Electronic participation in Europe

Abstract

In modern liberal democracies, participation of the dēmos is not restricted to casting votes in elections, but includes a growing variety of other, both formally institutionalised and informal practices of civic engagement. At the European Union level, the importance of public engagement has increased with the rise of new forms of governance and a "participatory turn" in reaction to the persistent distance and mistrust of citizens towards EU institutions. Propelled by fast technological change in the field of information and communication technologies, electronic or e-participation now plays a crucial role in all kinds of participatory processes between citizens and government as well as between civil society organisations and government. Chapter 3 of this book describes the full scope of the different categories and variants of Internet-based political participation. It starts with reflections on the role of participatory democracy in EU-governance and the relevance of e-participation across the policy cycle, reviews empirical evidence on the use and effects of major forms of e-participation (structured into top-down and bottom-up approaches), places a special focus on the European Citizens’ Initiative as a novel instrument, and highlights good practice cases of European e-participation.