Problems and motivations
In 2005, the German Bundestag set up an Internet platform for the first time, which makes online petitioning in Germany possible. Since then it has been possible as a German citizen to submit so-called "public petitions" electronically. Public petitions are defined by the German Bundestag as follows: “Requests or complaints of general interest can be submitted with the request for publication. In accordance with the procedural principles, in particular the “Public Petitions Directive”, they can be published on the Internet, discussed and co-signed. Even if a petition is not published, the content will be processed in accordance with the procedural principles of the Petitions Committee. ”(Source: https://epetitions.bundestag.de/epet/service . $$$. Rubrik.oepet.html)
The aim of this procedure is to simplify political participation for citizens and to make political events more transparent. Overall, petitions offer opportunities to point out grievances and to bring specific suggestions for various problem solutions into the political process. The online procedure is in addition to the conventional option of submitting petitions in writing to the Petitions Committee. With the electronic version, the Bundestag is taking a step towards modernization. Among other things, in order to reach a younger target group.
The petition is active for 4 weeks after publication. During this time, it is possible to co-sign a petition, i.e. to support it, or to comment and evaluate it in the corresponding discussion forums.
If you look at the mean of the signatures in the period from 2005 to 2010, you get about 1,170 signatures per petition. However, it should be noted that 85% of the petitions generated fewer than 1,000 signatures and only 9 (0.4%) concerns were able to collect more than 50,000 votes in four weeks and thus achieved the quorum to enter into the public consultation of the Bundestag ( Riehm et al. P. 8). However, the quorum alone does not decide whether the petitioner is given the opportunity to raise his concerns in the Bundestag. Because if two thirds of the members of the Petitions Committee speak against advice, it will not be dealt with. The other way around, the petition can be included in the discourse even though the quorum has not been reached. For example, if MEPs interpret the content as worth discussing.
history
In 2005, the German Bundestag implemented a petition reform. As a result, the pilot for petitions on the Internet was started. Since then, the Bundestag has published petition texts on the Internet under certain conditions.
Since 2006 there has been a sharp increase in petitions submitted, from 17% to 34% (2010) (Riehm et al. P.9).
The public petitions are particularly successful here. They have increased from 5% to 24% (Riehm et al. P.9).
From September 2005 to the end of 2010, more than three million notes for around 2100 online petitions and more than 100,000 discussion contributions were published (Riehm et al. P.9).
In the summer of 2007, the pilot project was finally brought into regular operation. In the course of this, the underlying Scottish software program, which was assessed as inadequate by various agencies, was abandoned. It was determined that newly developed software should become the basis of the website. The persons responsible put this newly developed software into operation for the first time on October 13, 2008. However, this was also heavily criticized at the beginning. It is unsuitable as basic software. Software ergonomics, important functionalities and performance were assessed as weak overall.
From late 2008 to early 2009, some software evaluations were carried out by Zebralog and ifib. They also recognized the weaknesses mentioned, but they specifically emphasized the progress towards the Scottish system.
In the period from November 13, 2008 to December 12, 2008, online surveys were carried out with users. There is a conflict in the evaluation of the software system. In roughly equal parts, it was either heavily criticized or accepted.
On November 30, 2010, the decision was finally made to publish a tender for the new development of the platform. The award was then made in 2011 and the newly developed program was put into operation in mid-2012.
Entities and funding
As already mentioned, the initiative for an online offer came from the Petitions Committee of the German Bundestag. This body continues to be responsible for the system functionality, modernization and continuous improvement of the platform. The right to petitions is laid down in the Basic Law. This means that citizens must always be given the opportunity to bring their concerns into the political arena. The online version is only an additional offer of the Bundestag. It is regulated separately. Both procedures are financed from tax money and the responsible employees and experts are paid by the federal government. The numerous evaluations, user surveys and studies that were carried out as part of the modernization process are commissioned by the Petitions Committee and financed by the federal government.
Participant selection
In principle, everyone (ie not only eligible German citizens) has the right to submit a public petition. All the petitioner has to do is register with his name, address and email address. These regulations also apply to citizens who want to sign a petition or write contributions in the discussion forums.
The generally known problem of the homogeneous target group is to be critically assessed here. As with political participation in Germany as a whole, it can be seen that the internet platform is mainly used by older men with above-average education. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that they are generally particularly politically active and their overall internet activity is above average in Germany. Since 2009, however, there has been an increase from 1.2% to 9.1% in the group of people up to 19 years of age. As a result, pupils, students and people in training will be counted among the users. There are not only trends towards more heterogeneity in the group of petitioners. For example, the dominance of men rose from 75.8% to 84.9%. This is mainly attributed to the fact that women also participate less in traditional political events (Riehm et al. P. 60).
Accordingly, it remains to be stated that although public citizens always have the right and the opportunity to raise a concern in the political process through public petitions, this is mainly done by socially privileged and politically above-average people who are additionally promoted through the use of the Internet.
Influence, effects and success
If one looks at the dimensions of success of public petitions, no general statements can be made here. Whether a petition is defined as successful or not is very different depending on the respective reference points. The Bundestag categorizes success from an objective - statistical point of view. The petitioner, on the other hand, judged from a subjective point of view. Success always depends on individual goals and expectations.
