YouScotland.com is not a political party, it is a citizens’ movement aimed at influencing the political process.

With elections pending to Holyrood and at Council level on Thursday, May 3rd, electoral politics will inevitably dominate the next few weeks. But there will be another 204 weeks before there are new elections to these bodies. It is then we believe youscotland.com will come into its own, irrespective of the results on 3rd May - an online citizen’s voice that will hold the politicians we elect on 3rd May to account.

But we do believe we can have a here and now influence by informing and exposing where parties, politicians, the media and others are clearly “at it”, and we will do so without fear or favour. We are in nobody’s pocket, though we hope we are on the right side.

Recently the UK Department of Constitutional Affairs published a report into ‘The Future of Citizenship‘ (pdf, 645 kb, pages), an ambitious study which looks at how our definitions and behaviours of citizenship might change over the next 20 years.

The report outlines four possible scenarios for where we might be in 2027. The different scenarios assume different levels of economic development and civic activism.

The first ‘Global politics’ assumes that global shocks such as Climate Change lead to a global sense of responsibility and citizenship. In this scenario international agreements have a lot of public support.

Scenario 2 (’Charity begins at home’) assumes that economic growth is combined with increased civic activism, creating a scenario where philanthropism and volunteering is widespread. The downside is that much of this activity takes place within relatively closed communities and that those who refuse to get involved are vilified by the rest of society.

In scenario 3 (’Tribal politics’) the economy stagnates and society becomes increasingly fragmented. Politics becomes dominated by interest groups fiercely competing for limited resources and the interest of minorities is frequently overlooked. Civic engagement is largely reactive and limited to when ones own interests are threatened.

Lastly, scenario 4 (’Remote self’) assumes that economic growth is combined with an increasingly disengaged population. This leads to a situation where the role of the state is limited and where the gulf between haves and have nots grows without any significant public reaction. People are increasingly individualistic and uninterested in the collective good. The government is increasingly called upon to used technological fixes, such as tele-voting, to curb the disengagement of citizens.

When asked which of these scenarios were most desirable and which were most likely government policy makers said that they would prefer a combination of scenarios 1 and 2 but that they thought that scenario 4 was most likely.

(via Involve)

Online petitions like the 1.8m-strong one against road pricing risk undermining representative democracy, a committee of senior MPs warned today.

Last month the prime minister, Tony Blair, was forced to send out a personalised email response to all of the signatories on an electronic petition to Downing Street demanding an end to congestion charging plans.

Today Tory and Labour MPs on the influential public administration select committee cast doubt on the use of online petitions by Downing Street.

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Recently the Downing Street website crashes under the weight of e-mails from angry voters.

The road pricing petition, which saw 1.8 million people e-mailing the Downing Street website, was arguably the biggest protest against government policy since 2003’s anti-war march.

The question now asked by Brian Wheeler, political reporter of BBC News, is where does it go from here? And is it a good or bad thing for democracy?

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Europe has celebrated 50 years of peace and political progression, but the next 50 will see massive changes in the relationship between the electorate and politicians thanks to technology.

That was the message from the Microsoft Government Leader’s Forum 2007 at the Scottish Parliament.

The delegates from more than 40 countries heard from a number of experts (see film archive), speaking about the role technology had played in transforming countries and how citizens engage with their democracies.

Commissioner for Regional Policy, European Commission Danuta Hübner warned European politicians must not rest on their laurels.

“Connecting with our citizens means more than trying to improve things. Citizens want to be more engaged politically, they want to feel ownership of the policies.”

“Information and Communications Technology has already triggered a social revolution in generating change and European politicians must take this into account with the realisation that the individuals are not only citizens but the creators of the content that all can see.”

Some of the other speakers included: Microsoft Corporation chairman Bill Gates, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rt Hon. Gordon Brown MP, First Minister of Scotland Rt. Hon. Jack McConnell MSP, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands Wim Kok, Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha, President of Iceland H.E. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, Slovenian Minister for Public Administration Dr. Gregor Virant, Finnish MP Hanna-Leena Hemming, Vice Mayor of Lyon France Jean-Michel Daclin, Scottish Parliament Presiding Officer George Reid MSP, and YouGov Chairman Peter Kellner.

