Call For Nominations: The Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics 2011

PoliticsOnline and the 12th Worldwide Forum On Electronic Democracy are calling for nominations for the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics. For the twelfth year in a row, PoliticsOnline subscribers and visitors from around the world will help select the top 10 individuals, organizations and companies having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics.

Clay Shirky: How the Internet will (one day) transform government - Video

In this rousing talk Clay Shirky shows how democracies can take a lesson from the Internet, to be not just transparent but also to draw on the knowledge of all their citizens.

e-Democracy - United States - Archive

Articles and resources about trends and issues relating to e-Democracy in the United States.

e-Democracy in Victoria - Archive

Archived resources about e-Democracy initiatives in the state of Victoria, Australia.

e-Democracy: A-K - United Kingdom - Archive

Articles and resources about trends and issues relating to e-democracy in the United Kingdom.

e-Democracy: General Articles - Archive

Archived general articles and resources about e-Democracy (electronic democracy) as it relates to government around the world.

e-Democracy: L-Z - United Kingdom - Archive

Articles and resources about trends and issues relating to e-democracy in the United Kingdom.

e-Democracy: Specific Topics - Archive

Archived resources about e-Democracy (electronic democracy) as it relates to government around the world.

eDemocracy - Canada

Articles and resources about trends and issues relating to eDemocracy in Canada.

The 10 Who Are Changing the World of Politics & the Internet in 2009 - winners of the eDemocracy Awards announced

PoliticsOnline and the World eDemocracy Forum have announced the winners of the e-Democracy Awards for 2009.

Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics Nominations open now

PoliticsOnline and the World eDemocracy Forum are calling for nominations of the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics in 2010.

Vote now for the Top 10 Who are changing the world of Internet and Politics in 2010

PoliticsOnline and the World eDemocracy Forum are proud to announce the list for nominations of the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics. For the eleventh year in a row, PoliticsOnline subscribers and visitors from around the world are invited to help select the top 10 individuals, organizations and companies having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics.

Vote now for the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics in 2011

PoliticsOnline and the World eDemocracy Forum are proud to announce the list of nominees for the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics. For the twelfth year in a row, PoliticsOnline subscribers and visitors from around the world are invited to help select the top 10 individuals, organizations and/or companies that are having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics. This prestigious award seeks to recognize the innovators and pioneers, the dreamers and doers who bring democracy online. This year marked another tough year in choosing the top finalists. The integration of politics and the Internet are reflected in this year's diverse, international nominees.

We the People - Your voice in our government [Video]

Take a look behind the scenes at the White House petition program, "We The People", its one way to be sure issues you care about are on the radar of the US administration.

E-Democracy.Org

"E-Democracy.Org is a non-profit, non-partisan, volunteer-based project whose mission is to expand participation and build stronger democracies and communities through the power of information and communication technologies and strategies." Goals include: Online citizen engagement, Information and civic education, Best practices and tools, Promote active citizenship and Organizational capacity and sustainability.

Sign of the times: How Change.org and e-petitions have given campaigns new life

By Aidan Radnedge, Metro, Thursday 16 May 2013. "Robert F Kennedy claimed that ‘one-fifth of the people are against everything all of the time’. Whereas The Simpsons’ writers were so fond of one declaration they variously had both Kent Brockman and Homer Simpson wonder: ‘When are people going to learn? Democracy doesn’t work.’ And yet Conservative cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Gove appear to be competing in an (e-)voting contest of their own, even in this apparently apathetic nation. Work and pensions secretary Duncan Smith has the lead, for now, against his education secretary colleague/rival – that is, in being the subject of the most online petitions: 38 to 22. The running tally comes courtesy of Change.org, this week celebrating the first anniversary of the US-based firm setting up a specialist British operation..."

White House releases We the People API

By Frank Konkel. Federal Computer Week, May 3, 2013. "The White House amasses rich, complex data from its We the People petition system, and the May 1 release of its first application programming interface (API) makes it easier for anyone to analyze that information. The API provides read-only access to data on all petitions that garner more than 150 signatures, the threshold for them to become publicly available on the We the People site, according to Leigh Heyman, Director of New Media Technologies at the White House. It will allow developers to write applications that use the data..."

White House 'We the People' Site, Explained

By Noelle Knell. Government Technology, March 13, 2013. "The White House's We the People website encourages visitors to submit and support petitions on policy issues they're interested in -- and once a petition reaches a certain threshold of digital signatures, administration officials get involved and issue a response. To discuss the website in more detail, White House Digital Strategy Director Macon Phillips participated in a Yahoo News chat on Wednesday, March 13, with Yahoo Columnist Chris Wilson. Similar in format to a TweetChat, participants sent in questions, which were moderated by Wilson and answered by Phillips..."

Obama 2.0 and the partisan divide

Written by Jeffrey Roy. Canadian Government Executive. Volume: 19 Issue: 1, 18 January 2013. "In 2008, President Obama refashioned American politics for a more digital age, leveraging the Internet to both engage volunteers and raise money in a novel and unprecedented manner. Once in Office, he became the first Commander in Chief to deploy a Blackberry (still a Blackberry?) and his inaugural Open Government Directive spawned groundbreaking and wide-ranging initiatives in online reporting (most notably recovery.gov) and infrastructure refurbishment only now beginning to take root. Looking ahead, and taking stock of the 2012 campaign, President Obama’s continued digital impetus and the potential consequences of a second term require some distinction between politics and administration. Whereas the latter is managerial and increasingly premised on new working relationships with an evolving set of technology industries, competitive but on the whole supportive of IT renewal, the former involves a citizenry that is arguably more sharply divided than ever, with technology's role far more opaque..."

