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This paper is embargoed for any quoting prior to its oral presentation on 25 October 1997.

The author would like to thank those who read and made comments on this paper prior to presentation. These were the Sixth Baron Duffus of Duffus, Duffus and Strathclyde as Barrister of Greys Inn, Mitchel Ehrlich of the Pepperdine Law School, California, Simon Niziol of the London School of Economics and Robert R. Sullivan Director of the Crime and Politics Centre of the City University of New York.

To understand the role of the Internet in a traditional establishment system of government such as the United Kingdom it is first necessary to understand the basic assumptions of electronic democracy. Four models of electronic democracy can be identified. They are not mutually exclusive. The Electronic Bureaucracy Model refers to the electronic delivery of government services. This happens as a matter of course in the United Kingdom. The Information Management Model refers to more effective communication between individual citizens and candidates or decision-makers. This is a goal that many strive for, but few Government Agencies or Politicians can cope with answering all the letters. Hence a bureaucratic organisation develops which defeats the purpose. The Populist Model, would enable citizens to register their views on current issues. A good idea and will play an important but not executive role. Finally, the Civil Society Model would strengthen connections between citizens, thereby building a robust and autonomous site of public debate. While the first three models are useful and an ongoing process in the United Kingdom, it is the fourth model which I believe has the potential to be the most significant for evaluation in comparison to other media such as television, radio and newspapers.

The Civil Society Model refers to a transformation of political culture. Hence it is the migration of the establishment system of government which is based upon a well developed historical cultural heritage of centuries of government. As such, it can only be appreciated within the context of the broader transformation wrought by communications technology. For example, the quality of public debate will be influenced by changes in inter-personal relations, employment patterns and organisational structures. The growing cultural and commercial value of information will also be relevant, as will government responses to such issues as technology, privacy and regulation. The success all depends on careful evaluations and even more careful and well planned implementations.

The economic impact of the new environment (for example, the possible erosion of the tax base) and the transformation of the education sector will affect political relationships in such transformations towards electronic democracy to the Civil society model. The effects of the new technology on policy-making will also have ramifications for democracy. While none of these issues is directly about democracy which has to already be prevalent and well adhered to in each individual, each will have considerable bearing on the shape that democracy and the traditional establishment system of government actually takes (as opposed to its formal nature). Analysis of such areas will reveal more about the future of democracy and the system of government than an examination of the technicalities of electronic voting or managing e-mail deluges.

This Civil Society Model approach is premised on a particular view of democracy, namely that it is more than a mechanism for determining government. Rather, the term implies genuine opportunities for popular participation; open and accountable government; broad input into policy debate; and an informed and critical public. All of these are contrary to the historic nature of the British establishment system of government which has been behind closed doors. In this the Internet is changing the face of the establishment system of government in the United Kingdom.

Democracy is thus enhanced and the system evolved when people are informed about issues, when there is a high level of public debate, when residents organize in support of their positions, and when citizens evaluate public officials and then hold them accountable for the effects of their decisions.

Taking this theoretical and philosophical framework into consideration is important when looking at the 1997 General Elections in the United Kingdom which were held on 1 May 1997. These elections were unique in that it was the first time in 20 years that the Conservative Party (Tories) would not be in power. The Tories had taken the country through two major military conflicts, the end of the Cold War and into an age of global openness for the man in the street. Satellite and cable television, broadcast on a global basis to the most remote and oppressed populations was not an accepted media in 1979. In 1997 it is as common as making a pot of tea. In 1979 the desk-top computer was unheard of outside of sophisticated computer laboratories. By the 1997 elections all of these were an integral part of any political parties campaign planning and implementation. Each media was conveyed over a different technological platform to a different sector of the population but with the same political message.

