This area contains an assembly of links and comments relating to these aspects of Online Deliberative Democracy:
- Issues in Online Deliberative Democracy initiatives
- Examples of Online Deliberative Democracy initiatives
- Agencies in the Sector
- Resources about Online Deliberative Democracy
Online Deliberative Democracy in Context
Government services typically aim to achieve efficiency. Democracy is not efficient. The challenge is to find the optimal level of inefficiency. (Steve Clift)
Online Deliberation intiatives take place within a wider context of eGovernment initiatives, arranged here in order of when they occur in the democratic process:
(earlier in the democratic process)
- access - increasing community access to ICT
- information - making it easy for people to find out about local government
- community organisations ICT - facilitating use of ICT by community organisations
- education - school and community education around ICT and local/regional issues
- participation - increasing awareness and stimulating conversations about government issues
- deliberation - obtaining thoughtful, representative input into government policy and decision-making
- e-polling/voting
- policy-setting
- rule-making
- inter-agency collaboration - online work in distributed groups
- e-service-delivery - making it easy for people to access local government services online
(later in the democratic process)
Online initiatives to involve citizens in public process exist within a tension between Outcomes vs Participation Orientation.