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Promise and Pitfalls: In Search of Best Practices in E-Participation

Explore the challenges and successes of e-participation, including defining criteria, lessons learned, recommendations, and the importance of leadership and motivation. Presented by Elissa Orlando, Greg Munno, and Young Gyu Sin at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in Fall 2010.

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Promise and Pitfalls: In Search of Best Practices in E-Participation

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  1. Promise and Pitfalls: In Search of Best Practices in E-Participation By Elissa Orlando, Greg Munno and Young Gyu Sin Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Fall 2010

  2. Presentation Outline • Brief review • Defining e-government and e-participation • Selecting evaluative criteria • Lessons for our cases • Recommendations • Implementation and Leadership • Politics matter • Exploration of motivations and incentives essential • Leadership as difference maker • Creativity and collaboration needed to control costs

  3. Transactional Government / Collaborative Government “Electronic government refers to government’s use of technology … to enhance the access to and delivery of government information and service to citizens, business partners, employees, other agencies, and government entities. … (and) to improve core business operations and deliver … services faster, cheaper, and to wider groups of customers.” • David McClure, then Associate Director of the U.S. General Accounting Office, Congress in 2000 E-Participation, however, is not about transactional efficiency. It’s focus is on collaborating with citizens in the formation of better public policy. This can include gathering comments, hosting dialogs, holding electronic votes, building networks of engaged citizens and more. • Macintosh, 2004

  4. Methodology of evaluation Four case studies were selected and measured against our criteria. Case studies included general, government-wide efforts and targeted efforts. Cases came from three countries, including Korea and US, which scored No. 1 and No. 2 in UN’s 2010 E-government survey. Identify elements of good design, recommendations for local governments and lessons for leadership.

  5. CriteriaBottom lineIs there evidence that the e-participation system led to better decision making? Quality Usability Relevance Democratic criteria Engagement Transparency Political Equity Community Control Motivation

  6. Driven by new mayor with a goal of leveraging citizen expectations to move the bureaucracy Provided strong incentives to participate and a robust framework for evaluating the system. Also made effort to bridge digital divide. Succeeded in garnering participation, in moving the bureaucracy toward a more citizen-centric approach and (for better or worse) in increasing the mayor’s grip on political power High cost and other elements of system may not translate to less affluent areas. Gangnam-Gu

  7. Manor, Texas • Multiple participation tools allow for broad participation • SeeClickFix allows citizens to direct DPW • Manor Labs allows for idea submission, crowd sourcing and development • Excellent framework for handling citizen input: (1) Allow citizens to easily submit ideas; (2) allow fellow citizens to sort and rank via crowd sourcing; (3) develop idea; (4) implement or reject and report back to citizens. • Few accommodations to the digital illiterate. May not be scalable to a bigger city.

  8. Cologne, Germany • Multiplatform approach • Online tools were best suited to the task and heavily utilized • Gave citizens real power over a segment of government spending

  9. Bremen, Germany • Multimedia, multiplatform approach • Focused on a specific policy question – to chlorinate the pool or go with other method • Process was seen as fair and lead to consensus

  10. Evaluation : Summary Table

  11. Recommendations • Transparency is a precondition for successful e-participation. • Social context should shape projects • Creativity is essential • Evaluate

  12. Motivations Are Important • A clear path to policy makers, responsive policy makers, and the ability to influence policy making is a strong motivation for citizens. • Benefits to individual bureaucrats is less clear. As such, strong leadership, training and concrete incentives are imperative.

  13. Implementation Road Map

  14. Implementation • Participation moves quickly from commentary, to dialog, to influence, to policies that may create winners and losers • In Gangnam, a political leader leveraged citizen participation to motivate – and control – the bureaucracy • In Manor, some implemented ideas were brought to the legislature, others were seen as in the bureaucratic domain and were never signed off on via traditional democratic processes • In Germany, citizens gave politicians cover on tough decisions POLITICS MUST BE ACCOUNTED FOR

  15. Additional Issues • Cost • Third party partners • Partnerships • User Fees • Communication • German multi-platform model • Difficult to succeed with online alone

  16. Leadership • Bottom up technologies, ironically, require strong leadership to implement • All ICT projects are about change and require change to be successful • Buy-in from top is key • Change agents must work one-on-one to show late adopters the way

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