Collaborative E-Governance:

Contours of Epistemology

David C. Prosperi
Henry D. Epstein Professor of Urban/Regional Planning
Florida Atlantic University
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
prosperi@fau.edu

I NPUT 2 010
PO TEN Z A , B A S I L I C A TA , I TA L Y
 INTUITION PUMP: Conference Statement

Compared to
Do profound weak thought, is
changes in more profound
application of knowledge
IT only help us possible that
to what we would enable a
already do more effective
better? evaluation
process,
ensuring better
quality of
or decision making
and choices?
QUICK ANSWER =>
 Paradigms

Scientific IT Professional

Deep Good Deep Good

Knowledge Decisions Knowledge Decisions
 The Mindset of the Planning Theorist

Deep Network Good

Knowledge Power Decisions
Conceptual Issues

Conference
Statement Evidence / Empirical Issues
Process
Thinkers

E-
Governance

Trends & Popular GIS

Space INPUT
Complexity Numbers Writers NGOs

Power

Some Conclusions
1. The Conference Question

Do What We Do Better Change the System

• GIS -> ArcGIS • Better Linkages to Decision
• Social Networking -> Makers -> DSS or PSS?
Mobile Communications • Develop Network
Power
 Deep v. Doing Better

Deep The Better Q’s

 Academics, at least, value Deep

Knowledge and Deep Democracy What the Planning Theory
(process) People Tell Us
 Consistent with rationality,
scientific method, the value of
science to improve lives E-Government
(medicine, food , and tools)
 Consistent with the notion of a
―class‖ of individuals who have
value in society as civic leaders More Complex Models
(Plato, but also ―public
intellectuals‖)

 Is it still valid? (or am I a Understanding Power

dinosaur?)
 2. Process Thinkers

Innes
(and Healey Flyvbjerg Salet Hillier Moulaert
Booher)
 Alternative Models of Planning

Best known physical

Architectural planners were
probably not Hausmann
Basis ―democratic‖ and
probably ―regressive‖

Engineering Megaprojects
See Flvybjerg criticism
(but also see Wachs in
Basis the late 1980s)

Political Citizen Participation

Systems Regime Theory (e-Citizen
Participation)
Collaborative
Planning Models
Basis

DONE BY AGENCIES FAR AWAY FROM DAILY LIFE OF CITIZENS

 An Attempt to Summarize …

a belief that collaborative planning processes

supported by scientific research tends to be
a powerful internal network that moves
policy makers
 Participation is not Collaboration

Collaborative Planning Emphasis on …

From Alternative Dispute

Resolution OUTPUTS are the
plans, projects, and
other tangible items
produced directly by
Focus on Process the effort

Assessing the performance OUTCOMES are the

of collaborative planning
Difference between outputs
and outcomes
effects of the process
and its outputs on
changing social and
environmental
conditions
Outcomes And the Role of Science?

Ozawa, among others, have

demonstrated that in
Social capital science-intensive
deliberations – when
Institutional Political
capacity capital scientific information is
produced collaboratively
(e.g., joint-fact finding,
Institutional Intellectual expert panel) – it can lead to
change capital such social outcomes as
stakeholder learning and
Innovation
mutual understanding of
complex problems.
 Process: Networks and Networking Rules
 A Plan is not a Concept in
one‘s head; rather, it is a
dialogue that occurs within
a social network structure
in one‘s own head as a
concept.
 Ostrom‘s (Nobel Economic
Laureate, 2009)
Institutional Analysis
and Design methodology
focuses on ―what difference
it makes‖ if things are done
one way or another
 Corollary: projects must
have a purpose other than
just in the mind of the
developer. For example, to
develop an ontology for
oneself is useful for basic
science, but is only useful
to the scientist acting alone
– it has no immediate USE
 Errata (on this topic)

 The crucial role of Mega-Governments

 For example, the EU and its ―funding‖, resource (and policy)
dependence
 The crucial role of NGO‘s
 Each have a specific planning methodology
 Lots of GIS work at this scale

 Other word phrases: horizontal planning,

participatory design, collaborative planning software
(including all those models from the 1990s), project
planning, etc.
 3. Promise of E-Government

About how Internet

would change the

Best described as
world

―normative
About how E-
Government would
change the world
anticipatory
statements or
pronouncements‖
 E-Government

E-Government “Domains”

Creates a comfortable, information

transparent, and cheap governance
and
communication
interaction between: technology
(ICT)

business
government relationship process re-
government e-citizen
and citizens
and business between engineering
enterprises governments (BPR)
(G2C)
(G2B) (G2G)
 Governance (+ E-Governance?)

