ELECTRONIC PARTICIPATION IN THE POLICY MAKING PROCESS: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze e-participation level of municipalities in Ankara in regards to political participation by the method of web-site analyses. EParticipation is being regarded as a new and favored model for governing process. Recent developments in information and communication technologies bring about some innovations in the area of political participation in democratic systems. E-Voting as a new method in e-election process is one of these innovations in the area of political participation (Smith et al., 2003). EParticipation is also one of the parts of e-democracy subjects which come by depending on the improvements in information and communication technologies. Nowadays e-participation in relation to the notions of citizenship and democracy is being seen as a means to cause positive effects in citizens’ participation in the political and managerial processes (Komito, 2005). It is thought that eparticipation will be effective in democratic participations’ being more and more widespread in every part of the society. E-Participation provides new opportunities from the viewpoint of political participation: it provides political decree more individually on the core level which is different from the traditional political behavior consisting of institutionalized political parties and periodical elections. E-Participation is also significant in the process of the realization of accountability, transparency and participation in terms of governance (OECD, 2003). E-Participation leads to new opportunities such as citizen’s active participation in policy making process. This active participation makes the relationship both among citizens and between citizens and authorities more effective (Alonso, 2009). In this respect; e-participation comes out as a highly significant instrument of democracy regarding the process of making and executing of public policies on municipality level and the process of resident’s participation in these public issues

Keywords

• e-participation, e-municipality, governance, policy making, political participation

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