Abstract
This chapter analyses some of the distinguishing characteristics of public participation processes, justifying the case for a discursive deliberative approach. It identifies tools’ requirements to effectively foster deliberation, presenting a comprehensive evolution of discursive support tools up to the Web 2.0 generation. Integration with tools from several research areas, including decision-analytic approaches is also discussed. Finally, this chapter ends with some considerations about the potential and limitations of the discursive approach and the challenges ahead.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aikens, G. S. 1998. A personal history of Minnesota electronic democracy, 1994. Journal of Government Information, 25, 1–9.
Barber, B. R. 1984. Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley, CA, University of California Press.
Becker, T. December 1981. Teledemocracy. Bringing power back to the people. The Futurist, 15, 6–9.
Brants, K. 2005. Guest editor’s introduction: the internet and the public sphere. Political Communication, 22, 143–146.
Carver, S., A. Evans, R. Kingston and I. Turton. 2001. Public participation, GIS, and cyberdemocracy: evaluating on-line spatial decision support systems. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 28, 907–921.
Cecez-Kecmanovic, D., L. Treleaven and D. Moodie. 2000. CMC and the question of democratisation: a university field study. Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii.
Cindio, F. D. and D. Schuler. 2007. Deliberation and community networks: a strong link waiting to be forged. Paper presented at the Communities and Action: Prato CIRN Conference 2007, Prato.
Coleman, S. and J. Gøtze. 2001. Bowling Together: Online Public Engagement in Policy Deliberation. London, Hansard Society and BT.
Dahlberg, L. 2001. The internet and democratic discourse: exploring the prospects of online deliberative forums extending the public sphere. Information, Communication and Society, 4, 615–633.
Dahlgren, P. 2005. The internet, public spheres, and political communication: dispersion and deliberation. Political Communication, 22, 147–162.
Day, D. 1997. Citizen participation in the planning process: an essentially contested concept? Journal of Planning Literature, 11, 412–434.
DeTombe, D. J. 2002. Complex societal problems in operational research. European Journal of Operational Research, 140, 232–240.
Drezner, D. W. and H. Farrell. 2008. Introduction: blogs, politics and power: a special issue of Public Choice. Public Choice, 134, 1–13.
Dryzek, J. S. 2000. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Dryzek, J. S. 2001. Legitimacy and economy in deliberative democracy. Political Theory, 29, 651–669.
Dunn, W. N. 1994. Public Policy Analysis: An introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall.
Elliman, T., A. Macintosh and Z. Irani. 2007. A model building tool to support group deliberation (eDelib). International Journal of Cases on Electronic Commerce, 3, 33–44.
Elster, J. 1997. The market and the forum: three varieties of political theory. In J. Bohman and W. Rehg (Eds.), Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press. pp. 3–33.
Evans, A. J., R. Kingston and S. Carver. 2004. Democratic input into the nuclear waste, disposal problem: the influence of geographical data on decision making examined through a Web-based GIS. Journal of Geographical Systems, 6, 117–132.
Farrell, H. and D. W. Drezner. 2008. The power and politics of blogs. Public Choice, 134, 15–30.
Fearon, J. D. 1998. Deliberation as discussion. In J. Elster (Ed.), Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge, MA, Cambridge University Press. pp. 44–68.
French, S., D. Ríos-Insua and F. Ruggeri. 2007. e-Participation and decision analysis. Decision Analysis, 4, 211–226.
Fung, A. 2006. Varieties of participation in complex governance. Public Administration Review, 66, 66–75.
Geurts, J. L. A. and C. Joldersma. 2001. Methodology for participatory policy analysis. European Journal of Operational Research, 128, 300–310.
Gordon, T. F. and G. Richter. 2002. Discourse support systems for deliberative democracy. In R. Traunmuller and K. Lenk (Eds.), E-government: State-of-the-Art and Perspectives (EGOV). Aix-en-Provence, Springer. pp. 248–255.
Gregory, R., B. Fischhoff and T. McDaniels. 2005. Acceptable input: using decision analysis to guide public policy deliberations. Decision Analysis, 2, 4–16.
Grönlund, Å. and T. A. Horan. 2005. Introducing e-Gov: history, definitions, and issues. Communications of the AIS, 15, 713–729.
Habermas, J. 1974. The public sphere: an encyclopedia article. New German Critique, 3, 49–55.
