[EGOV LIST] Call for Papers. Special issue in Journal of Sustainable Cities and Society

[Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar]

Emerging technologies implementation for improving citizen participation and collaboration
 
Special Issues editors:
Prof. Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar, University of Granada, Spain
Email: manuelp at ugr.es <mailto:manuelp at ugr.es>
Assoc. Prof. Laura Alcaide Muñoz, University of Granada, Spain
Email: lauraam at ugr.es <mailto:lauraam at ugr.es>
Assist. Prof. Cristina Alcaide Muñoz, University of Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Email: c.alcaide at uah.es <mailto:c.alcaide at uah.es>  
 
Overview of Special Issue
During the last decades, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have played a key role in democratic political and governance processes (Ramadani et al. 2022), seeking to engage citizens in participatory dynamics, supporting more democratic decision-making processes and strengthening representative democracy. By contrast, up to now, this implementation of ICTs has mainly produced higher data collection, better information flows and higher information transparency (Al Sulaimani and Ozuem, 2022).
With the rise of emerging technologies (ETs), new sceneries seem to be arisen. Indeed, ETs should go beyond providing higher access for citizens to participate in public issues, co-creating and co-deciding public affairs in an equal power basis with public institutions (Casiano et al., 2022; Mergel, 2015), especially in crisis situations (Criado et al., 2020). It also offers the opportunity to monitor the behavior of public managers and politicians, which improves accountability and promotes democratic processes by opening critical issues for different communities (Schmidthuber et al., 2017). This way, an increasing number of governments around the world are implementing platforms, applications, and tools based on ETs to promote an informed citizenry, direct voting, and crowdsourced decisions, trying to increase trust in government (Marino and Lo Presti, 2018).
Nonetheless, although academic scholars have highlighted the need to strengthen research focused on actual practices of citizen involvement in public issues (Rodríguez Bolívar et al. 2018; Alcaide Muñoz et al. 2017), we can only find prior research analyzing models and frameworks that have addressed this question (Cortés-Cediel et al. 2019; Boukris et al. 2016). Also, evidence of e-participation initiatives and projects in which ETs are being used is scarce, limiting the understanding and learning that these practical experiences could provide. Therefore, this special issue seeks to shed some light with contributions offering rigorous research evidence about these experiences to fill the gap in the use of ETs in e-participation initiatives, especially concerning the ET implementation and impact on citizen engagement in collaborative governance models.
 
Indicative List of Anticipated Themes:
This special issue seeks a wide range of papers that deal with diverse projects of ETs implementation in governance models, especially at the smart city level, to favor progress in this field of knowledge with the consequent impact and practical implications necessary to develop these ETs initiatives. All the papers submitted should also be sure that they fit with the scope of the journal Sustainable Cities and Society. Else, the manuscript will be desk-rejected.
Among others, the following tentative themes are the interest for the special issue:
-       Theoretical approaches to the study of citizens participation using ETs. 
-       ET implementation in the use of citizen e-Participation initiatives. 
-       Citizen participation and collaboration initiatives promoting under the Smart Cities framework 
-       Collaborative and social platforms under ETs to foster co-production (participatory budgeting initiatives, new projects, etc.)
-       Empirical experiences on the use of digital participation and co-production platforms to manage and coordinate crisis situations (Environmental catastrophes, health crisis, etc.).
-       Digital competence of public officials in ETs to support citizen collaboration and participation under implementation of ET-base systems. 
-       Political leading initiatives in implementing ETs form citizen participation and collaboration. 
-       Benefits, challenges, and barriers in ET implementation for citizen participation and collaboration. 
-       Improving inclusiveness in citizen participation using ETs.
 
Manuscript submission information:
Important Dates in Sustainable Cities and Society Special Issue:
Initial paper submission deadline: 29th February 2024
First round authors notification: 15th May 2024
Invited revisions deadline: 26th July 2024
Second round authors notification: 15th September 2024
Final revision deadline: 15th October 2024
Final authors notification: 15th November 2024 
Project publication date: January 2025
 
Submission Site: https://www.editorialmanager.com/scsi/default2.aspx
Article Type Name: “VSI: ETs for e-participation”- please select this item when you submit manuscripts online.
For any inquiries about the appropriateness of contribution topics, welcome to contact Managing Guest Editor Prof. Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar (manuelp at ugr.es <mailto:manuelp at ugr.es>).
Guide for Authors will be helpful for your future contributions, read more:https://www.elsevier.com/journals/sustainable-cities-and-society/2210-6707/guide-for-authors
For more information, please visit the ScienceDirect Page of the journal: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/sustainable-cities-and-society
 
References
Al Sulaimani, A.H.A. and Ozuem, W. (2022). Understanding the role of transparency, participation, and collaboration for achieving open digital government goals in Oman. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 16(4), 595-612. 

Alarabiat, A., Soares, D. and Estevez, E. (2021). Determinants of citizens’ intention to engage in government-led electronic participation initiatives through Facebook. Government Information Quarterly, 38(1), 101537. 

Alcaide Muñoz, L., Rodríguez Bolívar, M.P., Cobos, M.J., Herrera Viedma, E. (2017). Analyzing the scientific evolution of e-Government using a science mapping approach. Government Information Quarterly, 34(3), 545-555. 

Allen, B., Tamindael, L.E., Bickerton, S.H. and Cho, W. (2020). Does citizen coproduction lead to better urban services in smart cities projects? An empirical study on e-participation in a mobile bid data platform. Government Information Quarterly, 37(1), 101-412. 

Boukhris, I., Ayachi, R. and Elouedi, Z., Melloullli, S. and Ben Amor, N. (2016). Decision model for policy makers in the content of citizens engagement: Application on Participatory Budgeting. Social Science Computer Review, 34(6), 740-756. 

Casiano Flores, C., Rodríguez Müller, A.P., Virkar, S., Temple, L., Steen, T. and Crompvoets, J. (2022). Towards a co-creation approach in the European Interoperability Framework. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 16(4), 519-539. 

Cortes-Cediel, M.E., Cantador, I. and Rodriguez Bolivar, M.P. (2019). Analyzing Citizen Participation and Engagement in European Smart Cities. Social Science Computer Review. Online First. 

Criado, J.I., Guevara Gomez, A. and Villodre, J. (2020). Using collaborative technologies and social media to engage citiznes and governments during the COVID-19 Crisis. The Case of Spain. Digital Government: Research and Practice, 1(4), 1-7. 

Gascó, M. (2017). Living Labs: Implementing open innovation in the public sector. Government Information Quarterly, 34(1), 90-98. 

Marino, V. and Lo Presti, L. (2018). From citizens to partners: the role of social media content in fostering citizen engagement. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 12(1), 39-60. 

Mergel, I. (2015). Opening Government: Designing Open Innovation Processes to Collaborate with Externa Problems Solvers. Social Science Computer Review, 33(5), 599-612. 

Ramadani, L., Yovadiani, A. and Dewi, F. (2022). When innocence is no protection: governance failure of digitalization and its impact on local level implementation. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 16(1), 68-80. 

Rodríguez Bolívar, M.P., Alcaide Muñoz, L. and Cobo, M.J. (2018). Analyzing the scientific evolution and impact of e-Participation research in JCR journals using science mapping. International Journal of Information Management, 40, 111-119. 

Schmidthuber, L., Hilgers, D., Gegenhuber, T. and Etzelstorfer, S. (2017). The emergende of local open government: Determinants of citizen participation in online service reporting. Government Information Quarterly, 34(3), 457-469.