Despite this uniqueness there was a failure to consider the special needs of the Internet electorate where the public relations and media planners of the political parties did not even attempt to ascertain the different needs of each sector of the electronic population in order to plan a more cohesive winning campaign. The same format of information for example that was available on television broadcasts was made available over the Internet. In some cases this was as transcripts of those broadcasts and in some cases this was as the actual audio-visual files in down-loadable formats. There was no attempt to apply different marketing techniques ! This laziness on the part of the political parties could well have effect on the future role of the Internet in the next set of local and general elections in the United Kingdom.

So where did it all begin and why was there such a failure at political party level to capture the growing Internet market of the electorate and to change the nature of the traditional establishment system of government ? Why has the Internet not been successful in the British traditional establishment system of government for election purposes ?

To start off one needs to understand the significance of the party verse the individual constituency candidate in the United Kingdom. For this a brief divergence is necessary to understand the Traditional Establishment System of British Government. The United Kingdom votes on a constituency basis for the House of Commons. The other House being the House of Lords which has members through hereditary or through appointment for life peerage. General election campaigns are therefore only for the House of Commons. The Internet has therefore no role for the House of Lords or the Monarchy, other than as an advertisement where a single tabloid article against either of these can destroy years of Radio, TV and Internet good will. The difference between the two Houses of Parliament is also significant as each have different functions on a daily basis. The House of Commons is devoted mainly to the monetary functions of the state. The House of Lords is concerned with other functions such as the judiciary. The Executive of the Government comes from the House of Commons and decides inter-alia foreign and defence policy. This is significant for at present it is the more affluent and the white collar votes and citizens who have access to the Internet.

This is very significant for the both the local and the general election campaigns are very much an issue of economics. Much of the twentieth century has seen elections won and lost on issues of the allocation of the budget to health, education and the level of taxation and employment. It is extremely rare to have any matter of defence or foreign policy as a major campaign issue. The campaigns for the House of Commons, every five years, have a national basis of party manifestos and a local basis of individuals running for each constituency. The majority of constituencies won by a political party or coalition thereof is asked by the Monarch to form the Government. The winning party therefore provides the Cabinet which is the Executive of the Government. The Prime Minister is an elected member of the House of Commons from the winning party.

The traditional use of all media has therefore been diversified in election campaigns by political parties. The national media provide the party political platform concentrating on the party leaders and the ideological basis of that parties existence. This as mentioned is on the party platform with emphasis on the concerns of the electorate which is predominately monetary issues. The local media concentrate on individual candidates for each constituency, sometimes with less emphasis on which party the candidate belongs to as they do not have to be affiliated with any political party. The local election campaign is often seen as "who is the better chap for the job" while the national campaign is seen as "do we want socialists or capitalists and how much is beer and cigarette going to cost us". The Internet crosses the boundary in theoretically being able to aim both at the constituency and at the party level of campaigning. In practise however the 1997 experience has shown that its value is to concentrate at the Party level where the Political Parties in 1997 failed to do so successfully.

Having noted all of the above I feel that it is also important to note the lessons of the 1997 elections for the future role of the Internet in a traditional system of government such as Britain compared to Radio and TV in a comparison of technical terms. Radio and TV are passive forms of media for both local and national campaigning. The voter is presented with information as determined by the TV or Radio programme scheduler, script writer and producer. There is subjective bias in this information. In many cases this is due to the availability of information rather than the personnel opinion of the TV and Radio presenters. Newspapers and the Internet are active forms of media for both local and national campaigning. They are active in that the voter has to actively seek the information and is more concentrated when reading that information. Newspapers are very politically aligned. A voter who buys The Telegraph will get a very Conservative Party outlook. To get all views the electorate will have to buy all newspapers, which he is normally hesitant to do. This is the value of the Internet. Each political party on the national level and each constituency candidate on the local level can provide their own views and political agenda where the voter can actively compare them without intermediatory opinion and editing and for a very nominal fee that he is already paying for his Internet access for other purposes.

