- 1. Aspasia Papaloi Research Fellow, NTLAB, in Communication,
Education and the Mass Media, University of Athens
E-mail:[email_address] Dimitris Gouscos Lecturer, Department of
Communication and Media Studies, University of Athens
E-mail:[email_address] http://www.media.uoa.gr/medialab/ 06/05/10
EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos
2.
- Enables the expression of the will of people
- Government is held to account
- Anders Johnsson, IPU Secretary General (2006)
- Generation of governments capable of governing
- Support by the majority in parliament
- Cooperation of high disciplined parties
- Parties that produce a decision-making process highly
centralized
- Cheibub and Limongi (2002)
06/05/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 3.
- Accountability of its members to the electorate
- Integrity of MPs in the conduct of their work
- An institution socially and politically representative
- An institution ensuring equal opportunities and protections for
all its members
- An effective parliament by producing better laws, policies and
programs
- Legislative and oversight functions, that serve the needs of
the population
- Openness to the nation through different media
- A transparent parliament, as far as the conduct of its business
is concerned
- Involvement of public, associations, and movements of civil
society in its works
- A connective parliament, intending to the building of trust
between
- government and citizens and to the strengthening of governance
legitimacy
06/05/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 4.
- Physical presence and interaction of participants. Simulation
of parliamentary proceedings and discussion of issues in two
levels: i. In committee meetings, and ii. In a Plenary session
- Examples: Youth Parliament, Elders Parliament in Cyprus
- Citizens meetings from different areas or with different
demographic characteristics. Discussion, learning and exchange
ofideas on issues of public importance. Proposal ofrecommendations
to the government as a medium of public deliberation and
participation in decision-making.
- Example: Citizens Parliament in Australia
- Programs, which enable the deliberation among participants over
a specific issue.
- Example: European Citizens Panel organized by EC
- Alternative parliamentsorCounter-parliaments
- Associations of groups of people indicating their need to
express themselves in a different milieu.
- Example: Structure of citizens protest on current social issues
or their participation in the current political agenda
06/05/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 5.
- A transparent, accessible and accountablelegislature through
ICT
- A legislature empowering people, in all their diversity, to be
more engaged
- A legislature providing higher quality information and greater
access to its
- parliamentary documents and activities
- An organisation where connected stakeholders use ICT to support
its primary
- functions of representation, law-making and oversight more
effectively
- Fostering the development of an equitable and inclusive
information society,
- through the application of modern technology and standards and
the adoption of
- (United Nations, 2008: 12).
05/06/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 6.
- General information about parliament
- Information about legislation, budget, and oversight
- Finding, receiving, and viewing information
- Communication and dialogue with citizens
- Usability, accessibility, and language
- Management and responsibilities
06/05/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 7.
- Parliament-to-Parliament services (P2P)
- Parliament-to-Members of Parliament services (P2MP)
- Parliament-to-Citizen services (P2C)
- Citizens-to-Parliament services (C2P)
05/06/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 8.
- Parliament-to-Parliament services (P2P)
- Implementation of technological tools for the facilitation of
information exchange among parliaments.
- Example: IPEX (Inter-Parliamentary EU Information
Exchange)
- Database for storage of parliamentary documents, as far as the
national scrutiny is concerned, of decisions taken at the EU
level
- Facilitation of the exchange of all EU-related information
between parliaments
- Fora for the exchange of views on scrutiny including
subsidiarity aspects
- Maintenance of a calendar concerning interparliamentary
meetings
05/06/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 9.
- Parliament-to-Members of Parliament services (P2MP)
- Implementation of ICT tools for the facilitation of MPs
work.
- Highly ranked services used by the MPs: mobile technology,
webmail, remote access to legislative documents, use of laptop
computers.
- Example: Use of mobile phones by the Finnish Parliament
- Facilitation for loan library services (availability of
requested material, loan period, requests to
- Facilitation of MPs and civil servants work while on move (GPRS
data services, automated
- calendar, event notifications)
- (The Library of Parliament, 2007; Telia Sonera, 2005; Fujitsu,
n.d.)
