Citizen engagement

This paper explores theoretical and practical distinctions between individual citizens ('citizens') and organized groups ('stakeholder representatives' or 'stakeholders' for short) in public participation processes convened by government as part of policy development. Distinctions between 'citizen' and 'stakeholder' involvement are commonplace in government discourse and practice; public involvement practitioners also sometimes rely on this distinction in designing processes and recruiting for them. Recognizing the complexity of the distinction, we examine both normative and practical reasons why practitioners may lean toward-or away from-recruiting citizens, stakeholders, or both to take part in deliberations, and how citizen and stakeholder roles can be separated or combined within a process. The article draws on a 2012 Canadian-Australian workshop of deliberation researchers and practitioners to identify key challenges and understandings associated with the categories of stakeholder and citizen and their application, and hopes to continue this conversation with the researcher-practitioner community.

Urban development has been studied in recent years, e.g. from the social, economic, ecological, and cultural point of view. However, little investigation has been targeted on citizen engagement with the co-design methods of urban development. Co-design methods can direct and cultivate habitants' interests and, as a result of these methods, more suitable places to live can be created. The co-design is a joint planning process between experts and users. The basic elements in co-design are: participators, purpose, methods, and aim to enable change. An important character of the engagement is the level of power that participants possess in the co-design intervention. Arnstein (1969) defined an eight-level typology to measure the degree of power that a citizen can acquire when participating in the co-design activity. With the research question " What kind of power citizens had in urban development projects when they were engaged with co-design methods? " in mind we analysed...

Many advocates of deliberative democracy see in the Internet a new opportunity for the development of public spaces, public spheres, and places where deliberation can take place. An important element of the notion of the public sphere in general and of deliberation specifically, is the quality of the debate. In the past decade, many studies have been conducted to evaluate online discussions in light of the ideal notion of the public sphere. However, a wide gap exists between theoretical approaches and the actual operationalization of such theories for empirical research. In an attempt to bridge this gap we develop a method for examining the extent to which Internet forums meet the normative requirements of rational-critical debate, reciprocity, and reflexivity. The methodological approach consists of a textual analysis of the contributions made to an online forum. The coding scheme presented in this article is based on a case study (UK Online) and guided by the theoretical notions of deliberative democracy.

Talking politics online is not exclusively reserved for those spaces dedicated to politics, particularly the everyday political talk crucial to the public sphere. However, past net-based public sphere research has focused mostly on political spaces thereby neglecting an array of other genres. The aim of this article is to move beyond politically oriented communicative spaces by investigating political talk within the British reality TV discussion forum Wife Swap. The purpose is to see whether a forum dedicated to reality TV provides the communicative space, content, and style for politics that extends the public sphere. The central question is whether it fulfils the requirements of rationality and ‘decent’ deliberation. Moreover, the analysis moved beyond a formal notion by investigating how expressives influence the more traditional elements of deliberation. The findings revealed that Wife Swap participants engaged in political talk that was often deliberative. Moreover, it was a space where the use of expressives played a key role in enhancing such talk.

This article introduces the concept of 'place-based civic tech'-citizen engagement technology codesigned by local government, civil society and global volunteers. It investigates to what extent creating such a digital space for autonomous self-organization allows for the emergence of a parallel, self-determining and more place-based geography of politics and political action. It finds that combining online tools with offline collaborative practices presents a unique opportunity for decentralization of power and decision-making in a manner which both politically motivates civil society and begins to update the infrastructure of democracy. The discussion is supported by a combination of primary and secondary data, with research methods including ethnographic and participatory observation techniques. Research data is drawn from a range of empirical sources, including an in-depth case study of the radical municipalist movement in Spain. The article concludes that there is a clear and compelling narrative of cities taking power back, in the form of a plural and globally networked movement. As such, this study contributes to both the theory and practice of civic tech, collective impact, municipalism and place-based urban politics while emphasizing the need for further research on experiments and movements currently existing below the academic radar.

