way and thereby directs their behaviour to a certain degree. The performance of the organization depends on the degree to which these role definitions enable members to cope with the requirements resulting from the context of the organization. For example if there is strong competition and a high degree of technological change, decisions about new products and marketing strategies have to be changed frequently and be taken close to the market. A formal structure with a high degree of centralization, specialization and formalization would not fit to the requirements resulting from this situation, rather roles defined by a low degree of these structural dimensions would enable members to act in the required flexible way.


The method to analyze and assess these kinds of relationships is the comparative quantitative analysis, in the most advanced stage a multi-level quantitative analysis, assigning data to the level of the context, the organization and its members. These variables are operationalized in quantitative indicators, and data are collected by standardized questionnaires distributed to several members of each organization under investigation and afterwards aggregated to different indices for each level (for more details see Kubicek, 1975).


Empirical studies conducted according to this model could identify some interesting relations but did not show very high correlations and clear cut patterns. Kubicek and Kieser in later editions of their textbook suggested to take into consideration additional factors such as the management philosophy and strategic aspects of top management as well as the broader socio-cultural context (Kieser & Kubicek, 3rd ed., 1992). But the introduction of additional variables did not increase the level of the correlations. The fit of an organizational structure with its context depends on too many aspects and seems to be too complex, to be precisely captured by linear quantitave relations.


However, the basic idea of the situational contingency of a particular object on its context as well as the idea that the performance of an institution depends on the fit between its properties and its relevant context is still valid and of great heuristic value as it suggests the critical examination of too early generalizations and asks for situational differentiation.


This analytical approach can be found in other areas of management theory too (e.g. leadership styles or strategic management) as well as in studies on the social shaping of technology. For example Mayntz and Schneider in a comparative study of the introduction of videotex in the United Kingdom, France and Germany used a conceptual framework according to which the final design of the technical system and its institutional arrangement was influenced by different constellations of actors in each country which acted in different contexts, defined by the respective legal system, political system, market structure and a different technological pool (Mayntz & Schneider, 1988, p. 282). Kubicek and Westholm used a contingency model of the deployment of e-democracy tools in their scenarios of the future use of this kind of tools (Kubicek & Westholm, 2005). The map of the socio-technical research landscape employed to map different subjects of research in DEMO-net is based on a contingency approach as well.





References

Blau, P.M., & Schoenherr, R.A. (1971). The Structure of Organizations. New York.

Burns, T., & Stalker, G. M. (1961). The Management of Innovation. London

Hickson, D.J., & McMillan?, C.J. (eds) (1981). Organization and Nation. The Aston Programme IV. Westmead – Farnborough.

Kieser, A., & Kubicek, H. (1983). Organisation, (3rd ed. 1992), Berlin – New York

Kubicek, H. (1975). Empirische Organisationsforschung. Stuttgart.

Lawrence, P. R., & Lorsch, J. W. (1967). Organization and Environment. Cambridge, Mass.

Pugh, D. S., & Hickson, D. J. et.al (1963). A Conceptual Scheme for Organizational Analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 8, 289 – 315

Pugh, D. S., & Hickson, D. J. (eds) (1976). Organizational Structure in its Context. The Aston Programme I. Westmead – Farnborough.

Pugh, D. S. & Hinings, C. R.. (eds) (1976). Organizational Structure. Extensions and Replications. The Aston Programme II. Westmead – Farnborough.

Pugh, D. S. & Payne, R. L. (eds) (1977). Organizational Behavior in Iis Context. The Aston Programme III. Westmead – Farnborough.

Woodward, J. (1958). Industrial Organization. Theory and Practice. London.

In addition to linguistic theory, CDA draws from social theory and contributions from Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu — in order to examine ideologies and power relations involved in discourse. According to Fairclough (1989, p. 15) “language connects with the social through being the primary domain of ideology, and through being both a site of, and a stake in, struggles for power”.



References:

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. Second edition. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Since the 1990s another theory of democratic participation has become quite popular (see Eriksen 2000, 47): Deliberative democracy (see Winkler, 2006). Basically, this theory attempts to strengthen representative democratic systems but it is also increasingly discussed in relation to supranational polities (e.g. in the context of the EU).

The theory of deliberative democracy emerges from a rich history of debates on normative conceptions dealing with questions of inclusion of citizens in policy-making and the necessity to develop vibrant political public spheres for political debates. The approaches put forward by e.g. Rawls, Habermas, Cohen or Fishkin provide broad outlines for a model of normative justification for public deliberation. In their theories, these authors recognise and stress the importance of deliberative dialogue for a more inclusive and fair society. Some foci accentuate the significance of public reasoning about a problem of common concern (Cohen & Fishkin) others the existence of a non-coercive communication sphere (Habermas) or the emphasis on fairness of the deliberative process and mutual respect among participants (Rawls).

However, deliberative democracy is also subject to some substantial criticism as for instance expressed by Chantal Mouffe. She considers too many shortcomings in the deliberative view of democratic participation. Mouffe points out that proponents of deliberative democracy deny the dimension of “ineradicability of antagonism”, which is supposed to be a constitutive element of political life. Accordingly, it appears to be a “naïve assumption” that there is something like a political public sphere enabling rational consensus since pluralism has an inherently conflicting nature. Mouffe holds that “a well functioning democracy calls for a vibrant clash of democratic political positions. (…) Too much emphasis on consensus and the refusal of confrontation, lead to apathy and dissatisfaction with political participation” (Mouffe, 2000, p. 13ff.).

Apart from such critique, deliberative practices have played a crucial role in modern public discussion programmes, though (e.g. citizen juries or study circles) (see Gastil, 2000, p. 357). One major objective of deliberative democracy is that individuals are prepared and willing to be “moved” by reason. Citizens may change their opinions and preferences as a result of the reflection induced by deliberative communication (see Dryzek, 2000, p. 31).


References:

Dryzek, J. (2000). Deliberative Democracy and Beyond. Liberals, Critics, Contestations. Oxford: University Press.

Eriksen, E. (2000). Deliberative supranationalism in the EU. In: E. Eriksen & J. Fossum (Eds.). Democracy in the European Union. Integration through deliberation?(pp. 42-65). London; New York: Routledge

Gastil, J. (2000). Is Face-to-Face Citizen Deliberation a Luxury or a Necessity? Political Communication, 17, 357-361.

Mouffe, C. (2000). Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism. Political Science Series Vol. 72. Vienna: Institute of Advanced Studies.

Winkler, R. (2006). PhD? thesis. Electronic Participation: Potentials and constraints of online debates and online consultations at the EU’s interactive platform Your Voice in Europe (interim report).

Point of departure is taken in different normative models of democracy (competitive elitists, consumerist, participatory and deliberative). In particular, the deliberative model is discussed in relation to the classical Habermas model of the political public. This discussion is inspired by democratic theorists as Dryzek (2002), Eriksen & Weigaard (2003) and Loftager (2004) and media theorists as Thompson (1995), Slevin (2000) and Schudson (1997). Particular related to eParticipation a distinction is made between the supply of e-tools that may help create new political opportunity structures for citizens and the demand for or the use of such e-tools among citizens. Such a “market-approach” to e-participation is inspired by the works of Pippa Norris (2004). As to the political effects of e-participation both Dahl’s criteria of democratization (Dahl, 1989) and theories of the policy-cycle ranging from agenda-setting to policy-outcomes are included (Albæk, 2004; Larsen & Goul Andersen, 2004).



References:


Dahl, R.A. (1989). Democracy and its critics. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Dialectics is seen as a central driver or mechanism for organizational change and development (Van de Ven & Pool, 1995). The key element in the dialectical analysis of development is explicit thinking in terms of contradictions (Mathiassen & Nilsen, 1989). A contradiction takes place between two opposite aspects, thesis and antithesis. One aspect, the thesis in a contradiction, cannot be fully understood without considering the other aspect, the antithesis. In dialectical process theory, stability and change are explained by reference to the balance of power between opposing entities. Change occurs when these opposing values, forces or events gain sufficient power to confront and engage the status quo. A thesis may be challenged by an antithesis, and the resolution of the contradiction becomes a synthesis (Van de Ven & Pool, 1995). Contradictions are certainly present in eParticipation projects and dialectics may serve as a way of analyzing change related to eParticipation efforts.







References:


Mathiassen, L., & Nilsen, P. A. (1989). Soft Systems and Hard Contradictions - Approaching the Reality of Informations Systems in Organizations. Journal of Applied Systems Analysis 16, 75-88.

Van de Ven, A. H., & Pool, M. S. (1995) Explaining development and change in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 20, 510-540.

Partner Leeds is very engaged in models of democracy and much of Stephen Coleman’s work is devoted to a rejection of the direct/indirect democracy model. The new term is called Direct Representation. The argument, stated in its simplest form, is that democracy works best when voters and representatives connect: exchanging views, accounting for themselves to each other, and, ideally, sharing a common world. Textbook histories of democracy tend to draw a sharp contrast between modern representative democracy and the direct, or participatory, democracy of the ancient world, while contemporary, academic, political theorists tend to equate representative democracy with formal mechanisms of representation – they are more interested in voting systems than in the way that citizens and representatives interact, or fail to interact. But modern representative democracy has always been shot through with ‘direct’ or participatory elements; the public has engaged, not just through voting, but at public meetings, in representatives’ surgeries, through the postbag, on the doorstep, or in the many forums offered by, first, the printed press, and, later, radio and TV. As the public becomes less deferential, and new means of two-way electronic communication evolve, citizens want more of this sort of direct exchange with their representatives. They want to be heard by politicians and have opportunities to converse with them. They want to be understood by them and to understand them. Much of the current dissatisfaction with our political system can be traced to its failure to supply this sort of understanding (see Coleman, 2006).

References:

Coleman, S. (forthcoming 2006). How The Other Half Votes. International Journal of Cultural Studies.

The genre perspective is one way of studying the emergence of new media or sub-media (Ihlström, 2004). The term genre originally describes a distinctive type or category of literary composition (Ihlström, 2004). The genre perspective was introduced to IS research by Yates and Orlikowski (1994; 1992) who investigated organizational communication based on it. By employing various computing devices and the internet, the genre research agenda has broadened not only to organizational, but also digital genres (Ihlström, 2004). The genre perspective employs communication, while also exploring the rationale or reason for enacting the communication (Ihlström, 2004). In general, genre of communication is characterized by socially recognised substance and common characteristics of form(s) identified by a community (Yates & Orlikowski, 1992). Substance refers to social motives, such as purpose of communication (Honkaranta, 2003). Form of a genre refers to physical and linguistic features like layout, language and media (Honkaranta, 2003; Yates & Orlikowski, 1992). The theory helps focus on communication needs in eParticipation projects and the context, substance and form the eParticipation technology is embedded in.







References:


Honkaranta, A. (2003). From Genres to Content Analysis. University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä.

Ihlström, C. (2004). The Evolution of a New(s) Genre. Göteborg University, Gothenburg.