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Gov2U was founded in 2005 with the intention of harnessing the potential of ICTs as vital tools for the improvement of representative democracy.

Gov2U believes that new Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) offer vital opportunities for bringing about a fundamental change to the workings of traditional democratic systems. By enabling and facilitating new forms of interaction within parliaments, and via citizen engagement in the political process, ICTs can help meet the challenge of creating more representative and efficient democratic systems.

The main crux of their activities is the research, development and deployment of open source enabling technologies to facilitate legislative information gathering and dissemination. In parallel, they are involved in the targeted dissemination of knowledge and best practice through the organisation of, and participation in, conferences, meetings, seminars and publications.

Towards the achievement of this aim, Gov2u has created the Gov2DemOSS platform, an open source, generic but customisable, informative and collaborative e-participation platform.

In the age of ubiquitous participatory culture - from the explosion in user generated media to the very way we do business, art, collaboration and even education - the world of politics often feels left behind, writes Robin Good on his blog.

“Democracy has become indirect, stale and something far removed from the daily lives of everyday people. But this is changing.”

“Participatory democracy is high on the agenda of the European Citizens’ Initiative (or ECI) who are launching their campaign today in the European Parliament in Brussels. The aim of this ambitious campaign is to empower citizens to propose concrete policy and legal changes to the European Commission, by exercising the right of initiative.”

“With hundreds of organizations behind them, and volunteers in their thousands, the ECI are determined to show that collective action can have a direct impact on the way we live our lives as active producers, rather than passive consumers of democracy.”

“Bringing power to the people that are effected directly by legislation is a bold and necessary measure in an age when accountability is often swept under the carpet, and politicians increasingly fail to represent the interests of those that elected them once the final votes are cast.”

“By attempting to gather one million signatures, the ECI campaign aims to gain the right of initiative, so that European citizens and civil society organizations could then directly influence the political agenda of the EU for the first time in history. With one million citizens collective voices, it is possible to demand changes to European law and policy, placing the right to challenge the actions of politicians firmly in the hands of the people at street level.”

In this exclusive video interview with the ECI’s Carsten Berg, and former rector of the College of Europe and supporter of the cause Gabriel Fragniere, Robin Gold “talks through the key questions about what the ECI aims to achieve, how it can be done, and what you can do to make a difference in the emerging participatory democracy that promises to tip power in favor of everyday people.”

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- Read full story (versione italiana)

The current issue of User Experience, the membership magazine of the Usability Professionals’ Association is devoted to user-centred e-government, with five articles on the topic, including one by Experientia partners Michele Visciola and Mark Vanderbeeken.

Tom James described how the website of the Salisbury District Council, a UK local authority, changed from a council-centred view to a user-centred view, with the result that the site leapt to the first sport in the SiteMorse survey of UK local authority websites.

Also the Aberdeenshire Council, another UK local authority, implemented a user-centred design approach, write Chris Rourke and Ross Philip. To make sure that government services were highly accessible and usable, the team involved captured user preferences through card sorting, established usability goals and metrics, conducted iterative reviews throughout the design process, and performed usability testing with end users.

Giaele Roccia leads the usability team of CSI-Piemonte, a big semi-public software company that is in charge of most software development for public authorities and entities in the Italian region of Piedmont. In her article she examines how legislative and technological impetus have resulted in strong attention to accessibility compliance, and less strong but growing support of user-centred design techniques in the Piedmont region of Italy. Here as elsewhere, the business case must be made evident to encourage public agencies to apply UCD principles to their websites.

Also written in Piedmont is the contribution by Experientia partners Michele Visciola and Mark Vanderbeeken.
The article “Encouraging Participatory Democracy: A Study of 30 Government Websites” starts from the premise that for the first time in history, a wide distribution of technology allows citizens to get involved in public governance and participate in institutional life on a very regular basis. Yet websites of public authorities are barely taking advantage of the power of the participatory citizen.
Two factors play a key role in this gap. First, the average citizen is not well informed about how basic democratic institutions function, which dramatically reduces the citizen’s capacity to influence the democratic process. Websites can help reduce the complexity of public institutions and get people to understand the way institutions and public administrations function and behave. Second, access to public services online is increasingly separated from institutional information. While online service sites are popular, the role of the institutional sites is not clear. The authors argue that these sites can and should take on the role of a two-way communications tool on topics of policy and politics, support knowledge sharing on areas covered by the authority, and create maximum transparency on what the public administration actually does.
To better understand the opportunities, challenges and evolutions that are affecting public institution websites, the authors studied the main sites of 30 public authorities and identified several innovative approaches. A first analysis shows that a lot remains to be improved. Almost all the sites analysed share three characteristics: (1) policy priorities are not concisely communicated and easy to understand, (2) there is only limited innovation in how regional or municipal institutions present themselves; and (3) there are no tools for active participation.
However, some of the studied sites provide elements of innovation that can be used as models and inspirations. The authors conclude that to improve information access, better communication strategies are needed and to increase participation, better usability is of crucial importance.