The last few decades have witnessed unprecedented transformations in every sector of society, resulting from the explosive advancement of information and communication technologies. This drastic development has raised the hopes of citizens for better lives, in both developing and advanced countries, urging innovation in government to make it more competent. Due to e-business revolutions, governments around the world have applied similar principles and technologies to government by opening their websites for more efficient publication of information and more effective delivery of public services. While a government website is an important venue for citizens to participate in public affairs and decision-making processes, early e-government practices tended to overlook democratic purposes by focusing on the features of e-business and information systems. There have been increasing criticisms that e-government system design has focused mainly on the provider's perspectives. Reflecting on the theoretical implications of this, we argue that a government website should facilitate democratic processes involving not only information sharing and delivery of better public services, but also deliberation and coproduction. The purpose of this study is to probe into multidimensional features that enable government websites to fulfill their promises. Developing an integrative model for evaluating a government website, namely the Democratic E-governance Website Evaluation Model, we conducted a qualitative meta-analysis of four strands of literature: information systems, business, public administration, and democratic theory. Our study contributes to the literature by extending the purview of e-government website analysis beyond the question of citizens' acceptance and towards the issue of their engagement, bringing a stimulating view of citizens as active agents in governance, and it provides a holistic model for public authorities to improve their websites to facilitate democratic e-governance that helps to create more effective public outcomes.

This chapter reviews key themes that have emerged across scholarship on social media and political activism, focusing on Twitter in particular. This body of work looks at Twitter as a platform in terms of how it works and whether it offers much for the needs of activists. It looks at its potential to give voice to those formerly excluded by traditional top-down monolithic media and the extent to which this can increase citizen engagement, civic debate and democratic processes. The chapter also highlights concerns as to how social media can foster more restricted levels of debate, which may be rather insular and driven by influencers. And finally, it raises the need to question what it means when we give such platforms and the logics and forms of communication such a central role in how we run our societies.

Through the industrial age, democracy’s uneven evolution took societies from feudalism to various forms of mass democracy. Today, tectonic shifts in technology, demographics, politics and economics are driving the next evolution of democratic government — a transition from monolithic government to Government 2.0 where pluralistic, networked forms of government called “governance webs” become the dominant organizational model for service delivery and policy-making. Governance webs — or g-webs — are digitally enabled networks of public, private and/or civil society participants. These networks of public and private organizations deliver or perform activities once the exclusive domain of single public agencies or institutions. While industrial-age government was based on monopoly power, and structured around rigid hierarchies, g-webs distribute power broadly and leverage innovation, knowledge and value from the market and civil society. The shift to Government 2.0 will result in greater value and lower cost for the customers of government, and more engagement for the owners of government: the public.

A renewed interest has appeared in citizen co-production of public services due to financial pressure on governments. While social media are considered an important facilitator, many digital participatory platforms (DPPs) have been developed to facilitate co-production between citizens and governments in the context of urban development. Previous studies have delivered a fragmented overview of DPPs in a few socio-spatial contexts and failed to take stock of the rise of DPPs. This article aims to provide a more comprehensive picture of the availability and functionalities of DPPs. Through a systematic review, 113 active DPPs have been identified, analysed, and classified within a citizen-government relationship typology. Almost a quarter of these DPPs demonstrate a realistic potential for online and offline co-production between governments and citizens. The article critically analyses the characteristics of these DPPs and explores their real-world applications in urban development. The article concludes with directions for further research.

By unearthing the connections between the literatures on participatory communication and civic engagement with the reality of postconflict peace, this article demonstrates how a communication for development (C4D) approach to engaging citizens in peacebuilding contributes to strengthening the reconstruction process at the end of the violence, while engendering a bottom up process based on dialogue and inclusivity. After offering a brief overview of the peacebuilding contexts, this article presents a theoretical discussion that brings to the surface not only the role of C4D in facilitating citizens participation in government decision making, but also its significance in creating an inclusive peacebuilding process that starts from the community. At the same time, this discussion begins to shed light on the relationship between communication for development and participatory governance.

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This document may aid policy makers and the local government units including CSOs such as Tahanang Mapagpala in yielding good practices and strengthening partnership between CSOs and the local government in general. This could serve as a reference material on whether or not, co-production exists. This will also provide additional knowledge on the current undertakings of organizations such as Tahanang Mapagpala on their initiatives to help in the progress of the society by lending a hand to the government sectors within their area.

This paper aims to:

(a)  To supply the historical narrative of Tahanang Mapagpala ng Immaculada Concepcion Foundation, Inc. an trace probable evidences
of co-production;
(b)  To provide an analysis on the existence and non-existence of co-production by the programs and projects of Tahanang Mapagpala in relation to its partnership with the government at the local level;
(c)  To present the perspective of citizens participation as co-production agents at the local level by citing the case of Tahanang Mapagpala.

