Studies in the relevant literature show that one of the most important impedes regarding e-participation projects is the project's success rate and sustainability. Thus, it is vital to examine the behaviours, perceptions, and attitudes of the stakeholders, including the residents, toward the e-participation efforts and attempts. Thus, it is crucial to synthesize the extant literature before going further. This paper aims to examine the literature to make an evaluation of the impact of behaviorally informed elements on the success and sustainability of e-participation efforts. Throughout this paper, we present some clues on how social gamification and nudges could motivate and move the mass to e-participation initiatives in search of sustainability and success.

This paper, thus, provides a synthesized examination of the impact of behaviorally informed elements on e-participation initiatives by conducting a systematic review of 44 peer-reviewed studies indexed by Clarivate Analytics. We have analyzed the studies concerning research motivations, methods, and practical implications, to reach some meta-conclusions by answering the research questions. The analysis revealed that there is still a gap regarding whether and how sustainability is provided concerning e-participation initiatives.

The use of digital technologies for coproduction of public services and citizen engagement has gained an extensive interest in recent years in the scholarly debates and practice of public sectors around the world. The basic purpose of the use of digital technologies is to simplify the processes and enhance the quality of public service delivery. There are certain benefits of using digital technologies in the delivery of public services such as empowering communities, achievement of targeted performance and governance results, reducing the unusual delays and inefficiencies, facilitating open governance initiatives, value creation and transparency of government and its affairs etc. Nevertheless, there are tremendous challenges associated with the use of digital technologies for coproduction and there is a lack of evidence on their actual impact.

Developing countries face a greater challenge in the use of digital technologies for citizen engagement and coproduction of public services and despite their use the communication flow has remained to be unidirectional, i.e., from government to the people. There is also greater digital divide where a considerable number of people either do not have access to the ICT or do not show the motivation to use it. In the past few years, policy initiatives in Pakistan are focusing on improving the public service delivery by developing citizen-centric e-governance initiatives. The government of Pakistan has implemented various e-governance platforms to provide the masses with better service delivery with the purpose to ensure efficient solution to their problems. There is a need to study how effective these platforms had been able to serve the purpose. This research will focus on one of these platforms, Pakistan Citizen Portal, to study which drivers and barriers influenced the performance of this initiative. Using semi-structured interviews with government officials and users of Pakistan Citizen Portal, this paper aims to systematically examine the facilitators and barriers from the perspectives of the government and citizens.

There has been little research that systematically investigates drivers and barriers to citizen engagement and coproduction via app-facilitated e-governance from both the government and citizens’ perspectives, particularly in the context of Pakistan. This research aims to fill this gap through a case study on Pakistan Citizen Portal. The country context adds another important dimension to the study. The literature on citizen engagement and coproduction emphasises the importance of context, nevertheless, most empirical studies are set within advanced economies, with scant attention paid to the developing countries. The scale of problems that policy initiatives in countries such as Pakistan are seeking to tackle means that it is important to study the use of digital technologies and its effects on coproduction and citizen engagement in these contexts too.

With the proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICT), the public participation of citizens has found significant potential for transformation in their interaction with the government. Concepts like e-participation and e-government became fruitful areas of practice, policy making and theoretical explorations. The objective of this exploratory research is to inquire into how social media (SM) was employed by Bucharest municipality for communication and citizens engagement, and how it consequently shapes e-participation. The methodology employed content analysis of the Bucharest City Hall (Primăria Municipiului București - PMB) Facebook page (posts and their comments sections) in the months of May and June 2023. The content analysis used a citizens’ engagement index adapted for this research from previous scholars to explore metrics such as popularity, commitment and virality. The type of content and media in the SM posts was also analysed, as well as the PMB’s tactics and strategies of communication towards the citizens. One of the key findings indicated a one-way communication from the municipality towards the citizens. The commitment metrics showed that, when it comes to a more intense e-participation (eg. comments), citizens have low engagement with social media content of PMB. However, when they do engage in this type of participation, they do it from a rather adversial type of participation. In respect to the types of content on the Facebook page of PMB, the paper concluded that the most often distributed ones were: cultural activities & sports and public works & town planning. The most widely posted type of media on the Facebook page of PMB were photos.

Although public participation has traditionally preoccupied scientists both in theoretical as well as empirical terms, recent trends such as digitalization and increased complexity of public problems have made the phenomenon even more prominent. Public consultations, today performed in an online form – e-consultations – are among most commonly used instruments for involving general public in regulation process. In Croatia, e-consultations are relatively new participatory instrument, introduced as legally binding in 2013. Since the establishment of the central portal for e-consultations in 2015, the number as well as quality of conducted e-consultations has increased, which can be concluded based on official reports of competent authorities. However, more extensive and in-depth empirical insights on the e-consultation procedure and its outcomes are missing. Therefore, main research question of the paper is related to (i) the outcomes of involving public in policy formulation process via e-consultations in Croatia, i.e. the level of responsiveness towards interested public, and (ii) organizational and environmental variables affecting that outcomes. More precisely, the paper is interested in answering the following questions: who participates in e-consultations and how (the type of participants and the type of submitted comments), relation between the type of participants and type of comments on the one hand, and their acceptance on the other, as well as the relevance of organizational variables (level of government, type of administrative organization and policy area) on the level of responsiveness towards public input. Research methodology consists of quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the reports on conducted e-con-sultations in Croatia in three-year period (from 2016-2019), questionnaires with civil servants and participants involved in the e-consultation procedure, as well as interviews with civil servants, officials and experts. Research findings suggest that the level of administrative responsiveness is significantly related to organizational variables, and even more dependent on the characteristics of interested public (number and type of participants and the type of submitted comments). Administrative organizations are more responsive to the comments of institutions and organized groups than to the comments submitted by individuals, as well as they are more responsive to elaborated, informed comments in relation to opinions and attitudes. The share of accepted comments is higher at the local and regional level in relation to national, and agencies proved to be more responsive than traditional administrative organizations (ministries).