Internet: A Gateway to Democracy? A Comparative Study of Internet Usage by Turkish and Italian National and Local Gov-ernments
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Internet: A Gateway to Democracy?
A Comparative Study of Internet Usage by
Turkish and Italian National and Local Gov-
ernments*
İbrahim Saylan**
Abstract: This paper, considering effective citizen participation in decision-
making processes as one of the indispensable aspects of democracy, seeks to
investigate how and to what extent central and local governments make use
of potentialities of ICTs, particularly the Internet, to improve democratic pro-
cesses. For this purpose, after giving an account of the theoretical debate on
the relationship between e-government and e-democracy, Internet use of the
Turkish and Italian central governments has been analyzed with the compar-
ative content analysis method. By means of a comparison of official websites,
namely www.turkiye.gov.tr and www.italia.gov.it, in terms of design and op-
eration, it is sought to understand how these governments perceive and prac-
tice the relationship between e-government and e-democracy.
Key Words: e-government, e-democracy, e-governance, Turkey, Italy.
INTRODUCTION
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) lead to radi-
cal changes in our knowledge, perceptions and practices related to
social life. In the Information Society, the political sphere, like many
spheres of social life, is visibly affected by these changes in the con-
text of not only the relationship between the state and the individual,
but also inter-institutional relations. Among ICTs, particularly the In-
ternet offers new tools and channels to the service of political com-
munication to such an extent that due to the opportunities it offers in
today’s world, where political parties lose power; citizens are gradu-
ally excluded from the decision-making process in the politics that
has been swiftly professionalized with the increase in globalization
* This study is as a part of the project titled “A Comparative Study on the Relationship
between Democracy and Internet” conducted under the leadership of Project Direc-
torship Assoc. Prof. Dilek Cindoglu, Bilkent University, Department of Political Scien-
ce Ankara, Turkey, and sponsored by TUBITAK (Turkish Scientific and Research Co-
uncil).
** Doctoral Student, Bilkent University, Institute of Social Sciences.
TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Volume 3 No 3 September 2009, p. 163-187.164 TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 3 No 3
and information flow at a dizzying pace and voters lose interest in the
ballot box, the Internet, is deemed a golden opportunity for saving
democracy from a dead end. As a matter of fact, the Internet embod-
ies an important potential for reviving participatory democracy by
paving the way for citizens to more effectively participate in decision-
making processes via creating a virtual public discussion forum in a
general sense. The Internet seems to have the potential to establish a
direct relationship between the state and the individual by enabling
interactive communication in a very cheap and fast way. However, at
this point, to what extent discourse and reality overlaps and how this
potential is comprehended and employed emerge as critical ques-
tions. The reason is that new technologies alone cannot ensure effi-
cient citizen participation, one of the prerequisites of democracy.
What is important is to remove the obstacles to the use of recent
technologies for this purpose and to develop short- and long-term ef-
fective plans for achieving this goal. Therefore, the comprehensions
of the potential embodied in the Internet and its usage by national
and local political institutions, mainly by states, assume great im-
portance with respect to developing and strengthening participatory
democracy.
E-DEMOCRACY
Since the mid-1980s, in social sciences literature, a number of
concepts, such as electronic democracy, tele-democracy and digital
democracy, almost all of which correspond to the same phenomenon,
have been designed for the purpose of defining the opportunities of-
fered by ICTs, particularly by the Internet, to democracy. Among
them, e-democracy has become the most widely used concept.
E-democracy can be defined as the use of information and com-
munications technologies and strategies by “democratic sectors”,
such as governments, elected officials, media (and major online Por-
tals), political parties and interest groups, civil society organizations
and citizens/voters, within the political processes of local communi-
ties, states/regions, nations and on the global stage (Clift, 2003: 2).
While in practice, e-democracy gains functionality via instruments
like e-mails, e-forums, e-voting and computer-assisted phone calls,
exactly what kind of opportunities ICTs offer in political and adminis-
trative terms and, how these should be used in strengthening democ-
racy are under debate. The manifestations of technological revolution
are still in the discovery stage in respect of participatory democracy,
which refers to an understanding of political governing, under which
citizens, of their own accord, participate in decision-making process-Internet: A Gateway to Democracy? 165
es, thus permanently having a voice on government, rather than an
understanding, which acquires its legitimacy from the people and ac-
cording to which people hand over the decision-making process to
their representatives from one election until another election. How-
ever, there exist two different theoretical approaches concerning the
likely implications of digital transformation, which develops at a diz-
zying pace, on social life and politics in general, and on democracy in
particular.
As the first scenario called the ‘Orwell Scenario’ is based on the
assumption that governments and large corporations will use tech-
nology for constant electronic surveillance of the citizenry, it is highly
pessimistic. This scenario maintains that new technologies may serve
to keep individuals under constant surveillance of ‘Big Brother’ and,
thus, rather than democracy, it will serve the maintenance or emer-
gence of authoritarian governments (Rheingold, 1993).
On the other hand, the second scenario, contrary to the first one,
draws an extremely optimistic picture. Under the ‘Athens Scenario’,
new technologies will create some kind of virtual agora (‘tele-agora),
where citizens meet to talk, gossip, argue, size each other up, find the
weak spots in political ideas by debating about them (Rheingold,
1993). As can be seen, although these two scenarios construct the
likely impacts of new technologies on democracy in a completely dif-
ferent way, they share the same opinion about a fundamental point;
they both propose a one-way relationship that flows from technology
to society. However, cyberspace should be regarded as both the pro-
ducer and product of society (Bell, 2001). Hence, it should be as-
sumed that there is a dialectical relationship between ICT and de-
mocracy. As Schalken says “rather than new technologies, people
themselves will democratize politics by using the potential of new
technologies” (Schalken, 1998: 161). Therefore, our basic question
should be the following: What is the democracy potential of a society
within the framework of the network provided by new technologies?
