Citizen engagement with information aggregation markets

Abstract

Participatory governance entails converting citizens from passive users of administrative decisions into active participants of political procedures. Public institutions and organizations can benefit from methods and tools able to aggregate and interpret information dispersed among citizens. In this paper we explore the use of Information Aggregation Markets (IAMs) for citizen engagement. We identify the benefits of IAMs and explain how markets can be used to aggregate citizens' opinions and views on policy issues. Furthermore we report on two real life cases where we deployed IAMs to assist the decision making processes of public organizations. The positive feedback from participants and decision makers provides empirical evidence on the benefits of IAMs as a method for engaging citizens in public policy decision making. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.