e-Participation: Promoting Dialogue and Deliberation between Institutions and Civil Society

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are increasingly becoming more pervasive of peoples lives, both for individual and collective usage. Hence, it becomes tempting to develop electronic tools that can constitute alternatives to enhance citizenship, in particular tools that can be used in the context of societal debates of public policies. This report explores the conditions to deploying electronic based public participation methodologies and online ICT based participatory processes within public policy processes. It reflects on the challenges, promises and motivations of using ICT to promote dialogue and deliberation among institutions and the civil society. It consists in part of a revision of the techniques and tools commonly used in electronic public participation processes, referring to case studies where these techniques and tools were employed. Special attention was given to cases where the outcome from the public participation process supported a decision process. The conditions of deployment of e-participation processes in public policy formulation were framed within the concept of quality, specifically in the concept of ¿fitness for purpose¿. An electronic tool was designed and implemented, not only featuring dialogue components, but also collaborative ones, as response to some of the identified challenges. Based on the review of e-participation tools and the preliminary usage of the tool developed, a protocol for quality assurance of e-participation tools is offered.JRC.G.9-Econometrics and statistical support to antifrau

‘Probing with the prototype’:using a prototype e-participation platform as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth engagement with the environment

This study describes how we used a prototype e-participation plat-form as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth motivation and engagement strategies. This is a novel way of considering digital cultural probes which can contribute to the better creation of e-participation platforms. This probe has been conducted as part of the research project STEP which aims at creating an e-participation platform to engage young European Citizens in environmental decision making. Our probe technique has given an insight into the environ-mental issues concerning young people across Europe as well as possible strat-egies for encouraging participation. How the e-participation platform can be utilised to support youth engagement through opportunities for social interac-tion and leadership is discussed. This study leads to a better understanding of how young people can co-operate with each other to provide collective intelli-gence and how this knowledge could contribute to effective e-participation of young people

e-Participation in Austria: Trends and Public Policies

The paper is a first step to assess the status of e-participation within the political system in Austria. It takes a top-down perspective focusing on the policy framework related to citizens´ rights in the digital environment, the role of public participation and public policies on e-participation in Austria. The analysis of the development of e-participation in Austria as well as of social and political trends regarding civic participation in general and its electronic embedding, show a remarkable recent increase of e-participation projects and related initiatives. The paper identifies main institutional actors actively dealing with or promoting e-participation and reviews government initiatives as well as relevant policy documents specifically addressing and relating to e-participation or e-democracy. Finally, it takes a look at the state of the evaluation of e-participation. A major conclusion is that e-participation has become a subject of public policies in Austria; however, the recent upswing of supportive initiatives for public participation and e-participation goes together with ambivalent attitudes among politicians and administration towards e-participation.e-participation, e-democracy, citizens´ rights, institutional actors, public policies, government initiatives, evaluation

E-PARTICIPATION AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE: A CASE STUDY

Together with an extensive review of recent literature in the area of civic participation and drawing upon a series of interviews with citizens of a neighbourhood in a large city that experimented with the use of NICT and Internet in order to reinforce citizen’s participation and voice, this article offers an appraisal of the impact of such an experience. We particularly question whether in their enthusiasm for bringing the use of NICT into politics its advocates really look to increase citizen’s involvement in local policies by allowing them to participate in the outcomes of nearby public issues. A particular concern raised is that local authorities place much less weight on democratic underlying issues and place a high value on political marketing and in the control of technologies involved, expecting higher levels of citizens’ participation by means of a cosmetic exercise. This paper examines structural democratic local issues and uses a field experiment in the neighborhood of a large European city to examine the degree to which the use of Internet impacts local residents, the importance they place on NICT to participate in local issues, and the impact they have for enhancing local democracy and network governance.democracy, e-democracy, e-governance, local government, new information technology

