Title:
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ASSESSING A DIGITALISED CITIZEN CONSULTATION PLATFORM BASED ON A QUALITATIVE SURVEY THE CASE OF VALAIS CANTONS NEW CONSTITUTION |
Author(s):
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Emmanuel Fragnière, Vincent Grèzes, Martine Hofstädter, Dominic Juon, Sherine Seppey and Randolf Ramseyer |
ISBN:
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978-989-8704-14-6 |
Editors:
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Piet Kommers, Boyan Bontchev and Pedro Isaías |
Year:
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2020 |
Edition:
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Single |
Keywords:
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Citizens Participation, E-Democracy, Qualitative Survey, Digital Platform |
Type:
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Short |
First Page:
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129 |
Last Page:
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134 |
Language:
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English |
Cover:
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Full Contents:
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click to dowload
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Paper Abstract:
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The practice of citizens' democratic rights and duties must be questioned at a time when many of our daily customs and
rituals are being challenged and redefined by the digital revolution. While retailing has already profoundly altered our
daily interactions, any practice related to the exercise of democracy remains very traditional and this seems to be at the root
of an ever-increasing disinterest in politics, especially among young people. We had the opportunity, through a qualitative
survey, to study this theme in relation to the complete revision of the Constitution of the Canton of Valais in Switzerland.
The latter follows a democratic process in which 130 citizens of Valais were elected to revise the Constitution. In addition,
a consultation was put online on a platform as a pilot project from 7 November 2019 to 5 January 2020 with the aim of
encouraging citizen participation and thus giving a voice to all the inhabitants of Valais. In this paper, we present the main
elements of this qualitative survey based on the technique of "hypothetical scenarios", conducted among 20 Valais residents
interested in politics (the majority of the interviewees did not use the online platform, a minority did, and some of the
interviewees are stakeholders linked to the Constituent project). In addition to the survey based, we also carried out a
"netnographic" analysis using the 1,235 contributions left on the platform during the pilot project period. The analysis of
the transcripts made on the basis of the semi-directive interviews shows an interest in these digital citizen platforms.
However, the respondents recognise that the citizens' platform is a first test and that more innovation and testing in this
area is needed to involve people who are not currently participating in the democratic debate. This is somewhat confirmed
by our netnography, as all the content of the platform has been produced by people with a proven political culture. |
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