An Explanatory Approach to the Political Uses of ICT Initiatives for Participation : Institutions, Context, and Characteristics of the Actors

Political actors use ICTs in a different manner and in different degrees when it comes to achieving a closer relationship between the public and politicians. Usually, political parties develop ICT strategies only for electoral campaigning and therefore restrain ICT usages to providing information and establishing a few channels of communication. By contrast, local governments make much more use of ICT tools for participatory and deliberative purposes. These differences in usages have not been well explained in the literature because of a lack of a comprehensive explanatory model. This chapter seeks to build the basis for this model, that is, to establish which factors affect and condition different political uses of ICTs and which principles underlie that behaviour. We consider that political actors are intentional and their behaviour is mediated by the political institutions and the socioeconomic context of the country. Also, though, the actor¿s own characteristics, such as the type and size of the organization or the model of e-democracy that the actor upholds, can have an influence in launching ICT initiatives for approaching the public.

Lessons of peace in Aceh: administrative decentralization and political freedom as a strategy of pacification in Aceh

This working paper shows the evolution of the Aceh conflict until its peaceful resolution in 2005. The key factors in the success of this peace process have been the confluence of several factors related to the internal and external dynamics of the country, including the new political leadership, the decreasing role of the military power, the international support and the meeting of the objectives of both groups, and so on. The end of the conflict in Aceh shows that the administrative decentralization and the promotion of the political participation of the main actors involved have made possible the development of a solid alternative to the arms strategy of conflict resolution used for years in Indonesia.

Reconsidering the analysis of the uses of ICTs by political parties : an application to the Catalan case

For years a literature on the uses that political parties make of information andcommunication technologies (ICTs) has been developed. It is a rapidly increasing, rich,and interesting field in the forefront of the investigation in political science. Generally,these works start from the expectation that the ICTs have a regenerative potential forliberal democracies and for the political parties as well. In developed societies, politicalparties have experienced some transformations that have leaded them to an increasingdivorce with the public. This divorce is shown by the decay of party adscription andmembership, and also by the decay of the conventional political participation. In thetheoretical discussion this situation has been described as ¿the crisis of the democracy¿(Norris, 1999). According to the more radically oriented scholars this crisis reflects theincapacities of liberal democracies. In this sense, ICTs suppose a great opportunity tosurpass the representative institutions and to institutionalize new forms of directdemocracy. More moderate scholars have considered that ICTs offer the opportunity for¿renaissance¿ for representative institutions, as they can reinforce the bonds between thepublic and its representatives.

Online and Offline Participation at the Local Level : A Quantitative Analysis of the Catalan Municipalities

This paper presents a first analysis on local electronic participatory experiences in Catalonia. The analysis is based on a database constructed and collected by the authors. The paper carries out an explanatory analysis of local initiatives in eparticipationand off line participation taking into account political variables (usually not considered in this kind of analysis) but also classical socio-economic variables that characterise municipalities. Hence, we add a quantitative analysis to the numerous case studies on local e-participation experiences. We have chosen Catalonia because is one of the European regions with more initiatives and one that has enjoyed considerable local governmental support to citizen participation initiatives since the 80s. The paper offers a characterisation of these experiences and a first explanatory analysis, considering: i) the institutional context in which these experiences are embedded, ii) the characteristics of the citizen participation processes and mechanisms on-line, and iii) a set of explanatory variables composed by the population size, thepolitical adscription of the mayor, the electoral abstention rate, age, income and level ofeducation in the municipality. The model that we present is explanatory for the municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants but it is not for the fewer than 20,000inhabitants. Actually, the number of participatory activities developed by these last municipalities is very low. Among all the variables, population size becomes the mostinfluential variable. Political variables such as political party of the mayor and the localabstention rate have a certain influence but that have to be controlled by population size.

Surfing the Net: A Pathway to Participation for the Politically Uninterested?

