Abstract
e-participation enables citizens’ voices to be heard more clearly and frequently, but does not self-implement. Strategies should be planned, models should be followed, the public actor should encourage administrative and political changes. In this paper the well established OECD levels of engagement (information, consultation, public participation) are described, with reference to enabling digital technologies: a need of trustworthy intermediaries emerges. This conceptual framework drives the presentation of some experiences that recently took place in the city of Genoa, highlighting the emerging role of the university as a democratic intermediary.
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To echo the Not In My Back Yard syndrome.
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Mary Kaldor, Opening Speech World Forum for Democracy, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, November 2013.
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This is not dissimilar from a participatory process in presence, taking place in areas which are difficult to reach by citizens; in this case it would be possible to introduce the idea of a physical divide for in presence participatory processes.
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The conventional symbols (e.g. emoticons) used to substitute for this deficiency have limited efficacy compared to non-verbal communication in presence.
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Let us recall for example the early initiative on road safety held in Milan in 2008 (http://www.sicurezzastradale.partecipami.it), the Internet Reporting System launched in Venice in May 2008 (http://iris.comune.venezia.it) which collected since then 20392 reports, and the experience of Udine (http://www.epart.it/udine) based on the custom technology ePart for urban maintenance, well integrated in the website of the municipality.
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The University of Genoa, with he help of the Civic Informatics Laboratory of the University of Milan and of the RCM Foundation.
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http://www.comunaligenova2012.it, now archived at http://comunaligenova2012.opendcn.org/.
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From the administrative point of view, the city of Genoa is divided into nine municipalities, each one corresponding to a different area in the town.
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Ribaudo, M., Torrigiani, C., De Cindio, F., Palumbo, M. (2016). The University in the Polis: An Emerging Role of Democratic Intermediary in e-Participation?. In: Torre, T., Braccini, A., Spinelli, R. (eds) Empowering Organizations. Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23784-8_6
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