New online tool improves democracy, Hamilton inventor says

By Samantha Craggs, CBC News, December 26, 2012. "Politicians need to ask the right questions to make the right decisions, and a Hamilton inventor thinks he has the answer. Ken Seville has launched Democravise, a web widget that goes deeper than a poll. People can give their opinions, but in doing so, rank the questions they asked themselves to arrive at the opinion and enter new ones the politician should consider..."

Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

by Macon Phillips, The White House Blog, January 15, 2013. "When we launched We the People, none of us knew how popular it would be, but it's exceeded our wildest expectations. Through the past year, interest in We the People exploded and we're closing in on 10 million signatures. When we first raised the threshold — from 5,000 to 25,000 — we called it "a good problem to have." Turns out that "good problem" is only getting better, so we're making another adjustment to ensure we’re able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve. Starting today, as we move into a second term, petitions must receive 100,000 signatures in 30 days in order to receive an official response from the Obama Administration. This new threshold applies only to petitions created from this point forward and is not retroactively applied to ones that already exist..."

How the internet is transforming democracy

by Timothy Kirkhope. The Independent, Wednesday 12 December 2012. "By publishing data on government activity, and promoting interaction with and between citizens, digital technology is changing statecraft for the better. We are living in the Digital Age and in the same way that the internet can transform economies by allowing companies to work more efficiently, it can also change the relationship between governments and citizens - for the better. The increased involvement of people in political debate is evident on an even greater scale on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The internet allows for greater freedom of expression, facilitating citizens' ability to challenge and criticise: a basic democratic right. These social media sites also have the power to actually bring democracy about - the Egyptian Revolution 2011 being a prime example..."

Clicking our way to democracy

by Jimmy Leach. The Independent, Thursday 22 November 2012. "The man who launched the government's e-petitions says our politics is based on granular issues but our political system is based on candidates. ePetitions, crowd-sourcing, social media engagement and, God help us, tweet-ups are all becoming familiar features of the modern political landscape, symptoms of a new enthusiasm in government to 'engage' with the electorate and offer up a form of accountability. Are they going far enough? The latest to the plate is the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI), the first such initiative at European level, which allows 1 million European citizens able to launch petitions to directly affect policy from the European Commission..."

European citizens' initiative

European Commission. "The European citizens' initiative allows one million EU citizens to participate directly in the development of EU policies, by calling on the European Commission to make a legislative proposal. This website provides information on all citizens' initiatives, it explains the rules, and enables you to launch your initiative..."

How 'We The People', the White House e-Petition Site, Could Help Form a More Perfect Union

By Micah L. Sifry. Tech President, Tuesday, November 20, 2012. "Ever since Election Day, the White House's "We the People" page has experienced a surge in e-petitions from people who, to put it kindly, don't especially like the Obama Administration. Petitions calling for individual states to be allowed to secede from the USA and form their own governments have received more than 900,000 signatures so far. Considering that as of mid-September, "We the People," which was launched a year earlier, had just hit a total of 3.4 million signatures, this is a big surge in public engagement with the platform. The secession boomlet has drawn a wide range of media attention, from gushing coverage in the rightwing Daily Caller to bemusement and derision from all over the liberal left..."

Non-secession White House petitions also surge

By Joseph Marks. NextGov, 19 November 2012. "The White House's online petition site We the People has been inundated since president Obama's reelection with more petitions than at any time since its 2011 launch. About 37 percent of those 187 new petitions are from disenchanted Americans who want their state to secede from the union. Another 5 percent are from people criticizing or mocking the would-be secessionists..."

Lower Response Threshold Introduced For e-Petitions

by Tristan Parker. E-government Bulletin, Friday, October 5th, 2012. "Electronic petitions to the UK government which receive more than 10,000 signatures will now receive a written government response, Leader of the House of Commons Andrew Lansley has announced. The relevant government department will write a response to each qualifying petition, which will then be posted alongside the petition on the government’s e-petition website (http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/) and emailed to everyone who has signed it..."

One year later We the People petitioners have mixed reviews

By Joseph Marks. Next Gov, September 21, 2012. "As it approaches its one-year anniversary, the White House website that invites people to petition the government and promises to respond to the most popular appeals is getting mixed reviews from users. Kathleen Summers credited We the People, which will turn one on Saturday, with bringing greater public attention to animal mistreatment by commercial dog breeders. Summers’ petition asking the government to better regulate commercial breeders received 32,000 signatures and led to a proposed new regulation from the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service..."

Obama Digital Chief: 'Winning' Online Conversation Not Our Objective

by Alex Fitzpatrick. Mashable, September 4, 2012. "Conversational victory on Twitter isn't the end goal of Barack Obama's social media strategy, according to the campaign's chief digital strategist. Speaking at a Democratic National Convention panel, Joe Rospars said that his focus lies on monitoring the social conversation and adding the campaign's own viewpoint to the topic of the hour for the benefit of Obama supporters. 'For our supporters, because there is so much more conversation [online], it's even more incumbent on us to have a relationship with them as the campaign with our voice that lends context to what's going on,' he said. 'In a turbulent storm of information and a lot of opinions and facts and numbers, we want to try to be at least a sort of mooring to something that's true about what the president is. . .and to be able to explain it and make the relationship meaningful no matter what the context of the conversation is. That doesn't necessarily mean that winning that conversation is our objective.'..."