As it is known, democracy has numerous definitions ranging from
its minimalist definition viewing democracy solely as citizens’ voting
at certain intervals to the maximalist approach that stipulates consti-
tutional state, certain social rights and a space for public debate,
where citizens freely and effectively participate in decision-making
processes (Manin, 1997). If it is assumed that the crisis of democracy
mainly stems from the obstacles before the participation in the politi-
cal process and/or lack of political participation, in this study, a de-
mocracy understanding closer to the maximalist approach has been
adopted. From this viewpoint, e-democracy is expected to ensure that166 TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 3 No 3
new technologies, chiefly the Internet, revive public space of democ-
racy and that people participate in a process of debate and delibera-
tion, open to all on a free and equal basis, about matters of pressing
public concern (Hague - Loader, 1999: 8).
The prevailing rhetoric related to new technologies is that
not only should they allow for less hierarchical discourses, effective
citizen participation and revival of public space, but also accentuate
the elements of publicity, transparency and visibility. However, Pa-
pacharissi (2004) discriminates public space and public extension
and underlines an important point. If the Internet is restricted to an
ordinary forum that offers the opportunity to debate, it will be more
appropriate to call it public extension. What is important is that it
should help the creation of a discussion environment debate that en-
courages the sharing of ideas debate in a democratic manner, which
denotes the revival of public space (Papacharissi, 2004). Another fac-
tor, which is just as important as the former is that it should enable
citizens to effectively participate in decision-making processes with
respect to setting the political agenda and conveyance of their feed-
back on the decisions made to governments. In this context, ICTs can
be regarded as enablers that serve the strengthening of the participa-
tory aspect of democracy.
However, today, use of the Internet seems far from being ca-
pable of creating an effective public debate space participated by citi-
zens due to problems mainly arising from inadequate political sys-
tems and sovereign power relations. First of all, public space requires
everybody’s participation in the debate on a free and equal platform.
However, limited access opportunities offered by existing systems
prevent its generation.1 Secondly, although ‘universal access’ assumes
vital importance with respect to public space, it tends to leave the de-
velopment of Internet usage to the market mechanism. Moreover,
governments’ tendency to restrict Internet usage under cover of ‘pub-
lic interest’ is extremely strong (Schalken, 1998). Thirdly, media in-
stitutions choose to use cyberspace for that purpose of creating pub-
lic opinion on particular views (Moore, 1999: 44). In other words, ed-
itors have great influence on discourses generated via the Internet.
The mechanisms of domination include concentrated ownership of
infrastructure, licensing bureaucracies, information property rights,
libel laws, pricing structures, creation of artificial distribution scarci-
1 Digital divide refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital and in-
formation technology and those with very limited or no access at all (Pippa, 2001:
41-45).Internet: A Gateway to Democracy? 167
ty, and "public interest" censorship rules (Moore, 1999). Therefore,
these obstacles to the revival of public space via the Internet indicate
that the potential, which the Internet is deemed to embody in respect
of participatory democracy, is not adequately employed. At this point,
when compared to individuals, it is of vital importance that states
with extraordinary power, physical infrastructure and human re-
sources; governments responsible for producing policies country-
wide and local administrations responsible for providing citizens
with services, which directly concern their daily life and, which have
the opportunity to establish one-to-one communication with them,
comprehend the potential of the Internet and adopt policies and prac-
tices towards its development and usage. Therefore, in the subse-
quent sections of the study, the relationship between e-government
practices and e-democracy will be discussed and, the comparison of
concrete examples will be presented.
E-GOVERNMENT/E-GOVERNANCE
As regards the usage of administrative and political opportunities
offered by ICT, significant changes happened in the comprehension
and implementation of e-government in the course of time in view of
the experiences and continuing debates in various countries. Brown
and Brudney, who define e-government as the use of technology, es-
pecially Web-based applications to enhance access to and efficiently
deliver government information and services, restrict its basic goals
to increase the efficiency of the system, to reduce costs and to ensure
citizens’ satisfaction with services (Brown - Brudney, 2001). As can
be seen, ensuring citizen engagement in decision-making practices is
not included in the objectives of e-government practices, which are
constructed in three categories as G2C: Government to Citizen, G2G:
Government to Government and G2B: Government to Business. Nev-
ertheless, the scope of goals, functions and the conceptual/practical
context of e-government was expanded so as to include citizen en-
gagement as a prerequisite for the success of the state. In recent liter-
ature, e-government is defined as a part of new public management
constructed on the basis of e-governance (Uçkan, 2003).
E-government is defined by the OECD as "the use of Information
and Communications Technologies (ICTs), and particularly the Inter-
net, to achieve better government” (OECD, 2003). According to the
said report, e-government aims to get better results from policies; to
provide higher quality services and to engage citizens in the policy
progress. In the report, citizen engagement, which is mentioned un-
der the heading, “customer focus” as one of ten guiding principles for168 TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 3 No 3
successful e-government, is comprehended as a condition for efficient
functioning of the administrative process (OECD, 2003). Uçkan estab-
lishes a direct correlation between e-government practices and e-
democracy:
“e-government is a form of public administration with the ulti-
mate goal of establishing e-democracy for enhancing citizens’ oppor-
tunities to participate in the democratic process organized on the ba-
sis of “network governance” (e-governance) as a participatory organ-
ization model based on decentralized and horizontal coordination,
where all public administrative units are interrelated and are open to
citizen access, which ensures the production of public services in the
most qualified manner at minimum cost and labor with efficient use
of ICTs; in other words that offers services 7/24 hours compliant
with price/quality performance criteria” (Uçkan, 2003: 2).
