Adaptability in online democratic engagement: A multi-channel strategy to enhance deliberative pollcies

This article highlights the importance of adaptability in government-driven political participation via information technologies. The term implies that information, consultation and active participation, as the main components of government initiated citizen communication, must be embedded into users' and governments' environments not only tecfinically, but also aconomically, legally, organizationally, culturally and politically. Some of the important features of citizen participation in political procedures are summarized, including discussion on political apathy and political reactions regarding new ways of direct participation, and the increase of consensus-based means of participation. A case study of an online consultation provides a link to practical problems related to adaptability. The article concludes with elaboration of further online experiments proposed to combine the advantages of online and offline forms of citizen involvement in a multichannel approach to democratic engagement.