Vote early, vote often? Tele–democracy in European cities
| Date | 01 September 2002 |
| Published date | 01 September 2002 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00318 |
| Author | Tony Kinder |
VOTE EARLY, VOTE OFTEN? TELE-
DEMOCRACY IN EUROPEAN CITIES
TONY KINDER
This paper presents the detailed results of an empirical survey on tele-democracy
in 31 European cities covering 14 states. It shows that progressive city-
administrations in Europe are early adopters of tele-democracy with a diffusion
rate of 72 per cent. Analysis of the survey results illustrates that cities are using
tele-democracy to improve service access and the quality of services. This research
shows that electronic or Internet voting is a priority for only a minority of cities.
The paper suggests a typology of tele-democracy and makes wide-ranging policy
suggestions. In the debate over whether information and communications techno-
logies will have a beneficial or detrimental effect on the quality and legitimacy of
local government, this paper takes an optimistic stance based on the evidence of
the survey.
INTRODUCTION
The new millennium got off to a bad start from the view point of tele-
democracy, resulting in a new verb in political circles: to be ‘Florided’,
meaning to gain most votes yet to lose because of the electoral counting
system. In fact, Florida’s Presidential count appears to be more a mechan-
ical or voter-education failure than a failure of tele-democracy. Tele-
democracy, as it may be perceived to be practised in Florida, is far removed
from the tele-democracy found in Europe, and in particular in European
city administrations.
This paper surveys how, in adopting information and communications
technologies (ICTs) for business purposes, cities throughout Europe have
additionally put these technologies to innovative uses in the arena of tele-
democracy. The paper argues that local councils enjoy richer ICT-supported
interactivity with citizens than national governments precisely because the
technology is employed in delivering services. This rich interactivity over
service provision at a local level gives content to local e-democracy.
This paper presents new, empirical research from 31 innovative city-
administrations across 14 European countries. City councils are usually the
layer of government nearest to the citizen and dispense some 28 per cent
of Europe’s gross domestic product in providing their wide range of ser-
Tony Kinder is in the Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation, The University
of Edinburgh.
Public Administration Vol. 80 No. 3, 2002 (557–582)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2002, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
558 TONY KINDER
vices. The paper first details the new, empirical research then goes on to
consider its policy implications for city administrations in Europe.
Two current strands of theory flow into the subject area of city tele-
democracy. The first emanates from Habermas’(1972) insistence that com-
municative action and rationality form the basis of legitimacy. This led him
to suggest that elocutionary force (doing by speaking) allows people to
renew their collective identity without resort to imperfect and often out-
dated structures that no longer fit a dynamic context. It is precisely this
notion of dialogue within a context which communitarian thinkers have
adopted to justify what Hirst (1994) calls locally negotiated associative con-
federations. These are not necessarily spatially confined; they are, however,
most easily created in a locale. It ismore difficult in cyber-space to engender
the trust and interdependency necessary to (for example) exorcize social
exclusion by solidarity actions (paying taxes to provide services). Localized
dialogue involves (though is not limited to) democratic discourse. Localized
democratic discourse features local players, including councils and other
local public administrations (PAs). Both Giddens (1998), from a commun-
itarian perspective, and Leadbeater (1999), emphasize the role of local coun-
cils in the democratic debate necessary to revitalize civil society, local econ-
omies and social structures.
A second strand flowing into debate on tele-democracy is that of localiz-
ation and has its roots in regulation theory, especially the work of Marshall
(1987). Flexible specialization theory emphasizes the importance of locally
based networking (Piore and Sabel 1984; Que
´vit 1991). Cooke endorses
localism from a pragmatic perspective. He shows (1989, 1990 and 1992)
local and physical communities to be relevant social space, from which
innovation occurs and from which sustainable alignment with global mar-
kets can be achieved, giving examples of this in his later (1995) work.
Manuel Castells (1997) convincingly synthesizes many of these theoretical
strands, arguing that as globalization detracts and distorts the power pre-
viously exercised by nation states, legitimate government will increasingly
be perceived as either localized or transnational (see also Gilbert 1999). For
many Europeans, Castell’s perspective is captured in the ‘Europe of the
Regions’. City-regions in particular are looked towards to implement things
that matter to people in the European Social Agenda and the European
Employment Strategy (see Hantrais 1995). Castells supports his view that
the legitimacy of government is increasingly both international and bottom-
up local, by recalling how diversity is often best celebrated at a local level.
European local PAs, who play a leading role in providing ICT infrastruc-
tures and using these technologies in their services, increasingly look
towards utilizing tele-democracy to engage wider sections of society in
debate and improve citizen access to decision-makers. Looking at research
in Britain, Pratchett (1999) recently concludes that far from ICTs adding to
the quality of democratic debate in localities, he fears it may detract by
reinforcing managerialist tendencies to the detriment of citizens’engage-
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2002
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