Call for papers - RC10 "Electronic Democracy" - International Political Science Association (IPSA)World Congress Madrid (Spain), July 8-12, 2012 The 22nd World Congress of the IPSA will take place in Madrid (Spain) from 8 to 12 July 2012. Use www.ipsa.org to submit a paper. Deadline for paper proposals and abstracts is October 7, 2011. Panel 1. Open government Chairs: Richard Engstrom, Duke University (USA) - richard.engstrom@duke.edu Stéphanie Wojcik, University of Paris Est Créteil (France) – stephanie.wojcik@u-pec.fr Discussant: Albert J. Meijer, Utrecht University (A.J.Meijer@uu.nl) (TBC) Calls for governments to provide open, easy-to-use and largely free-of-charge access to public data have grown in recent years - such as the 'Transparency and Open Government' programme initiated under Obama’s presidency in the US or the Public Data Corporation supported by the UK Cabinet Office (2011) while the European Commission, through the SEMIC.EU platform, is promoting the idea of Linked Government Metadata (2010). Making public information and data more widely available is indeed thought to support democratic citizenship by increasing transparency and accountability in government, allowing individuals and groups to monitor and evaluate particular policies, services, and the performance of government in general. While little systematic research has been done on open government so far, initiatives associated with the term have generated opposing views. This panel issue is concerned with the concrete benefits and the downsides of the various opendata initiatives worldwide. Which public policies and strategies of implementation are known? Are European initiatives adopting such strategies or are there new instruments? Topics of interest include but are not limited to: - Surveillance, data privacy and regulations - Transparency, accountability and civic engagement - Production of services and public goods and changing roles of government, public authorities, business, civil society and citizens - Technological and organizational challenges of open government Panel 2. E democracy and deliberation Chairs: Raphael Kies, (University of Luxembourg) - raphael.kies@uni.lu Norbert Kersting, (University of Münster, Germany), -norbert.kersting@uni-marburg.de Dialogical deliberative instruments are vitalizing democracy. Participatory budgeting, deliberative polls, forums and other participatory instruments are implemented . These instruments are often combined with e-participation tools. Internet conference, open space online, participatory budgeting online, e-petitions, blogs, web forums etc. are implemented to support or to substitute traditional instruments for participation. This raises the question about the quality of deliberation in the internet. The panel will try to categorize, analyze and evaluate the different tools. Panel 3. Electronic voting re-vitalized? Chairs: Richard Niemi, (University Rochester, USA) - niemi@rochester.edu Josep Reniu, (University of Barcelona, Spain) - jreniu@ub.edu Discussant: Alexander Trechsel Electronic voting and internet voting seems to be reinvigorated. This panel discusses strategies of national and supranational institutions such as Council of Europe regarding Electronic and internet voting. New experiments in Mexico, Argentina, new trends in India etc will be presented. Latest developments in Norway in the local election will be analyzed. New experiences in Estonia, Switzerland, USA, Russia evaluated. Panel 4. e-Revolution and Pluralism in Countries of the 2011 "Arab spring": Egypt and Tunisia joint panel with RC 16 Socio political pluralism and RC 10 e-democracy Chairs: Rainer Eisfeld (RC 16) (University Osnabrueck, Germany) -rainer.eisfeld@uni-osnabrueck.de Norbert Kersting (RC 10) (University of Münster, Germany), -norbert.kersting@uni-marburg.de Paper or discussant: Jason Abbott A pluralist alliance of various civil society groups – workers, women, urban professionals, moderate islamists, underemployed (particularly from among the youth) – with different, sometimes overlapping, grievances, ousted the previous regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. Largely mobilised via the Internet, these groups have different interests and pursue differing political projects for their countries’ post-revolutionary future. The panel will trace sources of several important Egyptian and Tunesian protest groups’ politicization and subsequent mobilisation, also attempting to spell out implications of their projects for the post-Ben Ali and post-Mubarak eras. Are there lessons to be learned for the rest of the world? RC10 website : http://rc10.ipsa.org/ Contact : Norbert Kersting (norbert.kersting@uni-marburg.de)