How to reach Members of Parliament? Citizens and Members of Parliament on the Effectiveness of Political Participation Repertoires (original) (raw)
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Questioning the social spiral deriving from participation has flared up the debate regarding the place it occupies in contemporary democracies. It does not seem possible to deny the evidence that many studies have pointed to regarding the political attitudes associated with institutionalised participation (associations). But we question in this study the fact that the whole participation phenomenon is equated with that type of participation. Our paper compares different ways of participation in a sample of European countries to, first, analyse the activities that can be linked to each form of participation and whether it can be held that they are different from the point of view of the individual. Second, we analyse the attitudes that lead individuals to choose one option over the other. We conclude that for individuals the different forms of participation are different forms of political engagement. Our study shows an evolution in non-institutional forms of participation over time that is difficult to ignore, from being expressions bordering illegality to taking them as mormalised tools for citizens. We could now start to consider them from the point of view of the implications they have for democracy as a different way to exercise political influence.
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In October 1999 a conference was held in Stockholm on Citizen Participation in European Politics. The background of the discussion was a low Swedish turn-out in the Elections to the European Parliament in June. We wanted to give an account of and discuss research on citizen participation in European politics illuminating possible explanations. Special attention was given to the connection between on the one hand the level of participation and on the other hand the role of the institutions and of the mass media. 1
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Petitioning is a well established form of political participation in most liberal democracies. Yet, little is known about petitioners, their socio-demographics, motivations and assessments of petitioning processes. After the German parliament had introduced public e-petitions which are submitted, signed and discussed on the Internet in 2005, a survey of 571 traditional as well as 350 epetitioners was carried out in 2007 as a part of a comprehensive evaluation study of the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament (TAB). The results indicate that both petitioner samples are characterised by an above average level of general political participation and Internet use. Users of the e-petition system are younger than traditional petitioners, but the group continues to be dominated by men and those with higher levels of formal education to the same degree as among traditional petitioners. According to our findings, the Internetbased participation channel e-petitioning seems ...
Non-electoral public participation initiatives are regarded as the gold standard for good governance - encouraging and sustaining democratic engagement. Most countries use these mechanisms, to inform their policy-making between elections. Yet, participation rates are low and often unrepresentative of the diversity of their stakeholders. A large body of evidence suggests that communication campaigns can increase turnout in elections. However, the evidence base for non-electoral participation is scarce and in many aspects completely lacking. This paper tests the causal relationship between government communication efforts and a non-electoral public participation initiative. I use a large-scale, randomised experiment with 29,008 households in a large city in the UK to test the effect of different direct mail messages on participation. I find that all changes to communication materials have similar effect sizes to those of the literature. But they all backfire - all interventions signif...
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Policy & Internet, 2011
Petitioning is a well established form of political participation in most liberal democracies. Yet, little is known about petitioners, their socio-demographics, motivations and assessments of petitioning processes. After the German parliament had introduced public e-petitions which are submitted, signed and discussed on the Internet in 2005, a survey of 571 traditional as well as 350 epetitioners was carried out in 2007 as a part of a comprehensive evaluation study of the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament (TAB). The results indicate that both petitioner samples are characterised by an above average level of general political participation and Internet use. Users of the e-petition system are younger than traditional petitioners, but the group continues to be dominated by men and those with higher levels of formal education to the same degree as among traditional petitioners. According to our findings, the Internetbased participation channel e-petitioning seems to amplify existing inequalities in participation patterns as they predominately attract highly mobilised and politically active individuals with a disproportionately high socio-economic status. Preliminary results of an ongoing follow-up study by and large confirm this conclusion. ) explores the reciprocal relations between the Internet and politics by analysing web-based strategies of North American intermediary organisations. In addition to his ongoing research on e-petitions, Ralf Lindner is currently carrying out a study on the prospects of e-democracy in Europe on behalf of the European Parliament. Ulrich Riehm is a sociologist, performing and leading technology assessment projects in the field of information and communication technologies since 30 years at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) and the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament (TAB). Projects carried out dealt with CAD, electronic publishing, electronic books, online bookselling, multimedia, electronic payments, electronic commerce, Internet in developing countries and others. He is project leader of the technology assessment project "Public electronic petitions and civic involvement" and the follow-up study "Electronic petitioning and modernisation of petitioning systems in Europe", which are carried out on behalf of the German Bundestag. 2 Broadening Participation through E-Petitions? Broadening Participation through E-Petitions? Results from an Empirical Study on Petitions to the German Parliament 1.