In recent times, most EU-25 Member States have experienced, though maybe at different speed, three basic institutional and operational changes:

• A (legislative and/or administrative) devolution process from central Government to the regional and local levels. At least in part, this was also related to the European integration process, that is based on the dialogue with and between subnational bodies, and to the EU Structural Funds, focusing on socio-economic imbalances and divergences between different regions of a same country, and thus on decentralised responsibility in the management of local economic and social development;
• A long wave of public administration reforms, aimed at modernising or “reinventing” Government on the basis of “business-like” criteria such as quality of service and value for money, i.e. efficiency, effectiveness, and economy. This also responded to a call for greater transparency and accountability of Government bodies in the management of public resources and the fulfilment of collective interests and goals;
• The launch and piloting of projects, both centrally and at regional and local levels, for the computerisation of public administration, by means of a wider and more intensive use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) “as a tool to achieve better government”, in line with the OECD definition of e-Government.

This has helped to deliver efficiencies across the public sector, through the combination of ICT investment with organisational change of the back-office and the acquisition of new skills, as well as to reduce the cost of administrative transactions and regulatory compliance for Government “customers”.

Though the implementation of ICTs in public institutions has coincided, at first, (and as it should have), with process restructuring and department- or service- level reorganisation, basically related to the first two trends mentioned above, a growing awareness has gradually emerged concerning the potential value of ICTs for an increased (e-)participation of constituencies in the political (decision-making) process.

Incentives to democratic participation have taken the initial form of the generic provision of online information to citizens through Government’s telematic portals, responding to the elementary axiom that without an increased transparency on the public administration operation, there can be no real progress towards e-Democracy .

Then have been following, in sparse order: the first open and/or (un)moderated online discussion fora, some electronic vote trials, up to the special concertative procedures connected with the drafting of new legislation or the evaluation of economic and social policies.

Evidence on e-Participation good practices from the EU e-Government Good Practice Framework shows a great variety of activities, nationally, regionally and locally, which have in common a growing sense that there is a “better way” of managing Government affairs and the relationship between citizens and public administration, enabled by ICTs.

It would certainly be beneficial to cross-read these experiences with a juridical survey of the legislation allowing, in each country, more or less advanced forms of stakeholders’ involvement in the definition and evaluation of policy targets and initiatives, and to explore the technological, social and institutional conditions enabling to turn the current “best practices” of e-Democracy at EU level into stable components of a really participatory legislative process.

Francesco Molinari

You may contact Francesco at: mail@francescomolinari.it