The Context for Online Engagement

Political disengagement is widespread in Great Britain. Voter turnout at general elections has fallen from a high of 83.9 per cent in 1950 to a low of 59.4 per cent in 2001: in 2005, it rose slightly (to 61.5 per cent) but the number of first-time voters continued to fall. These trends reflect a growing belief that the government is out of touch (1). Political parties are viewed similarly – their membership is declining, particularly amongst the young – but this does not suggest a lack of interest in politics. The emergence of issue based, activist structures (2), brings about a different style of participation; petitions are now the most popular form of engagement (3) despite the fact that their impact on policy processes is low:

[Petitions] are a useful backbench tool of minimal effect (4)

Meanwhile, political processes have become professionalised to the extent that the individual’s stake in them is reduced. Instead of listening to the public via their representatives, the government relies on experts, pollsters and focus groups (5) . As political institutions become more centralised, individuals engage with issues and organisations on the periphery (6). In the UK, the gap between political institutions and citizens has been exacerbated by ‘central and local government frameworks that focus solely on service improvements’ rather than on the needs of the general public (7). Politics has become the domain of an active elite (8) – the resulting culture within government has been described as one of ‘bureaucratic dysfunction’, where policy development has lost touch with its purpose (9). But what is the solution? Is government able to engender the kinds of change needed to rekindle civic participation?

The Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement (10) explores the relationship between individuals and government and notes that efficacy is more evident amongst those who are already politically active. Only 50 per cent of the British population claims to be interested in becoming so; increasingly, government is viewed by citizens as ‘mentally moribund, seriously incompetent and, on frequent occasion, offensively arrogant’(11). Public distrust is aggravated by a sense that the concerns of well-resourced lobbies are heard above their own (12); public expressions of powerlessness are often accompanied by a belief that they are inadequately informed despite the plethora of news reports discussing policy, many of which appear to the reader as just another attempt to persuade (13).

In response to declining public participation and trust, momentum has slowly started shifting towards re-engagement, but there is still a way to go before government can claim to have developed sound cross-departmental practices. There have nonetheless been steps in the right direction, based on an awareness that people want to do more than vote for an MP or councillor; they want to have a say in decision making or at least understand and believe in it.

In 2002, the In the Service of Democracy consultation paper invited input into the government’s vision for a technologically enabled future. The green paper suggested that new media can help to bring about a restructuring of the relationship between citizens and state in line with proposed constitutional refinements, enabling individuals to become active participants rather than passive consumers. In its introduction, it suggested that:

[An] e-Democracy policy should be viewed in a context of those political and constitutional reforms, which seek to devolve power, extend citizens’ rights and improve the transparency and accountability of government and politics (14) .

Constitutional reforms are ongoing (see below) and alongside these, government is promoting public engagement with the policy process. Moving towards a more deliberative approach, government departments have carried out an average of 609 consultations per year since 2003 (15). However, according to the Audit of Political Engagement, only 4 per cent of the public have responded to one; a further 14 per cent said that they did not feel sufficiently knowledgeable to do so, despite wanting to (16).

The solution to this lack of efficacy has been framed in terms of political literacy – an issue being addressed, in part, by the introduction of mandatory citizenship education in schools (17). Meanwhile, the government’s ‘together we can’ initiative – launched in 2005 – has been used to coordinate public engagement initiatives across central government. Government has begun to deepen its focus on citizen engagement and representative democracy through projects such as the Power of Information Review (18) and subsequent task force and a number of other new (or pending) initiatives, including:

Governance of Britain green paper: The proposals published in this green paper seek to address two fundamental questions – how should we hold power accountable, and how should we uphold and enhance the rights and responsibilities of the citizen? In response, the government is planning to engage people in a discussion on citizenship and British values and is conducting a series of events around the UK to gain input. This paper does not address the use of the internet as a tool for engagement although the engagement process itself will have an online component.

Community Empowerment Plan: Led by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), its aim is to enable people to play an active role in shaping the decisions affecting their communities. The plan carries a number of practical initiatives, such as the development of citizens’ juries, community kitties and local charters, and is due to be released in summer 2008. Whilst indications are that there is no specific focus on online engagement within the plan, it is understood that the use of the internet is addressed in a number of areas throughout.

This latest raft of measures highlights the government’s focus on reformulating the relationship between the individual, community and state so that it is less centralised with decisions being made by those directly affected by them (DCLG, 2008). For this to work, there is an inherent requirement on the part of the citizen to engage actively in the policy process and government is beginning to explore how the interactive aspects of the internet can be used to enable this process. The findings of Digital Dialogues become all the more important in this context because they highlight what happens when citizens and government do talk online, and why there is a need for a more sustained public deliberation with government. First, a brief reprise of the ways in which the individual and government has taken to the internet, via a re-examination of the concept of ‘political engagement’ online.

Notes:

1. M.Thompson-Fawcett & C. Freeman (2006), Living together: Towards inclusive communities in New Zealand (Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press).
2. G. Stoker (2006), Why politics matters: making democracy work (England: Houndmills; New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
3. Hansard Society & Electoral Commission (2007), Audit of Political Engagement 4 (London: Hansard Society & Electoral Commission).
4. A. Stevenson (2008), Rise of the e-petition (politics.co.uk) p. 1
5. M. Mälkiä, A.V. Anttiroiko & R. Savolainen (eds) (2004), eTransformation in governance: New directions in government and politics (Hershey, PA: Idea Group); P. Norris (2001), Digital Divide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
6. A. Chadwick (2203), ‘Bringing e-democracy back in: Why it matters for future research on E-governance’, Social Science Computer Review, 21 (4), 443.
7. M. Lyons (2007), Place-shaping: A shared ambition for the future of local government: Final report (London: TSO).
8. C. Needham (2004), ‘The Citizen as consumer: E-government in the United Kingdom and the United States’. In R. Gibson, A. Römmele & S. Ward (eds), Electronic Democracy (London: Routledge), pp.47-48; P. Norris (2001), Digital Divide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
9. NZCCSS (2006), Is any progress being made in care and protection for New Zealand children? (Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services), p. 9.
10. The Audit of Political Engagement has been carried out since 2004 and identifies trends in political attitudes and engagement amongst the British public.
11. J. K. Galbraith (1992), The culture of contentment (Boston, M. A.: Houghton Mifflin) p.67.
12. A. Kakabadse, N.K. Kakabadse & A. Kouzmin (2003), ‘Reinventing the democratic governance project through information technology? A growing agenda for debate’, Public Administration Review, 63 (1), 44; A. Williamson (2007), Empowering communities to action: Reclaiming local democracy through ICTs, Paper presented at the Community Informatics Research Conference, Prato, Italy.
13. Ipsos MORI’s annual survey highlights the fact that politicians and journalists consistently rank lowest in terms of public trust (IPSOS-Mori, 2007).
14. Cabinet Office (2002), In the service of democracy (London: TSO), pp. 5-6.
15. See: www.berr.gov.uk/bre/index.html.
16. Hansard Society & Electoral Commission (2007), Audit of Political Engagement 4 (London: Hansard Society & Electoral Commission).
17. This was made compulsory for under-16s in the Education Act 2002.
18. E .Mayo & T. Steinberg (2007), The Power of Information Review (London: Cabinet Office).