A framework for scoping eParticipation

Abstract

Governments worldwide realize the importance of strengthening active participation of citizens in the political process. By recognizing the need for engaging the social intelligence of citizens, governments will be able to govern more effectively and credibly. The field of public participation has been recently enhanced with the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) thus leading to electronic participation (eParticipation). In this poster we propose and populate a framework that can be used to scope eParticipation and investigate its relation with traditional public participation. The structural elements of the framework include democratic processes, participation areas, participatory techniques, ICT tools and ICT technologies. The results allow obtaining a better understanding of the new field of eParticipation.