E-democracy Initiatives at Local Level in the Republic of Macedonia, Estonia and Hungary

Transcription

1 E-democracy Initiatives at Local Level in the Republic of Macedonia, Estonia and Hungary Ganka Cvetanova, PhD University Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje Veno Pachovski, PhD University American College Skopje 9th annual international academic conference on European integration THE EUROPE OF TOMORROW: CREATIVE, DIGITAL, INTEGRATED May 15, 2014

2 The study evaluates three different types of e- democracy initiatives at local level in the Republic of Macedonia, Estonia and Hungary Comparative Project on Local e-democracy Initiatives in Europe and North America, conducted by e-democracy Centre, Research Centre on Direct Democracy, Faculty of Law, University of Geneva, Switzerland published in 2007 (enhanced by contemporary research) UACS Conference, May 15,

3 Our research first stage analysis of the web portals of the units of local-self government in the Republic of Macedonia in the period of with special emphasis on e- democracy initiatives second stage comparative analysis of the e-democracy initiatives at local level in the Republic of Macedonia and e- democracy initiatives in Estonia and Hungary UACS Conference, May 15,

4 Why Republic of Macedonia with Estonia and Hungary for the following reasons: Estonia and Hungary as EU Member States on one hand and the Republic of Macedonia as EU candidate country on the other hand; Recent Communist history in all of the three countries; UACS Conference, May 15,

5 Also, Both Estonia and Macedonia are newly independent states; Weak democratic institutions; Centralized governmental arrangements; Powerful digital divide; Similar population characteristics All three countries committed to e-democracy; UACS Conference, May 15,

6 The Republic of Estonia a small unitary state on the Baltic Sea (approx. 1.3 million people) relies upon a system of constitutional democracy with a President elected by a unicameral parliament the President appoints the Prime Minister (with 14 Ministers) elections are held every 4 years divided into 15 counties within these counties, essentially two types of municipality of importance Towns tend to be larger municipalities Rural municipalities are conglomerations of smaller villages, clustered in the same area Just under a third of the population (roughly 400,000) is located in the biggest city and capital, Tallinn, on the country s north coast. UACS Conference, May 15,

7 Hungary a small central European country (approx. ten million people) governmental structure is a unitary, democratic state national level government is organized in a parliamentarian system municipal governments are constitutionally granted a certain level of sovereignty this sets the background for the widespread, autonomous, municipal-level experimentation with e-democracy. Hungary s population is relatively unevenly distributed, roughly 90% of its registered municipalities have less than 5,000 people. many residents are concentrated in the large urban areas, leaving few moderately sized cities. Budapest is the capital and the largest city of Hungary, and one of the largest cities in the European Union (1.728 million (2010)) UACS Conference, May 15,

8 E-democracy Putting an e in front of democracy means nothing more than using information technology tools to facilitate, improve and ultimately extend the exercise of democracy (Caldow, 2004: 1). Web2.0 technology UACS Conference, May 15,

9 Many local authorities worldwide also adopted the use of ICT to supplement their traditional activities, and improve citizen involvement in the democratic processes. Web2.0 technology (to make massive text-based, audio, and even visual records of government activity available on citizens computer screens) UACS Conference, May 15,

10 E-democracy initiatives classified by the elements of the democratic process which they work to enhance: 1. transparency, 2. participation, and 3. deliberation. UACS Conference, May 15,

11 Typology of E-Democracy Initiatives Transparency centralizing the information source providing information about the government activities Participation e-voting e-consultation or citizen feedback online participation Deliberation online public sphere UACS Conference, May 15,

12 Estonia - Attitude Toward E-Democracy the top three problems that the Estonian democracy faces are 1. fragility of civil society structures, 2. low voter turnout especially for local elections (47.4% turnout in 2005), and 3. the low reputation of political parties. In order to overcome these obstacles, the Estonian Parliament created the Estonian Civil Society Development Concept (known as EKAK) One of the goals to promote citizen involvement in the political decision-making process through the use of ICTs as an attempt to raise the rate of participation, specifically voter turnout, the Estonian government introduced binding internet voting beginning in the 2005 elections UACS Conference, May 15,

13 Estonia the initiatives improving participation or fostering deliberation the implemented e-democracy initiatives are generally under-utilized internet voting - project conducted on a national level developing its e-voting system since 2002 used in 2005 (for local government council elections) used in 2009, (in the European elections) in March 2011 (the parliamentary elections) UACS Conference, May 15,

14 Estonia the e-voting initiative internet voting developing e-voting system since 2002 the first time in 2005 (for local government council elections) in 2009, about a third of the electorate voted in the European elections of whom 15% used e-voting (5% of total voters). in March 2011 the parliamentary elections, 61% of the total electorate voted; just under a quarter of the votes cast came through e-voting (15% of the total number of votes). But, researchers who replicated system in laboratory environment say software could be hacked to cast fake votes or servers attacked to alter totals the benefits considered not to be worth the risks (The Guardian, May 12, 2014) Source: UACS Conference, May 15,

15 Hungary most popular type of e-democracy initiative deliberation online political forums can be found in municipalities as varied as small, rural, mostly farming towns to the largest cities in the country (but, some major problems were indicated in this area wealth redistributed digital divide) initiatives addressing the digital divide 1. website aimed at including the blind, achieved by avoiding frames and providing a non-graphics version that makes it suitable for reading software. rests at the level of transparency - it brings information about the government to those who could not easily access it 2. free WiFi hotspot in the center of the city an attempt to encourage citizens to sign online and get information about the government UACS Conference, May 15,

16 Hungary case studies promoting new spaces for political discussion - a strong tendency toward the provision of these in Hungary three types of forums 1. an online forum - citizens can interact and discuss issues of local importance 2. a forum - monitored by members of the local government who either cull ideas from the discussion or participate and answer questions from time to time (relies on open-source technology) 3. an online live-chat forum - between the mayor and citizen-users that have registered beforehand (a forum that manages to create a dialogue between citizens and the mayor) - the event takes place quarterly. In this way, a political space is created and sustained that could not have existed without ICTs - a real electronically mediated agora (Peart and Diaz, 2007: 19) UACS Conference, May 15,

17 Republic of Macedonia Digital divide Attitude toward e-democracy Overview of Initiatives Case Studies UACS Conference, May 15,

18 Using computers and Internet in Republic of Macedonia in 2012 and 2013 year (in %) 80 Households that used computers and Internet (in %) Computer Internet (Source: Drzaven Zavod za statistika, 2013) UACS Conference, May 15,

19 Digital divide between urban and rural areas in RM (in %) 80 Internet access at home (in %) non-urban urban The household uses computer Have access at home Don't have access at home Don't know (created using data from Drzaven Zavod za statistika, 2013) UACS Conference, May 15,

20 Using the internet for interacting with the public authorities in the last 12 months (Source: Drzaven Zavod za statistika, 2013) UACS Conference, May 15,

21 Local E-democracy 83 local government units plus the City of Skopje Percentage of existing portals at local level in the Republic of Macedonia UACS Conference, May 15,

22 Municipalities in Republic of Macedonia Degree of implementation of various e-tools in their web-sites (in %) (data last checked on March, 24, 2014) UACS Conference, May 15,

23 e-democracy initiatives in Republic of Macedonia e-democracy initiatives in sub-categories deliberation participation / on-line activity participation / e-consultation or citizen feedback participation / e-voting transparency / info transparency / central 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% (data last checked on March 25, 2014) UACS Conference, May 15,

24 Second subtype of transparency initiatives - Successful stories the community of Demir Kapija the official bulletins are published detailing the last four years of activity. the community of Ilinden, the last six years are documented. the municipality of Bosilovo the video recordings of press conferences of the mayor are posted on site. The municipality of Veles (best example) documents are pre-categorized in two sections, one of them dedicated to current activities and the other to video recordings of council sessions (documented for the last three years). UACS Conference, May 15,