This research, conducted by the author when a Senior Researcher at Newcastle University, UK, was funded by a UK governance organisation to help them assess, integrate and improve their understanding of the governed population.

ABSTRACT: Governance organisations have been urged to develop more holistic evidence-based approaches with partners to better deal with issues affecting the governed population. This presupposes an understanding of the population, yet there has been little research work addressing how governance organisations come to understand their governed population, nor how this understanding can be improved upon within such organisations.

This case study examined in-depth how understanding of a governed population was developed within one UK local governance organisation and it explored how such understanding might be developed and improved through more holistic and evidence-based organisational learning within the organisation and its governance partnerships.

The research methodology involved placement within the governance organisation, participant observations on several projects and innovative initiatives, observations within, across, and outside the organisation, and also interviews with varied key stakeholders.

The study examined:

- stakeholder engagement and networks
- current and varied understandings of the population
- mechanisms actually used for developing understandings
- the influence of context on organisational learning

and analysed these to arrive at a recommendations to improve organisational understanding of the governed population.

In the case studied, significant strengths were found: including innovative past learning trials for development, extensive ongoing networking activities, and many varied and accumulating quantitative datasets available across partnerships.

However, entrenched organisational approaches and practices constrained the development of holistic evidence-based understanding, for instance: the absence of systematic maintained collective learning processes; weak recording and forgetting of understandings; methodological exclusion of stakeholders from the development of understanding; the relative neglect of qualitative data, explanations, investigations, interpretations, and reflexivity; and also implicit organisational acceptance of such limitations and low aspirations.

Nonetheless, untapped opportunities existed to enable change including: latent practitioner knowledge and innovative management champions, the desire for improvement and raised aspirations within learning networks, and the development potential of alterative learning approaches.

It was concluded that more holistic evidence-based understanding was possible, but required new learning approaches beyond those then in use in both local government or academia.   

Recommendations are made to utilise and develop improved organisational learning approaches trialed and reported in the case study.

It is argued that the case study findings, conclusions, and recommendations may be applicable to other similar local governance organisations and partnerships that seek to better understand local populations, services and interventions.

The work was also submitted for, and awarded, an MPhil (at Newcastle University, supervised by Prof. Patsy Healy)

To assist the government in determining its mandate, citizens should be involved as they best know their needs. The significance of citizen engagement in the process of policy formulation is rooted in among others, the fact that public policy outputs and effects affect those to whom the policy is targeted at. This paper identifies areas of contribution of citizen involvement in public policy formulation. Literature illustrates that some governments do not engage citizens sufficiently in the process of public policy formulation. It remains relatively unclear as to why government evades engaging citizens in the formulation of public policy and conduct random and cursory consultations in order to enshroud the lack of consultation. The case of Botswana, illustrates that citizens made adequate efforts in the contribution to the formulation of the country's public policy. This study therefore, shows that citizens are an important stakeholder hence government engages them in a specific domain. This study also discusses selected cases of citizen engagement in Botswana. The study further acknowledges that the failure of policy implementation can be linked to failure on the part of civil servants where they do not follow proper procedure as recommended by the government. To this end, public policy successes require strong involvement of public officials to avoid any policy implementation failure.

- The research aimed at identifying the estimate of level of digital citizenship among a sample of students of Palestine University from their point of view.
- Revealing whether there are statistically significant differences between the average estimates of the sample members attributed to the gender variable.
- The study used the descriptive/analytical approach. The sample consisted of (300) male and female students, and was asked to fill in a questionnaire consisting of (68) items distributed on (9) axes.
- The study found that the total degree of digital citizenship level was (71.13%), the study also showed no statistically significant differences between the average of the sample's estimates due to the gender variable.
- The study recommended that digital citizenship should be included as a basic requirement of universities.

