A two dimensional space to frame participatory initiatives and platforms

The economic crisis is arousing social and political turbulence worldwide. In Italy this couples with a deep crisis of democratic legitimacy and an increasing demand for more participation in the public sphere. These dynamics met the opportunities offered by the web-based software tools for gathering ideas, and selecting them in a collaborative way through a more or less structured deliberative process. A significant number of online participation initiatives were therefore launched by different promoters: public institutions, political parties and their candidates during electoral campaigns, emerging social movements. These initiatives either run quite well established software or test new dedicated tools. This paper proposes a two-dimensional space for classifying these initiatives: one axis represents the “degree” of citizens’ engagement; the other one, the “ownership” of the initiative. This framework has been recently presented in several occasions in Italy, including an invited lecture at a group of Senate officers. Almost always, the audience remarkably appreciated it as it allowed them to recognize similarities and differences among the various initiatives and the various tools. The question we want to discuss at the workshop is whether it holds also a scientific interest and relevance, toward a more rigorous evaluation of online participation