Yates, J., & Orlikowski, W. J. (1992). Genres of Organizational Communication: A Structurational Approach to Studying Communication and Media. Academy of Management Review, 17(2), 299-326.

Theories of governance emphasize the regulatory function of the state to guide or steer our collective behaviour to achieve common interests. The governance perspective emphasizes open, transparent collaboration and participation among actors in complex, networked interrelationship, as an alternative model to hierarchical and authoritative control regimes.

In the public context, governance is about how to steer or guide society so as to best serve public interests and achieve the common good. The life cycle of legislation model of governance leads to an appreciation of the potential of legal knowledge-based systems. Focusing on the implementation phase of the legislation life cycle, it is discussed how legal knowledge-based systems can be used to improve the correctness, consistency, transparency and efficiency of deep transactions, i.e. those determinative processes of public administration requiring the application of complex legislation and regulations. Most efforts of public administration to bring transactions online have been restricted to simple transactions requiring little or no knowledge of the law, such as change of address notifications. Only when deep transactions are supported will the full potential of information and communications technology to improve the quality and efficiency of public administration be fully realized. Legal knowledge-based systems are a mature and proven technology with the capability to help realize the potential of eGovernance. (Gordon 2006)







References:

Gordon, T. F (2006). Encyclopedia of Digital Government. Idea Group, Hershey, Pennsylvania, ch. Legal Knowledge Systems, pp. 1161–1166.

The information architecture of Mok (1996) investigates information systems from different viewpoints, different levels of abstraction and by complexity. It thereby tries to incorporate the corporate design, strategic goals, processes and content of an organisation into a comprehensive “outfit”. Three levels of design are described (see figure 1): The first level, Identity Design, addresses the identity of an organisation, i.e. how the organisation expresses its mission and overall visions and intents towards the outside (the customers, citizens, etc.). The second level, Information Design, treats information by giving it a context. The third level, Interactivity Design, is about facilitating and mediating interaction between components. The interaction level is the turning point where the information objects and processes are being integrated. It is the level, where a specific process execution is defined and where the interaction with other systems comes in. Interaction describes a process in its interaction among different system components and how the interfaces for the interaction are being composed. Apart from that, information is integrated.



Figure 1: The Architecture part of the Information Architecture by Mok (1996)



Mok also details information in a way to decompose it till the physical storage layer.

The Information Architecture of Mok can help eParticipation systems design to guide especially in the way how to present and design solutions an a comprehensible way.

Institutional theory observes that organizations are stable entities, hard to change, and thus IS development will happen much as restricted by the rules and culture of the organization in which the systems are implemented. As most eGov systems are developed within the administration sphere, institutional theory would suggest culture clashes for systems developed to be used across two or more spheres, as social, political and professional institutions act to consensually structure social relations (see March et al., 1989; Powell et al., 1991).

According to institutional theories, the values, rules, or the patterns of interactions of individuals within institutions explain the decisions governments make. Individuals remain important actors in these theories, but there is greater leverage to be gained through understanding the institutional frameworks within which they operate. A central idea in all accounts of institutions is that they are enduring entities: they cannot be changed at once at the will of the agents. Institutional theories thus provide accounts on the constraints that institutions impose on action but, as has been pointed out by Jane Fountain, these theories also leave unanswered questions in relation to new technologies. According to her, it is important to expand or extend institutional theory so that it takes into account the new technology – how institutional conditions influence the development, use and effects of the Internet, as well as how the Internet influences the context in which norms and rules influence perception and action.





References:

March, J.G. & Olsen J.P. (1989). Rediscovering Institutions. The Organizational Basis for Politics. New York: The Free Press.

Powell, W., & DiMaggio?, P. (1991). The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. University of Chicago Press.

Another theory of eParticipation is inspired by two major sets of political ideas: participatory and liberal democracy. Zittel (2001) argues that according to this distinction e-democracy can be analysed on three levels: A general concept of democracy, an institutional/structural dimension (democratic design), and a behavioural dimension (participatory behaviour). The participatory and the liberal ideas of democracy involve different views of citizenship. The individual as part of the political community is the basis of the participatory ideal. Citizens should become engaged in political processes as much as possible. The participatory idea involves elements of direct and representative democracy which become visible in citizens' active role in opinion formation and decision-making processes. The emergence of ICTs? has extended the research questions and different frameworks of analysis can be detected concerning the role of ICTs? in this context. Among the group of eParticipation proponents there are those political representatives and scholars who assume a causal relationship between technological innovation and democratic change and those who consider ICTs? as means to renew existing democratic practices (such as deliberation and voting processes) and public institutions. The liberal concept stresses the antagonism between the individual and the political community and perceives individuals as autonomous within the community. Since the liberal idea of democracy has become the dominant paradigm in Western societies, democratic participation in a “liberal sense” is based upon a strictly representative system. The main problem arising in this context is reflected in citizens' participation options which are mainly restricted to "voting" actions.




References:

Zittel, T. (2001). Elektronische Demokratie. Planskizze für eine Demokratie des 21. Jahrhunderts? Neue Politische Literatur, 46(3), 433-470.

Participatory design is an approach to design that attempts to actively involve the end users in the design process to help ensure that the product designed meets their needs and is usable. Participatory design grew out of systems development research in Scandinavia from the beginning of the 1970ies onwards, building on action research and a socio technical approach to work organization emphasizing self-guidance in groups. Participatory design work comprise conceptualization, construction and collaboration, and the use of design techniques such as scenarios, games, and mock ups, with extensive use of video, and communication based on mutually respectful dialogues between designers and users.

Research of Fraunhofer FOKUS is theoretically based on Douglas Walton's philosophy of argumentation, which provides a theoretical foundation and normative model for plausible argumentation with defeasible generalizations, as needed for practical reasoning and decision-making in the face of incomplete and inconsistent information, conflicting goals and interests of multiple stakeholders, under time and other resource constraints (see Gordon et al., 2006; Walton, 2006, 2004, 2002, 1998).




References:

Gordon, T., Prakken, H., & Walton, D. (2006). The Carneades Model of Argument and Burden of Proof, preprint submitted to Elsevier (31st October 2006).

Walton, D. (1998a). Appeal to Popular Opinion. University Park, Pa.: Penn State Press.

Walton, D. (1998b). The New Dialectic: Conversational Contexts of Argument. Toronto, University of Toronto Press.

Walton, D. (2002). Ethical Argumentation. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books.Walton, D. (2004). Relevance in Argumentation. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Walton, D. (2006). Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation. New York: Cambridge: University Press.

A thesis represented by Leeds is that political systems are technologies and that technologies are political systems. What is meant by that? Most scholars agree that governance has always been dependent upon technology, in the broadest sense of knowledge, skills, techniques and epistemological strategies, as well as devices, hardware, software and power circuits. As the reach of governance has spread – into new areas of the globe as well as new aspects of hitherto personal relationships -, it has come to rely upon more complex assemblages of technically stored and disseminated knowledge. But here it is been contended that technologies are constitutive tools: they do not simply support predetermined courses of action, but open up new spaces of action. For example, the emergence of the printing press in Europe generated a space in which publics could come together as cohabitants of imagined communities; centralised states could disseminate their propaganda to mass populations; and vernacular idioms and dialects could be systematised into official languages. As Anderson argues, ‘the convergence of capitalism and print technology on the fatal diversity of human language created the possibility of a new form of imagined community, which in its basic morphology set the stage for the modern nation.’ Because technologies are not simply used by governments, but are a constitutive element of governance, it makes sense to think of the rules, routines, structures, language, skills and networks of governance as a political technology.”

Similarly, it makes sense to think of e-technologies as political systems, insofar as that they are designed to produce specific particular ends. That is to say, democratic citizenship is not a neutral or simply descriptive concept, but a normative political aspiration. Historically, citizenship has been regarded as a birthright, the entitlements of which have been the subject of contestation and negotiation over the past three centuries. The free citizen is characterised by autonomous moral agency which is most potently exercised within the public sphere. In this sense, it is the liberal freedom from interference, especially by the state, which makes civic action so precious to effective democracy. More recently, however, a number of cultural and political trends have precipitated a shift towards what Garland has called ‘the responsibilization of citizenship.’ These trends include the weakening of strong welfare structures, which leave more people, in more areas of life, having to fend for themselves; the decline of political deference and rise of volatile political consumerism, which leaves citizens feeling rather like shoppers who can buy whatever they want, as long as they can afford it and predict the uncertain consequences; and the adoption of a strong ideological commitment by both conservatives and social democratics towards a belief that social rights must be balanced by communitarian duties. The need to produce citizens who are prepared for these new conditions has given rise to an expanded field of pedagogy which includes citizenship education in schools; risk communication; the training of expert patients; offender rehabilitation schemes; lifestyle courses and various projects to promote ‘sensible’ interactions with the media. Citizenship becomes something more like an apprenticeship. One is no longer simply governed; one is educated through a variety of practices, discourses and technologies to become a responsible collaborator in governance.

E-governance technologies can be understood as political projects designed to shape and promote such norms of skill and knowledge. Learning to be an e-citizen entails becoming familiar with techniques of online information-searching, protocols for digitally interacting and the legal regulation of software use. The cultivation of these skills – often referred to as digital literacy - not only point citizens towards a particular view of governance, but govern the process of being governed. What has been called ‘digital literacy’ is a regulatory project intended to cultivate a citizenry capable of responsible digital interaction. In the context of e-governance, this includes knowing which level of governance one should address in relation to particular problems; being able to navigate through the bureaucratic divisions of departmental and agency remits; behaving in a civilized way; and having appropriate (i.e. well managed) expectations about outcomes. From the perspective of governmentality, none of these skills are politically neutral. A good example of this is the way in which most e-government websites seek to draw an artificial distinction between governance and politics. (For example, few local authority websites in the UK explain the partisan composition of council committees; and councilors are not allowed to use official web spaces to promote their ‘political’ views.) This online illusion reinforces an implicit view that governments are there to get things done efficiently and politics is there to cause arguments and get in the way.” Leed’s argument is that these are not outcomes of technology, but of the political cultures that govern the production and use of technologies.

E-participation can be understood as a dimension of a broader social and political transformation process of the participation in the networked and knowledge-based society, within a cultural and political context stressing efficiency priorities and market rationality and where the public sphere has been strongly affected by an intense process of market colonization. In this landscape the notion/function of democratic politics itself appears subjected to a great transformation, as some scholars has underlined (Crouch, 2005; Beck, 1992). In this perspective, one crucial issue deals with the possible roles played by ICTs? in the shaping of a new vision of politics and democracy in contemporary society.

The current social transformation of the form of citizens’ participation has its roots in the structural and cultural transformations underlined by sociological theory on post-modern/post-industrial and globalized society (Bauman, 2001a, 2001b; Beck, 1992, 1999; Castells, 1996; Giddens, 1984; Touraine, 1984). E-democracy and e-participation pertain to a specific political context linked to the paradigm of neo-liberal society (Barber, 2004).

