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Call for chapter proposals: Sustainable eParticipation26. June 2011 – 09:50 by Francesco Molinari |
In the past 5-10 years, eParticipation emerged as a novel theoretical and practical domain, and it will further characterize the policy agendas of most industrialized and developing countries in the near future. Its state of the art is now profiled by a number of achievements worldwide. In Europe, the eParticipation Preparatory Action 2007-2010 has funded 20 demonstration projects including 30 pilot sites, 100,000 citizens, 50 public sector entities and 70 MEPs from 18 EU Member States. Recently, the Bertelsmann Foundation recognized 150 Government-led initiatives worldwide (see www.vitalizing-democracy.org), demonstrating that excellence in eParticipation is a growing and international endeavor.
However, documented practice shows mixed results from eParticipation initiatives, and concerns about sustainability-related matters (the likelihood that an expensive trial program will become “embedded” as a stable practice in the institutional setup of the concerned public sector organization) have started to emerge.
This is why Rolf Luehrs and I are launching the initiative of this collective book to be published in 2012 by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.). The book should provide relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings in the area of eParticipation. It is aimed to promote awareness and further debate on the scope and limitations of citizen engagement supported by ICT in modern democracies. It will also offer operational guidelines and lessons learned from past experiences to the benefit of government executives wanting to engage on eParticipation trials.
Specifically, the book is designed to deliver:
• a collection of European and international best practice of sustainable eParticipation
• a set of evaluation exercises to be used as guidelines for political understanding and future action
• an overview of existing methods, tools and ICT solutions available as a result of prior experiments
• an initial assessment of the “market potential” of the above.
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before July 30, 2011, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the scope and contents of their proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by August 15, 2011 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by October 30, 2011. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.
For more information regarding this call, please contact https://supart.org
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