E-democracy and Italian Public Administration: New Media at the Service of Citizens

It is widely recognized that the process of globalization has been facilitated and made possible by the development of new media (Castells 1996, 2000). New media, intended as technological forms used to communicate messages, influences the communicative practices of individuals and institutions, and this in turn influences societies and cultures. Coleman and Gøtze (2001) discovered a correlation between globalization, new media, and political representation in developed democracies: in correspondence to a general crisis of traditional forms of representation they found a spread of new tools of communication (ibid: 4). Citizens perceive democratic institutions as opaque and detached from their living space and experience, and find themselves highly disengaged from the policy process. In this sense, globalization has affected the ways by which democratic institutions produce policies, services and public goods. Market interdependency and the rise of more complex economic and social demands have profoundly altered the context for policy-making. What is emerging is a system of governance where the political power is dispersed and/or re-allocated among public entities neither directly accountable to citizens nor connected to traditional representative institutions. No room, therefore, for civic engagement and public deliberation seems to be possible. In this respect, new media opens up more spaces for interaction between citizens and policy-makers. The use of new media is believed to have the potential to increase levels of trust and solidarity, which are prerequisite of political and civic participation (Putnam 2000; Putnam et al. 1993). Recent studies provide an indication of the potential of new technologies to enhance local community interaction and communication (a sort of ‘social capital’). These are studies of communities in which a majority of residents use new technologies (Wellman and Haythornthwaite 2002; Huysman et al. 2003). New media and, in general, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) offer “a possibility of a new public communication environment which is interactive, relatively cheap to enter, unconstrained by time or distance, and inclusive” (Coleman and Gøtze, 2001: 5). They have, in sum, a great potential in broadening participation within the political process that will in turn enhance and enrich democracy. This is the reason why several Western democracies have made considerable efforts toward the definitions of what are commonly labeled as ‘e-democracy policies’, i.e. initiatives aimed at promoting civic engagement by means of ICTs and internet. This trend is also visible within the Italian context. In the last ten years Italy has been facing socio-economic challenges, which required structural reforms of its institutional public apparatus. Such reforms aimed at coping with the citizens’ pressing requests for participation in policy-making and with the necessity of remaining economically competitive. This chapter explores the ways in which Italian public administration has been using information and communication technologies as new media “tools” to interact with citizens for example by creating web sites, such as Iperbole, MO-Net/Unox1 and Partecipa.net, where citizens can interact with public officers upon local policies through online forum discussions or they can request specific services by submitting online documents, for instance, for school applications etc. After a brief presentation of the importance of new media in relations to democracy and public participation the chapter described the Italian approach to e-democracy within the context of international and European programs. It then analyzes the case studies of Italian e-democracy projects developed and implemented at the municipal levels in order to understand the impact of those projects for restructuring and enhancing relationships between local administrations and their citizens. Finally, it compares Italian e-democracy initiatives with international and European experiences in order to assess the level of interactivity between citizens and public administrators and whether it is possible to see the creation of social capital within the Italian online communities.