The potential of integrating E-participation in planning support systems

The increasing complexity of spatial planning issues and pressure from citizens to takepart in designing and deciding on spatial plans result in a need for improved methods to aidcommunication between governmental actors and citizens. These developments put high demands onparticipatory Planning Support Systems (PSS); instruments that can aid planners in doing theirplanning tasks. By using the accessibility of the internet, e-participation offers opportunities as a PSS.Although many advantages are attributed to participatory PSS, its use in the planning practice remainsmarginal until now. It is argued here that this is partly caused by the lack of empirical studies thatdemonstrate potential benefits and problems when applying PSS. This paper provides guidelines fororganizations that contemplate on using a participatory PSS. In order to do so, a framework isdeveloped, identifying obstacles that could block effective participation in a PSS. Three planningprocesses are evaluated to investigate the importance of these obstacles. It is demonstrated that,although e-participation has potential as PSS, the lack of political will blocks effective participationand a more profound link between the citizen input and the decision-making is neede

E-Participation – a Collaborative Approach

In late 2016 we conducted a survey with citizens in the German-speaking region. The aim of the survey was to investigate the relationship between citizens and politics and to figure the possibility of an online participation tool out. Our research is based on an online survey in which we received 155 answers from different countries, constituting that interest in politics is based on living environment, age and municipality size. The survey further showed that today's landscape of participation tools and forms is not enough for modern standards. Time as limiting factor decreases the political engagement of citizens, another restricting factor is the political-party-system. Most citizens are not able to identify themselves with only one specific political party. For some decisions they follow the one on other issues they follow the other party. Vocita is a tool developed for political issues. Based on a surveytool its target is to connect citizens to their municipalities and to create a new form of engagement. By giving the people a voice Vocita aims to democratize the political system

Exploring the democratic potential of online social networking: The scope and limitations of e-participation

Copyright © 2012 by the Association for Information Systems.The availability and promise of social networking technologies with their perceived open philosophy has increasingly inspired citizens around the world to participate in political activity on the Web. Recent examples range from opposing public policies, such as government funding cuts, to organizing revolutionary social movements, such as those in the Middle East and North Africa. Although online spaces create remarkable opportunities for various forms of political action, there are concerns over the power of existing institutions to control and even censor such interaction spaces. The objective of this article is to draw together different insights on the online engagement phenomenon, highlighting both its potential and limitations as a mechanism for fostering democratic debate and influencing policy making. We examine recent examples from Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. Finally, we summarize the implications of our work and outline directions for further research

Citizens’ intention to use and recommend e-participation: Drawing upon UTAUT and citizen empowerment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how citizens’ perception of empowerment can influence the intention to use and intention to recommend e-participation. Design/methodology/approach A research model is evaluated using structural equation modelling. An online survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 210 users of e-participation. Findings The results show that psychological empowerment influences the intention to use and recommend e-participation. Performance expectancy and facilitating conditions were the strongest predictors of intention to use; effort expectancy and social influence had no significant effect on the prediction of intention to use e-participation. Research limitations/implications The use of psychological empowerment as a higher-order multidimensional construct is still insufficiently researched. Future research may explore the effect of each dimension of psychological empowerment in different scenarios of e-participation adoption. Caution is needed when generalising our findings towards the adoption of e-participation in different locations or with different participants. Practical implications The findings can help the local governments to design strategies for the promotion and diffusion of e-participation amongst the citizenry. Those strategies should focus on citizens’ perception of empowerment, thereby creating a positive attitude towards intention to use and recommend e-participation. Originality/value An innovative research model integrates the unified theory of acceptance, use of technology and psychological empowerment; the last as a higher-order construct

Electronic participation with a special reference to social media - a literature review

As a consequence of the interdisciplinary nature of Electronic Partici-pation (e-Participation), current research on the field is fragmented and scattered. The exciting blurry boundaries and the immature identity of the field are making difficult the understanding of the main domain themes being investigated, in par-ticular for “neophytes” researchers. In practice, several e-Participation initiatives often attract a wide audience but face serious limitations regarding involvement of those who attract. Recently, the potential of using social media to address cit-izens’ involvement deficit has been subject of academic debate. By consulting 44 e-Participation papers, considered highly relevant to the aforementioned chal-lenges, this paper produces a general overview of e-Participation research, par-ticularly through social media. The findings show that the e-Participation field still faces the challenge of identity and strive for gaining wider recognition as an independent research area. Concerning e-Participation through social media which seems to be partly overlooked in the field research, the politicians-citizen’s interaction has dominated scholars' attention and the adoption of such initiatives sponsored and driven by governments are rarely examine. Based on the findings, several research suggestions, which could play a significant contribution to advance future e-Participation research, are proposed