Following the definition put forward by the UN, e-participation is understood as the use of ICTs for the design, decision and implementation of policies, with the goal of delivering this process in a participatory, inclusive and deliberative way. Based on this definition, the concept of e-participation can be measured in the form of an index. The index in turn can be used to build an e-participation maturity model. While e-government maturity models are common in the literature, there is less focus on e-participation e-maturity models. The latter are usually components of e-government maturity models. In addition to building an evidence-based e-participation maturity model, this case-study-based research helps the international observer interested in e-democracy to get a better understanding of digital participation tools currently available in Germany, Japan and Switzerland.
According to the definition by the UN, e-participation is understood as the use of ICTs for the
design, decision, and implementation of policies, with the goal of delivering this process in a
participatory, inclusive, and deliberative way. The terms "e-participation", "digital participation",
and "digital political participation" can be used as synonyms. Based on this definition, the
theoretical concept of e-participation can be measured in the form of an index which can then
be used to build an e-participation maturity model. While e-government maturity models are
common in the literature, there is less focus on e-participation e-maturity models. As the latest
thorough e-government maturity model literature survey by [
In addition to developing an e-participation maturity model, this case-study-based research
helps the international observer interested in e-democracy to get a better understanding of
digital participation tools currently available in Germany, Japan and Switzerland, respectively.
Japan, for example, is a particularly interesting but not well-understood case due to the language
barrier. The present study makes use of the DigiPartIndex methodology in order to first measure,
then map and compare e-participation for the three selected cases. As alternatives to the
DigiPartIndex the UN e-participation index EPI or one of its variants could have been applied
[
In the remainder of the paper, the measurement of e-participation in the form of an index is specified further. After a description and comparative analysis of the DigiPartIndex values for Germany, Japan and Switzerland, a way how an e-participation maturity model can be built is outlined. The paper concludes with a discussion of limitations and directions for future work.
In order to develop an e-participation maturity model we are making use of previous work,
namely the DigiPartIndex. Due to the lack of space, more detail can be found in [
E-deliberation, as a first indicator for the dimension of opinion formation captures the options to discuss political topics online. The closer the applications are to the formal political process, the higher the score. Civic education, as the second indicator, is a crucial skill in democracies. Learning tools, should therefore also be available in the digital space. Applications should not only provide pure knowledge but also lead toward critical thinking. The more interactive and competence-oriented applications are the more points on the index we give. For e-transparency as the third indicator, the question is whether (political) information is digitally available, allowing the larger public to follow and critically monitor the political process. Such eforts are commonly based on open government or open data strategies.
In the second dimension of the DigiPartIndex, the focus is on organised digital exchanges between state and civil society organisations and institutions. The two components, e-consultation and e-demand, capture this dimension we can also call co-creation. The two instruments difer in terms of where the initiative originates from. For an e-consultation, the starting point is a government agency (top-down). For an e-demand such as an e-petition, societal forces are at the origin of the process (bottom-up). For e-consultation tools as the fourth indicator, we ask whether they can at least potentially influence the political decision-making process. For e-demand as the fifth indicator, we ask whether people can voice their opinion and make suggestions with the help of online tools and how far-reaching in a political system the consequences of these demands are.
Digital tools can be used to allow for decision-making. As a technical foundation, there should be some form of electronic identification, i.e., an e-ID which can be used not only for digital transactions but also for voting or signing a petition online. For e-identification as the sixth indicator, we determine how and for which public services an online identity can be used. Higher values can be reached if e-identification systems can be used directly and repeatedly for a government service, especially for digital participation. For the seventh and last indicator measured, internet voting, we check whether there were eforts to introduce a digital voting channel and how technologically advanced they were.
