Symposia

Online Consultation and Public Policy Making: Democracy, Identity, and New Media

March 14, 2008 | 8:15 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. | Barrister's Club| Moritz College of Law

Archived Webcast: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

E-Governance: The Internet now offers the world an unprecedented capacity to foster the sharing of information and to facilitate sustained, many-to-many communication.  The networking of citizens with their governments, with each other, and with the organs of civil society has created unprecedented opportunities for popular engagement in the public sphere.

The Symposium will feature researchers from Australia, England, France, Israel, Italy, Korea and Slovenia, as well as the United States, addressing a variety of e-democracy issues from a diverse interdisciplinary background and both theoretical and applied research.

This is an active workshop for members of the International Working Group on Online Consultation and Public Policy Making, some presenting and others discussing the principal papers.

Principal presenters include:

• Steven J. Balla, Associate Professor of Political Science, Public Policy and Public Administration, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
• Patrizia Bertini, Independent Practitioner and Researcher, European Internet Accessibility Observatory
• Andrew Chadwick, Head, Department of Politics and International Relations, and Founding Director, New Political Communication Unit, University of London
• Sungsoo Hwang, Ph.D. candidate in Public Affairs, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh
• Laurence Monnoyer-Smith, Associate Professor of Communication Sciences, University of Technology at Compiègne, France
• Kerrie Oakes, Ph.D. candidate in Public Administration, Griffi th University, and former Policy Offi cer, Queensland eDemocracy Policy Team in Australia
• Oren Perez, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
• Alicia Schatteman, Ph.D. candidate, School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University.

  Biographies of the presenters are available here.

Schedule of Events:

• 8:15-8:45 a.m. - Registration and continental breakfast
• 8:45-9:00 a.m. - Welcome, Peter Shane and Stephen Coleman
• 9:00-10:15 a.m. - Andrew Chadwick, "Web 2.0: New Challenges for E-Democracy"
  Patrizia Bertini, "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You Are Citizen Kane: Identity, Anonymity and Pseudonymity of E-Citizenship"
• 10:30-11:45 a.m. - Laurence Monnoyer-Smith, "Technology and Inclusion: Framing Online Public Debate to Enlarge Participation," Oren Perez, "Complexity, Information Overload and Online Deliberation"
• Noon-1:30 p.m. Lunch Speaker - Tim Erickson, Forum Development Director, e-democracy.org, "Building Democracy Through Local Issues Forums"
• 1:45-3:00 p.m. - Steven Balla, "The Diffusion of E-Government Innovations Across U.S. Municipalities," Sungsoo Hwang, "Advancing E-Governance at the Community Level with the Neighborhood Information System"
• 3:15-4:30 p.m. - Kerrie Oakes, "The Impact of E-Democracy on the Role of the Civil Servant"
  Alicia Schatteman, "Democracy and EParticipation: A Case Study of Ontario's Assembly on Electoral Reform"
  

Acknowledgments - This international conference is sponsored by:

• Mershon Center for International Security Studies
• Moritz College of Law
• I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society
• Center for Technology and Government at the State University of New York in Albany