In fact, in this theoretical line relevant elements on the social landscape of e-participation are for example: the individualized society emerging from neo-liberal globalization; the impact of globalization on the perceived legitimacy of the political institutions; the growing distrust for formal politics and the pervasion of the politics as a robust dimension of the individuals experience outside from the political institutions and discourse (e.g. in the field of the private life and consumption styles); the new organizations and claims emerging from the social movements wave at the beginning of the new century, experimenting more individualized mobilizations and a wide set of multifaceted identities/belongings.

The different ways social/political actors use ICTs? in their relationships can't be understood without reference to this changing context where divergent organizational opportunities are challenging the previous institutional settings and each others. For a rich overview on this approach underling the relationships among institutional and technological developments see Hargittai, Di Maggio, Neuman, Robinson (2001).







References:

Barber, B. (2004). Which technology and which democracy. In H. Jenkins & D. Thorburn, Democracy and New media. MIT Press.

Bauman, Z. (2001a). The Individualized Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bauman, Z. (2001b). Community. Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.

Beck, U. (1999). What Is Globalization? Cambridge: Polity Press.

Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.

Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hargittai, E., Di Maggio, P., Neuman, W.R. & Robinson, J.P.(2001). The social implications of the Internet. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 307-336.

Touraine, A. (1984). Le retour de l'acteur. Paris: Fayard.

A further group of theories and empirical sociological studies of reference (Bagnasco, 2003; Trigilia, 2005; Le Gales, 2005) has stressed the capacity of local societies and economies to manage the challenges coming from the globalized knowledge based economy and its political consequences. Local societies are actively experimenting with new models of local governance through the increasingly inclusion of social partners and civil society in the policy making, stressing the cooperation between public and private sectors/actors around the building of a common view/project on the future of their communities (local development pacts, strategic urban planning, Agenda 21, etc.). This is a possible perspective on the rebuilding of social and political relationships from below, in the specific meaning of local/regional communities integrating public and private actors, answering to the trend of growing fragmentation and dis-embbeding of social relationships implied in the actual form of globalization.







References:

Bagnasco, A. (2003). Società fuori squadra. Come cambia l’organizzazione sociale. Bologna: Mulino.

Le Galès, P. (2005). Le città europee. Società urbane, globalizzazione, governo locale. Bologna: Mulino.

Trigilia, C. (2005). Sviluppo locale. Bari: Laterza.

The socio-technical approach by Cherns (1976) is a basic framework for understanding and designing socio-technical systems. The fundamental assumption is that more effective and successful systems can be designed if human and social considerations are taken into account in a systematic and coherent manner. Cherns (1976) defined a list of key principles of socio-technical design which is strongly influenced by the notion of a participative process:

• Compatibility: The process of design must be compatible with its objectives • Minimal Critical specification: No more detail in design than needed, but design must express the essential requirements.

• Socio-technical Criterion: Control is local and awarded to the immediate work team – the aim is to make supervision normal

• Multi-function: Individuals and groups need a range of tasks to provide satisfying jobs and for redundancy and flexibility.

• Boundary location: Boundaries are political, boundaries are to be managed.

• Information flow: Eschew information intermediaries – information should flow initially to the prime user group.

• Support congruence: Systems should be established within a framework of social support for desired behaviour.

• Design and human values: Emphasis in design is placed on quality of working life.

• Incompletion: Design is iterative and continuous.

The key principles for design should support in exploiting the knowledge of people within a design activity and in delivering improved and flexible work practices for organisations. Cherns (1976) expresses the goal for socio-technical design as developing “a system capable of self-modification, of adapting to change and of making the most of the creative capacities of the individual”. In this way not only are people fitted to strong technological structures, but also the organisations themselves are to be formed and shaped around dominant technologies. Hence, development does not determine with the definition of the job, task or the work group, but it requires a more comprehensive design endeavour. The contribution of socio-technical theory has been in informing and extending the design process to include a consideration of individual and group interests and to provide means for their expression because new working systems based on technological innovations are established (cf. Mumford, 1996; Lin & Cornford, 2000).





References:

Cherns, A. (1976). The principles of sociotechnical design. Human Relations, 29(8), 783-792.

Another model of understanding the interrelations of socio-technical system components is Edwards’ SHEL model (Edwards, 1972). The author introduced the Software, Hardware, Environment and Liveware (SHEL) model in the context of safety-critical systems (see figure 1). Thereby, the components stand for:

S - Software: Non-material part of systems which includes practices, procedures, regulations etc.

H - Hardware: Technical systems and equipment, also tools and manuals etc.

E - Environment: The Environment includes all external influences and factors such as policies, cultural restrictions, etc.

L - Livewire: The Human as component. This component includes operators, managers and clients being involved in the productive process.

The important aspect is the interaction among the three components in order to achieve a certain objective. Consequently, the heart of the model are the communication and relational aspects of the model.

The SHEL Model expresses the interrelationships and interdependencies of different systemic components on the one hand and the human component on the other hand under the influence of environmental conditions. Edwards’ observations are that socio-technical systems are always shaped by the three components S H L embedded in an E. Any change of a component impacts the others. When introducing e.g. a certain technology into a working environment, this has, consequently, an implication to the people working in the environment and to the processes in this environment.





Figure 1: The SHEL model by Edwards

The combination of hardware, software and human resources do not exist in vacuum. They always operate in a context of economic, political, historical or socio-cultural factors. However, environmental factors are in the minority of cases subject of change or even changeable.

Kawano (2002) extended the SHEL model of Edwards into the m-SHEL model by adding an ‘m’ for management (control of the system).

The SHEL model serves as a basic understanding for eParticipation as a multi-disciplinary and socio-technical system context.





References:

Edwards, E. (1972). Man and machine: Systems for safety. In Proc. of British Airline Pilots Associations Technical Symposium, (pp. 21-36). British Airline Pilots Associations, London

Stakeholder theory evolved from Freeman’s (1984) stakeholder approach to strategic management in the mid 1980ies. Freeman argued that monitoring and satisfying the interests of relevant stakeholders ultimately leads to improved corporate performance and sustainability. Stakeholder theory expanded to include descriptive ways of modelling and understanding organisations, ethical considerations of how organisations should interact with society and finally to provide evidence supporting the benefits of stakeholder management (Donaldson & Preston, 1995). The theory has spread to several disciplines, including e-Government where the theory has been applied related to managing the ongoing e-transformation (Scholl, 2005) and has been suggested as a suitable approach for investigating both ethical and practical aspects of changes in the relationship between governments and their constituents caused by implementation of new technology (Flak & Rose, 2005).







References:

Donaldson, T., & Preston, L. E. (1995). The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation - Concepts, Evidence, and Implications. Academy of Management Review, 20, 65-91.

Flak, L. S., & Rose, J. (2005). Stakeholder Governance: Adapting Stakeholder Theory to the e-Government Field. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 16, 642-664.

Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic Management. A Stakeholder Approach. Boston: Pitman.

Scholl, H. J. (2005). Involving Salient Stakeholders: Beyond the Technocratic View on Change. Action Research (AR), 2, 281-308.

Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory (Giddens, 1984; 1990) draws together the two principal strands of social thinking. In the structuralist tradition the emphasis is on social structure (which is primarily seen as a form of constraint over human behaviour), whereas in the phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions the human agent is the primary focus. Structuration theory attempts to recast structure and agency as a mutually dependent duality. Human actors display agency, but in a structural context, and this mutually dependent relationship (structure influences action, action influences structure) evolves over time and space. In this way many micro actions come to constitute the social interaction. The theory helps illuminate both how participation is embedded in its social context and how it evolves over time. Technology is in this context socially transformative as well as socially transformed and hence any process study needs to consider the interdependence of human action and social structure.





References:

Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Giddens, A. (1990). The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

The information traffic patterns model (developed by Bordewijk & Kaam, 1986) is of particular importance since it sheds light on the new of new media. This model focuses on four different information and communication patterns and makes the major differences between electronic (broadcasting) and new media more visible (see Latzer, 1997, p. 166). Bordewijk and Kaam (1986) and McQuail? (1994, p. 41), who further developed this model, show how ICTs? break up dominant communication patterns (e.g. such as the “one-to-many” information flow representing a basic principle of broadcasting) and how this impacts on the “power relations” (in terms of control over time, topic and place of communication and the information storage) between communicators and recipients. “Emphasizing the control aspect of information flows, it [the “information traffic patterns model”]? reveals the power structure underlying the flows of information, as well the extent to which information flows reinforce, or possibly transform, the power structure” (Koert van, 2003, p. 13; completion in brackets added).

The issue of control over time, topic and place of communication and information and role of the involved “actors” (in the model labelled as the individual and the center) becomes more clearly in Koert’s explanations of the four different modes (Koert van, 2003, p. 13f. referring to Bordewijk and Van Kaam, 1982).

• Allocution: Information is distributed from a center to many peripheral receivers, a pattern that applies to mass media (radio and television). The topic and time of the communication process are controlled by the center, which typically also controls the information storage. This ITP [information traffic pattern]? tends to strengthen existing power structures.
• Consultation: An individual in the periphery searches for information from a central source. In principle, the individual has control over time, topic and often also place of communication process, but the center retains control over the information storage. Consulting databases, libraries and information centers are examples of this ITP. By itself this ITP does not strengthen the existing power structure, but it does sustain, or create, dependencies.
• Conversation: Individuals in the periphery (through technical, for example, telephone and radio-communication, or social networks) interact directly with each other, bypassing the center. This ITP is, in principle, the only ITP with a tendency to challenge, and possibly change, the existing power structure in favor of decentralization of control over information and knowledge.
• Registration: A center requests/collects information from the periphery, often without the total awareness of the individual in the periphery. Typically, the center controls time and subject and the information is added to the center’s information storage. The most relevant aspect of this ITP is that the information collection supports the allocution pattern. At the same time, it reinforces the position of the center in the power structure.”

Figure 1: Information traffic patterns and trends;  source: Latzer 1997, 167 (referring to the typology of Bordewijk & Kaam, 1986 and the presentation put forward in McQuail?, 1994, p. 419)

According to this model the dominance of the allocution mode decreases in the context of ICTs?, while the conversation mode (one-to-one) (e.g. through e-mail conversation) and the consultation mode gain importance due to interactive information and communication networks. The conversation mode also involves group communication i.e. communication processes that are undertaken by a few people (e.g. via a discussion forum) through ICTs?. The registration mode describes information flows between service providers (e.g. Internet providers) and service clients (e.g. subscribers of online information). This information exchange produces enormous amounts of data, which often touch privacy protection issues (see Latzer, 1997, p. 167). However, discussions about enhanced political participation options due to ICTs? have to be analysed critically. Although interactivity is a core feature of ICTs?, it has to be considered that “there is no automatically democratic character to the new media” and “democratic practice must be established within political culture” (Coleman, 1999, p. 197). This consideration is to counteract any form of technological determinism, which oversees that “monological media” (such as TV or radio) have also developed a few forms of “interactive communication” (e.g. phone-ins).