 Entire Entry on
Wikipedia:
 'eGovernance' is a network
Government of organizations to include
government, nonprofit,
and private-sector
entities; in eGovernance
there are no distinct
boundaries.
Non-
Profit
Profit
 MESSY!!!!
 A ―theory of governance‖
[e or not-e]????
 What is Going on at the Local Level?

Ho, 2002 +
Prosperi, 2004,6
Franzel/Richardson 2003

 Ho: Classified websites as  Used multiple criteria

―informational‖, grouped into -
―administrative‖ and PRESENCE,
―user‖ for 55 large US INTERACTION,
cities; SES correlates -> TRANSACTION, and
poorer cities more DEMOCRACY - to
informational evaluate websites
 Franzel/Richardson: 67  Some SES correlates ->
metro areas; regression -> poorer cities more
structure+, time ―government‖ than
invested+, income+ ―governance‖
 Practice: Local Charettes

 Geddes v. Neuman
‽ Can
Regions  G: regions cannot be designed;
 N: of course they can, we are having a
Be charette and regional design emerged
Designed as operative framework for the plan-
‽ to-be
 Practice: Research in a Lab

Form (Rules)
Playful of Games

Part
Ici Planning Public
Systems Participation
Pation

Krek
Lanza Best Concepts of
Practices Games
 4. More Complex Models

 Complexity Theory

 Drivers and Stressors v. Place-Making or

Sustainability etc.

 People v. Place
Complexity in the ‗Everyday‘ Environment
 … the environment as subject
to processes of continuous
change, being either
progressive or destructive,
evolving non-linearly and
alternating between stable
and dynamic periods.
 … if the environment that is
subject to change is adaptive,
self-organizing, robust and
flexible in relation to this
change, a process of
evolution and co-evolution can
be expected.
• From the Ashgate
Marketing Site
Complexity as a Planning Model
 Thinking Differently for an
Age of Complexity
 How Can Theory Improve
Practice?
 Stories From the Field
 The Praxis of Collaboration
 Knowledge into Action: The
Role of Dialogue
 Using Local Knowledge for
Justice and Resilience
 Beyond Collaboration:
Democratic Governance for
a Resilient Society
5. Power

 Good Power v. Bad

Power

 Social Capital as an
Alternative Form of
Power

 ??? Does Social Media

Create Social Capital???
Good↑ v. Bad↓ Power

• Communicative action theorists

• How ―science when integrated into the DM
process can depoliticize communications
and result in public learning, mutual
understanding, empowerment of
stakeholders and often consensus about
policy options
• Habermas, Innes, Forester, Ozawa, etc.

• Power expressed as coercion and

subordination of one set of thoughts to
another
• Power distorting the outcomes of …
―science‖ and/or … representative
democracy
• Power as domination over the decision-
making process.
• Flyvbjerg
 Power (after Allen)

Instrumental Instrumental
Power – formal Power - informal

Power

Associational Associational
Power – formal Power - informal
 Power in Informal Associational Networks
Mandarano (under review, JPER)

 Both types of Power are Necessary to Study an Issue.

 How it is possible to provoke more democratic outcomes,

positive-sum solutions that address multiple interests.
 A Case Study to highlight how the relatively weak Habitat
Workgroup – having limited formal authority supporting its
agenda – effectively produced power in and through its
informal and formal networks altering the decision-making
process in the formal network.
 The paper demonstrates how disempowered groups generate
associational power through mobilization of resources
available in informal networks and how such power is
transferrable to the formal decision-making process
 The Key Idea Framework
(Creating Social Capital Digitally)

Social
Capital Effective
• Non- Decisions
Digitally
• Digitally
 The Tools We Have

Websites

Email

Web-Based Surveys

Social Networking

Video Sharing

Virtual Meetings

Texting/SMS

Blogs/Micro Blogs (Twitter)

RSS
www.twitter.com
Conceptual Issues

Conference
Statement Evidence / Empirical Issues
Process
Thinkers

E-
Governance

Trends & Popular GIS

Space INPUT
Complexity Numbers Writers NGOs

Power

Some Conclusions
 1. Space

 Hidden spatial structures

 The “scale” of the analysis must match the

“scale” of the problem
 The Image of the Region?

