The Effects of Technology and Institutions on E-Participation

"The book focuses on an important promise of digital government, e-participation, which the authors rightly frame as the extension of public participation using ICTs. The book provides a much-needed emphasis on e-participation, with an international and comparative perspective on the factors enabling this phenomenon. The authors also offer important recommendations pertaining to regulations, skills, infrastructure, technological access and political mechanisms to foster an environment for enhanced e-participation."

Aroon Manoharan, University of Massachusetts Boston

"The Effects of Technology and Institutions on E-Participation: A Cross-National Analysis provides a new approach to examine and understand the factors that promote or constrain e-participation and its potential to increase democracy across the global community. This research expands the existing e-participation literature by combining theories of the policy process and information technology to examine the efficacy of e-participation. The findings from the study can provide policymakers and public managers a better understanding of the factors that facilitate citizen participation through the utilization of information and communication technology."

Luisa Diaz-Kope, University of North Georgia

"In a time when we are more connected than ever, for better, and worse; there is strikingly little consensus on how the public sector can best leverage technology toward a more democratic and participative society. Rawat and Morris ambitiously set out to address this cleavage by identifying factors that drive e-participation at a cross-national level. By emphasizing the role of institutions in driving e-participation, the authors provide a policy roadmap that will surely be of interest to policymakers and scholars interested in how to more effectively utilize technology to promote active and inclusive participation."

Martin Mayer, The University of North Carolina at Pembroke

"This book offers an intriguing exploration of e-participation as a means for engaging public participation through the utilization of information and communication technology at a cross-country level. The unique framework developed by the authors incorporates policy feedback and socio-technical theories. Through the use of reputed international sources within a multivariate analysis, this model suggests factors related to political and regulatory environment combined with political rights and civil liberties can be brought together in different ways to foster e-participation across countries. This advancement of theory by Rawat and Morris will be of interest to scholars, students, and those interested in better understanding public participation mechanisms from an international perspective."

Madeleine Wright McNamara, Tulane University

"Pragati Rawat and John C. Morris have provided readers with an excellent analysis of cross-national e-participation - as a form of citizen engagement and as a public policy tool. The book is highly informative, relevant, well written, and eminently engaging. The findings and insights are particularly especially useful given ongoing policy challenges related diversity, equity, and inclusion, declining trust, sustainability, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. In short, the book is an original contribution to the e-governance scholarship with important lessons for the future of citizen engagement."

Jonathan M. Fisk, Auburn University

"The Effects of Technology and Institutions on E-Participation is an intriguing short read … It will likely be of greatest interest to those needing a quick introduction to public participation and e-participation; some of the questions raised by the authors are very likely worthy of future research, as well."

International Journal of Public Administration