LibGuides: Local democracy in 2020: Proposals to improve the functioning of local democracy in the digital era

Harnessing digital tools to revitalize digital democracy (published: 2018)
This paper argues that European policymakers should avoid taking a negative tack and overlook the huge potential of digital solutions to drive positive change in society—and especially to improve European democracy. Brussels can and should be doing more to harness digital innovation and channel it in a positive, pro-democratic direction. While the EU is absolutely right to be taking steps to limit the power of the tech giants, it is remiss in neglecting the benefits of digital democracy.
Artificial Intelligence driven E-Government -The Engage Model to Improve E-Decision Making (2018)
Technology improves every day, where machines or algorithms can decide what we like based on the previous data they store, track or follow. On the other hand, in spite of the fact that there is advanced technology, improving e-decision is a serious challenge for decision makers. Within this research, a conceptual model is proposed to discuss opportunities in order to improve e-decision making of public sector institutions by effective utilization of Artificial Intelligence.

A Council of Citizens Should Regulate Algorithms (published: 2020)
ARE MACHINE-LEARNING ALGORITHMS biased, wrong, and racist? Let citizens decide.
Essentially rule-based structures for making decisions, machine-learning algorithms play an increasingly large role in our lives. They suggest what we should read and watch, whom we should date, and whether or not we are detained while awaiting trial. Their promise is huge–they can better detect cancers. But they can also discriminate based on the color of our skin or the zip code we live in.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed why we urgently need to re-imagine democracy (published: 2020)
This article argues that, as established democracies face numerous short- and long-term crises, we must re-imagine democratic institutions to be more inclusive, participatory and deliberative. Only then can democracies resist the threat of increasingly despotic leaders and tackle global threats, including the climate crisis.
Designing an online public deliberation (published: 2020)
The measures implemented for social distancing to slow the spread of Covid-19 Coronavirus are driving new thinking around public deliberation. We must resolve long standing challenges to taking deliberation ‘online’ while retaining the qualities that make such deliberation useful. Nowhere in the world has solved this problem, but there are components and exercises that have worked. We’re drawing on these individual points of success.
Democracy isn’t working: five ideas that are already helping to fix the problem (published: 2020)
The author claims we should arrive at some sort of shared understanding about what “democracy” means. It turns out that in practice, when including the elements of power and who has it, the word is more complex than plain government by the people – and few places can claim to be leading by example. At the end of that leg, I was left wondering: can we fix democracy?
Reshaping European Democracy
The Reshaping European Democracy initiative aims to analyze, debate, and help improve the state of European democracy. It takes a composite look at innovations and trends across Europe’s civil society, citizen participation, digital technology, political parties, and institutional reforms, and assesses how they are shaping the future of democracy in Europe.