 ―Mega-city regions are … new large-scale urban phenomenon

… being discussed from both an analytical-functional and a
political-normative perspective … elements and driving forces
of mega-city regions are increasingly coming to light …
feeding the comprehension of the mega-city regions‘ decisive
role in economic, social and cultural development …
 The relevant and responsible stakeholders and players are
being challenged – large-scale metropolitan governance is
called for …
 A problem of transmission arises … seems to be little
awareness … to politicians, citizens, and administrators,
mega-city regions remain invisible in many respects: They
are rarely mapped, lack a name, image and attendant
concept, and hardly offer any direct sensual perception in
everyday life.‖
• From the Preface, Thierstein and Forster, 2009
Context: Preparing
a Strategic Plan for
Milano
Metropolitan
Region

Locals Don‘t Know

How The Milano
Metropolitan
Region Works

Ongoing Discussion
about Metropolitan Making Milano “Apparent”: A
Regions as Product Conversation with Alessandro
or Process Balducci
 Making Apparent SoFlo

Theoretical Structures A Map

 Traditional
 Economic Base / Ecology

 Cluster Theory
 Polycentricity

 Creative Class/City
 Tourism and Branding
Growth of
South Florida

The TOP Chart

shows cumulative
building space
consumption

The BOTTOM Chart

shows the
distribution of
growth in built
space for each of the
individual county
units
1945, 1965, 1985
Built Environment, 2005
 The State of Florida‘s
Department of Revenue Tax
Collector Database
 Florida‘s Department of
Revenue, Division of Ad-
Valorem Tax, Chapter 12D-8
specifies both the formal
state mandate and the
format of these records,
described in
(ftp://sdrftp03.dor.state.fl.us/).
 In 2008, there are 76 fields
in the tax collector database
(or more abstractly, each
property is recorded as a
―76-tuple‖).
Thus, the debate goes
on; it might be out of
both academic and
political comfort zones.

New Conceptual
Models Focus on
Process Rather Than
Pattern

Change Should Occur

Within Processes Not
Patterns
Space and Complexity
regeneration-of.html
01/entrepreneurial-urban-
complexity.blogspot.com/2010/
http://urban-
 2. Levels of Participation

 Theoretically, this should vary by stage in the

planning process. There are appropriate
tools for different stages of the analysis.

 Rationality (a desired state for linear-

thinking – and object oriented planners).
 But also ―irrational‖ (Kartez)
 But also ―rational ignorance‖ (Krek)
 But also ―predictably irrational‖ (Howe)
 Peng Table

Planning Communication Interactive Map Scenario

Process / Web Browsing Static Map Channels for Based Search, Building
Images Discussion Query and Online Editing
GIS Analysis
Function

General
Information

Plan
Alternatives

Data

Analysis
Tools
 Wikinomics: How
Mass Collaboration
Changes Everything
(2006) explores how some
companies in the early 21st
century have used mass
collaboration (also called
peer production) and open-
source technology, such as
wikis, to be successful.
 MacroWikinomics out soon
(9/28/2010).
 Some Wikinomics Terms

New Models of Mass

Principles/Basic Ideas
Collaboration

Marketocracy
• Collaborating Investing
Openness Platforms

Ideagoras
• Linking experts with
Peering unsolved R&D problems.

