Engagement and Participation: What the Public Want and How our Politicians Need to Respond

Fox, Ruth

doi:10.1093/pa/gsp027

Cited by 31 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…One important consideration is whether public engagement actually reflects parliament's work, or whether it develops as a parallel activity, both of which depend largely on how these activities are developed and the extent to which they are integrated with parliament's overall work. Whilst a wealth of studies have focused on the features of specific outputs of public engagement, such as new media and petitions (for example, Setälä and Grönlund, 2006;Dai and Norton, 2007;Carman, 2009Carman, , 2010Fox, 2009;Miller, 2009;Joshi and Rosenfield, 2013), we know little about the actual process of implementation of public engagement activities. And yet, the process of implementation can be as important for the suitability of a public engagement output, as it may shape its format and contents.…”

Section: The Implementation Of Public Engagement By Parliamentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And yet, public engagement is often seen as an important path towards r e s t o r i n g t r u s t a n d s t r e n g t h e n ing parliament's legitimacy (Fox, 2009) activities. We are still uncertain about the extent to which public engagement does result in raised levels of trust, 2 but for now we can understand how the decision-making processes that underpin parliamentary public engagement shape its outputs.…”

Section: The Implementation Of Public Engagement By Parliamentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

Leston‐Bandeira

2012

Parliamentary Affairs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Political disengagement and declining trust have become main areas of concern for parliaments in Europe, leading to a considerable reinforcement of public engagement activities. The European Parliament is a prime example of an institution where the need to strengthen the link with citizens became a key priority, in particular following the Lisbon Treaty's reinforcement of the parliament's powers and visibility. This article analyses the decision-making processes this Parliament has put in place to meet the public engagement agenda. It is mainly based on elite interviews with officials and representatives. We show that political will was key to move forward the public engagement agenda, and that new media has become a core element of this strategy.Key words: public engagement; trust in parliament; European Parliament; internet and parliament.Faced with rising levels of p o l i t i c a l d i s e n g a g e m e n t a n d a c c u s a t i o n s o f l a c k o f t r a n s p a r e n c y , parliaments across Europe have considerably reinforced their public engagement activities over the last decade, with many embedding this dimension into their overall strategies. As parliamentary public engagement has grown, the literature has started to analyse the effectiveness of the outputs produced by parliaments, such as petition systems or simply parliamentary websites. Namely, studies have assessed over a decade now the effectiveness of parliamentary websites as a public engagement tool, in the possibilities of information and interaction these offer (Norris, 2001;Trechsel et al, 2003;Setälä and Grönlund, 2006; Global Centre for ICT, 2008Griffith and Leston-Bandeira, 2012; J os hi and Ros enf i el d, 2013), with many more s t udi es f ocus i ng on t he effectiveness of individual MPs' websites (e.g. Zittel, 2003;Ward and Lusoli, 2005;Chappelet and Kilchenmann, 2006;Vicente-Merino, 2007;Francoli and Ward, 2008;Jackson, 2008). In this article we propose instead to analyse the processes in place that lead to the decisions behind public engagement outputs, such as a parliamentary website. Adopting the European Parliament as our case study, we explore the processes in place to support the development of public engagement and its inherent challenges. Whilst some of the literature has considered the structures in place to move forward the engagement agenda (Kelso, 2007;Leston-Bandeira, 2007b;De Rosa, 2009;Clark and Wilford, 2012; Walker 2012), we still need to understand better what processes lead to the development of public engagement, to ascertain who takes decisions regarding the format of public 2 engagement, the inherent challenges and what this can teach us in terms of developing effective public engagement. It is important in particular to identify the challenges in place to be able to set realistic expectations; but also to identify enablers of effective implementation of public engagement.Focusing on the output of a parliamentary website, we enquire into the decision-making process in place behind the decisions made ...

show abstract

Section: The Implementation Of Public Engagement By Parliamentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Implementation Of Public Engagement By Parliamentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

Leston‐Bandeira

2012

Parliamentary Affairs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Despite some recent tinkering, there is little to suggest that the process to petition the House of Commons is any less restrictive now than it was then. Indeed, the Hansard Society has recently observed that petitions to the UK parliament are governed by strict rules about wording and there is little sense that they result in any concrete action on the part of MPs (Fox 2009). In Australia, concerns that the rules governing petitioning could 'deter people from presenting their grievances to the House' (Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure 1999, p. 9), resulted in a decade-long process of review and reform.…”

Section: Fair and Accessible Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Hansard Society found that petitions are an important part of the democratic process and that a parliamentary petitions committee can provide a possible solution to citizen disengagement (Fox 2009). The Leader of the UK House of Commons has observed that 'one of the most effective features of the model of petitioning in the Scottish Parliament is the provisions [sic] for some petitioners to be able to give direct evidence to an appropriate committee' (Miller 2009, p. 173).…”

Section: Fair and Accessible Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, adequately resourced petitions systems can send out a positive symbol that parliament is interested in and receptive to the views of the people. One of the important aspects of the Scottish petitions process is that information about each petition is updated regularly on the website (Fox 2009). Such mechanisms can only be delivered where adequate resources are invested.…”

Section: Adequate Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Do Legislative Petitions Systems Enhance the Relationship between Parliament and Citizen?

Hough¹

2012

The Journal of Legislative Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite a long history, petitioning parliament is widely considered to be ineffective. With a view to enhancing their effectiveness, a number of legislatures have recently conducted reviews of their petitions systems. This article explores the outcomes of these reviews. It also considers the function of legislative petitions systems, what makes an effective system and, ultimately, what impact legislative petitions systems have on policy outcomes. In terms of their role, it is suggested that petitions systems perform three broad functions: providing a link between parliament and citizen; informing policy development and executive scrutiny; and, ultimately, affecting policy change. The extent to which existing petitions systems perform each of these functions varies considerably. The importance of petitioning extends beyond simply delivering requests made by individual petitioners and, regardless of the outcome of individual petitions, it is possible for a petitions system to enhance the relationship between parliament and citizen.

show abstract

Beyond Bureaucracy

Montargil¹,

Santos²

2017

Public Administration and Information Technology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Engagement and Participation: What the Public Want and How our Politicians Need to Respond

Cited by 31 publications

References 2 publications

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

Do Legislative Petitions Systems Enhance the Relationship between Parliament and Citizen?

Beyond Bureaucracy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About