E-democracy will make the difference

She is interested in politics, but family and irregular working time prevent her from getting herself involved with the NGO’s and political activists nearby. Later at night, after things have calmed down, she boots her computer and logs in to the Newropeans Intranet. She doesn’t even know perhaps, but actually she is a precursor of e-democracy.

Of course a trans-national party cannot be reduced to an online project. Local and trans-national meetings are indispensable, also members have to meet non-members, and these elements .of course still exist at Newropeans (Local Group meetings, Newropeans Network Conferences, Agora, Democracy Marathon etc.). But on a European scale the participation in trans-national meetings will only be affordable and feasible for a very limited number of members. And, as for Natalie P., even local meetings are not everybody’s preferred mode of participation.

Therefore I am convinced that e-democracy will make the difference.

Putting an e or an i in front of a word is very popular thing these days. But after 6 months of managing the Newropeans Intranet I learned that in this case the e is not just there to make the famous greek invention more sexy. E-democracy is not just another buzzword. But what is it?

The notion emerged in the mid-nineties when a civil initiative in the US built an election-oriented web site with information directories and online candidate debates. Today, Wikipedia defines it as “the use of electronic communications technologies, such as the Internet, in enhancing democratic processes within a democratic republic or representative democracy”.

The most important elements of democratic processes are actually
1) Information sharing
2) Discussion and formation of opinion
3) Majority based decisions
4) Implementation or dissemination of what has been decided

All of these elements can be enhanced with modern web tools and means of communication which become more and more user friendly, accessible and cost effective, not only within a public democratic system but also in a democratic microcosm such as Newropeans. As the first real trans-European political movement Newropeans has adopted these tools from the beginning, thus enabling those above mentioned elements of a democratic process within its decentralised, multilingual community spread over Europe. Most of these tools are part of the Newropeans intranet, a web portal that members can access via personal login and password.

Essential for information sharing and formation of opinion are its sophisticated online discussion groups and a document management system. An online voting module allows every member to participate in majority based decisions such as elections of internal commissions or votings on Newropeans’ political program. A mail engine is used to inform all members or concerned subgroups about deadlines and results. Additional tools like Wikis (several authors work online on the same document) or basic video conferencing will follow soon.

Technology evolves quickly and many of these tools can already be plucked like ripe fruits that grow in world wide communities of open source programmers. This is actually not the issue.

To make e-democracy work, the real challenge is about rules and well defined processes.

And this is where Newropeans will have to pioneer and prove to sceptics and established nationally organised political parties that a democratically structured trans-national organisation can succeed. How long a proposal for voting should be discussed before the discussion is closed and the voting starts? How much time do members need in order to participate in an online voting? A few days? A few weeks? Which online discussions need to be summarised (how often) and translated (into which languages)? Which parts of a shared document storage system should be open to all members for uploads, downloads and changes, which ones should be restricted to subgroups and protected against changes? Which discussion groups are entirely open to all members, which are restricted to experts or functional groups within the organisation?

Finding the answers to these questions will require a kind of “trial and error” approach to some extent, a constant calibration whilst the number of members and the challenges are growing. Having already run through seven complete online votings, with more than 200 shared documents and almost 1.000 discussion posts we have already gathered some experience though.

The need for transparency, motivation and involvement of a maximum of members and flexibility of the system has to be balanced with opposite requirements such as security, efficiency and decision-making ability. There are not many “best-practice” examples where Newropeans could copy proven solutions. But there is one project that has certainly convinced me that only with the right set of rules – which when you look at it also reflects an interesting attitude towards its contributors – the potentials of e-tools can be unleashed: the Wikipedia online encyclopaedia. It thus succeeded to stimulate the ambitions and motivation of a world-wide community to develop something together.