Habermas, J. 1996. Three normative models of Democracy. In S. Benhabib (Ed.), Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. pp. 22–30.
Hämäläinen, R. P. 2003. Decisionarium – aiding decisions, negotiating and collecting opinions on the Web. Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, 12, 101–110.
Held, D. 1995. Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas. Cambridge, MA, Polity Press.
Held, D. 1997. Models of Democracy. Cambridge, MA, Polity Press.
Holtzman, S. 1989. Intelligent Decision Systems. Reading, MA, Addison-Welsey.
Ito, J. 2005. Emergent democracy. In J. Lebkowsky and M. Ratcliffe (Eds.), Extreme Democracy. Lulu.com.
Jankowski, N. and M. van Selm. 2000. The promise and practice of public debate in cyberspace. In K. L. Hacker and J. van Dijk (Eds.), Digital Democracy: Issues of Theory and Practice. London, SAGE Publications. pp. 149–165.
Kavanaugh, A., P. Isenhour, M. Cooper, J. M. Carroll, M. B. Rosson and J. Schmitz. 2005a. Information technology in support of public deliberation. In P. V. D. Bessalaar and J. Preece (Eds.), Communities and Technologies II. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Kavanaugh, A., P. Isenhour, J. Godara, M. Cooper, A. Midha and W. Randolph. 2005b. Detecting and facilitating deliberation at the local level. Paper presented at the 2nd Conference on Online Deliberation: Design, Research and Practice/DIAC 2005, Stanford University.
Kemp, R. 1988. Planning, public hearings, and the politis of discourse. In J. Forrester (Ed.), Critical Theory and Public Life. Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press. pp. 177–201.
Kunz, W. and H. W. J. Rittel. 1970. Issues as Elements of Information Systems (Report No. T R 0131). Stuttgart, Institut fur Grundlagen der Planung, Universitat Stuttgart.
Lai, L. S. and E. Turban. 2008. Groups formation and operations in the Web 2.0 environment and social networks. Group Decision and Negotiation, 17, 387–402.
Lourenço, R. P. 2008. A bliki model to support political discourse formation. Paper presented at the 2008 International Symposium on Wikis (WikiSym ‘2008), Porto, Portugal.
Lourenço, R. P. and J. P. Costa. 2006. Discursive e-Democracy Support. Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii.
Lourenço, R. P. and J. P. Costa. 2007. Incorporating citizens’ views in local policy decision making processes. Decision Support Systems, 43, 1499–1511.
Macintosh, A. 2003. Using information and communication technologies to enhance citizen engagement in the policy process. In Promises and Problems of e-Democracy: Challenges of Citizen Online Engagement. Paris, OECD. pp. 19–142.
Macintosh, A., A. Mckay-Hubbard and D. Shell. 2005. Using weblogs to support local democracy. In E-Government: Towards Electronic Democracy. Berlin/Heidelberg, Springer. pp. 1–12.
Macintosh, A. and A. Renton. 2004. Argument visualisation to support democratic decision-making. Proceedings of the eChallenges e.2004 Conference, Vienna, Austria.
Macintosh, A. and A. Whyte.. 2008. Towards an evaluation framework for eParticipation. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 2, 16–30.
Makice, K. 2006. PoliticWiki: Exploring communal politics. Paper presented at the 2006 International Symposium on Wikis (WikiSym ‘2006), Odense, Denmark.
Moreno-Jiménez, J. M., M. T. Escobar, A. Toncovich and A. Turón. 2008. Arguments that support decisions in e-cognocracy: a quantitative approach based on priorities intensity. In M. D. Lytras, J. M. Carroll, E. Damiani, R. D. Tennyson, D. Avison, G. Vossen and P. O. D. Pablos (Eds.), The Open Knowlege Society: A Computer Science and Information Systems Manifesto. Berlin Heidelberg, Springer. pp. 649–658.
Moreno-Jiménez, J. M. and W. Polasek. 2003. e-Democracy and knowledge. A multicriteria framework for the new democratic era. Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, 12, 163–176.
O’Neill, J. 2001. Representing people, representing nature, representing the world. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 19, 483–500.
Paolillo, J. C. and D. Heald. 2002. Democratic participation in the discursive management of Usenet. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii.
Paralic, J., T. Sabol and M. Mach. 2003. First trials in webocracy. In R. Traunmuller (Ed.), EGOV 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Springer. pp. 69–74.
Pateman, C. 1970. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge, MA, Cambridge University Press.
