Faculty
Rony Medaglia, Assistant Professor, PhD

Course Coordinator
Morten Ougaard

This course can be followed by all students with a keen interest in understanding how new digital media are transforming the relationships between governments and citizens.

There is a global trend in governments across the world to use new digital media to enable citizen democratic participation (eDemocracy/ eParticipation policies). New technological tools – such as web 2.0 applications, social networking services, mobile technologies, etc. – are changing the way citizens interact with governmental bodies at all levels: local, national, and supra-national.This course focuses on strategies and tools employed by governments to enable citizen democratic participation in decision-making using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).In its first part, the course will provide a critical overview of different and conflicting perspectives about the democratic role of ICT in the public sector, and of the main theoretical models and methods used to analyse e-participation.In the second part, maturity models of e-participation adoption will be presented and discussed, and students will be trained to use them to assess real-life examples of governmental online features. The course will provide the students with the following academic competences: To have a critical overview of the main existing eDemocracy/ eParticipation policy strategies that goes beyond the formal governmental claims.To identify and be able to discuss key concepts, theories and methods of eParticipation analysis within a new and rapidly growing research area.To bridge theory with practice by building tools of analysis that draw on these concepts.To use these tools to assess real life examples of e-participation implementation in public websites.The teaching will be in the pedagogical form of lectures, group discussions, individual process writing, brainstorming facilitated by the teacher, and online assessments of public websites. The course is organized in 10 sessions of three hours each.

The course will provide the students with the following personal and interpersonal competences:

At the end of the course, the student must be able to:

Oral examination based on synopsis.

Andersen, K. V., Henriksen, H. Z., Secher, C., & Medaglia, R. (2007). Costs of e-participation: the management challenges. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 1(1), 29-43. p. 15

Berthon, P., & Williams, C. B. (2007). Stages of e-democracy: towards an open-source political model. International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 6(2), 329-342. p 14

Carrizales, T., Holzer, M., Kim, S. T., & Kim, C. G. (2006). Digital Governance Worldwide: A Longitudinal Assessment of Municipal Web Sites. International Journal of Electronic Government Research, 2(4), 1-23. p. 24

Coleman, S. and Norris, D. (2005) A New Agenda for e-Democracy. International Journal of Electronic Government Research, 1(3) 69-82. p. 14

Grönlund, Ä. (2003). Emerging electronic infrastructures—Exploring democratic components. Social Science Computer Review, 21(1), 55−72. p. 18

Grönlund, Ä., & Horan, T. (2005). Introducing e-GOV: History, definitions and issues. Communications of the AIS, 15, 713−729 p. 17

Hoff, J., Lofgren, K., & Torpe, L. (2003). The state we are in: E-democracy in Denmark. Information Polity: The International Journal of Government and Democracy in the Information Age, 8(1/2), 49−66. p. 17

Hudson-Smith, A., Evans, S., & Batty, M. (2005). Building the virtual city: Public participation through e-democracy. Knowledge, Technology and Policy, 18(1), 62−85. p.24

Jensen, J. L. (2003). Public spheres on the Internet: Anarchic or government-sponsored—A comparison. Scandinavian Political Studies, 26(4), 349−374. p.26

Kakabadse, A., Kakabadse, N.K. and Kouzmin, A. (2003). ‘Reinventing the Democratic Governance Project through Information Technology? A Growing Agenda for Debate’, Public Administration Review, Vol. 63, No. 1, 44-60. p. 17

Macintosh, A. (2004). ‘Characterizing E-Participation in Policy-Making’, Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, http://csdl.computer.org/comp/proceedings/hicss/2004/2056/05/205650117a.pdf p. 10

Medaglia, R. (2007). Measuring the diffusion of eParticipation: A survey on Italian local government. Information Polity: The International Journal of Government & Democracy in the Information Age, 12(4), 265-280. p. 16

OECD (2003). Promises and problems of e-democracy: Challenges of citizen on-line engagement, OECD. p, 162

Päivärinta, T., & Sæbø, Ø. (2006). Models of E-Democracy. Communications of AIS, 17, article 37. p. 24

Parvez, Z. (2006). Informatization of local democracy: A structuration perspective. Information Polity, 11(1), 67-83. p. 17

Shulman, S. W., Schlosberg, D., Zavestoski, S., & Courard-Hauri, D. (2003). Electronic rulemaking—A public participation research agenda for the social sciences. Social Science Computer Review, 21(2), 162−178. p. 16

Steyaert, J. (2000). Local governments online and the role of the resident—Government shop versus electronic community. Social Science Computer Review, 18(1), 3−16. p. 14

Thomas, J. C. and G. Streib (2003). "The new face of government: Citizen-initiated contacts in the era of E-government." Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 13(1): 83-102. p. 20

Torres, L., Pina, V., & Acerete, B. (2006). E-Governance Developments in EU Cities. Reshaping Government's Relationship with Citizens. Governance, 12(9), 277–302. p. 26

van der Graft, P. and Jorgen Svensson (2006). ‘Explaining eDemocracy development: A quantitative empirical study’, Information Polity, Vol. 11, No. 2, 123-134. p. 11

van Dijk, J. (2000). Models of Democracy and Concepts of Communication, in Hacker, K.L. and van Dijk, J. (eds.), Digital Democracy, Issues of Theory and Practice, Sage, London. p.20

Vedel, T. (2006). The Idea of Electronic Democracy: Origins, Visions and Questions. Parliamentary Affairs, 59(2), 226-235. p. 10

Watson, Richard T. And Bryan Mundy (2001). “A Strategic Perspective for Electronic Democracy.” Communications of the ACM 44: 27-31. p. 4

Wright, S. (2006). Electrifying Democracy? 10 Years of Policy and Practice. Parliamentary Affairs, 59(2), 236-249. p. 14