COVID-19 as a driver for e-participation: insights from participatory budgeting in Poland

Narcyz Roztocki, Wojciech Strzelczyk and Heinz Roland Weistroffer

Central European Management Journal, 2024, vol. 33, issue 1, 126-143

Abstract: Purpose - This paper explores how COVID-19 has impacted the shift from public participation by conventional means to e-participation. Specifically, we investigated to what extent COVID-19 has been a driver for electronic participation in community participatory budgeting, which is a kind of residents’ consultation on how to spend part of a budget on local projects. We expounded on the concept of e-participation and its sub-concepts and investigated how these were applicable to participatory budgeting. Design/methodology/approach - We interviewed 34 leading managers in five City Halls in Poland regarding their views and experiences with moving public interactions related to participatory budgeting online during COVID-19. Findings - The findings indicated that COVID-19 has accelerated the digitalization of the participatory budgeting processes and, to some extent, may have increased community participation in general. We observed increased e-participation in the forms of e-consultation, e-deliberation, e-lobbying and e-voting. Originality/value - Mainly, this study contributed to the field by providing empirical evidence that COVID-19 increased various forms of e-participation as related to participatory budgeting. Moreover, we delineated various forms of e-participation and mapped them to activities in participatory budgeting.

Keywords: COVID-19; E-consultation; E-deliberation; E-lobbying; E-participation; E-referendum; E-voting; Participatory budgeting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:cemjpp:cemj-04-2024-0128

DOI: 10.1108/CEMJ-04-2024-0128

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