As can be understood from the definition, e-governance is a dem-
ocratic government model that suggests not a state-focused system
involving the one-way flow of information and services from gov-
ernment to others, but effective participation of all parties in deci-
sion-making processes within network-style structurings via its hori-
zontal coordination and interaction structure, which, in this aspect
can be considered a new paradigm for public administration. In other
words, ICTs, particularly the Internet, that have the potential of being
used as a tool for promoting decentralization, transparency and ac-
countability due to both the information and communication facilities
they embody and their network-style structure (Yıldız, 2002: 3), offer
remarkable opportunities to facilitate a life e-governance model that
might replace the sovereign hierarchical, centralized administrative
approach. The said potential can only be brought to life by rules set
jointly by all parties involved in the administration process and effec-
tive and permanent engagement of relevant parties (Uçkan, 2003). If
the opportunities offered by ICTs will be used to build up a multi-
dimensional and interactive management model within the frame-
work of the e-governance model and if its ultimate goal will be to
achieve e-democracy, how should ICTs be designed and employed?
Macintosh attempts to answer this question by taking the concept
of e-engagement2 as the basis. In her view, though increasing en-
2 E-engagement models can be divided into three groups. The first one is the ‘informa-
tion model’ a one-way flow of information from government to citizen. The second
model is the ‘consultation model’ that also involves citizen feedback to established
policies. The third model is the ‘engagement model’ that assumes/aims for coopera-
tion based on citizen-government partnership in the policy-formation process from
the very beginning.Internet: A Gateway to Democracy? 169
gagement will increase the resources and time needed to construct
policy, it may facilitate the realization of a more legitimate decision-
making process that distributes responsibility among many people. In
its general sense, e-engagement constitutes the foundation of a gov-
ernance model involving a relationship based on partnership with
government, in which citizens actively engage in defining the process
and content of decision-making (citizens as partner). It acknowledges
the equal standing for citizens in setting the agenda, proposing policy
options and shaping the policy dialogue- although the responsibility
for the final decision or policy formulation rests with the government.
A model based on the synthesis of two different perspectives on de-
mocracy is needed for efficient functioning of e-engagement. The top-
down democracy understanding is defined as the users’ access to in-
formation and their response to policies established by the govern-
ment. This perspective does not see the citizen, which it considers not
a partner but a user, as a part of the decision-making process. There-
fore, this approach by itself far from contributes to the strengthening
of democracy. The bottom-up approach considers citizens not policy
consumers, but policy producers. This approach is promising since it
allows citizens to affect the policy-formation process and to partici-
pate in the process. However, Macintosh (2003: 32-7), in view of the
fact that the criterion of efficient use of time and resources in the de-
cision-making process cannot be overlooked, argues that the bringing
together of top-down and bottom-up approaches can enable a strong
partnership leading to a strengthening of representative democracy.
In this way, e-democracy attains the e-governance model comprising
of three different types of interaction within the framework of the
concept of e-engagement without losing its goal of e-democracy,
namely, a one-way information provision, a two-way consultation re-
lationship, where citizens are given the opportunity to give feedback
on issues and, lastly, active participation, which corresponds to e-
democracy - a relationship based on partnership where citizens are
actively engaged in the policy-making process.
However, there are significant obstacles to achieving the objective
of e-democracy. The need for knowledgeable and effective citizens
comes first among these obstacles, which also points to an important
task that should be assumed by governments in the policy-formation
process. The reason is that it is not possible to eliminate the need for
knowledgeable and effective citizens to participate in decision-
making processes merely by ensuring equal access to ICTs, thus re-
moving the digital divide. Citizens should also be encouraged to this
purpose. In other words, even though everybody has digital access,170 TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 3 No 3
this cannot assure the realization of e-democracy. Then, what can
states do in this situation?
Before all else, physical obstacles to access ICTs should be re-
moved, thus eliminating the digital divide or at least reducing it to a
reasonable level. In line with these measures, e-government practices
should be designed and operated so as to encourage citizen involve-
ment on the basis of e-governance. This stems from both a practical
necessity that e-government practices cannot be successful without
citizen engagement and also a normative antecedent that without cit-
izen involvement, democracy cannot go beyond being an ordinary
type of government based on representation. In other words, gov-
ernments should encourage Internet usage not only because of socio-
economic (to produce manpower capable of competing in world con-
ditions), or economic (to increase economic activities of citizens as
customers) reasons, but also for political reasons (strengthening of
interaction between the state and the citizen via participatory de-
mocracy). In that case, what do the current situation and practices re-
flect?
If governments’ use of new technologies with an aim to ensure cit-
izen engagement in decision-making processes will contribute to de-
mocracy practices, then it can be maintained that in general, existing
websites have not been designed with this purpose; they have been
primarily designed to serve the three fundamental goals mentioned
above (efficiency, low costs and customer satisfaction) in the context
of the definition of e-government. However, using the potential of the
Internet for the purpose of strengthening the participatory aspect of
democracy will necessitate the redesigning of a one-way relationship
of an interactive nature within the triple classification developed by
Brown and Brudney for e-government practices. The existing gov-
ernmental websites at national and local level reflect a state-focused
understanding with their current designs and practices. In other
words, governments’ virtual experiences are restricted to ensuring
flow of information, which is deemed necessary for citizens, and
providing particular services in a virtual environment, rather than re-
ceiving citizens’ feedback about draft policies or policies in imple-
mentation, or offering them opportunity to participate in debates.