Conceptual framework of electronic participation

A general typology of public engagement mechanisms is provided by Rowe and Frewer (2005). It has its merits in offering a rather comprehensive integration of different forms of public participation, both offline and online. While such a combined view is required, a flaw of this typology is the lack of differentiation regarding online forms of public participation.

The information traffic model is also adequate to classify different forms of eParticipation options (see Dijk, 2000, p. 46). The importance of this model for the issue of political participation is rooted in its appropriateness “for a classification of the extremely diverging applications of new media in politics (Dijk, 2000, p. 46). Table 1 represents some of the new, ICT-based forms of political participation.

Table 1:     Applications of ICT in politics and democracy

 Source: Dijk, 2000, p. 40 (including slight adjustments). 

When debating the role of ICTs? for political participation, the conversation mode is supposed to be the one, which gains particular significance for the establishment of networks among citizens since it makes citizens less dependent from “information and communication centeres” in terms of time, content and place of communication. It involves those forms of political participation that build on the exchange of information and communication (see Dijk, 2000, p. 46). From a government perspective, eParticipation options belonging to the registration mode are very popular and mostly used to either collect citizens’ opinions or to conduct elections, referenda etc. online.

References:

Bordewijk, J.& Kaam van, B. (1986). Towards a New Classification of Tele-Information Services. Intermedia, 14(1), 16-21.

Coleman, S. (1999). Cutting out the middle man: from virtual representation to direct deliberation. In B. Hague & B. Loader, (eds.), Digital democracy. Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age (pp. 195-210). London; New York: Routledge.

Dijk, J. (2000). Models of Democracy and Concepts of Communication. In J. Dijk, & K.  Hacker (eds.), Digital Democracy – Issues of Theory & Practice(pp. 30-54). London: Thousand Oaks; New Delhi: SAGE.

Koert van, R. (2003). E-media in development: Combining multiple e-media types. First Monday, Peer-reviewed journal on the Internet, Vol. 8 (2), http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_2/koert

Latzer, M. (1997). Mediamatik – Die Konvergenz von Telekommunikation, Computer und Rundfunk. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

McQuail?, D. (1994). Mass Communication Theory. Third edition. London: SAGE.

The Information Age trilogy (Castells, 1996; 1997; 1998) theorizes ‘a world reconstituting itself around a series of networks strung around the globe on the basis of advanced communication technologies’ (Stalder, 2006). The network theme represents both a new ordering of society (no longer primarily hierarchical) and the technological means which make it possible – the internet. Particularly interesting for eParticipation studies are Castells’ analyses of social movements as the engine of political change in society, the network state and informational politics. Unlike many other macro theories of society and social change, information technology is integrated into the theory.

References:

Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.

Castells, M. (1997). The Power of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell.

Castells, M. (1998). End of Millenium. Oxford: Blackwell.

Stalder, F., & Castells, M. (2006). The Theory of the Network Society. Polity, Malden.

A specific focus is the relation between technology and humans and their organizations. This field was earlier, in the 1970s, called sociotechnical studies (Mumford), but over the years several other theories have been devised to study that, some of which are also related to institutions (such as Structuration theory, see Orlikowski, 1992), some of which focus more on actors (such as Actor Network Theory, see Latour, 1991), and some of which focus more on social groups (such as SCOT, Social Construction of Technology, see Bijker & Law, 1994).

References:

Bijker, W. E., & Law, J. (1994). Shaping Technology/Building Society. Studies in Sociotechnological Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Orlikowski,W.J. (1992). The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. Organizations Science, 3 (3), 398-427.

This macro-theory of societal and political processes developed by Etzioni (1968) represents a plea for strengthening a bottom up way of societal guidance and self-determined action by committed citizens safeguarding the responsiveness of political and societal organisation towards the concerns of its members. This conception of society does not only presuppose the active engagement of the constituency in its public concerns but also the provision of adequate means to develop, express and exercise its voice, including in particular institutional, organisational and technical means.

References:

Etzioni, A. (1968). The Active Society: A Theory of Societal and Political Processes. New York: Free Press.

The purpose of this simple and high-level theory of eGovernment information systems developed by the DemocrIT? research group of Örebro University is mainly to contribute to a more realistic and governance focused view on the idea of eGov than the more technical and determinist one currently prevailing. This is done on an empirical basis, but not by testing the theory. This could be done, authors believe, as there now is some eGov reality to be investigated, but would require another paper to be done in any credible manner.

While some thirty years of studies of information systems have produced many theories concerning IT use in organizations, eGov studies require going beyond the border of the organization as government/nance cannot be reduced to individual organizations, not even if interorganizational cooperation is included. Here a theory is proposed that considers governance as a system rather than in terms of its individual organizational units and processes, and views information systems from that perspective. The theory draws on both theories of government and theories of IT in organizations, and proposes the following:

Governance is for this purpose best described in terms of a system consisting of three interrelated societal spheres: the political sphere, the administrative sphere, and civil society (including individuals, organizations, media and the public sphere). These spheres have different nature in terms of their motivation, interests, focus unit, and mode of operation. The successful eGov information systems will be those who best and most constructively integrate interests and modes of operation of all three spheres.

In other words, the complete system, including the spheres and the processes that tie them together, constitutes a democratic infrastructure, which serves both as a limiting factor for rapid technology-driven development and as support for long-term success of changes designed to meet the success criteria suggested by the theory.

A general governance model

To discuss electronic governance or electronic government theoretically, there is a need for a model of government that goes beyond the individual organization. Most e-government discussions and systems so far do not do that. They focus on the operations of one single organization – e g job office e-services (Wiberg, 2002). or car license renewal – or (one or a few) processes that stretch over two or more organizations but without changing the rationale of any of the organizations (e g one-stop shops). Also, as some authors have noted, eGov projects typically apply an information processing view of government activities and do not consider other aspects of government (Zouridis & Thaens, 2002). In a systems perspective this too narrow approach means a risk for suboptimization in two respects, technically (information processing regarded too narrowly in terms of coverage of the whole government) and functionally (a too narrow view of what government is all about). As an example of the latter, Zouridis & Thaens (Zouridis & Thaens, 2002) argue that this approach to eGov will lead to solidification of a certain distribution of power, transformation of citizenship into consumership, and rationalization of legal and policy processes into administrative-technical ones (Zouridis & Thaens, p. 127-128).

Unlike businesses and individual government organizations, government as a whole (as opposed to individual politicians and parties) does not have a clearly defined goal in terms of where to go. It does have a goal, however, in terms of maintaining a balance among different interests in society so as to maintain general interests such as peace, individual freedom and privacy, a viable economic system and so on. Hence, government is an infrastructure guarantor.

The term government covers several aspects of managing a country (or some part thereof), ranging from the very form of government, over strategic management to daily operations. Definitions of eGov generally also cover all these areas, and hence most typically contain not only goals of more efficient operations but also of better quality of services and increased and improved citizen participation in democra­tic processes (e g Grönlund, 2002a; World Bank, 2002). Sometimes the term governance is more appropriate, as it also incorporates the idea of other organizations than public sector ones engaged in public sector-related activities by means of e g outsourcing, partnerships or value-added services.

Discussing eGov stringently requires defining the context in which it appears in terms of a public sector model. In simple terms, drawing on a textbook in political science, and at a general level where national differences do not matter, a democratic[1]? government can be described as shown in Figure 1. It consists of three interrelated spheres, the political sphere, the administrative one, and the civil society one.

Figure 1: Basic spheres and relations in a democratic government system. Arrows indicate influence, and circles indicate domains of control. Domain intersections indicate “transaction zones” where control is negotiated by e g lobbyists and media on the left-hand side, intermediary service deliverers on the right-hand side and professional interaction in government boards and committees on the top side (Adapted from Molin et al., 1975, p. 16).

Each sphere contains individuals, organizations, technical systems, social relations and value systems. Often, an overly simplified view of a democratic system is propagated, where the relationships of the model are presented as straightforward; citizens elect officials, which then go to work in a formal political system containing certain institutions and rules. Their work produces results in the form of directives to the administration, which with blind obedience – without any influence on the political decisions – executes the decisions.

In practice, the system is of course much more complex. The political impact administrations can exert by having the expertise necessary to prepare decisions in complicated matters is often acknowledged (Snellen, 2001; Watson et al., 1999). Citizens act in many other ways than by casting votes, for example they organize in many ways, and they lobby. This is not the place for enumerating and analyzing all aspects of this, neither to discuss different variations of democratic systems. For now, let us just observe that there are a number of relations, and that each node in the system influences both the others by a number of relationships: all nodes are interrelated. The details of these relations are always under discussion and borders are changing slightly over time. Currently, however, they are in a process of profound change in many countries, for several reasons including globalization, economic constraints, changing demographics, declining appreciation for the political system (as measured by declining turnout in elections) and the availability of IT. One example of changes is that private enterprise is increasingly acting in the system by means of outsourcing of government activities or deregulation and competition.

Given that eGov IS typically transcend organizational borders there is likely to be conflicts among different structures involved (see Figure 2). Given also that there are indeed values, practices etc that pertain to each of the three spheres, and thus serve as a general “mode of operation” for actors (organizations and individuals) in each sphere we have an additional complexity for eGov IS. This is of course a practical problem, but also one that has to be reflected in theories in, and of, the field.

The eGov framework thus adds locus to structuration theory by situating the idea of structures in the eGov context. It also extends the concept of structures by introducing the “sphere” concept as a “modality” (Giddens, 1982) in each of which a large number of actors, individuals and institutions, operate under a similar basic “mindset”, different from the others’.

Figure 2:    A structurational model of technology, based on but extending that of Orlikowski (Orlikowski, 1992, p. 410)

Unlike actor network theory (ANT), eGov theory views actors as not independent of their “social background”, their position in the governance system. This is not a unique feature of our eGov framework – SCOT (Social Construction of Technology) also – if somewhat vaguely – recognizes “groups”, which are based on mutual interests.

The nature of the spheres

eGov information systems often, arguably typically, span more than one societal sphere. Information systems – even mandatory ones – are generally dependent on user acceptance to work well. User acceptance comes only to a part from technical qualities of the system. More importantly in this context it comes also from alignment of the system with work practices and culture. Hence, there is a need for analyzing the nature of the spheres – if there are differences among them on any of the above criteria, there is likely a complication for implementation of information systems.

