The international conference “Online participation on the local level – a comparative perspective” will be held from 13 to 15 December 2017 in Düsseldorf/ Germany. The conference brings together an international group of researchers.
The conference is jointly organized by the Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy (DIID) and the NRW Fortschrittskolleg Online Participation both at the University of Düsseldorf.
Through the various disciplines will provide a variety of perspectives on local online participation.
The main theme of the conference is to investigate the role of digital technologies in political participation with a focus on the local level, ranging from small neighbourhoods to large municipalities. This encompasses both top-down as well as bottom-up e-participation initiatives (i.e. invited as well as invented spaces). Questions of interest include, but are not limited to:
- How do the results of online participation compare with the outcomes of classic forms of participation?
- How to combine online and offline forms of participation?
- What effects are specific to particular participation formats and how do they compare to each other?
- How do institutions and their members (need to) change when adapting to digital forms of participation?
- How does the context of a particular country shape the role of local e-participation?
- What methods should be used to research the effects of e-participation?
The conference takes place at the „Haus der Universität“ and starts with a public event on Wednesday (5pm to 8pm). More information will be published soon!