Today I Decide (TOM) Nele Leosk e-Governance Academy (eGA) Tallinn, November 6, 2007
TOM - Government Initiative ● Main idea – to enhance public participation in political decision-making providing opportunity to propose and discuss new legislative initiatives via Internet ● Also- to enhance dialogue between citizens, public officials, etc ● Started in June, 2001 ● Administrated by State Chancellery ● Promoted as Direct Democracy Portal
TOM - Two modes of operation ● Policy documents presented for discussion by ministries (functioned just 2 months) ● Proposals submitted by people ● Only registrated users can submit proposals and participate in discussions ● Everybody can follow discussions
How TOM works How TOM works Idea Commenting Editing Voting Signing (not any more) Answer ID card (for a short time)n
Processing ideas ● Idea is presented ● 10 days for discussion ● 3 days for editing ● 3 days for secret voting Only ideas getting more than half of votes in favour are considered further ● Ministry has 1 month for analysis and answer ● Posted on TOM, commenting an answer
TOM statistics ● 1140 ideas presented (64% voted in, 34 % voted out) ● 654 proposals sent to the ministries (89% answered: 6% possible implementation, 48% negative, 7% supportive) ● 6910 registered users ● visits per day (up to 300 when mentioned elsewere, eg in blogs, forums, etc) ● 30 proposals applied Introduction of summer time Wireless internet signs Estonian anthem downloadable from the Internet
TOM typical users ● Men (71%) ● Age 26 – 39 (38%) ● University degree (51%) ● Specialists (40,3%) ● Inhabitants of Tallinn (48%) ● Everyday Internet users (88%)
TOM evaluation by users and public officials
Is TOM going to die out?
Visits to TOM
New users of TOM (registered)
New ideas
Positive sides of TOM ● Possibility to rise political issues ● Obligation of state administration to respond ● Communication between users ● Communication with state administration ● Everybody can follow proposals and discussions
Problems of TOM ● Many non-constructive proposals ● Passive discussions, low level of discussions (???) ● Low level of the idea author’s ivolvement (35% participate in later phases) ● Few votes ● Small number of active users ● No publicity, buzz ● Rejection of proposals by state administration on formal grounds ● No real dialogue between citizens and political decision makers ● No political will and support
...and e-participation Technical solutions are developing, however how to develop or support cultural changes? Information about e-participation possibilities? Skills of e-participation? How to raise the capacity of e-participation? Passiveness? Participation fatigue? Information gap- how much information gets out of the inner circles (lists, forums, blogs, etc)
THANK YOU!