The below table summarizes some salient features that distinguish the three above-mentioned major spheres of a governance system. The table is of course a rough summary, and it does not attempt to tell the complete truth about any of the spheres. In democratic theory, there is a host of literature on the relation between leaders and the people (e g Dahl, 1989; Sartori, 1987; Pateman, 1970), and even a brief study, of for example the three ones just referred to, shows that this relation can be conceived very differently. Table 1 does not directly want to add to that discussion, but one point is to bring awareness of the literature into eGov studies – government is about managing a society, and democratic theories are then to be compared with management theories in the business sector. Another point is to say just what the table amounts to: the spheres are different. They are different in terms of their motivation, interests, focus unit, and mode of operation; variables that are individually, and certainly together, important for the implementation and operation of any information system. Therefore they can be seen as “modalities”, or as “superinstitutions”, clusters of institutions operating under the same general conditions. They each set the scene for the actors that operate within them, not just formally but also culturally.

Table 1:    A comparison of the spheres.

In the development of democracy there is generally an ongoing struggle between two perspectives, both beneficial for democracy but neither of them sufficient (Goldkuhl & Röstlinger, 2001). The top-down perspective is about implementing political decisions in activities directed towards the citizens; politics as design. The bottom-up perspective, sometimes called user democracy or consumer democracy (Bellamy & Taylor, 1998), is about interaction between users and suppliers leading to user influence over service design and content; politics as evolution. Real user influence over service design also means real influence over politics. In fact, this discussion goes all the way back to fundamental theories of government developed in the 17th and 18th century by Thomas Hobbes (top-down), John Locke (power balance) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (bottom-up). Their respective views express fundamentally different roles for government, which have echoed through the debates on government design since the democratic revolutions of the late 18th century.

In Figure 2 (above), the top-down perspective can be seen as a command chain going clockwise starting in the politics sphere and ending with reactions on decisions picked up by that same sphere. The bottom-up perspective starts on the right-hand side in “service dialogues” involving the administration and civil society spheres.

A brief look at the current development of information systems relevant to eGov shows that different forces are stretching the spheres of influence of the political system, the administrative one, and the civil society respectively (Figure 3).

Figure 3:    The government model under change - different actors affect the development in the transaction zones.

The increasing use of IT in administrative processes – a more comprehensive electronic information infrastructure – restricts the action space of the political sphere as this infrastructure becomes increasingly hard to change (and, indeed, understand). This means the influence of the administrative system is increased at the expense of the political one (Arrow 1 in Figure 3). Zouridis & Thaens (Zouridis & Thaens, 2002) provide some evidence to suggest this.

The civil society cultures, in the electronic world for instance manifested in virtual communities of different kinds, contain strong social elements but less of the characteristics of formal politics (“citizen” and “member” are not synonyms, for instance). To the extent that electronic tools and techniques from such cultures become used in formal politics it will become less formal and thus more open to the influence of active minorities (Arrow 2).

The official e-democracy initiatives, as indeed municipal practice, generally endorse information rather than participation (Anttiroiko, 2001). “Participation” then most often means “everybody should know about….” rather than something that involves citizen influence. These efforts can be seen as a means to reinforce the current procedures of formal politics by complementing them with increased direct communication with citizens (Arrow 3).

Often local e-democracy projects are in practice controlled by the civil servants rather than politicians due to their control of the IT system. In a study of four Swedish local e-democracy projects, Grönlund (Grönlund 2002b) found that sometimes politicians did not control the develop­ment, but had to adjust to the development at a later stage when important traits of the information infrastructure were already implemented. This means the action space of the political system has been reduced and that of the administration has been increased (Arrow 1).

Increasing IT use in the civil society includes efforts to affect services in practice by individuals, by using electronic communication to influence individual administrative decision makers or simply by acquiring a better understanding of how the administration works by using the electronic information and tools provided. This includes new pressures on the administration, which can no longer hide behind an information monopoly, and hence increases the influence of civil society at the administration’s expense (Arrow 5).

Initiatives like the eEurope electronic government strive for more administrative control over, and efficiency within and among, the many activities of the public sector by formalizing them to the point of being implementable in electronic tools. To the extent that this succeeds it means not only that the action space of civil society actors diminishes as their interactions with government are more formalized (Arrow 4), it also means that the political system’s control over the administration is strengthened as political initiatives are more directly expressed in computer code and hence can be more easily inspected and evaluated (Arrow 6).

From this brief illustration we can see that there is no single development in terms of the relative strengths of the “influence” arrows in Figure 3. But as we cannot just assume that everything will eventually add up to a balance quite similar to what we have today, it is important to try to assess the development more in detail. Which arrows are strongest, most likely to prevail? This is the area for our theory, following next.

Conclusion

Based on the above discussion, we can now formulate a theory of eGov IS:

eGov information systems will only achieve long-term success when they sufficiently well implement interests and modes of operation of all three spheres of a governance system: formal politics, administration, and civil society.

This is not a suggestion of an either-or situation. Rather, different proposals for information systems will exist, and the more successful ones will be, the theory predicts, those who score better in these respects.

The theory does not predict any particular development path for a governance system, but it provides a framework for making such predictions. For instance, the need for sufficient agreement among actors across spheres that a particular system should be designed in a certain way does not preclude some actors from being able to influence the system’s design so it works more their way (and hence typically at least compatible with general interests of their sphere) than any other actors’ way, thus shifting the equilibrium among the spheres a bit. For example, one hypothesis stemming from the current development, following the observations of Zouridis & Thaens (Zouridis & Thaens, 2002), could be that eGov will over time lead to that the administrative sphere will increase its influence over the others as administrative systems are in majority, and as information processing paradigm is paramount in eGov applications so far.

Another proposition following the first could be that eGov will contribute to political systems gradually becoming more alike in different countries, as there are strong use cultures involved, in particular in the administration and civil society spheres, and these use cultures are becoming increasingly international culturally.

A number of hypotheses could be derived from the theory. These could well conflict in terms of where the development will head in terms of what actors will be most successful, as national and local situations vary and can be interpreted differently. What the theory proposes is that what will make the difference is the ability of information systems to cater for interests of all the spheres. This is, those qualities are things that technical quality of systems and process efficiency can not achieve, as these concern efficiency rather than effectiveness.

The eGov theory could then be used to assess the overall potential and the sphere bias of a certain development by providing a comprehensive general reference framework. This is an advantage compared to models commonly used today, such as penetration of PCs? and broadband connection, availability of services, economic measures by organizational unit etc, which only measure details and perhaps efficiency but do not do not measure effectiveness.

[1]? This is a restriction, but one without which eGov risks losing all credibility as information systems cannot be reduced to technical systems only.

References

Anttiroiko, A-V. (2001). Toward the European Information Society. Communications of the ACM, January 2001.

Bellamy, C.  &, Taylor, J. A. (1998). Governing in the information age. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Dahl, R.A. (1989). Democracy and its critics. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Giddens, A  (1982). sProfiles and Critiques in Social Theory. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

Goldkuhl, G. & Röstlinger, A. (2001). IT som möjliggörare och hinder – i samspel mellan politik och verksamhet i kommuner (IT as enabler and obstacle). In Åke Grönlund & Agenta Ranerup (red) Elektronisk förvaltning, elektronisk demokrati (Electronic government, electronic democracy). Lund: Studentlitteratur

Grönlund, Å. (2002a). Electronic government – Design, Applications, and Management. Idea Group Publishing.

Grönlund, Å. (2002b). Emerging Infrastructures for E-democracy - in Search of Strong Inscriptions. eService Journal, 2 (4).

Molin, B., Månsson, L., & Strömberg, L. (1975). Offentlig förvaltning (Public Administration). Bonniers.

Orlikowski,W.J. (1992). The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. Organizations Science, 3 (3), 398-427.

Pateman, C. (1970). Participation and democratic theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sartori, G. (1987). The theory of democracy revisited. New Jersey: Chatam House Publishers Inc.

Snellen, I. (2001). ICT:s, Bureaucracies, and the Future of Democracy. Communications of the ACM.

Watson, R., Akselsen, S., Evjemo, B., & Aasaether, N. (1999). Teledemocracy in Local Government. Communications of the ACM, December 1999; 58-63.

Wiberg, M. (2002). e-Government in Sweden: Centralization, Self-Service and Competition. In Å. Grönlund (ed), Electronic Government – Design, Applications and Management. Hershey, PA, USA: Idea Group Publishing.

World Bank (2002). A Definition of E*Government. Retrived Nov 13, 2003 from: http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/egov/definition.htm

Zouridis, S., & Thaens, M. (2002). eGovernment: Towards a Public Administration Approach. In Proceedeings of Global e-Policy eGov Forum (pp 119-133), Seoul, Korea, Nov 6-7, 2002. Seoul: SungKyunKwan? University, Global e-Policy eGovernment Institute.

The DemocrIT? research group (Örebro University) is aiming for a more comprehensive understanding on the conditions for e-participation and e-democracy by pulling together insights from four different disciplines: informatics, political science, history and media and communication studies. Taking on this challenge DemocrIT? is involved with empirical research and theoretical questions ranging from the invigoration of formal politics to the ‘explosion’ of informal politics, from global trends to local responses, and from political ideas to technical practices.

One important perspective is that of the public sphere. Put simply, the public sphere is comprised of any and all locations, physical or virtual, where ideas and feelings relevant to politics are transmitted and exchanged openly. The public sphere perspective thus leads us to study not only the declining tendencies and struggles for renewal within formal political institutions (parties, governments, parliaments etc) but also politics in a broader sense, for instance journalism and activist networks. Drawing on the literature on multi-level governance, we also find it important to study how local and global is linked, why and what that means.

In brief summary, DemocrIT?’s approach is one of governance in which eParticipation is seen not as distinct but included – intricately enmeshed – in governance processes which only partly can be separated out as purely political. Most of them are “service” and “administrative” processes but with a political element, which may be direct or indirect. DemocrIT? do aim at a comprehensive understanding of the relation between technology and humans, and the following figure 1 explains the general approach:

Figure 2: A structurational model of technology (based on but extending that of Orlikowski 1992, p. 410)

The theory developed out of this approach is explained in detail under Theory of eGovernance information systems.

References:

Orlikowski, W.J. (1992) The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. Organizations Science, Vol 3, No 3, pp. 398-427.

The objective of Masaryk University (MU) is to define the communication and interoperability framework for eParticipation in the field of sustainable development and environment protection at regional, national and international level in order to pick up forms and tools of eParticipation, relevant to the actual level of maturity of society (see Hřebíček, Pitner, & Ráček, 2005). The core research interest lies in creating of the eParticipation ICT tools, platforms and organization management, which will take into account issues such as communication between governments and citizens, businesses and academicians and level of information society.

We identify and analyse informational needs of particular target groups (citizens, national, regional and local public administration, commercial sphere, scientific, research and educational organizations, public and non-governmental organizations) of environmental information with regard to communication with relevant information systems in the Czech Republic and abroad. Based on this research we are going to design structure, formats, attributes and appropriate ICT of effective methods of communication between government and citizens within the European Interoperability Framework of international communication and information system in environmental sphere.

There are three main themes of our research in eParticipation:

·         Interoperability

·         Security

·         Accessibility

We are using a new approach to providing information and services within eParticipation - Web Services, which are placed on technology basics of service oriented architecture. Web services are software systems which enable interoperability and a simple communication among applications in different environment because the communication is based on platform independent standards – particularly on XML language and protocol HTTP.

