Empowering citizens: a constructivist assessment of the impact of contextual and design factors on shared governance

Abstract

<jats:p>The federal government of Australia has established an innovative although uneven record in shared governance initiatives in a climate of political stability and broad social inclusion policies. The participatory reform agenda has the potential to increase citizen empowerment, improve government transparency and accountability, and develop the capacities of the administrative arm. Changes to Australian Public Service (APS) practice are now aimed at better support for citizen-centric policy formation and, in some examples, shared governance. Nevertheless, policy consultations remain at the high-risk/high gain end of citizen-government-APS relations. This chapter scopes the concept and contexts of policy co-production both as a technique of engagement and a desirable outcome in shared governance for representative democracies. It assesses policy engagement from the perspective of citizens as agents, not targets. Using a constructivist approach, the chapter assesses the impact of contextual factors, the new participatory reform agenda, and the design features on two consultations conducted in 2011: Clean Energy Legislation, and Digital Culture Public Sphere. Major factors impacting on policy coproduction are found to be context-specific and issue-specific, and outside the direct control of public service agencies. Theoretically, the constructivist approach combines the literature on modes of e-government research, on e-government success factors and participatory media, with evidence of institutional reform agendas and the evidence provided by the case studies. Methodologically, the data is drawn from public domain materials.</jats:p>