• Second Life as being

Sharing Prosumers
―Created‖ by its customers

Acting New • the internet as shared

Globally Alexandrians knowledge
 Crowdsourcing is
the act of outsourcing
tasks, traditionally
performed by an
employee or
contractor, to a large
group of people or
community or a
crowd.
 Examples of Crowdsourcing

 Community-Based Design (or distributed participatory design):

The public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a
design task
 Human-Based Computation: The public may be asked to carry
out the steps of an algorithm
 Citizen Science: The public may be asked to capture, systematize
or analyze large amounts of data (but could also refer to mere ―data
collectors‖

 Better if used with Web 2.0 technologies.

 http://www.ideo.com/work/item/human-centered-design-toolkit/
 3. Trends and Some Numbers

 2000
 Alexa
 Google Trends
 2009
 The Story in 2000 (from Stanford)
 E-mail is by far the most common Internet activity.

 A little over a third of all Internet users report using the web to engage in
entertainment such as computer games

 Consumer to Business transactional activity are engaged in by much smaller

fractions of Internet users.

 The average Internet user reports engaging in 7.2 different types of activities.

 Myth and Reality of the 'Digital Divide':

 There are some demographic differences in Internet access.
 There are few demographic differences in Internet use.

 The more time people spend on the internet

 The more they lose contact with their social environment
 The more they turn their back on the traditional media
 The more time they spend working at home; but not telecommuting
 The less they spend shopping in stores and commuting in traffic
 Alexa, a ranking and analysis website
(http://www.alexa.com)

 Facebook users are well-educated, younger, it is the #1 site in

Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Norway, #2 in US,
Italy, and most of Europe (except Netherlands and Poland), but
only 13th in Russia, 15th in Brazil, and 27th in Japan, and is over-
utilized from school.

 Globally: Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo!, WindowsLive,

Baidu, Wikipedia, Blogger, Twitter, MSN, QQ, Taobao, Amazon,
Sina,WordPress, e-Bay, Microsoft, Bing, Yandex.ru, LinkedIn, 163,
Myspace, Craigslist, FC2, Conduit, Mail.ru, Flickr, Vkontakte,
IMBD, Sohu, APPLE, LiveJasmin, Soso, BBC, Go, AOL,
RapidShare, Youku, PayPal, Double Click, ASK, Xvideos, CNN,
PornHub, MediaFire
 After Google, Yahoo and Social Networking, Porn Trumps News
 Google Trends ….
GIS (B), Climate Change (R), Sustainability (O), Urban Development (G)
 Google Trends ….
GIS (B), Facebook (R), YouTube (G), Twitter (O)
 2009 Pew Study

 Some 40% of adult internet users have obtained raw data

about government spending and activities.
 look online to see how federal stimulus money is being spent (23% of internet users
have done this);
 read or download the text of legislation (22%);
 visit a site such as data.gov that provides access to government data (16%); or
 look online to see who is contributing to the campaigns of their elected officials
(14%).

 Some 31% of online adults have used social tools such as blogs,
social networking sites, and online video as well as email and text
alerts to keep informed about government activities.
 Minority Americans, Latinos and African Americans are just as likely as whites to
use these tools to keep up with government, and
 Minority Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans are much more likely to agree
that government outreach using these channels makes government more accessible
and helps people be more informed about what government agencies are doing.
 4. Popular Writers

Nicholas Clay Johathan Dan Jeff

Carr Shirky Lehrer Ariely Howe
Two Competing Metaphors
 Major Points of ―The Shallows‖

 New technology: dumbing down v. democratization of

culture.
 Every intellectual technology embodies a work ethic and
every medium develops some cognitive skills at the
expense of others.
 Brain is ―plastic‖ -- parts can grow and/or contract – but
at the expense of other functions -- hippocampus
 ―Ecosystem of Interruptions‖ or ―Distraction from
Distraction by Distraction‖
 Retention – loss of long-term memory (and ―working
memory‖ v. ―long-term memory‖)
 Shallow reading, shallow decisions?
Shallow
• Interruptions
• Shared (Shallow)
Impressions Deep
• Little Retention • Democracy
• Self-Knowledge (personal)
 Major Points of Cognitive Surplus

 For decades, technology encouraged people to squander their time and

intellect as passive consumers. Suburbanization and education has yielded a
surfeit of intellect, energy, and time– the cognitive surplus.

 But this abundance had little impact on the common good because television
consumed the lion's share of it-and we consume TV passively, in isolation.

 New media that allow us to pool our efforts at vanishingly low cost. This
includes mind expanding-reference tools like Wikipedia-to lifesaving-such as
Ushahidi.com, which allows Kenyans to sidestep government censorship and
report on acts of violence in real time.

