Promise And Problems Of E Democracy Challenges Of Online Citizen Engagement

This book highlights policy lessons in using ICTs to provide information, opportunities for consultation and public participation in policy-making. It includes numerous examples of current practice from 12 OECD member countries (Australia, Canada ...

"Thia book examines how e-government facilitates online public reporting, two-way communication and debate, online citizen participation in decision-making, and citizen satisfaction with e-governance"--Provided by publisher.

At last, a right up-to-the-minute volume on a topic of huge national and international importance. As governments around the world battle voter apathy, the need for new and modernized methods of involvement in the polity is becoming acute. This work provides information on advanced research and case studies that survey the field of digital government. Successful applications in a variety of government settings are delineated, while the authors also analyse the implications for current and future policy-making. Each chapter has been prepared and carefully edited within a structured format by a known expert on the individual topic.

This volume critically explores the contentions in the emerging debate surrounding new media technologies and the extent to which they are challenging traditional political and government models. Examining a range of citizen/government interactions which together form e-government in different contexts, this book assesses the potential of new media technologies to facilitate new institutional patterns for governance and participation, as experienced primarily, but not only, across Europe. Analysing a range of challenges spanning from those of a technological and conceptual nature to those of a more political and legal nature, the authors scrutinise the central policies at governmental and organisational levels and consider the following questions: Is society driving or responding to e-government and is it ready to cope with it? What implications does e-government have for the power/democracy relationship? Is the technology right for e-government? What is needed to ensure government services are delivered optimally? How is e-government perceived and is it trusted? How are the sensitive issues of identity, privacy and social inclusion dealt with? How are management and safety dealt with when one considers issues such as activism, cyberterrorism, biometrics, and new implications for international relations? This comprehensive text will be of interest to students and scholars of public policy, politics, media and communication studies, sociology, law and European studies. It will also offer insights of relevance to practitioners and policy-makers in regional, national, and transnational governance, reform and innovation.

The Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government (CeDEM) brings together experts from academia, public authorities, developers and practitioners. The CeDEM proceedings present the essence of academic and practical knowledge on e-democracy and open government. The reflections, the workshops and the PhD papers found in these proceedings reveal the newest developments, trends, tools and procedures, and show the many ways that these impact society and Democracy.

Creating transparency between government and citizens through outreach and engagement initiatives is critical to promoting community development and is also an essential part of a democratic society. This can be achieved through a number of methods including public policy, urban development, artistic endeavors, and digital platforms. Civic Engagement and Politics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a vital reference source that examines civic engagement practices in social, political, and non-political contexts. As the world is now undergoing a transformation, interdisciplinary collaboration, participation, community-based participatory research, partnerships, and co-creation have become more common than focused domains. Highlighting a range of topics such as social media and politics, civic activism, and public administration, this multi-volume book is geared toward government officials, leaders, practitioners, policymakers, academicians, and researchers interested in active citizen participation and politics.

This book examines EU Eastern Partnership taking into account geopolitical challenges of EU integration. It highlights reasons for limited success, such as systematic conflict of EU External Action. In addition, the book analyses country-specific issues and discusses EaP influence on them, investigating political, economic and social factors, while seeking for potential solutions to existing problems. The reluctance of the Eastern countries to the European reforms should not reduce political pro-activeness of the EU. The authors suggest that EaP strategies should be reviewed to be more reciprocal and not based solely on the EU-laden agenda. This book is one of the good examples of cooperation between scholars not only from EaP and EU countries, but also from different disciplines, bringing diversity to the discussion process.

Internet is starting to permeate politics much as it has previously revolutionised education, business or the arts. Thus, there is a growing interest in areas of e-government and, more recently, e-democracy. However, most attempts in this field have just envisioned standard political approaches facilitated by technology, like e-voting or e-debating. Alternatively, we could devise a more transforming strategy based on deploying web based group decision support tools and promote their use for public policy decision making. This book delineates how this approach could be implemented. It addresses foundations, basic methodologies, potential implementation and applications, together with a thorough discussion of the many challenging issues. This innovative text will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners in the fields of e-government, e-democracy and e-participation and research in decision analysis, negotiation analysis and group decision support.

The use of information and communication technologies to support public administrations, governments and decision makers has been recorded for more than 20 years and dubbed e-Government. Moving towards open governance roadmaps worldwide, electronic participation and citizen engagement stand out as a new domain, important both for decision makers and citizens; and over the last decade, there have been a variety of related pilot projects and innovative approaches. With contributions from leading researchers, Charalabidis and Koussouris provide the latest research findings such as theoretical foundations, principles, methodologies, architectures, technical frameworks, cases and lessons learnt within the domain of open, collaborative governance and online citizen engagement. The book is divided into three sections: Section one, “Public Policy Debate Foundations,” lays the foundations regarding processes and methods for scoping, planning, evaluating and transforming citizen engagement. The second section, “Information and Communication Technologies for Citizen Participation,” details practical approaches to designing and creating collaborative governance infrastructures and citizen participation for businesses and administrations. Lastly, the third section on “Future Research Directions of Open, Collaborative ICT-enabled Governance” provides a constructive critique of the developments in the past and presents prospects regarding future challenges and research directions. The book is mainly written for academic researchers and graduate students working in the computer, social, political and management sciences. Its audience includes researchers and practitioners in e-Governance, public administration officials, policy and decision makers at the local, national and international level engaged in the design and creation of policies and services, and ICT professionals engaged in e-Governance and policy modelling projects and solutions.