E-democracy in Finnish municipalities

This text is taken from City of Turku: Urban Research and Statistics, RESEARCH BRIEFINGS 4b/2012: E-democracy in Finnish municipalities; Henrik Serup Christensen

{bluebox| Key messages

• The Internet offers new possibilities for involving citizens in the political decision-making through e-democracy.
• Municipal websites can support different perspectives on democracy by easing communication between inhabitants and representatives.
• Finnish municipality websites have a strong emphasis on providing citizens with information on current topics and the political decision-making, but other forms of e-democracy could be advanced.

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The Internet offers new possibilities to advance the democratic involvement of citizens. Through various measures of e-democracy, the Internet provides easy and cost effective solutions to authorities at national and local levels of government for keeping citizens informed and allowing them a greater say in the political decision-making.

Finland has traditionally had a strong local representative democracy. Nonetheless, levels of turnout in local elections have generally been low compared to the national level suggesting citizens are less involved in this level of government. Furthermore, the challenges posed by the prospects of municipal reforms give further impetus for deepening democracy at the local level. Especially considering these challenges to the local Finnish democracy it is therefore of interest to examine whether the Finnish municipalities have taken advantage of the possibilities offered by the Internet. Although the possibility of resuscitating democracy via the Internet has long been known, there is a lack of systematic knowledge on the extent to which the authorities have taken advantage of these possibilities.

This study has been conducted to map the extent of e-democracy found on the websites of Finnish municipalities. The results show that the municipal websites offer possibilities for gaining insights into the political decision-making. Nevertheless, a number of opportunities for deepening democracy are not exploited to any greater extent.

E-democracy and citizen involvement

Several studies have found that citizens in the established democracies are growing increasingly disengaged from the political sphere, which has raised fears over the sustainability of democracy. The Internet offer possibilities that have been presented as a mean to combat this development by offering possibilities for reinvigorating the dated democracies.

The Internet can alter the relationship between citizens and authorities in slightly different manners. The term e-democracy refers to all efforts that aim to increase the involvement of citizens in the political decision-making through new information and communication technologies, where the Internet occupies a central position. A related topic concerns studies of e-government, where individuals as clients or consumers make use of public services via the Internet or related digital technologies.Yang, K. and S.–Y. Rho (2007) ‘E-Government for Better Performance: Promises, realities, and challenges’, International Journal of Public Administration, 30:11, 1197-1217.</ref>Lim, J.H. (2010) ‘Digital Divides in Urban E-Government in South Korea: Exploring differences in municipalities’ use of the Internet for environmental governance,” Policy & Internet, 2:3, Article 3.</ref> In these studies, the principal interest lies in assessing the possibilities for performing electronic transactions and the user-friendliness of the websites. It is not always possible to neatly separate e-democracy and e-government since the ease of which citizens can access public services is also a democratic concern. Nonetheless, it is important to observe the principal differences that exist between them. Although both are of importance when considering the relationship between citizens and authorities, the involvement of citizens in the political decision-making is of primary importance from a democratic perspective.

Another central distinction should be made based on who instigates the initiatives of e-democracy. In The Internet and Democratic Citizenship, the authors Coleman and Blumler make a distinction between two essentially different forms of e-democracy.1 E-democracy from below refers to initiatives initiated by citizens themselves to be heard in political matters, whereas e-democracy from above concerns the online possibilities the authorities offer citizens for taking part in politics and the extent to which these efforts can help reinvigorate democracy. It is the latter forms of e-democracy that are of central concern here where the aim is to scrutinize how the local authorities in Finland use their webpages to promote e-democracy.

Perspectives on democracy and indicators of e-democracy

	Representative	Participatory	Deliberative
Conception of democracy	Democracy needs free and fair elections where citizens elect their representatives	Democracy needs active citizens who give input to elected representatives	Democracy needs continuous dialogue among citizens and with elected representatives
Role of website	Disseminate information from decicion-makers to citizens so they can make informed electoral choices	Information from citizens to decision-makers so these can take decisions in accordance with citizen preferences	Information feedback loop between citizens and decision-makers to help form and transform preferences
Website indicators	Contact information to members of local council Schedules of council meetings Agendas and protocols of meetings Webcasts and/or recordings of meetings Electronic newsletter or RSS-feeds Link to profile on socila media Decision-makers write blogs	Online initiatives (§28) Vote on current events through e-polls Gather e-signatures Comment on proposals under consideration Information on how to influence decision-making Give feedback	Forums for citizen discussion Regulag online discussion between officials and citizens Ask questions and recieve answers in public Online efforts to mobilize marginalised groups