 Society and our daily lives will be improved dramatically as we learn to

exploit our goodwill and free time … by returning our society to forms of
collaboration that were natural through the early 20th century.

 We are entering an era of lower creative quality on average but greater

innovation, an increase in transparency in all areas of society, and
a dramatic rise in productivity that will transform our civilization.
 Ushahidi
(means testimony in Swahili)

 http://www.ushahidi.com/
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushahidi
Neuroscience Findings are Available

 How unexpected discoveries of

neuroscience help us make the
best decisions.

 Philosophers have described the

decision-making process as either
rational or emotional: we carefully
deliberate or we go with our gut.
Neuroscientists are discovering
that decisions are a finely tuned
blend of both feeling and reason
and the precise mix depends on the
situation. The key is how and when
we use the different parts of the
brain, and to do this, we need to
think harder (and smarter) about
how we think.

 How does the human mind make

decisions? And how can we make
those decisions better?
 It is More Than Rational Ignorance …
We (might by) Predictably Irrational

 We consistently overpay,
underestimate, and procrastinate.
This book refutes the assumption
that we behave in rational ways.

 Yet these behaviors are neither

random nor senseless. They're
systematic and predictable—
making us predictably irrational.
 Evidence Pro and Con
(there is NO correct answer)

SMARTER DUMBER SMARTER DUMBER

 5. Institutions
 The Players
 INSPIRE (EU Scale
Organization) + Its They are too Far
Subordinates
From the Public
 JRC
 Plan4All
 EUROGI – AM/FM types
 AGILE – the academic Meta-Narratives
laboratories
 Academic/Professional
Conferences
Bad Power?
 City Branders/Visions
 NEXTHAMBURG
 Tomlinson et al. (3/2010)

Outline of Article in
Major Argument
IJURR
 …
 Approach and Methodology
 Google Searches are Not  Labels and Integrated Policy Packages
Random, but are  Ownership
Labels and the Creation of Integrated Policy
Structured

Packages
 Googling Urban Policy
 Text Analysis and Page Rank
 Major Narratives are 
 Links in Practice
The Labels
Created and Maintained by  City Development Strategy
Powerful Institutions 

Slum Upgrading
Municipal Services
 Municipal Capacity Building in Developing
Countries
 In this Case: World Bank 

Municipal Finance in Developing Countries
Concluding Observation
and UN Habitat  PPP and Alternative Perspectives on
Water Delivery
 Conclusion
Conceptual Issues

Conference
Statement Evidence / Empirical Issues
Process
Thinkers

E-
Governance

Trends & Popular GIS

Space INPUT
Complexity Numbers Writers NGOs

Power

Some Conclusions
 An Epistemology of E-Governance?

Based on a Process Model

For Different Levels of Government

Incorporating More Than Land

Focused on People
 Need for a Theory of Governance

 Governance (and eGovernance) is Messy!!!

 Need to Better Explore Notions and Likelihood of
Deep Democracy
 The Process Thinkers
 But also others [Ostrom (IDA), Pat Wilson (Deep
Democracy)]
 Case Studies are Nice, but …

 All set in the context of “digital natives”

 Digital analogies for e-governance theory
 What Does Performance Mean?

Krugman Ostrom

 Economic Efficiency
Income  Equity Through Fiscal
Distribution
Equivalence
Productivity  Re-Distributional Equity
and Income Employment
Growth  Accountability
 Conformance to General
Economic Morality
Well
Being  Adaptability
 It is the
Spatial
Question, Not
Polycentricity
the Rules

Complex
Institutional
Adaptive
Design
Systems

Polycentric Good Politics,

Metropolitan Bad
Governance Economics
For Different Levels of Government

 We need to pay more careful attention to what our

digital analogies are really trying to do

 Much of the GIS Work is Done at the National Level,

Far Removed from the Day to Day Activities of
Citizens
 We need to articulate aspects of the digital milieu at scales that
matter
 Problems ―occur‖ at different scales
 Analysis should also ―occur‖ at appropriate scales
 More Than Land

 Space may be a third order concern (after food, shelter, and

perhaps even happiness)

 Economic Development, Health, Basic Infrastructure

 What is the purpose of a ―method‖?

