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e ‐democracy and participatory decision processes: lessons from e ‐negotiation experiments
Author(s) -
Kersten Gregory E.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of multi‐criteria decision analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.462
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1099-1360
pISSN - 1057-9214
DOI - 10.1002/mcda.352
Subject(s) - negotiation , e democracy , democracy , software deployment , citizen journalism , e participation , participatory democracy , participatory design , public relations , deliberative democracy , voting , knowledge management , e government , sociology , state (computer science) , government (linguistics) , political science , public administration , management science , information and communications technology , computer science , engineering , politics , social science , operations management , law , linguistics , philosophy , parallels , algorithm , operating system
e ‐Democracy takes place at different levels, ranging from local to regional to state governments. It also takes different forms: voting, consultation and the participation in the construction of the alternative course of actions. This paper is concerned with the use of information and communication technologies in participative e ‐democracy at community and local government levels. It postulates that to design participating systems the needs of the potential users must be determined and models of decision‐making and conflict resolution that can be used by lay people need to be constructed. A general framework for the design of systems for participatory decision‐making is presented. The experiences with the design and deployment of the Inspire e ‐negotiation support system, its use by a large number of people from many countries, and the results of studies of the users and the use of Inspire are presented. Based on these experiences, an example of the implementation of the general framework is given. The paper also stresses the need for the development of aids and materials for lay people who wish to educate themselves in participating in e ‐democratic processes. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.