Canadian smart cities: Are we wiring new citizen-local government interactions?

Governments around the world are developing smart city projects, with the aim to realize diverse goals of increased efficiency, sustainability, citizen engagement, and improved delivery of services. The processes through which these projects are conceptualized vary dramatically, with potential implications for how citizens are involved or engaged. This research examines the 20 finalists in the Canadian Smart Cities Challenge, a Canadian federal government contest held from 2017 to 2019 to disburse funding in support of smart city projects. We analyzed each of the finalist proposals, coding all instances of citizen engagement used to develop the proposal. A significant majority of the proposals used traditional types of citizen engagement, notably citizen meetings, round tables, and workshops, to develop their smart city plans. We also noted the use of transactional forms of citizen engagement, such as apps, and the use of social media. Despite the general rhetoric of innovation in the development of smart cities, this research finds that citizens are most commonly engaged in traditional ways. This research provides cues for governments that are developing smart city projects, placing an emphasis on the importance of the process of smart city development, and not simply the product.     

Citizen Participation,Process, and Transparency in Local Government: An Exploratory Study

This study had two purposes. First, it empirically examined the relationship between citizens' participation in administrative policymaking phases and their perception of government transparency. Second, it investigated how citizens' use of both offline and online participation channels and their involvement in different phases of policymaking (i.e., agenda setting, implementation, and evaluation) were related to their assessment of transparency in government. A 2009 survey of residents of Seoul, South Korea, was used to test the study hypotheses. Using two‐stage least squares estimate techniques, the study found that citizens involved in any citizen participation programs are more likely than those not involved to positively assess transparency in government. With regard to the relationship between participation channels and transparency, citizens who used offline participation channels were more likely than nonusers to perceive enhanced transparency in local government. However, their use of online participation channels had limited effect on perceptions of transparency. Finally, participation in two phases of the policy process, agenda setting and evaluation, positively affected citizens' assessment of transparency in government.     

Going for the win‐win: including the public in underwater cultural heritage management through citizen science in Australia and New Zealand

UCH managers are increasingly aware of the limitations of excluding public participation in heritage management both in terms of their own limited resources and need for wide public political support. This article assesses a pilot project in South Australia to train citizen scientists to record and monitor underwater cultural heritage sites. The results reinforced the need to ensure the data collected is robust and meaningful, and that citizen scientists know their contribution is valid; the need to help citizen scientists interpret data and foster peer‐to‐peer learning, and highlighted the importance of open source data for site conditions.     

Confronting institutional boundaries to public participation: a case of the Danish energy sector

Although public participation has become an integrated part of planning practice, experience and documents literature still document difficulties in implementing participatory planning processes that provide arenas where citizens can truly influence planning. Based on a combination of institutional theory and action research methodology, this paper focuses on the institutional boundaries to introducing participatory practices by exploring openings and closures to the adoption of participatory planning processes by the Danish energy transmission system operator (TSO). Public participation in the Danish energy sector is characterized by complex institutional arrangements. The study shows how institutional boundaries are perceived by planners and how openings and closures can be identified and developed in an action research approach. The study reveals that citizen involvement has the potential to influence existing power structures but is highly challenged by an instrumentialised and sector-divided planning.     

Rethinking public participation in the smart city

In efforts to become “smart cities,” local governments are adopting various technologies that promise opportunities for increasing participation by expanding access to public comment and deliberation. Scholars and practitioners encounter the problem, however, of defining publics—demarcating who might participate through technology-enhanced public engagement. We explore two case studies in the city of Calgary that employ technologies to enhance public engagement. We analyzed the cases considering both the definition of publics and the level of citizen participation in areas of participatory budgeting and secondary suites. Our findings suggest that engaging the public is not a straightforward process, and that technology-enhanced public engagement can often reduce participation towards tokenism. City councillors and planners need to critically confront claims that smart cities necessarily enhance participation. Moving beyond tokenism requires understanding “public” as a plural category. Municipal governments should seek to proactively engage citizens and communities utilizing helpful resources including, but not limited to, digital tools and smart technologies. This would allow planners to keep a “finger on the pulse” of publics' concerns, better identifying and addressing issues of equity and social justice. It is also important to consider how marginalized publics can best be recognized in order to bring their concerns to the fore in decision-making processes.     

