The Concept of the Public Petitioning the Authority - Literature review Example

Online E-Petition System Online E-Petition System Literature Review The concept of the public petition the authority, political institutions such as governments has been around for many years, and can be traced back into early history. As centuries have passed and gone by, petitions, as a communication channel between subjects and authorities have dynamically changed as a result of both social and political needs and circumstances (Ralf Lindner and Ulrich Riehm, 2009). Most recently, at least in the past one and a half decade, the rise of the internet and the opportunities and benefits it came with tremendously changed how petitions are submitted. As such, in the midst of various possibilities of providing formal online participations platforms for citizens, e-petition systems have been considered as being official and fully operational online democracy activity for parliaments and governments, as well as for non-governmental institutions across the globe. The first of its kind was done in 2000 by the Scottish government; it was apparently the first online petition or e-petition system to be established anywhere in the world by an elected parliament (Susha and Gronlund, 2012; Medaglia, 2012). This was followed in 2002 by the Parliament of Queensland, which also designed and developed its own e-petition system. The Bundestag, German’s Federal Parliament also followed suit and has been, since 2005, operating an e-petition system that is more similar to the one established by the Scottish parliament. Not only parliaments followed this path, governments and other non-governmental institutions also followed this path; for instance, the office of the British Prime Minister in 2006 launched an e-petition system dubbed the British Prime Minister’s e-petition system (Ralf Lindner and Ulrich Riehm, 2009; Beddie et al., 2001). In comparison to other forms of formal, codified, and institutionalized online political participation, which are albeit less advanced, e-petitions which have a quite impressive uptake by a number of public institutions still remains more an experimental concept; limited to very specific purposes (Taylor-Smith and Buckner, 2009). For instance, online voting, a form of online participation in referenda and general elections has been introduced in various jurisdictions across the globe; however, most governments eventually have refrained from these online political participation systems because of unresolved legal, technical, and political challenges (Kriplean et al., 2009; Böhle and Ulrich Riehm, 2013). In the US, as well as in many jurisdictions throughout Europe, online consultation systems have been implemented and are today more common. It is important to note that, these e-consultation systems or portals are not always codified in law as e-petition systems; they are generally considered as non-compulsory. E-petition systems have been, until today, implemented by various public institutions including parliaments and governments in a myriad of ways; they are, compared to many other forms of e-participation system, more mature. With this background understanding, this paper will attempt to demystify the development of e-petitioning system, its adoption, and its, internet based systems, relationship, with public institutions in ensuring the availability of new and additional communication channels for political and government participation in the past one and a half decades. This paper therefore aims at reviewing literature on e-petition systems with emphasis on the main technical and institutional features of e-petition systems that currently exists. It, in this regards, also attempts to show how, with procedures and design, good practices in e-petition systems can be identified. Petitions are generally considered as formal request by public individuals to an authority, most commonly, governmental institutions. Most jurisdictions across the globe have legally codified the publics or citizen’s right to formally petition parliament, the government, or any other public institutions. Electronic petitions/e-petitions or online petitions involve new communication and information technologies. They are of two types; formal e-petitions, and informal e-petitions (Mosca and Santucci, 2009). Apparently, formal e-petitions are those that institutionalized and in a larger extent codified legally in law. In formal e-petitions on the other hand, are platforms or systems that are developed and managed by private individuals, organizations, or non-governmental organizations. In this regard, the requirements for launching informal online petitions, as well as the procedures of collecting signature online are not codified in law, and are not subject to public law. E-petitions initiated by non-governmental organizations and e-petition platforms that are operated by private organizations which offer online-based infrastructure to enable the initiation of petitions and collections of online signatures (Adams et al., 2005). Petitions that are submitted online or electronically are the most basic type of e-petitions; they are either submitted via e-mail or through an e-petition web-portal, and are accepted by the addressees. Usually, in such petitions, the person submitting the petition is needed to include his name and other personal identification information. In comparison to the conventional petitioning systems, paper-based petitions, the initial submission phase is considered as the novelty of this particular type of e-petition. The other type of e-petition is public e-petition; this is a type of e-petition in which, irrespective of the mode of submission, its contents or texts are published on the internet, online. The text in the petition can be supplemented with additional information concerning the issue of the petition, as well as different procedural steps concerning the petition submitted. Public