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Consulting the British Public in the Digital Age: Emerging Synergies and Tensions in the Government 2.0 Landscape

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Government e-Strategic Planning and Management

Part of the book series: Public Administration and Information Technology ((PAIT,volume 3))

Abstract

Over the last two decades, public confidence and trust in government has declined visibly in several Western liberal democracies owing to a distinct lack of opportunities for citizen participation in political processes, and has given way instead to disillusionment with current political institutions, actors and practices. The rise of the Internet as a global communications medium has opened up huge opportunities and raised new challenges for government, with digital technology creating new forms of community, empowering citizens and reforming existing power structures in a way that has rendered obsolete or inappropriate many of the tools and processes of traditional democratic politics. Through an analysis of the No. 10 Downing Street ePetitions Initiative based in the United Kingdom, this chapter seeks to engage with issues related to the innovative use of network technology by government to involve citizens in policy processes within existing democratic frameworks in order to improve administration, reform democratic processes and renew citizen trust in institutions of governance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Otherwise called Electronic Governance, this term refers to the use of technology to enhance the structural (institutional and legal) frameworks and processes of governance. Based on discussions in earlier sections of this paper, the notion of e-Governance may be conceptually divided into e-Government (which is concerned with electronic public service delivery) and e-Democracy (where technology is used to impact the quality and nature of democratic processes).

  2. 2.

    UK Citizens Online Democracy was a project which began life by setting up a website to discuss the Freedom of Information Act proposed by the Blair Administration in 1999/2000.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Shefali Virkar

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  1. Shefali Virkar
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Correspondence to Shefali Virkar .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Economics, Technological Education Institute of Thessaly Larissa, Thessaly, Greece

    Leonidas G. Anthopoulos

  2. Department of Public Administration, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA

    Christopher G. Reddick

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Virkar, S. (2014). Consulting the British Public in the Digital Age: Emerging Synergies and Tensions in the Government 2.0 Landscape. In: Anthopoulos, L., Reddick, C. (eds) Government e-Strategic Planning and Management. Public Administration and Information Technology, vol 3. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8462-2_10

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