albrecht 2012 e_part2012

E-Consultation – A Review of Current Practice

and a Proposal for Opening Up the Process

Steffen Albrecht

ePart 2012, Kristiansand, Norway

4th September 2012

Research Context: The IMPACT Project

EU funding (FP7-ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling)

Duration: 2011 – 2013

Partners: Fraunhofer FOKUS (Lead); U Amsterdam; U Leeds;

U Liverpool; UID GmbH; Zebralog GmbH & Co KG

Aim: to develop tools to support the use of argumentation

in policy debates

- Argument Reconstruction, Argument Visualisation,

Policy Modelling, Structured Consultations

E-Participation

Administrations

Political Institutions

Citizens, Stakeholders

Civil Society Organisations

Information Third party

transparency

Consultation Campaigns,

Lobbying

Cooperation Petitions,

Complaints

E-Consultations

2001 – Promoted by OECD

2012 – Widespread adoption globally (UN EGov Survey)

– Standard practice in EU policy-making

Aims:

- Connect government and citizens

- Increase legitimacy of policy-making

- Raise quality of decisions

Agenda

Setting

Policy

Formulation

Decision

Making

Implementation

Evaluation

E-Consultations

2001 – Promoted by OECD

2012 – Widespread adoption globally (UN EGov Survey)

– Standard practice in EU policy-making

Problems:

- Limited connections

- Lack of transparency

- Limited use of technologies

Agenda

Setting

Policy

Formulation

Decision

Making

Implementation

Evaluation

Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal

E-Consultations

- should be deliberative

- should use specific technologies

- should open up towards the social web

Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal

E-Consultations

- should be deliberative

- should use specific technologies

- should open up towards the social web

Deliberation increases transparency

Deliberation allows for opinion formation

Deliberation serves as filter for proposals

Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal

E-Consultations

- should be deliberative

- should use specific technologies

- should open up towards the social web

Natural language processing facilitates analysis of large-

scale debates

Formal models of argumentation help to visualise debates

and focus on rational justifications

Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal

E-Consultations

- should be deliberative

- should use specific technologies

- should open up towards the social web

Social web as a space of lifewordly political debates

Acknowledging knowledge shared on the social web

Not one-way, but transparent connections

E-Consultations

- should be deliberative

- should use specific technologies

- should open up towards the social web

Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal

Argument Reconstruction

Argument Visualisation

Policy Modelling

Structured Consultations

E-Consultations

- should be deliberative

- should use specific technologies

- should open up towards the social web

Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal

Argument Reconstruction

Argument Visualisation

Policy Modelling

Structured Consultations

allow for new procedures

How to protect the privacy of participants who are not

participating actively?

How to identify relevant contributions to a given policy

issue?

How to change administrative culture from „experts“ to

„partners“?

What role for intermediaries in the policy process?

Open Issues and Questions

Your questions?

Dr. Steffen Albrecht

Zebralog GmbH & Co KG

Berlin, Germany

albrecht@zebralog.de

www.zebralog.com

www.policy-impact.eu