scholarly journals The eConvention on the Future of Europe: Civil society and the Use of the Internet in European Decision–making Processes

2006 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart Cammaerts
Author(s):  
Alison Harcourt ◽  
George Christou ◽  
Seamus Simpson

Chapter 3 explains the internal organization of SDOs. It outlines the four main layers which make up the Internet and focuses on the principal SDOs associated with them: the IETF, W3C, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), and IEEE, analysing their governance structures and most salient areas of work. Standards are important for interoperability and to prevent lock-in to single company technology. SDOs enable a wider technical community to scrutinize proposals for errors and security. Nonetheless, procedures for decision-making are complex and often opaque. The chapter explores decision-making in a governance context. It charts the evolution of each SDO, and its main purpose, functions, and central decision-making processes. It highlights the differences as well as the degree of synergy and collaboration between each and then explains how procedures vary between the different fora and how moving goalposts and high barriers to entry make it difficult for civil society to participate.


Author(s):  
Raj Veeramani ◽  
Narayanan Viswanathan ◽  
Shailesh M. Joshi

Abstract New approaches for decision making are emerging to support the use of the Internet for supply-web interactions in the manufacturing industry. In this paper, we discuss one such paradigm, namely similarity-based decision support. It recognizes that knowledge of similar experiences can support rapid and effective decision making in various forms of supply-web interactions. We illustrate this approach using two prototype systems, WebScout (an agent-based system for customer–supplier matchmaking in the job-shop machining industry context) and TOME (Treasury of Manufacturing Experiences — an Intranet application to aid manufacturability assessment in foundries).


Author(s):  
Sean Peckover ◽  
Aldo Raineri ◽  
Aaron T Scanlan

This study aimed to examine the views of runners regarding their experiences with congestion during running events, including its prevalence, its impact on their safety and satisfaction, and their preferred controls to mitigate congestion. Runners (n = 222) with varied experience participating in running events (1-5+ years, 5-km races to Ultramarathons, and a mixture of road, trail, and cross-country events) completed an electronic survey. The survey was developed to assess the characteristics of respondents, whether they have experienced congestion during running events, the impact of congestion they have experienced during running events on their safety and satisfaction, and their preferred controls for congestion during running events. Survey data indicated runners had experienced some form of congestion prior to the race in the start corrals (93% of respondents), as the race started (97% of respondents), and during the race while running (88% of respondents). In turn, 73% of respondents indicated their experiences with congestion somewhat to extremely (i.e., rating of at least 3 on a 5-point Likert scale) negatively impacted their satisfaction with an event, while 43% of respondents indicated congestion somewhat to extremely negatively impacted their safety during an event. Regarding the impact of congestion on runner safety, 38% of respondents indicated they had slipped, while 27% of respondents indicated they had fallen during running events due to congestion. Further, congestion was attributed to injuries sustained (9%) and not finishing a race due to sustaining an injury (5%) during running events in some respondents. Respondents identified seeding runners based on previous run times (91%), use of wave starts (91%), and designing courses with limited pinch points, U-turns, and narrow paths (89%) as their most preferred controls to mitigate congestion during running events. Respondents resoundingly indicated self-seeding is not an effective method of managing congestion during running events. This study provides novel evidence that congestion is an issue for runners during running events, subsequently diminishing their satisfaction with events and posing safety concerns. In this way, race directors should involve runners in their decision-making processes when implementing appropriate controls to combat congestion for minimising injury risk to runners and ensuring a viable participant base remains attracted to their events in the future.


2011 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
ŞEule Taşlı Pektaş ◽  
Bülent Özgüç

This paper re-visits the basic premises of open building: designing for change as well as for stability, including the users in the design decision-making processes, and disentangling the building systems into the levels and allowing replacement; then, addresses the limitations of conventional design media in terms of the capabilities to support these aims. It is discussed that the design media should be predictive, dynamic, and interactive. Virtual prototyping as an enabling technology is reviewed and proposals are made for the future use of this technology for open building design.


2021 ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
Michael K. MacKenzie

This chapter makes three arguments in support of the claim that we need inclusive deliberative processes to shape the future in collectively intentional, mutually accommodating ways. First, inclusive collective decision-making processes are needed to avoid futures that favour the interests of some groups of people over others. Second, deliberative processes are needed to shape our shared futures in collectively intentional ways: we need to be able to talk to ourselves about what we are doing and where we want to get to in the future. Third, deliberative exchanges are needed to help collectivities avoid the policy oscillations that are (or may be) associated with the political dynamics of short electoral cycles. Effective processes of reciprocal reason giving can help collectivities maintain policy continuity over the long term—when continuity is justified—even as governments and generations change.