Despite this active and comprehensive availability of the Internet for the political parties, it is a one way street for the local constituencies. There is no evidence to suggest that Internet discussion groups will ever replace the local pub banter over who is the better chap to be an M.P. Drinking cans of beer in front of a computer instead of taking the dog for a walk would definitely be a significant social and cultural change but unlikely to ever happen.

Before diving into the deep end of the English Channel to show just how far the political parties in the 1997 election failed to change the nature of the establishment system of government when they could have done so, I must stress that there are major differences between educational use of the Internet, Government use of the Internet, and private use of the Internet wether it be my private citizens, the media or the non-governmental lobby groups and interest concerns such as UKOCD).

The focus of this paper is on the traditional establishment of government and does not consider anything but that. The highpoint of this traditional establishment system of government are the general elections held every five years and the lines of communication between Government and the citizen between elections. There is no dispute that the Internet will continue to play a very important role in providing the citizen with more information about the role of Government agencies between elections. As there is no dispute over this I will focus on the aspect where there is contention. I contest that the Internet has had minimal and will continue to have minimal role in general or even local elections in a traditional establishment system of government such as the United Kingdom.

Turning to the 1 May 1997 elections, it was the senior politicians in each party spurred by younger advisers who had become familiarised with the Internet and other computer networks during University days that turned the Internet into a key consideration but implementation failure for Political Party election purposes. This was from up to down. It was not a population or electorate generated move though the politicians were not even aware of this. The politicians assumed many issues without full research or investigation. Before the elections and the campaign over the Internet there was no information available on who in the electorate would access the Internet.

There was no evaluation by any political party to ascertain wether or not Internet election campaigning as part of a Civil Society Model was even relevant and who could be influenced by such campaigning. It was a matter of perceptions in the minds of a few members of each of the Political Parties strengthened by public statements to convince themselves and each other. This pre-election failure to evaluate the overall value of the Internet during an election campaign only became apparent after the election results came through when studies showed that the impact of the Internet was minimal on overall voting behaviour, where no effective electronic democracy emerged, or is likely to emerge in this traditional establishment system of government. This failure has now been compounded where the political echelons of the new Government have been slow to implement, but quick to talk, about new uses of electronic communication between Government and the population via the Internet.

The 1997 elections therefore have shown that political parties have failed to use the Internet to provide anything further than other media such as TV, Radio, newspapers or door-to-door canvassing. At best the Internet can only duplicate these media for a very select audience and for a very short time. Whereas radio and TV can be repetitive in political broadcasts, the Internet cannot. The political parties failed to ascertain that the average Internet user demands new information and innovative designs of that information to catch his attention on an "every connection to that website basis". To this extent the political parties failed to understand that you cannot bombard a citizen with e-mail saying "vote labour" or "vote conservative" in the manner in which you can over television. There is no sub-conscious awareness element in the Internet. The internet user merely deletes the e-mail message as "trash". Similarly access to Web sites is by an active act of the Internet user. An already viewed Website is boring !

Despite this immediate and long-term failure for the Civil Society Model of democracy, an important outcome from the use of the Internet for British elections has been to further those intangible goals of democracy and promoting the country and its values. The election campaign over the Internet has globalised these elections to an audience outside of the national boundaries. In the traditional establishment system of government prevalent in Britain this is important for citizens of the Commonwealth, British protectorates and the European Union are all eligible to vote after meeting certain residency and other requirements. As such the Internet could play a major role in future elections in conveying information to this eligible electorate who do not have access to local radio, TV and newspapers in their domicile, albeit temporary, outside of the United Kingdom.

Turning to the statistical specifics of how the Internet entered the election fray and why it failed, finds us at the feet of Tony Blair of the Labour Party who first tried to introduce an Americanization by pronouncing the Information Super Highway into the election campaign. It was clear from the onset that this was rhetoric for he was not aware that British Universities were already using it for over 20 years where London medical schools for example were having live audio-visual and data broadcasts on a daily basis since 1992. In addition Government Agencies had an established Web presence for the distribution of information with a complex organisation of e-mail communication. To make matters worse the Labour Parties electronic campaign got off to a bad start when security on its Internet site was breached by a hacker who embarrassingly re-wrote bits of the party's agenda.