The article assesses the success with which citizen engagement has been implemented in Zimbabwean local governments. The assessment is premised on the case study of the Mutare City Council in Zimbabwe. The research was carried out from June 2015-June 2016 through in-depth interviews of central government officials, the Mutare City Council administrators and councilors as well as Mutare residents and officials from the residents' associations in Mutare. From the situational analysis of citizen engagement in Zimbabwe it emerged that citizen engagement is currently rhetorical across the nation. This prompted a further investigation into the obstacles against the realization of citizen engagement at the Mutare City Council and Zimbabwe at large. From the research findings it emerged that the major obstacles to citizen engagement are: the lack of financial resources, a depressed economy, frosty relations between government and the civil-society, citizen apathy among others. However, the article argues that despite the multiplicity of obstacles towards the attainment of citizen engagement, the efforts by the citizens and administrators of the City of Mutare should still continue. This is largely due to the fact that citizen engagement is one of the key elements to the socioeconomic and political transformation which Mutare and Zimbabwe at large so desires to achieve.

Does globalization mean effective global equity? Some authors such as Scott argue that globalization has made the globe flat based on the fact that the evolution of transport and telecommunications allows extraordinary interconnectedness of all parts of the planet; whereas Blij (2009) argues the opposite by considering cultural and geographical factors that play fundamental role in determining the limitation of that flatness. This paper discusses the validity of those two arguments based on literature review and, the most import, supported by statistical data from the World Bank, United Nations and other equally relevant sources. The aim of all the discussion is to demonstrate the validity of both arguments by considering political, natural, cultural and socio-economic variants both at national and international level. Thus, issues such as immigration policies, market regulations, international aid, gender, vulnerability to natural disasters, tradability of cultural elements, and attractiveness of some places over others, and personal willingness to move around are critically discussed. International Financial Institutions along with Multinational Corporations are found to be the forehead bodies of globalization for which the planet is flat, where all physical barriers have been lifted, and there are opportunities for everyone. However, statistics and geographical data revealed determinant differences not only between nations but also within national regions in terms of their contribution for and benefiting from globalization. Therefore, although the revolution of transport and telecommunication has lifted physical barriers and made the planet flat, not every citizen of the globe is benefiting from that. To those citizens the planet is not as flat as it must be for the relatively few wealthy and globally competent people.

The Nigerian press has played a significant role as a public watchdog, but the proliferation of new information technologies poses the question: Is journalism in Nigeria under threat and increasingly becoming a networked activity? This article interrogates the extent to which the collaboration between professional journalists and ‘the-people-formerly-known-as-the-audience’ is influencing institutional journalistic practices in Nigeria. Using the Occupy Nigeria protests, this study employs a combination of an ethnographic approach utilising semi-structured interviews and newsroom observations and critical discourse analysis of news texts to investigate whether other forms of ‘alternative’ journalisms are creating shifts in the balance of power between professional journalists and the audience.

In most general terms this article addresses the issue of the continuing decline of trust in government and the imperatives for reform. The decline on trust in government has been brought about by many factors including the inefficient and ineffective delivery of services, waste of public resources, graft and corruption, lack of integrity in government, poor leadership, excessive red tape, ineffective reorganization and structural changes, too much centralization, among other things. In summary, unresponsive governance has been responsible for the continuing decline of trust in government. The article introduces a framework of areas of reform imperatives with the general objective of restoring trust in government. These areas include the following: reforms among citizens, i.e., citizen engagement and/or citizen participation. We begin by reviewing various examples in the Philippines including continuing efforts to address graft and corruption, red tape, and inefficiencies in the government's politico-administrative environment. .ipmr.net 57 IPMR

The term “Smart City” is to-date widely used, but little clarity appears in the definition behind it. Several approaches led to a growing emphasis on the combined use of geographic information and communication technology to build cognitive frameworks in city planning and management. The present paper tackles an effort to define ‘smart cities’ and to identify both elements of smartness, and critical aspects related to the current interpretation of the term. In particular, the risk of considering the technological layer of Smart City as an innovative element has been observed, highlighting, on the contrary, the need to consider Smart Cities in terms of a major urban planning effort to coordinate and harmonize different urban players, sustained by ICT instruments.