Moreover, this approach means that the people addressed are per-
ceived as ‘users’ or ‘customers’, rather than citizens. In rare cases,
where input from the public is sought, a tendency to seek aggregate
‘consumer/citizen’ views (via e.g. electronic opinion polling, referen-
da etc.) on predetermined issues rather than to encourage discourse
and deliberation among citizens and allow an input to agenda settingInternet: A Gateway to Democracy? 171
(Hague - Loader, 1999: 13). Therefore, it is hard to say new technolo-
gies create revolutionary impacts on governmental bodies’ current
structures and functioning as suggested by the ‘Athens Scenario’, at
least for the time being. Schalken defines this situation as ‘add-on
strategy’ (Schalken, 1998: 172), which refers to the articulation of
practices developed within the framework of the opportunities of-
fered by new technologies to existing institutions, procedures and
habits. Thus, governments seem to be highly reluctant and conserva-
tive in using the opportunities offered by new technologies, such as
the Internet, to strengthen the participatory aspect of democracy.
TURKEY AND E-GOVERNMENT
Even though e-government practices in Turkey date back to 1998,
during which the Ministry of Finance’s ‘Tax Office Complete Automa-
tion Project’ (VEDOP) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, General Di-
rectorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs’ ‘Central Registration
Administration System’ (MERNİS) were launched, the first govern-
ment policy related to this issue was formed in 2002 after Turkey
joined the e-Europe Initiative.3 In December 2002, the ‘e-
transformation Turkey Project’ (e-DTr) was initiated for the purpose
of achieving the goal of ‘Information Society’ as a part of the Emer-
gency Action Plan. In February 2003, the Information Society De-
partment was established under the roof of the State Planning Organ-
ization for coordination, monitoring, evaluation and steering of e-
DTr. In November 2005, technical infrastructure works of ‘e-
government gateway’ project aimed at offering access to all public
services from a single point were launched following the agreement
signed with OYTEK. Besides, the Investment Portal of Turkey (www.-
investinturkey.gov.tr), which was designed as an informative and
guiding website to encourage foreign investors, was launched in
3 The ‘Lisbon Strategy’ agreed on at the meeting held by the European Council in Lis-
bon on 23-24 March 2000 aimed to make the European economy ‘the most competi-
tive, dynamic and knowledge-based economy of the world in the next decade’. In May
2000, Middle and Eastern European countries were called on to start an initiative
compatible with the e-Europe Initiative; in February 2001, the European Commission
invited the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus, Malta and Turkey to
cooperate with other candidate countries in drawing up a joint action plan. The Ac-
tion Plan prepared with the contribution of Turkey was approved by the European
Council in June 2001 and was called the‘e-Europe + Initiative’. Four primary objecti-
ves were set within the framework of the Action Plan aiming at achieving a knowled-
ge-based competitive economy: a) accelerating studies for laying the foundations for
the Information Society, b) cheaper, faster and secure Internet, c) investing in people
and skills, d) stimulating the use of the Internet, For more detailed information, see:
www.bilgitoplumu@gov.tr172 TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 3 No 3
2006. The same year, the National Information Society Strategy came
into force.
Turkey, which is a developing country, is in a similar position with
respect to e-government practices too. Compared to most Western
examples, e-government practices that have gained pace, particularly
those within the scope of e-DTr, fail to keep up with developments.
Turkey’s e-government approach is centralist. In the first place, a re-
liable and interoperable information system is attempted to be estab-
lished and studies for this purpose are chiefly carried out by the In-
formation Society Department, SPO. Due to the centralist approach to
e-government, local administrations have not assumed a noteworthy
role in the construction of e-government up to now.4 On the other
hand, despite the centralist approach, in the Prime Ministry Circular
of 27 February 2003 titled “e-Transformation Turkey” Project5, while
mentioning the democratizing impacts of e-Transformation Turkey
Project, it was decided that as two basic actions related to e-
government, the Short-Term Action Plan6 of 3 December 2003 would
involve a strategy aimed at providing public services via a portal and
improvement in services. The Circular stipulated that apart from ren-
dering services merely via a portal, public services should also be re-
structured in view of citizen requirements, instead of institutional
needs. Though the report titled ‘Information Society Strategy (2006-
2010)’, which was drawn up by the SPO and was put into effect on 28
July 2006, stated that e-democracy practices aimed to ensure effec-
tive citizen participation in the political process, it did not mention
how this would be achieved (Document on SPO Information Society
Strategy, 2003: 32).
www.turkiye.gov.tr (Turkey’s Portal)
This website, which can be considered an antecedent of the e-
government gateway project, which will offer all public services from
a single point when completed, has a representative importance
among other e-government websites due to its being a public Internet
portal. The website, which is in the testing stage at present, has been
4 For detailed country assessments see:
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/jsps/documents/dsp_showPrinterDocument.jsp?docID=6
052
5 For the full text of the mentioned Circular, see:
www.bilgitoplumu.gov.tr/mevzuat/27_2003_12_eDTR.pdf
6 For the full text of the mentioned Circular, see:
www.bilgitoplumu.gov.tr/mevzuat/2003_48_eDTr.pdfInternet: A Gateway to Democracy? 173
constructed on the information sharing model of Government-
Government, Government-Citizen and Government-Private Sector.
The publications section of the website offer links to virtual li-
brary services of public or public-affiliated institutions, such as the
Central Bank of Turkey, General Directorate of Agricultural Research,
the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey and the
Competition Authority, in the organizations section, scientific events
like conferences, panels and seminars on ICTs and the Information
Society are announced. The Applications section not only offers ac-
cess to the Official Gazette, but it also includes e-government practic-
es, such as e-archive, e-circular and e-legislation. The world section
involves recent developments in ICTs. In the Government-
Government section, information about e-government practices is
given. While the Government-Citizen section provides public services
to which citizens can access in an electronic environment, the Gov-
ernment-Private Sector section lists the facilities offered vie e-
government practices related to e-signature, traffic insurance and in-
surance statements. Applications and news mentioned in previous
sections are repeated in e-Turkey and Information Sharing links.
Lastly, links to universities contain activities and practices in the field
of ICTs.
