[liberationtech] CfP: Non-government & voluntary sector, ICT, & democracy

[Yosem Companys]

Last call for papers to special edition of International Journal of Public 
Information Systems (IJPIS)

The non-government and voluntary sector, ICT, and democracy

Deadline for extended abstracts: March 1st 2014

The recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Organisation for 
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has again focused international 
public attention on the role and importance of Non-Governmental 
Organisations (NGOs) in social and political life.  NGOs, together with 
other groups which rely to a greater or lesser extent on volunteers such as 
Local Voluntary Organisations (LVOs) often provide services to the 
community and undertake tasks which government cannot or will not do. The 
use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the governance 
and activities of such organisations is a topic of growing interest.

The nature, scale and activities of NGOs and LVOs vary enormously 
both within countries and across countries. In countries with highly 
developed and extensive welfare states, which include many European 
countries, the role of NGOs and voluntary or part voluntary organisations 
will be different than it will be in, say, countries like the USA or in 
the developing world.  Such organisations range from 
well-funded, well-resourced and formally structured international 
organisations such as the Red Cross or the World Wildlife Fund to small 
local, even ad hoc, loose networks of individuals organised around anything 
from fund raising for the local school to community gardening or even 
crowdsourcing.

The field of Community Informatics is one in which the use of ICT by 
LVOs and similar organisations is studied, but there has been little 
research to date on how and to what extent organisations across this 
spectrum use ICT for member or citizen engagement and the promotion of 
internal democratic governance. A particularly interesting question is 
whether, and if so how, NGOs and LVOs use ICTs internally and externally? 
 For example, are there instances of such organisations making 
extremely effective use of ICT for (say) lobbying whilst failing to use 
it effectively for internal engagement or vice versa?  Are 
such organisations better at using ICT to promote their values externally 
than they are at practicing them internally?

For this special issue we are seeking contributions from interdisciplinary 
research that examines, in different ways, how volunteer spheres use the 
tools of e-democracy, i.e. how they use ICT to strengthen the 
organisation's internal democratic structures. We are also calling for 
applied studies such as usability or design studies of the development of 
tools for e-democracy for non-governmental organisations.

A majority of research in this area is carried out in 
English­-speaking countries and in urban settings, which is why we welcome 
studies from other perspectives. As the field of Community Informatics and 
E-democracy continues to be an emerging field we especially welcome studies 
that show engagement with theory and method.

POSSIBLE TOPICS

Possible themes included (but are not limited to):

·      Studies of the use of e-democracy tools in NGOs and LVOs;
·      Evaluations of commonly used open-source systems in NGOs and citizen 
engagement, from a democracy perspective;
·      Technology-enhanced cooperation in NGOs and LVOs;
·      Use of technology for lobbying and mobilizing campaigns;
·      ICT support for knowledge management in NGOs and LVOs;
·      On-line democratic culture;
·      Processes of inclusion and exclusion in e-participation;
·      ICT and gender equality in NGOs and LVOs;
·      ICT supported organization of global democratic movements;
·      Security issues in tools and practices for e-democracy in NGOs and
LVOs;
·      The use of or potential for e-voting in NGOs and LVOs;
·      Use of pseudonyms in e-citizen engagement;
·      Anonymity and e-democracy;
·      The sociology of ICT use in such organizations;
·      ICT impacts on the internal democratic processes in NGOs and LVOs;
·      Comparative studies of NGOs ICT supported communication practices;
·      ICT supported interaction between NGOs;
·      NGOs internal democratic norms and practices in relation to ICT;
·      Case studies of models and prototypes in 
e-democracy/e-engagement projects in NGOs and LVOs.

EDITOR

Karin Hansson, Dept. of Computer and Systems Sciences, 
Stockholm University&  Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm (
khansson at dsv.su.se)

EDITORIAL BOARD

·      Rowena Cullen, Professor Ph.D. Associate Dean, Research, 
Victoria Business School, University of Wellington
·      Johannes W. Pichler Professor Ph.D. Chair Professor for 
European Legal Developments. Head of the Department, Dept. for European 
Legal Developments, Law Faculty, University of Graz
·      Love Ekenberg Professor Ph.D. Head of Department, Dept. of Computer 
and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University
·      Jeremy Rose Professor Ph.D. Dept. of Communication and Information, 
University of Skövde
·      Frank Bannister, Associate Professor Ph.D. School of 
Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin
·      Jakob Svensson, Associate Professor Ph.D. Dept. of Geography, Media 
and Communication Studies, Karlstad University and Informatics and Media, 
Uppsala university
·      Peter Parycek, Ph.D. Head of Centre, Centre for 
E-Governance, Danube-University Krems

IMPORTANT DATES

2014
March 1st                     Submission deadline for extended abstracts
April 1st                       Notification of acceptance of 
extended abstracts 
May 1st                       Submission of full paper
July 1st                        Submission of final versions
September 1st             Planned publication date

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

·      Extended abstracts should be no more than 2-3 pages.
·      Full Papers should be in the range 6000-8000 words. 
Longer submissions may be considered in exceptional circumstances.
·      Authors are asked to follow the format guidelines at: 
http://www.ijpis.net/ojs/index.php/IJPIS/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

The International Journal of Public Information Systems is listed 
in Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities, The Directory of 
Open Access Journals, and EBSCOhost.

Further information is available at:
http://www.ijpis.net/ojs/index.php/IJPIS/index
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