e-Democracy, e-Participation and e-Voting

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/112461

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    Digital Participation and the Sociomaterial Effects of TikTok in a Municipal Context
    (2026-01-06) Sintorn, Petra; Lundmark, Sofia; Koutsikouri, Dina
    In the context of digital participation in the public sector, the challenge of effectively utilizing digital initiatives to increase public engagement has emerged as a key area of research. In this study, we focus on the first municipality in Sweden to establish a TikTok channel, an initiative that seeks to foster a novel form of digital participation, providing young people with a platform to express their voices. Research on digital participation has traditionally explored how people access, use, and are affected by technology. Using a sociomaterial perspective, we explore digital participation and the intertwining of TikTok in everyday work in the municipality. This study contributes to research on the promise and complexity of digital participation, by demonstrating new dimensions through three sociomaterial effects, exposure, disruption, and trade-off. These insights also highlight why digital participation is not a straightforward solution that governments can simply implement without adopting a systemic approach.
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    Towards Effective E-Participation of Citizens in the European Union: The Development of AskThePublic
    (2026-01-06) Messerschmidt, Nils; Sprenkamp, Kilian; Sartipi, Amir; Wu, Xiaohui; Tchappi, Igor; Zavolokina, Liudmila; Fridgen, Gilbert
    E-participation platforms are an important asset for governments in increasing trust and fostering democratic societies. By engaging public and private institutions and individuals, policymakers can make informed and inclusive decisions. However, current approaches of primarily static nature struggle to integrate citizen feedback effectively. Drawing on the Media Richness Theory and applying the Design Science Research method, we explore how a chatbot can address these shortcomings to improve the decision-making abilities for primary stakeholders of e-participation platforms. Leveraging the ”Have Your Say” platform, which solicits feedback on initiatives and regulations by the European Commission, a Large Language Model-based chatbot, called AskThePublic is created, providing policymakers, journalists, researchers, and interested citizens with a convenient channel to explore and engage with citizen input. Evaluating AskThePublic in 11 semi-structured interviews with public sector-affiliated experts, we find that the interviewees value the interactive and structured responses as well as enhanced language capabilities.
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    Facilitating Urban Participation Project with Generative AI to Support Citizen Engagement and Interaction
    (2026-01-06) Borchers, Marten; Uba, Chikaodi; Milutzki, Enrico; Ittner, Fynn; Magdych, Valeria; Bittner, Eva; Semmann, Martin
    This paper investigates how AI-based chatbots can enhance citizens’ engagement and interaction on urban participation platforms. Using a design science research approach, we identified twelve issues, formulated eleven meta-requirements, and derived five design principles. These were instantiated with a web prototype designed in Flutter, utilizing a large language model, including interaction and expressing guidelines. Our evaluation revealed increased engagement, lower participation barriers, and improved citizen contributions compared to non-AI-based participation. However, the evaluation also led to the addition of two new ones, highlighting document access and interactive urban maps. Together, they specify information presentation and interaction with participants. Despite promising findings, challenges persist regarding the perception and explainability of large language models. Our findings provide a practical blueprint for future AI-enabled citizen participation in urban planning, suggesting directions for further research on the retrieval-augmented generation architecture, which can incorporate additional domain knowledge and behavioral guidelines.
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    DAO Decision-Making Simulation for Legislative Consultation: The Case of the Swiss E-ID Law 2019
    (2026-01-06) Lüscher, Sandro; Serdült, Uwe
    This paper explores how Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) could inform and shape participatory procedures in democratic governance. We apply DAO decision-making, such as rule-based input aggregation, transparent participation, and programmable decision-making, to a real-world case: the legislative development of the Swiss E-ID law, a proposal to establish a digital identity system for secure online authentication for Swiss residents. Using data from the official legislative consultation, we simulate how DAO-inspired mechanisms could have altered the aggregation of input and policy outcomes. Our analysis contributes conceptually and empirically to debates on digital democratic innovations, showing how programmable governance can be used not only to design new institutional forms, but also to critically assess the procedural dynamics of existing ones.
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    Introduction to the Minitrack on e-Democracy, e-Participation and e-Voting
    (2026-01-06) Simonofski, Anthony; Serdült, Uwe; Duenas-Cid, David