Our colleagues Rosa Borge & Clelia Colombo are members of GADE research group (Governance, Administration & Electronic Democracy) at the UOC (Open University of Catalonia). They were working during last 2007 about e-participative processes carried out at the catalan municipalities. This research line is collecting those proceses for each municipality & analizing their explicative factors, mainly focusing on the political ones. First results were presented by Rosa Borge at an International Seminar on october 5 & 6 at Florence University, jointly organized by their politics department and SIRU (Social Informatics Research Unit) at the York University: "Changing Politics through digital networks: the role of ICTs in the formation of new social and political actors and actions" with Donatella de la Porta, Michelle Micheletti, Brian Loader, Stephen Coleman, Lorenzo Mosca, among others.
The paper deals with a quantitative analysis of those citizen participation experiences -in person & electronic, explaining each experience and then analizing the influence for the socioeconomic and political variables. They found that the populational weight is the most relevant variable, and cities from 20.000 inhabitants are the ones that develop more participative processes, but the party in government or the electoral turnout are also relevant factors to be considered.
The authors would like to have your suggestions, comments & critics. Find the paper at:
http://www.sociologyofeurope.org/files/Borge_Colombo_Welp_Florencia.pdf
