Book chapter
Развитие института электронного участия в контексте политических режимов: Соотношение факторов agency и structure.
Information and communication technologies have been increasingly used to involve in the government decision-making process. Given high costs associated with developing and maintaining electronic platforms, effectiveness of such projects has not been frequently assessed. The article discusses theoretical approaches to evaluating effectiveness of e-participation projects, suggests criteria and a methodology for conducting such evaluations, and provides the results of “Activniy grazhdanin” platform evaluation based on the analysis of the reports published in 2014-2016. On the one hand the study attempts to react to the changes in public administration in Russia when the number of electronic platforms (and costs accordingly) is increasing given the insufficient public importance of the topics under discussion (in terms of taking into account public interests). On the other hand, the study aims to develop a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of new form of public participation projects. The article concludes that in order for e-platforms to be effective tool for government decision-making process the platforms not only have to consider advanced technical parameters and high level of public involvement, but also sufficient public importance of the topics under discussion (in terms of taking into account public interests). Perhaps, at a minimum, consideration of these three factors is required to ensure e-platforms are effective. This conclusion may provide the basis for developing an evaluation methodology to be used by the government. In this way the present research provides basis for local governments benchmarking, since there is no similar study concerning Russia.
In this article various papers presented on the IV International conference on online-deliberation which took place at the University of Leeds (UK) in 2010 and was dedicated to the search of the proper answers to all social and technological challenges to this relatively new scientific field are reviewed. To begin with the author gives a brief history of theoretical premises which caused the interest to this agenda in contemporary political science. The main scientific trends are examined on the concrete research examples. In the conclusion the further outlooks of the researches in the field of political online-deliberation, including those in our country, are discussed.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Participation, ePart 2016, held in Guimarães, Portugal, in September 5-8, 2016.
The 14 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 31 submissions. The papers reflect completed multi-disciplinary research ranging from policy analysis and conceptual modeling to programming and visualization of simulation models. They are organized in four topical threads: theoretical foundations; critical reflections; implementations; policy formulation and modeling.
The past several years there has been a stable interest of non-democracies towards the institute of electronic participation. The article addresses the possible reasons of the concept’s popularity and factors of its successful implementation. It is argued that e-participation allows solving internal problems of Internet - control and legitimacy, as well as boosting up international socialization and economic competitiveness. Hence functions of e-participation are quite similar to those performed by other “democratic institutions”. On the basis of the dictator’s digital dilemma and results of empirical analysis it is concluded that e-participation is better developed in countries with higher foreign incentives and lower political risks and economic costs.