This article explores whether use of the Internetchanges the role that political motivation hastraditionally played in classic explanations ofparticipation. We ask if, by reducing so dramatically the costs of political participation,the Internet causes interest in politics to loseimportance as a causal factor of participation.We examine this issue analysing a representativesurvey of the Spanish population which deals withpolitical participation and Internet use. Theresults show that use of Internet has a directeffect on participation independently of motivation, and that, in order to participate online, skilled Internet users do not need to be motivated or interested in politics.

Gerontocracy, retirement, and social security

Why are the old politically successful? We build a simple interest group model in which political pressure is time-intensive, showing that in the political competitive equilibrium each group lobbies for government policies that lower their own value of time but the old do so to a greater extent and as a result are net gainers from the political process. What distinguishes the elderly from other political groups (and what makes them more succesful) is that they have lower labor productivity and/or that we are all likely to become elderly at some point, while we are relatively unlikely to change gender, race, sexual orientation, or even ocupation, The model has a variety of implications for the design of social security programs, which we test using data from the Social Security Administration. For example, the model predicts that social security programs with retirement incentives are larger and that the old are more "single-minded" in their politics, implications which we verify using cross-country government finance data and cross-country political participation surveys. Finally, we show that the forced savings programs intended to "reform" the social security system may increase the amount of intergenerational redistribution. As a model for evaluating policy reforms, ours has the attractive feature that reforms must be time time consistent from a political point of view rather than a public interest point of view.

Gender and family firms: an interdisciplinary approach

This study contributes to developing our understanding of gender and family business, a topic so crucial to recent policies about competitive growth. It does so by providing an interdisciplinary synthesis of some major theoretical debates. It also contributes to this understanding by illuminating the role of women and their participation in the practices of the family and the business. Finally, it explores gender relations and the notion that leadership in family business may take complex forms crafted within constantly changing relationships. Leadership is introduced as a concept that captures the reality of women and men in family firms in a better way than other concepts used by historians or economists like ownership and management.

Gender and family firms: an interdisciplinary approach

This study contributes to developing our understanding of gender and family business, a topic so crucial to recent policies about competitive growth. It does so by providing an interdisciplinary synthesis of some major theoretical debates. It also contributes to this understanding by illuminating the role of women and their participation in the practices of the family and the business. Finally, it explores gender relations and the notion that leadership in family business may take complex forms crafted within constantly changing relationships. Leadership is introduced as a concept that captures the reality of women and men in family firms in a better way than other concepts used by historians or economists like ownership and management.

"La influencia de Internet en la participación: ¿menor relevancia de la motivación política?"

In this paper we aim to investigate the relationship between Internet use, motivation and political participation. In particular, we aim to find out if, by reducing participation costs, use of the Internet changes the importance of motivation in the classic explanations of participation. In order to explore this question, we have used data from survey 2736 by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS), which addresses the issue of political participation andInternet use. The analysis shows that Internet use has a direct impact on participation, regardless of motivation, and that skilled Internet users do not need to be motivated or interested in politics in order to participate in at least one online political activity.

The state's response to the Catalan question : an emerging ethnic component in contemporary Spanish nationalism?

Peer-reviewed

The state's response to the Catalan question : an emerging ethnic component in contemporary Spanish nationalism?

Peer-reviewed

Los derechos de participación política y administrativa en la Constitución y en los Estatutos de Autonomía: especial referencia al Estatuto de Autonomía de Cataluña

[spa] El estudio afronta la regulación de los derechos de participación en los Estatutos de Autonomía de nueva generación. La novedad que representan estas normas respecto a sus predecesoras es la incorporación de una carta de derechos que vinculan de forma más explícita y detallada a los poderes públicos autonómicos. Los estatuyentes han interiorizado el creciente auge del fenómeno participativo regulando, junto a los tradicionales derechos de participación política, nuevos instrumentos y técnicas participativas, que se enmarcan en el concepto de democracia participativa. Significativa es, en este sentido, la voluntad política plasmada en la competencia que asumen algunos de ellos (Cataluña, Andalucía y Aragón)para la regulación de las consultas populares en cualquiera de sus modalidades ("encuestas, audiencias públicas, foros de participación") distintas el referéndum.