e-participation

The term "e-participation" originated in the early 2000s and draws generally on three developments.

1. The general development in CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) and groupware directed towards collaborative environments to support human ICT-mediated interaction, both work-related and social.
2. Developments in e-democracy since the late 1990s, where interest rapidly evolved from e-voting to several forms of ICT-supported and -enabled interaction between governments and citizens, including not only direct ones (such as consultations, lobbying, petitioning and polling) but also ones pursued outside of government itself, including electioneering, campaigning, and community informatics. To a large extent, the institutional framework conditions of the chosen democratic model define at which part of the democratic processes participation is permitted (such as direct or representative democracy, or any intermediate forms).[4]
3. The development in e-government towards increasingly complex service-delivery. Complex services require considerable interaction including searching, selecting options based on multiple criteria, calculating outcomes, notifications, inquiries, complaints, and many other activities. There are several ICT tools for such tasks, ranging from FAQs to call centres, but there is a need to coordinate all these into user-friendly but powerful toolsets for client-organization encounters. Because interaction in such contexts is complex, and because goals have to be reached, the arenas where it takes places become social arenas for ICT-supported participation.

The term 'participation' means taking part in joint activities for the purpose of reaching a common goal. This encompasses both trivial situations in which participation mainly has a technical meaning, ”doing things together”. For example, a football team needs 11 players, and dancing often requires two or more people acting in a coordinated manner. But participation, even in trivial situations, also has a goal-oriented aspect which means decision making and control are involved. Participation in political science and theory of management refers to direct public participation in political, economical or management decisions. The two are not completely separated but belong on a spectrum of complexity and context. When participation becomes complicated, decision making becomes necessary. Hence, any participatory process is potentially important for the rule system governing the activities. In terms of points 2 and 3 above, this means that when service processes become complex, the implementation of them will not be in all details based on political decisions but also on what is found to be practical.

Instead of taking in and accepting knowledge as is disseminated by the media and government, by participating, one becomes an active citizen and further contributes to a democratic society.[5] When such practical doings become implemented in government (e)service systems, they will affect decision making, as many changes will later be hard to make simply because existing procedures are implemented in ICT systems and government agencies’ procedures. There are many theories dealing with institutionalization, for example structuration theory, institutional theory, and actor-network theory. These theories all, in different ways, deal with how "ways of doing things" become established or rejected, and how those that become established increasingly affect the ways we "normally" do things. Alternatively, when viewed from the citizen’s perspective the capability approach is being applied to understand the “beings and doings” of individuals. This approach allows institutions to identify normative capabilities that can improve citizen’s opportunities to participate in the governance process.[6]

A number of tools and models have emerged as part of Web 2.0 that can be used or inspire the design of architecture for e-participation. In particular, "the emergence of online communities oriented toward the creation of useful products suggests that it may be possible to design socially mediating technology that support public-government collaborations" (Kriplean et al. 2009).

• Clift, Steven (2003), Exploiting the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies, retrieved 2009-03-17
• Fraser, C.; et al. (2006), DEMO_net: Demo_net Deliverable 5.1: Report on current ICTs to enable participation, archived from the original on 2008-12-11, retrieved 2009-03-17
• Huffman, B. (2017). "E-Participation in the Philippines: A Capabilities Approach to Socially Inclusive Governance". JeDEM - eJournal of EDemocracy and Open Government. 9 (2): 24–46. doi:10.29379/jedem.v9i2.461. ISSN 2075-9517.
• Kriplean, T.; Beschastnikh, I.; Borning, A.; McDonald, D. W.; Zachry, M. (2009), "Designing Mediating Spaces Between Citizens and Government" (PDF), Socially Mediating Technologies Workshop at the ACM 2009 SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'09)
• Macintosh, A. (2004), "Characterizing E-Participation in Policy-Making", In the Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-37), January 5 – 8, 2004, Big Island, Hawaii., CiteSeerX 10.1.1.98.6150
• Charalabidis, Y.; Koussouris, S.; Kipenis, L. (2009), Report on the Objectives, Structure and Status of eParticipation Initiative Projects in the European Union, archived from the original on 2011-10-05, retrieved 2010-01-18

• Democracies Online Newswire