e-petitions can also have additional participatory elements; this implies enriching the public e-petition with additional participatory opportunities that the public are able to access. Particularly, the ability to support public e-petitions with online signature, or electronically submitted signature, is the most spread participatory element, which is also common with other informal e-petitions. They are however, not as common as online discussion forums that allow the public to participate in debates on issues that are raised by a public e-petition. In addition to this, there are other participatory functions such wiki-style e-petition texts authoring or automatically generated e-mail alerts that are sent to users in the event that public e-petitions are submitted can also be integrated. Formal requirements and procedural design are significant factors that determine the whole process of e-petition. The first step in which a public citizen who intends to submits a formal online petition contacts a public entity is the most significant step. Usually, an administrative institution receives and verifies a petition request to check whether or not all the formal requirements have been met. As a result, it is important to put into consideration the role of the administrative personnel when designing and developing e-petition systems. The main difference between convention paper petitions and the current e-petition systems is essentially the point of contact between the receiving institution and the public petitioner. In conventional paper-based petitions the main petitioner gets into contact with the administration only after collecting signatures, which he hands over to the administration or the concerned authority with other required documents and information. However, the online-based procedure requires the petitioner to first contact the authority before signatures are taken. All existing e-petition systems offer two common standard functions. They are online and once they are published, they can be supported by electronic signatures. The case of the Queensland Parliament e-petition system, however, has the submission procedures interrupted by media breaks since a sponsor of a petition must be found (R. Lindner and U. Riehm, 2011; Oakes, 2005). For the Queensland e-petition system, the key feature is thus the fact that it can support an electronic e-petition system. The German case, however, e-petitions can be submitted via a web portal or interface; a petitioner merely carries out an electronic submission. In this case, for petitions to be accepted as public e-petitions, the stem requires that a petitioner submits it as an e-mail attachment. Therefore, the administrator decides whether or not a petition request qualifies as a public e-petition – a petition that deals with a public interest issue. Rejected e-petitions are treated as regular e-petitions and as such not published in the web-portal on the internet (A. Macintosh et al., 2002; Böhle and Ulrich Riehm, 2013; Mosca and Santucci, 2009). These e-petitions, particularly, the Scottish e-petition and the German Bundestag were implemented using ASP, Microsoft’s Active Server Pages and they use SQL and Oracle databases to hold the petitions information and data (Cruickshank and A. Macintosh, 2006). The data layer also uses the ODBC standard for database connectivity, and the open XHTML standard for web page mark-up. Interestingly, the disk space requirements for the entire e-petition system are just 10MB (Beddie et al., 2001; Susha and Gronlund, 2012). The Scottish e-petition has three different groups of users or actors; signatories, petitioners, and the organization or the authority to which the petitions are directed or addressed to. The system allows petitioner-the main petitioner to offer background information on the petition and the petition text, which are all published on the e-petition web portal. After submission and publication of the e-petition, visitors or user will be able to track the progress of the petition by clicking on a “progress in parliament” button on the website. For the sake of transparency, the names of the signatories are displayed; however, the addresses and contacts of the signatories are hidden and privately stored (Bershadskaya et al., 2013; PPC (Public Petitions Committee to the Scottish Parliament), 2006; Beddie et al., 2001). This ensures that the e-petition system is in compliance with data protection regulations, especially with regards to handling personal identification information. Duplicate signatures from signatories are automatically deleted by the system. The system also offers administrators graphical indicators to show the users confidence in the validity of signatures; this of course is based on automated system checks. These checks are done by comparing email addresses and IP addresses, as well as name against an existing list of signatories who have already signed (Cruickshank et al., 2010). Offensive signatures are also removed by the administrator. This system is also able to, at the end of a petition period, automatically generate the tally of the signatures made, both invalid and valid, as well as the areas and regions from which the petition signatures came. The system offers a discussion forum which enables the principal petition to alert and engage the public in a debate based on the petition issue. This forum acts as a platform where those people that are not in agreement with the petition are able to register their reasoning and express their opinion. Through this forum, people are also able to record their personal experiences with regards to the petition, as such, offering subjective evidence to support the abstract argument. The discussion, throughout the lifetime of the petition is moderated by the system’s administrators; spam filters are also implemented to ensure that there is no spam. References Adams, N. J. et al. 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