eParticipation research: a longitudinal overview
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paper_title: The challenged identity of a field: The state of the art of eParticipation research

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A growing number of research contributions deal with the issues of technologically mediated participation in public decision-making in an ever-wider number of disciplinary fields. As research on eParticipation begins to mushroom, the effort of the international research community in this area is being put in creating an identifiable common framework for eParticipation research. Among other instruments, trying to establish a solid body of literature to be referred to mainly pursues this. But how is this process actually evolving? Which are the currently available outcomes of this effort? What is the nature of the research framing process in progress so far? In this paper I analyse the features of a literature database on eParticipation developed within DEMO-net, the European Network of Excellence on eParticipation research. I conduct a quantitative analysis on the 651 items of the DEMO-net bibliographical library and a qualitative review of 73 items. Results show that the acknowledged literature on eParticipation features a surprisingly little occurrence of all the expected central key concepts and instruments of eParticipation, while the majority of the contributions are descriptive in nature and come from non-journal sources. Findings depict a research field still in search of a more coherent, stronger identity, and suggest the need for concept clarification and dissemination, more strictly connected to empirical and interpretative studies.
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paper_title: A Tale of Six Countries: eParticipation Research from an Administration and Political Perspective

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This paper presents a cross-national analysis of eParticipation research in the administrative and political domain. It covers eParticipation research in six European countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden) focusing on several aspects of eParticipation research, including research questions, methods, disciplinary approaches, units of analysis, research findings. The paper also provides an overview of national research, and outlines overall research findings and future directions in eParticipation research.
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paper_title: Characterizing eParticipation

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eParticipation is an emerging research area which, like most emerging areas, lacks a clear literature base or research approach. This study maps out some of the academic theories and disciplines that the new area addresses, using conventional literature study techniques. We identify 99 articles that are considered to be highly relevant to eParticipation. We develop a definitional schema that suggests different ways of understanding an emerging research area, and use this schema to identify key academic articles that help to define eParticipation. We adapt Deetz's [(1996). Describing differences in approaches to organization science: Rethinking Burrell and Morgan and their legacy. Organization Science, 7(2), 191-207] taxonomy of discourses in organizational science to provide an overall categorization scheme for research in the area, and map the literature. The article thus contributes to a developing picture which will help future researchers both to understand and to navigate the research area.
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paper_title: eParticipation: The Research Gaps

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eParticipation is a challenging research domain comprising a large number of academic disciplines and existing in a complex social and political environment. In this paper we identify eParticipation research needs and barriers and in so doing indicate future research direction. We do this by first setting the context for eParticipation research. We then consider the current situation and analyse the challenges facing future research. The future research direction was identified through conducting workshops and analysing published papers. The results are six main research challenges: breadth of research field; research design; technology design; institutional resistance; equity, and theory. These six challenges are described in detail along with the research direction to address them.
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paper_title: Characterizing e-participation in policy-making

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This paper argues the urgent need to better understand the e-democracy pilots that have taken place so far and that are currently being developed. It addresses the issues of what should be characterized in e-democracy pilots so as to better identify types of citizen participation exercises and the appropriate technology to support them, as such it offers an analytical framework for electronic participation. Over the last decade there has been a gradual awareness of the need to consider the innovative application of ICTs for participation that enables a wider audience to contribute to democratic debate and where contributions themselves are broader and deeper. This awareness has resulted in a number of isolated e-democracy pilots and research studies. It is important to consolidate this work and characterizes the level of participation, the technology used, the stage in the policy-making process and various issues and constraints, including the potential benefits.
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paper_title: Service Quality Delivery Through Web Sites: A Critical Review of Extant Knowledge

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Evidence exists that service quality delivery through Web sites is an essential strategy to success, possibly more important than low price and Web presence. To deliver superior service quality, managers of companies with Web presences must first understand how customers perceive and evaluate online customer service. Information on this topic is beginning to emerge from both academic and practitioner sources, but this information has not yet been examined as a whole. The goals of this article are to review and synthesize the literature about service quality delivery through Web sites, describe what is known about the topic, and develop an agenda for needed research.
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paper_title: E-government research: Reviewing the literature, limitations, and ways forward

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This article claims to be both a review and an agenda-setting piece. It is argued that e-government research suffers from definitional vagueness of the e-government concept, oversimplification of the e-government development processes within complex political and institutional environments, and various methodological limitations. In order to address these issues, the article reviews the limitations in the e-government literature, and it suggests ways forward. To do so, the study critically analyzes the development and various definitions of the e-government concept. After discussing the limitations of the concept, methodological and conceptual remedies such as (i) better examining and explaining the processes of – and participation patterns in – e-government projects within complex political environments, (ii) addressing the problem of under-specification in the e-government literature by the production of more grounded, empirical studies that would create new theoretical arguments and provide new concepts and categories so as to enhance our understanding of e-government policy processes and actors, and (iii) tying the subject of e-government strongly to mainstream public administration research are suggested in the final part of the analysis.
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paper_title: Designing the e-participation artefact

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When e-participation is considered in the context of applied research, researchers support government institutions by enabling technology for citizens who participate in policy-making. Governments' e-participation agendas involve a variety of different design activities; for example, designing new administrative procedures, computer literacy programs, or creating new laws. Design science aids the creation and evaluation of artefacts that are intended to find solutions to identified problems in a rigorous way. We therefore characterise three different types of e-participation design activities: conceptualisation, development, and dissemination, and show how design science principles are used to improve rigour and relevance in this kind of research.
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Title: eParticipation Research: A Longitudinal Overview

Section 1: Introduction
Description 1: This section introduces the growing complexity of the eParticipation research field and outlines the need for a longitudinal analysis of its developments.

Section 2: Method
Description 2: This section describes the method and strategy used for collecting and analyzing literature data on eParticipation research from April 2006 to March 2011.

Section 3: Limitations
Description 3: This section discusses the limitations of the study, including language constraints, database selection, keyword completeness, and the subjective classification process.

Section 4: Classification of the Research Domain
Description 4: This section introduces the categories used for the literature analysis, including eParticipation actors, activities, contextual factors, effects, and evaluation.

Section 5: Findings and Discussion
Description 5: This section presents the findings and discusses the trends observed in the eParticipation research field, focusing on different categories such as actors, activities, contextual factors, effects, and evaluation.

Section 6: eParticipation Actors
Description 6: This section provides detailed insights into research focusing on different eParticipation actors such as citizens, government institutions, and voluntary organizations.

Section 7: eParticipation Activities
Description 7: This section discusses the focus on various eParticipation activities over time, including eVoting, online discourse, and decision-making.

Section 8: Contextual Factors
Description 8: This section examines the role of various contextual factors affecting eParticipation, such as underlying technologies and governmental organization.

Section 9: eParticipation Effects and Evaluation
Description 9: This section highlights the shift in research focus towards the effects and evaluation of eParticipation, emphasizing the importance of deliberative effects and the quality of online democratic discussions.

Section 10: Conclusions
Description 10: This section summarizes the contributions of the paper and provides recommendations for future research, focusing on areas like contextual factors, the role of citizens, and the inclusivity of eParticipation processes.