05/06/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 10.
- Parliament-to-Citizen services (P2C)
- Creation of projects with the aim to attract citizens interest
and to enhance their participation in parliamentary
proceedings.
- Example: e-Petition Project by the Scottish Parliament
06/05/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 11.
- Citizens-to-Parliament services (C2P)
- Services available to citizens for contact with their MPs and
further feedback to parliament.
- Example: UK-based My Society projects, such as Hear from Your
MP, Write to Them and They Work for You
- Hear from Your MP Communication scheme through e-mail
service
06/05/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 12.
- Serves for submission of comments and interactive deliberation
over pending rulemakings. Basically, implemented in the US with the
aim toincrease democratic legitimacy and regulatory compliance,
improve policy decisions and decrease administrative costs
- Transparency on citizens rulemaking proposals
- Familiarization with corresponding tools by rulemaking
agencies
- Improvement of regulatory decisions
- Increase of quality pertaining to government rules
- Development of new e-services (e.g. digital libraries)
- Implementation on municipality level since 1989, in order to
enable citizens know about government operations, hold government
into account and influence government policies (Islam, 2007)
- Broadening of citizen awareness over social and political
issues
- Enforcement of decision-making in democratic regimes
- Engagement of many stakeholders (local governments, individual
citizens, NGOs etc.) that makes the
- decision taken more complex, but also credible, comprehensive
and fair
05/06/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 13.
- Implementation ofgraphical representation in a shared user
space of the arguments formulated during a public dialogue (e.g.
WAVE project with the use of Debategraph platform)
- Multi-lingual cross-border context
- Inclusiveness and transparency of EU decision making at
national and European level
- Differing points of view (in order to make complex ideas
simpler)
- Use of wikis for collaboration and feedback on legislation
- Implementation of text visualization of the topics discussed in
a public dialogue (e.g. VIDI project)
- Efficient interaction between citizens and policy makers
- Text visualization facilitates the understanding, discovery and
summarization of the topics discussed
05/06/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 14.
- Argument and Discussion visualization
- Reasons for combining argument and discussion visualization
services with Youth Parliaments :
- Argument maps are usually used in formal education for learning
and understanding complex
- Data or text visualization fosters the summarization and
categorization of information, which
- enables the managing of simpler ideas by young people
- Experimental learning and game-based learning is amusing to
young people, more engaging and
- the outcomes are easily extracted
- Young people are acquainted with novel ICT tools, which enable
collaboration (e.g. wikis)
- Argument visualization or discussion visualization projects can
foster further
- discussion and inclusion of more participants pertaining to
Youth Parliament programs
30/04/2010 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 15.
- E-rulemaking and Participatory Budgeting
- Social and Thematic Parliaments
- Reasons for combining e-Rulemaking and Participatory Budgeting
services with Social and Thematic Parliaments:
- Adults can form more complex ideas and deliberate in a more
formal way
- Adults want to take part in democraticand parliamentary
procedures in such a way, that
- their opinions or ideas will be heard and taken into
account
- Abovementioned projects enable a level of transparency,
knowledge of governments
- operations and inclusion ofall citizens
- The outcomes of these deliberations can effect citizens
everyday life directly, if they are
- enacted soon by governments
06/05/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 16.
- Availability and management of human and financial
resources
- Elaboration of benefits and measurable outcomes expected by the
introduction of novel
- Detailed investigation of service contents, service provision
and citizen participation workflows
- Exploration of political, organizational and legal issues
arisen pertaining to parliaments
- Exploration ofsocio-cultural issues arisen pertaining to
citizens
06/05/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos 17.
- Greek Operational Programme on Digital Convergence
- ICT Policy Support Programme by European Commission
- http://www.media.uoa.gr/medialab/
05/06/10 EDem 2010-A. Papaloi & D. Gouscos