Define Level of Citizen Engagement

 
Citizens’ participation in the planning and decision process can enhance the capabilities and functionalities of the government for sustainable development (Kumar et al., 2018). Three main means of participation were identified from engagement viewpoint: citizens as democratic participants, citizens as co- creators and citizens as ICT users(Johannes and Snoeck, 2019).
 

History

The concept of participation has been imagined by Arnstein, (1969) who suggests that participation is a spectrum that comprises of three main steps: non-participation, consultation (gathering of ideas but no impact on decision- making) and co-decision (with decision making shared between officials and citizens).

Example

Zurich in Switzerland is a good example which enables citizens to report damages in and other issues with the city’s infrastructure (Abu-Tayeh, Neumann and Stuermer, 2018).

References

• Abu-Tayeh, G., Neumann, O. and Stuermer, M. (2018) ‘Exploring the Motives of Citizen Reporting Engagement: Self-Concern and Other-Orientation’, Business and Information Systems Engineering. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 60(3), pp. 215–226. doi: 10.1007/s12599-018-0530-8.
• Arnstein, S. R. (1969) ‘A Ladder Of Citizen Participation’, Journal of the American Planning Association, 35(4), pp. 216–224. doi: 10.1080/01944366908977225.
• Johannes, A. and Snoeck, M. (2019) ‘Hearing the Voice of Citizens in Smart City Design : The CitiVoice Framework’, 61(6), pp. 665–678. doi: 10.1007/s12599-018-0547-z.
• Kumar, H. et al. (2018) ‘Smart neighbourhood: A TISM approach to reduce urban polarization for the sustainable development of smart cities’, Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management, 9(2), pp. 210–226. doi: 10.1108/JSTPM-04-2017-0009.