The website has been designed in the framework of the Govern-
ment-Government, Government-Citizen and Government-Private Sec-
tor model. The website design dominated by the state-focused under-
standing aims at one-way flow of information from ‘government-to-
others’. The decentralized feature of the Internet that allows for net-
work governance is almost overlooked and the opportunity to estab-
lish interaction with citizens and even the private sector seems to be
ignored. While the emphases laid on the transformative opportunities
offered by the e-governance model with respect to public administra-
tion remain somewhat at discourse level, it is observed that the pre-
vailing centralist structure is intended to be maintained despite the
objective towards the Information Society. Among the three types of
interaction comprising the e-engagement model suggested by Macin-
tosh, only ‘information flow’ is achieved, whereas, the elements of
‘consultation’ and ‘efficiency’ are excluded at least in the present
stage. With its current design, the website lags behind even in attain-
ing the target of achieving a competitive economy, one of the primary
objectives of the e-Europe + Initiative. The foreign investor-oriented
‘Investment Portal of Turkey’ established as a separate website may
be the consequence of general economic policy priorities. However,
the interesting point is that a similar website has not yet been devel-174 TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 3 No 3
oped for the domestic private sector. Undoubtedly, the most im-
portant shortcoming of e-government practices is the exclusion of cit-
izen participation in the decision-making process from the design and
content of the website to the extent that citizens are not offered an
opportunity to give feedback. The website lacks any application that
inches open the door to the ideal stated by Uçkan, ‘the ultimate goal
of government is to reach e-democracy’.
Some may consider this disappointing ascertainment of the per-
ception and realization of the potential embodied by ICTs with re-
spect to e-democracy in the context of Turkey case extremely normal
attributing it to country-specific historical, political, economic and so-
cial conditions. Yet, the comparison with other country examples is
the best way to find out whether the said situation is specific to Tur-
key. The analysis of the significance and importance of e-government
practices in Italy, which is an EU and G8 member as well as a member
of OECD like Turkey, with respect to e-democracy will be helpful in
bringing an answer to the fundamental question of this study not only
by serving efforts to learn from other examples, but also by allowing
for a comparison of the perception and practice of the potential,
which ICTs are deemed to embody, in the context of two developed
and developing countries.
ITALY AND E-GOVERNMENT
Italy is among the countries that comprehend the opportunities
offered by ICTs with respect to public administration at the very be-
ginning. Italy, which established the Authority for Information Tech-
nology in Public Administration (AIPA) in 1993, formed its first In-
formation Society policy in 1995. In 2000, Italy drew up the e-
Government 2000-2002 Action Plan compliant with the eEurope Ini-
tiative and the development of e-government practices towards
achieving the Information Society was announced to be policy priori-
ty. In July 2001, institutional restructuring was realized and the ‘Min-
istry of Innovation and Technology’ was founded to steer the e-
policies of Italy. In December 2001, the Ministry of Innovation and
Technology developed Guidelines of the Government for the Deve-
lopment of the Information Society in order to take public admin-
istration into the virtual environment and the Minister toured re-
gional and local governments in order to assess and deliberate e-
government practices.7 Thus, contrary to Turkey’s centralist ap-
proach understanding, Italian regional and local administrations
7 http://www.innovazione.gov.it/dit/ita/Documentazione/normativa/index.shtmlInternet: A Gateway to Democracy? 175
were included in the structuring of e-government from the very be-
ginning with a decentralist approach. The national e-government por-
tal www.italia.gov.it was launched in June 2002. It was announced
that the governments planned to deliver e-government services thro-
ugh digital terrestrial TV (DTV) during 2003. Besides, the Ministry of
Innovation and Technology announced that communication among
public institutions would be shifted to a paperless environment from
2006 onwards. In March 2005, the ‘Digital Administration Code’ was
put into force with an aim to establish a clear and understandable
framework towards the objectives of developing e-government prac-
tices and achieving an efficient and user friendly public administra-
tion.8 March 2005 also witnessed the launching of the business portal
www.impresa.gov.it. This portal, unlike www.investinturkey.gov.tr,
which was launched in Turkey to attract foreign investors around the
same time, aims to render public services to the Italian business
world at local, regional and national level. In the meantime, e-
government services were extended nationwide by the financial sup-
port of national authorities on the one hand and initiatives of regional
and local governments on the other hand. 9 The e-government strate-
gy adopted by Italy is fundamentally compliant with the principles of
the e-Europe Initiative and OECD recommendations, which refer to
the restructuring of public administration via e-government practices
in view of user needs. It is believed that this will ensure efficiency and
transparency in service production and provision on the one hand,
and the infrastructure to be established will encourage citizens to be-
come involved in the decision-making process on the other hand,
thus becoming feasible for e-democracy.
www.italia.gov.it (Il Portale Nazionale del Cittadino)
This portal, which was designed to provide Italian citizens with
access to public services as well as enabling them to know and to use
these services, is an advanced example of e-government application
in many aspects. While in the Guidelines of the Government for the
Development of the Information Society, it is stated that the portal
was set up as a virtual center to provide a single point of access for ci-
tizens to the services that central and local government provide, in-
formation and services in the portal were classified by age, gender,
8 http://www.epractice.eu/document/3395
9 For detailed information on the evolution of e-government practices in Italy, see:
‘eGovernment Observatory’ operating under the European Commission:
http://ec.europa.-eu/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=30681 . Besides, for information about
Italy country profile, see: http://www.epractice.eu/document/3395176 TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 3 No 3
profession and role groups in view of social pluralism and the diver-
sity in needs. For instance, in the section ‘This is me’ (Io Sono),
providing information and services were set up as to women, men,
parents, babies, youngsters, the elderly, students and socially disad-
vantaged groups (the poor, the disabled and prisoners). The section,
‘Life Events’ (Eventi della Vita) contains information crucial to the
completion of life event needs from birth to retirement to be supplied
by their home administration. The ‘Field of Themes’ (Aree Te-
matiche) index page has been set up on the basis of all themes related
to social life ranging from environment and taxes to culture and
sports. ‘Online Modules (Moduli on line) and ‘Online Services’
(Servizi on line) allow access to services provided by central, regional
and local governments. Apart from portal guidelines, it is possible to
access information and services via the sitemap or search engine
quicker.
