E-participation Projects Research Articles

Implementing e-Participation in Africa: What Roles Can Public Officials Play?

A key question in e-participation is what roles public officials can play to harness the benefits of emerging technologies and practices, mitigate potential harms, and, ultimately, ensure more inclusive and effective public involvement in decision making. This article presents results from a desktop analysis of e-participation projects from the African continent to highlight the diversity of public official roles and associated skills and perspectives that would be relevant to e-participation implementation. The identified roles and activities range from legal specialists developing guidelines to comply with personal data protection legislation and stakeholder managers designing models of collaboration with commons-based platforms to communications officials learning how to moderate social media conversations and technology developers exploring new ways of verifying online identity.

Impact of AI Readiness and E-Participation Implementation of a Government on the Well-being of its Citizens

ABSTRACT: Many governments have failed to achieve the expected benefits of most e-participation projects, even though numerous ICT implementations have been implemented. Many such participatory projects initiated, funded, and deployed by the governments of developing countries and some projects of developed countries have not been able to maintain the positive momentum among the public as planned due to the lack of innovation. E-participation projects can range from providing citizens with important information to engaging citizens in decision-making processes using ICT-based tools and platforms. It can include activities from social media posts to online surveys and e-voting. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based intelligent systems can be used to achieve productivity to reach the expected goals of e-participation projects. Drawing from Technology Mediation Theory, the publicvalue perspective, and the literature on the use of AI in e-participation projects, this study explores the mediating effect of AI readiness of a government on the relationship between e-participation implementations of a nation and the well-being of its citizens. The mediating effect is further explored using three dimensions of human development: education, healthcare, and standard of living. This empirical study was performed using archived data from 72 countries. The results indicate that AI readiness positively influences the relationship between e-participation implementation and its citizens’ well-being. Subsequently, the theoretical and practical contributions and the future direction of this study are detailed in this paper .

On the use of citizen science in the agricultural sector

You The development and active introduction of computerized technology and information and communication technologies into the agrarian sphere contribute to the emergence of new forms of active e-participation and rural citizens in the socio-political processes of their regions. The article examines the concept of citizen science and theoretical approaches to assessing the effectiveness of e-participation projects. In the stack of smart agriculture tools and technologies, citizen science is an approach that has great potential as a tool that can provide timely and relevant data to improve the well-being of the agricultural sector, by keeping the entire population engaged and informed. The study will be of interest to government and business representatives involved in the development, implementation and improvement of existing information and communication technologies for socio-political participation of citizens.

E-participation on the local level – A census survey approach for researching its implementation

ABSTRACTResearch shows a gap regarding knowledge about the diffusion of e-participation projects actually implemented in local contexts. This study provides an approach that allows for collecting exhaustive data on e-participation projects for specific political units. It enables an analysis of its implementation over time and regarding explanatory factors. By applying the approach to a local unit with almost 400 municipalities, we discuss its opportunities and limitations. We present a feasible method to develop a quantitative data set of the diffusion of specific, implemented e-participation projects; however, its capacity to explain this process in detail is limited.

Affordances and effects of introducing social media within eParticipation—Findings from government‐initiated Indonesian project

AbstractIn this paper, we explore “LAPOR!,” a government‐developed social media project within a young democratic society. LAPOR! is a system for citizens to report various issues to the public and represents a novel example of a custom‐made tool by the Indonesian government. We examine the system's action potentials, constraining factors, and effects identified through the lenses of the technology affordances theory. LAPOR! introduces different affordances that influences citizens' level of engagement compared with mainstream social media. We contribute by fostering a better understanding of the development of custom‐made social media initiatives. Moreover, we contribute knowledge to the field by investigating eParticipation projects from emerging economies, such as Indonesia, a context that has not been thoroughly investigated.

Clustering of textual inputs in large eParticipation projects

eParticipation projects often comprise deliberation among participants, where proposals are collected, discussed and rated to be processed in further stages of the eParticipation. In the case of large-scale audiences, this initial stage involves mass-online deliberation (MOD), which has to cope with a potentially very large number of proposals advanced by the participants. To enable clustering, MOD rely on human- (i.e. participant)-based appraisals of proposals given in the course of the participation project. Based on these appraisals, this contribution then proposes a clustering algorithm that makes use of the whole set of the above individual ratings. (Dis-)approval ratings are first weighted by the indication of clarity, that is, the higher the clarity rating assigned by a person, the higher the weight with which the (dis)approval rating will enter the clustering.