The Quadrivium of Online Public Consultation: Policy,Culture, Resources,Technology

Concerned by declining interest, trust, and participation by citizens in democratic politics, governments and political institutions worldwide are turning to the internet in attempts to revitalise democracy through online public consultation and citizen participation, referred to as e-democracy or ‘government 2.0’. This paper reports research into the planning and conduct of a series of online public consultation trials launched by the Australian federal government in late 2008, and it compares and contrasts Australian experiences with international e-democracy developments, including the Obama presidential campaign and findings of the Digital Dialogues review of online technologies to enhance citizen engagement in the UK, the UK Power of Information Task Force review, and experiments conducted as part of the MIT Deliberatorium. This paper presents qualitative analysis of findings in 10 areas, which it argues can be further grouped into four main areas of management focus of which technology, often the major topic of discussion, is important but less significant than policy, culture and resources.     

A theatre of machines: Automata circuses and digital bread in the smart city of Toronto

In this paper, the policies, projects, and promises of “smart” initiatives at the City of Toronto are evaluated, as they manifest through a technological convergence between local government services and an increased focus on citizen services through data-driven mediums. Through direct participant observation and formal interviews, a robust understanding of the internal institutional dynamics, the perspectives citizens in the “smart city,” and the operational disconnects in governance, policy, and practice has been gained. Our case study on the City of Toronto provides an account of how and from where these smart motivations for increasing a data-driven engagement with the public have arisen over the past several years. In doing so, we identify key characteristics that both enable and hinder the existing smart city in the forms of access to open data, the use of increased computational methods, and the engagement of public services through digital space as requirements for the future of participatory governance. We argue that instituting appropriate policies and engaging citizens to co-design and participate in the planning processes are essential to ensuring an inclusive, modern, and open smart city.     

Regulatory Stringency and Policy Drivers: A Reassessment of Renewable Portfolio Standards

Renewable energy policy has far‐reaching implications for national and international economic, environmental, and political sustainability, but thus far within the United States it has been almost entirely the province of state governments. This article examines the factors motivating state‐level policymakers to adopt different forms of a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), highlighting the distinction between degrees of policy stringency, ranging from entirely voluntary participation to rigorous and strictly enforced targets. In the process we introduce a new metric for assessing stringency, more precise and reliable than the various proxies used previously, and analyze its relationship to drivers of policy adoption. We find that policies of different stringencies are motivated by systematically different underlying factors. State‐level citizen political ideology is a significant predictor of RPS policy adoption, particularly for “voluntary” and “weak” policy designs. “Strong” policy designs, on the other hand, are best predicted by ideology at the government level, i.e., the degree of institutional liberalism. These findings may inform current implementation and program evaluation efforts, and potentially point the way toward more effective policy choices if and when an RPS moves forward on the national policy agenda, while the stringency metric central to this analysis can be of use to other policy scholars concerned with topics both within and beyond the realm of energy policy.     

Paradigms of participation in the National Council for Culture and Arts: challenges on representation,recognition, access to creation and reception in post-dictatorship Chilean public cultural policy

The National Council for Culture and Arts (NCCA) is the public agency responsible for the implementation of cultural policies in Chile. It was created in 2003 as part of a group of public organisms designed to promote democracy in post-dictatorship Chile, and its objectives include the encouragement of citizen participation in the national culture. This paper aims to call into question the scope and limits of citizen participation in the Chilean cultural field, through a systematisation of paradigms implicitly developed by the NCCA. Those paradigms include participation on the political level, the creation of symbols, recognition of cultural manifestations and access to reception and symbolic appropriation. It identifies challenges of these paradigms regarding representation, recognition, access to creation and reception of cultural manifestations.     

Citizen Participation in Planning: Climbing a Ladder?

Certain levels of public access in the process of the statutory land-use planning have been part of Czech planning legislation since the 1970s, but actual citizen participation has become an issue in practice only during the last decade. Currently citizens have a say but their involvement seldom exceeds mere opposition towards active involvement. Their attempts to be heard in the decision-making process is perceived as a nuisance by developers and some local governments as well. Except for the opponents of specific project proposals, most people feel that involvement in the planning process is futile, having little comprehension of how urban and regional planning may actually influence their lives, their property and their local environment. The paper analyses the effects of the pre-1989 powerlessness on the recent changes in the planning process and it reviews the research and opinions of several scholars in this field. The formal planning process, which deals mostly with land use, is often felt to be too narrowly defined and too restrictive, with limited opportunities for citizen involvement. Strategic planning has been introduced by some municipalities in recent years as a less rigid, more flexible and potentially more participatory approach, but also here the trend that copied the accustomed patterns of statutory land-use planning prevailed in the end. Apart from the 'mainstream' planning, alternative, 'informal' planning has emerged, often supported from abroad and organized by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Although still marginal, it has introduced active planning by citizens. The absence of legal definition and guidance in the case of non-statutory planning allowed greater diversity in the planning method itself. After several years of this experience, however, it has primarily proven just how diverse the concept of citizen participation might be. On the basis of the analysis of the current diversification of planning methods, an attempt is made to draw some conclusions concerning the evolving process of citizen empowerment and participation in Czech planning, as well as to indicate patterns of the changes of the involvement process in the current stage of transformation.     

