The article deals with developments of the Internet elections project in Estonia. The expansion of internet voting in Estonia is closely associated with communication and information technology development in this country. The purpose of the article is to provide policy analysis, analysis of security principles and legal analysis with asurvey of the development of internet voting in Estonia. The accent is put on comfortable and trustworthy voting procedure at the same time. This study also aims to assess the impact of internet voting on voter turnout., Sylvie Reterová., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
The article deals with developments of the Internet elections project in Norway. The project for the time being peaked with the 2011 municipal and regional elections, in which voters in ten municipalities were entitled to cast their votes over the Internet. The article firstly analyses Internet elections pilot projects and discusses results of surveys focused on key preconditions of the Internet elections within the framework of the digital divide concept. Furthermore, the article is concerned with results of the Internet elections in terms of several key variables: ratio of those, who cast their vote over the Internet depending ontheirplace of residence, party preferences and age. In spite of a high level of Internet penetration in Norway surveys and the Norwegian Internet elections have confirmed existence of two sub-types of digital divide: social divide and democratic divide., Miloš Brunclík., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
Political participation of immigrants (expressed for example by their participation in elections, representation in political parties or in the leadership functions of a city) is now seen as one of the key elements supporting their integration into the major society. In France was already in 1983 founded civil association called Votation citoyenne (Civil vote), but despite more than 30 years of its campaigns and diligent work, the results obtained are rather vague. So far, the law that would give to the foreigners from the countries outside of the EU the right to vote and to be elected at least in the local elections was only approved but did not enter into the force. However, between the years 2001 and 2008, this form of their participation in political life had bigger dynamics in the region of Basse-Normandie than in the region of Paris.
The general aim of the article is to assess the ways residents of Czechia engage in particular types of action in public interest (including attending a public hearing on a local issue, volunteering, donating or signing a petition) and in such action generally. A literature review concludes that the terms engagement and participation tend to be seen as synonymous. In the theory section, predictors of engagement are discussed, amongst which most authors treat education as central. This gives rise to my first hypothesis (H1): Individuals’ civic engagement will be positively influenced by their educational attainment. In contrast, since have been no detailed studies of the relationship between life satisfaction and engagement in Czechia thus far, I formulate H2: There is a relationship between individuals’ life satisfaction and their civic engagement, with more engaged citizens being more satisfied.
Secondary analysis of an archived dataset was conducted. The survey took place in February 2014 using face-to-face interviews with Czech citizens aged 18–64 years, who were selected using quota sampling. In addition to region of residence, quotas for age, gender and municipality size were applied. 1903 respondents in compliance with the quotas were invited and 1327 valid interviews were conducted, with a response rate of 70%. Over the past five years, 61% of the respondents engaged in at least one of the actions studied. The highest number of respondents, 45%, donated money; 27% signed a petition; and 25% attended a public hearing. A chi square test revealed that general engagement varied with educational attainment (χ2 = 48.8; df = 5), age, type of economic activity, socioeconomic status, and municipality size.
Respondent’s educational attainment is the main differentiating factor of both self-declared general engagement and participation in the different actions studied (H1 confirmed). In particular, college graduates are significantly more engaged than individuals with primary education or secondary education without GCSE. Age is another apparent differentiating factor, whereas respondents in their thirties are significantly more engaged than young people under 24.
Mean values of the self-reporting scales indicate that engaged respondents are more satisfied (average satisfaction of 7.3 on a 10-point scale), namely those who reported having taken at least one action in public interest over the past five years. Average satisfaction among those not engaged was 7.1. Although the difference is statistically significant (using a two-sample t-test), basically confirming H2, it cannot be deemed substantive. When respondents were categorized as “dissatisfied” (1–4 points), “neutral” (5–6) and “satisfied” (7–10 points), 50% of the former were engaged, compared to 63% of the latter. Using three-way tables, the effects of the third variables on the relationship were tested, but none of the control variables significantly intervened in the relationship.
The differences in satisfaction were larger when looking at the particular actions separately. “Satisfied” respondents were the most likely to engage in all actions except demonstrating or ones categorized as other. The fact that less satisfied individuals were more likely to take action expressing their disagreement (to attend a demonstration) can be viewed as attesting the effect of life satisfaction on civic engagement. Thus, satisfaction positively influenced engagement in “positively” oriented action.