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Towards Effective E-Participation of Citizens in the European Union: The Development of AskThePublic

Created by
  • Haebom

Author

Nils Messerschmidt, Kilian Sprenkamp, Amir Sartipi, Xiaohui Wu, Igor Tchappi, Liudmila Zavolokina, Gilbert Fridgen

Outline

This paper highlights the critical role that e-participation platforms play in enhancing trust in government and fostering a democratic society, and proposes a method for utilizing chatbots to address the challenges of integrating citizen feedback. Drawing on media richness theory and design science research methods, we developed a large-scale language model-based chatbot, "AskThePublic," leveraging the European Commission's "Have Your Say" platform. This chatbot provides policymakers, journalists, researchers, and citizens with a convenient channel for exploring and engaging with citizen opinions. Semi-structured interviews with 11 public sector professionals revealed positive feedback on AskThePublic's interactive and structured responses and enhanced language skills.

Takeaways, Limitations

Takeaways:
We present the potential of chatbots to effectively integrate citizen feedback into electronic participation platforms.
Provided a framework for designing and evaluating technology-based solutions to improve policy decision-making processes.
It suggests that the interactivity and language capabilities of chatbots can increase user satisfaction.
Limitations:
The study was limited to the 'Have Your Say' platform, so further research is needed to determine generalizability to other platforms.
Because the evaluation was limited to public sector professionals, it may not have fully reflected the perspectives of diverse user groups.
Further research is needed to determine the impact of chatbots on actual policy decision-making processes.
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