Prospects for e-democracy in Europe. Part II: Case studies: Study. IP/G/STOA/FWC/2013-001/LOT 8/C4

The growing use of ICT tools and social media significantly affects the way citizens can become involved in policy- and decision-making processes. Digital tools might create stronger connections between European citizens and the EU decision-making process and, by doing so, might contribute to reducing the EU democratic deficit. At local and national level, and to some extent also at EU level, digital tools have already been used for citizen involvement in policy- and decision-making. This part of the report investigates what lessons can be drawn from local, national and Europe an experiences of the use of digital tools for the functioning of EU decision-making procedures and institutions. For that purpose, a review of current literature on e-democracy and the European public sphere has been carried out (see part 1 of the study); 22 local, national and EU experiences with existing digital tools have been investigated and evaluated; and an analysis has been made of the suitability of the most promising digital tools for implementation and use at EU level (see part 3 of the study).The most important factors for successful e-participation identified in the report are: a close and clear link of e-participation processes to a concrete formal decision-making process; the participatory process and the contribution of its outputs to the overall decision-making process have to be clarified to the participants from the start; feedback to the participants about what has been done with their contributions is an indispensable feature of the process; a participative process should not be limited to one event but should be imbedded in an institutional “culture of participation”; e-participation must be accompanied by an effective mobilization and engagement strategy, involving three communication instruments tailored for different target groups