1. Today I Decide (TOM) Nele Leosk e-Governance Academy (eGA) Tallinn, November 6, 2007

3. TOM - Government Initiative ● Main idea – to enhance public participation in political decision-making providing opportunity to propose and discuss new legislative initiatives via Internet ● Also- to enhance dialogue between citizens, public officials, etc ● Started in June, 2001 ● Administrated by State Chancellery ● Promoted as Direct Democracy Portal

4. TOM - Two modes of operation ● Policy documents presented for discussion by ministries (functioned just 2 months) ● Proposals submitted by people ● Only registrated users can submit proposals and participate in discussions ● Everybody can follow discussions

5. How TOM works How TOM works Idea Commenting Editing Voting Signing (not any more) Answer ID card (for a short time)n

6. Processing ideas ● Idea is presented ● 10 days for discussion ● 3 days for editing ● 3 days for secret voting Only ideas getting more than half of votes in favour are considered further ● Ministry has 1 month for analysis and answer ● Posted on TOM, commenting an answer

7. TOM statistics ● 1140 ideas presented (64% voted in, 34 % voted out) ● 654 proposals sent to the ministries (89% answered: 6% possible implementation, 48% negative, 7% supportive) ● 6910 registered users ● 100-150 visits per day (up to 300 when mentioned elsewere, eg in blogs, forums, etc) ● 30 proposals applied Introduction of summer time Wireless internet signs Estonian anthem downloadable from the Internet

8. TOM typical users ● Men (71%) ● Age 26 – 39 (38%) ● University degree (51%) ● Specialists (40,3%) ● Inhabitants of Tallinn (48%) ● Everyday Internet users (88%)

9. TOM evaluation by users and public officials

10. Is TOM going to die out?

11. Visits to TOM

12. New users of TOM (registered)

13. New ideas

14. Positive sides of TOM ● Possibility to rise political issues ● Obligation of state administration to respond ● Communication between users ● Communication with state administration ● Everybody can follow proposals and discussions

15. Problems of TOM ● Many non-constructive proposals ● Passive discussions, low level of discussions (???) ● Low level of the idea author’s ivolvement (35% participate in later phases) ● Few votes ● Small number of active users ● No publicity, buzz ● Rejection of proposals by state administration on formal grounds ● No real dialogue between citizens and political decision makers ● No political will and support

16. ...and e-participation Technical solutions are developing, however how to develop or support cultural changes? Information about e-participation possibilities? Skills of e-participation? How to raise the capacity of e-participation? Passiveness? Participation fatigue? Information gap- how much information gets out of the inner circles (lists, forums, blogs, etc)

17. THANK YOU! nele@ega.ee +372 55 61 71 53