Despite this a process ensued where the Blair's rhetoric was picked up by the established media in the hope that this new form of communication known as the Internet would bring about an electronic democracy, unknown to the British establishment system of government. TV stations, radio networks and newspapers all established Web sites for the 6 weeks prior to the election and on election night itself. at the time and in hindsight it was clear that the media was making better use of the Internet than did the political parties.

The Financial Times (FT) for example provided a different set of information and format to its printed newspaper. This was the same with the Television networks such as the BBC and ITN. Even CNN had a section of its Web site devoted to the British elections. This separation of information became crucial considerations for the media in their coverage of the elections without distracting from the normal content of the printed newspaper. The FT for example provided a full Web site with "letters to the editor and his editorial teams responses" where a lively debate ensued albeit with only 12 citizens out of a population of over 50 million. The FT newspaper coverage in print was confined to a few short articles followed by election results in its normal style of financial rather than domestic political coverage. Other newspapers which were more politically allied used less Web coverage and more printed coverage such as the Telegraph. It was clear that the media knew who was reading the print, watching the TV. listening to the radio and had Internet access. The market had been well surveyed and was being catered for. The media thus made full use of the new technology even though each and every political party floundered to the electronic electorates specific needs.

In this the 1997 election has proved to be a watershed in the development of the Web in Britain. The election has proved that the Web is a medium in its own right with its own unique characteristics and strengths. What other medium has made it so easy, for example, to compare the parties policies on any given topic. What other medium is capable of providing the immediacy of television, the depth of analysis of print and the intimacy of radio ?

The Web's interactivity was exploited to the full by the media: readers were invited to vote on the key election issues and got instant gratification from dynamically updated databases which fed back the new voting picture as soon as they lodged their vote. If the figures are to be believed there was an online audience of over a million during the election night itself, of which some 80% were within the UK. Of these 45.8 % in the age group 21-30, over 50% were graduates, 80% were male, over 50% have a household income of 20000 or more. In terms of occupations 36% were in education, 31% in computing, 16% professionals, and 11% in management. Around 47% have Internet access paid for by the employer (compared with the USA which has 27%).

This reflected a very specific part of the population and an even more specific section of those eligible to vote, which was not taken into consideration by the political parties in their election campaign preparations. In hindsight after the elections it appears from research that even if the political parties had taken this into consideration, it would not have made a considerable difference on the voting patterns in any of the constituencies. No M.P. would have lost or gained a seat from an Internet campaign. No political party would have gained or lost any significant public standing from an Internet campaign ! The establishment system of government is too well rooted as is its campaigning methods and those of the established media's techniques of reporting and influencing. Short of abolishing all other media and means of communication the Internet can only hope to supplement but not replace and only play a small role. This could have been other, had the political parties, evaluated and implemented their campaigns better.

Despite this the medium of the Internet is still a fruitful one for evaluating potential changes to the establishment system of government and the role of the established media. An important factor in comparing the Internet to other established media during the election campaign was public reaction. The wider public were critical of the Web and certain technical problems, like inability access to a server during peak demand. They compared the Web to television, radio and newspaper and expected the same level of performance. An acceptable explanation for this was that most of the public that used the Internet were too young to know that in the early days television too was plagued with technical difficulties.

Despite this high intensity use of the Web, within one month of the election results, none of the media nor the political parties continued to maintain an updated election or party web page and it is currently difficult to obtain any of the information provided made by them during the campaign. There is a total lack of archival professionalism that is prevalent in other types of media such as Television.

