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Information and communications technology (ICT) not only improves public service delivery but also enables governments to better engage citizens, called "e-participation." Although efforts have been taken to promote citizen participation online, e-participation utilization remains at a low level. To better understand this phenomenon, scholars have explored the factors affecting citizens' e-participation usage, such as sociodemographic characteristics, Internet usage, political perceptions, off-line political activities, and so forth. However, the role of e-participation applications' functionality has been overlooked. Using data from the 2012 European Union (EU) eGovernment survey, this study found that functionality is positively associated with citizens' e-participation usage and high-level functionality motivates citizens to use e-participation more.

Part 2: Review and Analysis ; International audience ; Citizen engagement in political discourse and in democratic decision-making via innovative online means (coined e-participation) has become subject of considerable research over the past decade. However, mass engagement of citizens in online consultation and decision-making contexts remains an unsatisfied expectation. In this paper, we investigate trust as a particular aspect that might influence whether a citizen will participate. Trust is perceived as a complex construct, which is subject of research in distinct research disciplines. To identify and implement measures for increasing trust as well as for minimising distrust in e-participation endeavours, relevant trust relationships have to be analysed to understand implications of using or not using e-participation offers. In this paper, the status of current research of trust in citizen participation supported by electronic means is investigated. The literature review unveils that various implications of trust in the context of e-participation are still not researched well. Existing studies investigate particular aspects of trust. Yet, no conceptualisation of a trust model is available that explains the full scope of trust in e participation contexts. Hence this paper puts forward such a trust model for e participation, which builds on the Integrative Model of Trust in Organisational Settings by Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995) and the Interdisciplinary Model of Trust Constructs by McKnight and Chervany (2001).

This paper considers how e-participation can strengthen confidence in democratic institutions and playersin Lithuania, and concentrates on the overall development of electronic democracy and electronic participation(e-participation) tools used by the Lithuanian members of Parliament (MPs) and political parties. Firstly, a briefoverview of the previous studies about e-participation initiatives of the politicians' worldwide is provided. Secondly,follows the description of the methodology. Thirdly, the authors discuss democracy development trendsin the information society and then present main findings of the survey completed in August 2007 – January2009 on the websites of the Lithuanian MPs and political parties. Finally, the conclusions of Lithuanian casestudy and the recommendations to Lithuanian representative power are given.

Part 1: Research Directions ; International audience ; In this contribution, we investigate the use of mobile technology in e-participation contexts and we define grounds for mobile participation. Mobile participation (mPart) requires the support by tools comprising mobile digital client equipment, mobile access to the Internet, and service support of the related communication. This allows for new types of engagement of citizens in political decision-making at any time wherever citizens physically are. Different participation scenarios require different types of mPart tools. Information gathering, opinion polls, posts to political discussions in social media and in standard e-participation platforms, quick feedback forms, and group and event cooperation are some examples of participation scenarios, which we regard as mPart applications. In this paper, we examine different projects exploiting mobile technology for citizen participation – with a focus on e-participation – and we describe mPart applications and related tools that are developed and evaluated by the authors in a project. The mPart tools are embedded in a layered mPart architecture that allows a flexible integration of tools over an underlying secure communication infrastructure. The architecture serves as a reference architecture for integrating mPart tools.

Decision analytic methods are being increasingly used to help to articulate and structure debate and deliberations among citizens and stakeholders in societal decisions. Methods vary, but, essentially, a public authority or agency, when faced with a significant set of issues, may organise one or more workshops with stakeholders and citizens as participants. Such methods of public engagement and participation are, by and large, conducted face to face. However, the advent of the World Wide Web brings the possibility of conducting citizen and stakeholder interactions in a distributed, possibly asynchronous fashion. In this paper we discuss the challenges that have to be addressed and overcome if such e-participation is to be a valid tool within a modern democracy. The difficulties are many and varied, but the pressures towards e-government, and better regulation in general, mean that such methods will be used in the near future. Thus, we outline a program of research and debate in which we believe that the professional decision analysis community should engage.

Part 2: Critical Reflections ; International audience ; This paper sets out to critically examine the mobilizing potential of e-participation. The extent to which citizens beyond the usual suspects are engaged is studied by way of survey data from two novel e-participation case studies: one Swedish, one Finnish. Besides from the traditional socio-demographic variables, the analyses highlights cultural attitudes and ask: Do e-participation processes succeed in mobilizing citizens dissatisfied with the way democracy works? Can e-participation bring critical citizens back in? Certainly, the empirical analysis indicates critical citizens are clearly overrepresented in these two cases.

