On 3 May 2024, the kick-off meeting for the project “Success factors for local eParticipation: Mapping and strengthening digital civic participation in German municipalities (ErLE)” took place in Dresden.
Building on the DIID Monitor Online Participation, the project participants from Düsseldorf, Koblenz, Leipzig and Dresden are endeavouring to conduct a nationwide survey of local opportunities for online participation. The aim of the joint project is to systematically record which goals local authorities are pursuing with digital participation processes and which contextual conditions have an influence on this. This data will then be used to identify the conditions for the success of such participation offerings.
The data collected will be visualised via an interactive dashboard and made available to the public. The transfer of knowledge to municipal administrations and networking with relevant stakeholders are important pillars of the project. The aim is to make a significant contribution to improving digital participation programmes and thus to strengthening the municipal administration as a “school of democracy”.
The project is being funded by the Mercator Foundation with a total of around 855,000€. DIID members Prof. Dr. Stefan Marschall and Dr. Nadja Wilker are responsible for the project at HHU. HHU-Düsseldorf is working together with TU Dresden (Prof. Dr. Marianne Kneuer, project coordination), Leipzig University (Prof. Dr. Christian Pieter Hoffmann & Prof. Dr. Christian Pentzold) and the University of Koblenz-Landau (Prof. Dr. Maria A. Wimmer). Former DIID spokesperson Prof. Dr. Christiane Eilders, who has been working on the application together with the DIID team and the project consortium since 2021, also played a key role in acquiring the project.
Ansprechpartner
Prof. Dr. Stefan Marschall
Political Science
Prof. Dr. Stefan Marschall has held the Chair of Political Science II with a focus on “Germany’s Political System” at HHU-Düsseldorf since 2010. His research interests include the consequences of the establishment of the Internet on political communication and decision-making. He is spokesman of the working group “Politics and Communication” of the German Political Science Association.
At the DIID, he is primarily interested in the theoretical foundation, further development and standardization of evaluation criteria and instruments for online participation procedures in different areas of practice.
Projects
Contact
Dr. Nadja Wilker
Board, Political Science
Nadja Wilker is a research assistant at the Chair of Political Science II at HHU-Düsseldorf. She studied Communication and Political Science (B.A.) in Münster and Political Communication (M.A.) in Düsseldorf. In her master thesis she analyzed participation- and representation-theoretical dimensions of the online-based participation concept of a ‘Liquid Democracy’. In the context of her doctoral thesis she deals with questions of acceptance and legitimacy of online-based participation processes from the perspective of political actors.
Her research and teaching interests lie in the field of political (online) communication and participation in the context of concepts of political representation.