Jon Armstrong finally argues that e-government needs to do more to ensure citizens’ privacy. After all if government agencies adhere to privacy laws while developing e-Government solutions, then it is likely that their citizenry will increase its reliance on online government resources, safe in the knowledge that serious data protection has been implemented. Armstrong looks at Victoria, an Australian state, as a case-study example. On the website there is also a short interview of Jon Armstrong by Michele Visciola on the issue of privacy and usability.

The magazine also contains Michele Visciola’s review of the book Ambient Findability by Peter Morville.

The peer-reviewed content of User Experience is not available online but printed copies of the magazine can be bought in the UPA Store.

Tony Blair’s outgoing chief strategy adviser fears the internet could be fuelling a “crisis” in the relationship between politicians and voters, writes Brian Wheeler on BBC News Online.

Matthew Taylor - who stressed he was speaking as a “citizen” not a government spokesman - said the web could be “fantastic” for democracy.

But it was too often used to encourage the “shrill discourse of demands” that dominated modern politics.

He was speaking on the day Mr Blair carried out an online interview.

Mr Taylor said Mr Blair’s online grilling from voters - and other initiatives such as environment secretary David Miliband’s blog and Downing Street’s new online petition service - showed the government was making good progress in using the internet to become more open and accountable.

But he said more needed to be done by the web community in general to encourage people to use the internet to “solve problems” rather than simply abuse politicians or make “incommensurate” demands on them.

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By almost every measure, public confidence and trust in politicians and political institutions is slipping.

The RED unit of the UK Design Council looked at the problem from a local and practical perspective and wanted to find out what MPs could do differently in their constituency to rebuild our democracy and public faith in it.

In this short project they carried out two weeks of user research, ran a design workshop with 15 MPs and spent an intensive week working alongside the constituency office for Doncaster North.

Their report sets out ten practical things every MP can do to rebuild democracy in their constituency.

Download report (pdf, 1.34 mb, 25 pages)

“Seeking new ways to engage with voters, European politicians have taken to blogging and podcasting to get their messages out,” writes Kerry Capell in Business Week.

“David Cameron, Britain’s Conservative Party leader, launched his own video blog (www.webcameron.org.uk) on Sept. 30.”

“The artfully staged clips—the first one shows Cameron in his kitchen cleaning up after breakfast, explaining that he wants to “clean up” British politics—are drawing a mixed response from voters.”

“A gimmicky ploy to reach voters? No doubt, but Cameron and the growing number of European politicians who are finally following voters into the world of Web 2.0 should be commended for trying to engage the public in a two-sided debate instead of just talking at them.”

“Though still in their early days, new media tools such as blogs, video blogs, and podcasts are fast becoming the 21st century equivalent of stump speeches, allowing politicians to reach a younger, more Web-savvy generation of voters. These tools also help keep the pols in the spotlight—in a way that the pols themselves usually can control. […] Another big lure of the Net is that it enables politicians to circumvent strict limits on media time.”

Politicians featured: David Cameron (UK), Ulster Unionists (UK), Dominique Strauss-Kahn (France), Nicolas Sarkozy (France), Laurent Fabius (France), Jan Peter Balkenende (Netherlands), Wouter Bos (Netherlands), Jan Marijnissen (Netherlands), etc.

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(via Loïc Le Meur)

(see also the “Participative” democracy and Webcameron posts by Bruno Giussani)

The UK Government launched today the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE), set to drive up eParticipation rates in the UK through providing best practice advice and support to local authorities.