The European integration project finds itself in an imaginatory stasis. Political elites display a general incapacity in dealing with the multiple crises threatening the European Union. Elites and institutions show a lack of imaginative creativity in proposing and seeking to implement novel and bold ways of moving the supranational project forward, a disposition which seems also to come through in the current initiative of the Conference on the Future of Europe. The EU is affected by an ever larger distance between formal politics and European society, not least evidenced by the strong emergence of right-wing, conservative populism, promoting 'sovereignist' solutions to the European crisis. Recent years have seen an increased politicization of European integration (in terms of increasedand frequently rather negative-attention to EU issues in public debates) (cf. Cooper et al. 2021; Della Porta 2020). The negative portrayal of the EU is not least the result of national political elites falling back on 'traditional' strategies of sovereigntism, ethno-nationalism, and right-wing populism, unable or unwilling to engage with a European, political solution. EU politicians and institutions seem unable to articulate long-term political projects and tend to ignore civic knowledge and competences as an input into the political innovation of the European polity. In stark contrast, various transnational civic initiativessuch as DiEM25, European Alternatives, AlterSummit, Volt Europa, and Citizens Take Over Europeshow imaginative capacity, aim at democratizing the EU from the bottom-up and make political claims in favour of European solutions. The volume starts from the assumption that Europe needs a creative/imaginative solution to the multi-faceted crisis. The failure of the European Constitution in the mid-1 The author acknowledges financial support for the research project Transnational populism and European democracy (TRAPpED), of the Czech Science Foundation (Grantová agentura České republiky) (Standard Project 18-25924S).

Ever since the advent of the Internet, political communication scholars have debated its potential to facilitate and support public deliberation as a means of revitalizing and extending the public sphere. Much of the debate has focused on the medium’s potential in offering communicative spaces that transcend the limitations of time, space and access (and the traditional mass media) whereby open communication, deliberation and exchange of information among the public can prosper. Following the initial enthusiasm over the possibilities of a more interactive and deliberative electorate, along with the cyber-pessimist response, a growing body of rich empirical research into online deliberation has arisen in its wake. In search of online deliberation, scholars have conducted a broad range of investigations, developing several prominent directions in the field. One popular line of research has been the study of informal political talk through the lens of public sphere ideals.The aim of this chapter is to detail and discuss this growing body of research and its significance. First, I begin by discussing what scholars mean by political talk and why it is thought to be essential for (a more deliberative) democracy. Following this, the major findings to date are set out focusing specifically on three of the most common features of political talk investigated by scholars in the field. I discuss scholarly disagreement and offer my thoughts and critical reflection on the topic. Finally, the chapter ends with several recommendations for future research into informal political talk in the Internet-based public sphere.

Funding the Cooperative City: Community Finance and the Economy of Civic Spaces
Edited by Daniela Patti & Levente Polyák (Eutropian Research & Action)
Publisher: Cooperative City Books, Vienna, 2017
Format: Paper size B5, 244 pages
Publication date: September 2017
ISBN 978-3-9504409-0-4
The book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
More information: [email protected]
https://cooperativecity.org/2017/06/03/funding-the-cooperative-city/

Funding the Cooperative City explores experiments in community-led urban development in European cities. Situated in the post-welfare transition of European societies within the context defined by austerity measures, unemployment, the financialisation of real estate stocks and the gradual withdrawal of public administrations from social services, this book aims at highlighting the importance of self-organised, locally rooted, inclusive and resilient community networks and civic spaces.

In a journey from Lisbon, Madrid and Rome, via Liverpool, Rotterdam and Berlin, through Warsaw, Bratislava and Budapest, Funding the Cooperative City highlights different strategies of fundraising and investment; self-organisation, resistance and cooperation with institutions; and explores the ways citizen initiatives, cooperatives, non-profit companies, community land trusts, crowdfunding platforms, ethical banks and anti-speculation foundations step out of the regular dynamisms of real estate development and arrange new mechanisms to access, purchase, renovate or construct buildings for communities.

Through interviews and analyses, this book describes tendencies and contexts, and presents stories and models of community finance and civic economy. It offers a helpful set of resources not only for community organisations and initiators of civic spaces, but also for private developers, municipalities and EU institutions that are willing to support, facilitate or cooperate with them in order to create more resilient and inclusive local communities, facilities and services.

The primary aim of this study is to examine the progress of online government information to the contribution of citizen engagement at the present time. Consequently the paper intends to investigate the realities about the engagement possibilities of e-government services for citizens for the case of Turkey as well as categorize the problems related with this issue. This study focuses on one of the notions incorporated in e-government: e-participation. The research part of the study concentrates on government websites in Turkey and their integration level regarding e-participation and citizen engagement.