The selection of the three cases, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland, is a convenience sample
not claiming to be representative of other countries in any respect. The selected countries
are only used as illustrations for the approach taken. Further validation of the developed
e-participation maturity model would require a larger empirical basis. Data collection took
place in the time between December 2022 and January 2023. In the first round, each country
was coded independently by one team member. This was done through desk research and
literature review. The first drafts were then compared and discussed in a second round with all
the team members. During this consolidation phase, two or more sets of eyes were involved in
all annotations. In order to reach as consistent an assessment as possible for the seven indicators,
lfowcharts were developed. For an in-depth explanation of the methodological choices involved
and how the DigiPartIndex can be calculated, we refer to previous work [
Social media presence is the norm these days for all major political institutions and actors. There is also a dedicated platform for young citizens to discuss political issues, which is used only scarcely. In the summer of 2022, there was a pilot project with a digital citizens’ council. Two hundred randomly selected citizens participated in an online citizens’ council on AI in care. Although this citizens’ panel was only a pilot in the context of a research project, we gave out 3 points for e-deliberation. There was a deduction of 0.2 points for a lack of inclusiveness (targeted at young people or a sample of citizens). In total, Germany received 2.8 points for that indicator.
Civic e-education is very advanced in Germany. General information about the political
system is available online. There are several voting advice applications (VAA) to inform citizens
about candidates for national elections [
Germany has a comprehensive open government data strategy. Parliamentary proceedings and live streams of parliamentary sessions are available online. There is also an open government data portal that provides datasets and lists applications that use this data. In addition, there are several open-source tools that process this data in an intelligent way. The tool ’Abgeordnetenwatch’ provides citizens with the option to check how Members of Parliament (MP) have voted on specific legislation and also allows them to ask questions directly to MPs. These are two important aspects of accountability allowing citizens to evaluate the promises that politicians made for their election and to hold them accountable by interacting directly with them. Another interesting tool is ’Openparliament TV’, which makes MPs’ speeches searchable by keyword. This tool makes it easier to monitor MPs’ activities. Therefore 5 points are awarded. We deduct a small penalty of 0.2 points because, for the full score, all tools should be available in one place to make them more accessible. A total of 4.8 points is awarded.
Regular consultations on new legislation with political stakeholders are common. However, most of these consultations do not make use of digital tools and material has to be submitted by email. For a few instances, ad hoc surveys were used instead of feedback by email. However, some government agencies occasionally hold advanced consultations on action plans and strategies. It is worth mentioning that at the sub-national level, there are several initiatives for sophisticated e-consultation tools as well. However, these are not taken into account in this paper as we only focus on the national level. Therefore, 4 points are awarded. However, as this is not yet standard procedure, we deduct 0.2 points for use. This gives a total score of 3.8.
In Germany, there are several private e-petition platforms that are regularly used. Some of
them, such as OpenPetition and change.org, are also available in other countries. The portal ’Frag
den Staat’ is widely used and allows citizens to ask questions and get answers from the Federal
Government. There is also a central petition platform on the website of the German Bundestag,
where people can start petitions [
In Germany, there is an e-ID card with an online identification function. It allows digital identification via a card reader or a mobile application. This e-identification solution is not seamless as it requires a physical card. However, it can be used for a variety of diferent services. Most of the diferent e-government portals at the federal and the sub-national level are interoperable, and citizens only have to register once. Therefore, 4 points are awarded.
There is currently no e-voting system in Germany for political elections, mainly due to legal
restrictions, further consolidated by the German Supreme Court in 2009 [
Political discussions on private social media channels are common in Japan. For example, the most popular video blog on Japanese politics on YouTube, Kazuya, has 677,000 followers and a lively comments section. More targeted, oficially supported e-discussion channels for politics are not yet beyond the trial stage (see also: e-consultation). In the first place, the Japanese government uses social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter to disseminate information, not to engage in a discussion with the wider public. Both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors primarily use social media to communicate election results. The social media accounts of Parliament do not provide a forum for interaction with citizens. However, citizens and politicians can interact through politicians’ personal accounts. Research for the most recent election campaigns examined trends in MPs’ use of social media on the Internet. Almost all MPs had an account. Instagram, in particular, has been growing year by year. For e-deliberation, therefore, the score is 2 points for having oficial social media channels, with a bonus for variety, for a total of 2.2 points.
