Teledemocracy by Ytterstad, Akselsen, Svendsen, and Watson

Local political work	The outcome of the analysis was a detailed understanding of political work in Salangen. The analysis identified formal and informal structures and the main elements of everyday political issues.
Formal structure	The formal structure, relatively easy to grasp, is in principle defined by the set of constitutional laws governing local democracy. We will give a brief summary of the main elements of this structure; more details can be found in Norske Kommuners Sentralforbund (1987). The Norwegian political scene operates on three separate levels: the constitutional national assembly, regional councils, and municipalities. Each of these levels has a supporting administrative structure. As of January 1995, Norway had 19 county municipality governments and 435 municipalities with an average size of 9,000 inhabitants. Municipalities are run by elected delegates and, compared to municipalities in most other European countries, are relatively autonomous entities. The municipal political system has been subject to only minor changes since the original regulations were promulgated in 1836. Elections to the local council are held every four years. The other political committees are appointed by the local council both from elected representatives to the local council and from other "non-elected" citizens. Most politicians carry out their duties on a part-time basis. However, normally the mayor[3] is a full-time politician. Norwegian local municipalities, and thus their politicians, have wide-ranging powers in terms of mandate and authority. As an example, annual investments in the public sector corresponding to more than ten percent of the gross domestic product are approved by local politicians. Although the structure of political committees and administrative departments is defined by law, the local municipality is free to adjust this structure according to local conditions. Figure 2 shows a simplified outline of Salangen's administrative and political bodies. The local council represents the highest political authority in the municipality. Decision authority is, however, partially delegated to the executive committee of the local council or even to one of the political committees. The number of issues passing through the system is approximately 800 per year, of which some 75 are handled by the local council. Meetings of the local council are typically held bimonthly, and some 5 to 15 issues are handled at each meeting. Meetings of the different committees are held throughout the year according to a fixed schedule. In conjunction with council and committee meetings, the political parties often have internal sessions. In Salangen, the parties have introduced a Politicians' Day in conjunction with meetings of the different political committees, thereby assembling all politicians in the one place once a month. All parties are thus able to hold their internal meetings in joint facilities. This creates an environment for cross-party informal talks and meetings.
A typical flow for issues is illustrated. In principle, an issue may be initiated by any political, administrative body, or person in Salangen. However, most issues are generated within the administration or based on requests from the local community (1). The issue is prepared and handled within the appropriate department(s) (2) and then forwarded for political handling, first by the corresponding political committee(s) (3). It is then forwarded to the Executive committee (5) and the Local council (7) after administrative preparation by the Alderman (4) (6). Figure 2. Local administrative and political bodies
Informal structure	The informal structure, the additional element which makes the system work, is in principle defined by the way information flows through the political system. Figure 2 indicates the formal information flow. The informal channels are of course not defined explicitly and are harder to discern. Nevertheless, they constitute important elements in terms of describing the everyday tasks of a local politician and how information is distributed and decisions made. It was therefore important to chart the informal system where possible. In addition to formal sessions, meetings are held at different levels within local party groups. The frequency and nature of these meetings differ among the various parties. However, except for purely administrative matters, all meetings deal mainly with questions and issues being processed within the formal structure. These matters are also discussed extensively on the telephone, at occasional meetings, in non-political forums, or when politicians meet in the course of everyday social interactions. The informal structure, thus, is a loosely defined layer on top of the formal bodies and relationships.
Other characteristics	Some additional characteristics of local political activities are given below. These are mostly based on data from the questionnaire, which was distributed to all elected members of the political bodies indicated in the left part of Figure 2. This group is very similar in composition to the users participating in the subsequent design process and field trials. A total of 23 forms out of 33 were returned, a 70 percent response rate.
	The decision process Interviews with the politicians revealed some concern regarding their real opportunities to influence the decision process. They claimed that the key premises for issues to a large extent are defined by the administration due to their complexity and the lack of time available for the politicians to study and discuss issues in detail. This also impedes the possibility of producing solutions different from those prepared by the administration.