The aim is for seamless, personalised services that respond directly to people’s needs and are delivered in the way that best suits the individual.

ICELE will work with all stakeholders to help ensure local people are well informed and have a real voice in local decision making, as well as spreading this knowledge and learning. Democratic participation is steadily declining, yet opportunities to involve local people in local decision making are growing every day. From text voting through to online consultations, the organisers paln to harness new technologies to make it easy for people across the country to get involved in the democratic process.

The Centre is designed to serve as a ‘virtual’ focal point for collaborative eDemocracy initiatives both in the UK and abroad. Within the UK, local authorities, community groups and citizens can use the Centre’s online resources to help run projects in their local area.

Internationally, governments, academic institutions and not-for-profit organisations can use the Centre’s virtual facilities as a first point of call for information about pioneering e-democracy initiatives.

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A new social-networking Web site, aimed at “opinion leaders” in politics and other issues, will launch Thursday with a roster of members including former U.S. President Bill Clinton, U.S. senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, writes Grant Gross of IDG News Service in MacWorld.

Hotsoup.com aims to give an online voice to the millions of U.S. residents who keep up with the news and influence the opinions of their friends, family and coworkers. The founders of Hotsoup.com, including Internet entrepreneurs and Republican and Democratic consultants, hope the site will contain information that’s “not filtered, not spun,” said co-founder Ron Fournier, a former chief political reporter for the Associated Press.

The goal is to create smart, civil debate, said three of the site’s co-founders during a preview Wednesday. “Americans are tired of yelling at their TV screens,” said Allie Savarino, a Hotsoup co-founder who also helped start the Sisterwoman.com social-networking site. “They want a voice of their own, and they want someone to listen.”

Hotsoup will include video- and text-based commentary from top political, entertainment and sports figures, and it will allow users to start their own discussions about issues important to them. Like other social-networking sites, Hotsoup also will allow users to create detailed profiles.

Hotsoup will also poll users for their opinions on issues and ask them how likely they are to tell friends about a particular debate they’ve participated in on the site.

The concept has drawn significant interest, even before the site’s official launch. Since July, 22,000 people have preregistered for the site, Savarino said. Members include cyclist Lance Armstrong, Republican strategist Mary Matalin, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and politically active rock musician Jon Bon Jovi.

Hotsoup’s founders said they hope the interaction between their opinion-leader members can influence public policy. “Our nation’s public, business and religious leaders are realizing they need to listen and engage with this community,” Savarino said.

Asked if they’re concerned that the debate on Hotsoup will devolve into something less than civil, the co-founders said editor-in-chief Fournier will attempt to steer discussions that get off track, although they don’t want to cut off debate.

People & Participation is the first publication of Involve, an independent organisation focused on the practicalities of giving more power to ordinary people.

“There have been many books and pamphlets about democratic reform. What is unusual about this publication is that it provides much needed practical detail, drawing on the experiences of many hundreds of practitioners who have used new methods to involve the public in issues ranging from local planning to nanotechnology. Its starting point is that deepening and strengthening democracy depends on success in learning lessons about why some kinds of participation lead to better and more legitimate decisions, while others do not.”

“The book shows that greater public involvement can greatly help in addressing some of our most pressing problems, and countering the risks of distrust and alienation. But it also warns that too much participation today is superficial, an exercise in ticking boxes as opposed to good democratic governance, or using public consultation to justify decisions that have already been made.”

“To their credit hundreds of public agencies have taken the lead in trying to involve the public more actively. The priority now is to build on that experience and to build confidence that public involvement can lead to better, and more legitimate, decisions.”

To download a free copy click here.

Antonio Di Pietro, the man behind the famous Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) enquiry and currently Minister of Infrastructure in the Prodi government, launched a blog in January 2006 to enable “direct communication and participation for people in the political life”. Interestingly (and exceptionally), the blog content is identical in English and Italian.

Today, he writes that at the national conference of his political party, Italia dei Valori, he also invited a group of bloggers, because, he says, the internet can be a “tool for direct democracy, “thanks to the possibility of giving direct knowledge about the facts whether they are political or related to the actions of the government”. He believes “that this is a first for such a group to be officially present at a political meeting”.

French entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur, who is the executive vp & managing director of Europe of Six Apart, the company behind TypePad and Movable Type, immediately picked up on this.

