Donald Norris and Christopher Reddick
certainly not in concrete ways that would provide meaningful opportunities for citizen participation in governmental activities, programs and decision‐making.
3. Research methods
To produce the data needed for this study, we contracted with the International City / County Management Association( ICMA) to conduct a survey of e‐democracy among American local governments.( For readers from outside of the US, the ICMA is a major and highly respected local government association that, among other things, conducts and publishes considerable research for its members.)
Of 2,287 surveys mailed in 2011, 684 local governments responded, for a response rate of 29.9 percent( Table 1). This response rate is consistent with other recent surveys recently conducted by the ICMA at around 30 percent, although lower than the response rate of 36.8 percent 2006 survey.
4. Findings
We begin by examining the extent to which responding governments had implemented one or more of several possible e‐participation activities( Table 1). The first and most important finding from these data is that very few local governments had undertaken any of these e‐participation activities. Second, most of the e‐ participation activities that the governments had undertaken did not provide much, if any, opportunity for meaningful citizen participation, at least by our definition.
Table 1: Has your local government has done any of the following electronically within the past 12 months?
2006 |
2011 |
Number |
Percent |
Number |
Percent |
One‐way Enabled citizens to view a hearing or meeting |
‐ |
‐ |
447 |
68.3 |
Enabled citizens to post comments |
‐ |
‐ |
322 |
49.9 |
Enabled citizens to participate in a poll or survey |
‐ |
‐ |
315 |
47.9 |
Straw polls |
61 |
8.7 |
‐ |
‐ |
Web surveys |
180 |
25.2 |
‐ |
‐ |
Two‐way Enabled citizens to participate in a hearing or meeting |
‐ |
‐ |
128 |
19.8 |
Formal public hearings |
76 |
10.7 |
‐ |
‐ |
Informal public hearings |
60 |
8.5 |
‐ |
‐ |
Public consultations |
47 |
6.7 |
204 |
31.8 |
Non‐narrated or guided discussion forums |
49 |
7.0 |
104 |
16.0 |
Narrated or guided discussion forums |
45 |
6.3 |
96 |
14.7 |
Enabled citizens to vote in an election or referendum |
‐ |
‐ |
51 |
7.9 |
Referenda |
17 |
2.4 |
‐ |
‐ |
Conducted electronic town halls |
‐ |
‐ |
33 |
6.1 |
Citizen petitions |
17 |
2.4 |
35 |
5.4 |
Voting for local elected officials |
14 |
2.0 |
‐ |
‐ |
Chat rooms |
9 |
1.3 |
33 |
5.1 |
Note: Blank spaces indicate that the question was not asked in that year.
Only one e‐participation activity had been implemented by more than half of the governments responding to the 2011 survey( enabling citizens to view a hearing or meeting, 68.3 percent – not asked in 2006). While an adoption rate of this magnitude might appear impressive, merely viewing a hearing or meeting hardly constitutes meaningful citizen participation. Far fewer governments( only one in five, 19.8 percent) enabled active citizen participation in meetings or hearings. This does, however, represent a substantial increase over 2006, when fewer than half that number said that they conducted formal( 9.8 percent) or informal( 10.7 percent) public hearings electronically.
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