Evaluating parliamentary e-participation

Abstract

Although many countries today exploit the potential of ICT for supporting citizens' engagement in the democratic processes and invest significant amounts of money in eparticipation, have do not pay corresponding attention in evaluating these efforts. In this direction, this paper describes a framework that has been developed for evaluating eparticipation pilots in the legislation development processes of parliaments. The proposed framework is based on a) the objectives and basic characteristics of the 'traditional' public participation, the e-participation and the legislation development processes, and b) the existing frameworks for the evaluation of information systems, e-participation and traditional public participation. It includes four evaluation perspectives: process, system, context and outcomes evaluation, each of them being analysed into a number of evaluation criteria/variables; also, it includes the assessment of associations between the assessed values of outcomes evaluation factors on one hand and the assessed values of the context, process and system evaluation factors on the other, in order to identify the reasons of positive of negative outcomes.

Social Media and Political Participation: Are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Democratizing Our Political Systems?

“…From the literature selection, no less than 13 different participation ladders are available and no consensus exists about them [26,32,35]. In general, the participation ladders define a certain degree of user participation, from informing to empowerment.…”

Measurement of internal user satisfaction and acceptance of the e-justice system in Turkey

“…In their study, the influence of organizational structure in the definition and implementation of ICT strategies in the Brazilian Judicial System are analyzed. In the study of Loukis and Xenakis (2008), the emphasis is on taking advantage of ICT potential, which supports the participation of citizens in the democratic processes which exist in countries today, and the necessity to show the same attention to investment in e-participation, as well as an evaluation of these efforts. Rosa et al (2013) analyze and discuss different e-justice experiences from around the world.…”

Measure to Improve: A Study of eParticipation in Frontrunner Dutch Municipalities

“…The municipal website can be seen as the technological facilitator between the citizen as user and the municipal organization as facilitator and service provider. These elements have been part of some measurement instruments and frameworks as well [20,22,23,24]. In order to measure the state of eParticipation, all three elements should be taken into account as well as the relations between the three elements.…”

“…This element included questions on whether or not people were given responsibilities regarding eParticipation, the existence of training, and the amount of budget available for example. Multiple eParticipation researchers [23,24,29,32] Analyzing the forms of participation in relation to the policy cycle is useful because it places citizen participation in the lifecycle of municipal processes. The input from stakeholders and the openness of the process differ as projects progress [33].…”