This post is written by Tiina Randma-Liiv, Professor at the Tallinn Institute of Technology, Estonia, with contribution from Cecile Guezennec, Line Marie Sørsdal and Karolina Poltorak from the University of Bergen, Norway.

  • The problem: The level of participation (i.e. the degree of shared decision-making) is crucial to improve the quality of citizen e-participation, but it is underestimated and the term ‘participation’ is used vaguely.

  • Why it matters: Without an explicit level, targeted from the start, an e-participation initiative is likely to remain on the lower participation levels and have limited impact.

  • The solution: The level of participation should be specified from the start (and preferably aiming at higher levels), which will enable designing e-participation tools with features that match these expectations.

The move from governments for the people towards governments by the people is linked with technological innovations. Digital tools are expected to create stronger connections between citizens, governments, and the governing institutions of the EU. E-platforms for participation can improve the engagement of citizens, as they can help to overcome traditional practical barriers to communication, such as distance and time.

The concept of participation and collaboration, and how governments can work together with other actors in the digital era, is at the core of our research project TROPICO: Transforming into Open, Innovative and Collaborative Governments, funded by the European Commission. We studied several online government-to-citizen platforms in seven European countries, offering different levels of participation, and tried to identify what made them successful.

Surprisingly, one of our main research findings is that the term ‘citizen participation’ seems to be handled in a rather abstract way by governments. Many initiatives just aim at ‘participation’ - without defining or explaining what kind of participation is expected.

Greater citizen engagement has the potential to better inform government decision-making, but, also, to enhance democratic processes, through contributing to the values of openness, innovation, and collaboration in governance. The ideal is that citizens should become genuine designers and not only consumers of policies.

Why level rather than rate matters

What matters in citizen participation is not only the number of citizens who participate, but most importantly, how they participate. This refers to the level and not the rate of participation. Different levels mean different ways of involving citizens, of sharing decision-making power with them.

E-participation initiatives can take many different forms, such as online discussion forums, petitions, consultation platforms, online complaint/feedback systems or one-stop portals (to mention some). They can be set up nationally or locally, by different branches of government or by civil society organisations.

The International Association for Public Participation (IAPP) distinguishes between five levels of citizen participation, pointing the way forward to reaching higher participation levels. According to their approach, the five levels are:

1. inform

2. consult

3. involve

4. collaborate

5. empower

Each level opens up different opportunities for citizens. TROPICO has produced a seven-minute video on Citizen empowerment - Designing digital tools to involve citizens, describing the different levels of participation, using examples of e-platforms we studied to show what each level can offer.

Although e-participation platforms have on some occasions managed to increase the number of citizens engaged in the policy-making processes, our research showed that the quality of participation, i.e., the degree of shared decision-making with citizens, has remained on a rather modest level. The collaborative and empowering modes of participation are difficult for governments to achieve, as they may challenge existing power dynamics. This could explain why the level of participation through e-participation channels has remained by and large on the same level as practices of ‘offline’ participation.

Designing processes with a purpose

Not specifying the intended level of involvement has negative consequences. It makes it unclear what effects the participation will have and how (or even if) the citizens’ input will be used. A consequence of this generic approach to ‘participation’ is that the participation level likely remains modest and oriented more towards informing or consulting, and less towards involvement, collaboration, or empowerment of the citizens. The participatory tools and processes need to be designed with an explicit purpose.

Some platforms offer possibilities that fit different levels of participation. For example, TROPICO studied the Spanish e-participation platform Decide Madrid. It allows citizens, associations, NGOs and companies to participate in the policy cycle in Madrid municipality, matching the ‘collaborate’ level. But it also includes the possibility for participatory budgeting, an ‘empowering’ feature. Decide Madrid received the 2018 United Nations Public Service Award in the category ‘Making institutions inclusive and ensuring participation in decision-making’.

Our research found that the level of participation is an underestimated success factor for e-participation initiatives. In the lower levels of participation, the involvement of citizens in the decision-making process is often superficial. The government’s ambition is limited to keeping the public informed rather than empowering them. The higher levels, including collaboration with and empowerment of citizens, ensure that citizens' preferences, ideas, and recommendations are incorporated into the decisions and produce more effects than in ‘offline’ participation. Such involvement is likely to increase trust and accountability and can ultimately ensure better policies and services.

"The targeted level and the actual contribution of citizens in the decision-making processes go hand in hand."

Feedback is key

Our research also revealed that structures and processes designed to ensure feedback from governments are often lacking. Feedback is particularly important when trying to create a climate of inclusion, transparency, trust, and creative interaction in the government-citizen relationship. Citizens are stimulated in taking part in collaboration arrangements when they see that their effort is recognised and taken into account.

For more insights from our research and concrete recommendations for involving citizens in policy design, see this White Paper on Collaborating in the digital era, published by the TROPICO project.

Our main takeaway

The level of participation must be clearly specified from the start of an e-participation initiative, so that the technical solution of the platform and the entire organisational and process design support the achievement of successful citizen involvement. The targeted level and the actual contribution of citizens in the decision-making processes go hand in hand. As long as the target of new or existing e-participation platforms is generic ‘participation’, it is likely that the participation will remain on the lower levels (to ‘inform’ or ‘consult’). In order to fully benefit from e-participation initiatives, higher levels of participation need to be targeted. By fostering collaboration between governments and citizens, the expectation is that government decision-making will be better informed, thus strengthening democratic processes in the digital era.

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