E-government mechanisms to enhance the participation of citizens and society: Exploratory analysis through the dimension of municipalities

Abstract

The use of information technologies has been a window of opportunity for local governments to increase initiatives and instruments for citizen participation and interaction with society. The electronic interaction of municipalities with citizens may be different depending on the municipality. The objective of this study is to explore how the dimension of Portuguese municipalities can explain the implementation of participatory processes and channels through e-government initiatives to improve participation and interaction with society. Based on the analysis of the municipal information and interaction indexes, our results show that municipalities are increasingly committed to developing online initiatives for citizen participation in a significant way over the years, with the largest municipalities being the ones that implement the most mechanisms. The influence of population size occurs both for information dissemination and for the implementation of citizen participation mechanisms. This result is consistent with stakeholder theory and political cost theory.This paper contributes to the literature by offering a characterization of the municipalities and the mechanisms carried out to implement citizen participation and interaction initiatives according to the size of the municipality. It claims that policy makers need to pay attention to the capabilities of e-governments tools to better facilitate the e-participation process and provide the necessary channels to get citizens’ feedback.