Crowd-Sourced Planning, Crowd-Monitoring, and Organisational Learning

Abstract

Participatory reforms, the deliberative turn, and administrative reforms highlight the important role of online and offline participation in local governance. To become citizen-oriented, local governments have responded to these demands, and some have implemented platform for feedback (invited space). Different forms of online and offline participation, such as representative, direct, deliberative, and demonstrative participation try to influence local decision-making processes. These participatory channels can be divided into instruments for the planning of urban policies and instruments for the monitoring of local governance service delivery. As an example of crowd-sourced planning platforms, Participatory Budgeting processes have been analysed. As an example of crowd-monitoring processes, Fix My Street platforms have been evaluated. These two instruments were studied in two German cities to identify the success and failure factors of these instruments. Two levels of learning become clear: cities learning about different democratic and administrative innovations from other cities (intercommunal learning) and the city administration learning from citizens (responsive learning). Factors critical for successful learning are actors (the mayor as the driving agency), positive contextual factors (blending online and offline instruments), organisational culture (openness to advice and innovation), and process (transparency).