E-Participation And Local Governance: A Case Study

Together with an extensive review of recent literature in the area of civic participation and drawing upon a series of interviews with citizens of a neighbourhood in a large city that experimented with the use of NICT and Internet in order to reinforce citizen’s participation and voice, this article offers an appraisal of the impact of such an experience. We particularly question whether in their enthusiasm for bringing the use of NICT into politics its advocates really look to increase citizen’s involvement in local policies by allowing them to participate in the outcomes of nearby public issues. A particular concern raised is that local authorities place much less weight on democratic underlying issues and place a high value on political marketing and in the control of technologies involved, expecting higher levels of citizens’ participation by means of a cosmetic exercise. This paper examines structural democratic local issues and uses a field experiment in the neighborhood of a large European city to examine the degree to which the use of Internet impacts local residents, the importance they place on NICT to participate in local issues, and the impact they have for enhancing local democracy and network governance.