Lack of meaningful metrics and evaluation limits the effectiveness of civic engagement

“A critical analysis of EU-funded eParticipation,” a piece written by Pedro Prieto-Martín from the book The e-(R)evolution will not be funded by Prieto-Martín, Luis de Marcos and Jose Javier Martínez, lists a number of problems with government-sponsored eParticipation programs and provides recommendations for creating digital spaces that allow for more meaningful and relevant collaboration among citizens. Prieto-Martin is the founding president of the Association “Symbiotic Cities” which aims to empower civic engagement through the Internet.
Prieto-Martin begins by calling attention to the fact that citizen participation—“understood in the broad sense of ‘engaging with public authorities to assist them in the development of policies that promote social justice”—is a dangerous activity in many modern democracies (where non-democratic forces may resist participatory democracy), but, in more developed countries, the public rarely takes advantage of available paticipatory opportunities. Part of the cause of this, he argues, is that representative democracy, by definition, rarely calls on citizens for direct decision-making, and, traditionally, a country’s elites only incorporate previously excluded groups into the decision-making process out of a realization that it is in the elites’ best interest. The proliferation of ICTs, however, is creating new opportunities to diverge from the traditional path of unsuccessful citizen participation programs.
A natural evolution of citizen participation, “eParticipation can be defined as the use of ICT to enable, broaden and deepen people’s capacity to influence the decisions and get involved in the actions that affect their lives.” While few would argue that eParticipation programs do not have a worthwhile goal or dedicated people invested in their success, many projects have had relatively modest impact due to “political, organizational, technological, legal, economic, social and cultural hurdles.”
Of interest, according to Prieto-Martín, one of the central issues limiting the effectiveness of eParticipation programs is the lack of a meaningful evaluation methodology. As it stands, “no clear demarcation has been established between the conduct of eParticipation and its study: the same team that designs, promotes and manages a project is often responsible for observing, researching and reporting on it.” As such, the frameworks constructed to analyze eParticipation programs remain exploratory and difficult to apply to “real world” initiatives. While there is wide interest in optimizing existing eParticipation programs and creating new, improved initiatives, there is little understanding of what works and what does not in existing programs. For programs to reach their potential, “new data-driven evaluation models need to be devised, that go beyond the benchmarking strategies used to date in the e-Government domain” and are better able to “capture and judge the goals and achievements obtained.”
Prieto-Martín also argues that the “e” in eParticipation is the subject of more focus than the “Participation.” He contends that the weaknesses attributed to eParticipation programs—“conceptual vagueness, dominance of descriptive approaches, lack of theoretically grounded contributions, etc.—are at best explained as resulting from a poor understanding of the problems and dynamics associated with traditional ‘offline’ Participation.” In his view, a “romanticized and rudimentary” understanding of citizen participation has led to unrealistic assumptions from technological utopists. Consistent with this view, he believes that the EU will have more success in their projects when they stop considering Participation and eParticipation to be two separate things.  Moreover, the influence of e-Government programs—namely their top-down, technocratic nature—has had a negative effect on eParticipation initiatives. He argues that most EU programs did not promote a “citizen-oriented / people-empowerment-centred” bottom-up eParticipation program; and rather adopted a “government-oriented / tools-centred” approach that “did not succeed in devising ‘analytical frameworks that took into account the values and preferences of the various stakeholders and civil society groups involved in eParticipation.” To reach their citizen-empowerment potential, programs should be built around fostering democracy, not making the most of available technology.
Prieto-Martín’s recommendations, in addition to the aforementioned decreased focus on technology and the need for improved evaluation models, are largely based on government’s role in eParticipation receding. He argues that government should be the catalyst of eParticipation programs, not the main driving force behind them. As such, he believes that the “Facebook of civic engagement” is going to be created soon, and likely at negligible cost and with little official support. Consistent with his criticism of the top-down nature of many eParticipation projects, he believes that governments should “be proactive in order to integrate, and eventually support, bottom-up social innovation” through the engagement of “individuals, formal and informal civil society organisations, start-ups, and civil servants.” Moreover, while resisting the urge to directly control projects, governments should work to keep individuals engaged, and, unlike most current programs, governments should strongly consider incorporating individuals’ input into policy decisions.