In the ‘Administration A-Z’ section, citizens are offered free con-
nection and dial up to the websites of all provincial, regional and
communal public institutions and organizations via ‘Green Numbers’.
The ‘News’ section, which is divided into four sub-headings, allows
access to government activities, major artistic activities in Italy and
interviews with famous people in politics and arts. Besides, e-
government projects and innovations developed or implemented by
regional and local governments can be accessed through the link,
‘Contributions and Facilities’ (Contributi e Agevolazioni). The portal
not only provides citizens with the opportunity to convey their
requests, complaints and suggestions regarding public services via te-
lephone or e-mail, but also offers expert services for individual-
specific inquiries and problems. In addition to civil society initiatives,
the government also runs the campaign, ‘Fly with the Internet’ (‘Vola
con Internet’). With this campaign, youngsters (15-16 years of age)
are provided with a subsidy amounting to 150-175 Euros per person
to provide them with personal computers. Moreover, online courses
are offered to develop computer literacy and to help citizens to learn
foreign languages. This portal, which also provides foreigners resi-
dent in Italy and Italians living abroad with the opportunity to access
all public services, is an easily navigable, user-friendly portal with ea-
sily accessible information and services as well as with its colorful
design, rich content and different options for access to information
and services. It provides a link to Web dei Ragazzi’, a website de-
signed for youngsters, which reflects an understanding that attributes
importance to raising youngsters and children as a part of the Infor-
mation Society. Unlike the traditional model of Government-Internet: A Gateway to Democracy? 177
Government, Government-Citizen and Government-Public Sector, the
portal is entirely citizen-focused. While the flow of information and
transactions among public institutions and organizations has been
conducted via the ‘United Public Administration Network’ since 2000,
in 2007, the ‘Public Connection System’ (Il Sistema Pubblico della
Connettivita) was launched for the same purpose. The website
www.impresa.gov.it serves the private sector. Thus, the links, Gov-
ernment-Government and Government-Public Sector were moved to
different websites and www.italia.gov.it was designed exclusively for
citizens. Citizens may access the administration via telephone or e-
mail too. Besides, the portal provides citizens with the opportunity to
give feedback on services. In this respect, unlike the case of
www.turkiye.gov.tr, based on the one-way flow of information to citi-
zens, the Italian portal allows for interaction. Moreover, portal sub-
scribers are constantly informed of activities and innovations; access
to public and civic initiatives’ websites on every sort of social matters
and issues are enabled thanks to the rich opportunities offered in the
portal; and the portal is frequently updated.
However, despite all its favorable features listed above, citizens
cannot participate in decision-making processes via the portal. Thus,
it is not possible to achieve ‘effective participation’ interaction, which
is included in Macintosh’s e-governance model and, which assumes
vital importance with respect to e-democracy. Although the design
and content of the portal provides the necessary facilities to ensure
easier access to information and services related to public admin-
istration, citizens have not been considered a part of the decision-
making processes.
Hence, in the cases of both Turkey and Italy, which started out to
achieve an efficient, transparent, accountable and less-cost public
administration, the component of e-democracy, which Uçkan sees as
the ultimate goal of the e-governance model, is either missing or very
weak. A number of reasons can be cited for this situation: govern-
ments do not want to share their power by letting a new partner into
their decision-making processes; though at different rates, there are
still many citizens with very limited access to the Internet or no ac-
cess at all due to the digital divide; citizens are indifferent to the ex-
isting decision-making processes that require specialization due their
extreme complexity.
LOCAL ADMINISTRATIONS AND THEIR WEBSITES
In that case, what can be the result of a comparison of this picture
at national level, which does not seem to be so promising in respect of178 TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 3 No 3
e-democracy, with e-government practices at local administration
level? If the complexity of problems and the need for professionaliza-
tion are obstacles to efficient involvement, how is the relationship be-
tween e-government practices and e-democracy perceived and, in
what way is this relationship brought to life at the local administra-
tion scale concerning citizens one-to-one, which seems more reason-
able with respect to daily activities and demographic scale? Hence,
the cases of Turkey and Italy that have been analyzed at national level
have been taken as the starting point in finding answers to the ques-
tions mentioned above. For this purpose, the websites of Çankaya
Municipality and the Florence Commune were examined due to their
similarities in respect of both their level of socio-economic develop-
ment and demographic scales.
www.cankaya-bld.gov.tr
The website of Çankaya Municipality was designed by Çankaya
Municipality Directorate of Press of Public Relations primarily with
an aim to inform district residents and third persons of municipal
services. During the six-month monitoring period, the said website
was redesigned and was re-launched with minor changes. The web-
site provides information about the nature of services ranging from
marriage to healthcare services. It also gives brief and understanda-
ble information related to procedures, which citizens have to follow
in order to benefit from these services. However, on the website de-
signed only for the purpose of providing information, online e-
government services are restricted to tax payment via credit card,
which was introduced during the recent renewal of the website. Citi-
zens are provided with the opportunity to interact via telephone or e-
mail. They may also convey their requests, complaints and sugges-
tions either by dialing the Call Center on 458 90 90 or, sending an e-
mail to the Mayor and Directorate of Press of Public Relations, the de-
signer of the website. Besides, though the website has a forum mod-
ule, this tab only serves to send e-mail to the Mayor as the result of
huge concept confusion. As a matter of fact, this section was removed
during the last renewal.
