E-Democracy and E-Tools of citizen participation on local level in Poland (original) (raw)
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The Legal Basis of Citizen Electronic Participation in Poland
Przegląd Prawa Konstytucyjnego, 2021
This article discusses the legal basis of citizen e-participation, understood as the use of digital media in the relations of citizens and governments in order to increase participation by citizens. The concept of top-down e-participation determines the scope of analysis. The legal review of the local, national and international law shows that there are some well-regulated levels of e-participation in Poland while others are not a subject of legal regulations. Streszczenie Podstawy prawne elektronicznej partycypacji obywatelskiej w Polsce Celem artykułu jest prezentacja podstaw prawnych e-partycypacji obywatelskiej rozumianej jako wykorzystanie mediów cyfrowych w relacji obywateli z rządami w celu zwiększenia uczestnictwa obywateli. Zakres analizy wyznacza koncepcja odgórnej e-partycypacji. Z przeglądu źródeł prawa lokalnego, krajowego i międzynarodowego wynika, że pewne poziomy e-partycypacji w Polsce są dobrze uregulowane, podczas gdy inne nie podlegają regulacjom prawnym.
Attitudes of Polish voters towards introduction of e-voting in the context of political factors 1
Despite the lack of legal basis, electronic voting has been present in the public discourse in Poland for over ten years. This can be seen in particular before parliamentary, presidential, local or European elections. Then, political parties, while trying to raise their election capital, declare their willingness to implement innovative methods of voting (e.g. i-voting) in elections to make the election process more convenient for those entitled to vote. Parties assume that this can mobilize the part of the electorate which typically does not utilize their universal suffrage. The main objective of this article is to analyze and explain to what degree (and to what extent) political preferences may affect the choice made by voters, provided it is possible to have electronic voting as a method of their participation in elections. We ask the question: if the voters' opinion on evoting correlates with the opinions of the political parties for which they are voting. While looking for the answer to this question, the authors have assumed that there is a relationship between the political variable such as the preference and opinions on the use of modern forms of voting. To verify this diagnosis, we make a statistical analysis of the data coming from a survey implemented between March and May 2018 in Poland. Research findings lead to a general conclusion that political preferences are a statistically significant predicator for voters' attitudes towards the introduction and use of voting over the Internet.
Santalka: Filosofija, Komunikacija, 2014
Drawing on critical considerations of the so called "electronic democracy", the paper empirically explores to what extent the internet tools provided by the local governance institutions in the course of electronic democracy are enabling the expression of the "voices of citizens" as well as participation in decision making. Content analysis of questions and answers stemming from the official webpage of one Lithuanian municipality has been conducted; altogether, the sample entails 310 questions or suggestions of citizens and answers from the municipality. The results show that participation of citizens via internet-based voice opportunities represents a trivialization of participation issues by mainly constructing the citizens as complain-holders about everyday issues. Participation by influencing political decisions could not be obtained.
E-voting and E-ParticiPation Experiences, challenges and prospects for the future, 2019
This paper aims to present the role of new electronic instruments as tools of direct democracy using the examples of selected cities in Poland and Ukraine. The mechanism of operation of selected electronic instruments (participatory e-budgets) is discussed, and civic involvement via electronic platforms is described in the context of the development of local communities. New technologies facilitate decentralization and free communication among people, and help overcome barriers to people’s direct involvement in decision-making. Nevertheless, online voting is not the essence of electronic democracy. The implementation of direct electronic instruments in the decision-making processes is not equivalent to representative democracy being replaced by direct democracy. it is important to note that direct democracy stands the greatest chance of succeeding at the level of local communities
Polish Mass Media Coverage and Public Opinion on E-democracy
2021
The rapid development of new technologies and their impressive communication capacity has fundamentally changed modern democracy by providing easy and universal access to information, as well as increasing participation and accessibility of political involvement tools. One of the electoral participation tools is e-voting which has been used in only a few countries. The main aim of the paper is to explore whether and how e-voting has been presented in Polish mass media (1), as well as to investigate people’s opinions about e-voting against certain political factors (2). The research is based on a media content analysis (quantitative and qualitative), data collected via the Content Analysis System for Television (CAST) and a quantitative analysis of data from a survey conducted by the authors (2018, sample: 1717 Poles). The results of the analyses show that the debate on the implementation of e-voting is rather poor, but the support for e-voting among Poles remains considerable. The p...