Author(s):  
Alison Harcourt ◽  
George Christou ◽  
Seamus Simpson

The conclusion situates the book’s findings in academic debates on democracy and the Internet, global self-regulation, and civil society, and international decision-making processes in unstructured environments. It assesses whether current standards-developing organization (SDO) decision-making is able to bridge historical representation gaps and deficiencies. A nuanced pattern is emerging with increasing inclusion of a wider number of actors within SDO fora. The first part of the chapter returns to the Multiple Streams (MS) framework applied to the case studies on a comparative basis. It identifies key processes under which SDO rules of interaction are established at the international level and explains which interests have come to the fore within decision-making highlighting the occurrence of policy entrepreneurship, forum shopping, and coupling. The final part explores additional frameworks for SDO regulation where spaces for public interest consideration might occur in the future. These are opportunities for inserting public interest considerations into international and national Acts, certification programmes, and the move towards open source solutions for Internet management. The book concludes that, although the literature is expansive on the interaction of corporate sector actors within SDOs, the study of other actors, such as digital rights groups, civil society, academics, policy entrepreneurs and the technical community as a whole, has been underdressed in the literature on international self-regulatory fora to date. In this respect, the book raises important questions of representation of the public interest at the international level by having addressed the actions of actors within SDO fora who promote public interest goals.


Author(s):  
Carlos Quental ◽  
Luis Borges Gouveia

The e-participation can be considered an area under constant focus. This paper presents a brief analysis of e-participation and e-democracy, and proposes a platform for electronic participation based on social media principles, designed to gather teachers and unions in a shared deliberative space. Interaction and collaboration are supported through questions, answers, suggestions, comments, votes, surveys and live debates. This proposal is intended to narrow the communication gap between teachers and unions and encourage teachers to become involved and participate in educational debates and important topics about the profession. The platform presented enables effective participation in formal and informal decision-making processes via the Internet, either as standalone or widgets with full integration into any Website. It is under constant development and will be improved along with this project. The actors in this study were chosen from the National Federation of Teachers due to its representativeness regarding associate teachers and provide an opportunity to assess the platform potential to support participation in a union context. The platform will be used in a trade union linked to teachers of several grade levels to understand their participation in this organization.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Quental ◽  
Luis Borges Gouveia

The e-participation can be considered an area under constant focus. This paper presents a brief analysis of e-participation and e-democracy, and proposes a platform for electronic participation based on social media principles, designed to gather teachers and unions in a shared deliberative space. Interaction and collaboration are supported through questions, answers, suggestions, comments, votes, surveys and live debates. This proposal is intended to narrow the communication gap between teachers and unions and encourage teachers to become involved and participate in educational debates and important topics about the profession. The platform presented enables effective participation in formal and informal decision-making processes via the Internet, either as standalone or widgets with full integration into any Website. It is under constant development and will be improved along with this project. The actors in this study were chosen from the National Federation of Teachers due to its representativeness regarding associate teachers and provide an opportunity to assess the platform potential to support participation in a union context. The platform will be used in a trade union linked to teachers of several grade levels to understand their participation in this organization.


Author(s):  
M. Holzer ◽  
R. W. Schwester

Cynicism toward government is largely a function of trust and social capital (Berman 1997; Putnam 2000). The relationship between government and its citizens has been strained. First, some citizens cynically feel as though government officials abuse their powers in the interest of self-aggrandizement; second, citizens often feel disconnected from government; third, government service delivery is frequently portrayed as inadequate. Administrative strategies to reverse these perceptions typically emphasize the benefits of government and improved service delivery. Some go further, offering individuals a means of influencing public policy and government decision-making, as opposed to traditional structures and cultures of policymaking that minimize citizen input. The Internet is a potentially powerful means for citizen consultation, and may help cultivate a governmental landscape in which information is more accessible, people feel more connected to government, and citizens are better able to participate in political and decision-making processes. This article examines the Internet as a consultative medium, whereby emphasis is placed on government efforts to use Web-based applications as a means of promoting meaningful citizen participation.


2009 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Albert Boonstra ◽  
Bert de Brock

The past few years, many organizations have been using the Internet in quite arbitrary and experimental ways. This phase, which can be considered as a period of learning and experimentation, has created a need for a more systematic approach to the identification, the ordering and the assessment of e-business options. It is the objective of this paper to address this need by presenting a methodology that aims at supporting management in using alternative e-business applications in the first stage of the decision-making process. Figure 1 shows how a systematic decision-making process can be organized by using e-business options. The steps are based on Simon’s intelligence, design, and choice trichotomy (Simon, 1960). First, alternative e-business options have to be identified and ordered. Then the possible options have to be assessed and selected. After this stage the selected opportunities have to be specified and designed. Next, implementation, operation, maintenance, and evaluation may follow. In Figure 1 this is called the “formal life cycle”. We will apply the word “e-business option” referring to the possibility to use an electronic network for a business purpose. An e-business opportunity is defined here as an assessed and selected e-business option. In practice, different intermediate feedback activities, interrupts, delays and adjustments are often necessary to reconsider earlier steps (Mintzberg, Raisinghani, & Théorêt, 1976). This is—among other reasons—because decision-making processes of this kind take place in dynamic environments and decisions are made in political contexts (Pettigrew, 2002). Moreover, participants in decision-making processes are often lacking the necessary information to make well-considered decisions right from the start (Miller, Hickson, & Wilson, 1996). In Figure 1 these activities are called “intermediate feedback”.


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