In 2006, Çankaya Municipality announced its Strategic Plan for
2006-2010. The Plan says a participatory and accountable adminis-
trative understanding aimed at providing high-quality services is
adopted. In the document, which was drawn up in view of opinions
and suggestions of 194 shareholders, the efficient and effective use of
informatics technologies was determined as a strategic objective; it
was decided to set up Çankaya Portal in order to deliver e-Internet: A Gateway to Democracy? 179
municipality services (Çankaya Municipality Strategic Plan 2006-
2010, 2006: 92-93).
Though included in the Strategic Plan, it is hard to say ICTs are ef-
ficiently used at least for the time being. Even though it is aimed to
provide local administration services in a virtual environment via e-
municipality, there is no mention of projects towards using the op-
portunities offered by ICTs with respect to participatory democracy.
In the website, which, with its current design, seems to have adopted
the Government-to-Citizen model, while services-related interaction
facilities are restricted, there is no opportunity to participate in deci-
sion-making processes in a virtual environment. In this respect, it can
be concluded that e-government practices at local level is the less
equipped extension of e-government practices at national level.
www.comune.firenze.it (La Rete Civica di Firenze)
This site, which is called ‘The City of Florence Civic Network’, has
been designed on the basis of a comprehensive network connection
so as to provide Florence residents with easy access to all kinds of in-
formation related to city administration and municipal services. e-
government services are conducted within the framework of PEOPLE
(Progetto Enti On-line Portali Locali E-Government) comprising 58
local governments from 13 regions, which is financed by the central
government. In the PEOPLE project, which the e-governance model
based on innovativeness and citizen involvement is adopted in order
to deliver faster, low-cost and high quality local services, forums con-
stitute the main axis of the decision-making process. Thanks to this
method which strengthens dialogue and cooperation among local
governments as well as between local governments and citizens, not
only provides a common general framework for the design and deliv-
ery of services, but citizens are also allowed to have a voice in deci-
sion-making processes.
The municipal administration, which acceded in 2004, initiated a
deliberation period (Firenze Insiem) that lasted two months in order
to determine the policies to be implemented in the 2004-2009 period,
its term in office. Priority policies were set at the end of the studies
conducted jointly by the city administration, neighborhood councils,
councils of foreigners and voluntary participants. Besides, citizens
were offered the opportunity to express their opinions at the forum
held on the website. Thus, while the objectives of city administration
were determined with a participatory democratic understanding, the
administration was enabled to perform its duties via new projects
with collective consciousness of solidarity, responsibility and effi-180 TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 3 No 3
ciency. Besides, the website allows access to weekly and monthly
agendas of the city council as well the archive containing past deci-
sions and debates.
The website, which started out with ‘city culture based on collec-
tive consciousness of solidarity, sharing and responsibility’, also
serves the purpose of getting city residents, administration and civic
initiatives together. The website provides links to the websites of all
civil society organizations (students, women, minorities, the elderly,
culture, sport and city associations and societies) in Florence. Anoth-
er service delivered by the website is continuous informing. Citizens
are regularly informed of administrative decisions and activities by a
local online official gazette (Ufficio Stampa on line) and every kind of
social, cultural and political activities by ‘Fiori e Api’ via electronic
subscription. Another means of interaction between city administra-
tion and citizens is 055.055 ‘Linea Comune’ Call Center. This number
serves as the citizen's help desk for problems and inquiries about
services. The website provides links to projects developed to enable
foreign residents of Florence to become involved in administration, to
achieve social integration and to have healthy working and living
conditions: Besides, a project called ‘ I study too’ (Studio Anch’io) is
carried out to help students of 11-14years of age in the Draa region of
Morocco to attend school. The project, which has been initiated with
the viewpoint that social responsibility should not be restricted to lo-
cal level, aims to collect donations by raising social awareness.
Moreover city administration holds virtual courses for adults and
youngsters with an aim to develop computer literacy via its website.
It can be said that compared to the www.italia.gov.it portal at na-
tional portal, the website of the Florence Commune is at the halfway
point in e-government practices. Local services provided by the Mu-
nicipality in a virtual environment are still in progress. Nevertheless,
what is important is that the e-governance model has been taken as
the basis for the purpose of establishing interaction among local gov-
ernments included in PEOPLE and, between the administration and
citizens. It can be said that this model is being successfully conducted
to a large extent. In Florence, where the consciousness of being urban
is considerably high, the rate of associationalism is also at a high lev-
el. The website provides links to these associations too. The rate of
participation in the decision-making process via projects conducted
jointly by the city administration and the associations is high. Howev-
er, e-democracy tools for the decision-making process are limited.
Among the existing tools, the forum is not constantly employed. In-
teraction via the Internet is generally realized through feedback re-Internet: A Gateway to Democracy? 181
lated to the decisions made and their implementation. While, in this
sense, Florence is an advanced case with respect to face-to-face inter-
action and effective citizen engagement in decision-making processes
in the real environment, it has still long way to go in e-practices. Or
from a different point of view, it does not prefer to entirely replace
the interaction in the real environment by the interaction in a virtual
environment. In this sense, while virtual environment practices in-
tensify in e-government services, democratic participation comes on-
to the agenda at this stage; but the involvement in city administration
is mainly realized in the real environment. Thus, decisions and im-
plementations produced in this process reflect on the website. In oth-
er words, creating an agora in the virtual environment is not an ob-
jective/ideal for Florence Commune at least for the time being; virtu-
al environment practices are rather considered as a supportive factor
in the stage of participating in decision-making processes.