Факторы повышения эффективности электронного участия граждан

Introduction. The paper presents the results of research based on the outcomes of literature review, regulatory framework and expert survey of regional government officials in Volgograd region as a part of the project “E-participation of citizens: Analysis of existing possibilities and prospects of development in Volgograd region” supported by the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation in 2016. Aims. The aim of the research is to reveal, explore, and to analyze factors influencing the efficiency of e-participation in order to evaluate the level of e-democracy development in Russia and Volgograd region and to elaborate recommendations enhancing communication between regional governments and citizens. To achieve these objectives the author utilized the following research methods: 1) literature review devoted to e-participation; 2) regulatory framework analysis; 3) expert survey of regional government officials involved into e-participation projects. Results. The study reveals and explores the following factors: amount and quality of e-participation services; regulatory framework, regarding e-participation; level of government’s transparency; bottom up communication between governments and citizens; citizens’ involvement in governance; citizens’ trust in government; level of knowledge of government officials dealing with e-participation. Conclusion. The research shows that local governments don’t use many e-participation tools to interact with citizens. The results of the expert survey show that the reasons for the insufficient level of e-participation in Volgograd region are low activity of citizens, complexity of e-services and insufficient transparency of local governments.

Democracy in the Digital Age: Digital Agora or Dystopia

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) affect democracy and the rule of law. Digitalisation has been perceived as a stimulus towards a more participative society or as support to decision making, but not without criticism. Authors draw on a legal review, case studies and quantitative survey data about citizens' view on transparency and participation in the German-speaking region to summarise selected discourses of democratisation via ICTs and the dominant critique. The paper concludes with an outlook on contemporary questions of digital democracy between the dialectic of protecting citizens' rights and citizen control. It is proposed that prospective e-participation projects will concentrate on processes of innovation and creativity as opposed to participation rates. Future investigations should evaluate the contexts in which a more data-driven, automated form of decision making could be supported and collect indicators for where to draw the line between the protection and control of citizens, including research on specific tools.

Democracy in the digital age: digital agora or dystopia

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) affect democracy and the rule of law. Digitalisation has been perceived as a stimulus towards a more participative society or as support to decision making, but not without criticism. Authors draw on a legal review, case studies and quantitative survey data about citizens' view on transparency and participation in the German-speaking region to summarise selected discourses of democratisation via ICTs and the dominant critique. The paper concludes with an outlook on contemporary questions of digital democracy between the dialectic of protecting citizens' rights and citizen control. It is proposed that prospective e-participation projects will concentrate on processes of innovation and creativity as opposed to participation rates. Future investigations should evaluate the contexts in which a more data-driven, automated form of decision making could be supported and collect indicators for where to draw the line between the protection and control of citizens, including research on specific tools.

Assessing e-Participation via user’s satisfaction measurement: the case of OurSpace platform

The field of e-Participation is expanding as many similar platforms have been created to elicit citizens’ opinions on political and social issues in modern democracies especially under political and economic crises. The development of the field has been supported by emerging web technologies such as social networking, data mining, sentiment analysis and collaborative systems. This paper presents a methodological framework to assess the main dimensions of an e-Participation system from the users’ perspective by measuring users’ satisfaction and highlighting its advantages and identifying its shortcomings in order to propose areas for improvement. The method refers to an e-Participation platform developed in the scope of the e-Participation project OurSpace. The evaluation framework of the project was realized through a questionnaire, suitably designed to be in line with the Whyte and Macintosh theory of three perspectives: social, technical and political. The assessment of the OurSpace platform was performed through the multi-criteria satisfaction analysis method. The method provided all satisfaction diagrams and indices so as to determine the users’ opinion about OurSpace e-Participation system and point out the needed actions towards improvement.

E-participation and enterprise architecture frameworks: An analysis

The success of innovative e-participation solutions depends heavily on the organizational planning and the incorporation of such initiatives into the different stages of the policy life-cycle. E-participation often demands to introduce new participation facilities into the traditional processes of policy formulation and decision making. Accommodating the various requirements from distinct perspectives calls for a holistic engineering approach for e-participation systems analysis and design. Enterprise Architectures (EA) have evolved in information systems research as an approach to give guidance in developing complex socio-technical systems. This paper analyzes the application of EA frameworks in the context of e-participation. Eparticipation domain and implementation models are investigated to identify crucial tasks and aspects in e-participation project development and implementation. Related to the tasks identified, two EA frameworks are analyzed: the Zachman Framework and TOGAF. We explain how EA frameworks can support the development and implementation of e-participation projects. Finally, the needs for a reference framework for e-participation are argued and a reference framework is presented.

