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Proponents of e-government, e-governance, and e-participation are particularly excited about the inclusive and empowering nature of some of their recent platforms. Critics nevertheless remain skeptical about how empowering these technologies really are and to what extent they fruitfully contribute to direct democratic processes. This essay reviews online initiatives in two areas (citizen budgets and facilitating citizen lobbying practices) intended to enhance e-participation and e-government strategies in the United States and beyond. I suggest that although clear progress has been made in the innovation of e-governance and information and communication technologies with websites like LobbyForMe and online citizen’s budget initiatives, a long road lies ahead before any notable milestone can be acknowledged in respect to full-blown e-democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from two national surveys conducted in 2006 and 2011, we empirically examine whether, and the extent to which, grassroots or local governments in the United States have adopted electronic democracy (e-democracy). We contrast this empirical reality against the claims made by e-democracy advocates. The survey results show that few American local governments have adopted e-democracy, particularly meaningful elements through which citizens can actively participate in governmental activities, programs and decision-making. Even fewer local governments plan to do so in the near future. These empirical results are highly inconsistent with the claims of e-democracy advocates. Based on the survey results, we conclude that two important reasons account for the lack of e-democracy at the American grassroots: lack of funding to support e-democracy applications and lack of perceived demand for e-democracy. A third important factor may well be the fact that early predictions were, for various reasons, incorrect. Based on these findings, we would expect that e-democracy at the American grassroots will not be substantially different in the foreseeable future than it is now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By analyzing Pew Internet and American Life Project's postelection survey, this article examines whether there continues to exist a democratic digital divide in the 2008 U.S. presidential election season. The research focuses on the divide patterns of four different types of political Internet use: information-seeking, communication, mobilization, and use of social networking sites. The research results suggest a higher likelihood for the socioeconomically advantaged to do online political activities. A generational gap is less apparent with regard to communication than information-seeking and mobilization. The sociodemographic pattern of the democratic divide overall resembles that of Internet access divide, but the political divide manifested by education and income is being bridged to some extent among current users of social networking sites. Although younger generations were more likely to use social networking sites for political activities, such use did not significantly raise the probability to cast a ballot in the 2008 presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that the Obama Administration's Open Government Initiative blurs distinctions between e-democracy and e-government by incorporating historically democratic practices, now enabled by emerging technology, within administrative agencies. We consider the nature of transparency, participation, and collaboration, suggesting that these processes should be viewed as means toward desirable ends, rather than administrative ends in themselves, as they appear to be currently treated. We propose alternatively that planning OG initiatives be addressed within a "public value" framework. The creation of public value is the goal of public organizations; through public value, public organizations meet public goals with respect to substantive benefits as well as the intrinsic value of better government. We extend this view to OG by using the framework as a way to describe the value produced when interaction between government and citizens becomes more transparent, participative, and collaborative, i.e., more democratic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a fundamental empirical question using data collected in a northeastern US city: does deliberation occur in online forums? While face-to-face deliberation is well documented, there are few empirical studies that address its online counterpart. Deliberation is supposed to foster an educative, rational, open and inclusive dialogue that leads to legitimate policy outcomes. In this paper, the authors develop and operationalize a measure of deliberation in order to investigate the extent to which it is manifested online. In particular, the authors study five regionally defined web forums hosted by the primary newspaper of a mid-sized northeastern US city. Drawing a two-week sample of posts from these forums, the authors then examine them for indicators of deliberation. Firstly, this paper addresses research about if and how the internet affects social life, including traditional notions of deliberation. Next, the authors argue that sociological studies of democratic participation require conceptualization of lived deliberation, and outline a Symbolic Interactionist approach to studying online, deliberative interaction in order to do so. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of this work for future theory and empirical investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the authors assessed the usability of e-recruitment websites in the 50 states and the 50 largest American businesses. It is found that states were much less likely than businesses to accept online job applications. For example, it is impossible to apply online for a state government position in the three largest states. When it was possible to apply online for a state government job, the websites tended to be less user-friendly and informative than their private-sector counterparts. The major exception to this pattern was that the state government websites tended to be less secretive about pay rates. Because of the digital divide, state governments cannot rely exclusively on online applications. However, state governments should be able to offer a more advanced online job application process. The authors conclude by discussing implications for e-democracy, offering suggestions for research and practice, and identifying the two states with the least advanced recruitment practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines whether a democratic divide (a gap in political participation via the Internet) exists among demographic segments during the campaign season of the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Five different types of online political activity are compared in terms of the divide pattern: conversation, mobilization, information consumption, information production, and activity on social networking sites. Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics such as age, gender, race, education and income are determinants for the degree of online political activism. Although political users of social networking sites mostly fall into the Y generation (DotNets), a high proportion of senior citizens who already use the Internet frequently communicate about politics by email and get political information through the Internet. The occurrence of more active online political participation by the better educated and more affluent is magnified for White males in comparison to non-Whites or females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents legislators from infringing on the freedom of the press. But, of necessity, legislators have been granted monopoly control of legislative information systems, including parliamentary procedure and roll call votes. New information technology is revolutionizing the economics of legislative information systems. But elected officials have a conflict of interest in using those new technologies to enhance democratic accountability when that might conflict with their own re-election interests. This article looks at the online accessibility of roll call votes by legislators in 126 legislative branches: the two branches of Congress, the 99 branches in the 50 U.S. states, and the 25 branches (city councils) in the 25 largest U.S. cities. It concludes that legislators have a conflict of interest and act on it by making roll call votes inaccessible. Moreover, this particular conflict of interest is merely the tip of the iceberg of a greater incentive problem elected officials have in designing legislative information systems to make themselves more democratically accountable. Legislative information systems are a critical foundation of democratic media systems. Strengthening them should therefore be of concern to anyone interested in strengthening the mass media and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the issue of trust in the context of the e-electoral process based on the experience gained through the 2002 and 2003 U.K. e-voting pilots. In our analysis, we adopt a process-stage approach to e-elections. We identify the different agents involved in the e-electoral process so as to indicate who generates trust and to whom they convey their trust during the evolution of the process. We then describe agent responsibilities for each of the process stages to identify the issues that require trust between agents. Thus we indicate why trust was needed to support the deployment of the pilots. Based on our analysis we describe cases where "inherited trust" was indirectly conveyed between agents. Finally, because trust in e-voting is primarily needed from the electorate, we propose four levels of social acceptance for the e-voting process and discuss some trust-building arguments for prospective public administration e-transaction environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]