Citizens and Resource Allocation: Improving Decision Making with Interactive Web‐Based Citizen Participation

Abstract

is an associate professor in the Department of Public Policy at the University of Connecticut. His primary areas of research are government fi nance, budgeting, fi nancial management and the design and implementation of citizen preference revelation and citizen participation mechanisms.

Citizen Participation and Transparency in Local Government: Do Participation Channels and Policy Making Phases Matter?

“…This finding is consistent with conventional citizen participation literature that implicitly and explicitly emphasizes the potential role of citizens' participation in offline settings in enhancing transparency [2,6,25,34,38,39,45,52]. For instance, Yang and Holzer [52] address the fact that participation introduces citizen monitoring, which increases the likelihood of catching deception and ensures government's commitment to openness and honesty.…”

“…Also, they give citizens greater ability to offer input or ask questions on policy and community issues, to view other participants' ideas, and to share their thoughts with others [11,50]. Furthermore, online participation programs increase flexibility, as citizens can visit websites at their convenience, view ongoing forum discussions repeatedly, and post their own ideas whenever they wish [38].…”

“…Scholars report that using Internet-based interactive technology to facilitate citizen participation programs not only helps to gauge citizen preferences in government decisions, but also improves decision making and transparency [2,34,38,45]. Compared to offline participation programs, online participation programs allow a more efficient distribution of government policy and programs to citizens [5,17] and a higher level of interactive communication between government employees and citizens as well as among citizens [34].…”

“…For example, the City of Virginia Beach makes its financial information available online to encourage stakeholder participation, increase awareness, and demonstrate financial accountability [34]. Real-time, interactive, web-based methods also enable citizens to engage in complex technical issues such as tax and budget choices [38].…”

“…Online participation programs have become a useful tool in expanding the scope and breadth of information available to the general public and to key constituents [34,38]. For example, the City of Virginia Beach makes its financial information available online to encourage stakeholder participation, increase awareness, and demonstrate financial accountability [34].…”