Whither e-democracy?

There are some fascinating debates going on at the moment on the Connecting Bristol blog - ones which have a national interest rather than anything specifically Bristolian. It’s all down to the involvement of Professor Stephen Coleman who doesn’t have a blog of his own, as far as I am aware, but on this evidence should.

in What is ICELE For? he writes:

I have been following e-democracy in the UK since its earliest manifestations in the work of UKCOD (UK Citizens e-Democracy), established in 1996. I was commissioned to be one of three evaluators for the Government’s national project for local e-democracy, out of which came the International Centre for Local e-Democracy (ICELE) This new body was well-funded, but seems to have produced conspicuously little. There might be others out there who can tell me that I’ve missed some wonderful outputs. If so, please do.

There are 21 responses already.

In The UK e-democracy debate - getting stale? he picks up on a response from another commenter:

Andy Williamson has suggested that ‘the UK eDemocracy debate is a bit stale, and particularly so around local government.’ It would be interesting to pursue this, not with a view to reflecting upon its staleness, but in the hope of moving the agenda forward.

7 comments so far.

These are interesting and important discussions, not least with regard to local government where so many of the services that people care about are delivered, but which features shockingly low levels of participation and is too often forgotten in all the excitement and glamour of Westminster.