e-Strategy and legislatures: a longitudinal analysis of Southern Europe’s parliaments
Date Issued
2014
Author(s)
DOI
10.1007/978-1-4614-8462-2_9
Abstract
Parliaments are the cornerstone of representative democracy and one of
the most significant loci of democratic politics. A growing number of studies have
focused on the effects of ICTs on parliamentary function, but there is still a lack of
systematic empirical research which measures change overtime. This chapter
attempts to fill this gap by studying the extent and nature of change in ICT use by
the parliaments of Southern Europe, focusing on whether parliaments have moved
significantly forward toward opening up their digital gates to concerned citizens.
To this end, comparative website analysis is deployed to track the use of ICTs by
the legislatures in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Portugal, as well as the legislature
of the European Union, at three different time instances, namely 2004, 2011, and
2013. Change is measured using the ‘E-Legislature Index’ and its four dimensions:
Information provision, Bilateral interactivity, Multilateral interactivity, and Userfriendliness.
The study’s findings show that ICT use by parliaments is characterized
by volatility and discontinuity rather than continuous linear growth. Furthermore,
the analysis reveals that e-government and e-governance follow different
trajectories: whereas ‘Information Provision’ follows a steady but expected progress
and ‘Bilateral Interactivity’ shows an upward but unsteady trend, ‘Multilateral
Interactivity’ fluctuates between stagnation and retrogression, pointing to a
tendency of the parliaments to avoid taking greater risk of opening up their
practices to citizens. In light of these findings, ICT use by parliaments is evaluated
from the perspective of ICT strategic planning, providing suggestions for future
research in the field.
the most significant loci of democratic politics. A growing number of studies have
focused on the effects of ICTs on parliamentary function, but there is still a lack of
systematic empirical research which measures change overtime. This chapter
attempts to fill this gap by studying the extent and nature of change in ICT use by
the parliaments of Southern Europe, focusing on whether parliaments have moved
significantly forward toward opening up their digital gates to concerned citizens.
To this end, comparative website analysis is deployed to track the use of ICTs by
the legislatures in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Portugal, as well as the legislature
of the European Union, at three different time instances, namely 2004, 2011, and
2013. Change is measured using the ‘E-Legislature Index’ and its four dimensions:
Information provision, Bilateral interactivity, Multilateral interactivity, and Userfriendliness.
The study’s findings show that ICT use by parliaments is characterized
by volatility and discontinuity rather than continuous linear growth. Furthermore,
the analysis reveals that e-government and e-governance follow different
trajectories: whereas ‘Information Provision’ follows a steady but expected progress
and ‘Bilateral Interactivity’ shows an upward but unsteady trend, ‘Multilateral
Interactivity’ fluctuates between stagnation and retrogression, pointing to a
tendency of the parliaments to avoid taking greater risk of opening up their
practices to citizens. In light of these findings, ICT use by parliaments is evaluated
from the perspective of ICT strategic planning, providing suggestions for future
research in the field.