Attendance Monitoring System

Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

In general terms, my thesis is that information technologies (IT) developed in the last 30 years, and consolidated only recently, constitute a qualitative jump from past IT and have the potential to enable a vastly improved public participation in decision making, but requires a specific, new institutional and regulatory framework to fully materialize such potential. Two inter-dependent classes of questions arise from this general thesis: questions on technology and questions on process. I argue that this duality process-technology is inescapable if we want to understand the fast moving new trends in decision making and their institutional implications. I call this duality the "Plato's Principle": for it was Plato that wrote that democracy cannot extend beyond the reach of a man's voice, and it is part of my argument that technology is extending the reach of human voice in such mode and degree that new forms of democracy are being enabled today, forms that were no more than an utopian dream not so long ago. Based on past research, I chose to focus on the combination of artificial intelligence with multimedia computer and network technology, applied in the context of citizen consultation by both national and local government agencies, within the domain of impact assessment. The rationale for this choice will become apparent through the thesis. My main research case is the public consultation process on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for a solid urban waste incinerator in Portugal, in 1996. The context is the planning process centered on the realization of the World Expo 1998 in the oriental part of Lisbon, Portugal, with planned large developments of transportation infrastructure, drastic land use changes, and environmental clean-up. New mandatory EEC - European Union (EU) directives regarding public participation in environmental impact assessment, and new national laws regulating city master plans, gave this and related cases a...