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Impacts of Shale Gas Extraction on the Environment and on Human Health – 2012 Update
Summary : How can the Internet contribute to the development and establishment of a genuinely European public (e-public)? What are good practices for e-participation in Europe and how can public organisations profit from opening up their processes to a wider audience (e-participation)? Is e-voting a realistic means to increase electoral turnout and what are the conditions for the success of e-voting? These are the main questions being dealt with in this report, which is the final report of the STOA-project on e-democracy. The report includes the analysis and insights of a research and consultation project in which three scientific institutes, eleven external experts as participants of two workshops and several Members of the European Parliament were involved. The aim of the project, which went from January 2010 to September 2011, was to analyse current developments in the area of e-democracy and to relate the insights to the European policy context, especially to the needs of the European Parliament. Within the three areas of e-democracy covered in the study, e-voting is the area in which the recommendation to the European Parliament is the most explicit: Based on the analysis, the build-up of a comprehensive system for e-voting in Europe cannot be recommended for the time being. The reasons for this are primarily cost-benefit considerations, technological issues and reasons of political legitimacy. Underlying the analysis was the conviction that elections are at the heart of the democratic process and that existing and working election routines in the countries will not be changed without good reasons. Concerning e-public and e-participation the report argues that a European public sphere includes and requires an active citizenry endowed with political rights as well as with a sense of identity which motivates engagement and political concern. European citizenship cannot be based in common language and traditions but only in a sense of belonging to a political community with shared values and rights. E-participation as such, when related to relevant policy-making processes on the level of European institutions, would constitute a new element of European citizenship beyond the right to vote. It provides an additional democratic form of European citizenship which – if successfully established – could also help to foster European citizenship in its subjective or cultural meaning. However this would imply to organise e-participation in a way that is accessible, transparent and meaningful to the European citizenry. It must be clear where there are opportunities for citizens to raise their voice and at the same time it must be clear in which way and to what end e-participation spaces are related to the very core of policy-making. From what is known from e-participation exercises at all levels, participants do not expect to rule out or bypass the representative democratic structures. On the other hand it is also obvious that a lack of responsiveness of political institutions to formats of online participation leads to disappointment on the participants’ side that in the long run would be detrimental to any process of developing feelings of citizenship.
Executive summary :
Authors : Bernd Beckert (Fraunhofer ISI), Ralf Lindner (Fraunhofer ISI), Kerstin Goos (Fraunhofer ISI), Leonhard Hennen (ITAS), Georg Aichholzer (ITA) and Stefan Strauβ (ITA)
Committees : Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA), Industry, research and energy, Constitutional affairs, Area of freedom, security and justice, Petitions
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