eParticipation in Practice in Europe: The Case of "Puzzled by Policy: Helping You Be Part of EU"

This paper focuses on the case study of "Puzzled by Policy: Helping you be part of EU", a European e-participation project, which studies the needs of concerned citizens, stakeholders and decision makers, and provides a unique platform for users to learn and discuss about policy at the EU and national level, while finding out what particular policies mean to them on the national level so that they can contribute to policy drafting. The findings of our study suggest that the path to successful e-participation should not only involve ICT, but should first incorporate a conceptual model of e-participation, i.e. questions such as how to model the policy to be debated in the democratic process, how to define the public engagement model, what communication model should be used, and what deliberation methods should be addressed.