Measuring the diffusion of eParticipation: A survey on Italian local government

Abstract

The use of ICT to enable citizen participation (eParticipation) is expanding, especially at the local level of government. But to what extent is this actually occurring, how can we reliably measure it and what are the variables that affect eParticipation adoption at the local level? This paper tackles these three questions by looking at the case of Italian local government. A data collection tool, validated by a group of experts, was proposed and used to conduct a survey on the official websites of 113 Italian local authorities. Findings from primary data show that, within a context of a low level, overall, of adoption of advanced participatory features, institutional background factors such as scale, socio-economic status and centre-left political orientation are positively associated with greater information and consultation features.