E-participation and Climate Change in Europe: An analysis of local government
practices
Ana Yetano, Sonia Royo, Basilio Acerete
Citizens are demanding greater transparency and accountability
from their governments, and seek to participate in shaping the
policies that affect their lives. The diffusion of the Internet has
raised expectations that electronic tools may increase citizen
participation in government decision-making and stop the
decline of trust in political institutions. This paper brings
together two relevant topics, e-participation and climate
change, analyzing the websites of the environment departments
of European local governments that have signed the
Aalborg+10 commitments, in order to establish to what extent
European local governments are making use of the Internet to
promote e-participation and environmentally-friendly behaviors
among their citizens. Our results show that the developments
on e-participation are higher in transparency than interactivity.
The Internet as a tool to revitalize the public sphere is still
limited to those countries with higher levels of transparency,
and penetration of ICTs and a culture of citizen engagement. Full Text
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