E‐Participation and Environmental Protection: Are Local Governments Really Committed?

• Author: Basilio Acerete,Ana Yetano,Sonia Royo
• Published date: 01 January 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12156
• Date: 01 January 2014

Sonia Royo is senior lecturer in the

Department of Accounting and Finance

at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. She

participates in the research team led by

Lourdes Torres in accounting, management,

and auditing of public sector reforms (http://

gespublica.unizar.es). Her primary research

interests are in the f‌i elds of e-government

and citizen participation. She has

published articles in leading international

journals, such as Public Administration,

International Public Management

Journal, and Government Information

Quarterly.

E-mail: sroyo@unizar.es

Basilio Acerete is senior lecturer in the

Department of Accounting and Finance at

the University of Zaragoza. He participates

in the research team led by Lourdes Torres

in accounting, management, and auditing

of public sector reforms (http://gespublica.

unizar.es). His research interests are

concerned with citizen participation and

public–private partnerships. His articles

have been published in top referenced jour-

nals, and he has been a visiting researcher

at the University of Manchester.

E-mail: bacerete@unizar.es

E-Participation and Environmental Protection: Are Local Governments Really Committed? 87

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 1, pp. 87–98. © 2013 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12156.

Ana Yetano is senior lecturer in the

Department of Accounting and Finance at

the University of Zaragoza and belongs

to the Gespública research group (http://

gespublica.unizar.es). Her research interests

include citizen participation, performance

measurement and management in the pub-

lic sector, and public sector accounting. She

has published in international journals such

as Public Administration, European

Accounting Review, Environment

and Planning C: Government and

Policy, and Public Performance and

Management Review.

E-mail: ayetano@unizar.es

Sonia Royo

Ana Yetano

Basilio Acerete

University of Zaragoza, Spain

 ere is widespread acceptance that current institutions

are inadequate to address the challenges of sustainable

development. At the same time, there is an urgent need

to build awareness and increase capacity for promot-

ing action with respect to environmental protection at

the local level.  is article analyzes the Web sites of the

environment departments of European local governments

that signed the Aalborg Commitments to determine the

extent to which they are using the Internet to promote

e-participation in environmental topics and to identify

the drivers of these developments. Potential drivers are

public administration style, urban vulnerability, external

pressures, and local government environmental culture.

Findings conf‌i rm that e-participation is a multifaceted

concept. External pressures inf‌l uence the transparency of

environmental Web sites, while public administration

style and local government environmental culture inf‌l u-

ence their interactivity.

There is widespread acceptance that current

institutions are inadequate to address the chal-

lenges of sustainable development and that

new arrangements are needed to achieve economic,

environmental, and social objectives in a balanced and

integrated way. While sustainable development has

received international attention and become a global

philosophy,1 the economic and f‌i nancial crisis could

be eroding social and environmental concerns and

values and creating a sustainability downturn (Cooper

and Pearce 2011; Correa-Ruiz and Moneva-Abadía

2011).

 e failure to develop a global agreement on climate

protection and the global f‌i nancial crisis are good

reasons to consider the possible benef‌i ts of actions on

a smaller scale (Ostrom 2009). According to Sheppard

et al. (2011), there is an urgent need for meaning-

ful information and ef‌f ective public processes at the

local level to build awareness and increase capacity for

promoting environmental protection. Household con-

sumption patterns and behavior have a major impact

on natural resource stocks, environmental quality, and

climate change. Furthermore, projections indicate that

these impacts are likely to increase in the near future

(OECD 2011).

 e literature has emphasized the strong role of

stakeholder involvement in sustainability issues (Alió

and Gallego 2002; Astleithner and Hamedinger 2003;

Portney 2005, 2013; Wang et al. 2012). A citizen

who is well informed about environmental policies

and initiatives can become part of the global ef‌f ort for

environmental protection.  e use of information and

communications technologies and, in particular, the

Internet may have an important role in this regard,

given the potential for informing, educating, and

empowering citizens.  us, the use of e-participation

may be a cost-ef‌f ective tool to actively involve citizens

in environmental protection.

 is article analyzes the Web sites of the environment

departments of European local governments that have

signed the Aalborg Commitments.  e aim is to estab-

lish to what extent these presumably committed local

governments are making use of the Internet to pro-

mote environmentally friendly behaviors among their

citizens and to of‌f er them opportunities for strength-

ening democracy by creating e-participation tools.

Particular attention will be paid to the type of citizen

participation being promoted: information, consulta-

tion, or active involvement (Martin and Boaz 2000;

OECD 2001).  e article also analyzes why some

local governments voluntarily make a greater ef‌f ort in

e-participation regarding environmental topics than

others. It seeks answers to the following research ques-

tions: (1) Does the signing of nonmandatory commit-

ments, such as the Aalborg Commitments, promote

the use of environmental e-participation initiatives? (2)

Are these initiatives oriented toward promoting higher

levels of citizen participation and involvement or just

toward enhancing transparency? And (3) what factors

drive the dif‌f erences in the development of these tools

at local level?

 is study is useful for two main purposes. First,

it serves as a check for public sector managers to

E-Participation and Environmental Protection: Are Local

Governments Really Committed?