An Evaluation of Digital Deliberative Democracy in Local Governement

Abstract

This chapter evaluates the current status of digital deliberation in the local governments of Seoul Metropolitan area in Korea. In order to do that, this study, first, reviews literatures on digital democracy and develops a Web site evaluation framework of digital deliberative democracy. The four stages of digital deliberative democracy consist of information acquisition, communication and consultation, citizen participation, and public deliberation. Then, after evaluating the current practices in digital deliberative democracy of 25 administrative districts in the City of Seoul based on the four stages of digital deliberative democracy, the results show that a few administrative districts have performed good practices in digital deliberative democracy. Though it could be said that many administrative districts have performed good practices of information acquisition (1st stage of digital deliberative democracy), communication and consultation (2nd stage), and citizen participation (3rd stage), public deliberation (4th stage) is not fully performed in the Web sites of the administrative districts. Based on the results, this research explores some policy recommendations to improve digital deliberative democracy.