The Role of Parliamentary Websites in the Budget Process

The “power of the purse” is one of the fundamental powers of the parliament. This power is defined as a parliament’s authority to determine the amount of public expenditures to be made and the category and amount of taxes to be collected from citizens. To exercise this power, parliaments must debate and review the budget drawn up by the government to ensure that it reflects the preferences of citizens. Nevertheless, it is quite apparent that parliaments today do not sufficiently debate government budgets and do not completely exercise their existing authority. This development weakens the political function of the budget process and sometimes leads to non-optimal budget outcomes. Information and communication technologies (ICTs), particularly websites, are significant tools that parliaments have at their disposal to address this problem. When they are effectively designed, parliamentary websites can contribute to more efficient outcomes to the budget process by enabling the members of a parliament and the citizens they represent to involve themselves in that process. This chapter addresses the potential contributions of parliamentary websites to the budget process. These contributions promise to make budget information more transparent and understandable. This chapter engages in this task by using a content-analysis methodology to examine the website of the Turkish parliament.

Communication and Documentation on Parliamentary Websites

This chapter describes a new section of the parliamentary website of the Italian Chamber of Deputies launched in November 2009 “Temi dell’attività parlamentare.” In this section, parliamentary records, research material, and hyperlinks to a variety of external information sources are integrated in a unified digital resource structured according to topical indexes. The new website’s section has been conceived as an evolution of documentation and research activities done by the internal staff of the Research Department of the Chamber of Deputies and benefits from the domain knowledge of the parliamentary documentation experts. The chapter discusses future innovation implied by the implementation of the project in the areas of institutional communication, documentation supporting legislators, and their staff internal organization. It also suggests that these innovations relate to the passage from e-government to the conceptual and operational model of “transformational government” (t-government), that emphasizes a citizen-centric delivery of public services, a shared services culture, and innovative methods in management of resources and skills in public administration.

Strengthening Parliaments through ICT

This chapter provides an overview of the state of the art concerning the application of ICTs in parliaments and of the main problems identified when considering engaging the public through ICTs. Using the Portuguese Parliament as a case study, the chapter analyzes some effective approaches using ICTs to involve citizens and to support the dialogue regarding the legislative process. The conclusion emerging from the chapter is that the use of ICTs is not enough to get citizens to trust the parliament and to maintain their involvement. Parliaments need to follow a strategic and coherent plan that considers other questions apart from technology and goes beyond making documents available to the public. Parliaments need to ensure that their information systems provide both information and communication and meet the criteria of clarity, accuracy, timeliness, completeness, and the provision of feedback.

Worldwide Diffusion of E-Parliament within the Framework of Policy Transfer

The aim of this chapter is to analyze the worldwide diffusion of e-parliament and the role played by the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament (GCIP), within the framework of policy transfer. There are two main reasons why it is necessary to focus on the role of GCIP in the diffusion of e-parliament: 1) The GCIP is one of the most active actors in this process; and 2) Activities undertaken by the GCIP and its relations with its partners give important clues about the big picture of e-parliament transfer at the international level. In the analysis of worldwide diffusion process of e-parliament in this study, policy transfer literature is used. This chapter goes beyond the conceptual framework and case studies pave the way for the evaluation of e-parliament from a different perspective by focusing on the transfer of e-parliament as an innovation.

An Overview of E-Parliament Services

In an era of citizens’ discontentment towards parliamentary democracy and a common perception that public opinion is not properly taken into account by governments, many national parliaments are striving to implement e-services that will attract citizens’ interest and engage them actively in parliamentary procedures. This chapter provides an overview of e-parliament concepts and services, relevant initiatives organized by parliaments, governmental agencies, or NGOs, as well as technologies that can be used for such applications. The chapter intends to bring forward issues and opportunities for implementing e-parliament initiatives according to the needs and capabilities of different target groups, with a view to rendering e-parliament services more attractive for citizens, and, at the same time, more effective in their civic education aspects, more efficient in providing feedback to parliament stakeholders, and delivering usable outcomes for parliamentary e-participation.

Promoting E-Democracy and Citizen Participation through ICT Initiatives in Parliament

This chapter proposes an experience-based model for the low-ICT resource countries that promotes the use of multiple ICTs, both traditional (radio, television) and contemporary (computers, mobile phones, internet), as a way of enhancing citizens’ participation towards issues that are deliberated in parliament. In general, the technological change pace is slower in developing countries. For this reason, e-democracy can not be achievable using contemporary technology alone. Based on the Malawi experience, where ICT availability and access is still low, this chapter argues that use of multiple ICTs may be an appropriate approach in low-resource context.

The Invisible Side of Political Participation

The aim of this chapter is to map out the main digital political participation initiatives available in the websites of Latin American parliaments, highlighting the e-democracy project of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. We argue that, although there is increased willingness by Latin American parliaments to offer society diverse digital channels, this concern is not matched by equivalent efforts in efficient management of information made available by citizens through mechanisms of e-participation. We illustrate this argument with an analysis of experiences in information management of citizen political participation mechanisms present in the e-democracy program of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies.

Bridging the Political Gap?

Given the lack of transparency and the extent to which corruption is endemic to most Latin American countries, it is not surprising to find a high level of citizen distrust in political institutions. Parliaments and political parties are the institutions most affected by this crisis of representative democracy, and receive the lowest levels of public confidence. In recent years, many initiatives, including those based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), have been developed with the aim of revitalizing democracy, increasing transparency in public management, and opening up new spaces for political participation. However, the consequences of such initiatives are still unknown while the potential benefits of e-participation remain controversial: Should parliaments promote e-participation in societies that experience such a huge digital divide? Should participation be a top-down process initiated by governments or parliaments? Or should they increase accountability and leave participation in hands of the people? The aims of this chapter are twofold: (i) to analyze to what extent parliaments are offering more and better information to the public, and are becoming more transparent and accountable through the use of ICTs, and (ii) to examine the spread and scope of participatory initiatives in the law-making process.

Connecting Citizens to the European Parliament

In recent years, a number of e-participation projects have been implemented with the objective to strengthening the relationship between European citizens and members of the European parliament (MEPs). This chapter investigates the most extensive of these projects, the European Citizens Consultations (ECC), with a focus on the relationship between citizens and MEPs. Two potential functions of e-consultations for strengthening political representation are analyzed, the connectivity function and the inquiry function. The results indicate that the ECC project fall short of offering a functional tool for strengthening political representation. Participating MEPs are shown to express disappointment with the project and participating citizens show signs of a growing dissent with the European parliament following their participation. This analysis suggests that the shortcomings of the ECC project are due to an insufficient understanding of political representation and the role of MEPs in the design of the ECC project. Three lessons of the ECC project are highlighted.

ICTs for Information Capabilities of Parliamentary Stakeholders

Parliaments are central institutions in democratic government systems. Parliaments in some developing countries are closed institutions. Efforts for improving the “representation function” of the closed parliaments can also result in information freedom for the citizens, members of parliaments, and other stakeholder groups. I discuss, using the concepts of Capability Approach, how different ICT interventions can assist in improving the representation function of the parliaments by expanding the information capabilities (i.e., freedom of realizing functionings of acquiring, using, and disseminating information) of parliaments, citizens, and members of parliaments. The ICT interventions discussed in this chapter include developing or enhancing parliamentary website, webcasting system, telecasting system, media center for members, resource centers for members, reporting center for external reporters, and printing press.