YUTPA as a design tool for public participation

Engaging the public in decision-making processes is commonly accepted as an effective strategy for a better policy making, a better policy support and for narrowing the gap between government and the public. In today’s digitised society, participation via online media is becoming more important. But is this so-called e-participation being used optimally? Or is a better design possible? In my opinion, the answer to these questions is a ‘yes’. Despite numerous efforts in engaging the public with policy deliberation, the actual amount of participants remains low. In this article, I have used the YUTPA model (Nevejan 2009) to analyse some existing e-participation projects. Additionally, I derived ten characteristics of ‘play’ to make proposals for a more designerly e-participation approach.

Pathways and Obstacles to eParticipation at the European level

Since the early 2000's, the European Institutions have set up several eParticipation projects. These projects are embedded in different political strategies and are managed by different actors within the institutions. This leads to a wide variety of projects and prevents the European Union to develop a single and concerted strategy in terms of online participation.This paper intends to compare two different models of online consultation : the Commission consultations hosted on the site Your Voice in Europe, and the European Citizens' Consultation 2009. The paper tackles three main subjects : the institutional strategies which frame these sites; the actors that they mobilize; their main and collateral effects. The goal of this synthesis is to identify some key features that fit to the european context, in order to assess the possibilities of sustainability of such political experiments.

Making Sense of Gov 2.0 Strategies: “No Citizens, No Party”

One of the main factors contributing to the limited impact of eParticipation projects is the presence of a high level of social complexity that has been identified by Macintosh as one of the five challenges in the implementation of eParticipation practices. How to make sense of social complexity is still an open issue as well as the way governments can take benefit from the wealth of information that is already available on their constituencies’ collective behaviour. In this paper, we contend that the presence of a considerable variance in terms of political interests, educational level and technological skills makes it very difficult to design workable and effective systems to support participation. A modular strategy is then recommended requiring policy designers to make a step towards citizens rather than expecting the citizenry to move their content production activity onto the “official” spaces created for ad hoc participation.

E-Participation in the Legislative Process Lessons from Estonia for Enhancing Democratic Empowerment

This paper assesses the success of an innovative national e-participation project in Estonia. To carry out this task, the paper combines quantitative (aggregate user data, content analysis via tagging) and qualitative (individual user survey and interviews with public officials) data analysis. The analysis is conducted with two principal research objectives in mind. Firstly, to explain how e-participation has fared in Estonia, both in terms of citizen mobilization and government responses. The second goal is to evaluate a series of procedural and technological changes for enhancing e-participation. The Estonian case provides ample lessons for ensuring that e-participation in practice can better meet the expectations of users and government officials alike.

A study of e-participation projects in third-wave democracies

The most useful questions to ask about the relationship between new media and new democracies are empirical and contextual: can the internet, in specific places and instances, facilitate forms of participation that strengthen citizens' capacity for collective action and political influence? To answer this question, we compiled an inventory of 79 e-democracy projects initiated within 'third-wave' democracies. From these, six were selected as subjects for descriptive case studies. The projects examined had a range of objectives, but all had in common the aim of using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to mediate between established governmental power and the public.

Engaging youth through deliberative e-participation: a case study

The Austrian e-participation project mitmachen.at - move your future, looked at young people involved in an online public discussion. Results from this case study show that there is interest in online deliberation and is a method of participation which is both accepted and will be used by young people. The participants expressed optimism: they want this form of participation to be made possible and results to be made available to politicians. Their criticism and feedback must be used both to improve the services offered and motivate citizens to take an interest in political and civic issues.

A survey of e-participation research projects in the European Union

The introduction of Information and Communication Technologies in the field of public participation has led to the emergence of electronic participation (e-participation). The field of e-participation is rapidly evolving and is characterised by an increasing number of related projects and tools. In this paper we survey e-participation projects financially supported by the European Commission under relevant calls for proposals, i.e., within FP5, FP6, eTen, Interreg and the Preparatory Actions 2006. Our results reveal the total investment in e-participation, the main areas of research, as well as the primary technologies and tools in use within these projects.

Participative Deliberation and Policy Proposals on Government Websites in Korea: Analysis From a Habermasian Public Deliberation Model

This paper investigates whether eParticipation projects in Korean government websites lead to meaningful participation in terms of the level of deliberative quality and influence on the government policy-making processes, as compared to Habermasian ideas of the TCA/ISS (Theory of Communicative Action/ Ideal Speech Situation) and Communicative Power (CP). For this study, two eParticipation programmes from the Kukmin Chamyao Madang (KCM: Citizen Participatory Space) are chosen to investigate the internal process of eParticipation practices with regards to the deliberative quality and the impact on actual policy-making. The conclusion examines whether the internal process and nature of eParticipation complies with the Habermasian public deliberation model.