Abstract

Online citizen participation refers to programmes that enable citizens to influence political decisions using the internet. The Bundestag has been using the internet for more than 10 years to involve the public in parliamentary work. Committees and commissions are trialling various forms of citizen participation, ranging from interactive communication in social media and debates in online forums to consultations and collaboration on documents.

The study focussed on the Enquete Commission "Internet and Digital Society" of the 17th German Bundestag (Internet Enquete). By virtue of the decision to set up the commission, it was tasked with involving the public in its work to a particular degree and offering Internet-based participation opportunities for this purpose. Based on the approaches of the Internet Enquiry, the experiences with participation offerings of the Digital Agenda Committee (since 2/2014) and the Commission on the Storage of High-Level Radioactive Waste (Final Storage Commission, 5/2014-7/2016) are discussed. The youth portal mitmischen.de (since 6/2004) as an interactive online offering of the Parliament for young people and the electronic petitions (since 9/2005) were included in the study. The aim of the study was to analyse the new approaches and their impact on parliamentary work as well as to formulate options for the further development of online citizen participation in the German Bundestag.

Authors