Objective Many governments have seen a decline in trust in the past decades. One of the dominant governmental strategies to restore public trust is to adopt modern ICTs to strengthen the relationship between government and citizens.The aim of e-democracy tools is to give people more choice about how they can participate and to give them the feeling that their input makes a real difference, eventually resulting in more trust in government. But does this governmental strategy really work? In this project I will answer the question Does e-democracy increase trust in government, and under what conditions?The current search for technological solutions for the problem of distrust in government seems to be paradoxical because to increase public trust and confidence governments will be relying on information and communication systems that themselves require a high level of trust. Therefore, I will examine a second question: How does trust or distrust in e-democracy technologies influence the use of these technologies and tools? In order to answer the questions, I select four local and regional e-democracy initiatives (2 in England, 2 in the Netherlands).In these case studies I will examine the role of awareness of governments performance and of distance to government, as the se are the behavioural variables following from the theory. Furthermore, I will investigate contextual factors that influence the use of e-democracy technologies, and the changes in trust in technology and in government.The case studies include interviewing, observations and I will conduct two surveys among participants (one in the beginning, and one at the end) to be able to generalize the findings. The post-doc project will enable me to broaden my research to the larger field of e-democracy technologies, and to acquire additional knowledge of political science. Fields of science social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical transitionselectionssocial sciencespolitical sciencesgovernment systemsdemocracysocial sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiescivil society Keywords ICT public trust social shaping of technology technology acceptance trust in technology user centered design Programme(s) FP6-MOBILITY - Human resources and Mobility in the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006 Topic(s) MOBILITY-2.1 - Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships (EIF) Call for proposal FP6-2005-MOBILITY-5 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme EIF - Marie Curie actions-Intra-European Fellowships Coordinator THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD EU contribution No data Address UNIVERSITY OFFICES, WELLINGTON SQUARE OX1 2JD OXFORD United Kingdom See on map Total cost No data