Despite great advances in ICT, social media, participatory platforms and mobile apps, we seem to still be locked in the one-way communication " paradigm " where information flows unilaterally from government to citizens and seldom vice-versa. As a result, citizens are more receivers rather than conscious producers of information, data, ideas, solutions and decisions in the context of public policies. By means of an extensive literature review, this paper aims to explore the challenges on the part of government that prevent the transition to more dialogic governance and identifies the requirements for a meaningful application of social media for this purpose. The paper contributes to the literature in three ways: i) redefining a typology of social media-based citizens-government relationship; ii) clarifying the difference between challenges and risks of social media application by governments and identifying a typology of government challenges; and iii) identifying government requirements as a conditio sine-qua non for overcoming these challenges upfront, enabling more effective two-way interactions between governments and citizens. The paper concludes with discussion of implications and directions for further research.

The aim of this study then is to move beyond politically oriented discussion forums by also examining the  communicative practices of participants within fan-based forums. The focus is on how participants talk politics in online informal discussion forums. By informal discussion forums, I am referring to those forums that are not bound to any formal predetermined agendas such as e-consultations or e-juries, but rather to forums who’s primary purpose is to simply provide a communicative space for talk, e.g. fan-based discussion forums, news media message boards, and Usenet newsgroups. By political talk, I am referring to everyday, informal, political conversation carried out freely between participants in these online spaces, which is often spontaneous and lacks any purpose outside the purpose of talk for talk sake, representing the practical communicative form of what Habermas (1984, p. 327) calls communicative action. It is through this type of everyday political talk whereby citizens achieve mutual understanding about the self and each other, and it represents the fundamental ingredient of the public sphere.

The purpose of this study first is a normative one; it is to examine the democratic quality of this fundamental ingredient, of the communicative practices of participants within online discussions forums in light of a set of normative conditions of the public sphere. It is also to move beyond a formal notion of deliberation (beyond rationality via argumentation) by providing a more accurate account of how the political emerges in online discussions (particularly within nonpolitically oriented forums), how people actually talk politics in those discussions, and finally, how alternative communicative forms such as humor, emotional comments, and acknowledgements interact and influence the more ‘traditional’ elements of deliberation (e.g. rational-critical debate and reciprocity). Consequently, I present the following three research questions, which are central to this study:

To what extent do the communicative practices of online political discussions satisfy the normative conditions of the process of deliberation of the public sphere?

What role, if any, do expressives (humor, emotional comments, and acknowledgements) play within online political discussions and in relation to the normative conditions of deliberation?

How does political talk emerge in nonpolitically oriented discussion forums?

Together, the answers to these questions present a more comprehensive account of online political talk. They seek not only to offer insight into the quality of such talk, but also to provide a better understanding of its expressive and affective nature. Moreover, they seek to improve our understanding of how political talk occurs outside the realm of politically oriented discussion forums, and how it emerges in such communicative spaces. Therefore, in order to answer these questions and provide this insight, I examine and compare political talk within three online discussion forums of the Guardian, Big Brother, and Wife Swap. A comparative study design with normative, descriptive, and explorative characteristics was utilized. A content analysis with both qualitative and quantitative features was employed as the primary instrument for examination. Additional textual and network analyses were carried out to provide more depth to the investigation.

This paper examines some innovative practices of citizen engagement strategy implemented by Tokyo 2020 in the pre-game period. Hosting a sports mega-event such as the Olympic Games is a key milestone in urban history and reputation of any city. The challenge of celebrating an outstanding global event with a long-lasting positive impact on the place requires the commitment and engagement of all urban stake-holders as the hosting city needs to maximize the number of supporters who share the games' vision and embrace the Olympic experience. The role of citizens as creators and prescribers of urban reality is increasingly recognized in the field of place branding as it confronts the traditional top-down agenda-setting approach with a new collaborative paradigm and participatory culture. The city of Tokyo has initiated the implementation of its comprehensive strategy for hosting its second Olympic Games in 2020. The foundation plan of the 2020 Games identifies the engagement strategy as one of the key strategic pillars of the event aimed at ensuring an inclusive and active participatory nature of the Games celebration. The research is guided by an exploratory case study approach to assess the citizen engagement strategy and participatory frameworks within the context of the Olympic mega-event to be held in Tokyo in 2020. The examination of some innovative initiatives in the pre-game period such as the national call for the creation of Olympic medals, the Olympic mascots selection process and the Volunteering program, reveals a series meaningful drivers of citizen engagement strategy of Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games ranging from the access to a specific Olympic knowledge and sports experience to a personal self-realization and community empowerment, among others. The research aims at contributing to further academic discussion and effective practice of citizens´ engagement in place making through sports mega-events in such a way as to ensure a truly inclusive, inspiring and meaningful nature of these global happenings.

