E-participation: A Quick Overview of Recent Qualitative Trends

Abstract

This paper briefly takes stock of two decades of e-participation initiatives based on a limited review of the academic literature. The purpose of the paper is to complement the results of the e-government Survey 2020. As such, the emphasis is on aspects that the e-government survey (based on analysis of e-government portals and on quantitative indicators) does not capture directly. Among those are the challenges faced by e-participation initiatives and key areas of attention for governments. The paper maps the field of e-participation and related activities, as well as its relationships with other governance concepts. Areas of recent development in terms of e-participation applications are briefly reviewed. The paper selectively highlights conclusions from the literature on different participation tools, as well as a list of key problematic areas for policy makers. The paper concludes that while e-participation platforms using new technologies have spread rapidly in developed countries in the first decade of the 2000s and in developing countries during the last 10 years, it is not clear that their multiplication has translated into broader or deeper citizen participation. Beyond reasons related to technology access and digital skills, factors such as lack of understanding of citizens' motivations to participate and the reluctance of public institutions to genuinely share agenda setting and decision-making power seem to play an important role in the observed limited progress.

Partizipation im digitalen Staat: Möglichkeiten und Bedeutung digitaler und analoger Partizipationsinstrumente im Vergleich

“…Weiter sehen Kakabadse et al (2003) in elektronischen Partizipationsverfahren die Chance, möglichst viele Leute gleichzeitig einzubeziehen, da Orts-und Zeitabhängigkeiten überwunden werden. Gleichzeitig wird jedoch auch auf den möglichen Ausschluss von Menschen ohne Internetzugang als Risiko hingewiesen (Kakabadse et al 2003;Le Blanc 2020;Mossberger et al 2008;Steinbach et al 2019).…”

Utilising Urban Gamification for Sustainable Crime Prevention in Public Spaces: A Citizen Participation Model for Designing Against Vandalism

“…3) Moreover, what makes digital participation more tempting than traditional participation is synchronization and transparency attribute. An example for that is e-voting (electronic voting) which is considered as a more convenient way to vote compared to traditional ballots [13].…”

“…However, urban gamification refers to the type of gamification that takes place in urban spaces. Urban gamification is believed to be a motivating citizen participation strategy that let individuals and citizens participate wherever they are and whenever they have time, which makes it convenient for more citizens to participate [7,13].…”