WWW/Internet - Portal do Software Público Brasileiro

ISBN: 978-972-8939-25-0 © 2010 IADISdoes. The permanent e-Transformation of the public sector spurs the discussion on entirely new ways forPublic Governance.The scope of Public Governance is rather broad: democratic and cooperative policy formulation; citizenand civil society involvement; a transparent and efficient implementation of policies; a continuous evaluationof their results; an accountability of public decision makers; ways to improve policy making in the future.With this agenda it becomes clear that Web 2.0 applications are going to improve Public Governance. Thereare several government-related activities that can be affected:• Democracy and participation.• Petitions.• Campaigning.• Monitoring politicians.• Advice and ratings on public service.• Law enforcement.• Suggestions and Feedback.• Cross-agency collaboration.• Knowledge Management.• Good Practice Exchange.3.1 Web 2.0 and Public Governance: The Citizen SideE-Democracy is the support and enhancement of democracy, democratic processes and institutions. Soempowerment is the red thread in many activities. The idea of empowering means: giving someone thepower that he was deficient before. Participation is the way, democracy is the goal. E-Participation willtransform the nature of representative democracy by facilitating more direct and more numerous linksbetween representatives and individual voters.Citizens may become quite active in supporting their representatives at elections. Earlier Campaigningwas performed by print media, party meetings, rallies, public speeches. Then electronic media, radio and TV,arrived. Since the mid-Nineties the Web 1.0 got used, a new medium but an old message. Now there is amove to Web 2.0 as new medium bringing additional messages. E-Campaigning is about raising awarenessabout issues as well as engaging with people and encouraging people to engage with each other. So itchannels the power of public opinion to advance a progressive drive. The tools used are quite diverse, soblogging, forwarding campaign information via email or twitter, producing videos, making fund raising sites,etc. The new contexts are different: e-Campaigning is citizen-based, decentralized, and individualistic usingsocial micro-networks.Citizens are not only supporting their representatives, they are also watching and observing them in acritical disposition. Diverse forms of monitoring have become a leading issue in citizen participation. Thetargets of monitoring are diverse. They include events such as elections, groups such as political unions,persons such as politicians, modes such as proper fund spending and spaces such as parks.There are many cases where law is enforced and citizens help with monitoring. Such cases may involvenegative behavior such as insults on race. Other cases are that citizen may be involved in documentingtrespasses of the travel code. As an example citizens have posted photos of cars parking in a bike lane. Such aform of monitoring has been nick-named as little-brother-role.Other forms of contributions by citizens include e.g. providing advice and ratings of public servicestherefore helping other citizens. Some lay persons are very skilled in rewriting public information in a formthat is better understandable as the official jargon used for. Further, experienced citizens may give hints howto better deal with special administrative problems such as making applications to a certain public agency.Then the Web 2.0 may be used for suggesting administrative improvements. There is a common criticthat e-Government is too much supply oriented with too much focus on efficiency. The citizens maycontribute by giving proposals for amendment via social media. So Burgerlink was created in TheNetherlands and suggests an e-Citizen Charta (www.burger.overheid.nl). The demands stated include: Choiceof channel, overview of rights and duties, comprehensive procedures and convenient services etc.384