Augustine's Ciceronian Response to the Ciceronian Patriot

This article argues that in the City of God Augustine takes up Cicero's project of cultivating good citizens through philosophy and rhetoric. He addresses the same audience, the dedicated citizen, with a new teaching, echoing the Ciceronian concern with Rome's moral decline and affirming the Ciceronian longing for justice, peace and true community. Yet, in teaching why neither Rome nor the Roman is better off when the citizen devotes himself completely to his earthly patria, Augustine challenges Cicero's construal of good citizenship. In this way, he offers dedicated citizens a new paradigm that remains true to Ciceronian concerns while surpassing the Ciceronian framework.     

Cultural rights and citizenship in cultural policy: Taiwan and China

From the 1990s, academia has paid increasing attention to cultural rights and cultural citizenship. This paper reviews existing literature on the construction of cultural rights and cultural citizenship and argues that cultural citizenship expands the concept of ‘citizenship’, promotes citizens’ consciousness, and confirms the content of ‘cultural rights’. The concept of cultural citizenship provides a new perspective from which to examine the challenges of cultural inequality, taste differences, symbolic struggle in cultural participation, and consumption. Based on western theories, this paper discusses the development of cultural citizenship and cultural rights in cultural policy in Taiwan and China, and it finds the tension between control and autonomy and between the government and the civil society in the practice of cultural citizenship. In Taiwan, most cultural policies are developed and implemented by the government, and those affected by them often do not have the necessary critical awareness to judge or examine them. In China, the protection of cultural rights provides a new type of control rather than autonomy from the Chinese Government. In both Taiwan and China, it is important to empower civil society to balance the governments’ control over the practice of cultural citizenship.     

We Finished the Plan,So Now What? Impacts of Collaborative Stakeholder Participation on Land Use Policy

There is a growing movement toward collaborative stakeholder participation in environmental policy. Rather than calling for a reliance on government officials to solve environmental problems, this approach calls for empowering a community of stakeholders to contribute meaningfully. Scholars examining citizen participation have investigated the performance of such efforts. This study examines one important aspect of performance, the impact of stakeholder participation on policymaking at the local level. A multiple‐case analysis of county‐level, community‐based task forces working on farmland preservation planning in Ohio, U.S., reveals patterns of policymaking processes and the near‐term impacts of collaborative planning. These patterns are linked to scholarship using prior empirical studies as well as the Institutional Analysis and Development framework, which integrates physical, social, and institutional variables to examine collective decision‐making related to natural resources. Results indicate that the degree of policy change is associated closely with local contextual factors, rather than internal group factors often emphasized in studies of citizen advisory committees and collaborative groups.     

Partnerships in place: Facilitating rural local government entrepreneurialism in Newfoundland and Labrador

Rural local governments across Canada, including those in Newfoundland and Labrador, struggle with many of their day-to-day operational activities, including providing appropriate drinking water, wastewater, and garbage collection services, among other essential services, and rarely have capacity to facilitate local economic development activities. In recent times, entrepreneurialism has been noted as having potential for rural local governments, yet little research has been completed to determine its presence and relevance for municipalities in Newfoundland and Labrador. In response, we examined eight case study local governments in Newfoundland and Labrador to determine if, and how, entrepreneurialism was present in municipal efforts to increase economic prosperity in their communities. Findings suggest that while rural local governments continue to face challenges due to declining support for rural development from provincial and federal governments and increased downloading of responsibilities, some communities have established ways to remain resilient through partnerships and building on place-based assets. This exploratory study provides a basis for further in-depth research to determine the extent and approaches to entrepreneurialism in local government in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.     

