Abstract
Reflecting on the European Commissions stated aim to broaden democracy this paper examines the nature of e-participation and considers concepts of democracy and issues surrounding citizen participation in pubic affairs. The paper describes how citizens are engaging with government and with each other about policy related issues that concern them, using technology specially designed for the purpose. The paper describes a case study of electronic participation developed for the Environment Group of the Scottish Executive in Summer 2001. Using the empirical data from this study the paper explores best practice guidelines for governments who wish to engage citizens in policymaking. The difficult task of addressing the requirements of all stakeholders, i.e. government, civil society organizations (CSOs) and citizens in designing the technology is discussed. The use and moderation of the electronic tools over the engagement period is assessed. Finally, the paper considers how the use of electronic tools can be monitored and their impact on citizen participation and the decision-making of government be assessed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Barber, Benjamin. (1984). Strong democracy: Participatory politics for a new age. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Held, Anthony. (1996). Models of democracy. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
Fishkin, James S. (1995) The voice of the People. Public Opinion and Democracy. Yale University Press
Van Dijk, Jan ‘Models of Democracy and Concepts of Communication’. In Hacker, K.L and Jan van Dijk., (2000). (eds) Digital Democracy issues of theory and practice. Sage Publications
Coleman, Stephen. and Gøtze, John (2001) (2001). Bowling Together: Online public engagement in policy deliberation. Hansard Society and BT.
Becker, T. & Slaton, C. (2000). The Future of Teledemocracy. Westport, Conn. 2000. LC
Rheingold, H. (1993) The Virtual Community. Reading M.A. Addison and Wesley. Also see http://www.well.com/user/hlr/vcbook/vcbookintro.html (consulted February, 2002)
Tsagarousianou, Rosa. Tambini, Damian. & Bryan Cathy. (1998). (eds). Cyberdemocracy: Technology, cities and civic networks. London & New York: Routledge.
OECD (2001). Citizens as Partners: Information, consultation and public participation in policy-making: OECD.
Macintosh, A., Davenport, E., Malina, A.; and Whyte A.; Technology to Support Participatory Democracy; in Electronic Government: Design, Applications, And Management; edited by Åke Grönlund, Umeå University, Sweden; published by Idea Group Publishing January 2002; pp223–245.
Whyte A. and Macintosh A. Transparency and Teledemocracy: Issues from an ‘EConsultation.’ In Journal of Information Science. July 2001.
Wilhelm, A.G. (1999) Virtual Sounding Boards: how deliberative is online political discussion? In Hague, B.N. and Loader, B. (Eds) (1999) Digital Democracy: Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age. Routledge
Whyte, A. and Macintosh, A. ‘Analysis and Evaluation of e-consultations’; to appear in the e-Service Journal; Indiana University Press, 2002.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Macintosh, A., Smith, E. (2002). Citizen Participation in Public Affairs. In: Traunmüller, R., Lenk, K. (eds) Electronic Government. EGOV 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2456. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-46138-8_41
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-46138-8_41
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-44121-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46138-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive