General Scientific Researches, Vol(3), No (1), February, 2015. pp.

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General Scientific Researches

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E-Participation Concept and Web 2.0 in E-government

Gajendra Sharma *
School of Engineering, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, Kavre, Nepal.

Purusottam Kharel
School of Engineering, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, Kavre, Nepal.
*Corresponding author: gsh106@gmail.com

Keywords

Abstract

E-participation
Web 2.0
E-government
Information technology

The purpose of this paper is to investigate public participation in e-government electronically and
significance of web 2.0 in e-government adoption. Web 2.0 is a platform on which innovative technologies
and applications where participants can be content creators to influence collective intelligence of user
groups, thus turning the web into a kind of global intelligence. Social networking services and web 2.0 tools
afford citizens the opportunity to publish and transmit opinions and ideas on policy in a much more
transparent and accelerated manner. A review of literature was performed on e-government, web 2.0 and eparticipation to understand their implications in information systems. By using e-government services,
citizens can conveniently access government information and services and gain greater opportunities to
participate in government activities online. Government should consider public perceptions toward egovernment websites and investigate the significant factors influencing citizen intention to use egovernment services. The new approach of e-government will be to measure local and specific targets
through constituent public surveys for which mass collaboration web 2.0 tools could be used.

1.

Introduction

During the last decades, governments all over the world have undertaken huge investments in information and communication technologies
(ICT), but they are still far from satisfying their citizens, as they usually operate inefficiently and ineffectively [22]. E-government and eparticipation study aims to focus government on its customers, citizens as well as businesses and provide the models, technologies, and tools for
more effective and efficient public administration systems as well as more participatory decision processes. E-government and e-participation
reveal characteristics that make them more promising when compared to e-business scenarios. Web 2.0 and social software applications have
extensively changed the way people discuss and exchange ideas on the Web, but moderately owing to their success, a new problem has created.
The introduction of new communication technologies, including the telegraph, telephone, radio and television, has increases the power of
governments over their citizens [8, 10]. Thus, the aim of e-government sites are not always to create better ways to serve or communicate with
the citizens, and e-government web sites are unlikely to follow the same evolutionary models in democratic countries. E-government plays a
significant role as a program setting device for all online and traditional media outlets, as governments restrict freedom of speech and determine
what information the general population can access [3]. Kalathil and Boas (2003) [14] suggest two key government uses of the Internet in nonliberal regimes: propaganda and e- government. Propaganda or state agenda setting is a primary purpose of e-government in non-democratic
regimes. Furthermore, even in democratic settings, government production of its own web sites limits the extent to which e-government sites
present balanced, transparent and accountable information and services [13].
Majority of e-government initiatives focus on democratic countries and a great deal of this analysis has been undertaken in economically
developed countries. In such states, citizens and government agencies clearly observe e-government as an opportunity to enhance democratic
participation, connect citizens as well as government representatives and assist disadvantaged populations participate in government activities
and society [13]. Besides this, a number of preliminary studies exploring the materialization of e-government in less developed nations expected
that the Internet would be a democratizing technology [2, 20] and electronic democracy will differ significantly from the practice of past forms
of democracy. Exploring the types of information that e-government sites provide deals with the governments online strategies. Studies of the
development of e-government strategy as informatization [14] or cataloguing [15]. Providing information is considered the foremost stage of
e-government evolution, a stage in which the site is non-interactive and to manage information [28].
The purpose of this papers is to investigate public participation in e-government electronically and significance of web 2.0 in e-government
adoption. Web 2.0s capability to inform e-participation, development of society, and economic insertion can be added institution-building. The
significant issue within development studies to which Web 2.0 can make a contribution is Moore (2000)s [9] argument that states can be made
more legitimate by increasing their dependence upon funding by their own citizens, and that the emphasis on good governance enhancing
institutions and replaced by a focus on challenging such institutions by increasing their dependence on their people. The use of e-government
sites makes information more easily known to local populations, the types of information that authoritarian regimes make available, however,
might be different than what democratic regimes post on e-government sites.
The actual content of the information and its usefulness for citizens daily lives must be examined, both in terms of information about the
government and in terms of other topics or themes that the sites emphasized.

2.

E-Government

E-government is the application of information and communication technology (ICT) for providing government services, exchange of
information and communication between government and people. The government services are made accessible to the citizens in an efficient,
convenient, and transparent way through e-governance. E-government usually refers to the use of IT, ICTs, and other web-based communication
technologies to enhance and develop efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery in the public sector [9]. E-government delivers the
implication of technologies to facilitate the government operation and the distribution of government information and services. The government
services will be made available to the citizen in a convenient, efficient and apparent manner through the e-governance. The three salient target
groups that can be distinguished in governance concepts include government, citizens or people and businesses organization. As such, e-

Gajendra Sharma *, Purusottam Kharel

General Scientific Researches Vol(3), No (1), February, 2015.

governance has no distinct boundaries [7]. A number of developing countries start to engage with the e- government uprising that seeks to adjust
the nature of interaction between citizens and public bureaucracy. A new political economy can be generated through ICT are beginning to
emerge.
Wilson and Wong (2007) [27] argue that negotiation issues that included government policy reform access, national ICT policy issues, and
technical issues of which the most difficult were access to facilities, anticompetitive behavior, monopoly pricing, and regulation. The Internet
expands successfully and quickly, there emerges a group of ICT collaborators drawn from different sectors of society who come together to
advance their vision of the networked society. The need for policymakers to understand the, primarily institutional issues that must be addressed
that articulate directly to current debates within New Institutional Theory. In addition, it also poses the question of how a community of practice
of ICT collaborators may be able to catalyze the transformation of state society relations.
Conceptualization of e-government is still in developing stage. E-government includes the use of all ICTs, to facilitate the daily administration of
government [25). E-government is considered as a means of service delivery and information stipulation. The popularity of Web 2.0 tools show
that there is a noticeable need within government to create, distribute and collect information outside the hierarchical information flow. Recent
Internet technologies are creating remarkable changes in the way people communicate and collaborate at a peer-to-peer production level over the
Internet [1]. The sociological difference to Web 1.0 is that users are at the center of all activities and Web 2.0 technologies allow for bidirectional connections with the site creator and other users generating content electronically [5]. As applications are being adopted in the public
sector, the social computing component including user-generated content creation might have hugely disruptive effects on government and its
standard operating procedures [18].
Lukensmeyer and Torres (2008) [16] proposed to apply the idea to government citizen engagement efforts. They recognize there are several
reasons to be cautious. First, citizens are more sensitive when it comes to privacy when dealing with their government. Second, government
problems are often more challenging compared to problems found in the private sector. Third, getting acceptance of government agencies toward
these kinds of innovative practices is harder than in the private sector. Fourth, the policy framework for public engagement and its potential
reform move at a glacial speed, making it hard to implement such a radical idea. But they also note one reason to forge ahead: the gap between
how citizens and industry use the Internet and government will continue to widen, leaving a disenchanted community.
The most practical recommendation may come in the form of a warning: some believe that success with social media can not be sustained under
the current structure of governments universally. They propose that sustained success can only come when governments build new
organizational units to manage newly created e-participation channels, and also to analyze the large quantities of structured and unstructured
data. The workforce of these new units must have specialized skills concerning the new electronic modes of communication, and also be
immersed in a different culture from the dominant law enforcement and regulatory culture of government agencies [4]. In addition, trust is one of
the most valuable and elusive forces in online platform. Anonymity and pseudonymity may encourage freedom of expression but they also
constantly challenge sustained collaboration in problem solving. Government-run online consultations have been criticized for their insensitivity
to how the socio-technical environment encourages trust [7]. Web 2.0 environments do not solve these problems, but in recent years some
interesting models have emerged for sustainable co-production, reflecting an interesting blend of self-governance and regulation.
Many researchers analyzing the interaction between ITs and government institutions argue that the creation of an e-government presence will
change the content, functions and accountability of government institutions and their interactions with other government agencies, businesses
and people [4]. While conceivable that democratic governments would follow such goals, authoritarian regimes are not expected to care about
increasing transparency and accountability through the creation of e-government sites, especially in developing countries with low number of
Internet users. Many existing models of e- government have an unstated statement that a desire to fulfill democratic functions motivates the
creation of e-government initiatives and that the ultimate goal of e-government initiatives is increased accountability and transparency. A
number of scholars, practitioners and Internet users expect that E-government promotes e-governance [11]. This interpretation bears an
inherent expectation of democratic e-governance and citizen-centric services. In authoritarian countries, however, a governments online
presence may, in fact, be a continuation of the repressive and bureaucratic processes that permeate all other state-public interfaces.
Governments had invested greatly in moving public services in the web. E-government researchers had expected that their efforts would assist
accompany in comprehensive changes in the way governments are organized, their relationships with citizens and the policy-making process.
Governments can play an active and imperative role in their transformation. The transformation process will be invigorating and sometimes
agonizing, but the price of operation is a lost opportunity for government to redefine its role in what could be a new golden age of democratic
state [4]. For objectives and strategy, study is needed on the long-range plans for citizen or public participation and involvement. Such planning
will help to build future strategy and fill the gap caused by the current lack of definitive goals and objectives. Regarding the categorization of
applications, being able to classify social media functionality and projects according to an accepted standard will advance the available
knowledge base by standardizing the vocabulary. This is essential since governments all over the world are presently working on similar egovernment initiatives [6]. The ability to easily locate similar projects would be a high advantage to those that follow others. As a final point,
more work on social media and e-government policies is still needed since the use of these technologies is changing speedily. Government
regulations have been conventionally slow to catch up with the information age. As the objectives and strategies for government use of social
media harden over time, policy makers must keep pace. Otherwise is to risk directionless progress, potential legal difficulties, and the expense of
starting over.
The broader e-government transformative initiatives have stalled in many jurisdictions, and much of the revolutionary promise never fulfilled. It
turns out that transforming the deeper structures is a pretty inflexible challenge, and there are often more penalties than incentives for innovative
behavior. E-government findings have significant implications for how we think about the roles and functions of e-government in authoritarian
states. Rather than liberalizing and democratizing, e-government sites assign governments to extend their control into the digital environment.
The methods used are often quite restrained and mirror offline efforts to cooperate participatory modes of communication or social organization
to meet the governments goals. Stark evidence of this offline pattern exists in the Central Asian states [11] and other authoritarian regimes
around the world. In such perspectives, expecting e-government sites or the Internet to remain a neutral or liberalizing ground is unrealistic.
Because e-government content is created and published by the governments themselves, the types of information, services and images supplied
will continue the governments overall strategies. Thus, e-government sites might promote open and transparent communication in democratic
countries and lead to more responsible e-governance, but the reverse might also be true for authoritarian regimes. Government control of the
content and utility of e-government sites can reinforce oppressive information environments.

3.

Web 2.0, e-participation and challenging issues

The term Web 2.0 has a number of definitions, and includes the use of tools such as social networking sites, videosharing sites, blogs and wikis.
According to Jackson and Lilleker (2009) [12], Web 2.0 is about interacting with online content, adding comments, or uploading documents.
Each user or visitor is able to have shared ownership over a site. This indicates a change in power structures and a shift in organizational
thinking towards models based on equal partnership rather than elite dominance [12]. Some of the most popular Web 2.0 tools in terms of social

E-Participation Concept and Web 2.0 in E-government

General Scientific Researches Vol(3), No (1), February, 2015.

networking and user contents are Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube and Twitter. Moreover, many websites today, especially the political ones, have
embedded blog pages to give their visitors a chance to contribute. Web 2.0 has an implicit challenge to all existing forms of state monopoly,
rent-seeking, and cultural control providing a platform for economic activity. Some of the popular Web 2.0 collaborative sites are MySpace and
Facebook as platforms for political analysis and social networking [24]. Governments tend to be more careful about Web 2.0 implication and,
provided their unique constraints, that caution is somewhat comprehensible.
The presidents of different nations are using Web 2.0 social media, which provide the foundation for Government 2.0 efforts, as an integral part
of their campaigns including web pages for online communication, Facebook and MySpace for social networking, and YouTube to hold
presidential debates. The person elected is likely to expect the same or more from government. Undoubtedly, citizens drawn into the process by
such campaign events will expect the same or more. Government 2.0 is potentially transformational if it becomes a priority for the
administration. The quality of citizens informational enthusiasm is the subject of discussion. Some observations on Web 2.0 have focused on
the rise of highly individualized forms of online expression and how these contribute to a broader social conceit [22]. Some of the journalistic
accounts of blogs and YouTube, for example, have criticized what are perceived to be self-obsessed, egotistical communication genres. Some
lament the rise of audiovisual content online, complaining that it signals the end of an innocent ideal of text-based communication free from the
constraints of physical markers such as ethnicity, appearance, accent, and social category.
According to Macintosh (2006) [17], e-participation is the use of ICTs to widen and deepen democratic participation by enabling people to
connect with one another and with their elected representatives. The importance of this definition is the involvement of all stakeholders in
independent participatory decision making instead of just the top-down initiatives of the governments. E-participation is one of the important
means for public deliberation. Public deliberation is not a new concept in itself, but e-participation holds potential to regenerate it. The UN EGovernment Survey 2013 also includes the e-participation Index of member states, which assesses the quality and usefulness of information and
services provided by a country for the purpose of engaging its citizens in public policy through ICTs. This assessment is based on:

Their institutional capacity, leadership role, and willingness to engage their citizens by supporting and marketing participatory
decision-making for public policy and

The structures that are in place, which facilitate citizens access to public policy dialogue.
Some scholars move toward the concept of e-participation from a critical point of view. Blogs, which are among the Web 2.0 tools used for eparticipation, are not just tools for people to express their political beliefs or connect with other sharing the same ideas. Instead, they are
designed to influence the political world by shaping the attitudes and behaviors of blog readers. Also according to Macintosh (2006) [17], one
the major challenges of e-participation is social convolution, which implies the prerequisite to reflect the various needs and demands of different
groups in the society. The second challenge is integration and responsiveness which requires that the mechanism exists to manage the process,
analyze inputs, respond to them and feed them into the policy making process [17]. The major challenges of the e-participation process and
states that despite the Internet's benefits, such as the potential for unbiased dialogue provided by online ambiguity, true deliberation will be more
difficult to develop. Figure 1 shows the two vital interfaces between society and governance system. Political system and administrative systems
are constituents of governance system linking to society. In addition, governance system and society share for e-government system and policy
formulation. In this regard, e-participation and e-government are significant constituents of governance system.

E-participation still plays a minor role in the context of e-government in many European nations. However, the inclusion of e-participation in
internationally comparative evaluations clearly shows the increasing relevance of this issue: Limited commitment in this area leads to reduction
in international e-government rankings. The ongoing e-government debate also relates to all elements of government and administration, from
public will formation via decision-making, service creation to service provision. E-participation is defined here as the participation of individuals
and legal entities and groups thereof in the decision-making process in the branches of government using ICT equipment.
The degree of adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in government or in general in the public sector is indirectly measureable using the potential of
Web 2.0 technologies that were so far mainly harnessed in the corporate sector. Technology analysts, such as the Gartner Group predict the
potential of online citizen social networks for the creation of public value [23] and indicate that the potential of Web 2.0 technologies has been
underestimated in government. The extent of the adoption of Web 2.0 is characterized by two different sets of technologies: asynchronous and
synchronous. Asynchronous technologies are characterized by uni-directional information dissemination, with little to no interaction and
exchange with the stakeholders. Examples include websites, group emails, daily news updates on Website, and Blogs without commenting
functionality.
Web 2.0 technologies are now being deployed in government settings. For instance, public agencies have used blogs to exchange information on
public hearings, wikis and RSS feeds to coordinate work, and wikis to internally share expertise, and intelligence information. The potential for
Web 2.0 tools create a public sector contradiction. Moreover, they have the potential to create real transformative opportunities related to major
public sector issues of transparency, accountability, communication and collaboration, and to enhance deeper levels of civic engagement [13].

Gajendra Sharma *, Purusottam Kharel

General Scientific Researches Vol(3), No (1), February, 2015.

On the other hand, information flow within government, across government agencies and between government and the public is often highly
restricted through regulations, specific reporting structures and therefore usually delayed through the bureaucratic constraints. What the
emergent application and popularity of Web 2.0 tools show is that there is an apparent need within government to create, distribute and collect
information outside the hierarchical information flow. Obviously, these most recent Internet technologies are creating dramatic changes in the
way people at a peer-to peer production level communicate and collaborate over the Internet. And these have potentially transformative
implications for the way public sector organizations do work and communicate with each other and with citizens. But they also create potential
difficulties and challenges that have their roots in the institutional contexts these technologies are or will be deployed within. In other words, it is
not the technology that hinders us from transformation and innovation, it is the organizational and institutional obstacles that need to be
overcome [26].
Web 2.0 technologies have the capability to change the way information is publicly created: for example, applications like wikis or blogs are
providing opportunities for external stakeholders to easily add information, or submit opinions and questions. Thereby, Web 2.0 applications
with the participation of citizens are creating new information that has to be integrated into the existing knowledge base. There is the potential to
harness peer-production and have these innovations occur at much lower levels of the administrative apparatus. Our other point is that this
capability, may lead to deeper changes in organizational configurations. The battlefield Web 2.0 applications with direct communications
between field commanders are an example of a gradual shift away in some communication from the traditional chain of command culture [21].

4.

Conclusion

E-government on an online platform have the potential to extend more government services to people, to achieve substantial cost savings and
efficiency, and to open the door to new ways that government can be accountable to the people. Designing new government systems runs the
risk of losing sight of precisely what people want and how they currently have e-participation and use government services in Web 2.0 platform.
It should contribute ideas about the sorts of policies and considerations that government agencies might adopt as they move toward a fully
functional e-government. Development of collaborative environments for comprehensive IT solutions to support policy modeling and simulation
as a basis for wide collaboration among policy analysts, policy operators, wider interest groups and the general public. The outline of these
challenges indicates important directions and prerequisites for further scientific research and development in this area. Use of e-government
websites is an important indicator of e-government success. However, it does not necessarily lead to the desired outcome unless a significant
number of citizens move beyond the initial adoption and use e-government websites on a continued basis. Furthermore, discontinuance may
occur after the adoption of innovation if the system does not meet the users needs regardless of its successful adoption..

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