(via Loïc Le Meur)

The World Summit Award (WSA) is a global initiative to select and promote the world’s best e-content, started in 2003 in the framework of the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

It is an Austrian initiative to make world leaders aware of the necessity to develop and invest in e-content in order to bridge the digital divide and the content gap.

The award is structured in eight categories: e-government, e-health, e-learning, e-entertainment, e-culture, e-science, e-business and e-inclusion.

Water Cooler Games is a site about videogames with an agenda. It is about games that go beyond entertainment. Water Cooler Games explores the emerging field of games want to do more than simply being fun: they want to make a point, share knowledge, change opinions. This includes new genres such as advergaming, newsgaming, political games, simulations and edutainment.

Water Cooler Games is edited by Ian Bogost and Gonzalo Frasca, two of the world’s leading videogame researchers and designers of videogames with an agenda.

The New Politics Institute has just put out a white paper on Mobile Media in 21st Century Politics. The white-paper was prepared by Tim Chambers and Rob Sebastian of the Media 50 Group, a new player on the mobile political field and one whose founders, like Politxt, comes from a plethora of mobile experience in the entertainment space.

Here is what Peter Leyden, Director of the New Politics Institute, has to say:

That small screen on your phone is beginning to take its place alongside the personal computer and television as an important way to connect to Americans. The development of mobile media is not going to take place in the distant future. As this report points out, mobile media has already proven to have big political impacts in other countries, and it played a key role in the immigration demonstrations all over the United States this spring. Now is the time for progressive political practitioners to start to engage this new technology and media. The report ends with seven concrete steps to begin mastering this new world. Much is already happening, but much more is to come.

The impact of new Internet tools on politics is getting all the attention in the fall of 2006, but a whole new terrain is opening up that will also have big political consequences in the year or two ahead.

The mobile phone has evolved from simply a voice communicator to a hub for mobile media. That small screen on your phone is beginning to take its place alongside the personal computer and television as an important way to connect to Americans. Each of these screens has unique capabilities that can be used in politics. Mobile phone media, unlike media channeled through TV and PCs, allow people to connect anytime, anywhere. Today 80 percent of voting age Americans have mobile phones and an increasing number are becoming savvy at using them to create and consume media. Some constituencies are more savvy or dependent on mobile phones than others.

Two key groups in are of special concern to progressives. Any majority political movement of the early 21st century will need to connect to the massive young generation of Millennials, and the booming population of Hispanics. Both groups are among the top users of mobile phone media. The development of mobile media is not going to take place in the distant future. As this report points out, mobile media has already proved to have had big political impacts in other countries, and it played a key role in the immigration demonstrations all over the United States this spring.

Now is the time for progressive political practitioners to start to engage this new technology and media. The report ends with seven concrete steps to begin mastering this new world. The very first step, though, is to get an overview of the whole booming field by reading this comprehensive paper.

It is filled with startling facts and figures that will help even those who think they understand what is going on: Did you know that mobile video services already reach more users than the 8th largest cable operator in the country? That by 2008 as many as 30 percent of wireless phone users will not own a land line? (What will political pollsters do?) That last year U2’s Bono got 800,000 people to sign up for the One Campaign to eradicate poverty by sending a text message through their mobile phones at his concerts? Much is already happening, but much more is to come. The New Politics Institute wants to help progressives figure this out. This report was done by one of the New Politics Institute’s new fellows, Tim Chambers, and his business partner in a new wireless company. They are generously passing on what they know to up the game of the progressive movement as a whole.

Overall a must read for anyone considering a mobile campaign strategy for political agendas and a great introduction to Media 50 Group for your consideration.

Download report (pdf, 38 pages)

(via MobileActive)

The Being Heard website has been designed by the UK Hansard Society with the aim of inviting young people to engage with political issues and political decision-makers.

The aim of Being Heard is to build young people’s level of political awareness and participation so that they can play an active role in the democratic processes affecting their lives.

Being Heard is also a consultation space for decision-makers to engage with young people and their ideas, experiences and opinions.

The access2democracy non-profit N.G.O. was established in Athens and New York by a group of prominent, like-minded world citizens aiming to become a leading international civil society organization in the field of e-democracy and to promote the principles and practice of participatory e-democracy within the global arena.