There seems to be no conscious efort trying to take civic education online. For information
on the political system, people have to rely on general resources on the Internet. However, one
successful exception are VAAs. For example, the ’Policy Square’ platform, launched in 2013,
is designed to help Japanese voters make more informed decisions by providing information
on political parties and candidates’ positions on various policy issues. Users answer a series of
questions related to their political preferences, and the platform matches them with political
parties and candidates that align with their views. Another example is ’Minna no Seiji’
(Everyone’s Politics), launched in 2016 by the Tokyo-based NPO ’Public Mind’. There are usually 5-6
VAAs available before each election in Japan, some operated by large media corporations. VAAs
can therefore be considered to be common in Japan [
Digital monitoring of the political process in Japan is possible by consulting the proceedings of plenary sessions and committee meetings on the National Diet’s website. These documents are available in digital form from the first Diet session from May 1947 onwards. The respective website is fully searchable by date, speaker and keywords. Results can be displayed as text or pdf. Furthermore, the government promotes and maintains a comprehensive open data strategy with an open data portal. The range of data is wide. However, there do not seem to be any monitoring tools making use of the available open data or trying to visualise political data dynamically. We, therefore, give 4 points on the index scale for e-transparency.
There are platforms in Japan attempting to digitally open up policy-making to crowd-sourcing and collecting opinions from a wider audience. A website which is part of the e-government portal of Japan run by the Digital Agency allows the public to comment on upcoming government regulations. Users do not necessarily need a login. The results of these comments are made public and the authorities in charge provide a proper answer or feedback. However, this website does not seem to be used much. Furthermore, in 2018, a student at Keio University initiated a web-based service called poli-poli, which allows the government to consult the public on proposed policies. So far, the platform is mainly used by a few provincial or local governments. Users can also post their opinions. There are currently two instances of poli-poli. On poli-poli gov, institutional actors such as ministries, and provincial or local governments post their proposals to gather the wisdom of the crowd. On poli-poli itself, politicians, political parties, and voters post policy proposals and collect opinions from other users. Requests for new policies can also be posted. This feature can be seen as an ephemeral e-petition portal. Users can register as experts if they are particularly knowledgeable about a policy area. The attributed score for e-consultation is therefore 2.2 points.
There is no e-petition platform in Japan linked to one of the national political institutions. According to the Japanese Petition Law, there is no requirement that signatures for petitions must be self-signed, which means electronic signatures are acceptable. However, the only way to make online demands in Japan on the national level is through the Japanese branch of change.org. Petitions regularly receive tens of thousands of digital supporters. As stated in their impact report for Japan in 2021, there are over 3 million individual users registered, and 1,638 petitions had been handed in. Five hundred twenty-three of them were accepted and declared successful. The acceptance rate on change.org in 2021 was, therefore approximately, one third. It is not fully clear what the criteria are for a petition to be declared successful. An alternative to change.org Japan, although not much used, is the e-petition functionality on poli-poli. Therefore, the total score for the e-demand component of the index is set to 2 points.
The electronic identification system in Japan is called MyNumberCard. It consists of a 12-digit
number and a physical card containing an RFC chip that can be used either with a card reader or
a smartphone app [
Japan started to use e-voting machines on the municipal level in 2002. However, the
technology got outdated and the machines are no longer operated [
Swiss political institutions such as the parliament regularly use social media like Twitter or
Instagram as an information channel. During election campaigns, the use of social media by
candidates is common these days [
General information about the Swiss political system and how to vote is readily available online. Respective instructions and explanations are provided by governmental or privately initiated institutions. With the frequent referendum votes throughout the year, one would think that Swiss citizens need a high degree of political knowledge and hence a higher ofer of civic education options in schools and in general. While this is a somewhat controversial topic among experts in Switzerland, civic education is not particularly prevalent as a school subject in most parts of the country. Making civic education teaching units available online or providing gamified content is also not very common yet. However, there are several websites ofering didactic material for school teachers. There is also a website sponsored by the Swiss government that ofers tips and tricks for parents and children in the area of media literacy. However, the availability of voting advice applications became very much the norm. Typically, about a quarter of the electorate consults one of them during an election campaign phase. Several of them help citizens to form an opinion during an election campaign phase. Furthermore, there is also considerable evidence for them to positively afect turnout. The Federation of Swiss Youth Parliaments also developed a smartphone application providing slightly simplified information with arguments in favour and against the national referendum votes. All such information in Switzerland typically needs to be provided in German, French and Italian. While the general situation in schools could be better, we still attribute a total of 4 points for all the available online options. We also give a bonus of 0.2 points for inclusiveness as the information on the upcoming referendum votes is also available in sign language. In addition, the Parliament’s website is also available in simplified language. There is an additional bonus of 0.2 points for having a variety of VAAs. In total, Switzerland is awarded 4.4 points.
