The long-term impact of institutionally enforced E-democracy in English local administrations

2009年，工党政府颁布了《地方民主、经济发展和建设法》，要求英格兰所有地方议会规范请愿程序，并在2010年底之前在其机构网站内实施电子请愿系统。2009年，绝大多数英国地方行政当局不熟悉线下和在线请愿，因为只有三分之一的地方当局有正式的请愿管理系统。由于这项立法，截至2010年底，已有300多个议会推出了电子请愿书网页。2由Panagiotopoulos等人进行的研究。(2011、2012)法律截止日期后3个月和12个月，电子请愿书的应用普遍较差。我对南安普顿市议会电子请愿书的案例研究结果表明，在电子请愿书系统推出9年后，在取消执行该制度的义务(2011年《地方主义法》)8年后，我的研究结果也指向同样的方向。因此，在公民通过基于网络的应用程序参与政治日益重要的背景下，理解自上而下诱导的电子民主在长期而言是否以及为什么在地方一级不起作用，抓住2009年法案生效10年后在全国范围内采用技术的独特机会，是非常相关的。到目前为止，自Panagiotopoulos等人以来，还没有关于这一特定主题的文献发表。2012年发表论文，因此存在一个知识缺口，本博士项目将探索这一缺口。该项目的主要目的是通过分析政治和非政治行为者在决定通过威斯敏斯特立法强制执行的英国地方议会电子请愿系统的有效性方面的作用，对政府主导的电子民主倡议对地方民主进程的长期影响进行实证调查。方法该项目将填补目前关于民主创新和电子民主的文献中的知识空白。目前尚不清楚社会结构、当地政治文化和个别机构如何共同影响中央政府对地方政府政客和官僚实施的电子民主文书。这项关于2009年《地方民主法案》在为遵守该法律而启动的五个英国城市的长期影响的经验性研究，将通过采访来自参与地方民主的三个利益攸关方：当选的议会成员、行政人员和公民的参与者的样本，来揭示这一主题。为了全面了解电子请愿书在地方一级的使用情况，我将根据对受欢迎的电子请愿书的政策影响的量化分析，采用混合方法来解释访谈的结果。研究的价值这一项目将使我们能够理解政治和机构代理人对国家立法者强加的电子民主的看法如何影响他们的工作，什么主题和对它的解释决定了向公众展示(或隐藏)的方式，以及公众如何看待电子民主的结果。这些成果将为政策制定者和政策实践者提供真正有价值的见解，使他们了解如何设计和实施电子工具，以改进地方一级的参与性民主。

In 2009 the Labour government promulgated the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act, which required all local councils in England to regulate the petitioning processand implement an e-petitioning system within their institutional websites by the end of 2010. In 2009 the great majority of English local administrations were not familiar with offline and online petitioning, as only 1/3 of local authorities had an official petitions management system in place. Because of this piece of legislation, by the end of 2010 over 300 councils had launched their e-petitions webpage. 2 studies conducted by Panagiotopoulos et al. (2011,2012) 3 and 12 months after the law deadline, showed a widespread poor application of e-petitions. Findings of my case study on the Southampton City Council e-petitions point to the same direction, 9 year after the launch of the e-petitions system and 8 year after the withdraw of the obligation to implement it (Localism act 2011). In the context of the increasingly important citizens political participation through web-based applications, it is therefore highly relevant to understand if and why in the long-term top-down induced E-Democracy is not working at local level, taking the unique opportunity of the nationwide uptake of technology that followed the 2009 act, 10 years after its enter in force. As far as known, no literature on this specific topic has been published since Panagiotopoulos et al. paper in 2012, so there is a knowledge gap which this PhD project will explore. Key ObjectiveThe aim of the project is to empirically investigate the long-term impact of government-led E-democracy initiatives on local democratic processes, by analysing the role of political and non-political actors in determining the effectiveness of English local councils e-petitioning systems enforced through Westminster legislation.MethodologyThe project will fill a knowledge gap in the current literature on democratic innovations and e-democracy. There is no clear understanding of how social structures, the local political culture and individual agencies concur to shape the implementation e-democracy instruments enforced by central governments onto politicians and bureaucrats of local government. This empirical study on the long-term effects of the 2009 Local Democracy Act in five English cities that have launched to comply with that law will throw some light on this topic by interviewing a sample of participants from the three stakeholders involved with local democracy: elected members of the Council, administrators and citizens. To get a comprehensive understanding of the use of e-petitions at local level, I will use a mixed methodological approach to interpret the outcomes of the interviews in the light of a quantitative analysis of the policy impact of popular e-petitions. Value of the researchThis project will allow to understand how political and institutional agents perceive e-democracy imposed by national legislators affect their job and what motifs and interpretation of it shape the way is presented (or hidden) to the public, and how the public see e-democracy in result. The results will provide real valuable insights to inform policy makers and policy practitioners on how to design and implement electronic tools for improving participatory democracy at local level.