Randomly Selected Citizens - The Sorcerer's Stone of e-Participation?

Abstract

e-Participation has one commonly acknowledged major weakness: The people actually participating often do not represent the whole population of the respective political entity, severe biases can be observed with respect to overrepresentation of some groups and underrepresentation of other. Unfortunately, there is, according to our knowledge, no much systematic empirical evidence of citizen participation processes available; at least in Baden-Württemberg. Participation is still, like in ancient democracies, restricted to those who can afford the time budget necessary. In ancient Athens merchants, craftsmen etc. had only little time for politics whilst others, especially landlords, heirs and noblemen had the necessary resources to devote more time to politics, so both a regular compensation and a random selection for mandatory political duty were introduced. Such a random selection is still established in our contemporary societies, above all regarding jury duty. The paper analyzes the strength and weaknesses of such a random selection and whether it contributes to the functioning of e-participation. Finally, it gives some advice in order to improve eparticipation and, in general, all participation processes.