Two different innovations implemented at the local level were explored for Malawi: the Citizen Juries and the Local Governance Barometer process used for assessing performance in different policy areas.
Citizen Juries had an effective role in bettering Citizen Development Funds, by providing input and oversight over the projects implemented. The Local Governance Barometer process highlights the importance of identifying the right stakeholders and ensuring that the deliberative process is inclusive and representative, for the success of participatory and deliberative democratic innovations.
The “Exploring Worldwide Democratic Innovations” project was supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
In Nigeria, democratic innovations have been applied as a means to counter political apathy, enhance citizen participation and make government more responsive.
Two locally-led and applied innovations are the Open Forum and the implementation of the OGP process, both functioning as a means for citizen input into government policy. The last innovation presented is the Option A4, which is an innovative open ballot voting system that some parties now use in their primaries to select grassroots candidates.
The “Exploring Worldwide Democratic Innovations” project was supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
This case study shows some innovative uses of digital platforms for making policy-processes more inclusive and creating direct lines of communication between municipalities and citizens in North Macedonia.
The Green Human City platform is something between a civic tech policy crowdsourcing tool and a political party, showing how new forms of representation can place citizens in the centre of city planning. The mZaednica platform by municipalities shows that citizens have great, small ideas for improving city planning and governance, and appreciate getting their opinions heard when municipalities then take action based on these proposals.
The “Exploring Worldwide Democratic Innovations” project was supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
This case study shares insights from Taiwan’s civic tech and gov tech experiences, showing how civic tech transitioned from oppositional politics to a more institutionally anchored role in facilitating inclusive decision-making in Taiwan.
The research dives into g0v, a community of hackers and people from the open source community who have launched various initiatives to overcome the information asymmetry with government and crowdsource knowledge from citizens. It shows the path of institutionalisation of civic tech into gov tech, and its usage in policy deliberation under the vTaiwan platform. A must-read for civic tech and democracy nerds!
The “Exploring Worldwide Democratic Innovations” project was supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
This case study explores the innovation of Gwanghwamoon 1st Street, an initiative by the President’s administration to get citizen’s ideas, opinions and suggestions on policies directly through an online platform in South Korea.
Next, it dives into the contest held by Icheon City for citizens to propose social distancing measures in 2020, which were then implemented at city-level.
Finally, the research dives into the deliberative polling exercise to decide on Korean nuclear energy policy, leveraging a debate between randomly selected citizens and a nation-wide poll to make a difficult and controversial policy decision.
The “Exploring Worldwide Democratic Innovations” project was supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
The online ad ecosystem is driven by two processes: targeting – advertisers picking who should see their ad – and amplification – platforms’ algorithms picking a select audience from within this targeted group. While these are two parts o- the same process, they are very different in nature and pose different challenges when used in political advertising.
Yet the European Commission’s proposal -or a Regulation on the transparency and targeting o- political advertising (the ‘Regulation’ hereinafter) does not clearly define both processes, nor does the Commission differentiate between both processes in the proposal -or a regulation.Adding to this is the systemic failure by authorities to enforce the GDPR, which poses policy dilemmas that must be addressed in this Regulation, but are not tackled in the proposal.
In this paper, we present the proposed Regulation of the use of data in political advertising and advocate for an alternative approach that considers ‘targeting’ and ‘amplifcation’ separately and privileges a pragmatic understanding of the GDPR over a legalistic one.
This paper is the second of a series of policy briefs on online political advertising and the regulatory proposal.
When we speak about transparency of political advertising, we must distinguish three levels of transparency, which are defned depending on who information is made available to: the viewers of the ads themselves, the wider public, or public authorities. In this paper we focus on the transparency obligations at the second level, which entail the use of online ad libraries, also called online ad repositories.
We regard such public-level transparency as key to addressing the most important problems associated with online political advertising. Well-functioning ad libraries allow watchdogs such as CSOs and journalists to monitor online political campaigns in real time and keep the public informed about online campaigns. We assess the merits of the Commission’s proposal on public-level transparency of political ads and suggest amendments to enable more effective public scrutiny and greater integrity of online campaigns.
The paper below addressed the following 3 questions:
What are ad online political ad libraries?
In which Regulations has the Commission included mandates for ad libraries?
What about a single universal ad library?
This paper is the third of a series of briefs on online political advertising and the regulatory proposal.
As advertising in newspapers, TV, billboards, and radio moved online, the digital domain has become the centre of campaigning across Europe, with large platforms such as Meta, Google, and Snapchat dominating the market. Online advertising techniques have evolved to include the use of personal data in the targeting and delivery of ads, the hiring of influencers, and the fragmentation and tailoring of specific audience for campaigns.
As online advertising became more prominent, scandals such as Cambridge Analytica in 2018 and several cases of election interference and incitement of violence around the world laid bare the problems of political advertising online. In such a fraught ecosystem, fundamental rights to expression, privacy, and participation are at risk and fair electoral competition is at stake.
In the paper below we address the following questions:
Why regulate online political ads?
What policies are on the way or are in place?
What policy actions can the EU and members states take?
Unregulated online political advertising presents privacy and democracy threats. The EU’s Regulation tackles transparency, targeting, and misinformation issues, enhancing accountability. The use of data for precise targeting endangers privacy and perpetuates polarization. Insufficient transparency leads to year-round, opaque political advertising and undermines electoral rules. The Regulation strives to curb dark money’s influence and mandates transparency. Online ads’ distinction from organic content remains a challenge, impacting informed voting. Member States’ difficulties enforcing political ad regulations reveal the need for coordinated EU action.
In the paper below we address the following 3 questions:
Political pluralism is a cornerstone of any democracy, and the political party system allows to channel the diversity of voices and interests. Yet, support to political parties and pluralist party systems has long been an underdeveloped element of the EU and Member States’ external assistance. The EU has slowly but surely recognised that there is a need to step up support to these key transformation agents in order to deal with different development and foreign policy objectives like policy reforms or conflict mediation.
To provide guidance for EU engagement, we have published a new paper drawing on the lessons learned and the experience accumulated by the implementing partners of the REACH for Democracy project funded by the EU, as well as our network’s political party support community. Our paper provides an analysis of where we think party support stands, where it has been successful, and where to invest in the future.
The paper first looks at the key challenges to political party support programmes, including the new restrictions under COVID-19 that have deepened already existing tendencies of restricting democratic space.
This is followed by three separate sections that look at inclusion in political parties, the role of parties in elections, and cooperation between parties (and with other actors) – three areas chosen on the basis of the EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy 2020-2024. Each section looks at the barriers and the strategies for those supporting the political party system.
The paper concludes with a list of recommendations to policy-makers and practitioners for future EU actions and frameworks that increasingly recognise the key role of political parties in creating inclusive and well-governed societies.
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