If one looks at success from the point of view of the Petitions Committee, a petition is defined as “successful” if “the application has been met”. This happened in 7.6% in 2009 and 16.8% in 2007.
In 2009, 27.5% of the petitions submitted were rejected, which is the long-term average. 3.5% of the applications were passed on to the Federal Government and 38.1% received no access to parliamentary advice because of "advice, information, referrals, etc.". In 2009, 14.3% of the petitions submitted were not of public interest, i.e. the petition contained opinions, insults or the like and was therefore not dealt with by the German Bundestag (Riehm et al. P.93).
With the results of surveys of petitioners after the completion of their procedure, from 2009, "success" should now be assessed from the perspective of the citizens. The most frequently mentioned motives are, on the one hand, to find solutions to a problem, to publicize a concern in politics or administration and to influence political or state decisions. From this the two main functions, personal interests and legal protection, as well as political participation can be derived. If one now looks at the extent to which these motives are fulfilled, it can be seen that in 64% of the cases the users surveyed consider mobilization for their cause to have been achieved. The problem-solving, however, seems to be less successful. Only 11% stated that this expectation could be met. Even if one considers the dimension “influencing state and political decisions”, it can be asked whether 16.3% is sufficient to assess this motive as “fulfilled” (Riehm et al. P.98).
Public petitions also perform significantly worse than conventional petitions. For example, 67.8% of petitioners interviewed for traditional petitions said they were satisfied with the procedure, but only 38.6% of petitioners for public petitions said so. It is likely that this is due to the high rejection rate. Because of this, this is quite controversial (Riehm et al. P.98).
Overall, however, it should be noted that the majority of the respondents indicated that they would use the online petition procedure again. They trust the guaranteed procedural security and the small amount of work and time seems to be convincing.
The discussion forums seem to be very popular among users. They are used extensively and largely enriched by high-quality contributions. However, the question can be asked here whether the idea of public discourse and the additional exchange is really a success. Because the contributions seem to get little attention from the members of the Bundestag.
These two approaches now serve as a guide to assess the success of public petitions in the context of their functionality as online participation. The low satisfaction rate of the petitioners, as well as the low transfer of concerns into the political deliberations, make the achievement of the goals set appear questionable. Although somewhat younger Germans can be won over to the petition process, these tendencies also show signs of dissatisfaction and still belong to the well-known target group.
However, the consistently high use of the method is to be recognized. However, this cannot basically be attributed to the fact that the procedure is carried out online.
Overall, a positive conclusion can be drawn that speaks for the "success" of the online process. The German system plays a certain pioneering role in the electronic petition process. It is one of the best known and most frequently used online participation opportunities in Germany. The relatively high level of citizen participation also has the effect of sending positive impulses towards countries as well as abroad. For example, some state parliaments have implemented similar platforms.
Analysis and criticism
The participants criticize the internet offer of the German Bundestag above all the criteria for the admission for petitions. Critical discussions are taking place in the forums, in which the lack of transparency and the low admission rate are criticized. At least 60% of the petitioners questioned in 2009 indicated that they could not understand why the petition was refused. In 2010, for example, only 559 out of 4,039 petitions submitted were approved (Riehm et al. P.9).
Another point of criticism is the underlying software of the internet platform. After numerous user surveys, expert evaluations and user tests, the result was that there is clearly room for improvement. The unnecessarily difficult registration process, hard breaks in user guidance, orientation problems due to inconsistent arrangement of the navigation elements, the lack of a well-integrated and informative start page, inadequate search options, unnecessary and confusing community functions, as well as the inadequate overview of discussion forums and their evaluation are the main subject of the disapproval.
It should also be noted that 23 out of 66 requirements of the Accessible Information Technology Regulation (BITV) are not met (Riehm et al. P.47).
Even after revising the original software, mass petitions still result in system failures and extremely long waiting times.
The detailed treatment of the problem of the homogeneous target group must also be included in the evaluation of the procedure. One of the goals of the German Bundestag was to bring people closer to political participation who do not do so in the conventional way. Under certain conditions, however, this goal seems to have been achieved only to a limited extent. It was indeed possible to identify younger participants. However, these also belong to the educational elite and are predominantly male.
The dimensions of success of the online process have also already been presented. The generally frequent use of citizens and the positive evaluation by the initiators themselves is certainly also due to the constant evaluations and efforts to continuously improve the system. These efforts should continue to be made to maintain the growing success and awareness of public petitions.
Secondary sources
Riehm, U., Böhle, K. & Lindner, R., 2011. Electronic petitions and modernization of the petition system in Europe, Berlin. Report of the Office for Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB) No. 146. http: //www.tab-beim-bundestag.de/de/pdf/publikationen/berichte/TAB-Arbei ...
https://epetitions.bundestag.de/epet/startseite.nc.html
External links
https://epetitions.bundestag.de/epet/startseite.nc.html
https://www.btg-orderservice.de/pdf/20079000.pdf
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