Peng, Z.-R. 2001. Internet GIS for public participation. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 28, 889–905.
Raynes-Goldie, K. and D. Fono. 2005. Wiki use by political parties: a case study. Paper presented at the Second Conference on Online Deliberation: Design, Research and Practice/DIAC 2005, Stanford University.
Renn, O., T. Webler and P. Wiedemann. 1994. A need for discourse on citizen participation: objectives and structure of the book. In O. Renn, T. Webler and P. Wiedemann (Eds.), Fair and Competent Citizen Participation: Evaluating New Models for Environmental Discourse. Boston, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 1–15.
Renton, A. and A. Macintosh. 2007. Computer supported argument maps as a policy memory. The Information Society, 23, 125–133.
Rinner, C. 2001. Argumentation maps: GIS-based discussion support for on-line planning. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 28, 847–863.
Rinner, C., C. Keßler and S. Andrulis. 2008. The use of Web 2.0 concepts to support deliberation in spatial decision-making. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 32, 386–395.
Ríos-Insua, D., G. E. Kersten, J. M. Ríos and C. Grima. 2007. Towards decision support for participatory democracy. Information Systems and E-Business Management, 6, 161–191.
Rittel, H. W. and M. M. Webber. 1973. Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Science, 4, 155–169.
Roberts, N. 2004. Public deliberation in an age of direct citizen participation. The American Review of Public Administration, 34, 315–353.
Rosenhead, J., Ed. 1989. Rational Analysis for a Problematic World. Chichester, Wiley.
Sæbø, Ø., J. Rose and L. S. Flak. 2008. The shape of eParticipation: characterizing an emerging research area. Government Information Quarterly, 25, 400–428.
Sanford, C. and J. Rose. 2007. Characterizing eParticipation. International Journal of Information Management, 27, 406–421.
Scheufele, D. A. 1999. Deliberation or dispute? An exploratory study examining dimensions of public opinion expression. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 11, 25–58.
Schuler, D. and P. Day.. 2004. Shaping the network society: opportunities and challenges. In D. Schuler and P. Day (Eds.), Shaping the Network Society: The New Role of Civil Society in Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. pp. 1–16.
Snider, J. H. 2003. Should the public meeting enter the information age? National Civic Review, 92, 20–29.
Stokes, S. 1998. Pathologies of deliberation. In J. Elster (Ed.), Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge, MA, Cambridge University Press. pp. 123–139.
Stromer-Galley, J. 2002. New voices in the political sphere: a comparative analysis of interpersonal and online political talk. Javnost/The Public, 9, 23–42.
Toulmin, S.. 1958. The Uses of Argument. Cambridge, MA, Cambridge University Press.
Tsaliki, L. 2002. Online forums and the enlargement of the public sphere: research from a European project. Javnost/The Public, 9, 95–112.
Turoff, M., S. R. Hiltz, M. Bieber, J. Fjermestad and A. Rana. 1999. Collaborative discourse structures in Computer Mediated Group Communications. Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii.
Turoff, M., S. R. Hiltz, H.-K. Cho, Z. Li and Y. Wang. 2002. Social Decision Support Systems (SDSS). Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii.
Tweed, C. 1998. Supporting argumentation practices in urban planning and design. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 22, 351–363.
Viégas, F. B., M. Wattenberg and K. Dave. 2004. Studying cooperation and conflict between authors with history flow visualizations. Proceedings of the 2004 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2004), Vienna.
Webler, T. 1994. “Right” discourse in citizen participation: an evaluation yardstick. In O. Renn, T. Webler and P. Wiedemann (Eds.), Fair and Competent Citizen Participation: Evaluating New Models for Environmental Discourse. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 35–86.
Witschge, T. 2002. Online DELIBERATION: possibilities of the internet for deliberative democracy. Paper presented at the Euricom Colloquium Electronic Networks & Democratic Engagement.
Woodly, D. 2008. New competencies in democratic communication? Blogs, agenda setting and political participation. Public Choice, 134, 109–123.
Wyatt, R. O., E. Katz and J. Kim. 2000. Bridging the spheres: political and personal conversation in public and private spaces. The Journal of Communication, 50, 71–92.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lourenço, R.P., Costa, J.P. (2010). e-Participation: A Discursive Approach. In: Rios Insua, D., French, S. (eds) e-Democracy . Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9045-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9045-4_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-9044-7
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-9045-4
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)