The document proposes opening up e-consultation processes to make them more deliberative, transparent, and connected to social web debates. It suggests that e-consultations should use technologies like natural language processing and argument visualization tools to facilitate analysis of large debates. Opening up processes could involve acknowledging publicly available knowledge and establishing transparent connections between formal policy discussions and informal social discussions. However, this raises open issues around privacy, identifying relevant contributions, and changing administrative culture.

1. E-Consultation – A Review of Current Practice
and a Proposal for Opening Up the Process
Steffen Albrecht
ePart 2012, Kristiansand, Norway
4th September 2012

2. Research Context: The IMPACT Project
 EU funding (FP7-ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling)
 Duration: 2011 – 2013
 Partners: Fraunhofer FOKUS (Lead); U Amsterdam; U Leeds;
U Liverpool; UID GmbH; Zebralog GmbH & Co KG
 Aim: to develop tools to support the use of argumentation
in policy debates
- Argument Reconstruction, Argument Visualisation,
Policy Modelling, Structured Consultations

3. E-Participation
Administrations
Political Institutions
Petitions,
Cooperation
Complaints
Campaigns,
Consultation
Lobbying
Third party
Information
transparency
Citizens, Stakeholders
Civil Society Organisations

4. E-Consultations
Agenda Policy Decision Implementation
Setting Formulation Making Evaluation
 2001 – Promoted by OECD
 2012 – Widespread adoption globally (UN EGov Survey)
– Standard practice in EU policy-making
 Aims:
- Connect government and citizens
- Increase legitimacy of policy-making
- Raise quality of decisions

5. E-Consultations
Agenda Policy Decision Implementation
Setting Formulation Making Evaluation
 2001 – Promoted by OECD
 2012 – Widespread adoption globally (UN EGov Survey)
– Standard practice in EU policy-making
 Problems:
- Limited connections
- Lack of transparency
- Limited use of technologies

6. Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal
 E-Consultations
- should be deliberative
- should use specific technologies
- should open up towards the social web

7. Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal
 E-Consultations
- should be deliberative
- should use specific technologies
- should open up towards the social web
 Deliberation increases transparency
 Deliberation allows for opinion formation
 Deliberation serves as filter for proposals

8. Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal
 E-Consultations
- should be deliberative
- should use specific technologies
- should open up towards the social web
 Natural language processing facilitates analysis of large-
scale debates
 Formal models of argumentation help to visualise debates
and focus on rational justifications

9. Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal
 E-Consultations
- should be deliberative
- should use specific technologies
- should open up towards the social web
 Social web as a space of lifewordly political debates
 Acknowledging knowledge shared on the social web
 Not one-way, but transparent connections

10. Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal
 E-Consultations
- should be deliberative
- should use specific technologies
- should open up towards the social web
Argument Reconstruction
Argument Visualisation
Policy Modelling
Structured Consultations

11. Opening Up E-Consultations: A Proposal
 E-Consultations
- should be deliberative
- should use specific technologies
- should open up towards the social web
Argument Reconstruction
Argument Visualisation
Policy Modelling
Structured Consultations
 allow for new procedures

12. Open Issues and Questions
 How to protect the privacy of participants who are not
participating actively?
 How to identify relevant contributions to a given policy
issue?
 How to change administrative culture from „experts“ to
„partners“?
 What role for intermediaries in the policy process?

13. Your questions?
Dr. Steffen Albrecht
Zebralog GmbH & Co KG
Berlin, Germany
albrecht@zebralog.de
www.zebralog.com
www.policy-impact.eu