Abstract: 

If social media are to reinforce sustainability of political decisions, their design has conceptually to take into account the implications of deliberative democracy, which stresses the active cooperation of virtually all citizens of a democracy for the purposes of participatory involvement. Essential to deliberative e-democracy is therefore a technologically supported comprehensive discourse about political subjects which is also called deliberation. Theoretical implications of deliberation are discussed from the angle of political science and social psychology. Finally, the practical implications of deliberation rooted in social media are exemplified by an online citizen involvement for the public budgeting purposes of the city of Frankfurt/Main (Germany).

Keywords: Sustainable systems design, Deliberation, Social media, Social capital, Collective intelligence, e-Democracy. [Download]

Alice Katharina Pieper and Michael Pieper

[Abstract] If social media are to reinforce sustainability of political decisions, their design has conceptually to take into account the implications of deliberative democracy, which stresses the active cooperation of virtually all citizens of a democracy for the purposes of participatory involvement. Essential to deliberative e-democracy is therefore a technologically supported comprehensive discourse about political subjects which is also called deliberation. Theoretical implications of deliberation are discussed from the angle of political science and social psychology. Finally, the practical implications of deliberation rooted in social media are exemplified by an online citizen involvement for the public budgeting purposes of the city of Frankfurt/Main (Germany). 

Keywords: Sustainable systems design, Deliberation, Social media, Social capital, Collective intelligence, e-Democracy. [Download Journal Complete]

A Review of Theories for Analyzing Democratic Participation 

Jeff Gill and Jason Gainous

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to present a sample from the panoply of formal theories on voting and elections to Statistical Science readers who have had limited exposure to such work. These abstract ideas provide a framework for understanding the context of the empirical articles that follow in this volume. The primary focus of this theoretical literature is on the use of mathematical formalism to describe electoral systems and outcomes by modeling both voting rules and human behavior. As with empirical models, these constructs are never perfect descriptors of reality, but instead form the basis for understanding fundamental characteristics of the studied system. Our focus is on providing a general, but not overly simplified, review of these theories with practical examples. We end the article with a thought experiment that applies different vote aggregation schemes to the 2000 presidential election count in Florida, and we find that alternative methods provide different results. 

Key words and phrases: Voting rules, elections, participation, rational choice, spatial models, cost-benefit models, Florida 2000 election. DOWNLOAD HERE