EIIC 2014. The 3rd Electronic International Interdisciplinary Conference, Proceedings in Electronic International Interdisciplinary Conference, eds. M. Mokrys, S. Badura, A. Lieskovsky, EDIS – Publishing Institution of the University of Zilina, Slovakia, ss. 311-315, ISSN 978-80-554-0921-4., 2014
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) constitute a crucial element of globalisation and computerization processes. ICT are not exclusively present in the economy, entertainment, trade or banking, but they are also used in politics or social area. Public institutions employ ICT (particularly the Internet) for informational and educational purposes as well as for improving the efficiency of state institutions and bodies. With the availability of new (apart from traditional) forms of participation, such as e.g. electronic community consultations, electronic people's initiatives, participatory budgeting, e-voting, the citizens are offered the possibility to increase their activity on the political scene and their real influence on the decision-making process. It’s due to the fact that modern technologies can improve the interactions occurring between voters and political institutions, political parties, or politicians. One of such interaction is the process of voting, which in some countries is supported by ICT (e-voting). This article aims primarily at providing answers for questions: about the most important problems connected with introduction of this more and more popular way of civic participation in politics and with the use of e-voting in general elections, as well as about the most crucial and most frequent uncertainties that e-voting implies.
The use of e-voting as a new tool of e-participation in modern democracies
Finding the answer to the question of the role of electronic voting in a modern country constitutes an important part of researches into electronic democracy. The recent dynamic development of information and communication technologies (ICT) and mass media have been leading to noticeable changes in functioning of contemporary countries and societies. ICT is beginning to play a greater and greater role and filter down to almost every field of contemporary human life -including politics. Electronic voting represents one of the more and more popular forms of so called e-democracy, and is an interesting research subject in the context of mechanisms for implementing this form of participation in elections, its legitimization, specific technological solutions for e-voting and their effectiveness as well as unintended consequences. The main subject of this text is the use of electronic voting (e-voting) as one of the forms of electronic democracy. The article attempts to answer the following research questions: First, what is the impact of ICT on the political processes -particularly on the voting procedures? Secondly, what is the essence of electronic voting and what are its main features? Finally, what are the e-voting experiences in the European countries?
Computer Mediated Participation. ICTs as instruments for democracy
According to the OECD, the active participation of citizens is “regarded as a relation based on partnership with government, in which citizens actively engage in defining the process and content of policy-making”. This is seen as a new frontier for citizen engagement, which places demands on government behaviour, but also requires that citizens accept a high level of responsibility, since participation rights come with duties. The spread and development of new information technologies was not irrelevant to the growing interest in these matters. As had happened before with other media, the ICTs increased hope towards the possibility to overcome the problems regarding efficiency and political equality in participation, obstacles to more participatory democracies. Nevertheless, some care is needed so that democracy does not become more vulnerable. Besides all the issues connected with the digital divide (including low literacy levels), other representativity problems must be considered, namely the tendency for people with extreme positions to participate more and theirs efforts to manipulate instances of participation. On the other hand, there has to be genuine political will towards participatory politics for trust to be built and for these initiatives to have positive results. Focusing on the main points here presented, in this paper I propose to discuss the connection between a recent stronger promotion of citizen participation and the Internet as a new medium for communication between State and citizens.
Poland’s 2011 Online Election Campaign: New Tools, New Professionalism, New Ways to Win Votes
Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 2014
This paper analyses the use of the online environment within the context of the Polish parliamentary election of 2011. Using traditional methods of content analysis we find that parties tend to adhere to a professionalised model of campaigning, adapting online tools to suit the objectives of the campaign. There also appears to be a recognition that their most likely visitors would be converts and so they attempt to mobilise supporters rather than convert browsers. New parties and candidates are