Part 1: Research Directions ; International audience ; Using data from national surveys conducted in 2006 and 2011, we examine whether local governments in the United States have adopted e-participation (a.k.a. e-democracy). The results show that few American local governments have done so. These results are highly inconsistent with the claims of e-democracy advocates. Two important factors account for the lack of e-democracy at the American grassroots: lack of funding and lack of perceived demand. Another reason may be that early predictions were incorrect. Based on these findings, we would expect that e-democracy among US local governments will not be substantially different in the foreseeable future than it is now.

PurposeThis study focuses on understanding how channel features can affect people's intention to continue to use an electronic channel in public affairs and their recommendation behaviors. Specifically, three different channels are focused on: email, microblogs and online meetings.Design/methodology/approachA research model on an e-participation channel based on the channel-disposition framework was developed and an online survey was conducted to collect data from 397 individuals who used three e-participation channels to validate seven hypotheses.FindingsThe study found that information quality, channel interaction quality and the social appearance of other citizens all had a significant impact on users' intention to continue to use an electronic channel, which, in turn, affected their recommendation behaviors. However, the impact differed across the three e-participation channels. Information quality had a stronger impact on microblog and online meeting users' intention to continue to use these channels than on email users' intention to continue using email to participate in public affairs. Channel interaction quality had a stronger impact on email users' intention to continue to use email than on microblog and online meeting users' intention to continue to use these channels in public affairs.Originality/valueThis study helps better explain how various channels and their features can affect participants' use intentions and behaviors in e-participation. It also provides practical guidance for government to better manage e-participation channels and effectively engage citizens in public affairs.

International audience ; India has recently witnessed various initiatives that harness information and communication technologies (ICTs) to promote electoral reform and political mobilization. These efforts have been initiated mainly by non governmental organizations drawn from India's urban, English-speaking, upper and middle classes. These efforts have been focused on non-partisan process improvements or short-lived political mobilization with limited success. We analyze these initiatives against the backdrop of modern India's political evolution which has seen the marginalization of upper and middle classes in politics. We see technology as central to the re-engagement of ICT-savvy upper and middle classes with the political sphere. We suggest that political neutrality may be an effective and appropriate strategy for India's upper and middle classes in the pursuit of their policy agendas.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to depict the present situation of e‐participation initiatives of Austrian municipalities and derives recommendations to further enhance the e‐participation sophistication level.Design/methodology/approachThe findings are based on hypotheses we verified against a dataset obtained from an electronic survey among all Austrian municipalities, conducted in 2008.FindingsThe technical basis for e‐participation in Austria is well developed, yet accessibility of municipal web sites and the phrasing of information leaves space for improvement. E‐participation in Austria is still in a nascent state and requires the convergence of technical, political, legal and socio‐economic factors, which has not yet fully arrived at the municipal level.Research limitations/implicationsThe raw material of the survey did not allow a qualitative assessment of e‐services.Practical implicationsChange of law and reconsideration of opening hierarchical structures.Social implicationsRecommendations of implementing e‐participation on municipal level.Originality/valueOwing to the broad fragmentation of e‐government strategies and relevant regulations, the detailed results of the survey are only of limited use for comparability to other surveys in this domain. The identified factors for e‐accessibility and the derived measures for e‐participation thereupon are a new approach and will help further research and surveys to define an e‐participation assessment framework.

This paper describes the use of scenarios as a central part of the design methodology, in a project to create an e-participation initiative, working with the national news agencies in 3 Western Balkans countries. The stakeholders in the project came from a variety of backgrounds, with different skills, experiences of technology and ideas about participatory democracy. For design purposes, the most important stakeholders involved are journalists from the Balkan news agencies, as these will be major users of the tool, creating content and managing e-participation processes. Scenarios were used to put these journalists at the centre of the design and specification process. This method also provided the diverse stakeholders with a focus for discussion and shared understanding. The use of scenarios influenced the design of all aspects of the e-participation initiative, including the format of the online tools, the rules and methods for managing online discussions and the offline path of influence with those in power.

The usage of electronic means to support the government's and public administration's central and local activities, allows the state to develop new ways of interacting with the citizens. Among these, we must stress the direct and electronically mediated interaction between each citizen or group that so wishes and the different public institutions, permitting a new public commitment called e-participation. This paper aims at pondering upon this new model of civic involvement and its contribution to improve the processes and the democratic structures, highlighting its potential to improve the quality of democracy itself.

Gamification is one of the most commonly employed approaches for motivating individuals to participate in several types of activities. One of its largest application areas has been e-participation (i.e. citizen engagement in policy-making). Even though the required ICT infrastructure to facilitate e- participation mostly exists today, the focus of the problem has shifted towards humans; citizens are not motivated enough to participate. Gamification is a potential approach to increase motivation towards e- participation. However, currently there is a dearth in our understanding of how gamification is being applied and researched as well as what kinds of result there exist from gamification. The aim of this paper is to synthesize research and findings on gamified e-participation, providing directions for future research in this area.