Abstract
This paper analyzes the award-winning e-participation initiative of the city council of Madrid, Decide Madrid, to identify the critical success factors and the main barriers that are conditioning its performance. An exploratory case study is used as a research technique, including desk research and semi-structured interviews. The analysis distinguishes contextual, organizational and individual level factors; it considers whether the factors or barriers are more related to the information and communication technology (ICT) component, public sector context or democratic participation; it also differentiates among the different stages of the development of the initiative. Results show that individual and organizational factors related to the public sector context and democratic participation are the most relevant success factors. The high expectations of citizens explain the high levels of participation in the initial stages of Decide Madrid. However, the lack of transparency and poor functioning of some of its participatory activities (organizational factors related to the ICT and democratic dimensions) are negatively affecting its performance. The software created for this platform, Consul, has been adopted or it is in the process of being implemented in more than 100 institutions in 33 countries. Therefore, the findings of this research can potentially be useful to improve the performance and sustainability of e-participation platforms worldwide.
Highlights
In the last few decades, the public sector has evolved from government to governance, a policy framework with high levels of cooperation with external stakeholders in both policy design and service delivery [1,2]
The analysis is carried out by taking three different approaches: (1) distinguishing among contextual, organizational and individual level factors; (2) considering whether they are more related to the information and communication technology (ICT) component, public sector context or democratic participation; and (3) differentiating among the different stages of development of the initiative
According to Politician 1, they focus on the number of users and participants, participation growth and impacts on the decisions of the city council
Summary
In the last few decades, the public sector has evolved from government to governance, a policy framework with high levels of cooperation with external stakeholders in both policy design and service delivery [1,2]. E-participation can be defined as the use of ICTs to involve citizens and other stakeholders in public decision-making processes and policy deliberation to make public administrations participatory, inclusive, collaborative and deliberative for intrinsic or instrumental ends [5]. Barriers to effective citizen participation include poor public knowledge of the issues treated, poor provision of information, poor execution of participatory methods, low adoption, the digital divide, lack of representativeness of participants, lack of political support, failure to influence the decision-making processes, regulatory constraints or the use of these tools for political propaganda [14,15,16,17,18]. Public administrations are often not clear about the objectives of these initiatives All of this can give rise to different types of tensions and conflicts, disappointment and reluctance to engage in future processes [19]. The analyses of e-participation platforms that allow different types of e-participation activities are testimonial [27]
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