Since 2014 Switzerland has had its own open government data strategy and a corresponding
online data portal. Subnational administrative entities such as the Swiss cantons continuously
integrate their data as well, albeit slowly and at times reluctantly [
The procedure of consultation before a law is brought to Parliament is well-established in Switzerland. The consultation procedure allows the Swiss cantons, interest organisations and increasingly civil society at large to get heard early on in the legislative process before a bill enters parliamentary committees. Most consultation procedures these days are also open to individuals. Consultations take place regularly and follow a highly institutionalised process. Whereas the current legal projects are listed and readily available online on Fedlex, the oficial national publication platform, there are no other digital options available for making an input on a legal project other than to send of an email to the administrative department in charge. The open discussion forum on Git Hub for the e-ID law project was an exception. Therefore, only 1 point is awarded with a bonus of 0.2 points for frequent use. In total, Switzerland receives 1.2 points.
The Swiss political system ofers an elaborate set of direct democracy instruments. Citizens can either block legislation that was already passed by Parliament or initiate constitutional changes by collecting signatures and reaching the required threshold within a certain timeframe. Therefore, the right to petition does not play as important a role as elsewhere and no oficial petition platform has evolved so far. However, there are several private, non-partisan e-petition platforms (e.g. openpetition, change.org, WeCollect). This is worth 2 points. As there are many diferent platforms that are used regularly, there are two bonuses of 0.2 points each for use and variety. In total, Switzerland receives 2.4 points.
Switzerland on the national level does not ofer a real e-ID yet. However, there is a login that can be used for e-services on the national public administration website. This login does not necessarily need to be verified. Existing cantonal e-ID solutions can also be used to create the national one. The first attempt to implement a nationwide e-identification solution was based on a private consortium composed of large financial companies and telecommunication ifrms. However, the respective law was opposed and failed in a referendum vote in March 2021. Currently, there is a new legislation attempt that wants to introduce an electronic identification, this time not run by private companies but issued and managed by the state itself. The respective legal project is expected to be ready for parliamentary committee discussion in Fall 2023. Switzerland receives a total of 2 points for the e-identification indicator.
Since 2013 Switzerland has had a proper legal basis for internet voting. The Swiss cantons as
the main organisers of national votes are free whether to ofer internet voting or not. Between
2003 and 2018 there have been several pilot projects involving half of all cantons, making the
electronic channel available for referendum votes as well as elections inside of Switzerland and
for Swiss living abroad [
Using the DigiPartIndex as an assessment tool for the level of e-participation reveals that among the three selected cases, Germany comes out at the top with a value of 61 points (see column DPI in Table 1). Japan and Switzerland follow at some distance with 43 and 33 points, respectively. However, a closer look at the values across the three dimensions shows that they are not necessarily distributed evenly, except for Japan with a relatively homogeneous pattern.
Among the three cases, Germany excels with a dimensional score of 80 points for opinion formation, mainly due to an advanced digital infrastructure for civic education and transparency measures allowing to monitor state activity. For co-creation, Germany reached a high score of 75 points, mainly due to developed e-consultation tools and an e-petition platform for the German Bundestag. The latter allows to directly reach a parliamentary committee which can take it forward to parliamentary debate. This is by far the highest score for co-creation among the three selected country cases. The stalemate situation regarding internet voting is responsible for Germany’s lower score of 38 points in the decision-making dimension.
In Japan, we can see the foundations for a higher level of e-participation being already present. However, what takes the dimensional score for opinion formation down is the lacking efort to provide civic education tools online. Furthermore, the reliance on commercial social media platforms for e-deliberation and e-demands pushes Japan towards the lower bracket of an overall medium score on the DigiPartIndex. Attempts to experiment with internet voting or e-consultation could also be taken further in the future in order to increase the overall score.