Towards a computational cultural policy studies: examining infrastructures of taste and participation

Like other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, cultural policy studies has had to respond to the influence of computing technologies. Researchers have explored the changes wrought to the management of cultural organisations, to the models of the creative industries and to new forms of access to culture and the arts. This paper suggests that these emphases might miss how computing technologies are re-shaping the project of cultural policy in a more fundamental direction. The paper draws on the work concerned with the cultural values of computing technologies and their influence on contemporary modes of government. These values, of instrumental reason, categorisation and calculation underpin a range of technologies, which are increasingly present in and important to the management of everyday life. Reflecting on how cultural taste and participation are being re-shaped by computing technologies, the paper argues these infrastructures are informed by specific visions of the kinds of people who live with and through them and how such people can be governed. The long-standing focus of cultural policy studies – about how states are concerned with the cultural formation of their citizens – are keenly present in the strategic ambitions and imperatives associated with computation.     

The post‐politics of transport: establishing a new meeting ground for transport politics

This paper brings together two disparate but critical bodies of literature about contemporary citizen participation in the Australian city: transport politics and post‐politics. The argument is advanced that state and citizen actor relations—as they exist in the governance and management of Australian urban transport—have taken on characteristics of post‐politics. By conceiving of citizen participation in this manner, new ways of understanding it are generated and it is possible to appreciate how such participation is shaped by state actors both across time and in response to the politicisation of transport proposals. The paper illustrates the extent to which citizen engagement has become a new focal point in transport politics, particularly given citizens' capacities to politicise proposals and transport trajectories. It achieves such ends by drawing upon key‐informant interviews conducted between 2013 and 2016 with public transport advocates, select resident groups, and local and state level planning officials from Melbourne, Australia.     

Children’s participation: moving from the performative to the social

The body of work on children’s participation has been valuable in asserting its importance. Nonetheless, participation is a contested concept and key challenges arise relating to its emphasis on age and voice, its focus on socialising the participative responsible citizen, and its failure to sufficiently recognise the range of participatory activities of children in their everyday lives. This article presents findings of a study on children’s experiences of participation in their homes, schools, and communities including the importance of the relational context, how everyday interactions rather than ‘performative’ formal structures for participation are valued by children and how their participation is limited by adult processes based on notions of competence and voice. It concludes with an argument for recognising and facilitating children’s informal and social participation as well as new forms of democratic processes being developed by children to address the possibility of governance and over-responsibilisation of children.     

Exclusion in Area-based Urban Policy Programmes

Area-based urban regeneration programmes such as the New Deal for Communities in the UK, the German Soziale Stadt and the Danish Kvarterloft are based on a participatory approach emphasizing active citizen participation and the involvement of local stakeholders. The article argues that these initiatives are not as open and inclusive as they strive to be, and in this article, we explore the different types of exclusion that can take place when such programmes are implemented. Based on the theoretical literature and on empirical data from the Danish Kvarterloft project, we identify three types of exclusion—structural, discursive and deliberate exclusion—and offer a theoretical analysis and an empirical account of these exclusions. The article concludes that practitioners as well as politicians need to reflect critically on different types of exclusion in order to create transparent and inclusive democratic processes.     

侨乡社会公民参与要素研究——以福建C村G炼油厂事件为例

论文通过对福建省著名侨乡C村G厂污染事件解决过程的详细调查与回顾,对其中所反映的公民参与要素进行了分析。认为村民、海外华侨华人、民间组织和新闻媒体等四方面要素在公民参与过程中发挥着重要作用。相对于中国其他农村来说,侨乡的公民参与更加具有主动性和行动力,这源于侨乡社会独特的地位及其相对稳定且强大的华侨资源。在全球化背景下,随着现代通信技术和日益廉价方便的交通运输系统的发展,海外移民借助于社团或民间组织,通过募资、捐赠、信息发布和新闻媒体等方式来影响家乡的公共管理活动将成为一种常态。     

Citizen-led democratic reform: innovations in Indi

Contemporary political systems are experiencing a democratic disconnect between formal institutions of representative government, and the more informal spaces of political participation. Rather than offer an institutional remedy, this article turns to practice and considers how citizens themselves are seeking to transform dysfunctional democratic practices. The article provides an in-depth analysis of democratic events that have unfolded between 2012 and 2017 in the Australian federal electorate of Indi. The analysis explores the intertwined participatory efforts of the citizens’ group, Voices4Indi, and the local Independent federal member, MP Cathy McGowan. The Indi experience demonstrates that while citizens may be frustrated with ‘politics as usual’, they are not rejecting the system but rather instigating creative democratic reforms.