Crowdsourcing in the Greek Parliament – Vouliwatch
Vouliwatch is an independent, non-profit initiative for open government, enhancing transparency and accountability and promoting democratic participation through digital technology. The Vouliwatch is among the 5 most popular platforms of political innovation internationally. Vouliwatch monitors, records, analyses and presents to you in an easy-to-understand way the bills and votes that take place in Parliament and informs you, in real time, about the parliamentary news.
More specifically the platform offers the following options to users:
- Public questioning (“Ask your MP/MEP”): In a moderated platform, citizens can publicly ask questions and receive public replies by MPs and MEPs. To prevent misuse of the platform, all citizen questions and politicians’ answers are crosschecked according to a published code of conduct that is aligned with the principles of open government ethics.
- Votewatch: This application allows users to monitor the voting behavior of each MP and provides detailed information on each bill put forward for voting.
- “Policy Monitor” (“compare party positions”): The Policy Monitor is a digital tool which allows our users to learn about and compare the positions of what the main political parties are on given issues. It also gives them the opportunity to comment on these positions and suggest different approaches.
Vouliwatch develops actions for transparency, open government and access to public information, in Greece and abroad, through information campaigns and lobbying of those in charge, as well as through participation in lectures, workshops and events.
The initiative represents crowdsourcing in public policy, which indirectly relates to ENTICING crowdsourcing, as it used for knowledge discovery and civic engagement. The platform can act as a technological enabler that can increase speed and ease of participation and ideally as a policy tool or a means of co-production.
This approach, also called ‘citizen sourcing’, is often used to accomplish large-scale tasks, find solutions for problems, or to gather information. Its potential as a problem-solving mechanism stems from the fact that both the original creator of the process of solving the problem and the participants in the process (citizens), have mutual and common benefits.
| Type of practice/case | National initiative, website |
| Language | English, Greek |
| Target | public, politicians, parliament members |
| Notes | Vouliwatch is the result of years of collaboration between a group of people who have worked in national and European policy organizations, communication and digital innovation. All members of the team believe in the power of new technologies and their connection to the functioning of parliaments, with the aim of improving the quality of legislative work through enhanced citizen participation. |
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