	Manner of work The survey clearly indicates that politics is dominated by dialogue (see Figure 3). Politicians talk to each other within and across their political parties, with their local administration, and with the inhabitants of their municipality. Most discussions are face-to-face, either between two participants or within a larger group. The telephone is used as a tool to mediate dialogues. However, despite the existence of Teleconference services allowing more than two participants to take part in the communication, these services are seldom used.
This figure illustrates the distribution of different means for exchanging information as reported by the survey. The quantities refer to the relative number of events and do not necessarily indicate the information volume. In addition to verifying the importance of face-to-face communication, the figure shows that "non-political situations" -- organized activities (sports, music, and other special interest group arrangements), social relations and at work -- constitute important scenes for political activity.
Figure 3. Means of exchanging information.
	The extensive use of the telephone is also documented in Figure 4 which shows the average usage of telephony amongst politicians in the Salangen community compared to the use of the telephone in the community as a whole. Business calls are included in the figures for the community, which means that the difference in usage between politicians and the ordinary citizen is even larger than that indicated in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Politicians' average use of telephone compared to the community as a whole.
	Looking closer at the telephone usage, Table 1 shows that more than half of the incoming calls containing a political content are from people within the community, who often initiate discussions with their politicians. Further, Table 1 illustrates that outgoing calls are mainly addressed to members of the same party or to the local administration. Table 1: Politicians' communication Communications partner Incoming Outgoing Own political party 15.5 % 19.7 % Other parties (1) 2.4 % 3.5 % Local administration 7.4 % 9.9 % Media 2.9 % 2.8 % Other external 31.8 % 4.2 % Total 60.0 % 40.0 % (1) Calls to other parties constitute a closed system, and the number of incoming and outgoing calls should therefore by definition be identical. The discrepancy reflects the uncertainty in the figures since they are merely based on estimates made by the politicians.
	We also asked politicians to describe their political workload[4] and its daily distribution, see Figures 5 and 6. It is noticeable that more than half of the respondents spend less than 8 hours a month on political work and that less than 10 percent spend more than 24 hours a month. This appears to support the claim that politicians may be classified into three groups: a small group of "deciders," a group of "sector specialists," and a larger group of "followers" (Larsen, 1992).
Figure 5. Distribution of political workload in hours per month.
Figure 6. Distribution of politicians' working hours.
	Furthermore the majority of political work is carried out after normal working hours, i.e. between 18:00 and 24:00 hours. This reflects an asynchronous relationship between the politicians' working hours and those of their service institution, the administration, which may account for some of the problems the politicians have in contacting the local administration.
	The municipality's issue information system Information on every issue arising in the municipality's political system is thoroughly recorded and stored into the municipality's issue archival system. Most of the material in this archive, including descriptions of tasks, proposals, positions, votes and decisions made, is stored in digital form. The issue archival system is maintained by and accessed through the administration. Upon facing certain issues some of the politicians make contact with the administration to get relevant information from previous issues. On such requests the administration searches the archive, makes copies, and mails the documents to the politicians.
Identifying needs: Where does telecommunications fit?	Tools based on telecommunication technologies may be used to reduce the workload of municipal politicians and improve their means for making decisions and giving directives. The following issues have been identified as relevant: Availability - easier communication. Telecommunication technology should be able to make politicians more available to each other, to the local administration, and to the local municipality as a whole. It should also make the administration and the information it might provide (including archival issue files) more available to the politicians. The technology may also directly support and strengthen already established communication patterns. Coordination. Technology could also be able to support the coordination of political activities such as meetings and discussions. Closer contact with the administration. It should be possible to connect politicians to the already established technological infrastructure within the local administration. This would ease cooperation between the administration and politicians considerably and help establish the two entities responsible for the decision process as a more closely integrated unit. A closer connection to the administration's infrastructure would also enable the politicians to study and prepare individual issues at an earlier and less mature stage. This would increase the possibility for politicians to shape the process and in fact provide an "early warning system" for new issues arising within the administration.