Further approach is using Open Source Software (OSS) and Open Source platform, which offer outstanding contribution to technical platform of eParticipation. Development of OSS which uses open standards can support the higher interoperability among systems and enable wider system sharing.

Open Source together with web services, Open Document Format and other standards create the technology platform of eParticipation on which it is possible to operate public services connected with eParticipation very easy and effectively.

Figure 1:    Technical platform for eParticipation using web services

References

Hřebíček, J., Pitner, T., & Ráček, J. (2005). Analysis of Environmental Information Management in Czech Republic. In 6th International Symposium on Environmental Software Systems (ISESS'05). Sesimbra, Portugal. International Federation for Information Processing. (May 24 - 27).

The approach of the Institute for Information Management Bremen Ltd. (ifib) implies that tools for information, consultation and active participation, as the main components of government initiated citizen communication, must be embedded into users’ and governments’ environments not only technically, but also economically, legally, organizationally, culturally and politically. In other words: the electronic applications in the so-called virtual world need to be integrated into processes and structures in the real world (see Kubicek & Westholm, 2001; Westholm, 2003). The approach is the backbone of all of ifib's research. In e-participation specifically it concerns, for example, the embedding of websites and consultations or other tools, or the evaluation of e-voting.

Embedding (we also used the term “adaptability”) means that the technical tools and the preconditions of its use as well as the expected behaviour of its suppliers and users must fit with the situation in which they are (see figure 1). In a first step, an analysis of fit has to be performed. Mismatches require either an adaptation of the system or a change of those aspects of the situation which are not favourable for the running and the use of the system.

From a technical point of view, online participation tools should be integrated into the technical infrastructures and applications in the back-offices of administrations and governments. This may vary, for example, for planning procedures and for voter registrations in online elections. Online applications should not overstretch users’ ICT resources and capabilities.

Another precondition is the legal admissibility of existing regulations or those to be revised. There are some means of communication between administration and citizens where it is necessary that the addressees can be authenticated.

A further issue is the organizational embedding: Online participation tools have to correspond with processes and responsibility in the backoffice of the administrations. This means that on the one hand civil servants should be involved into online discussions (best by replying to postings). On the other hand, the results of such a discussion should be delivered in a format that can be used by the backoffice directly (e.g. by using the same format of a data-base). Normally, these possibilities vary from human keying in to automatically processing. It is also important that the responsible persons are addressed and involved in the process.

Another issue is the economic aspect or the cost-benefit analysis for the public authorities and the users. Public consultation is not for free and can even be considered expensive when further requirements, such as the printing and distribution of popular brochures or the rent of venues, are considered. Furthermore, public officials often fear extra workload caused by emails and forum contributions from citizens. From the point of view of the citizens as users, political participation (via the Internet or elsewhere) will only have a chance when the target groups are motivated to spend their time. The readiness of citizens to participate has often been overestimated. According to the standard model of political participation (Dalton, 1988) only citizens with a good financial and educational background and societal influence believe that they can move something with their own political engagement. There is no reason to believe in a change due to the existence of new technologies. Citizens must get a gratification – such as the promise of more influence.

Consequently, e-democracy opportunities should correspond to the political culture which supports citizens’ involvement both via onsite formal and informal means of participation and which considers citizens’ input as a chance (knowledge of citizens), not as a complaint. Politicians should take citizens’ contributions seriously and have to communicate why they adopt citizens’ opinions and why not.

The degree to which e-participation processes and tools are embedded into the respective contexts to a large extent depends on the engagement of politicians and political bodies. Voting for the budget and adaptation of laws and regulations are important steps for policy to influence direction and speed of the development of e-democracy. Policy-makers have the power to decide about more participation rights. Pressure from other sides, like from the economy or third sector associations, may affect policy-related activities.

References

Westholm, H. (2003). Online Democratic Engagement: A Multi-channel Strategy to Enhance Deliberative Policies. European Journal on Communication Research, 28 (2), 205-227.

The underlying assumption of the sociotechnical researchers in the Napier group is that e-participation is a contingent and dynamic and complex social process; the group’s research focuses on ways in which technology supports this; both at the design stage in requirements negotiation; and in explanations of post-implementation adoption.

E-participation takes different shapes in different circumstances, and a further research focus is to examine the diverse sociotechnical arrangements that characterise the process. Many of the models of e-participation that have been proposed (e.g. stage models) depend on such understanding, though these have tended to focus on tools and to emphasise compliance with requirements negotiated at the design stage. Some of Napier’s research explores the development of, and the implications of a broader set of criteria that takes the long view, and positions e-participation in a wider set of societal trends.

Holistic reference framework for eGovernment service provision: The holistic reference framework for eGovernment service provision is based on the socio-technical approach of Cherns (1976), the Business Media Reference Model (BMRM) of Schmid (1999), the Information Architecture of Mok (1996), an elaboration of the BMRM by Gisler (1999) who extended the Schmid model with legal aspects and a discussion of Lenk (2001) who elaborated the BMRM from the point of view of different stages in service delivery. What can be learned from these approaches is the multidimensional consideration (from the strategic layer to the technical layer) of distinct aspects (organizational, judicial, security, process modelling, access, services, workflow, etc.) and the core phases of an electronic public service (from information to transaction and settlement - including an aftercare phase). The strengths of these approaches have been merged to a holistic reference framework. This concept supports the understanding of complex public services from three distinct points of view:

• Abstraction layers: different points of detail
• Progress of public services: different phases of progress of a public service
• Different Views: distinct foci on issues

Figure 1:  Holistic reference framework for eGovernment developed by Wimmer (2002)

The holistic reference framework is not restricted to eGovernment; eParticipation services and processes should be investigated likewise.

Holistic understanding of eGovernment and eParticipation:

Applying a holistic approach for designing socio-technical systems is becoming more and more important (Wimmer, 2000, p. 148). Complex interactive systems such as being deployed in eParticipation are formed by a multitude of aspects. One can identify a series of research questions emerging especially from the interaction among the four key aspects as depicted in figure 2 (Bicking et al., 2006):

• Research in society evolution, people using ICT as a daily support tool, people refusing or being unable to use ICT, people expecting governments to serve in traditional mode, problems of societal change such as digital divide, ICT illiteracy, ICT addiction, etc.

• ICT related research, including new and innovative technologies that might be of interest in future eGovernment and eParticipation applications.

• Government modernization research, including organizational change, networked governments, legal groundings, new business models, new public management, citizen integration, customer orientation, eSkills required by certain stakeholders, etc.

• Research in effectiveness, efficiency and economic values in Government modernization based on ICT diffusion, including public value of new ICT tools and technologies in eParticipation contexts;

Figure 2: Holistic consideration of eGovernment and eParticipation socio-technical systems (Bicking et al., 2006)

As can be recognized and as indicated with the arrows in figure 2, the four main areas cannot be considered in isolation. Instead, interaction among the four pillars and their interrelationships are of particular interest. Just to exemplify one relation: eParticipation success is shaped by the interrelation of how Governments use ICT in order to provide their participation services to citizens and thereby reaching certain performance criteria such as public value, effectiveness, quality of participatory service, cost savings at the administrative side, etc. One could make a long list of examples of such relationships indicating the multidisciplinary nature of eParticipation (Bicking et al., 2006).

Digging further into these interrelationships thereby exploring the particular (eParticipation and eGovernment) processes of these interactions is a means to gather a proper understanding of the system and its contextual environment.

Guideline for comprehensive Business Process Management:

Effective process management has recently regained attention[1]? as a key success factor for successfully implementing eGovernment and eParticipation projects (Wimmer & Klischewski, 2005). The analysis and simulation of the models deliver advice for the optimisation and quality assurance on one hand. On the other hand, effective business process management leads to more effective process execution, and it paves the way to comprehensive and knowledge-based process reengineering and process performance management. Consequently, Business Process Management (BPM) - often used as a generic term for Business Process Reengineering (BPR) - includes the organisation of business processes, reengineering of service processes, management and documentation of process knowledge, performance and quality management as well as transferring process chains into technical implementations such workflow management systems (WfMS?), web services, and service chains.

A guideline to comprehensive process analysis and design was developed by Wimmer (2005). It suggests the following steps for process management:

1. Identify the range of processes relevant for being implemented in eGovernment and eParticipation thereby also indicating which services and process chains can be supported with ICT (process landscape and portfolio with prioritization of processes to be investigated first).
2. Identify the key stakeholders involved in these processes: who carries core responsibility and who does what in the full process chain.
3. Set up a team for process management (analysis and design, modelling) including experts of the domain of application and experts in process management.
4. Select a proper process modelling / process management tool (or tool-suite) for modelling, documentation and reengineering of the selected processes.
5. Carry out the process analysis and documentation (the field work of analysis of the current processes) with the aim of getting a proper understanding of the processes to be reengineered or newly designed.
6. Execute process reengineering and process design (the field work and experts work for designing and reengineering processes by means of process modelling) with the aim of designing / reengineering the new processes (how these should be executed with the help of ICT and in online environments).
7. Evaluation of analysis and design results with users external to the project team as set up in step 3.
8. Transfer and integration to the technical and organisational environments (some parts may be transferred automatically, some process design issues are to be transferred via changes in organisation, training of people, etc.)

The steps 5 – 7 are iterative, following an evolutionary approach, because the analysis and design of complex processes usually requests time and cannot be done at once. Also, gathering the proper understanding in terms of analysis of a domain is usually time-consuming.

[1]? After a first hype of BPM and BPR in the mid 1990s which was driven by an outstanding book of Hammer and Champy (1993) on Business Process Reengineering

References

Bicking, M., Janssen, M., & Wimmer, Maria A. (2006). Scenarios for Governments in 2020: Towards a Roadmap for future eGovernment research in Europe. In Proceedings of eChallenges Conference 2006 (to appear).

Cherns, A. (1976). The principles of sociotechnical design. Human Relations, 29(8), 783-792.

Mok, C. (1996). Designing Business: Multiple Media, Multiple Disciplines. MacMillan? Computer Publications.

Wimmer, M. A. (2000). Designing interactive Systems – Key Issues for a Holistic Approach. PhD? Thesis, University of Linz. Linz: Trauner Verlag.

Wimmer, M. A. (2002). Integrated service modeling for online one-stop Government. EM – Electronic Markets, special issue on e-Government, 12(3), 1-8.

Wimmer, M. A. (2005). Ganzheitliches Vorgehen in der Prozessgestaltung für E-Government: Erfolgsfaktoren und Leitfaden. In M. A. Wimmer, & R. Klischewski, R., Wissensbasiertes Prozessmanagement im E-Government (pp. 95 – 109). Münster et al: LIT Verlag.

