E-participation in lawmaking: background, promises & challenges

Abstract

Government agencies, civil society organizations and private actors are experimenting with e-participation initiatives that aim to transform the traditional, top-down and rather obscure lawmaking process. Such practices promise to increase the quality of the process and that of its outcomes while also engendering democratic benefits, namely inclusiveness, transparency and legitimacy, among others. The phenomenon is sparking an academic interest in these experiences. This paper aims to shed some light on this growing field. It first introduces the context of emergence of the concepts of e-rulemaking, crowdsourcing legislation and crowdlaw, and identifies diverse attributes and variables. The following section displays the potential democratic benefits of e-participation in lawmaking, organized into twelve points. The paper then presents current challenges to initiating and implementing crowdlaw practices, as well as processing public input and effectively impacting the lawmaking process. It concludes with final considerations about these challenges.