I recently publish a short article on government, the Internet, and democracy as part of an excellent 47 page collection to be published online shortly by the U.S. federal government. For the short and long versions, a link to the General Service Administration's newsletters, or to be notified via DoWire.Org about the GSA's online release of the full collection, see: http://www.dowire.org/notes/?p=383 If members of AOIR have recently published research on any of these steps, please zip me a copy: clift@publicus.net In summary: Ten Practical Online Steps for Government Support of Democracy 1. Timely, personalized access to information that matters. 2. Help elected officials receive and sort, then better understand and respond to e-mail. 3. Dedicate at least 10% of new e-government developments to democracy. 4. Announce all government public meetings on the Internet in a uniform manner. 5. Allow citizens to look-up all of their elected officials from the very local to national in one search. 6. Host online public hearings and dialogues (or “e-consultations” as they are known outside the U.S.) 7. Embrace the rule of law by mandating the most democratically empowering online services and rights across the whole of government. 8. Promote dissemination through access to raw data from decision-making information systems. 9. Fund Open Source sharing internationally across e-government. 10. Local up – Develop a strategic approach to building local democracy online. Sincerely, Steven Clift E-Democracy.Org Chair and Ashoka Fellow Editor, Democracies Online Newswire - DoWire.Org - join 2500 members from: http://dowire.org/wiki/Newswire