Wimmer, M., & Klischewski, R. (2005). Wissensbasiertes Prozessmanagement im E-Government: Herausforderungen und Handlungsmöglichkeiten. In R. Klischewski, & M. A. Wimmer, (Eds), Wissensbasiertes Prozessmanagement im E-Government ( pp. 7-27). Münster et al: LIT Verlag.

The research approach of the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) in Vienna is generally informed by the broad approach within the field of technology studies known as “Social Shaping of Technology (SST)”. It integrates a whole family of approaches in analysing the complex relationship between technology and society with a common basic perspective (Soerensen & Williams, 2002). This perspective assumes that technology is a product of the interplay between and inseparability of technical and social factors. SST goes beyond a simple and determinist understanding of consequences of a given technology and conceives technological change as a social process, acknowledging both the influence of social forces shaping technology as well as the emergent nature of socio-technical change and societal effects. The assumption is that technology, social organisation and impacts are co-produced. For modelling the relation between technology and society, “co-construction” and “co-evolution” are preferred to the notion of “impacts”. Metaphors and concepts like a “seamless web” or “socio-technical ensembles” indicate the hybrid nature of technological developments and their social contexts. This includes some – however limited – space for choice in design and use as well as an emphasis on the situated and systemic character of technologies with implications for policy and interventions: a broader scope for interventions, the need for diverse forms of knowledge and expertise and a broader range of evaluation criteria for technological projects.

The overarching issue is how the interplay of social and technological factors shapes process and outcome of technological change, in particular in the case of eParticipation systems. Within the multidisciplinary field of SST studies there are specific sub-variants with more concrete profiles in empirical research. Among these “Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA)” is the perspective which describes ITA’s approach best (Rip et al., 1995). Additionally, elements from other approaches are integrated, such as from “Cultural Shaping of Technology” (Rammert, 2002) as well as from “Actor-centred Institutionalism” (Schneider & Mayntz, 1995). The latter is especially suitable for international comparisons of the design, adoption and use of technologies in different contexts as it analyses the role of the institutional set-up and key actors and their interplay with technology, e.g. in different countries.

Figure 1: Modelling the interplay of social and technical factors in technology development (adapted from Schneider & Mayntz, 1995, p. 113).

Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) has moved away from traditional conceptions of Technology Assessment as “a systematic attempt to foresee the consequences of introducing a particular technology in all spheres it is likely to interact with” (Braun, 1998, p. 28). It acknowledges that the development of a technology and the production of societal effects occur in an extended, tightly interwoven cycle. Instead of ex-post assessments of “impacts” of a technology on society, CTA suggests iterative assessments along with the design, development, implementation and use of a technology, in interaction with developers and stakeholders. This process type of technology assessment intends to avoid an institutional and temporal separation of promotion and control. Instead, it is to allow for social learning and reflexivity through feeding knowledge from assessments into adaptation and intervention with the goal of achieving more beneficial effects for society. The ultimate purpose is analysing factors shaping technology development, design, implementation, usage and diffusion with an interest in anticipating, assessing and influencing (enhancing beneficial ones, avoiding harmful) likely societal impacts. This makes impacts on eParticipation as well as impacts of eParticipation a core subject of ITA’s research approach.

Within this process view of CTA, anticipating likely effects of the introduction of eParticipation systems on society (including second-order and unintended outcomes) is an overarching issue for ITA. How to identify, anticipate and change impacts is a major challenge. This extends to a variety of impact dimensions which constitute a range of particular issues in the political, cultural, social, institutional, organisational, legal and technological field. [1]?

[1]? A mnemonic device for key impact dimensions suggested in Porter et al. (1980, 62) is the acronym EPISTLE standing for economic, psychological, institutional, social, technological, legal, environmental dimensions).

References

Braun, E. (1998). Technology in Context – Technology Assessment for Managers. London/New York: Routledge.

Porter, A. R., Rossini, F. A., Carpenter, S. R., Roper, A., Larson, R. W., & Tiller, J. S. A (1980). Guidebook for Technology Assessment and Impact Analysis. System Science and Engineering, Vol. 4 . New York/Amsterdam/Oxford: North-Holland: Sage.

Rammert, W. (2002). The Cultural Shaping of Technologies and the Politics of Technodiversity. In K. H. Soerensen, & R. Williams (Eds), Shaping Technology, Guiding Policy: Concepts, Spaces, and Tools (pp. 173-194). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Rip, A., Misa, T. J., & Schot, J. (Eds.) (1995). Managing Technology in Society – The Approach of Constructive Technology Assessment. London: Cassell Publishers Ltd.

Schneider, V., & Mayntz R. (1995). Akteurzentrierter Institutionalismus in der Technikforschung. In J. Halfmann, G. Bechmann, & W. Rammert (Eds.) Technik und Gesellschaft – Jahrbuch 8 (pp. 107-130). Frankfurt/New York.

Soerensen, K. H., & Williams, R. (Eds.) (2002). Shaping Technology, Guiding Policy: Concepts, Spaces, and Tools. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

A major challenge for European Governments is to improve ways of heterogeneous systems working together. Due to the growing of the European Union, existing systems have to be analyzed and evaluated properly to pave the way for a smooth cooperation and collaboration. To enable cooperation (either in terms of collaboration or coordination), two approaches can be identified: integration and interoperation. Klischewski and Scholl (2006) define integration as “the forming of a (temporary or permanent) larger unit of government entities for the purpose of merging processes [and systems,]? and/or sharing information”. The European Commission has defined interoperability as “the means by which the inter-linking of systems, information and ways of working, whether within or between administrations, nationally or across Information and Communication Technologies Europe, or with the enterprise sector, occurs” [1]?. Klischewski and Scholl further stress that systems and applications that interoperate are characterized by the following aspects: independency, heterogeneity, and control by different jurisdictions/administrations or by external actors; yet also cooperation in a predefined and agreed upon fashion. Likewise, Wimmer et al (2006) stress that interoperation can only be reached by means of open standards, whereby interoperation needs to be addressed on technical, semantic and organizational level alike. On this basis, the authors have developed an interoperability framework as shown in figure 1 detailing three dimensions of interoperability:

•  Making collaboration possible from the technical basis via the semantic interoperability up to the organizational setup.
• Seamless eGovernment and eParticipaiton: In a collaborative environment, each part of an overall electronic service or participatory process has to be smoothly integrated in the whole eParticipation or eGovernment service environment.
• Area of application of standards and interoperability: With the trend towards networked governments, agreements and policies for cross-organisational systems operation have to be achieved at distinct levels of governments. Developments towards interoperability happen currently at many levels. Being aware of who develops what and how this can be fed into an overall picture (including knowledge sharing) is of utmost urgency to guarantee future widespread networked governments and interoperation beyond certain organisational borders.

The framework shall guide system designers to develop interfaces and open standards that guarantee a smooth execution of public services in eGovernment and eParticipation covering the whole lifecycle of service execution from information provision till archiving of service products. At the same time, the framework shall support to define interfaces for global usage by applying open standard protocols, by developing common data specifications, common process models and by commonly agree on smooth cooperation and collaboration policies across distinct organizational settings.

Figure 1:    Interoperability reference framework: addressing interoperability in a comprehensive way

eGovernment Systems Engineering: From strategies to implementation to performance measurement

Implementing the holistic reference framework as introduced above requires as well a structured systems engineering approach. The concept developed by Hanl and Wimmer (2002) spans the systems engineering from setting the overall strategies and goals of systems development till evaluation, assessment and improvement of systems, and feeding back to earlier phases of systems development (see figure 2).

Figure 2:   eGovernment systems engineering: going beyond pure software engineering (Hanl & Wimmer, 2002)

Success Criteria for eGovernment Projects

Based on the eGovernment overall systems engineering concept, criteria for successful eGovernment and eParticipation projects can be derived (cf. Hanl & Wimmer, 2002; Wimmer, 2005):

• Clear strategies and visions: Clear definitions on visions and strategies for the development of eGovernment and eParticipation projects are important to lay the ground of development directions as well as to make evaluation possible. If such visions and strategies are not formulated in a proper way, there is no ground against which success can be measured at the end. Consequently, it is important that the visions and strategies can be measured with quantitative and/or qualitative quality indicators.
• Socio-technical understanding: eGovernment and eParticipation systems can be categorized as socio-technical systems. Consequently, a holistic understanding as depicted in figure 1 and figure 2 is crucial and should lead to a better understanding of the interdependencies of social, individual, process aspects, etc. in relation to ICT support.
• Structured engineering approaches: Structured approaches to systems engineering (e.g. waterfall model, German V-Model XT, ISO 9241, ISO 13407, the spiral model of Böhm, prototyping, Participatory Design, Scenario-based Design methods, etc.) are important in order to deal with the complexity of socio-technical systems and to take the various influencing aspects of people, organisations, technology, processes and content into account.
• Strong focus on the stakeholders and users: Understanding the needs and capabilities (skills, resources …) of stakeholders, the functionalities and technical facilities they will be using, and how they are going to use them, is a crucial factor for proper design of information systems. Consequently, concepts of usability engineering and of interface design are to be taken into account.
• Setting the project scope and defining the interoperation needs: This is crucial to plan the project (based on the overall goals and scope) and to know the system borders. An overall system architecture shall guide in defining the necessary interactions with external systems thereby defining the interfaces based on e.g. open standards.
• Engineering the organisational culture and the legal frame: The socio-technical nature of eGovernment and eParticipation calls also for considering legal, organizational or political scope of the system to be developed.
• Designing the information and knowledge in the properly: System design means to change the knowledge combination of people, systems and processes. Since any change of a tool impacts the content, a proper design of the information and knowledge resources at stake, as well as its flow through the processes to the stakeholders and actors is required.
• Comprehensive process management is key in any ‘e’-development: As stated before a clear definition of processes, accountability and interoperation and proper knowledge on each of the involved social and technical actors is key to functional and user-centric services. Thereby, structured approaches for a comprehensive process analysis and process redesign need to be applied.

[1]? Commission of the European Communities. Linking-up Europe: The importance of interoperability for e-government services. Staff Working Document, 2003

References

 
Hanl, S., & Wimmer M. (2002). Rahmenkonzept für e-Government Entwicklungen. In Wimmer (Eds.), Impulse für e-Government: Internationale Entwicklungen, Organisation, Recht, Technik, Best Practices (pp. 72-83). Proceedings of the first e|Gov Day of the forum e|Gov.at. Volume 158, Austrian Computer Society, Vienna.

Klischewski, R., & H. J. Scholl (2006). Information quality as a common ground for key players in e-government integration and interoperability. In Proceedings of HICSS’06.

Wimmer, M. A. (2005). Ganzheitliches Vorgehen in der Prozessgestaltung für E-Government: Erfolgsfaktoren und Leitfaden. In M. A. Wimmer, & R. Klischewski, Wissensbasiertes Prozessmanagement im E-Government (pp. 95 – 109). Münster et al: LIT Verlag.

Wimmer, M., Liehmann, M., & Martin, B. (2006). Offene Standards und abgestimmte Spezifikationen - das österreichische Interoperabilittskonzept. Proceedings MKWI.

