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Parliamentary Affairs Advance Access originally published online on March 8, 2006
Parliamentary Affairs 2006 59(2):360-365; doi:10.1093/pa/gsl007
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© The Author [2006]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government; all rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Parliament, Elected Representatives and Technology 1997–2005—Good in Parts?

Richard Allan

Richard Allan is the former MP for Sheffield Hallam (1997–2005) and Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

PARLIAMENT and elected representatives have often been accused of reacting slowly to the development of new media technologies. This article provides a brief assessment of the adaptation of the Westminster Parliament and parliamentarians to new technologies from the point of view of a political practitioner who served as a UK elected representative between 1997 and 2005. Whilst it is descriptive and personal, it provides an insider perspective on the impact of information communication technologies (ICTs) on political institutions. In particular, the analysis assesses some of the restraints and pressures on Parliament and Members of Parliament (MPs) which help explain the relatively slow response of political representatives.


   Elected representatives and the function of IT
 
Information technology (IT) has had an important and growing impact on the work of elected representatives over recent years whether or not they see themselves as interested in ‘eDemocracy’. We can divide the use of ICTs into a number of functional categories.

  1. Office Automation. . . [Full Text of this Article]


   Contextual restraints on IT
 
EVERY MEMBER IS THE BOSS.
SALL MEMBERS ARE EQUAL AND NONE SHOULD BE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.
PARLIAMENT IS DETERMINEDLY NON-PARTISAN, MPS ARE NOT.
GEEKS WITH WHITE HATS.
GEOGRAPHY—ALIVE AND KICKING.

   Conclusions—putting it all together
 

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