Towards e-Democracy in South East Europe

Vienna.
The final speaker for this EDEM 2009 session is Blaž Golob, who shifts our focus to developments in e-democracy in South-East Europe. The Centre for e-Governance Development in South-East Europe include the regional coperation council, various governments from the region, university organisations, and technology partners; it aims to achieve the successful development of an information society in the region which will contribute to the future of Europe. It supports the rapid development of the 12 SEE countries, and does so by focussing on e-democracy as one of the seven pillars of the information society (the others are e-government, e-business, e-education, e-health, e-justice, and e-security).

It is necessary in this context to conceptualise e-democracy in relation to democracy itself, and to challenge beliefs in the inherently and exclusively positive effects of ICTs on democratic processes. This confronts substantial challenges at the levels of citizens and of policy decision makers, and at more global levels (including the current financial crisis, of course); in SEE, the global crisis itself is intertwined with issues related to the potential for ICT development in the region, the question of poverty, issues with marginalised groups, and the consolidation of the mostly relatively newly-established democracies in the region as they aim to accede to the European Union.

What is necessary here are policies of general inclusiveness and specific e-inclusion in political participation (this is approached by the Centre using methodologies from foresight studies) and of regional cooperation that identifies and understands the needs of the region and takes complementary actions. e-Inclusion is perceived as a prerequisite for e-participation (in the Belgrade Approach for e-Democracy Development in the SEE Region), and political culture and active citizenship are the variables on which the success of e-democracy services and their effectiveness depends.

Technorati : EDEM 2009, South East Europe, cooperation, e-democracy, inclusion, participation, society
Del.icio.us : EDEM 2009, South East Europe, cooperation, e-democracy, inclusion, participation, society