25 To increase the transparency Using social networks many municipalities or mayors also created official fanpages on Facebook (more then 35%) Some other municipality posted videos with community activities on YouTube The Municipality of Gevgelija an excellent example for this kind of activity, with 73 videos posted, ranging from press conferences to meetings with citizens Finally, out of those 9 municipalities that do not have web-sites, 5 are present on Facebook, (to somehow compensate for the lack of portal) UACS Conference, May 15,

26 Language aspect an obstacle or an opportunity Macedonian society - multiethnic in accordance with the Ohrid Framework Agreement 25, many of the multiethnic municipalities are supposed to use both languages: the language of the dominant ethnic community and the official language. these principles should be applied on the municipalities web portals accordingly. Negative examples municipalities (Tearce, Kicevo, Zelino, Debar, Vrapciste, Aracinovo, Cair) do not use on their portals the official language which remains a serious obstacle for information access. Positive examples Skopje, Bogovinje, Kumanovo provide information in two languages, and Gostivar and Dolneni, in three languages. The language in this context not just a matter of interethnic relations, but a cause to deepening the digital divide. UACS Conference, May 15,

27 The second initiative to increase participation there are some outstanding examples at local level. The Initiative PrijaviProblem (Report a Problem) is implemented in various municipalities. Prilep could be pointed out as a municipality with the best solution using this initiative, in 2012 the citizens in Prilep reported 1184 problems over local issues and 1136 of them successfully solved by the local government closely followed by Veles and Shtip the Municipality of Vinica another good example enables a direct contact with a municipality representative by establishing a chat session (5% of municipalities have this option available). UACS Conference, May 15,

28 Study Limitations as a basis for our research i.e. comparative analysis we used a project that was published in 2007 (but, some of the facts were contemporized) did not investigate what types of pre-conditions correlate to success in some types of initiatives or to failure in others not being able to analyze those local units web portals where the official language was not used. UACS Conference, May 15,

29 Conclusion in each of the three countries e-democracy initiatives at local level were provided almost exclusively by the local administration many outstanding local e-democracy initiatives in all of the three countries UACS Conference, May 15,

30 Conclusion Unlike the cases with Estonia and Hungary, the deliberation initiative in the Republic of Macedonia so far is not present common trend in all three countries - lack of attention paid to the digital divide, except the websites for sight-disabled individuals and the public provision of WiFi hotspots in Hungary UACS Conference, May 15,

31 Conclusion There is a little evidence that these initiatives have done much to ameliorate the problems, such as: weak democratic institutions, low level of trust in the governments and low level of citizens participation in democratic processes using ICT as intermediary UACS Conference, May 15,

32 Conclusion All three countries should address adequately the issue of digital divide (all aspects). more attention should be paid on developing ICT sectors and adequate ICT infrastructure in the municipalities, as well as to improve digital skills and services UACS Conference, May 15,

33 Conclusion Regarding Republic of Macedonia, the focus should be put on developing e- deliberation initiatives so the citizens - using online forums - could raise issues of local importance and to enhance e-democracy participation at the same time. UACS Conference, May 15,

34 Thank you for your attention Ganka Cvetanova, PhD Veno Pachovski, PhD 9th annual international academic conference on European integration THE EUROPE OF TOMORROW: CREATIVE, DIGITAL, INTEGRATED May 16, 2013 UACS Conference, May 15,

35 Levels of Citizen Involvement Use of different e-tools in EU Member States based on information collected from questionnaires (Source: Handbook on e-democracy, 2010) 100% 90% 88% 94% 82% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 41% 53% 59% 71% 65% 47% 71% 29% 53% 47% 35% 29% 59% 20% 10% 0% UACS Conference, May 15,

36 Use of different e-tools on the local units portals in the RM 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 49% 40% 53% 32% 30% 20% 23% 24% 15% 20% 21% 10% 0% 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 1% 7% 5% (data last checked on March, 24, 2014) UACS Conference, May 15,