People Power in Local DRRM
An exemplary case of socially inclusive disaster response; the good work of OC Pilipinas

This paper made use of review of references e.g. news reports, past and most current articles and results of dialogue with community leaders and social workers which were helped by and able to worked with Operation Compassion Philippines (OC Pilipinas). After poring over Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and its anatomy, this paper will present how a socially inclusive Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (Local DRRM) is important in our survival and in our quest to providing an effective response to calamities. It will also tackle several sample cases and success stories on how OC Pilipinas conducted their programs and projects on Disaster Response. This paper will end by proposing recommendations on how the country can multiply its effort in carrying Local DRRM a square foot forward.

Complex zoo habitats with a variety of artificially designed near-natural habitats are characterized by a huge consumption of energy and resources, which contradicts the missions of biodiversity conservation and resources protection. Aside of environmental aspects and educational impact related to installations operated visible for the visitors and to accompanying information campaigns, contribution of shining zoo energy projects towards sustainability lies in the creation of a unique element of identification by addressing the benefit of community power, generation of renewable energy in an urban environment, provision of financial reward for zoo supporters and by encouraging participation of people living in proximity.

Social media are often regarded as a set of new communication practices which are likely, if deployed effectively, to make public sector organisations more responsive to the various stakeholders with whom they interact. In this context, responsiveness is usually approached as an administrative function of establishing additional channels of information and responding faster to citizen queries. Notwithstanding the importance of these objectives, this study aims to reconceptualise the relationship between social media and government responsiveness. Drawing on current literature and the case of the Food Standards Agency in the UK, the study identifies new dimensions of social media responsiveness. The findings of this study can provide useful insights both for researchers in the area and those in the process of developing social media strategies in government.

In most general terms this article addresses the issue of the continuing decline of trust in government and the imperatives for reform. The decline on trust in government has been brought about by many factors including the inefficient and ineffective delivery of services, waste of public resources, graft and corruption, lack of integrity in government, poor leadership, excessive red tape, ineffective reorganization and structural changes, too much centralization, among other things. In summary, unresponsive governance has been responsible for the continuing decline of trust in government. The article introduces a framework of areas of reform imperatives with the general objective of restoring trust in government. These areas include the following: (1) reforms in institutions and structures, including reforms in organizations, processes and procedures; (2) reforms in mindsets, paradigms and behavior; (3) reforms in leadership at various levels; and (4) reforms among citizens, i.e., citizen engagement and/or citizen participation. We begin by reviewing various examples in the Philippines including continuing efforts to address graft and corruption, red tape, and inefficiencies in the government's politico-administrative environment.

The aim of this chapter is to see whether online discussion forums dedicated to popular culture (reality TV) provide a communicative space, content and style for politics that extends the public sphere. Given their typically casual, chatty and frivolous nature, we might assume that political talk doesn’t emerge in such spaces, and if it does, it would fall well short of the type of talk crucial to the public sphere. To what extent does political talk emerge in such spaces? If so, do such forums fulfil the requirements of rationality and ‘decent’ deliberation? Given the nature of the forums, the analysis moves beyond a formal notion of deliberation by also taking into account the use of expressive speech acts: emotion, humour and acknowledgements. What role do ‘expressives’ play within online political talk and how do they impact the normative conditions of deliberation? Moreover, comparing these spaces with a space dedicated to high politics – the Guardian political discussion forum – allows us to see whether, as critics would expect, deliberative talk is taking place in the one and emotional and irrational talk in the other.

The state in modern times is considered to be gradually involved with two main challenges: localization of everything non-mobile and non-productive and globalization of everything mobile and lucrative. The financial and legitimating challenges and competition in the concept of the continuing technological progress –the so called New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs) - created the need for a “new public management”. In this need, e-Government was shaped.

