Thanks to Ariana Tuckey for assistance in drafting this post.
Around the world, parliaments, governments, civil society organizations, and even individual parliamentarians, are taking measures to make the legislative process more participatory. Some are creating their own tools – often open source, which allows others to use these tools as well – that enable citizens to markup legislation or share ideas on targeted subjects. Others are purchasing and implementing tools developed by private companies to good effect. In several instances, these initiatives are being conducted through collaboration between public institutions and civil society, while many compliment online and offline experiences to help ensure that a broader population of citizens is reached.
The list below provides examples of some of the more prominent efforts to engage citizens in the legislative process.
Brazil
Implementer: Brazilian Chamber of Deputies
Tool: e-Democracia platform
Description: The e-Democracia platform offers simple web 2.0 tools to allow citizens to interact with lawmakers on specific issues, helping to connect Brazilian citizens to national lawmakers across thousands of miles of geography. Citizens can use the portal and social media platforms to engage Congressmen, mark-up legislation, and propose and debate solutions to policy problems. The platform has facilitated cross-country dialogue among disparate groups and has thousands of active users. It has also improved legislative transparency.
Website: http://edemocracia.camara.gov.br/
Additional Information: OpeningParliament.org Case Study
Estonia
Implementer: Estonian President & Civil Society
Project Name: Rahvakogu (The People’s Assembly)
Tool: IdeaScale
Description: Rahvakogu is an online platform for crowdsourcing ideas and proposals to amend several laws aimed at improving Estonian democracy. It was created by the President of Estonia in partnership with civil society. Rahvakogu focuses specifically on five issues: the electoral system, political parties, competition between the political parties and their internal democracy, financing of the political parties, strengthening the role of civic society in politics between the elections, and stopping the politicization of public offices. The co-creation process combines modern communication tools with traditional face-to-face discussions. During the first stage nearly 2,000 proposals and comments were submitted, commented, supported or criticized online. Then analysts grouped the proposals and comments into bundles of different scenarios and provided an impact analysis. On 6 April 2013, a “deliberation day“ was held to select the most preferred scenarios at a public meeting. This event gathered 300 people, randomly selected to proportionally represent all (voting) age groups, genders, regions and nationalities. On 9 April 2013, 16 proposals were presented to the Parliament by the President of the Republic of Estonia.
Website: http://www.rahvakogu.ee/
Additional Information: Enhancing Estonia’s Democracy Through Rahvakogu
Finland
Implementer: Finnish Parliament
Project Name: Inventing Finland again! (Keksitään Suomi uudelleen!)
Tool: IdeaScale
Description: The goal of this initiative was “to test if and how citizens can meaningfully contribute to a law-making process.” The process had three stages: “The first stage was problem mapping: the citizens were asked to share their concerns, experiences, and problems with off-road traffic and the law regulating it. In the second phase, we asked for ideas about how to solve those previously identified problems. In the third stage, we asked both the crowd and a globally distributed expert panel to evaluate the generated ideas.” (From: http://thegovlab.org/seven-lessons-from-the-crowdsourced-law-reform-in-finland/)
Website: http://www.suomijoukkoistaa.fi/
Additional Information: Democratic Participation and Deliberation in Crowdsourced Legislative Processes: The Case of the Law on Off-Road Traffic in Finland
France
Implementer: SmartGov - Démocratie Ouverte
Tool: Parlement & Citoyens
Description: The platform allows citizens to contribute their analysis and ideas to parliamentarians as they develop legislation. After a parliamentarian publishes a short video and text description outlining a problem they have observed in society and the solutions they think can be codified in a law, citizens upload their ideas about the possible causes of the problem. Citizens then have the opportunity to upload their own ideas and vote for those that most effectively characterize the problem and contribute to a solution. SmartGov synthesizes the results and hosts a public debate between the MP and active participants in the online discussion. The parliamentarian proposes a bill in parliament based on the results.
Website: https://www.parlement-et-citoyens.fr/
Additional Information: OpeningParliament Case Study
A French MP aims to “restore confidnece between citizens and parliamentarians.” Parlement-et-Citoyens.fr
Italy
Implementer: Government of Italy
Project Name: Public consultation on constitutional reform
Description: The consultation process is structured around three phases: a short 1) questionnaire 2) analysis of the questionnaire, and 3) a phase of public discussion. The structured process is intended to encourage a large participation of the people and, at the same time, involving any party that wishes to participate. Each phase remains open to all. The results will feed into a report that will be published online and delivered to the Presidency of the Council.
Website: http://www.partecipa.gov.it/
Spain
Implementer: Basque Parliament
Tool: ADI!
Description: ADI! seeks to provide an opportunity for citizens to provide input into debates on current issues and on draft legislation coming before the Basque Parliament. Citizens who register with their Facebook or Twitter accounts can upload comments in a free standing text box. In addition to providing their own ideas and comments, users may also vote on the comments and ideas of other participants. Upon completion of the discussion period stipulated for each topic, the Basque Parliament plans to draw up a document collecting activity on ADI! and to ensure that the most significant initiatives reach all parliamentarians before the close of debate in the chamber.
Website: http://www.adi.parlamentovasco.euskolegebiltzarra.org/es/
Additional Information: Participation in Parliament
The Baque Parliament’s ADI! tool. Source.
United Kingdom
Implementer: Cabinet Office
Project Name: Open Standards Consultation
Tool: Open Standards Consultation Platform
Description: “Citizens, businesses and delivery partners should be able to interact with the Government, exchanging information/data across in the software package of their choice and not have access costs imposed upon them by the IT choices which the Government makes. The government wanted to support technology interoperability through the introduction of open standards… In order to gather feedback on the government’s open standards policy, a consultation document was prepared, then adapted for the online tool. As well as the online consultation, respondents could engage through face to face roundtable discussion (or via telephone conferences). We also accepted emails, written letters and meeting notes.”
Website: http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/openstandards/
Additional Information: Open Policy Making, Open Standards Consulation; Final Consultation Documents
United States
Implementer: OpenGov Foundation
Project Name: The Madison Project
Tool: The Madison Project
Description: An open source software free for anyone to use that enables citizens to markup legislation. It was developed by staff of US Rep. Darrell Issa and was used to receive citizen input on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
Website: www.keepthewebopen.com/
