ONLINE AND OFFLINE PARTICIPATION AT THE LOCAL LEVEL

Abstract

This article presents an analysis on local participatory experiences in Catalonia, both online and in-person. The analysis is based on a database set up by the authors. The article carries out an explanatory analysis of local participatory initiatives (on- and offline) taking into account political variables (not usually considered in this kind of analysis) and also classical socio-economic variables that characterize municipalities. Hence, we add a quantitative analysis to the numerous case studies on local e-participation experiences. We have chosen Catalonia because it is one of the European regions with more initiatives and a considerable local government support for citizen participation initiatives since the 1980s. The article offers a characterization of these experiences and an explanatory analysis, considering: (i) the institutional context in which these experiences are embedded, (ii) the citizen participation processes and mechanisms online and (iii) a set of explanatory variables composed of the population size and the province to which the municipality belongs, the political tendency of the mayor, the electoral abstention rate, age, income, level of education, broadband connection and users of the Internet in the municipality. The model that we present is explanatory for municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants but it is not for fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. Actually, the majority of these latter municipalities have not developed any participatory activities. Among all the variables, population size is the most influential variable and affects the influence of other variables, such as the political party of the mayor, the local abstention rate and the province.

Keywords:

• electronic participation
• citizen participation
• web sites
• information and communication technologies (ICTs)
• municipalities
• city councils

Acknowledgements

We appreciate the contributions and revisions made by Albert Padró-Solanet, Joseph Hopkins, Josep-Anton Fernàndez and Ivan Serrano from the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Philip Spooner from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and those made by two anonymous referees.

Notes

Mainly at the local level, but nowadays the support comes also from the Catalan government.

Among the local factors and in addition to municipality size, there are also political variables such as electoral abstention (in the sense that the impulse for participation can be related to governmental interest in reducing abstention), electoral competition and the existence of technical, logistic and financial networks that support participatory initiatives.

Law 57/2003, 16 December 2003, of Measures of Modernization of the Local Government. Available online at: http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2003/12/17/pdfs/A44771-44791.pdf

First Order REP/119/2005, 14 March 2005. Available online at: http://www.gencat.net/diari/4357/05067212.htm

The ‘Diputació’ of Barcelona is a kind of provincial government whose main role is to help municipalities.

Some institutions have become the first driven force of these networks: a governmental institution (‘Flor de Maig’ Patronage of the Diputació de Barcelona), a private foundation (Fundació Jaume Bofill) and the Postgraduate Programme on Citizen Participation (at the Autonomous University of Barcelona).

‘Consensus’ is a project that was initiated in 2000 by the Fundació Jaume Bofill, the Localret Consortium and the Catalan Institute of Technology. It is a shared interactive tool that provides information and allows consultation, debate and citizen participation through the municipalities' web site. See the new edition at http://www.consensus.cat

Figures from the 2006 survey on ICT adoption by the local administrations in Catalonia, carried out by the Localret Consortium and FOBSIC. Available online at: http://www.localret.es/enquestatic2007/informeticajuntaments2006.pdf

Figures from the Catalan Statistics Institute at: http://www.idescat.net

For a description and classification of the different types and issues of the participatory initiatives see Martí and Rebollo's (2006) report on initiatives taking place in the province of Barcelona.

http://www.idescat.cat

IDIGOL (Democratic Innovation and Local Government of Catalonia) database is available online at: http://www16.gencat.net/idigol/cat/main.htm

OIDP (International Observatory for Participative Democracy) database is available online at: http://www.oidp.net

http://www.ine.es

http://www.idescat.cat

Salvador et al. (2004), Criado (2004), Brown and Schelin (2005) and Martí and Rebollo (2006). Also, surveys from Localret and the Observatory of Information Society (FOBSIC) indicate that the development of interactive and participatory channels depend on the municipality's population size (see surveys available online at: http://www10.gencat.net/dursi/ca/si/observatori/estadistiques.htm and http://www.localret.es/enquestatic2007/informeticajuntaments2006.pdf).

The selected sections are the usual ones in studies of municipalities and they come from article 26 of Law 7/1985, which regulates the bases of the local government in Spain.

The sampling objective was to obtain at least 30 municipalities per each population section but keeping maximum variability regarding the existence or not of participatory activities. Hence a serial of random numbers were generated and following them we carried out several selection turns, so we finished up with a balanced sample of municipalities with or without participatory initiatives.

Catalonia is divided into four provinces and 41 historical regions, both with their capitals.

However, in order to obtain a sufficient number of municipalities with participatory processes, it was necessary to carry out up to three turns of random selection, so it becomes clear again that the smaller the population, the less the number of participatory initiatives.

Actually, we will conduct all the analysis into each of the two population groups because they belong to different samples that cannot be added: in the first group – more than 20,000 inhabitants – we have the universe and in the second – fewer than or equal to 20,000 – we selected a sample.

We consider a high abstention rate as 34 per cent of the electorate who has not voted, a medium abstention rate as between 34 per cent and 23 per cent and a low abstention rate as lower than 23 per cent.

Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC) is a centre-left party that has led the Catalan government since 2003. It usually achieves the largest number of votes in local elections.

Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) is a left-leaning party that strives for the independence of Catalonia and it is the fourth or third political force depending on the elections.

Convergencia i Unió (CiU) is a centre-right nationalist party, which has a presence throughout Catalonia and an especially strong presence in small towns. In the local elections usually gains the largest number of councillors.

Iniciativa per Catalunya – Els Verds (ICV) is a small left-leaning party, concentrated in larger cities, which strongly defends the carrying out of participatory initiatives.

The number of participatory initiatives was recodified into a dummy variable that consists of ‘0’and ‘1 or more than 1’ categories.

That is, among municipalities with fewer than 20,000 people, the most frequent value is 0, the second most frequent is 1, but the third most frequent value is 3 initiatives instead of 2. Also, among municipalities with more than 20,000 people, the most frequent value is 0, the second most frequent is 1, but then there are the same number of municipalities that have developed 2, 3 and 4 initiatives. Therefore, for the ordinal probit analysis the dependent variable was recodified – in the case of municipalities with more than 20,000 – into one ordinal variable that consist of ‘0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and more than 4’, and into another ordinal variable that consist of ‘0, 1, 2, 3 and more than 3’ in the case of municipalities with fewer than 20,000 people.

The number of Internet users was measured by the number of people that have connected to the Internet in the last 3 months. This variable and the existence of broadband are only available for the 41 Catalan regions but not for each individual municipality so we use the data on the regions. http://www.idescat.cat

In the linear regression, R 2 = 0.502. In the logit analysis, 75 per cent of values are predicted when the modal prediction is 56.7 per cent and the Cox and Snell R 2 = 0.323.

One study about citizen participation in small municipalities in Catalonia (IGOP 2005) points out this possibility although it also remarks that small municipalities usually mirror the participatory methods and procedures from larger cities.

http://www.idescat.cat

These results are in line with Martí and Rebollo's (2006, p. 44) conclusions.