A. Macintosh and E. Tambouris (Eds.): ePart 2009, LNCS 5694, pp. 90–100, 2009. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009 DoIT Right: Measuring Effectiveness of Different eConsultation Designs Åke Grönlund and Joachim Åström Örebro University, 701 82 Örebro, Sweden ake.gronlund@oru.se, joachim.astrom@oru.se Abstract. eConsultations have been used in many countries over many years, yet most research in the field is case descriptions and there is so far little sys- tematic evidence as to the effectiveness of consultations as a tool for enhancing democracy. Using a case survey method we investigate what factors make a consultation succeed or fail based on data from 57 cases reported in the litera- ture. Success is measured as high participation, deliberative mode of discussion, and impact on policy. We test three hypotheses from the literature claiming, re- spectively, that institutional design, democratic intent, and quality of research are the most important factors behind the reported success. We find support for all hypotheses. Using consultation at the analysis/decision making stage, mix- ing online and offline methods and active strategic recruiting are institutional factors positively contributing. Democratic intent and content analysis research both have positive influence. Keywords: consultation, e-consultation, online consultation, case survey. 1 Introduction Online consultations 1 are an important ingredient in eParticipation 2 /eDemocracy ef- forts. While consultations can take place at any level of government local government 1 A consultation is in this context “ICT [Information and Communication Technologies, authrs’ remark] in official initiatives by public or private agencies to allow stakeholders to contribute their opinion, either privately or publicly, on a specific issue” (Demo_net, 2006). The OECD (2001) points out that a consultation is a two-way relationship in which citizens provide feed- back to government where governments define the issues for consultation, set the questions and manage the process, while citizens are invited to contribute their views and opinions. This means government has a leading role. Following these definitions, an online consultation, or an e-consultation, is in this paper a consultation using some ICT application(s) designed for consultations which allow a stakeholder to provide information on an issue and others to an- swer specific questions and/or submit open comments. 2 eParticipation is here defined as "the use of information and communication technologies to broaden and deepen political participation by enabling citizens to connect with one another and with their elected representatives" (Macintosh, 2006). The term e-democracy was used in a similar meaning around the turn of the century (Grönlund, 2003) but as it later became in- creasingly used to mean specifically e-voting the concept of eParticipation became commonly used to refer to the full spectrum of voter-representative communication means. eParticipation is also the name of an EU Preparatory Action funding a number of projects designed to create awareness and citizen involvement in the legislation process. This EU Action is not in any way related to the research presented in this paper.