This approach to eParticipation reflects the composition of Aalborg University’s Centre for Digital Governance and the centre’s cross disciplinary approach to Electronic Government (see figure 1).

Figure 1:  Three perspectives of the cross-disciplinary approach to eParticipation

Three cross-disciplinary perspectives are outlined:

1. politics and organisation (reflecting both the democratic dimension of digital governance and its location in government organisations with particular characteristics and ways of working).
2. communication and interaction ( focusing on the roles of computer-mediated discourse, socio-technical interaction and technology-facilitated work in governance), and
3. technology and infrastructure (concentrating on emerging internet-based and mobile technologies enabling governance, and the physical and conceptual infrastructures that underpin these technologies).

eParticipation is discussed in terms of these three perspectives, with particular focus on scientific perspective (preliminary assumptions; theoretical concepts; theoretical models; research community; disciplines involved, method), eParticipation typologies, research issues and problems studied, and eParticipation challenges and barriers.

The politics and organisation perspective

From the perspective of politics and organisation it is assumed that the involvement of citizens in the process of political decision-making and implementation can improve democracy in terms of more responsive and effective democratic institutions. EParticipation? is to be seen as one tool among others. However, in highly developed welfare states there is a growing need to find new ways of closing the gap between citizens and political representatives to improve both democratic legitimacy and political effectiveness. EParticipation? could be a new and effective tool for collecting information and knowledge from citizen-experts, stakeholders and ordinary citizens as well. Key issues for the research on these subjects are different normative models of democracy (liberal, participatory, deliberative), theories of the effect of participation on politics, theories about media and the public, policy-theory and theories of organization and management. In relation to eParticipation we have worked with a distinction between the supply of e-tools (that may help create new political opportunity structures for citizens) and the demand for (or the use of) such e-tools among citizens. The disciplines involved are political science, political sociology and public management.

Here eParticipation is studied at the local level – in communities, in associations, in welfare-institutions and in local politics and administration. The topics studied include plans and strategies for the use of e-tools in administration and politics as well as various forms of political e-communication. These cover: 1) communication “from above” (Municipal websites and other official and unofficial websites where citizens, members and user-groups can get information about services and policies). 2) communication “within” organizations (digitalization of the administration and of internal communication). 3) communication “from below” (citizens involved in public deliberations via e-consultations, e-voting, e-surveys, e-citizen-panels and e-discussion forums). E-communication is studied in all phases of the political process: from agenda setting through political decision-making to implementation and evaluation of policies.

Problems addressed in these kinds of research include investigating the potential of eParticipation for improving democratic decision-making and implementation with regard to 1) a more open, transparent and inclusive public, 2) stronger involvement of citizens in public decision-making and implementation, 3) more responsive and effective policy-performance. The methods applied are survey-methods, qualitative interviews with actors on different levels and document readings. Part of the analytical approach is shown in table 1.

Table 1:            Analytical approach to eParticipation

To-day, political participation via the Internet plays only a marginal role in the political process. One reason is that eParticipation is neither prioritized by public authorities or by citizens, forming a negative circle. Political representatives should pay more attention to the potentials of the Net for two-way-communication. The political authorities should furthermore pay more attention to securing an effective access of all citizens to the Internet. The lack of access to the Net is still an important barrier for eParticipation. It should be seen as a duty of government to overcome this barrier; in the present situation, the market decides.

The communication and interaction perspective

From the perspective of interaction and communication focus is put on the use and meaning of participation technologies. This means that design and implementation of technologies are always studied in relation to a use context. Primary research topics are interaction and communication in both design processes and in designed products. The research is partly rooted in the Scandinavian tradition of systems design and the participatory design school, emphasising the design of systems which contribute to quality in use by developing techniques for users to participate in the design process. The underlying assumption is that democratic or participatory processes in the design of information systems will lead to improved quality in use. Other research traditions include interaction design for interactive systems from the tradition of human computer interaction. Democracy perspectives are found at both an individual level (focusing on the support of individuals in order to make them able to participate, or focusing on the designed product and its ability to let users interact and communicate), a community or organisational level (developing participatory techniques and processes in order for different stakeholders to participate in design processes) and a societal level (influencing and improving politics in the IT-area). Key-words and theories for this research are participation, design, democracy, learning, politics and power. In relation to eParticipation we have especially worked on the design and evaluation of e-services.

The research focuses on eParticipation at the local level. Primary research areas are public institutions (schools, hospitals, municipalities). The ‘use and meaning’ perspective implies that the focus is on users (rather than institutions or citizens) and on analysis of user interaction with existing technologies and user interaction in the design process of new technologies.

Problems addressed by the research include how to improve interaction and communication in design and use context of information technologies. This is pursued through development of participatory methods for interaction design, development of theories of interactive technologies, development of theories for technology use, development of methods for how to study quality in use, development of theories for use contexts. The technologies studied are primarily owned by public institutions, such as 1) websites/e-services (e.g. e-tax websites, e-service websites from the power industry) and 2) administrative information systems (primarily electronic health records). The approach is simultaneously critical and constructive: eParticipation technologies call for critical reflections on who is setting the stage for participation, who can participate, why, and what does this mean, especially from a democratic perspective. Our position is, however, constructive, which means, that the biggest challenge is to use critical perspectives to construct better processes and products from a democratic and life quality perspective.

The technology and infrastructure perspective

From a technology and infrastructure perspective, eParticipation is studied in terms of particular computer applications (such as voting systems, debate forums, eHearing systems) which are usually particular instantiations of already developed technologies (such as chat rooms, geographical information systems, web-logging, group work systems, and decision support systems). Such applications are always dependent on at least two types of infrastructure: physical infrastructure such as the internet or satellites hosting mobile communications, and conceptual infrastructure such as ontological schemes, software protocols, but also citizen registers and voting protocols. Infrastructure is an important area of study because eParticipation cannot normally extend beyond the boundaries of infrastructure: thus eVoting cannot take place in the absence of internet access, or in the absence of a generally agreed and accepted protocol for voting. Thus infrastructure development goes hand in hand with the development of new technologies and applications. The focus of the research is on the development and implementation of new eParticipation technologies and the infrastructures they are dependent on, but this can take many forms, including software development, method support, system development management and work and use studies. A particular problem in the management of eParticipation initiatives is the diffusion and acceptance of the new applications – many eParticipation tools lie unnoticed and unused on the web. Other development problems concern user involvement (where users are diverse and geographically widely dispersed), strategy and design of eParticipation systems and a range of more technological problems concerning for instance, security, multi-platform access and mobility.

A variety of technologies underpin typical eParticipation applications and some of these, and their uses are detailed in table 2.

Table 2:            eParticipation technologies and their uses

Research in technology and infrastructure in the eParticipation field involves two different types of research communities. The first types of communities are those that directly concerned with computing and the development of computing systems, such as information systems, software engineering computer science, and health informatics. The second type of research community with an interest in eParticipation are disciplines which target various governance activities which are heavily dependent on technology and technological infrastructures, for instance: land administration, public administration and environmental studies.

Discussion: a three perspective model of eParticipation

Based on the considerations voiced above we can outline an integrative three perspective model of eParticipation reflecting the different disciplinary contributions to this emerging field.

Figure 6.2: Three-perspective cross-disciplinary model of eParticipation

Participation is regarded here as a form of interaction between citizens and politicians (and other societal stakeholders and stakeholder groups) rooted in communication. This discourse takes place in a political context under (in developed western societies) established democratic frameworks. EParticipation? is participation mediated by computer systems, and facilitated by technological and conceptual infrastructures. Government organisations take a prime responsibility for sponsoring and developing eParticipation and eParticipation systems, though this also evolves spontaneously and independently.

E-participation is a component of a wider process of social transformation participation in general. The societal change implied in the shift from a paradigm of industrial societies to a paradigm of information societies and more recently networked and knowledge based societies has brought increasingly relevant implications for the previous political institutions and the way they integrated the citizens political participation.

The changes in the employment structures, the differentiation of the market, the relevance achieved by the migration flows, the individualization of the life and work conditions, the weakening of welfare state and the trend to a lean form of state and public bodies, the growing colonization of the public sphere, the increased weight of media logic in the political discourse, the higher level of education of citizenship with higher expectations, the emerging of new social and cultural demands, all these aspects seem to have deeply corroded the basis of the functioning of the industrial society political institutions in their essential role of representation, as intermediaries of the political demand. On the other hand the democratic political institutions are experimenting a structural loss of power and legitimacy, as they have been increasingly challenged by the pressure of the global market, the growing interdependence of the decision making process at different territorial level, the expansion of the area of negotiation between political institutions and private sector (the so called governance) and the speed of the technological innovations. The emerging of new forms and issues in the field of the informal politics and of the collective action is also a very relevant piece of the new social puzzle of the participation, where digital networks seem to have played a crucial role of mutual recognition at the basis of the new identities and social relationships building processes (Castells, 1996).

In this perspective the development of new communication technologies and the evolving cultural and organizational demands could be seen in a relationship of mutual congruence, far from any kind of determinism. Moreover, networked society, like the Internet, doesn't seem a unified social phenomenon under the imperatives of the control decentralization and of the symmetrical relationships. This means that there are different models of e-participation and e-democracy, linked to different institutional contexts (social, cultural, economic, political and communicational), characterized by different power relationships among different social actors. In this general perspective, the study of e-democracy and e-participation seems to require both the analysis of their institutional contexts, in a broad sociological meaning, and the rhetoric and practices of social and political actors involved.

References:

Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.

Based on our 20 years of experience in applied systems design Fraunhofer FIT pursues this approach. The notion “socio-technical” refers to a trans-disciplinary perspective in systems design and organizational science: In enterprises or virtual, digital communities the social and the technical systems are intertwined. They are open, malleable systems and not closed entities. A socio-technical system is like a Janus face. Solutions have to take both systems into respect (see Trist, 1978).

“Formative Evaluation” stands for the immediate response and feedback of authentic user participation and other knowledge gained during the evaluation of the implementation and use. The impact of this feedback into the design team decisions and output has to be organised explicitly (see Mambrey et al., 1998).

“Redesign” stands for the perspective that systems design for the work practice should be organised as an evolutionary process consisting of different evolving life-cycles open to change. Evolving design assures the integration of new requirements and perspectives according to the current needs. Especially for groupware where different partners collaborate based on fragile structures and weak social connections group-centered solutions must be in accordance to the newest requirements.

References:

Trist, E.L. (1978). On Socio-Technical Systems. In W. A. Pasmore & J.J. Sherwood (eds.), Sociotechnical Systems. A Sourcebook (pp.43-47). La Jolla, CA: University Associates.

Mambrey, P., Mark, G., & Pankoke-Babatz, U. (1998). User Advocacy in Participatory Design: Designer's Experiences with a New Communication Channel. Computer Supported Cooperative Work: The Journal of Collaborative Computing (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, NL), 7(3-4), 291-313.