Let me put this all in perspective of facts and figures with reference to the Political Parties so that we can ascertain just what was the influence of the Internet on the electorate and the electorate on the political parties and election results, in comparison to other "Images of Politics" such as television. The 1997 British elections held on 1 May this year, was the first time that each political party provided a full Web site with e-mail contact points. The number of candidates that provided this type of election campaign were in the minority. My statistics are based on prominent profiles. It is of no value to have an e-mail address or web site who no-one knows about. So there were 18 Conservative M.P.s with e-mail addresses, 19 Labour M.P.s with e-mail addresses, 14 Liberal Democrat M.P.s, and three Scottish National Party M.P.s with e-mail addresses. There was only one MP with a fully fledged Web Site. This was Anne Campbell, Labour Candidate for Cambridge. The House of Commons has 650 M.P.s. The free flow of political parties information was therefore minimal in comparison to newspapers, radio, tv and door to door canvassing.

In concluding I can say that the lessons learnt from the 1997 British elections can be applicable within the next 2 years or so for other countries but are unlikely to be useful in a British election in 5 years time. Information technology reinvents itself with ever-increasing frequency. Each new technology comes with a lavish claim. About ever 18 months the Internet or the perceptions of users of the Internet completely reinvents itself. By the time of the next elections expected in 2002 electronic communication may have changed dramatically as might the other established media.

Another important consideration is to evaluate how technology alters expectations in subtle ways. In a traditional establishment system of Government such as Britain the population are used to a particular manner in which the election candidates and the subsequently elected Members of Parliament, interact with the population. The population have a certain trust and are in fact happy not to know on a daily basis what the elected Cabinet are doing. Push technology has changed this by informing a segment of the population that value the electronic medium but scorn the tabloid press. The electronic medium has stooped to the level of information coverage in content and quality similar to that of the tabloid press. In this there may be an adverse and reverse reaction to the Internet for election purposes as it may swing the vote against instead of for.

In my opinion with reference to the all important Civil Society Model mentioned at the start of this paper, the future holds more water in local government than national government and definitely not during elections. Several local councils in the United Kingdom have set up Web sites, not only to what is going on in their areas but also to stimulate political interaction. Local authorities now invite online suggestions and comments on the management of their budgets, what services people want to be provided and what they would be willing to pay for them. This has prompted a response by their opponents. For example, the Labour-controlled London Borough of Croydon invited such comments last year and had more than 100 e-mail responses. It was criticised by the deputy leader of the local Conservative opposition, Mr Andrew Pelling, for "presenting the subject in a slanted way". He says the council gave too little detail of its tax plans and blamed central government for giving it an unfairly low grant - so he set up his own web page "to put the other side of the story."

This then is the Teledemocracy in the style of the Greek Polis which encourages a participatory style of government by accommodating the voters' personal concerns in much the same way the personal views of Athenians were addressed. In theory it would be nice if this would work, but with today's population it's impossible for all citizens to have a voice in every issue as they would by casting a vote in a national general election for an established system of government.

1. _{Glen Segell has just completed a major "Drugs Directory", working with Alain Cass, former News Editor of the FT. He has authored thirteen other academic books covering a wide range of topics including Economics and Politics, The Internet, War and Military History, International Relations, Civil-Military Relations and Military-Industrial Relations. He is currently in the final stages of a novel on the London Pub scene having worked for ten months undercover to gain source material. He is on the Editorial Board of the Electronic Journal of Conflict Analysis, a member of the Council for Arms Control, British International Studies Association, International Studies Association and the Society of Authors. He is also an Internet Discussion Moderator for JANET/UKERNA at MAILBASE while compiling a wide range of listings on sources for studying politics, history, defence and military affairs with colleagues at The Bod Oxford and at Cambridge. Glen Segell received his education at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Hebrew University Jerusalem and King's College London. He has held teaching positions at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Hebrew University Jerusalem and the Department of Politics, University of Reading. He has also held research positions at the Institute of Historical Research, the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College London, University of London.}