Engaging People on E-Participation Through Social Media Interactions

Introduction

Citizen participation is interpreted as a fundamental tool to strengthen democratic processes and public governance mechanisms and to foster sustainable development (Stratu-Strelet et al., 2021). Participation implies the citizen’s voluntary involvement with the intention to influence public decision making and management (Tejedo-Romero et al., 2022), in other words, it means giving citizen voice in the governance structure (Callahan, 2007) or may be understood as citizen power (Arnstein, 1969). Citizen participation is widely recognized as positive and fundamental to democracy as it permits citizen taking part on decisions that affect their fades, however, it may be a source of conflict and uncertainty, since citizens usually do not have technical competency to influence some decisions, for example public security issues (Burke, 1968). Despite of that, it is an intelligence tool that enables data collection at the local level, making it possible to explore and set political priorities, as well as allocate resources more efficiently and transparently. Citizen participation involves a two-way communication, which establishes the interaction of civil society, represented by the citizen individually or organized in groups and communities, with the political class or the administrative sphere (Stratu-Strelet et al., 2021).

Citizen participation can occur with or without the mediation of technology, the first case being called e-participation. The United Nations defines e-participation as a key factor in governance and one of the pillars of sustainable development (UN, 2020), as it enables society to participate in decision-making on public issues, strengthening democratic processes (Stratu- Strelet et al., 2021).

The use of technology has direct effects on the elaboration of public policies, as it provides the opportunity for the common citizen to participate in decision-making spheres, generating empowerment of the individual and, consequently, of society itself. However, even with the collaborative use of technology, the process of creating an effective partnership between government and citizen is challenging so that, in fact, the democratic structure can be advanced (Bouzguenda, Alalouch, & Fava, 2019).

Citizen participation and engagement in public administration issues have been positioned over decades as challenging. However, the advancement of technologies, especially ICTs, allowed the creation of channels of multi-way interaction between the various actors involved, which changed the form of communication between institutions and citizens, thus enhancing the emergence of various initiatives and models encouraging citizen participation (Carvajal Bermúdez & König, 2021). Thus, ICTs have great potential to help overcome barriers to citizen participation, as they provide user-friendly and low-cost forms of citizen-government interaction. In this sense, Figure 1 shows the interaction between the ICTs and citizen participation.

Figure 1.

Relation between ICTs and Participation

Source: the authors