After its successful transition to democracy, Mexico has experienced an epidemic of organized societal violence, known as the drug war, that to date has cost well over 100,000 casualties, most of them consigned to oblivion, without proper investigation or prosecution. Victims have been organizing and protesting, yet ordinary citizens have remained quiet, except for two short-lived waves of nationwide protest. As I hypothesize, a primary reason for their acquiescence is cognitive. The framing of organized violence as a self-contained war among criminals ("bounded violence") erodes the attitudinal foundations of citizen solidarity: sympathy with the victims of injustice. I explore the cognitive foundations of citizen attitudes towards victims on the basis of original data from the Mexican 2013 National Survey on Organized Violence. Logistic regression analysis confirms the expected framing effect. Even when controlling for alternative explanations, such as personal proximity to violence and social proximity to its victims, the notion of bounded violence among the criminal community induces citizens to view its victims with indifference.

How social media can enable opportunities for collaboration between citizens and governments is an evolving issue in theory and practice. This paper examines the dynamic aspects of collaboration in the context of the 2011 riots in England. In August 2011, parts of London and other cities in England suffered from extensive disorder and even loss of human lives. Based on a dataset of 1746 posts by 81 local government Twitter accounts during or shortly after the riots, we explore how local authorities attempted to reduce the effects of the riots and support community recovery. Using Twitter's conversational and rapid update features, they produced a variety of informational and actionable messages with clear calls for offline or online action. In some cases, collective against the riots evolved in a mutual way: not only citizens were mobilized by local authorities, but also local authorities actively promoted actions initiated by citizens.

Public institutions, in their efforts to promote meaningful citizen engagement, are increasingly looking at the democratic potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Previous studies suggest that such initiatives seem to be impeded by socio-technical integration barriers such as low sustainability, poor citizen acceptance, coordination difficulties, lack of understanding, and failure to assess their impact. Motivated by these shortcomings, the paper develops and applies a business model perspective as an interceding framework for analysis and evaluation. The underlying principle behind this approach is that it is not technology per se which determines success, but rather the way in which the business model of the technological artifact is configured and employed to achieve the strategic goals. The business model perspective is empirically demonstrated with the case of an online petitioning system implemented by a UK local authority. The case illustrates the importance of considering ICTs in public engagement from a holistic view to make them more manageable and assessable.

There has been a growing interest in citizen participation by government, civil society and citizens in democratizing Asian cities such as Singapore. Whilst prevailing studies of citizen participation have adopted a binary, principal-agent approach without considering intervening factors, we argue that intermediaries such as social service organizations, social enterprises and interest groups play a critical role in facilitating the inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in citizen participation processes. Based on the qualitative approach comprising of semi-structured interviews and participant observations, this study explores perspectives of diverse respondents including individual PWDs, intermediaries and government agencies on the current citizen participation dynamics in Singapore.

In this study, we aim to investigate (i) how far does the inclusion of PWDs in the policy consultation process lead to policies that address their needs better, and (ii) to what extent do intermediaries help accentuate PWDs’ needs for better policy outcomes. Our findings reveal that the inclusion of PWDs in the policy consultation process indeed can lead to policies that address their needs better. Acknowledging the significance of the involvement of intermediaries in helping to accentuate their voices in the policy consultation process, individual PWDs expressed concern about whether these intermediaries can adequately represent their perspectives without having lived experiences. Representation and accessibility for PWDs of all disabilities and backgrounds, capacity-building of disability advocacy groups as well as citizen participation formats should be reviewed to further enhance the inclusion of PWDs in citizen participation processes. Future research should consider more carefully the increasing interest of citizen participation in Asia and the Global South, the rising prominence of social enterprises and other socially responsible companies in articulating social agendas; and the growing use of innovative methods under participatory research.

Crowdsourcing is rapidly evolving and applied in situations where ideas, labour, opinion or expertise of large groups of people are used. Crowdsourcing is now used in various policy-making initiatives; however, this use has usually focused on open collaboration platforms and specific stages of the policy process, such as agenda-setting and policy evaluations. Other forms of crowdsourcing have been neglected in policy-making, with a few exceptions. This article examines crowdsourcing as a tool for policy-making, and explores the nuances of the technology and its use and implications for different stages of the policy process. The article addresses questions surrounding the role of crowdsourcing and whether it can be considered as a policy tool or as a technological enabler and investigates the current trends and future directions of crowdsourcing.