Citizen Participation in e-Government

: Management Tools Development

Abstract

Governments around the world now use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to improve the delivery of services and information to their users. In the literature, the application of ICT in this context is known as “e(lectronic)-government”. Similarly to other industries, governments have also seen the evolution of the governance model: ICT has empowered citizens to have more control of the decision-making process and more impact on the tasks of administrations. Therefore, e-government not only makes better service delivery possible but also enables citizen participation. However, despite the reported benefits of participation, challenges remain that impede its proper implementation, such as the lack of strategic view on citizen participation, the lack of consideration for all stakeholders and reluctance from practitioners towards participation.
Therefore, this thesis aims to develop three tools for practitioners to manage citizen participation: the CitiVoice Framework, the UParticipate Decision Support Guide and the SmartCity4All Workshop. First, we designed CitiVoice that structures and evaluates citizen participation in smart cities. Second, we developed UParticipate that enables project managers to make more sound decisions about the participation of citizens in the development of e-government services. Finally, we developed SmartCity4All that allows citizens to learn about the smart city concept, contribute their ideas and collectively build their solutions.

Date of Award	21 Nov 2019
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Namur
Sponsors	BRAIN-be (Belgian Research Action trought Interdisciplinary Networks)
Supervisor	Naji Habra (Supervisor), Monique Snoeck (Jury), Benoit Vanderose (Jury), Estefanía Serral Asensio (Jury), Annick Castiaux (Jury) & Ulf Melin (Jury)