E-participation in Switzerland attains a score of 33 points for the DigiPartIndex. If we break up the range from 0 to 100 into five large categories, this is not a very low but still a low score. Only in the opinion formation dimension, Switzerland scores high with 70 points. The lower scores are found in the decision-making and co-creation dimensions with 30 and 20 points, respectively. The co-creation dimension is unlikely to change significantly in the near future as there appear to be no projects aimed at improving digital political participation in this area. However, there are some major changes in the decision-making dimension on the horizon. Eforts to introduce an e-ID and the resumption of internet voting trials in June 2023 will most probably lead to a gentle improvement of the overall score in the near future.
The variance of scores across the three dimensions defining e-participation can be exploited for the development of an e-participation maturity model. Assuming that the three dimensions can be arranged in stages building upon each other, so that opinion formation forms a basic ground level for e-participation to take root in a constituency, leading to an advanced technologydriven level for decision-making. Both levels together form the basis for a level in which digital tools can be applied to enter a deeper stage of crowd-sourcing and interaction between the state and society. We, therefore, posit an e-participation maturity model not only based on the score of the DigiPartIndex but also on the order of its dimensional parts, such that: Opinion formation→Decision-Making→Co-Creation. However, a model is only a model and it should be possible to evaluate it empirically. Therefore, in the first step, the main concern is to find a way to measure the suggested stage model and to represent it in a numerical value. For that purpose, the dimensions were attached weights with the decision-making dimension DigiPartIndex value getting multiplied by the factor 2, and the co-creation factor by the factor 3. The weighting factors for the three dimensions are ultimately arbitrary. However, the calculation should be easy to understand and transparent. As displayed in Table 1, compared to the original DigiPartIndex value based on the calculation of a geometric mean (DPI), the weighted average (WMean) is able to capture the desired e-participation maturity level in the sense of a stage model as described above. The impact of using the weighted mean can be exemplified with some illustrative configurations for dimensional values. Only a fraction of all possible permutations with repetitions allowed are displayed. L stands for a low, M for a medium, and H for a high DPI score. Countries with a pattern of high and low scores only (HLL/LLH/LHL) get lifted upwards considerably when their dimensional scores are high for decision-making or even higher for co-creation. The higher scores express a higher level of e-participation maturity. The same holds true when a country displays a configuration of the whole range of scores, low, medium and high, respectively. As soon as co-creation has a high score, there is a substantial diference between the DPI and the weighted mean. The score for the weighted mean (WMean) can therefore, in principle, be applied to assess the e-participation maturity level of a country.
One of the goals of this paper was to establish that there is a need to consider e-participation as a domain of its own and find ways to come up with an empirically well-grounded e-participation maturity model, comparable to the multitude of e-government maturity models one can find in the literature. For that purpose, the concept of e-participation was divided up into the three dimensions of opinion formation, co-creation and decision-making. Seven indicators were defined in quite some detail, allowing each of them to vary on a five-point Likert scale. The defined measurement model allows measuring the level of e-participation as an index. To further corroborate the feasibility of the measurement the three cases of Germany, Japan and Switzerland were annotated. The results demonstrate that the DigiPartIndex can be used as a valid building block for the establishment of an e-participation maturity model. Bringing in a stage model giving the decision-making and the co-creation more weight in the measurement than opinion formation tools, further helps to diferentiate countries regarding their respective e-participation maturity model. Whereas we consider the development of this measurement tool as a solid, empirically based step towards the establishment of an e-participation maturity model, there are undoubtedly some aspects still lacking or not yet covered here. The dynamic nature of e-participation development in a country was not taken into account in the case studies, for example. In addition, the sequence of the three measured dimensions of e-participation as such is not yet part of the measurement either. The proposed order of this sequence, i.e. Opinion formation→Decision-Making→Co-Creation, can be questioned. However, it is possible to cover that aspect in a future study by broadening the number of cases, establishing the empirical patterns and validating them. Also, by only focusing on the national level the presented approach fails to factor in what e-participation tools might be available on a lower state level. There might be perfectly justified reasons why in a certain polity it makes more sense to ofer digital participatory tools rather on the regional or local than on the national level.