 NEEDS TO BUILD ON KNOWLEDGE FROM EACH

CASE STUDY – the need for a “scientific method” to
understand e-governance
 For People

 Planning remains a ―place‖ discipline or activity

 Planning should focus on people

 Their motivations and aspirations

 Their role in self-determination

 Their role as citizens

REFERENCES

Academic

Refugee Popular
 Indicative of E-Publishing
(A Work in Progress)

 Allen, J. 2003. Lost Geographies of Power. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

 Alexa.Com, retrieved 09/08/2010.
 Ariely, D. 200x. Rationally Irrational. Place: Publisher.
 Carr, N. 2010. The Shallows (What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains). NY: W.W. Norton.
 De Roo, G. & E. Silva. 2010. A Planner’s Encounter with Complexity. Place: Ashgate.
 Flyvbjerg, B. 2002. Bringing Power to Planning Research. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 21: 353-366.
 Franzel, X. & X. Richardson, 2003. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Proceedings, International Conference on Politics and Information Systems (PISTA), xxx-xxx.
 Healey, P. 1997. Collaborative Planning. London: Macmillan.
 Hillier, J. 200x. Title. Place: Publisher.
 Ho, A.T. 2002. Reinventing Local Governments and the E-Government Initiative. Public Administration Review, 62(4): 434-444.
 Howe, J. 2009. Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business. New York: Three Rivers Press.
 Krek, A.
 Lanza, V. & D. Prosperi. 2009. Collaborative E-Governance: Describing and Pre-Calibrating the Digital Milieux in Urban and Regional Planning. In A.Krek et al. Urban Data
Management UDMS Annual 2009. Netherlands: AA Balkema .
 Lee, D. 1973. Requiem for Large Scale Models. JAPA, V(I): xxxxxx
 Lehrer, J. 2009. How We Decide. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
 Innes, J. & D. Booher. 200x. Planning with Complexity. Place: Publisher.
 Innes, J. Late 1990s. Social Indicators Stuff
 Mandarano, L. Date. Title. Journal of Planning Education and Research, V(I): xx-xx
 Moulaert, F.
 Neumann. M.
 Ostrom, E.
 Ozawa, C.P. 2005. Putting Science in Its Place. In J.T. Scholz & B. Stiftel (eds.) Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict. Washington DC: Resources for the Future.
 Peng, Y.-R. 200x.
 Pew Research Center (Internet and American Life Project), 2010. retrieved 09/06/2010. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Future-of-Millennials.aspx
 Prosperi, D.C. 2008. Making Apparent the Multi-Scalar Economic Spatial Structure in South Florida. In V. Coors, M. Rumor, E.M. Fendel, & S. Zlatanova, eds., Urban and Regional
Data Management. UDMS Annual 2007. Netherlands: A.A. Balkema (Taylor and Francis), 307-317.
 Prosperi, D. 2006. City E-Government: Who is Doing What in the US? UDMS Proceedings, Aalborg, Denmark.
 Salet, W.
 Shirky, C. 2010. Cognitive Surplus (Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Era). Place: Penguin Press.
 Stanford Study, retrieved 09/01/2010. http://www.stanford.edu/group/siqss/Press_Release/press_release.html
 Tapscott, D. & A.D. Williams. 2006. Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Place: Publisher.
 Thierstein, A. and X. Forster. 200x. The Image of A Region. Place: Publisher.
 Tomlinson, R. et al. 2010. The Influence of Google on Urban Policy in Developing Countries. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(1): 174-189.
 Various WebSites (INSPIRE, JRC, Plan4ALL,AGILE,EROGI,CORP,UDMS,INPUT)
 Voltaire. Nd. For Advice.
 Wulf, L., C. Kaylor & D. Prosperi. 2004. Local E-Government: Concept and Correlates. Proceedings, International Conference on Politics and Information Systems (PISTA), 200-206.
THANK YOU!

 Less Deep
 Closing the Gap
(Governmental GIS &
The Life of Citizens)

‽  The Power of Informal

Networks
 Need to Develop More
Scalar Sensitive Digital
Analogs
(collaboratively?)