Computing and organizations: what we know and what we don't know
Communications of the ACM - Special section on management of information systems
Better democracy through technology
Communications of the ACM
Democracy in an IT-framed society: introduction
Communications of the ACM
Toward the European information society
Communications of the ACM
Rating the impact of new technologies on democracy
Communications of the ACM
The promise of digital government
Digital government
Measuring the diffusion of eParticipation: A survey on Italian local government
Information Polity - Reflections on ICT in Public Administration from the European Group on Public Administration
Evaluating and Improving e-Participation in Istanbul
Journal of E-Governance
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Using data from two national surveys conducted in 2006 and 2011, we empirically examine whether, and the extent to which, grassroots or local governments in the United States have adopted electronic democracy e-democracy. We contrast this empirical reality against the claims made by e-democracy advocates. The survey results show that few American local governments have adopted e-democracy, particularly meaningful elements through which citizens can actively participate in governmental activities, programs and decision-making. Even fewer local governments plan to do so in the near future. These empirical results are highly inconsistent with the claims of e-democracy advocates. Based on the survey results, we conclude that two important reasons account for the lack of e-democracy at the American grassroots: lack of funding to support e-democracy applications and lack of perceived demand for e-democracy. A third important factor may well be the fact that early predictions were, for various reasons, incorrect. Based on these findings, we would expect that e-democracy at the American grassroots will not be substantially different in the foreseeable future than it is now.