GENERAL EVALUATION
It is a fact that in Turkey e-government practices are still in pro-
gress and that there are significant difficulties in citizens’ access to
the Internet. In 2005, the proportion of internet users and the pro-
portion of the number of national broadband subscribers to the total
population were 13.9% and 2%, respectively. These percentages are
well below 47% and 6.5%, EU-25 averages for 2004. On top of this,
the distribution of these rates among the social groups is in favor of
the educated and high-income groups. While Internet cafes and offic-
es come first among places of access to the Internet, the rate of home
Internet access is limited to 5.9%. Meanwhile, in Turkey, the rate of
those not having any knowledge of ICTs is 92%. Additionally, 62% of
citizens have no idea what it is (The SPO Document on Information
Society Strategy 2000-2006, 2006: 7-9).10 Use of the Internet is gen-
erally used mainly for access to information, communication and
games shows. Among the use of the Internet for interacting with pub-
lic administrations, access to information ranks first by 38% to be fol-
lowed by form downloading and form returning by 11% and 6%, re-
spectively.11
When compared to OECD members and EU candidate member
Turkey, undoubtedly Italy, as a full member of both organizations, is a
more developed case with respect to both e-government practices
10 For the said source, see:
www.bilgitoplumu.gov.tr/btstrateji/BilgiToplumuStratejisi_28072006.doc
11 http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/jsps/documents/dsp_showPrinterDocument.jsp?docID=-
6057182 TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 3 No 3
and the reduction of the digital divide. In fact, Italy ranks in the up-
per-middle group according to the criterion of preparedness to e-
government compared to highly advanced country examples like Fin-
land or Denmark. In Italy, according to statistical data for 2005, the
rate of household Internet access was 39%, while the proportion of
individuals, who used the Internet at least once in the previous week
and the rate of household broadband access are is 28% and 13%, re-
spectively.12 In Turkey, the said proportions are 9%, 17% and 2%’, re-
spectively. With respect to preparedness to e-government, Turkey
displays a lower profile compared to Italy ranking in the upper-
middle group. As mentioned in the related section of the study, Italy
has regarded the facilities offered by ICTs as a chance to create an ef-
ficient and effective public administration, thus making institutional
and legal arrangements. The Ministry of Innovation and Technology
was founded in order to establish and implement e-policies nation-
wide and, the Digital Management Code was introduced. Italy has
used the decentralized network structure offered by the Internet to
develop a decentralized e-government model with the help of the ex-
isting administrative system.
Country statistics clearly reveal that the digital divide is one of the
most important problems of Turkey. Other significant problems faced
in e-government practices are of a legal, technical and administrative
nature (Çetin et al., 2005: 6). The point that should be underlined
here is that most of these problems actually stem from the current
mentality and habits (Uçkan, 2003). Besides, the prevalence of the
understanding that gives priority to security rationales rather than
the encouragement of innovation strengthens the idea that the state
should exert tighter control over the Internet. 13 Though it can be as-
serted that the structuring required for e-governance can be realized
in the course of time, what is important is to start off towards the ob-
jective of e-governance with an understanding and structuring, in
which all actors are involved as stipulated by the democratic system.
However, even the naming of the e-government initiatives, ‘e-
Government Gateway’, which will allow access to all public services
from a single point in the near future, gives an idea of the prevailing
approach. The word, ‘Kapı (Door)’, Turkish name for the portal is also
the reflection of a structure that takes the existence of a state, which
is politically and sociologically powerful as basis and that signifies
12 For e-government profiles and the evolution of e-government policies of EU member
countries, see: http://ec.europa.eu/idabc
13 An interview with Assistant Professor Mustafa Akgül, Bilkent University, Department
of Industrial Engineering (23 September 2006).Internet: A Gateway to Democracy? 183
obedience and dependence in the eyes of citizens. While the most im-
portant project related to e-government practices is named, ‘e-
Government Gateway’, the investment website designed for foreign
investors is named ‘Investment Portal of Turkey’. Though this nomi-
nalist factor can be regarded as the secondary element of the debate,
it symbolically gives an idea of the dominant understanding.
In both cases, ‘effective engagement’, one of the components of
Macintosh’s e-governance model, which is of vital importance with
respect to e-democracy, is almost non-existent. Even though
www.italia.gov.it, which has been designed exclusively for the pur-
pose of serving citizens, free of delivering public services to corpora-
tions or establishing communication between governmental bodies,
in this sense differs from the case of www.turkiye.gov.tr, citizens are
not considered as a part of decision-making processes in the Italy
case either.
Hence, in both cases, which have launched e-government practic-
es with an aim to achieve an efficient, transparent, accountable and
less-cost public administration, the component of e-democracy that
can be regarded as the ultimate goal of the e-governance model is ei-
ther non-existent or very weak. However, in the case of Italy, it is ob-
served that at least central government has cooperated with regional
and local governments in the designing and functioning of the web-
site. Furthermore, due to a number of factors, chiefly the administra-
tive structure of Italy, regional and local governments are able to de-
velop their own projects in the context of e-government services, and
while doing it, they consider the element of efficient citizen involve-
ment the indispensable part of e-governance. The recent
www.partecipaMi.it initiative, which has been launched under the pi-
oneership of the Lombardia Regional Administration, Milan Universi-
ty and some civil society organizations, is an example to the above-
mentioned projects.
It can be said that e-democracy is discursively deemed a part of e-
governance along with e-government practices at central government
level. But in practice, ICTs are considered within the framework of
Schalken’s ‘add-on strategy’ with respect to e-government practices
in particular. A number of reasons can be cited for this situation: gov-
ernments do not want to share their power by letting a new partner
into their decision-making processes; though at different rates, there
are still many citizens with very limited access to the Internet or no
access at all due to the digital divide; citizens are indifferent to the ex-
isting decision-making processes that require specialization due theirYou can also read
